Foundational Grace and Obedience

We’ve been discussing the subject of grace and obedience and about how we look and how we act, at least in a religious sense. It brings into focus the subject of obedience. Just how good do we have to be? It also highlights the subject of grace, the relationship between getting and not getting what we deserve.

Last week, we asked: If we’re saved by grace, what is so important about our obedience? Why all the emphasis on what we do and who we are and what we look like? We discussed two parables of Jesus related to obedience. In the parable of two houses, one was built on a foundation of rock and one was built on a foundation of sand. In the parable of the two sons, one said he would not go to the field but did so, and the other said he would go but did not do so.

The parables provide two different rationales for obedience, for doing things God’s way. In the parable of the houses, building on a rock foundation leads to a more centered, more focused, and more foundational life. Doing things God’s way doesn’t eliminate the storms of life—obviously, both houses were subject to the storm—but it makes standing up to the storms of life more triumphant. Being fair, kind, honest, and forgiving is not a panacea but, on the whole, your life will be better and more solid, Jesus seems to teach.

In the parable of the two sons, we see another benefit of obedience. Sons and daughters who do their father’s will bring honor, respect, and acclaim to the Father. Doing things God’s way honors God. It holds a higher standard and brings distinction.

A few points that should be concluded from the study of these parables are these: First, and most importantly, in neither of the parables is obedience linked to salvation. The foolish man loses his house—it collapses around him—but there’s no mention of his being lost. The house is his environment, his surroundings, his security, but it is not his salvation. Likewise, regardless of his obedience, a son is still a son. A son may bring honor to his father or he may bring shame, but he is still a son; he is not disenfranchised, he is not disinherited.

Secondly, doing things God’s way does not eliminate the trials of life. It just makes them more bearable. It gives a more centered relationship to our life, and a more foundational sustenance. Third, what we say we will do is not as important as what we actually do. Obedience, Jesus teaches, is doing the Father’s will. It means doing things God’s way. And what is God’s way? What is God’s will? And what is God’s plan for us? Jeremiah says:

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’ (Jeremiah 29:11)

So this is an indication of the centering effect that obedience has in our life.

Grace is a subject that is both comforting and at the same time very confusing. This uniquely Christian notion of not getting what you deserve is anathema to our non-Christian friends. Even for Christians, it is so counterintuitive that it seems to be inconceivable, so much so that as was pointed out last week, it is easy to label it as “cheap” grace.

Maybe we’ve looked at grace the wrong way; maybe we don’t understand it entirely. That’s why I think a discussion of grace—particularly the relationship between grace and works and between grace and obedience—is merited.

Exodus supplies a metaphor for grace, in conjunction with the early days of the children of Israel in the wilderness, who are complaining about the food, or the lack of it:

 So it came about at evening that the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone gather as much as he will eat; you shall take an omer apiece according to the number of people each of you has in his tent.’” The sons of Israel did so, and some gathered much and some little. When they measured it by the omer, the one who had gathered much did not have too much, and the one who had gathered little did not have too little; everyone gathered as much as he would eat. Moses said to them, “No one is to leave any of it until morning.” But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank; and Moses was angry with them. They gathered it morning by morning, everyone as much as he would eat; but when the sun became hot, it would melt.  Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, then he said to them, “This is what the Lord meant: Tomorrow is a Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning.” So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered, and it did not stink nor was there a maggot in it. Then Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. (Exodus 16:13-25)

And then he goes on to explain about the Sabbath.

The road, the route, the journey from Egypt to Canaan, from slavery to the promised land, is the metaphorical road of life. I think this story, and this illustration, has real world value for us as well. It is a spiritual journey away from bondage and into the desert, a hostile and inhospitable place of want and great need. It is a spiritual wasteland, a place of spiritual thirst and spiritual famine, a place in which to become easily lost. Above all, it is not a place where you can do much to help yourself. You cannot grow crops—there’s no water, no usable soil. You cannot build houses—there’s no raw material. You cannot keep flocks. What you can do with your hands, what you can do for yourself, is so limited as to be insignificant. It’s why the journey from Egypt to Canaan is such a good metaphor for our spiritual track.

