The Barriers to Genuine Thankfulness
By this time either your turkey is gone or else you are
destined to eat turkey for another two weeks in various forms such as turkey
sandwiches, turkey over toast, turkey noodle soup and the perennial
favorite—turkey surprise. I trust that you have also been literally counting
your blessings and practicing attitudes of thankfulness this past week. We can
never express sufficient thanks to God, and one reason why this is true is
because there is a barrier to genuine thankfulness. This barrier is the same
barrier that prevents us from practicing the principles underlying the
relational triad.
Last
time we left off in the middle of Matthew 18. I introduced this relational
triad, which is a summary of several texts related to church discipline. I
warned you about the dangers of gossip and the need for addressing our brothers
and sisters in Christ directly in order to bring about full reconciliation. If
we could walk in obedience to these basic Biblical, we would receive many
wonderful benefits. First, we would avoid the need to take more serious steps of
church discipline such as excommunication. Second, we would develop a much more
loving community and our faith would be authentic and real. Third, this love for
one another, as Jesus promised in John 17, would demonstrate to the watching
world that that Jesus is the Savior of the world. In other words, Biblical
church discipline is a driving force behind our discipleship and evangelism. I
can show you in Scripture why we should obey these great principles because I
know they will honor God and benefit our church, but I cannot pretend that this
is easy to do. It’s one thing to quote Matthew 18:5, “If your brother sins
against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you,” but
how can we force ourselves to do this? These three types of loving confrontation
are largely foreign to us—they go against all of our Christian and human
experience.
It is like there is a wall in front
of us that separates us from this Christian love and reconciliation. This wall
is so large that we cannot scale it, and even if we could reach the top, we
can’t get across because the top is rimmed with razor wire. We stand on one side
of the wall and Christian love and unity stand on the other side. I want to
scale this wall, but I can’t. I want to do the right thing, but I can’t. What is
this impenetrable wall? I think you have heard of it before. It is called S-I-N.
The word of God drives us toward unity but our sin repels us from it. Think
about the three directions in the relational triad. Every direction involves an
honest appraisal of our own sin. If we are sinned against, as in Matthew 18,
before we go to our brother we need to first pull the log out from our own eye.
If our brother is caught in a sin, as in Galatians six, before we attempt to
help them escape their trap, we must first make sure that we will not fall into
the same trap. If a brother has something against us, like in Matthew 5, before
we can be reconciled we need to examine ourselves to see if we indeed sin
against them. The whole process is dependent upon a ruthless, continual
confrontation of our own sin. And we don’t like this. We don’t like to confront
our sin, and if we can’t confront our sin we will never repent, and if we can’t
repent we will never achieve the unity that Christ prayed for. The reason we
don’t like to confront our sin is because we don’t understand the gospel of
grace. You might be thinking, “What do you mean I don’t understand grace—I was
saved by grace, wasn’t I?” Well hopefully you have been saved by grace, but
most of us still don’t understand it.
When we don’t understand Biblical
grace, one of two deadly errors occurs: either we ignore our sin or we allow our
sin to destroy us. Liberal churches and liberal-leaning evangelical churches
ignore sin. They promote health, happiness, and sometimes hedonism, but don’t
want to introduce negativity by mentioning sin. This is not Biblical grace, it
is cheap grace. Conversely, those who are destroyed by their sin are the people
who admit their sin but don’t understand how to rid themselves of their burden
of sin. They are constantly falling short of God’s holy standards and they are
absolutely miserable. They condemn sin in others because they can’t face the
weight of their own sin. This is not Biblical grace, it is costly grace. By the
way, if we fall into one of these twin errors, it will affect every area of our
lives. Take parenting for example. Those who practice cheap grace will be
permissive parents who overlook the sinful natures of their children and refuse
to discipline them. Those who practice costly grace will be authoritarian
parents who overemphasize the sinful natures of their children and respond to
them in anger. You see, we can trace our parenting styles and our entire outlook
on life to our understanding of grace. What about you—is your tendency to fall
into cheap grace or costly grace? Do you carelessly overlook sin or do you
caustically hammer sin?
