Something More Amazing Than Grace
Romans 5:20 and Selected Texts
Did you know that there was something that the Apostle Paul found almost as amazing as God’s amazing grace? Its found in the first chapter of the Book of Galatians. And as you are turning let me remind you that one of Paul’s harshest criticisms and sternest warnings was aimed at believers who were starting to give in to certain religious teachers in Galatia who were advocating the heresy that the grace of God which saved them and kept them saved was not free. These false religious teachers were teaching that whereas salvation from one’s sins by the grace of God was true—it was not a salvation from one’s sins by grace alone. Rather, this saving grace needed to be accompanied by the Jewish rite of circumcision and the keeping of certain aspects of the Mosaic law if it was to save anyone at all.
Thus, Paul writes to the believers in Galatia this rebuke found in your Bibles in Galatians 1:6-10. And note that what Paul found so amazing in this passage is that believers were giving up the Gospel of Grace for a false gospel of works. Notice as well how Paul describes these believers who are moving toward this false religious system of trying to maintain their acceptability to and with God by their good works—He describes them as those who are “so quickly deserting Him [God] Who called you by the grace of Christ . . .” He calls them “deserters”.
And look at what he calls this “different gospel” they have deserted God for—he basically says it isn’t even another gospel because there is only one gospel. Rather—what this is—is a perversion and a distortion of the Gospel, which amounts to nothing less than heresy. And note as well what Paul says about the false teacher who teaches and propagates a false heretical gospel of works righteousness. Look at verses 8-9. He writes: “He is to be accursed.” And not just once but twice! Now “accursed” comes from the Greek word, anathema. It means to be estranged and separated from Christ and His salvation so as to be in a state of condemnation”.
And what is important to keep in mind here in this situation in Galatia is that these teachers were not teaching a works righteousness so as to get saved but rather to stay saved. You see, they were teaching this heresy to believers and followers of Christ and what they were teaching them was that if they really wanted to be perfected in their faith and be found acceptable to God—they needed to do something—and that something was to obey the Law of Moses. Now look at Paul’s response to this in Galatians 2:16. He writes that no one is going to be saved by keeping the Law of Moses, which if you remember was given to Moses by God so that it is really the Law of God. Now if no one can be saved or kept saved by keeping God’s Law—why in the world would anyone in their right mind think they can be saved or kept saved by keeping their church’s list of traditional do’s and don’ts or their pastor’s list of rules or their own man-made regulations such as Paul talks about in Colossians 2:20-23.
You know, I have never found man-made rules to have ever helped me in my battle with sin—never. In fact, the only thing I have ever found trying to live your Christian life by legalism to do for you is to either turn you into a control freak or a controlled victim. On the one-hand, legalism can turn you into a controlling, critical, judgmental, joyless, and fearful hypocrite who is deathly afraid of seeing others find true freedom and joy in Christ because once they do you will lose your control over them. This is the problem most legalistic pastors have. Or, if you are the victim of Legalism it will turn you into a controlled, fearful, criticized, judged, lying, and joyless Christian who is afraid of your own shadow every time you walk into a legalistic church or among other legalistic people because you know your spirituality is being measured by your performance.
Look over at Galatians 3:3. Listen, to come to Christ for salvation by grace alone only to then think that you are perfected or matured in your Faith by the works of your flesh is—according to Paul—foolish. So, yes…..there is something that is at least as amazing as grace and it is that believers would be so foolish so as to desert it for legalism and trying to maintain their acceptance with God through their works.
Now, why would a true believer even be tempted, after having been saved by grace alone, to think that he is kept saved by his works—or at least to think that his acceptance with God is based upon his or her works? Obviously, we see in Galatians, that one reason is false heretical teaching. Which is why we need to be very careful about the teaching we hear. Hey, if you are listening to a preacher who tells you that your acceptance with God before salvation is based upon grace alone but that after salvation it is based upon your performance in obeying and serving God—then you are listening to a false teacher at worst or—At best—a confused teacher teaching false doctrine. In either case—quit listening to him!
