Grace is greater Ch.1.

 Ch.1. More Forgiving Than Your Guilt

                           The Ugly Truth

 Our ability to appreciate grace is in direct corelation to the degree to which we acknowledge our need for it. The more I recognize the ugliness of my sin, the more I can appreciate the beauty of God’s grace. The Bible holds up a mirror and confronts us with the reality of our sin.

   Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (Rom. 3:23 NLT)

 So who does “everyone” include ? Well, everyone includes you and everyone includes me. We have all sinned. For a long time I would read verses like that and think to myself, Well, yeah. I mean, technically, I’ve sinned. But I haven’t sin sinned. Here’s the way it usually gets worded to me: “I’m not that bad.”

 Imagine such a situation that a wife calls herself “follower of Jesus” and her husband does not seem to be a true Christian. One day a pastor and the couple sat in a small room and the pastor began to tell the husband the Good News of the gospel. He began with Rom.3:23 and made the point that everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. Immediately the husband became defensive and said, “I’m not that bad. Most people would consider me a good man.” He thought it unfair to be called a sinner and be judged by “God’s standard.”  He said, “How fair is it to set a standard that no one can meet and then say everyone is a sinner? It’s like setting up a target that’s out of range and then blaming the shooter for not being able to hit it.”

 The pastor wanted to begin with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and talk about how sin entered the world. He thought the husband would have been impressed with some of the terms he was going to use explain how we have rebelled against God. But before he had a chance to talk about imputation or ancestral sin, the wife interrupted the pastor and asked if she could say something.

 She turned toward her husband and said, “Do you think it’s OK to get drunk and yell at your spouse? Do you think it’s OK to lie about your sales numbers? Do you think it’s OK to tell your grandson you’ll be at game and then not show up?” And she asked three or four more questions that were clearly indicting. His answers to these questions were obvious. Then she said, “You say it’s not fair to be held to God’s standard, but you fall short of your own standards.”

 We may get defensive when a preacher calls us a sinner – but forget about God’s standard, we can’t even meet our own standard.

 We work hard at convincing ourselves and others we’re not that bad, but the truth is we are worse than we ever imagined. The more you push back on that, the more you push back on experiencing God’s grace. If we miss the reality and the depth of our sin, we miss out on the grace of God.

 As long as we think I’m not that bad, grace will never seem that good. We usually come to the conclusion that we are not that bad a couple of different ways.

   1. We compare ourselves to others.
   It’s not that we claim to be perfect, but when we compare ourselves with others, what we have done doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal. And of course, when we are judging ourselves we usually give ourselves a big break. Compared to what a lot of people are doing, our sins amount to little more than jaywalking or loitering.
                 
 We dismiss our sin and our need for grace by comparing ourselves to others, but do you know what you’re doing when you compare yourself to other people and feel superior to them? Yep, you’re sinning. And it’s likely that from where God sits, your pride and self-righteousness are uglier than the sins of the person you just compared yourself to.

   2. We weigh the bad against the good.
    Last year I read a New York Times interview with New York City’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg. At the time he was seventy-two years old.  He was being interviewed just before his fiftieth college reunion. Bloomberg talked about how sobering it was to realize how many of his classmates had passed away, But the journalist, Jeremy Peters, observed that Bloomberg didn’t seem too worried about what waited for him on the other side. Peters wrote:

   But if [Bloomberg] senses that he may not have as much time left as he would like, he has little doubt about what       would await him at a Judgment Day. Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, he said with a      grin: “I‘m telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven  I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in.  I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

 From his perspective grace isn’t needed or wanted. He puts the good he has done on one side of the scale and decides he’s not going to need any help.

 Our default is to cover up our sin or at the very least minimize it. But in covering up our sin we are covering up grace. In minimizing sin we are diminishing the joy that comes with forgiveness. Jesus didn’t try to make people feel better about themselves by diminishing the seriousness of their sin and falsely reassuring them that they were not that bad. Jesus explained that the one who is forgiven much loves much (see Luke 7:47). He paralleled out love for God with the degree of forgiveness we have received.

                      The Biggest Sinner I Know

 A pastor named Jean Larroux said: “If the biggest sinner you know isn’t you, then you don’t know yourself very well.”

 My immediate and instinctual response to that saying was, Well, look, I’m a sinner. In fact, I’m a big sinner. But I’m not the biggest sinner I know. But the more I think about the saying, and the more I’m honest with myself and my motives, the more difficulty I have denying it.
 There was something about that saying that seemed familiar to me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I was rereading the familiar passage of Scripture where Paul identifies himself to Timothy as the chief of sinners:

  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:      Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I    am the worst. (1 Tim.1:15)

 I remembered writing a paper about this passage when I (the author of this book, Idleman) was in the seminary. My paper focused on Paul’s past before he became a Christian. I made the case that Paul describes himself as the worst of sinners because he had been a persecutor of Christians and did everything he could to destroy the church and the cause of Christ. When my professor returned the paper to me, there was no grade at the top of the page. Instead, in red ink, he had written “Rewrite.”

