Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash

Audio: iTunes | Spotify

᛭ INI ᛭

(5. Oops!: You can’t govern the kingdoms of earth by grace.)

Grace has no place in the world. Grace is giving what you don’t deserve. And you can’t run the world on grace. You can’t manage a company by grace. You can’t operate a business by grace. You can’t buy or sell goods by grace. You can’t govern a state or a nation by grace. You can’t play a game by grace but according to the rules. Nothing of this world runs well on grace.

This world runs on merit and due. It runs off of what you can bring to the table. There are rules, laws, and regulations. We may not like it, but it’s how it works. The world’s perspective on grace is on full display in Christ’s parable, by those who work the whole day—12 hours—and get paid the same as those hired in the eleventh hour. “When they had received [their denarius], they complained against the landowner, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.’”

No, the world cannot function well if that’s the default. “The law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.” (1-Tim 1) And rulers, or bosses, or owners, or really any authority in the world: “hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong…He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Rom 13)

Who’d hire lazy guys standing around all day?

(4. Ugh!: You can’t govern our own flesh by grace.)

Grace has some place in the Christian household, but that’s only because it’s only in Christian homes and households where God’s free favor in the forgiveness of sins is announced to one another. In Christian home God’s grace in Christ is living and active, pouring out from spouses to one another, parents to children, and children to parents. (More on that later on…)

And yet, grace has no place in the management of a home, what’s good and proper behavior. Grace doesn’t work well with creating chore charts and setting schedules. Grace doesn’t pay the bills, cook food, or put gas in the tank. That is the arena of the world. We Christians do live in the world;
We are not to live of the world (as Christ says in John 15 and 17). To put it another way. We are live in this world but were not to behave like the world does.

And so we come to the fact that “our eye,” our flesh, “is evil,” just as much as those hired in the morning. The Law is laid down for the flesh, also. Grace is no good against the flesh. The flesh abuses God’s grace, will twist and turn His mercy, His forgiveness to suit its own selfish desires. The flesh is “like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you.” (Ps 32) The flesh, the Old Adam, is of the world and will by no means enter the kingdom of God. He must be forced to pray, forced to read God’s Word. But more importantly He must be forced into subjection, to set aside wonton evil, selfish living.

There are many worldly-righteous unbelievers out there. They live good lives. The party it up, hedonistic, aspect of their flesh is kept in check. But their sense of right and wrong, their ideas of justice also set them outside of grace. The self-righteous Old Adam runs amok. Even he cannot enter the kingdom of God. For those who wish to be justified by the Law must do so on a blameless basis—complete, total, whole. That is the true standard.

(3. Aha!: THERE’S ONLY ONE KINGDOM THAT OPERATES BY GRACE ALONE—THE KINGDOM OF GOD.)

The world operates by action and fairness, by what’s done or not done. And that is proper and good as far as the flesh is concerned. It must be curbed. It must be shown for what it is. You need that. You are sinner. You ought to do all that God requires. But not doing perfectly doesn’t keep you out. For, THERE’S ONLY ONE KINGDOM THAT OPERATES BY GRACE ALONE—THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

(2. Whee!: That grace is for each and all equally.)

God’s grace, the forgiveness of sins, is for all equally. There isn’t more for me and less forgiveness for you. Christ died for all! He shed His blood to cleanse us from all sins! He is “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!” When it comes to paying out forgiveness, the grace of God works just like a manager handing out the worker’s pay at the end of the day. Everyone gets the same daily wage, and it doesn’t matter how long each one worked. Denarius for each and all.

So it is with Christ’s forgiveness. Each time His steward pays out the wage it’s the same. Each time a means of Grace is delivered and received by faith, it’s the same denarius, or rather, the same forgiveness delivered. The plenary, the full, the complete and total, 100% forgiveness of each and every and all of your sins! That’s how it is if you’re a Christian from when you’re baptized after a few days old. That’s how it is if you have a death-bed conversion. That’s how it is with anything in between.

The Water-Word of Baptism is a grace-filled, forgiveness-filled washing that wipes out the entire army of your sins. (And the devil’s host who’d accuse you for them, too…) Absolution locks the gates of heaven opened that you might enter in. The Lord’s Supper is the over-flowing cup of the LORD, that He might overabundantly bestow His forgiveness and the promise of life everlasting. All at the Font, all at the Absolution, all at the Altar—all for you. “Each one received a denarius.”

(1. Yeah!: God’s grace enlivens us in a way the Law never can.)

THERE’S ONLY ONE KINGDOM THAT OPERATES BY GRACE ALONE—THE KINGDOM OF GOD. And that grace enlivens us in a way that the Law never can. Oh sure, you can not commit adultery or not rob a bank or not gossip because you’re afraid of being caught or you know it’ll harm yourself or others, but that’s not yet life. Old Adam can somewhat do that. the somewhat comes up short. But to be alive in Christ means that whatever is imperfect is not counted against you.

And “the grace of God leads us to repentance,” as Paul says. Repentance being not only sorrow of sin but faith in the forgiveness of sins. The Grace of God in Christ crucified for you, shedding is blood for you, far more precious than gold or silver, or any denarius, but it overflows into your life. That your eye may be evil, but your heart joyous in the gracious generosity of God in Christ ΙΗϹ.

Grace has some place in the Christian household, but that’s only because it’s only in Christian homes and households where God’s free favor in the forgiveness of sins is announced to one another. In Christian home God’s grace in Christ is living and active, pouring out from spouses to one another, parents to children, and children to parents.

As “St. Paul says in Romans chapter six:” “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (NKJV) “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (NIV)

And really that’s not you or I doing anything. It’s actually God’s grace in action in us and through us. You and I become the means of forgiving one another, of handing out the denarius of Christ’s complete and completely free forgiveness.

Forgiveness for heinous sins. Forgiveness for little sins. For in Christ, each gets a denarius. Even you.

᛭ INI ᛭