Grace: Be Strengthened by It
Grace:
Be Strengthened by It
Do you remember Pig-pen from the Peanuts comic strip? He always had around him an aura of dirt, a glow of grim. His filthiness literally defined him so much so that Charles Schulz, the comic strip's creator, never gave him a proper name, just Pig-pen. We could take Pig-pen and talk about how the blood of Jesus is able to cleans the dirtiest of sinners. Although true, that's not where we're headed, this week.
Instead, I thought of Pig-pen as an image of the church and the secret of it's true strength...grace.
Hebrews 13:9 has a little line in it that has captured my attention.
Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.
It seems like the author would have said "...by truth" as a counter solution to the diverse and strange teachings. Obviously, the diverse and strange teachings have something to do with eating certain foods (likely leftover meat from pagan sacrifices) and there is a contemporary teaching that is claiming some benefit from eating these foods. This is a classic case of Jesus+. Verse 9 claims Jesus eternal divinity as sufficient and sustained, forever. Our relationship to him is as sinners saved by God's grace extended to us through his death and resurrection. In other words, no need to + anything to his atoning work.
Truth is undoubtedly important, Jesus said he is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). However, this passage is about the heart being strengthened by grace. Think of grace here as a pattern. Like a plant bringing in CO2 and giving out Oxygen that we then breath keeping us alive. There is a relational pattern that yields growth: out, in, out; give, receive, give. Like eating healthy foods and exercising to gain strength over time. God is continually revealing his grace, we receive it, then turn around and extend it to others, in this way our hearts are strengthened.
Guess what!? Life if FILLED with opportunities to extend grace! Whether marriage, parenting, living with or in proximity to other humanoids...you've probably had no less than 10 opportunities to be strengthened by grace before reading this today.
In the most recent Peanuts movie Pig-Pen gets washed off when the fire-alarm sprinklers come on. Immediately his dance partner says, "Do I know you?"
The church without grace is actually unrecognizable! Who is the Incredible Hulk without his muscles or green color? A grace-less church is not the church. That's how integral grace is to the culture of the local church.
Here's a fun thought: What if our church was so filled with grace-strengthened hearts, that no one could get near any one of us without getting soaked with grace? So accustomed to the regular ingestion, exercise and strengthening of our hearts by grace that we are like the Incredible Hulk that can't help but smash things...but in a positive way! RIC'sters can't help but love, welcome, forgive, show mercy, be generous, pray often, sing loudly, invite, encourage, anyone and everyone! Look above the door of our church. Perched above, there is a bucket of God's grace that drops when anyone walks through!
That's just what it's like at our church!
"Welcome to RIC, here's a bucket of grace"