Mercy, The Grace Partner

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. – Heb 4:16 (NASB)

A Wall Street Journal article reports that doctors discovered there are subtle differences in a baby’s cry that helps medical staff understand how to treat the infant. More than just hunger or being tired, differences in cry characteristics can provide clues that something is wrong. A computer program was created to analyze the cries in 12.5 millisecond frames and measures factors like pitch, volume and “voicing” which is how clear the cry sound is. Doctors hope such analysis can provide clues so that treatment can begin earlier than standard test results might indicate. – adapted, Sumathi Reddy, "What Science Hopes to Learn from a Baby's Cry," The Wall Street Journal (8-27-13)

You will read them together in many passages. Grace and mercy are great partners. As someone once noted, grace is getting what you don’t deserve while mercy is not getting what you do deserve. That seems to be a fair summary of some important ideas contained in the words.

We need to also connect grace and mercy to our prayers. The passage is Hebrews 4:16 tell us about something available to Christians. Access to God’s throne of grace is one of the benefits given to us because Jesus serves as our Great High Priest. The very idea of confidently coming into God’s presence is startling, but to think that access is to present ourselves, in all our humanness, including our needs, our pains, our struggles, and especially our failures is more than words can convey.

Make no mistake about this throne. It’s a throne of grace. Not one of us deserves to be there. None of us, by our virtue or our accomplishments, have an earned place before the throne of God. We’re there because of grace. But it’s not just a throne of grace. It’s also a place of mercy where God withholds what we really deserve, and grants us help instead.

That’s quite a different picture than one held by many. They see God as a demanding tyrant eager to threaten and punish. The truth is God does warn, and he will punish, but those are things reserved for those who reject him and refuse to believe and obey him.

Christians are not better than other people. We have the same troubles, commit the same sins, struggle with the same difficulties. The difference? Access to a couple of partners, dispensed from the throne of God.

A Place Of Grace

16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. – John 1:16 (NASB95)

Walls don't just divide us. They make us ill. After the Berlin Wall went up, East German psychiatrists observed that the Berlin Wall caused mental illness, rage, dejection, and addiction. The closer to the physical wall people lived, the more acute their disorders. The only cure for "Wall Disease" was to bring the Wall down. Sure enough, in 1990, psychiatrists noted the "emotional liberation" felt after November 9, 1989 when the Wall finally fell. Thousands of jubilant Germans climbed the Wall, wept, and embraced each other atop the concrete, and proceeded to tear the Wall down with joyful abandon. – Adapted from Marcello Di Cintio, Walls: Travels Along the Barricades (Soft Skull Press, 2013), pp. 10-12

Not all walls divide and make us ill, but some surely do. Walls of our homes should be healthy and supportive. Walls of businesses make it possible to create, sell, and serve. Walls of a bank should declare strength, security and confidence. So, walls can be good or walls can be bad. It depends on what’s happening inside the walls.

Churches have walls. Yes, I mean the walls of our buildings for one thing. The building isn’t the church, but the walls of our buildings say something. If the church is people, we need to know that people have walls too. They aren't brick, or metal, or wood, but they are walls nonetheless. We put up walls to keep some people out of our lives and others in.

I want to sort of combine those “church walls” into one metaphorical wall. I want to combine the walls of our building and the walls of our hearts into one wall because there is something I think the church needs to hear. Remember I said earlier that walls can be good or bad depending on what’s happening inside the walls? I want you to think about that. What’s happening inside the church? Whether it’s the walls of your heart or the walls of our building, what’s happening inside?

It’s too easy to forget what “church” is all about. First and foremost, we’re followers of Jesus. We are the redeemed, the saved, the justified, the sanctified. None of that is because we’re all that great. We need a fresh view of ourselves as sinners in need of help. We have little, if anything, to offer God. If we’re saved, it’s because God loved us in spite of ourselves, granted us mercy and grace, and washed us in the blood of Jesus. We didn’t achieve our salvation, Jesus did. If we forget that, we’ve forgotten something vital, urgent, and revealing.