First and foremost, we need to understand that the journey from Egypt to Canaan is God’s journey. He is in charge. This journey—your journey, my journey—is planned, directed, and (it turns out) underwritten by God:

 I will grant this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed. But every woman shall ask her neighbor and the woman who lives in her house for articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and daughters. So you will plunder the Egyptians.” (Exodus 3:21-22)

Now the sons of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have their request. Therefore they plundered the Egyptians. (Exodus 12:35-36)

So this is God’s journey, and he even underwrites it. He is the sponsor of the journey, the one who’s making it entirely possible, even down to the last penny. Everything that takes place along the way of this journey is of spiritual significance—the parting of the Red Sea, the pillars of cloud by day and of fire by night, the wilderness tabernacle and the sanctuary service, even the furniture within the tabernacle—all have spiritual significance and tell the story of salvation. The water from the rock, the bitter water made sweet, the people sent to spy out the land, the walls of Jericho, the red quarter of Rahab, and on and on. All the stories have significant pieces of spiritual meaning and all of us want to be part of that trek between Egypt and the promised land, from bondage into freedom.

Manna It is a powerful symbol of God’s grace during the journey. The setting is the wilderness, a place where your own effort is futile. There is no water, no soil, no seeds, no shelter, no flock, not even the basics of survival. But along comes manna. Like grace, it comes to us when we’re at our greatest need, when we’re at our wits end and out of options. Grace is there. It is free. It is everywhere. It is unlimited. It is sustaining and it is sweet.

Like manna, grace comes repeatedly, daily. It cannot be hoarded. What you need, when you need it, is what you have available. As God told Paul, his grace is sufficient for us:

[T]here was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,…” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

Here we see, carefully crafted and balanced, the relationship between grace and obedience. Grace comes to you; you don’t have to go looking for it. No matter what effort you put into it, whether you do little or whether you do much, in the end the grace you get is just what you need. Recall the passage in Exodus 16: “Some gathered much and some gathered little and he who gathered much had no excess and he who gathered little had no lack. Every man gathered as much as he should eat.”

With grace, the same as true. There is no lack and there is no excess. At the end of the day, you’ve had all the grace you need for that day, and it is gone. It cannot be hoarded, it cannot be safely stored. Hoarded grace is toxic grace. Grace must be used in order for it to be effective, and it must be passed on to others. Seeking to hoard grace for myself will poison me. Like manna, grace comes from heaven, it is of divine origin.

So what is the relationship between obedience and grace? First and foremost, the story indicates that it takes no obedience to get grace. It falls from the sky and will hit you wherever you are. It cannot be controlled by you. You cannot stop grace from hitting you any more than you can stop the rain from hitting you unless you actively seek shelter to avoid it. Obedience comes after grace has fallen on you. Take what you need, but don’t take more than you need. Don’t hoard the grace; share it.

“Gather every one of you as much as you should eat. You should take an omer apiece according to the number of people in your house.” So you can even collect it for others. And just to drive the point home, the passage makes two more points. We know from Numbers 11 that manna could be ground, pounded with a mortar, boiled, made into cakes. Grace is given to us as a divine gift, but what we do with it is to shape it for our own needs and for the needs of others. We can use it and we can put it on display in a variety of ways. This is grace put to work, not stored or hoarded but grace which is productive for you and for others.

Finally, the grace metaphor is linked to the Sabbath—a rest of grace from grace itself. This is double grace, this is grace squared. It is an important aspect of grace that unless we release ourselves from the worship of it, grace can become an idol. The Sabbath is a perpetual reminder that sacred time is a weekly, uncontrollable, downpayment, it is our manna today. Flakes of grace fall from the sky in the form of the Sabbath. It is a weekly rest for the soul, a suspension of business as usual, and points us back to the Creator, the source of grace.

Just as the Israelites could not control the manna, so we cannot control grace. There is no controlling either of sacred time. Just as we can only reach out and gather the manna, so too, we can reach out and accept the grace. Only we can enter into the Sabbath rest.

What is the role of obedience in the Christian life? How good do we have to be to be saved?

C-J: I think through obedience, we understand what grace is. It’s not to get approval from God. Maybe we start there as children, but it’s not, I submit, because “I love you.” It’s more than that. It’s that God’s wisdom is above ours, that when we defer the I for the Lord, we understand later there was wisdom in that request. It’s not just to hammer sin and keep us in a box, it’s really to give us liberty. But it takes a long time to get there as children growing up. I don’t mean just physically.