I want to paint a Biblical solution
to these two common errors by explaining the gospel of grace. To understand the
gospel, first we need to see and respond to the perfect holiness of God. Most of
us know intellectually that God is a holy God, but how do you respond to such a
holy God? The answer is that you respond to a holy God in fear. What did Adam
and Eve do when they heard God walking in the garden? They hid because they were
filled with fear. This is the aspect of God that is most absent among Christians
today—the fear of the Lord. In the past I would read Proverbs where it says,
“The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom” and my pastors and Bible
teachers would tell me that this fear did not really mean a true fear, but more
of a reverent fear. In other words, I was told we should be in awe of God but we
should not fear God, because God is a God of love. There is no doubt that
reverence is part of the fear of the Lord, but we have downplayed the meaning of
fear in the word “fear” to such a degree that it no longer means fear!
In order to understand the gospel,
we need to put the fear back into the fear of the Lord. As we have already seen,
Adam and Eve clearly had a fear of God. For another example, take Moses. Do you
remember how God appeared to Moses and the Israelites on Mt. Sinai? God came to
them on the top of the mountain in billows of smoke, thunder, lightening and
blasts on the trumpet. It was the most terrifying sight the Israelites had ever
seen. They were so afraid that they begged Moses to speak to God for them,
because they knew God would vanquish them in an instant. Lest you think that
only the people were afraid and Moses was not, the book of Hebrews (12:21) says
that Moses was “trembling with fear” on the mountain. Do you see that this was
more than a simple reverence? Reverence is when you approach the Lord with a
quiet and humble spirit, but this is a fearful reverence. Call it reverence if
you want, but make sure you understand that it is a “tremble-with-fear” kind of
reverence.
The fear of the Lord continues
throughout Scripture. We get to Isaiah and read his encounter with the Almighty.
Like on Mt. Sinai, there was shaking and smoke. Upon seeing this fantastic
sight, Isaiah cried out, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean
lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King,
the Almighty!” (Isa 6:5) We go through life thinking that were doing pretty
good until we encounter the blazing holiness of the enthroned Majesty. In our
churches we talk a lot about the gospel message, but there is no gospel without
a powerful fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord screams at us until we say,
“Lord, you are God and I am not! I am ruined. I am undone. I am about to be
consumed by your brilliant holiness!” And were it not for the kindness and mercy
of God, this is precisely what would happen. Unless God staid his hand, Adam and
Eve would have been dashed down by the flaming sword of the guardian angel. If
God was not holding back his wrath, not a single Israelite man, woman or child
would have escaped. Indeed, Moses had to intercede on behalf of the people over
and over again lest God completely destroy them. One of those times Moses said,
“I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry enough with you to
destroy you” (Dt 9:19). This is the holy fear of the Lord.
I could give dozens of other
examples form the Old Testament, but don’t think the fear of the Lord is limited
to the Old Covenant. Jesus declared the fear of the Lord in the gravest of
terms. He said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that
can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after
killing the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (Lk
12:4-5). Now you tell me—is that a quiet reverence or is it a holy fear? As
Jesus hung dying on the cross, Luke tells us that “one of the criminals who
hung there hurled insults at him: “’Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and
us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God since you
are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our
deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong’” (Lk 23:39-41) Here was
this common criminal who was justly executed for his crimes in the most painful
and humiliating manner, but at that very moment, he was able to recognize his
own sin as he hung next to the sinless Messiah. The fear of God that fell upon
this criminal was much more than a quiet reverence—he had a holy fear of a
righteous God.
This fear of God was lost during the
early expansion of the church, that is until Acts chapter five, where Ananias
and Sapphira fell dead on the spot for lying to the Lord. That was a clear
warning not to trifle with this holy God. Again and again throughout Scripture
we see that a holy righteous God cannot stand in the presence of sinful human
beings. What would happen if I tried to approach God in my flesh? What would
happen if I could somehow gain admittance into the throne room of God? Long
before I could ever get near him, long before I could ever get close enough to
be incinerated by the blazing fires of his brilliant holiness, one of his
legions of angels would rush from the numberless ranks and run me through with
the point of his sword. We have lost this fear of God, have we not? We barely
have a quiet reverence of God in our churches, let alone a trembling fear of
God.
