SCANDALOUS GRACE

I’ve noticed that people who don’t understand what or who grace is, either misuse it or they attack it.  Grace for me was a revelation of absolute acceptance by God.  It was the revelation that I’m completely forgiven and that I’m righteous now and always.  That my righteousness is His, it is based on the finished work of Jesus on the cross and not my performance.  Growing up in church, I knew that I was saved by grace, but it was more theological than experiential.  I enjoy Jesus and my salvation more now.  Before, not only was I trying to obey and keep the law, but the religious rules also, things like praying and reading the Bible was a way of earning points with God, to be pleasing to God, accepted by God, a way to make myself worthy to be a fit vessel to God.  Some say they believe in the grace of God, but they don’t seem to be all that excited about it.  They sing amazing grace, but they don’t seem to be amazed by the goodness of the grace of God.  To some Grace means we’re free “to”, but for me grace is more I’m free “from”, free from the law, free from performance, free from my own labor.  I can now rest in the finished work of Jesus.

Since I’ve been preaching the revelation of grace, I’ve seen our church come alive to the goodness of God and what Jesus accomplished on the cross.  It has changed our view of God and our love for Jesus.  It makes us more accepting of others, more forgiving, and more peaceful.  When I preach the grace of God, I’m announcing “good news” that you’re forgiven, you’re loved, be reconciled to God because He’s already reconciled the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them (2 Corinthians 5:19).  Reconciliation means brought into harmony.  All you have to do to enjoy this harmony with God is receive it by believing it.  Grace stopped me from “navel gazing”, from always taking my own temperature to see if I was “right” with God.  Now I know I’m right with God through Jesus Christ.

I hear so many terms about grace, i.e., amazing grace, lavish grace, abundant grace, forbidden grace, and hyper-grace.  Hypergrace is the popular term used to speak negatively about grace.  Hypergrace means grace carried too far.  (see previous blog: https://dellyoung.net/2017/02/25/bible-grace-is-hyper-grace/.  But there is one term for grace that stands out above all rest and that is scandalous grace.  First, let’s define the word scandalous.  Scandalous means shocking or improper, general public outrage by a perceived offense against morality or law.  Why is grace scandalous?   Because it’s hard to accept, hard to believe and hard to receive.  WHY?  Because grace shocks us in what it offers us.  Scandalous grace frightens us with what it does especially for sinners. There is no greater scriptural demonstration of this scandalous grace than in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15.  We just can’t understand how a prodigal son can return home after blowing all his inheritance on wine, women and song and receive grace.  It’s looks to us like he’s being rewarded for his bad behavior.  He is not punished or rebuked by his father.  In fact, just the opposite, he is given the best clothes, a ring, shoes and thrown a party.  Now that’s “scandalous”!

Who was it that became angry in this story?  It was not the father who became angry.  You can’t see even a hint of anger in the father toward his son.  It was the “good “son who was angry, the son who stayed home and served dad.  People forget that this parable begins because of a debate.  The Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).  They were saying, Look, He is soft on sin, He’s hanging out with sinners!  The Pharisees didn’t understand that the parable about the prodigal son was really about them.  They were the “good son”, the one that thought they earned and deserved the blessings of God by their works.  In fact, it is the “good brothers” goodness that is a bigger barrier to God than the prodigal’s “badness”.  Our goodness blinds us to our true condition and our desperate need of grace.  At least people who are living a “prodigal” life know they need grace.

Jesus is attacking the pervasive paradigm of that day,….that God wants good people.  Jesus is saying I don’t want good people, I don’t want republicans or democrats, I want NEW People!  The pervasive belief of Jesus’s day was that good people are saved and bad people are lost.  It is no different today, many still believe that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.  The problem with this way of thinking is that there are no good people.  Jesus said, “there is none good but God” (Mark 10:18).  Jesus told the Pharisees “that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matthew 21:31).  Ouch!  If this Gospel is rightly proclaimed, it will offend religious people.  It will repel the moralistic grid people, but it will draw the outsiders and sinners.  The people who most hate religion will flock to this scandalous grace.

Remember the rehearsed prayer that the returning prodigal was going to say to his father, “I have sinned against Heaven and you and I am no longer worthy to be called your son (Luke 15:19).  I have a question: WHEN WAS HE EVER WORTHY?  That’s the problem, we think we are worthy if we keep the rules, obey the commandments.  We were never worthy to be sons and daughters of Father God.  You enter the Kingdom by birth, not by worth.  It is God’ scandalous grace that gives us worth, value and dignity.

God’s grace is scandalous.  It’s the only kind He has.  This is no inert grace.   There is only reactive, explosive, living grace!  God’s grace is patient beyond our imaginations.  And this means that we must leave room for grace to be grace.  Yes, you can tell when a sinner has tasted grace.  There’s a humility, a quiet joy, a peace that passes all understanding.  Do we really think that the woman caught in the act of adultery who received God’s scandalous grace of no condemnation left there and jumped right back in bed to continue her adultery?  Yes, Jesus told her to go and sin no more, but He first gave her the free gift of no condemnation. (John 8: 11).  He forgave her and she never even asked for His forgiveness.  The church usually gets this backwards, they say, “go and sin no more and we want condemn you”.  It’s the gift of no condemnation that empowers us to go and sin no more.  Remember that God is not on our clock.  He does not answer to our expectations.  And what may look like a lost cause, what may look like a hardened sinner, what may look like the most wretched, abusive situation, often looks to God like the perfect opportunity for scandalous grace.

Perhaps you are that person who needs scandalous grace. Perhaps you doubt that you can be forgiven, that God can accept you because of what you have done, because of how you have failed, because of where you have been.  But you need to know that there is no other kind of grace.  In God’s economy, there is only scandalous grace; there is only grace that’s too good to be true.  It’s always a scandal that God accepts sinners.  There are no mild cases.  We were all born terminal and therefore all need His amazing grace in Jesus.  No matter what you have done, no matter what has been done to you, there is grace for you.  God’s scandalous grace.