Cheap Grace – Lent with Bonhoeffer Day 17– Purity 989

 Cheap Grace – Lent with
Bonhoeffer Day 17– Purity 989      

Purity 989 03/13/2023 Purity 989 Podcast

Purity 989 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a sunset that seems to have set the
world on fire comes to us from Dave Baun Photography as Dave captured this scene
back on February 20^th at the Brighton Jetty, in Adelaide South
Australia, testifying, that other than a little cropping, this photo was how it
was coming out of the camera and that although he “could wish for sunsets like
this every night” he knows that “it would make moments like this seem ordinary…
which it was not,”   Dave’s comments point
to the necessary contrasts of the common and the extraordinary to help us
appreciate when we are “blessed” by something special and how the good times
are that much better because of the times of suffering we have known.  

Speaking of suffering, its Monday again and its back
to the grind of another work week and the forecast for the next few days is threatening
to delay our spring time dreams from coming true as the weather maps I saw
yesterday indicate we can expect anywhere from 8-14 inches of snow between now
and Wednesday in my neck of the woods! So I will fondly remember the relatively
good, but not great, weather we had over the weekend and the rest and relaxation
I was able to enjoy despite losing an hour to “springing ahead”.  

But don’t let my “Monday wake up call” get you down
because I am not feeling down because I remember harsher winters than this one
and harder times and seasons in my life than the one I find myself in currently.
So even though it looks like a little snow may fall and its back to work, that’s
okay with me brother, because God is still in charge and the peace and joy He
has given me is not affected by the changes of clocks, calendars or weather
reports.   

God has done extraordinary work in my life and the
light and love He has poured into me promises to be with me forever more. So let’s
rejoice because God is good and when we put our faith in Christ, He will be
with us and for us no matter what challenges the workday or the weather may
bring.  

So, let’s keep walking and talking to God and draw
close to Him even though it’s Monday and inclement weather may be headed our
way,  as we continue with our current
series as we walk into Day 17 of the 40 Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

As a reminder, and as we will say each day of this
journey, we take this path to mark the season of Lent and to draw closer to God
in anticipation for the celebration of Easter, knowing that if we take this
journey of repentance seriously, we will not only see the days and seasons
change, the Lord will use it to change us too. 

You can sign up to get this devotional yourself by
going to the Biblegateway link on the blog ((https://www.biblegateway.com/devotionals/40-Day-Journey-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/today)) . 

Day 17

Bonhoeffer writes:

“Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our
struggle today is for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods,
cut-rate forgive­ness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacraments; grace as the
church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands
without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without cost…

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, as principle, as
system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as
merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins
forgiven. The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby conveys such
grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its
sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to
be free. Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God’s living Word, denial of the
incarnation of the word of God.

Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the
sinner. Because grace alone does everything, everything can stay in its old
ways. “Our action is in vain.” The world remains world and we remain sinners
“even in the best of lives.” Thus, the Christian should live the same way the
world does. In all things the Christian should go along with the world and not
venture…to live a different life under grace from that under sin…

Cheap grace is that which we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance;
it is baptism without the discipline of community; it is the Lord’s Supper
without confession of sin; it is absolution without personal confession. Cheap
grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the
living, incarnate Jesus Christ.”

Biblical Wisdom

What
then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,
you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death,
or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you,
having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form
of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free
from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:15-18

Questions to Ponder

• Why is it that the church so often
  proclaims and dispenses “cheap grace”?

M.T.
Clark: In Bonhoeffer’s day, cheap grace was an ear mark of cultural
Christianity, the vast majority of the populace in western civilizations were members
of Christian denominations and grace was dispensed as a matter of course of
church tradition more than of a personal decision to surrender to the Lordship
of Christ. “Everybody’s Christian here… we are all forgiven and saved so there
is no call to discipleship, just a call to keep going to the institution that
reminds us of what Jesus did that covers all we do.” 

Today,
because of the damaged history of cultural Christianity, cheap grace is used to
assure any and all of their acceptance with God and to welcome them into the
kingdom with no conviction that they need to repent. Churches want to survive
or thrive, and cheap grace is a way to pack the seats and keep the multicolored
lights on. 