What’s going on inside the walls of the church? I want to suggest to you that inside those walls, whether physical walls of a building or symbolic walls of your heart, church needs to be a place of grace. Grace doesn’t mean we deny or ignore sin. Grace means you can be forgiven and live better. Grace is what gives hope to dying people. Let’s be a place of grace - in your heart, in our house.

Guilt And Shame

I’ve been reading a lot recently about guilt and shame. Most of what I’ve been reading relates to societies in general and how one society might be “guilt based” and another “shame based.” Many of these articles sought to use these terms to describe the difference between Western societies (generally, “guilt based”), and Eastern societies (especially Islamic, which are more “shame based).

Here’s a quote taken from the TorahBytes blog:

Guilt is the result of breaking a clearly defined law or rule. Guilt is usually accompanied by a fear of punishment at the hands of an authority of some kind. Taking a cookie when your mom or dad told you not to may result in guilt. A judge determines guilt based on whether or not you have broken the law. A person is either guilty or not. If found guilty, then a sentence of some kind would be given.

Shame is not so straightforward. Shame often comes from a deep internal sense of having done something unacceptable due to a sense of failure to measure up to certain standards or expectations. Guilt may be included, especially if a rule or law is broken, but not all rules carry the same level of shame and a rule doesn't need to be broken to experience shame. Shame is present when there is a perception that our behavior is such that we don't deserve to be accepted by those with whom we have relationship. That relationship could be family, friends, community group, work place, school, and so on. Shame often leads to a desire to hide from others. Embarrassment often comes from a sense of shame. (http://www.torahbytes.org/69-49.htm)

What I’m about to describe is woefully general in nature, but I think it will give you some sense of what guilt and shame do to us, and how they are handled.

Guilt is essentially a law-based problem. One breaks a law and is judged to be guilty. Punishment of some kind follows guilt, and is also determined by law. When a person is guilty, the problem is resolved, as far as society is concerned, by the exercise of punishment. Thus in the United States, for example, under our legal system one is considered innocent until proven guilty. Once guilt is determined, punishment is determined. It might require serving time in jail, or payment of a fine, both, or even serving house arrest or performing a certain number of hours doing community service. Once the punishment has been met, the guilty person can pretty much move on (this is not completely true, but it is generally true).

Shame is something altogether different. A guilty person may or may not feel any sense of shame, and a shamed person, though also guilty, may take a much longer time to recover and move on, even though legally the guilt has been dealt with by punishment. Shame is more related to the relationship we have with others. It is almost always experienced more intensely, more emotionally than is guilt.

In guilt-based societies, once the punishment has been satisfied, people tend to move on and recover. When they don’t, it’s usually because there’s also an element of shame involved. But in shame-based societies, there is really only one way to recover, and that is to have one’s “honor” restored. Shame destroys one’s personal honor. Shame simply kicks a person down, and causes others to look down on them, think less of them, trust them less, and consider them “unworthy.”

Interestingly, these concepts show up when trying to reach people with the gospel of Jesus, or to teach them biblical truths. Western societies are almost totally consumed with guilt. So to us, we want a Jesus who “pardons” our sins, removes our “guilt”, and “redeems us” in the sense of freeing us from the guilt and consequence of our sins.  Eastern societies are often puzzled by this because they operate on a “shame-based” concept. They need to hear that Jesus takes away their shame, restores their honor, and elevates them once again to a respected, honorable state of life. If you’re a Westerner, that last part won’t resonate with you as much as what I said about guilt.

Here’s a great exercise, especially for those who use a computerized Bible study program. Run a quick concordance search for the words, “shame” and “ashamed”. Go spend the several minutes it will take to read all the verses. You’ll likely be quite surprised at how much the Bible says about shame, and it’s connection to sin and our standing with God.

Do the same thing with the words, “guilt” and “guilty”. Spend the minutes it takes to read those passages too. The result is quite interesting. Westerners weren’t altogether wrong after all. “Guilt” and “guilty” are words frequently associated with sinners and people whose relationship with God is amiss.

