Tag Archives: Grace and truth

JOHN’S GOSPEL…GRACE AND TRUTH – 3b

Bible Study, ,

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

John‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus came from heaven equipped with GRACE and TRUTH to deal with humanity’s real problem, our inability to overcome our natural bent towards sin. Since Jesus is God, and grace and truth are who He is, He came to give us what came from His own nature, His grace and truth in abundant measure. 

Let’s look at what grace and truth are and what they do. 

Jesus’ passion is to show us His undeserved favour…His goodness freely given to us without merit. This is GRACE. 

David learned…

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭103‬:‭8‬-‭12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God is gracious. It is His nature to show us His favour even if we don’t deserve it. Instead of punishing us for our sin, God the Father punished Jesus in our place. Now He can lavish His favour freely on us because there are no obstacles in the way. 

“Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭5‬:‭12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Let’s think of God’s grace as His attitude of favour towards us no matter who or what we are, or what we do. His grace…His favour…is like the conduit through which everything He does to and for us flows. Whenever we need  help for our weakness, God responds because of His grace. 

The second part of who Jesus is TRUTH. Who He is, who we are, and what He has done for us, is what He came to give us. We desperately need truth because we live in a world that believes that we don’t need God. Our natural bent is to believe that we can be our own god, live for ourselves, and do as we like without consequences…and the mess we are in is the result. 

The god of this world is a deceiver. He deceived Adam into believing that he, Adam, was in charge, could do as he pleased, and set his own standards…and Satan deceives every human on earth to do the same. The world is in a mess because people live and do as they like, loving and serving themselves in place of God. Human suffering is the outcome of this terrible lie. 

Jesus came to show us and to tell us that loving, trusting, and serving God and one another is the truth and the real purpose of life. When we replace deception with truth, we are on the road to experiencing God’s love, joy, and peace even in our suffering. 

Now let’s link the grace and truth Jesus brought with what Paul said about our suffering. 

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Suffering is part of life in this fallen world, from which we cannot escape. How can we deal with suffering, understand the reason for suffering, and learn the way to live so that suffering doesn’t overwhelm us?

First, let’s look at how and why we suffer. Paul distinguished the two parts of us, our “outside me” and our “inside me”. Our “outside me” is our flesh, both our physical bodies and our sinful nature. Our “inside me” is our spirit where the Holy Spirit lives and rules. 

Our “outside me” is corrupted and perishing. Our sinful nature pulls us toward sin through our evil desires. Our sinful nature is at war  with our spirit, always wanting its own way. We suffer through the conflict between flesh and spirit, when we follow our flesh and say and do the things that damage us and others. Guilt, shame, and fear of punishment are the feelings that torment us. 

God gives us strength to overcome the pull of our old nature through His grace. When we acknowledge that we cannot win the battle on our own, and we call on His name, He strengthens us to resist temptation as we trust in Him. 

How does this work?  This is where TRUTH comes into play. Our “inside me”, said Paul, is being renewed by exchanging the lies we believe and live by for the truth  that Jesus is Lord and died for us. For example, if we continue to believe the lie that God punishes us when we sin instead of believing the truth that Jesus died to pay for our sin, that we are no longer under condemnation, and that suffering is discipline, not punishment, we will continue to live in guilt, shame and the fear of punishment. 

However…when we believe the truth that God loves us and disciplines us for our good…

“There is no fear in love. But perfect  love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

…we exchange fear for love, and insecurity for confidence in God’s love for us.  

When bad things happen to us, or when we clash with another person, our natural reaction is to react out of our emotions. We worry, we fear, we get angry, we want to retaliate etc., all the reactions of the “outside me”…the selfish me that wants to defend or protect the “me”. 

If we, instead, stop and allow truth to guide us…the truth, for example that God works in all things for our good because He is restoring the image of Jesus in us, we can rejoice in God’s grace in the situation rather than react sinfully out of our sinful nature. 

Th Apostle Paul gives us a clear example of how this works. He 

was severely persecuted for preaching the gospel…by the Gentiles and the Jews. He also suffered many hardships in his life as an apostle of Jesus. 

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭12‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Armed with truth, Paul was able to overcome his bad feelings and turn suffering into celebration because GRACE had provided God’s strength to overcome. 

Simple…but not always easy. God has given us a way to escape sinning. We can also change suffering into celebration if we believe the truth and conquer our sinful desires. The answer is…

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

‭‭1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

When we turn our hearts towards God instead of dying of self-pity, God’s grace kicks in. Thanksgiving is the great antidote to the “bacteria” of PMS, the Poor-Me-Syndrome which leads to the disease of depression.  

So, GRACE, to give us strength for our weakness, and TRUTH to renew our minds, are all we need to overcome who we are in Adam and move us into the realm of who we are in Christ…and Jesus came armed with both. 