Sonika: I think God’s grace is upon every living creature on earth—people, animals, everything. God provides for every living thing. That’s the common blessing. But to those who are obedient and know God, God provides a spiritual blessing—manna being an example. So I think there’s a common blessing and a spiritual blessing. And I think obedience is to God. People who know and follow the true God in heaven receive more spiritual blessing (versus the common grace that God gives to every living thing on earth) no matter who they are, what religion they follow, or what ethnicity they hold.

Pastor Giddi: I appreciate the point that you have to take grace and use it for yourself and for others. So grace comes with a responsibility. It is given free, but you have something to do, to share, to love, to forgive, to help.

Anonymous: The closest analogy to grace I can think of is that it is like a parent. Parents provide everything for their children, no matter how good or bad they may be, and the kids love them anyway. It is impossible for parents and children to withhold their love. They love always. They love no matter what. That’s how God is.

It has been said that we have responsibilities in regard to, or in return for, grace. But if there is responsibility, then it’s not grace: It’s wages. He gives us something and we have to give him something back. But looking at the real world, many people don’t share, don’t know, don’t even love God, don’t feel like they’re sons or daughters of God, they have no relationship with God. Yet they also receive grace. So, it’s not really a responsibility or requirement.

But when we get to know God, when we come to a close relationship with him, we like to give back, we like to share, we can’t keep silent, we want to glorify God, we want to praise him, we want to do something for him, we want to help others, and on and on. Now, all this can be done here on this earth. It is when we die that God sits in judgment and says: “I gave you all my grace for all your life, you did not deserve it. Because you did not come to me, because you didn’t make use of my grace, you can’t continue living with me, so you don’t have eternal life.” Probably at this time, at that point, there’s no grace. You are either with or without God. You either have an eternal life or have an eternal death.

Don: What good is grace if it doesn’t come at the judgment time? I mean, you don’t need it unless it’s the judgment. I need grace when the judgment comes.

Anonymous: Actually, we need grace more now. Because we have all the challenges and we have all the opportunity to use it. We are living, we’re making decisions. We are in the wilderness. We need everything: Love, mercy, knowledge, comfort, wisdom, everything. We can’t live in this desert without grace. But when it’s over, and we’re at the border of the Promised Land where everything is available—trees and fruits and food and houses and everything—why do we need grace?

Donald: I recognize manna as an analogy of grace. What’s the relationship between God’s blessings and grace? When God blesses one, does God provide grace? What’s the relationship? Manna came to all equally. Some hoarded it or attempted to take more than they deserved. But was that a blessing from God? In reality, it was kind of a socialized way of feeding the flock. When we talk about blessings, it doesn’t appear that all people are equally blessed. If you were to take a ruler again, unfortunately, it seems that some lives are blessed less than others. So I’m trying to figure out the relationship between blessings and grace.

David: I think that’s the crucial question: Can we equate grace with blessings in this life? There is no question that we need blessings in this life, but to me, grace is not something we get in this life. In a sense, the prodigal son had to die before he received grace. In essence, I think that’s what the parable points to. The son came to the end of his tether, he was spiritually as dead as a doornail, he was a goner. Grace brought him back and allowed him into his father’s house without his having to do anything.

The responsibilities some say go along with grace have been listed as love, mercy, forgiveness, and so on. None of these are specific “works” such as volunteering in the food bank; rather, they are simply precepts of the golden rule, of loving God and—especially—loving others. That’s basically all it is. And maybe that’s what manna is: God applying the golden rule to us, to the Israelites, doing unto them what he hoped they would do to him if he were in their situation.

Kiran: The manna/grace analogy puts justification, sanctification, glorification,… all these big words,… into a journey through the spiritual desert, in a simple way we can understand. For a long time I felt like I had to do something for grace, that I had some responsibility. Just taking and enjoying something that is free was somewhat offensive to me, because it takes me out of the equation. I no longer matter, but for some reason I want to matter, I want to be important, I want to have approval.

