Sound of Grace [page 5]

The Sound Of Grace ...Continued from page 4
We all like the rescue of grace, but how do we do in the school of grace? Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. . . . Costly grace calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
What else does grace teach us? “To live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” In his book Paul and the Law, Frank Thielman writes, “Paul can even say that a primary result of salvation is that people might ‘live sober, righteous and pious lives in this present time.’”
A lot of us long for the “good ol’ days.” I too would have loved to live in Mayberry. To get a haircut at Floyd’s barbershop, to eat one of Aunt Bee’s dinners, to spend some time with Andy the sheriff and his sidekick Barney Fife, and to slap Otis around and tell him to get a life and quit getting drunk. But we are not asked to live yesterday, we are asked to live godly lives TODAY, and not in Mayberry, but in our towns and villages.
And we are not just to live holy lives in an unholy world, but we are to “wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” Our waiting is not to be a passive one, but an active one, a time when we do good to those around us and in this way they will be able to experience the love of God and his wonderful grace. Verse 15 says that we are to be “eager to do what is good.” I like the NASB here, which says that grace teaches us to be zealous for good deeds. The apostle Paul believes that this is so important that three times in his letter he mentions the fact that Christians need to be eager to do good works. Our wait for Christ’s second coming cannot be a passive one, but needs to be an active one. We have to get rid of the “What’s in it for me” mentality and ask ourselves, “What can I do to help the ones who are less fortunate than me.”

In Matthew 25 Jesus said: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.