To be continued…

JESUS, THE GOD-MAN – 10

Bible Study, ,

THE GOD-MAN – HIS MOTIVE AND MESSAGE

Why has God done all this for us? Why has the God-man endured so much for us?

John 1:14 NIV
[14] “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

He came to reveal grace and truth.

Grace! What is grace? A word difficult to define but packed full of meaning!

Some define grace by an acrostic…great riches at Christ’s expense. Others say that grace is God’s unmerited favour. These definitions may be true but they are completely inadequate to express anything like God’s grace.

Let’s try to explain rather than define grace. Grace is all of God’s divine attributes…goodness, kindness, mercy, truth, righteousness, justice, wisdom, power, sovereignty…woven together, encased in “chesed”, His covenant love, to form His divine DNA, the blueprint of His being.

Whatever God is, says, and does is because of grace and expresses itself in grace, His action towards us.

He saved us from our sin because of grace.

Ephesians 2:8 NIV
[8] “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…”

Grace brought Jesus to earth to rescue us from sin and death…

Romans 5:15 NIV
[15] But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

Through Jesus’ death, we have a new position…a standing in grace… the very foundation of our relationship with God as sons and daughters.

Romans 5:1-2 NIV
[1] “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”

…and so we can go on. Everything we now are and receive is through and by God’s grace.

Grace is God in action, appearing on every page of Scripture, lighting up His interaction with humans with the glory of who He is. The God of…love, peace, righteousness, truth…and much more, are who He is. Grace stands tall as both the motive and the power behind and through which all His goodness comes to us.

1 Peter 5:10 NIV
[10] “And THE GOD OF ALL GRACE, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

Grace underpins everything God says and does for us. Grace energises every promise He has made to save, restore, and renew humankind.

Let’s examine just a few of the myriad things grace does because He is the God of all grace.

John 1:16 – 17 NIV
[16] “Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. [17] For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Jesus is the embodiment of God’s grace, the fullness of His revelation as the God-man. He is the messenger and the message of grace.

2 Corinthians 8:9 NIV
[9] “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

His gave us His riches and took our poverty!

The story of grace, at its most revealing and glorious, is the story of the God-man, stepping out of His supreme place in heaven beside the Father and the Spirit, down…a human baby, down…a servant, down…a condemned criminal, down…a dead body, for us. That’s grace…not just an idea, a philosophy, a teaching or even a title. Grace is motive and action. Grace drives the action and grace is the action that saved and saves us from or in every situation sin and our sinfulness has dumped on us.

Grace is woven into the story of God and humans. Grace is the power to rescue and to change impossible situations.

I have one such situation in mind that epitomises the awesome truth of grace.

The Apostle Paul was called, among all the facets of his ministry, to suffer…and suffer he did. The worst of his suffering was not physical. It was the pain inflicted on him when his own people rejected him, just as they had rejected his Master. They had murder on their minds. They hounded him from city to city, country to country, always looking for an opportunity to cancel him and his message.

In desperation, Paul cried out to the Lord for deliverance Perhaps his natural response was for God to cancel his enemies like they cancelled him, just as David had often prayed centuries before.

“They are a thorn in my side, Lord. Please remove them.”

God said, “No! I have a better plan.” Grace! You see, thorns are there to prick. Why? Pricking deflates the hot air bubble of pride…”I don’t need you, God.”

Grace changes hearts, not circumstances. Paul needed a new attitude, not “Take the thorn away, so that I can carry on with my life,” but, “Thank you for the thorn that constantly reminds me how weak I am and how much I need your grace.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV
[9] “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” THEREFORE, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

That’s what grace is and that’s what grace does.

So, the God-man came to us in our plight… cut off from God and doomed to eternal death. He came, fully equipped (Greek – “pleres” – complete or fully occupied) with grace and truth, to transform a hopeless situation into the hope of transformed lives and destiny… today, tomorrow, and forever.

Grace provides the motive and the means for the God-man to intervene for us, to become and to apply the message that God is for us not against us. God did something we can never do. He took away our sin and reconciled us to Himself. He reinstated us as sons and daughters of the Most High God. He transforms us into the image of His own Son, He puts muscle to His message…all because of grace and by grace.

This grace is all-sufficient. Grace can do anything and be anything we need for Him to complete His plan. All grace requires to come to our aid is a humble spirit, faith in His promises and “AMEN” in our need.

James 4:6 NIV
[6] “But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

More grace? More than what? More than anything that stands in the way of our becoming who we are, submissive and obedient sons and daughters of God.

“… Full of grace and truth…” Grace and truth…God’s complete arsenal of weapons to defeat the enemy of our souls, to protect us from the rsvages of our sin nature, and to transform us into the likeness of the God-man, Jesus.

So, Peter cousels us… against the backdrop of the lies and deception from the systems of this world that assault and lure us to go it alone, be our own God, do our own thing…

2 Peter 3:17-18 NIV
[17] “Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. [18] But GROW IN THE GRACE AND KNOWLEDGE of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”