When we realize that approval comes regardless, that we don’t need approval from anybody, it makes all the difference. In the desert, no matter how hard I try, I cannot grow crops, I can’t produce water, I can’t be warm at night, I can’t find shade during the day because there is not a single tree. And suddenly there is food, there is water coming from rock, clouds provide shade during the day, it is warm at night, there is protection from snakes. Everything is provided by God! If I just flip a switch in my mind to realize all these blessings, then I realize I’m the best person in this world to live the best life possible. But if I seek the approval of my neighbors or somebody else, I look like a loser.

We stress about having to do something. We stress about taking too much manna every day. So what? Eventually I will realize this is a waste of my time and I will quit stressing on my own. But it has nothing to do with me getting lost from the camp. If I stop collecting manna I will be hungry, and my natural instinct is to go back to the manna, or someone else gives it to me and shows me how to do it for myself. It is so natural to be like this. It is like the Way of Daoism. If you choose to follow it, there is warmth during the night and a cooling cloud during the day; there is water, there is food. If you choose to follow this way you will enter the promised land. There is nothing else you have to do. If you choose not to follow this way, you go on your own, and you get lost. That’s all it is.

So the only “responsibility” I have is to choose to follow the way. That’s all the obedience I need. I don’t need any magic and I don’t need to beat myself up. We struggle because, I think, the devil tells us we’re not good enough. Then God says “You are good enough because of my grace, because of my son.” But the devil makes us believe we’re not good enough. I think we have to get over the fact that we will never be good enough and that what Christ has done is enough.

Pastor Giddi: The responsibility of the people is to collect manna—grace. Not for tomorrow, but for today. We need it. Not that any work we do can earn grace. We can’t earn it. It is given free, but our responsibility is to take it and use it.

Mac: When I think of grace, I think of forgiveness. When Christ performed his acts of grace during his ministry on earth, it was often in the setting of forgiveness. Whether it was the blind man or the woman caught in adultery, Christ showed grace, but he also showed forgiveness. As followers of Christ, if we receive his grace, we also need to incorporate our responsibility to forgive others as he forgave us.

Reinhard: Manna is a physical blessing—the bread that sustains our daily life. We need physical nourishment, and it is part of the blessing. There is grace we experience in our daily life while we live on this earth. But also there’s the ultimate grace of eternal life. But when Jesus encountered some Pharisees, after declaring that he was the bread of life (John 6:48) he told them:

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. (John 6:49)

He continued:

This [the bread of life, not manna—Ed.] is the bread that comes down out of heaven, so that anyone may eat from it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever;… (John 6:50-51)

Anonymous: Dr. Weaver once said grace is like the air we breathe. If so, then we don’t even have to accept it. We use it without thinking about it. It’s involuntary. So God is not expecting anything in return. He’s given us everything in grace. He gave us his only son, he gave us everything we need. We are living in it whether we know it or not. But when we realize that, we become thankful, and then our lives change. It is not something we need to think of intellectually, to worry about if we need to do something, or whether we are receiving it or not. It’s like the air: You just breathe it.

Donald: I wonder about that. I do think it is a responsibility to accept and acknowledge that there is something that is offered, and to respond to it.

Grace is such a wonderful word, while judgment is such a harsh word. It’s that continuum. Is there a responsibility to grace?

Don: I would ask it this way: What’s the spiritual equivalent of putting a plastic bag over your head so you can’t breathe? What’s the spiritual equivalent of seeking shelter from the grace which is falling all around you so that it doesn’t hit you and doesn’t intersect with your life? What’s the umbrella of the spirit that prevents you from being showered with grace?

Donald: Maybe that’s a better way to think of it—that you have to deny grace in order to not receive it. Is that a possibility?

Anonymous: That’s equivalent to Peter’s statement that if we know God and then sin willfully, there is no more forgiveness. That is the same as refusing grace. But people who are not believers, unaware of God and living in sin don’t know they need to stop. They don’t have the privilege of knowing God. One who knows and believes in God has a responsibility not to sin, otherwise there will be no more grace. Peter didn’t use the word grace—I think he used “forgiveness.”

Don: That seems true. But the prodigal son willfully and premeditatedly turned his back on the Father’s house, yet grace did not seem to elude him. It seemed to continue to follow him.