But, there is another reason why believers would be tempted to leave grace for works and it is found in Galatians as well. Look at Galatians 6:12-14. Pride is the other reason why a believer could be tempted to move from the true gospel of grace to the false gospel of works. You see, in the Gospel of Grace—there is only One Who gets the credit and thus, the Glory and that One is God. In a false gospel of works—man gets at least some of the credit and thus, some of the glory. You see, if you want to boast about your spirituality and performance in keeping God’s standards—then the gospel of works might be for you. However, if your boast is only in Christ and His righteousness imputed to your account—then the Gospel of Grace is where you need to stay. And lest you think that this temptation of pride causing you to desert the true Gospel of Grace to embrace a false gospel of works, even if for just a moment—cannot attach itself to you—stay with me.
Pride is a multi-faceted equal opportunity grace-perverter and ultimately a grace-killer. Whereas, most believers, have no problem seeing the problem with the overt kind of pride which thinks God is so impressed with our goodness that He just can’t help Himself in accepting us—We often do struggle with the “covert” kind of pride, which causes us to feel unworthy of God’s grace apart from doing something to earn it or at least make us feel better in receiving it.
You see, covert pride causes me to feel the need to repay grace as well as to feel so ashamed of my need for it that I struggle to freely receive it as it is freely being offered to me. Whereas again I doubt any one of us here would ever even think to tell God about how good he is and how lucky God is to have such a person on His side. We often go to the other side of the spectrum and try and hide our unworthiness and our sinfulness from God so as not to lose His acceptance. In other words, we think that if God really knew how we felt or lived or reacted or acted that we would lose His acceptance in a heartbeat so let’s try and hide it from Him. Or, because you are a much more Bible-savvy believer and realize that there is nothing you can hide from God because God knows everything including how bad you have behaved—instead of trying to hide your sins from God—you just refuse to bring them to Him for forgiveness until you have bettered or reformed yourself—In other words, you put yourself on spiritual probation and determine that until you have conquered your sin—you won’t bother God for His forgiveness again.
Well this too is “covert pride” in action and this is where I think most believers are camped—thinking that God’s continued acceptance of them is based upon their successfully reforming themselves into better and more holy Christians. But because we can’t make ourselves better and thus more acceptable to God—we finally, out of frustration at not being able (in our minds) to please God—just give up and end up living our lives going through the motions of Christianity with no vitality or joy. And a big part of our problem is that when we sin against God our feelings of unworthiness and guilt often lead us to believe that rather than approach God’s throne of grace with boldness to seek His grace and mercy—we should just “go away” and “disappear” so as not to be any more trouble and further embarrassment to the Lord and His people. So, instead of exposing our sin to God and boldly running to Him for grace, mercy and help in our time of deepest need—we run from Him—not wishing for Him to have to see and deal with the mess we have made of our lives, our marriages, our families, our jobs, our reputations, etc. This “covert pride” at its worst.
Turn with me to John 13, where I want to show you how Jesus dealt with this kind of covert pride in Peter who fell into this trap of feeling unworthy to receive God’s acceptance and grace on the very night in which Jesus was betrayed. You all know the story of Jesus’ Last Supper and how before serving it, He washed His disciples feet. There is so much truth we could pull out of this story but what I want you to see is found in verses 5-8.
Peter was used to Jesus doing and saying things that did not fit the religious norm of the day but now the Lord was about to go too far. You see, He was the last person in that room who should be washing feet. First of all, just as in Muslim culture today, a person’s feet were the most dishonorable part of his body. Not only were they dirty, smelly, calloused, and often cut and cached with dried blood—they were the part of the body that was most likely to come in contact with things the Law declared to be unclean. According to Jewish historians, outside of one’s immediate family, feet were to be washed by servants and ideally non-Jewish servants so as not to defile them. Furthermore, one’s feet were never to be pointed toward a person of honor and the soles of one’s feet were never supposed to be made visible to a person you respected. But, here is the Messiah, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the very Son of God Himself—the most honored person to ever walk the earth—stripped like a slave and intentionally defiling Himself with the unclean feet of his disciples.
Then in verse 6, when Jesus gets to Peter—Peter says: “Lord, do you wash my feet?” As he says this, can't you just imagine Peter pulling his feet away from Jesus and trying to tuck them under his body so Jesus cannot see them and touch them. Now what Peter literally said which is recorded for us in Greek is “Lord, You, My feet, You are going to wash?” In other words, he can’t believe that Jesus is really going to go through with this act of defiling Himself by touching and cleaning his feet.