 I wasn’t sure what the problem was. He hadn’t made any notes in the margin to help me understand why I needed to start over on the entire paper. After class I went up to his desk, hoping to get a little feedback. Then he took out his red pen and he circled one word from 1 Tim. 1:15.

  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:      Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. 

 I waited for a moment, expecting him to expound, but he had already moved on to the next student. I stood there staring at that one word am. Suddenly I realized what I had missed. The verb am is present tense. And that changed everything. Paul didn’t say, “I was the worst of sinners.” He said, “I am the worst of sinners.”

 If you were to hook me up to a lie detector test and ask me, “Do you think you’re the worst sinner?” I would probably say yes because I’m so sinful that I’ll try to make myself seem more spiritual by sounding as humble as possible. But I’m fairly certain the polygraph machine would reveal the truth. If I’m honest, deep down, probably not even that deep, I don’t consider myself the worst of sinners. But I can tell you, the more I learn about the righteousness of God and the more I examine my own life and motives – the closer I’m getting to the inescapable conclusion that I am the worst sinner I know.
                        The Sickness of Sin

 Rom. 3:23 says that everyone has sinned. Rom. 6:23 says the penalty for our sin is death. We can minimize what we have done, but the Bible says we have been declared guilty and sentenced to death.

 As I am writing this chapter, I have been quarantined to the guest room. I have supposedly been sick for the last few days, and I’m supposed to be resting and getting better.  On the nightstand next to me is some medicine my wife brought in to me a few hours ago. But she knows I won’t take it. See, despite evidence to the contrary, I’m not convinced I’m actually sick. My wife would tell you I have a problem admitting when I’m not feeling well. For as long as possible I will refuse to concede that I’m sick . . .  Hold on a sec, she’s coming in to check on me.

 OK, I’m back.

 Here’s what just happened. She came in and told me to take the medicine she had brought earlier. I asked her, “Why would I take medicine if I’m not sick?” She walked over and put her hand on my forehead and said, “You feel a little warm to me. I think you have a fever.” I felt my own forehead and assured her I was fine. She suggested I let her take my temperature. So I cracked a joke about how it wouldn’t be accurate, because when she walks in the room my temperature goes up several degrees. She rolled her eyes, and as she left the room she said, “Well, just remember I’m not going to be kissing you until you get better.”

 I took the medicine. I refuse to acknowledge I’m sick, because if I’m sick, I have to take medicine and lie in bed, and I don’t like taking medicine and staying in bed. And so my strategy is to deny the reality of my condition as long as possible. But it turns out pretending I’m not sick is not a very effective way to get better. The sooner I admit my illness, the sooner I will take medicine and start feeling better. The sooner I start feeling better, the sooner I will be kissing my wife. But the longer I refuse to acknowledge my sickness and the longer I refuse to take the medicine, the longer I put off feeling better.

 Around 1,600 years ago, Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.”2 Until we come face-to-face with our terminal diagnosis, we will refuse the cure.
                             footnote
   2 Saint Augustine, Confessions, vol.5 (UK:Penguin, 2003), 103.

 The Bible gives us our diagnosis – we all have a sickness called sin. It’s a virus that has infected the whole world. Romans 5:12 explains it this way:
   When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin  brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone      sinned. (NLT)

 We’ve all been diagnosed with sin and our conditions is terminal – the wages of sin is death. But then Paul introduces us to an antidote called grace.

   For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of       forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from     the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God . . . For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
    Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but    Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. (vv.15-18 NLT)

 Paul sets up an equation. On one side of the equation is your sin, and your sin is worse than you can imagine. You can minimize it, rationalize it, and try to dismiss it, but you are terminally ill. On the other side of the equation is God’s grace. When Jesus died on the cross his blood wasn’t infected by sin, and he became the antidote that cures us. After putting your sin on one side and God’s grace on the other, Paul solves the equation.

   Even greater is God’s wonderful grace. (v.15 NLT)

 I can tell you confidently that you’ve done nothing so horrible that grace can’t cover it. Grace is always greater – no matter what.

                         Making It Personal


One weekend in church I gave everyone a piece of paper with this equation:

                 Grace >  _______________

 And I asked them to fill in the blank with their own worst sin.
I’d like to ask you to take a turn at this. The only way for grace to be experienced is for you to personalize your need for it. Take a minute and fill in the blank of the equation below, and after you fill in the blank go ahead and solve the equation by circling either the “greater than” or “less than” sign.

                 Grace > / <  _____________

 Paul’s explanation in Romans 5 about the greatness of God’s grace is really helpful. But an explanation of grace without experiencing grace is like being terminally ill and a doctor gives you lifesaving medicine but you refuse to take it.

The greatness of God’s grace means I don’t have to keep trying to convince myself I am “not that bad.”

The truth is I am worse than I ever wanted to admit, but God’s grace is greater than I ever could have imagined.

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             I am worse > I ever wanted to admit
             God’s grace > I ever could have imagined  
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