Jay: I would argue that there is zero responsibility with grace, that if grace is grace, how can there be responsibility? It’s grace, after all. If you’re responsible for it, I don’t know how that’s grace anymore. I would also argue that grace can neither be accepted nor denied. Grace, just like God, is something that is. I would even propose that grace was what God created on the first day of creation. We understand the Bible says that God created light on the first day, but then what happened on the fourth day, when God created the sun? There’s a disconnect there.

So God established something on the very first day of creation upon which all the creation that followed was founded. I think it was grace. You can’t create anything else in creation until you create what’s created on the very first day. So grace then would be foundational. It basically establishes the existence of life, the thing that life is. You can equate it to manna—the metaphor still rings true—as the life sustaining essence present there. Without that life sustaining presence of the light/grace created on the first day, all of creation could not exist, the Israelites could not exist.

It provides for existence. It provides for life. And the beauty of this thing that was created on the first day is that it is very closely tied, I think, to love and forgiveness and mercy and other divine attributes. This is what the perfect creation is founded upon, is built upon. So you can live your life, and there’s really nothing that you can do to stop this existence. I don’t think there is a spiritual equivalent to putting your head in a bag or standing under an umbrella. Grace is grace, grace is there.

The real question is that there seem to be people who do something with grace, who seem not to hoard it but to pass it along. We think of grace as life-sustaining. What we’re really called to do is everything we can to sustain the lives of others, to provide existence to others. And if that existence is built upon love and mercy and so on, I think that makes a clear correlation to the ministry of Christ and what he asks of those who are going to follow him.

C-J: I think there are two relationships at play in grace: One that we have with the divine and one that we have with humanity. And that’s where it splits. And I agree it is our responsibility, as grace is revealed to us, that we extend it to humanity. The obedience isn’t just to God, because grace is there whether we embrace it or not, but if we have grace operating in us because we have received and accepted the responsibility of revelation, we pass that to humanity. And that’s where the obedience is. It’s not about going to hell if you get this wrong.

I think God is constantly referring to that element of humanity, because it’s always been there, by creation. It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around if you are not a believer. The oxygen is there. But are you breathing it? Regardless, the Divine is there.

Kiran: I would argue that if we stay with or in God, if we accept the grace, if we are connected to the vine, bearing fruit is automatic. You can call it obedience, but the reason why grace was provided is because we couldn’t be obedient on our own. Once grace is provided, the obedience comes to us as long as we stay connected to the vine. We don’t have to worry about a temporary, minor lack of fruit at this time, or fret that my fruit is not as big as yours. All this will be taken care of by God. There is nothing I can do. He’s the one who empowers me to do what he wants to do. I’m like a spoon, or I could be a shoe. Whatever he wants, he’ll do. My job is to stay with him, in him. That’s all.

There is no worry. There is no compulsion to produce. As long as I stay with him, that obedience, fruit, love, and kindness—everything—comes through me. I think that’s faith. I struggled a lot to trust that God would bring that kind of fruit in me. I got scared that I would go back to the gang life. But now I question enough that he will not let me go away. He will produce the fruit.

Jay: The question is: What does it mean to stay with him? We keep using these words like obedience and staying with him or in him, but what is that? If there is this responsibility, what is that?

You can go from Egypt to Canaan in much less time than the 40 years it took the Israelites. You can get there more quickly on your own but there is no guarantee you’ll get there at all, and Jesus says you can’t get there except through him. If you choose to follow Christ’s path, it might take 40 years, but you’ll get there. I don’t worry about my fruit. I can’t do anything to produce fruit. That is God’s work.

David: To answer Jay’s question “What is that?”: I would say “that” is selflessness. This is why religion and, in a sense, belief in God doesn’t really enter into this. The prodigal son’s real sin was selfishness. He thought only of himself, not at all of his father, of his family, or anyone else. We know of atheists—indeed, anyone and even any creature on earth—capable of selflessness. Soldier ants sacrifice themselves so that their fellows can survive.

In human terms, selflessness is about survival of the species—of the creation, if you like—not the survival of the individual. In spiritual terms, it is about everlasting life. Each and every one of us is capable of a level of selflessness that makes us more godlike, more concerned about others than about ourself. Ultimately, that is where the prodigal son found himself. He was not obeying anything. He simply came to his true self, which is no self at all.

Don: We will delve further into the subject of grace and obedience in the next few weeks, looking at a number of different stories that shed light on the subject.