Ephesians 2:8-9
For by grace you are saved through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.

I was poking around online recently and came across someone asking what grace was.  The author gave a solid answer but it prompted a memory of a great, easily understandable example of grace I heard from a pastor on the radio.  

Suppose you are driving down the highway and you are speeding.  A police officer pulls you over and you are clearly guilty of driving over the speed limit.  The police officer has two obvious options.

1.  The officer decides to let you go with no ticket.
2.  The officer gives you a ticket.

If the officer decides to not give you a ticket, he is being loving/merciful.  You have broken the law but the required penalty was not exacted.

If the officer gives you a ticket, he is being just.  You have broken the law and the required penalty was exacted.

But what if there was a third option?

3.  The officer gives you a ticket and then the officer pulls money out of his wallet and gives you  the amount required to pay the ticket.

The only catch is that you have sign the ticket, admitting your guilt and then accept the money.  If the police officer offers you the money to pay the ticket and you don’t take it, the penalty is still due.

As you can probably guess, the police officer represents God and the driver is us.  God is love but God is also just.  Letting us go without the ticket would violate His justice.  He cannot do that.  Simply exacting the penalty and walking away would violate His love.  He cannot do that.  So instead, He exacts the penalty through the death of His Son and gives us all the opportunity to escape the penalty we clearly deserve and in doing so, maintains both His justice and His love.  Grace is the bridge between God’s love and God’s justice.

You, like everybody else, have broken the law and there is a penalty due.  The question is:  will you admit your guilt and accept Jesus’ death as the payment due for your transgression or will you insist you weren’t doing anything wrong to begin with?  Please don’t let your pride prevent you from accepting such a precious and costly gift that will literally save your life and bring joy everlasting.

Matthew 27:24

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that there was a riot beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”

Pilate, after attempting to convince the Jews to spare Jesus, gave up and symbolically washed his hands to indicate he had no guilt in what was about to be done to Jesus.  Perhaps in doing so, he thought he was absolving himself of any guilt in the matter.  But Pilate did not understand the greatest paradox of all: it is only by being covered in Jesus’ blood and admitting our individual complicity in His death that we can be absolved of our guilt.  Conversely, it is by denying any responsibility that one will find themselves pronounced guilty before a holy and just God.

(A quick side not on the following verse in which the Jews say that Jesus’ blood will be on them and their children since it has historically been used to justify anti-Semitism.  It is only through a faulty understanding of Christianity and not understanding the paradox described above that one can arrive at the conclusion that the Jews alone are responsible for Jesus’ death.  We all are.)

Philippians 1:27-29

Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God.  For to you it has been granted to on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.

The Philippians were ‘granted’ the privilege of suffer for Christ’s sake.  We should expect no less.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive to those in sin apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.  We should expect to be reviled, hated, despised and rejected by unbelievers.  So, it’s not a question of IF but WHEN.  And, as difficult as it might be, we should rejoice in it.  For it is a validation that we are in Christ and as the verse says, it is a ‘proof of our salvation’.    

John 3:19-20a

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light….

Mark 1:15
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Although the word gospel has come to mean the story of Jesus’ life and death (or in a more generic sense, a belief that is held with absolute certitude), the word itself means ‘good news’.

So as it pertains to the gospel of Christ, what is the good news? Well, it is that Jesus died on the cross as the perfect, holy sacrifice that our sin demands in order to restore our relationship to God the Father while maintaining God’s holiness and justice. That is not only good news. It’s GREAT news!

But, not everyone sees that as good news. You see, there’s some bad news that has to be delivered before the death of Christ looks like good news instead of just news.

Romans 3:23

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

The bad news is that we’re all sinners. The worse news is that YOU personally are a sinner and until we individually can accept that bad news, we won’t see Christ’s death as good news. In fact, most people find it offensive. They don’t want to acknowledge that it was for their sin that Christ died.

If that describes you, then I hope you will swallow your pride and recognize that as good a person as you might be, you still fall short of the perfect standard required to restore the relationship with God the Father. All He asks is that you acknowledge your sin and put your faith in what Jesus did for you on cross and Him alone. He did it because He loves you so much, He was willing to send His own Son to suffer and die for you. God loves you that much! And you won’t ever hear better news that that.

Well, someone who lived near the school put on a little fireworks show of their own.  Because it was directly behind us, the few fireworks they shot were louder and seemed bigger.

I noticed that one of my sons had his back turned to the much more beautiful and impressive display in the distance and was focusing on the mini display that was behind us.