I suggest that there is something here we must learn. It’s not a one or the other thing. It’s not the case that we should choose guilt over shame, or shame over guilt. The Bible teaches that sinners who disobey God are both guilty and shamed.

Here’s the good news. Jesus takes care of both problems. Sinners are guilty of violating God’s law. Jesus redeemed us by paying the price of forgiveness. But sinners are also shamed by their sin, but Jesus restores us to honor by removing the very cause of our shame and making something out of us we could never be on our own.

We need to deal with these issues of guilt and shame because in real life, they are often found together. Guilty people are shamed by their sins. It is here that preachers often fail people the most. If we preach a message that emphasizes the removal of guilt, we leave people knowing that Jesus died for their sins, but they may live out their lives burdened by shame. Or they may have only a vague sense that God forgives in some legal sense, but they never leave their life of sin because shame isn’t significant to them. Either way, we leave them with only part of the good news. The whole good news is that Jesus removes our guilt, and covers our shame. We need to explore this more!

I think Ezra had it right:

and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. — Ezra 9:6 (NASB95)

So did Paul have it right:

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.  — Titus 2:11–14 (NASB95)

Jesus will remove both your guilt and your shame. Now that’s some good news.

Making Forgiveness Possible

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. -- Ephesians 4:32, NASB95

It is the center point around which our faith revolves. But when we are the ones who need to forgive, forgiveness becomes more difficult. To believe that God forgave me millennia ago, pardoning me in a broad theological sweep with billions of others, seems, for some reason, more reasonable than my granting forgiveness to someone who has wronged me. -- Discipleship Journal : Issue 105., electronic ed. (Colorado Springs: The Navigators/NavPress, 1999).

It is often helpful to pay attention to what Bible writers actually wrote. They often reveal far more than we see at first glance. Paul’s encouragement to the Christians at Ephesus to forgive each other is an excellent example.

Forgiveness means several things, and it’s not the intent of this article to dig into them. Suffice it to say that forgiving somebody means you don’t hold the offending behavior against them, and you release them from their guilt. Forgiveness makes it possible for a person to recover and move beyond wrong things done, and the pain and damage caused to others.

However, there seems to be a serious shortage of forgiveness. Even among Christians, forgiveness is often hard to come by. There is a lot of talk about forgiveness, but less meaningful forgiving happening. It may be that this shortage of forgiving is the result of two other things that are also missing from the human experience.

The first is kindness. The truth is that we live in a hard world. Kindness is much more than good manners and common courtesy. Many Christians can fake the kindness angle. They can greet you with a smile, hug your neck, then stab you in the back. They can look you in the eye and tell you they love you, then they can spread the latest gossip about you when you’re not listening. Kindness is a particular sort of behavior that always results in something good for the person to whom we are being kind. There are lots of other things that go into real kindness, like grace and mercy, love and gentleness. There is usually little doubt when kindness has been extended.

The second is tender-heartedness. That’s a term that is so self-descriptive that it’s hard to improve on it. It’s being soft-hearted toward others. It’s the opposite of hardness or harshness. It is a heart full of compassion and understanding. This heart is one shaped by grace and tempered by mercy. It’s the last thing from a demanding, insistent, judgmental attitude.

If you understand about kindness and tender-heartedness, then you understand what it takes to be a forgiving person. It may well be that unless a person can be kind and tender-hearted that person cannot forgive others. To the extent that kindness and tender-heartedness exist, to that extent he or she can forgive others.

It’s so much easier for us to desire forgiveness than to give it. We all want people to be kind to us, to have tender-hearted feelings toward us. But when it comes to forgiving others, we often get hung up on justice, retribution, and punishment. None of those are ours to give. God will take care of those things, if needed. We have a bigger job to work on: being kind and tenderhearted, so we can forgive each other.

What Would Jesus Have Done With Her?