We must recapture a Biblical
understanding of the fear of God that not only wipes out sin but can also wipe
out sinners. The best way to picture the wrath and fear of God is to gaze at the
bloody body of his son on the cross. Do you know what I see when I gaze at the
cross? When I gaze at the cross I have a firm conviction that my sin is terribly
hideous, because if my sin were not so bad, then the cross would not have been
necessary. When I gaze at the cross I know for sure that Hell is a real place
and that every single person who ever lived or ever will live deserves nothing
more than the eternal flames of Hell, because if Hell were not real, then the
cross would not have been needed. When I gaze at the cross I see his unblemished
holiness. I see his matchless splendor. I see his flawless purity, because if
God were not all of these things in utter perfection, then the cross of Christ
would not have been necessary.
But the cross was necessary. The
full wrath and anger of God that was held back for thousands of years, was
finally poured out at the cross. The wrath of God was pounded into Jesus with
every scourge of the whip. The wrath of God was flooded upon Jesus with every
curse word that was hurled at him. The wrath of God rained down upon the
spotless Lamb of God like a storm, drenching him with blood, drying his mouth,
deflating his lungs and draining his spirit until finally he was expelled from
the very presence of his Father, the glorious companionship that the Father and
Son had enjoyed for all eternity, echoed with his dying breath: “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” That was my sin that held him to the cross.
So how should we respond to this
cross? The cross is not meant to be gazed upon or studied with a scholarly
indifference. The cross requires a response from each person. If you do not know
the forgiveness of Christ purchased for you at the cross, then there is one
necessary response needed for you: turn from your sin and throw yourself at the
mercy of God. Because of the cross, the mercy of God is free, but it is not
cheap—it cost Christ all he had.
If Christ is already your Lord and
Savior, then what we need is an ongoing repentance for sin. We have complete
access to God, as it says in Hebrews four. “Let us then approach the throne
of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us
in our time of need.” Can you see—the same throne of God that would
instantly destroy me if I approached on my own merit, is open and approachable.
No angel will stop me from passing or cut me down with his sword. No flames will
flare out from his throne and consume me. This is the gospel of grace. This is
the grace that we need and the throne of grace that we can approach. And not
only can we approach this throne, we can approach it with confidence—something
that was utterly unimaginable without the cross. We approach this throne with
confidence because the blood of Christ purchased our sins. If we have this grace
we are covered, if we don’t, we are consumed. This is the gospel of grace, but
it is not a cheap grace. When we approach God callously or have a casual view of
our sin, we cheapen the grace of God. It is free grace, but it is not cheap
grace. Do you see the difference? We cannot approach this throne of grace with
the attitude that says, “Hey, how ya doin’ Jesus? Nice day we’re having, dontcha
think? Oh, by the way, thanks for the grace.” That is cheap grace which demeans
the cross and eliminates its necessity. Then there are those who mistakenly hold
to a costly grace. They are burdened by their sin because they know their sin is
hideous. Their sin is in fact so hideous that they don’t think they could ever
earn this gift of grace. They believe that this grace is too costly and they are
too undeserving, so it is wasted and untouched. This person carries their sin
and pain because they see no way out. In one sense this is true—this grace
carries a price of insurmountable value—that is why it is offered as free. It’s
freely offered and freely given because we could never purchase this grace. It’s
free—but it is not cheap.
This is the powerful vision of the
gospel of grace. Now we must carry this gospel of grace and apply it to our
relational triad. Why is it so hard to go and talk with the brother who has
sinned against me? Because doing so requires that I first examine myself, and I
don’t like to do this. I don’t like to look at my sin, and furthermore, what
happens if my brother repents? Then I will have to forgive him and I don’t want
to do that either! So it is much easier to keep to myself or else gossip to
others. But when I apply the gospel of grace it changes everything. The one who
has sinned against me is just another person touched by the hand of the
Redeemer. He did not deserve grace just like I did not deserve grace. Since
grace has been poured out on me then I must offer grace to him in forgiveness.