It made me think of what we do when we take our focus off of the wonderful and eternal reward that God has for us and instead we focus on the immediate, temporary and fleeting things that Satan distracts us with.

Don’t let Satan distract you with his cheap imitations.  Keep your eyes focused on Him.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Phil 3:13-14

In Genesis, God determines that Adam needs a helper.  He causes Adam to fall asleep and takes a rib and uses it to create Eve.

In the gospels, we are told that Jesus is crucified.  During the crucifixion, He is pierced through the heart.  God uses Christ’s sacrifice to create Christ’s bride, the church!

I’m sure there’s a lot of people reading (ok, maybe no one is reading it but anyway…) thinking “Of course.  This is news to you?!?!?!” but I just found it be a great parallel and another reminder to me about how great God is and that nothing He does is by random chance.

Yes, I agree that Jesus would want to spend more time with non-Christians than He would Christians.  The reason for this is simple and Jesus Himself tells us in a number of places:

-          I came to seek and to save that which is lost. – Luke 19:10

-          Parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep. – Matt 18:10-14

-          I came to heal the sick. – Matt 9:11-13

Jesus would want to spend time with them because they need His help.  And, why do they need His help?  Because of sin.  That word that no one wants to mention.  Repentance must precede salvation.

And, now to the main point of this article:  why Christians today that want to hold up the necessity of Scripture and the necessity of repentance are referred to as Pharisees and why the comparison is invalid.

The Pharisees were one class of religious rulers of Jesus’ day.  They were known for being meticulous about keeping the law.  In fact, they were so meticulous that they would go as far as tithing of anything their garden produced (10% of the tomato, 10% of the parsley etc).  As far as the law of Moses went, they came the closest to being able to fulfill it.  And that’s where the problem started.  They had a high view of themselves.  Jesus illustrated the issue in the parable in Luke 18:9-14.  They would pray and thank God that they weren’t like other men.  They were proud.  They thought they had no faults.  And that’s why Jesus reserved His strongest rebukes for them.  Unlike the prostitutes and tax collectors Jesus spent time with, the Pharisees did not see a need for anyone to save them.  They could do it all on their own.  The prostitutes and tax collectors on the other hand, understood (or perhaps at least were capable of acknowledging) their total dependence on grace.  They knew they were not worthy.  The Pharisees thought they were.

So how does that relate to the charges of ‘Pharisee’ today?  The truth is, the charge is misplaced.  Those that deserve the charge are not those who hold up scripture as the standard and rightly note that we are all sinners in need of repentance.  It’s the unrepentant sinner.  It’s the emergent who refuses to acknowledge what God has plainly stated in His Word.  How so, you ask?  Because they refuse to acknowledge any need for Jesus whatsoever.  Just like the Pharisee, the unrepentant sinner doesn’t see a need to repent because, just like the Pharisee, they don’t see that they are doing anything wrong.  Just like the Pharisee, the emergent has decided that YOU can make your own path to God.  

The truth is, the Pharisees were not condemned for their attention to the scripture or for holding it up to be authoritative.  They were condemned for not recognizing their own sin and need for repentance and forgiveness that can ONLY come through Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.  And, the unrepentant sinner will similarly be condemned because they refuse to acknowledge what God has called sin and refuse to acknowledge their need for forgiveness through Jesus.  Jesus isn’t just a cool dude to hang with.  He is our Lord and Savior first and foremost.  And He didn’t just to hang out with the sinners.  He came to save them and that can only happen through repentance and acceptance of the gift of grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9) in Christ alone.  

How long, O you sons of men, Will you turn my glory to shame?  How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood? - Ps 4:2 

How good is God!  What patience!  To see men make a mockery of Him and His Word and yet, He withholds judgement.  I’m so thankful He showed me the same patience and grace.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Rom 5:8 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/atheism-irrational

The Arab reaction is predictable but the reaction of the rest of world defies logic and common sense.  Its source is, in fact, satanic.  It’s the only explanation that can account for attempts to condemn Israel FOR DEFENDING ITSELF.  We would stand for nothing less from our government if a group of people were launching rockets into our neighborhoods but somehow, when Israel moves to protect itself, it’s met with a reflexive condemnation.

The funny thing is, in their hatred for Israel, they confirm the existence of the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  For nothing else explains the intense, unthinking hatred for this group of people that really have no distinguishing characteristic other than that God chose them.

Even if I were not a Christian, and assuming I was not being blinded by Satan, which is a pretty big assumption, I would have to take Israel’s side but all the more because I am a Christian.

One of God’s promises to Abraham:

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” – Gen 12:3  

God doesn’t forget.  And He doesn’t break His promises.