Be The Church: Be a Gracious Church

Even though this past week has been crazy: both Becky and I recovering from our illnesses, Courtney having an emergency C-section, Hudson having a tough first few days of life, and traveling back and forth to Phoenix, one of the things that I’ve managed to do is keep engaged with what is going on with all the craziness in our world.  And much like you I’m saddened and disturbed on how much our country continues to wallow in judgment, division, unchecked hatred and endless arguing.  And like everyone else I find myself longing for encouragement and hope.  Longing for a day when common decency, compassion and kindness rules the day rather than alienation and condemnation.

And yet as I have had opportunity to delve into God’s Word this week there is one thing God has made quite clear to me and it is this: People need the grace of Jesus Christ now more than ever.  And rather than be discouraged by the state of our culture today, I’m becoming encouraged. Why?  Because we have the one thing our world desperately needs today.  We have what our world is looking for:  GRACE… God gave us His grace so we would be dispensers of grace in a world desperately in need of grace.  God gave us grace so we might rise up and impart words of blessing to those who are expecting curses.  God gave us grace so we might celebrate life rather than tear down life.  God gave us grace so we might give grace to others in their time of need.  And God gave us grace so we might include those that our world rejects.

What I’m talking about is what Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans some 2000 years ago – that we would be a people so full of the grace of Jesus Christ that we would turn our world upside down and be the unexpected blessing our world needs.  That we would be a gracious church in world devoid of grace. So what’s that going to take?  What’s that supposed to look like in the life of the Church?

Well that’s what we’re going to look at today from Romans 12:14-16.  So if you brought a copy of God’s Word with you today, let me encourage you to turn there where we will see how Paul lays out three ways God calls us to turn our world upside down with grace.  And the first way God calls us to impart grace is by flipping the script on those who make life difficult for you.  In other words:  Grace Blesses those who Hassle You. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 

Now maybe you’ve not ever experienced persecution for your faith in Jesus Christ.  If you haven’t, then you may count yourself blessed.  But it was Jesus who said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Matthew 5:10-11

Jesus also said this: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. John 15:18-20

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to Christians. You may have had someone argue with you about your stance on abortion, or question your intelligence for believing in something you can’t prove. You may have had someone tell you that only the weak need a crutch like religion.  Or you may have had someone try to shame you for being “holier than Thou.”  Or you may have had someone actually ridicule you for your faith.  This is some evidence of rising hostility toward Christianity.  But if you haven’t felt attacked or ostracized or criticized for your faith, it could be that you’ve allowed the world to dilute your faith, it could be that your fear men more than you fear God, and if that’s you, God’s Word says you need to repent… but that’s another message.   But here, if you find yourself being attacked, criticized or abused for your faith this passage describes how you’re to respond: with grace!  You are to bless and not curse.

This is the Jesus way of loving your enemy.  After all, this passage closely parallels what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:27-28

In other words, we are to flip the script with grace.  Those who hate Christians often try to dictate the encounter.  They try to wound you, discredit you or even pull you down to arguing with them on their level.  But that’s not the way of Jesus.  Jesus’ way is to love those who hate you by doing good to them, or even blessing them.

This does not come natural to us.  When someone curses us or mistreats us, our first inclination is to retaliate, to get even.  Or we just say nothing or do nothing because we don’t know what to say or do.  We don’t immediately think that we should bless them.  That’s crazy talk.  We’d rather see them get what they deserve rather than give them something they don’t deserve.

So this is something we can only do by faith. Here’s where we need to live the surrendered life. Here’s where we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Here’s where we need to ask God to help us think like Jesus.  And here’s where we need to remind ourselves of the mercies of God toward us in Christ Jesus. For Romans 5:10 tells us that at one time we were enemies of God. We were rebels.  We refused thank God, listen to God, obey God or honor God.  Rather we offended God my defying God.  But even when we were at our worst, when we were enemies of God, God never stopped pursuing us with His love.  And if God did that for you, then He can bless your enemies through you, even with those who hate you.

Here’s how that works.  Someone says something rude about your faith, putts you down, laugh’s at your faith, here’s what you are to do.  You can literally ask God to bless the person who is mistreating you.  But this is not some inner prayer you throw up to God when you are being attacked or abused –  It is verbally asking God to provide them with good, with love, with life changing blessing.  You can literally bless them within the range of their hearing: “May God bless your life with joy and peace.”  “May God bless your life with love and prosperity.”  And if you do this, nothing will take a-would be persecutor by more surprise than to have his insult answered with your words of blessing.

That’s flipping the script with grace. It sounds crazy to do this.  But when was the last time you heard anyone voice blessing over your life in this way?…  People are starving for love.  Most people are frustrated in life. Most have been wounded by Christians or hurt by the Church. Most can find something they can blame God for.  They feel forgotten, ignored, unloved and even lost. They want blessing in their life – and yet, God has made it possible for them to receive it – through you.  You are the dispenser of grace your angry neighbor needs.  You are the dispenser of grace your bitter cousin needs.  You’re the dispenser of grace our world needs.

Have you ever thought of yourself this way?  God wants to use you to flip the script on someone who hates God, by being His mouthpiece of blessing.  So the next time someone tries to get under your skin because of your faith, maybe that’s someone God wants you to bless. Grace Blesses those who Hassle You.

Ok, that’s the first way God would have us impart His grace to others.  Here’s another way: Grace Enters Into the Joys and Pains of Life With Others  Now at first glance this seem simple enough: Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  But there’s far more here than meets the eye. Let‘s take this first exhortation: Rejoice with those who rejoice.

