The pastor was welcoming a new couple to the church. As the three of them stood in front of the congregation, the pastor said, “This is a place where we talk about grace and where we try to demonstrate grace in our lives with one another.”
The first phrase was not surprising. The second was.
Every Alabama Baptist church preaches and teaches God’s grace. The most common definition of “grace” is unmerited favor. God “graced” humanity through Jesus Christ. God did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. Romans 5:15 describes Jesus as God’s gift of grace.
God’s unmerited favor is seen in the incarnation when God was “born of a woman” and lived among us. God’s unmerited favor is seen in Jesus’ steadfast faithfulness that led Him to the cross. God’s unmerited favor is seen in the mighty power of the resurrection when Jesus was raised the “firstfruits” from the dead. Yes, Baptists talk a lot about grace. The gospel of Jesus Christ is based on God’s grace. Grace is the source of our hope.
The second phrase did not find so quick or so comfortable a resting place as the first. “We try to demonstrate grace in our lives with one another.” My reflection was not about the church where I worshiped that morning. It was more about Baptists generally.
Grace is supposed to be a quality of Christian character.
The Apostle Paul made that clear in his letters to the churches at Ephesus and Colossae. Grace is supposed to be a quality of a Christian’s relationship with others. Christians are supposed to act with a “kindly attitude” toward one another. We are to esteem one another with “favor.” Our relationships are to demonstrate “attractiveness.” All three terms are meanings of the Greek word translated “grace.”
How well do Baptists demonstrate grace to one another in our corporate life in the church? That is the question.
In crisis times, Baptists do well. It has been observed that the church may be at its best in demonstrating grace during times of need. But, in the ongoing life of the church, we may not do so well.
I thought about the pastor who sat in my office and shared the sad story of a young man in his church. The story should have been a happy one. The young man, reared in the church, had wandered away from God. Now he had renewed his walk with the Lord.
When the pastor asked the young man to give his testimony, the young man declined. He explained that his experience in the church had taught him that people in the church “talked about” people who gave testimonies. The pastor confessed that, to his knowledge, the young man was right. Is this grace?
Too often church business meetings degenerate into win-lose situations. Whether the decision made is right or wrong is not the question. The point is that often the experience of living together as the body of Christ results in winners and losers. Is this grace?
Churches become engulfed in disagreements. Sometimes they split. One church divided over which side of the building to put the piano. Legion are the number of churches that have divided over the pastor. Again the issue is not right or wrong. The issue is whether Christians demonstrate grace to one another within the body of Christ.
In the public eye, Baptists do not do a good job demonstrating grace. One public relations group conducted nine focus groups with unchurched persons. Each participant was asked to rank Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Pentecostals and Church of Christ members on identification with certain words.
Baptists ranked first with these words: pushy, self-serving, cliquish, discriminatory, fundamentalist and hateful. Conversely, Baptists ranked next to last in descriptions such as loving, diversified, open-minded and modern.
One survey does not make the findings true, but the findings do raise serious questions about how non-Christians view our ability to demonstrate grace to one another through our lives together in the church. If the findings are valid, we as Baptists may be guilty of talking a lot about grace but not demonstrating grace in our relationships.
The pastor was right, however. The church is supposed to be a place where we talk about the grace of God made known through Jesus Christ and where we live out grace in our lives with one another. May it be so among us all.
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