In verse 7, Jesus tells Peter that he is not comprehending what Jesus is doing now but he will later. In other words, this act is not just about cleaning dirty feet. It has a greater spiritual significance than that which Peter has yet to see. This obviously didn’t satisfy Peter because in verse 8, he declares to Jesus and let me quote this from the Greek text so you get the flavor—“You, shall by no means wash my feet—no, never!”
Now understand why Peter is saying this. It is because his feet are unclean, ugly, smelly, and terribly unworthy to be touched by God the Son. In other words, “covert pride” caused Peter to feel that the best course of action was to hide that which embarrassed him the most—his dishonorable, unclean, and terribly dirty and defiled feet—rather than to simply expose them to God so as to let Him wash them clean. Peter’s sense of unworthiness and quite frankly, his embarrassment over his filthy dirty smelly feet caused him to pull away from the Lord just as we often do when we feel unworthy and ashamed because of our sin.
Now note Jesus’ response at the end of verse 8: “If I do not wash you—you have no part with me.” Now-don’t miss what Jesus said or you miss His point in washing the disciples and especially Peter’s feet. Up until the last part of verse 8 the issue has been Jesus washing Peter’s feet but when Peter so emphatically refuses to let Jesus wash his feet—Jesus turns the focus off of his feet to him when He says: “If I do not wash you—you have no part with me.” You see, Peter’s defiled, dirty, smelly, unclean, shameful, and unworthy feet were simply a picture of Peter’s life.
Jesus was using Peter’s feet as an illustration of the fact that unless he was willing to let Jesus bear all of his unworthiness, uncleaness, shame, and sin—Peter could not be made acceptable to God the Father. And the same is true of us—We weren’t able to make ourselves acceptable to God before we were saved and we aren’t able to keep ourselves acceptable to Him now that we are saved.
Our acceptability to God so that He looks upon us who know Jesus right now as being His beloved children is not and has never been based upon how well we have performed spiritually. Our acceptance with God has always been and will always be based upon Jesus’ life and death on our behalf. There is never a time in your Christian life when God either accepts you more or less based upon how well you are living your life. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior—you are completely and perfectly accepted by God and acceptable to God because your life is hidden with Christ in God. Listen, according to Galatians 2:20 if you are a believer, your life before salvation no longer exists and your life after salvation is so identified with Christ that God the Father only sees Christ in you and thus you are perfectly acceptable to Him.
Thus, it is not us picking up our own stinky, dirty feet and cleaning them ourselves or trying to cover their filthy odor with the deodorant of our good works that make us acceptable to God and keep us acceptable to God. Our acceptance with God and our acceptability to God is all of grace and has nothing to do with our works—good or bad.
Thus, to begin to think that after salvation—it is your responsibility to keep yourself clean and thereby acceptable to God so as to stay saved is to fall away from the Gospel of grace and into the false and heretical gospel of works.
Listen, we are either “accepted in Christ Jesus” or we are not accepted at all for there is no other Name on earth whereby a person can be made acceptable to God.
And knowing all this—what amazes me is how easily it is for us as believers who have been saved by God’s amazing grace to fall away from it into thinking we must keep ourselves accepted and acceptable to God by our works. Oh how foolish we can be.
You know, there are some of you here today who do not know for certain that your sins have been forgiven because you like Peter are unwilling to come to Christ and let Him take your sin and shame away from you. You are afraid that if you expose yourself—who you really are to God that He will reject you and turn you away. Nothing could be further from the truth and Jesus says to you the same thing that He said to Peter—“If I do not wash you, you have no part with me!” Won’t you come to Christ today and trust Him and His finished work at Calvary to wash you clean and to save you from your sins?
And there are others here this morning—who having come to Christ for salvation and to made perfectly acceptable to God—have over the years fallen into the trap of thinking that your acceptance with God has been based upon you and how well you have lived for Him. And because you know in your heart of hearts that you haven’t lived so well as a Christian—you are afraid that perhaps God has no pleasure in you any longer. Quite possibly, you are finding yourself afraid of God--thinking that He is mad at you.
As I have said two other times in this message—nothing could be further from the truth. For you see, when Jesus died on the cross for you—He took all of your sin and all of your guilt and all of your shame and He bore it before the Father at Calvary and paid the price of God’s rejection for your sin so that you would be forever accepted by God in Him. So that, all that is due the believer and all that the believer can expect from God either on this earth or in glory is grace, mercy, and joy! Amen.
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