News programs earlier this week provided more than ample information about the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Smith had become famous, not just for her striptease act in Houston, TX but for marrying at the age of 26 and oil tycoon who was 88 or 89 years old. When he died a short time later, the court battle between Smith and the tycoon’s other relatives over millions of dollars of estate money kept the headlines hot.

I believe she had a TV show a few years ago that was supposed to be one of those “reality” programs. Her lifestyle, her weight gain and then the amazing weight loss, and the continued star-fashion media that surrounded her kept her in the news and constantly characterized her as a dizzy blonde bombshell, drug user, and sex icon.

Well, no more. She’s dead. The last news reports failed to provide solid information as to the cause. It appears there was no physical trauma to her body, which leaves questions about drug overdose, suicide, or perhaps even murder as possibilities. The public will have to wait until the investigations are over.

Why should Christians care about any of this? For one reason only. Anna Nicole Smith is today’s Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in the act of adultery of John 8, or any number of other biblical characters. I suspect attitudes toward Anna Nicole were the same ones held about those ancient women. “She’s immoral.” She’s a junkie.” “She’s a golddigger.” And, I’m using the kind words. I have no doubt but that those harsh, common, 4-letter kind of words were used frequently to describe her. It is understandable; after all she flaunted her sexuality, and demonstrated her immoral lifestyle for profit. Regardless of her true motivations, she lived by an ethic that few of us would want for our daughters or sisters.

We still need to ask, “What would Jesus have done with her?”

What did Jesus do with the woman at the well? What did he do with the woman in John 8, caught in the very act of adultery and legally due a death sentence? Perhaps we need to sift through all the surrounding discussions and get to two vital points that tell us what Jesus would have done with Anna Nicole Smith.

First, he never condoned the sins of either the Samaritan woman or the woman caught in adultery. Their sins were real, and their sins separated them from God, and if you’re thinking that somehow Jesus overlooked their sins, you’d be wrong. Whatever we do with Anna Nicole Smith, and thousands of people like her, we need to know that sin is wrong, and we need to acknowledge it.

But second, Jesus offered forgiveness. Without excusing sin, Jesus refused to condemn sexually immoral women. Instead, he provided a way out of sin. This is the forgotten and neglected issue. It is what Christians often allow to slip away unnoticed. I wonder if Anna Nicole Smith heard the first point, but not the second?

In one of the news clips I saw the other day, showing the now dead Smith at earlier times in her life, I noticed that she wore an interesting necklace. It was a fashionable cross. Now I don’t know why people wear crosses as jewelry. I have written before on this subject, and have said that it is surprising who wears crosses and where they wear them. It’s interesting that people would wear the symbol of Christian faith while living out a life that is anything but Christian. So, I can’t tell you what Anna Nicole Smith’s motive was for wearing that piece.

Neither do I know that she had an ounce of faith in Jesus Christ, or that she understood much, if anything, about the call of the gospel and how it changes true believers. But I do wonder if a single ray of hope in an otherwise dark life.

Personally, the whole of Smith’s life is unpleasant. I heard two talk-show hosts mention her death the other day, then one of them said, “You know what, I just don’t care.” The other replied, “I don’t either.” And that was the end of the discussion on their show. Perhaps that was best – no more mention of it, but I was sorry for their attitude. Anna Nicole Smith was a human being. Regardless of her lifestyle, her irreverent behavior, her blatant disregard for God, I know one thing about her that doesn’t get much press: she was loved by God. In fact, God loved Anna Nicole Smith so much he sent his Son to die for her.

Perhaps Smith’s death can encourage some young person to avoid drugs. Maybe her early demise can move another young person away from the whole sex business. It’s possible that her sad life will motivate another person to try a different road. Then again, maybe Anna Nicole Smith will remind Christians about who God loves, and who Jesus died for. Just maybe we’ll get the point that Jesus didn’t die for all the good guys but for sinners. He didn’t die to mock their sins, he died to forgive their sins.

We still need to ask, “What would Jesus have done with her?”