During Napoleon's invasion of Russia, his troops were battling in the middle of a small town when he was accidentally separated from his men. A group of Russian soldiers spotted him and began chasing him through the streets. Napoleon ran for his life and ducked into a little furrier's shop on a side alley. As he entered the shop, he saw the furrier and cried, "Save me, save me! Where can I hide?" So the furrier hid Napoleon under a big pile of furs in the corner. When the Russian soldiers burst in the door looking for Napoleon, they searched everywhere, even poking the pile of furs with their swords, but could not find him. Eventually they left.
Napoleon crept out from under the furs, unharmed, just as his personal guards came in the door. The furrier asked Napoleon, "What was it like to be under those furs, knowing that the next moment might be your last?" Insulted, Napoleon bellowed, "How could you ask me such a question? Guards, take this man out, blindfold him and execute him."
The guards grabbed the furrier, dragged him outside, stood him against a wall and blindfolded him. The furrier could see nothing, but he could hear the guards shuffle into line and prepare their rifles. Then he heard Napoleon clear his throat and call out, "Ready! Aim!" In that moment, a feeling he could not describe welled up within him; tears poured down his cheeks. But the blindfold was stripped from his eyes and Napoleon said, "Now you know."
I believe it is the same with grace. It will be difficult for someone to understanding grace until they experience it for themselves. And I suspect a person will have difficulty extending grace until they realize just how much grace they have been shown by God.
As we've been reading through the book of Romans, Paul has been dealing quite harshly with his readers. He has basically said, "You are all sinner; both the Jew and the Gentile. We all have no excuse. A person can't claim that they were unaware God exists. A person can't claim they are right with God because of all the religious things they have done. A person can't claim they are right with God because their great grandfather was a preacher. Everyone has sinned. Everyone has fallen short of the glory of God. Now, these are not the warmest words, nor are they very politically correct in today’s society. I’m sure it’s not the best way to get invited back to preach a second sermon. But Paul had his reasons, which we will see in a moment. Just give the man one more moment of your time because his teaching is about to turn a corner (Read Romans 5:1-11).
Chapter five of Romans doesn't impact a person until they realize that they are a sinner. Grace means nothing until a person knows they need grace; until they know they stand before God condemned. Because of our faith we are declared guilt free by God, and the penalty for our sin has been paid by another. That person is, of course, our Lord Jesus. However, as comforting as these words are, we will not know their full impact until we are willing to admit that we are sinners. This is why Paul spent three whole chapters dismantling the platform of excuses we all so eagerly build beneath us. He tears these down so that verse 8 has its desired impact. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. But we will not fully grasp the magnitude of this claim until we fully grasp the magnitude of our sin.
Without realizing that our sin causes us to stand condemned before God, we will not fully appreciate the extent of Grace. We will not know what Grace really feels like until we are willing to stand before Him expecting the full extent of His wrath. Sobbing and weeping, we have no excuse, and we know it. But rather than pronounce our sentence, God provides an opportunity for Grace. Before He shouts “fire” He offers terms of peace. God extends His arm toward those who are condemned beckoning that they be spared simply by believing Jesus paid the penalty for their sin. And if the condemned believe and accept God’s offer of peace, God chooses grace. And those who knew they were condemned are the ones who appreciate grace the most.
Consider the story of Simon and the sinner in Luke 7. In verse 47 Jesus says, “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Jesus does not mean the woman loved Him more because she had more sins to be forgiven. Jesus was pointing out the difference between the woman's attitude toward sin and Simon's attitude. Simon could have had the same great love for Jesus if only he would have climbed down off the platform of righteousness he had built for himself and admitted that he too was a sinner no different than this woman.
We can argue against grace all we want, but it still will not change the fact that God has chosen to grant grace toward anyone who places their faith in the Messiah. Yes, you heard me right. Grace is God’s choice. It is part of His plan. God intended from the very beginning to provide a way for sinful humanity to be at peace with Him. It did not involve humanity removing its sin, but God making peace with a sinful humanity. This is what Paul is trying to get his readers to understand. We don’t make peace with God, but rather, God has made peace with us. He established peace with us through the death of Jesus while we were yet sinners! And all we need to do is simply except His terms of peace. And His terms are to simply believe in faith that peace comes through Christ.
And now the questions:
One question I was asked after the June 23rd sermon had to do with living out our faith. Can a person simply have faith but never put it to work? In other words, if we do have faith in the promise of God found in Jesus, shouldn’t that faith change our lives? Does a Christian have to act like a Christian once they are a Christian? That’s a great question, which is answered in detail in Romans 6. But the short answer is yes, there should be a difference in a person’s behavior once they become a Christian, if they can. If a Christian has the time and the opportunity, there should be a noticeable difference in the way they live. We will talk about this in more detail in two weeks.
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