Amazing Grace: God Makes Us Right Series

Here is where it gets sticky and we have difficulty accepting God’s offer of salvation. Let me try to explain why. We have been taught all our lives that America is the place where hard work and determination meet opportunity to produce wealth and success. While there are exceptions we all could point to, we realize the American dream is fueled by hard work and determination. Remember John Houseman in the old Smith-Barney commercials? “We make money the old-fashioned way. We earn it.” Gary Player, the legendary golfer and a South African, understood this attitude. He said, "The harder you work the luckier you get." The American attitude is an up-by-the-boot-strap mentality, and that attitude is what has made America great. Isn’t it ironic, then, the American attitude, that up-from-the-boot-strap mentality, is the major stumbling block in our acceptance of God’s offer of salvation. We know that hard work and determination are what make the measure of success, so we find it totally unreasonable that God would offer us salvation at no cost. Surely we have to do something to earn this salvation. We can’t do anything. But God does not give us something for nothing, and our salvation has come at great cost. It cost Jesus Christ his life.

Let me use a courtroom analogy. Say I get a speeding ticket. I go to court knowing that I am guilty but I dread paying the fine because well, school just started back, and I have to pay for all the kids school clothes, and I’m still paying for the summer vacation, and on and on I could go, but suffice it to say I am really dreading paying this fine. And what’s more, the ticket will go on my record and insurance will go up or they will cancel me. This is just not a good situation. The judge enters the courtroom and sees the facts of the case and is ready to hand down the sentence when amazingly, he rises from his bench, steps down beside me and says, “I’ll pay your fine.” Naturally, my jaw drops at this development, but at the same time there is a joyous expectation that I will not have to pay the fine after all. Amazingly, the judge agrees to the man’s offer. The judge turns to me and says, “Not only am I going to your penalty, but because I have, I’m going to acquit you of all charges. You are free to go.” I stand there unable to believe or even comprehend what just happened. But it did happen. Whether I can believe or comprehend it or not. All I can do is accept the offer or reject it. It is totally a free gift to me, and my acceptance of that offer is totally an act of faith. It is not my work, nor is there any work I can do to deserve it. Only my crime is much worse than a speeding ticket. It was a crime worthy of the death penalty.

This work is what Jesus Christ has done for us in the grand plan of God’s salvation. Listen to how the Apostle Paul describes it:

But now God has shown us a different way of being made right in his sight--not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. For all have sinned: all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times. And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26).