The thought here is that we are not to be self-absorbed with our own celebrations but predisposed to looking for ways we can celebrate life with others.  In this sense, rejoicing with those who rejoice may actually be hard for us.  Let me tell you what I mean.  It is truly rare for you to be genuinely happy for someone who is rejoicing in their circumstance.  You don’t know how hard they worked, what they had to endure, or how much it cost them to finally enjoy the fruit of their labor.  We don’t know the agony of their prayers, the burdens they’ve carried or the defeats they suffered along the way.  O sure, we can be happy for them, but can we truly enter in to their happiness; can we truly share with them in their Joy?

I think we can to some degree.  But as hard as we try, we can still harbor a bit of envy or even jealousy for what they are experiencing?  We want to be truly 100 percent happy for another person’s success or reward, but if we are honest with ourselves there is a natural part of us that wants to experience these same blessings in our own lives.   So it is hard to rejoice with those who rejoice.

The only way we can truly do this is to experience a forgetfulness of self.  Again this is why we need Jesus. When our life is full of Jesus, we learn to forget self.  When our life is full of Jesus, He sets us free from needing the blessings of the world.  Jesus knows ultimate joy.  He knows the pleasure of His Father’s smile. He knows the deep satisfaction of belonging.  He knows what it is to have it all, because He has it all in His relationship with the Father.  As such, he is free to enter into joy with others. This is what God wants for us: to enter fully into joy with others so we can “be with them in their joy.”– to fully celebrate their milestones, their breakthroughs and their joys.

It’s like the time we celebrated Courtney’s College graduation. We truly celebrated with her that day.  I had just read something about how rarely we give toasts anymore.  So that night at the restaurant, each of us took a moment to toast Courtney and speak well of her accomplishments.  We expressed our pride.  We honor her.  We celebrated her.  It was a great day.   But when I look back on that, I am reminded how rare it is to fully celebrate with someone.  It seems like the only time we hear people speak well and celebrate a life is after they are gone.  I don’t think that’s the way of Jesus.  God’s Word says it right here: rejoice with those who rejoice!

Austin’s family does this really well.  They celebrate birthdays together by going out to breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And at one of those meals everyone takes the opportunity to speak into the life of the person being celebrated.  At first I thought this was corny, but after experiencing this a few times, its just great to see another person celebrated in this way.  It’s just so rare.  We need to learn how to do this better.

There is something so good in just forgetting self and embracing the joy of another – it frees you from your own selfishness.  If anything, we need to work on this, to get better at this.  For there simply is not enough rejoicing happening today.  And if anything we ought to be the greatest celebrators around!  So let’s Rejoice with those who rejoice.

But also let’s not forget to mourn with those who mourn.  Here again, the key in understanding this command is the word “with.” When we focus on being “with” someone in their pain or grief, then our “being with” prevents us from trying to fix someone in their pain.  You see, we live in a quick fix culture, and whether we like to admit it or not, we try to help someone in grief by trying to remove their pain before they truly have time to process it.  So too often we say condescending things like, “I know how they feel.”  We don’t.  We just want them to feel better, so we say something that is sometimes more hurtful, even if we mean well.  It’s like what we looked at with rejoicing: we can’t fully know how someone who is mourning feels.  Sure we may share a similar experience, but that’s not how God would have us enter in with another person’s pain.  The point is that we can never perfectly understand another person’s pain or sorrow; we can only be with them in it.

And that’s is what God calls us to do here – to simply “be with” them as they mourn.  The only one who can truly understand the pain of the other is God Himself.  And yet, the way He helps most is by being with us in our pain.  So this is how we are to mourn with those who mourn.  We just stay committed to be with the person in their pain, no matter what, for that is what God does for us.

Herein lies one of our greatest challenges as God’s people.  Mourning takes time.  We can’t mourn hurriedly.  There is no perfect formula for healing the pain of loss.  I like how Marva Dawn explains it.  She writes, “For with-ness to happen, we need to spend time in conversations, in worship, in wonder and in waiting.  One of the best things we can do for persons who are in despair is to create for them an enfolding and safe environment in which they will know so deeply that they are loved that they are set free to do their mourning work, to discover that their grief can be enfolded within the wholeness of community, that they are not alone in their pain.  Sometimes many months of caring are required to make a major breakthrough.  Many people might invest many hours to let the grieving persons cry, to listen to their sadness, and thus bring God’s healing.” Mourning takes time.  Mourning takes community.  Mourning takes commitment.

That means at any given time in our community, someone is going to be going through mourning.  Some days they are going to look like everything is fine, and it may be… but every person processes grief differently.  There are no quick fixes, only grace fixes.  And the only way grace fixes is by giving yourself to be with the one who hurts.  That’s what God calls us be – a people who willingly enter into the joys and pains of life with others.  That’s what makes a difference.  For when we are with others in their pains, we allow God to minister His grace through us.  Do you see how imparting grace this way brings healing?  This is who God is calling us to be – with one another.

Well there’s one more way that God would have us impart grace to people in our world, and that is by accepting and including those who are different than us. In other words,  Grace Lives in Harmony with One Another   Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.  There’s a whole other message wrapped up in these commands, so rather than preach that today, we will save it for another day.  The only thing I will say is this.  This is the new kind of community God wanted to create when He gave Jesus to die for the Church.

It’s a community of unity, where the haves and have-nots have everything in common in Jesus.  And it’s a community of inclusion, where everyone is welcome regardless of race, gender, or status.   For it’s a community Jesus is creating where anyone can find a place to belong.  For what Jesus is creating is His family, and He wants to fill it with people who are ready to give others grace, just like He gave you.

This is what God is calling us to be: dispensers of grace in a graceless world.  People who bless those who don’t deserve it; people who celebrate life with others; people who are committed to mourning with one another; people who are always including others.  This is who Jesus is forming us to be:  a gracious church.  We can’t do this alone.  God calls us to do this together as His people – so that we will be the Church.