Costly Grace

Each Thursday after school a group of students meets in my room. There aren't many of them, but that's okay. Each week a different one of them offers a brief devotional, and they pray. They pray for all sorts of things, but, most importantly they pray. I'm not able to participate in the group with them because of school guidelines about staff and religious activities, but I can offer them a place to meet and my supervision.

Interestingly, I think my being just an observer is a good thing. First of all, the students bear the responsibility for the group. The decisions are theirs -- not mine. Second, watching them has been such a gift. Let me explain.  I know most of them outside school from church or the community. I teach in a small town, so I get to know my students in their actual lives -- not just as bodies in a classroom.

The Bible Buddies, as they call themselves, have encouraged me so much. Each of them takes leadership and discipleship seriously. They are committed to following Christ every day in our school. You may not have spent a lot of time at a public high school lately, but I have. High school is tough for anybody. You can imagine how tough it is to stay committed to God when you're young and faced with the pressures of high school, yet they manage to do it.

 

A few weeks ago, it was time for one of the girls to give her devotional. It was amazing! Granted, I might be a little bit biased because I really love her. She, like all the Bible Buddies, is committed to her faith. She unflinchingly admits when she's struggling with something and is the first person to encourage someone else.

 

When she gave her talk, she read a bunch of different verses about  God's love. Here's the list. I wrote them down.

 

Psalm 36:7,

Psalm 139,

Jeremiah 18:1-6,

John 3:16,

John 15:9,

Galatians 2:20,

Ephesians 1:4-5,

Romans 5:8,

Romans 8:39,

Hebrews 1:9,

I John 4.

 

After she read all that, or rather after they read all that, she looked into the eyes of all her friends and said, "God loves you. He loves you, and you, and you." She said it to each one of them individually. Then she showed them a video. Her approach was simple. Perhaps that's what made it so effective. I was certainly moved, and judging by the faint sniffles and dewy eyes in the rest of the room, so was everybody else.

 



That Thursday afternoon has been hanging out in my mind for weeks. I keep thinking about it. Here's why. The Bible Buddies kids get it. Young as they are, they are unconsciously living out Costly Grace.

I don't know if you've seen The Passion of the Christ or if you've been watching The Bible on the History Channel. Like everybody else, I thought about Jesus and his sacrifice more than usual last week. On Sunday night I also watched the last installment of The Bible. I cried, of course, sitting there in my burgundy leather chair, and it reminded me of the first time I watched The Passion of the Christ.

I was there in the theater, sitting in the dark, and it all felt so real to me.Thankfully, I caught myself before I yelled out, "STOP HITTING JESUS!" to a cinema full of movie goers. I lost myself in it because it is real. Jesus did that -- for us. When I see his crucifixion, even though it's just a Hollywood reenactment, I can't help but think about how costly it is -- all of it. His pain. His blood. His life. Even the bare fact that he left his place as the son of God to become a stinking human like us is costly. Psalm 49 says, "Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him -- for the redemption of their souls is costly" (vs. 7-8 emphasis mine). In fact, the cost is so high it can't even be named. It's literally priceless.

I forget the truth sometimes. Grace is so costly, but I treat it cheaply. I find myself wanting to revel in all the benefits of my relationship with God without any of the trouble of discipleship -- an idea captured so perfectly in the Skit Guys' video. I kick back in my chair. Sin? No problem. Jesus has got that one, friend. Guilt? Nope. Don't worry about that either. Shame? Uh uh. Letting go of all those is the easy part. What about the rest?

This is where most people balk, me included. What do you mean I have to stop being selfish? What do you mean I have to forgive people who've hurt me? You mean I have to abandon my road for God's? Yep. That would be the hard part. Here's what Eugene Peterson says about it in his introduction to The Message.

"The Bible does not give us a predictable cause and effect world in which we can plan our careers and secure our futures. It is not a dream world in which everything works out according to our adolescent expectations -- there is pain and poverty and abuse at which we cry out in indignation, 'You can't let this happen!' For most of us it takes years and years and years to exchange our dream world for this real world  of grace and mercy, sacrifice and love, freedom and joy -- the God-saved world."
 

Part of the reason I've been thinking about Costly Grace is because there's always discussion in the Christian community about practical concerns, mainly to do with politics. What should our stance be on things like abortion and same-sex marriage? I feel like there are two extreme responses to these sorts of social/moral questions and the politics that go with them.

The first extreme is judgement, or at least it comes across as judgement. This side says, "Sin is sin, and we need to legislate against it."

The other extreme is, for lack of a better term, cheap grace. This side says, "God doesn't care what we do. Nothing is truly wrong; do what you feel."

Here's what good ol' Dietrich Bonhoeffer says about cheap grace:

"Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace! That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. [...] The justification of the sinner in the world degenerated into the justification of sin and the world. Costly grace was turned into cheap grace without discipleship." (The Cost of Discipleship, emphasis mine)
 

A bit of a sticky wicket, right? Somewhere in between those two extremes of judgment and cheap grace, Costly Grace lives.  Costly Grace demands that we love people. Simultaneously, it demands truthfulness about sin. Sin is not okay. Are we all equally afflicted with it? You bet. There's nothing we can do about that, but God already did something about it. Jesus died to get rid of it - to free us from it. If your baby poops in his diaper, you change it. You don't just spray some air freshener and say, "That's okay, little guy, everybody poops." You give him a new diaper even though he's just going to mess it up again. That is the essence of the Gospel. When you poop your diaper, your Father God is going to give you a new one.

Here's the conclusion I've come to. I have to do things that seem unpleasant to me. I have to love people I don't like. I have to speak the truth even when it isn't politically correct.  I've got to submit myself to God's Chisel. Thankfully, all the gifts of Costly Grace more than make up for it because God's heart toward me is good. He's making me a new, pure heart. He's freeing me from the traps I set for myself, and, most importantly, I get to be adopted by the High King of the Universe.

But wait, there's more! The even better news is that you can be adopted too. I want to call you brother or sister so desperately. I love you enough to ask you to join me in discipleship. Following Jesus will turn your life upside down, rock your world, and any other cliche you can think of, but it's worth it.