To do otherwise is to cheapen God’s grace by showing it to be powerless or else
to make the grace so costly as to be out of reach.
This relational triad is a summation
of all relational difficulties. If you have ever had a difficulty in your
marriage, your problem fits into one of these three areas. 1) your spouse has
sinned against you, 2) you have sinned against them or 3) they are caught in a
trap of sin. In reality, marital problems are usually a combination of two or
three of these. We may perceive that our spouse has sinned against us while at
the same time we are blind to our own sin. While we are trying to help others
escape the trap of their sin we come to realize we are caught in the same trap!
If the gospel applies to the relational triad, and every conceivable relational
problem fits into this triad, do you see what this means? It means that the
gospel of grace is the solution to every relational problem!! The gospel of
grace teaches us to bear the insults of others. The gospel of grace teaches us
to endure suffering of all kinds. The gospel of grace teaches us to offer
forgiveness when we don’t feel like it.
Let me give you an example from this
book called Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens.
“I remember one night walking by my daughter’s room and
hearing crying. I went in and asked her what was wrong. In her tears she said,
‘Daddy, I can’t do it, I can’t do what you are asking me. It’s just impossible!”
I asked her to explain what she meant. She said, “You tell me that I should want
to share with my brothers, but I don’t. When you tell me to give them something
of mine, I do, but I hate it and I am mad at you for asking me and mad at them
for taking it! I don’t want to share, I hate it! It’s impossible to enjoy!’ When
she said these words she burst into tears again.
In her room that night, she began to experience something
wonderful—the fact that there is no possibility of righteousness by the doing of
the law. She began to realize that in her own strength, by the exercise of her
will, she could not obey God. In her room that night, she began to cry out for
Christ. She began to see that he was her only hope. A struggle to share that
wasn’t covered over by some cosmetic human solution became the context in which
Christ the Redeemer was revealed.”
The gospel of grace truly does apply
to every relational conflict. More than that, it is the spiritual power to solve
these conflicts. I can point to the relational triad all day long and tell you
over and over that we should go directly to the brother who has sinned against
us, we should reconcile with the brother who has something against us and we
should love our brother enough to help them escape their trap of sin. I could do
a fifty week series on Biblical Church Discipline—(wouldn’t you like that!)—and
point out every last verse that relates to this topic, I could warn you not to
gossip, I could chide you to love one another and to forgive one another. I
could list every Scripture that you should obey, I could tell you why you should
obey it and then tell you what will happen if you don’t obey. But will any of
these things or even all of these things together empower you to obey? No, they
cannot do so. It is like this father experienced in telling his daughter to
obey. The command to obey is the law but we cannot fulfill the law. The law only
has the power to show us our sin, it cannot remove our sin or enable us to obey.
Only the gospel of grace can do this.
Both are necessary: the law is
needed to show us our sin and grace is needed to repent of our sin. This is the
utter beauty of the gospel—we don’t deserve anything except condemnation, but
when we throw ourselves upon the mercy of God we get grace. And when we know
that grace will be given, it gives us courage to repent. So the law reminds us
that that our holy God demands our obedience. We never want to lower this
standard of holiness, but grace reminds us that we can fall into the merciful
arms of this same holy God. What happens to us when we get mercy when we know we
deserve condemnation? It begins to make us humble, doesn’t it? If I deserve to
be thrown in jail but I am spared that consequence, it makes me more humble.
Humility in turn leads to thankfulness. With all of our talk about being
thankful at this time of the year, we forget that thankfulness is impossible
without humility. Therefore, what is the greatest barrier to thankfulness? If
the greatest pathway to thankfulness is humility, then the greatest barrier to
thankfulness must be pride. But pride can only reign in our lives when there is
no fear of the Lord.
Let me close with Proverbs 15:33.
“The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor.”
Rich Maurer
November 26, 2006