• What happens to the “saltiness” of
  disciples in a church that “conveys such [cheap] grace upon itself”?

M.T.
Clark: The “saltiness” of a church than conveys grace upon itself is diluted
and turned to sugar as Christianity is reduced to a system of general “nonjudgmental”
acceptance, forgiveness of continual sin,  and sweet sentimentality as the emphasis on purity
and holiness is sacrificed on the altar of ignorance and compromise.  

• What does it mean to say that cheap
  grace is “grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ”?

M.T.
Clark: The living incarnate Jesus Christ calls us to follow Him in holiness and
to go and make disciples, teaching others all that He taught, to conform us to His
image.   Cheap grace tells us to come as
we are and to stay as we are. They take the forgiveness of Christ and abuse it
through continually sin and cheapen it as they deny a need for discipleship or
the transformation to the new life that Christ intended for us to live.

Psalm Fragment

Create in
me a clean heart, O God,
   and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
   and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
   and sustain in me a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12

Journal Reflections

• In your journal make a list of all the
  characteristics of cheap grace that Bonhoeffer identifies.

M.T. Clark:
 Bonhoeffer indicates that cheap grace
is:

·       Conveyed on oneself.

·       A Systematized general principle

·       Without repentance

·       Without discipleship

·       Without an intimate relationship with the Lord

• Do you find any of these characteristics
  in your own life or in the life of your community of faith? If so, reflect
  on them in your journal.

M.T.
Clark:  I believe that if we are honest
there are “consumers” of cheap grace at every church or “community of faith” as
the knowledge, conviction, and maturity of “believers” varies widely among the
members of the body of Christ. There are many in all churches that are just “spectators”
as the whole of their relationship with the Lord consists of bored and bothered
attendance at weekly worship services. And then there is the “sinner saved by
grace” crowd who either condemn themselves and don’t repent, or those who
continue in sin unphased as they believe the lie that grace has given them the
liberty to sin all the more.   And then
there are the “superstitious” attendees, who worship the Lord with awe and reverence
and the rituals that they feel will appease an angry God, but who shift gears
to secular life when they pass through and over the threshold of the church
building.   So yeah, God’s grace will
prove to be amazing but we should all fear the possibility of some of the “church”
being told that Christ never knew them.  
 

Intercessions

Think of the proclamation and
practice of your community of faith and pray that they would be free of cheap
grace.

M.T.

Lord God,

I pray
for my church and for the whole of Christendom in that they would be convicted
by the Holy Spirit to worship you in Spirit and in Truth by having a heart to
seek your presence and your wisdom that is found in the word of God. I pray for
You to call us all to repentance and to discipleship and to walk in the ways
and to do the good works that you would have us do. Let cheap grace be
abandoned for a knowledge and love of the costly grace that Christ paid for,
with His life on the cross.  

In Jesus’s
Name. Amen.

Prayer for Today

Lord, you love me with an everlasting
love. Deliver me from cheap grace that I may respond to your love with my whole
life.

M.T. Clark: In Jesus Name, I
pray, Amen.

 

***As we are being
provided with Bible verses from the 40 Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we
will are taking a break from sharing a verse of the day from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”. We plan on
resuming that normal installment of the blog following Easter.*** 

————————————————————————

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

By 
ARTHUR W. PINK

CHAPTER NINE

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND PRAYER continues

 

Finally, it should be
said that God’s will is immutable, and cannot be altered by our cryings. When
the mind of God is not toward a people to do them good, it cannot be turned to
them by the most fervent and importunate prayer of those who have the greatest
interest in Him: “Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood
before Me, yet My mind could not be
toward this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth” (Jer.
15:1). The prayers of Moses to enter the promised land is a parallel case.

Our views respecting
prayer need to be revised and brought into harmony with the teaching of
Scripture on the subject. The prevailing idea seems to be that I come to God
and ask Him for something that I
want, and that I expect Him to give
me that which I have asked. But this is a most dishonoring and degrading
conception. The popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant: doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting
our desires. No; prayer is a coming to God, telling Him my need, committing my way unto the Lord, and leaving Him to deal with
it as seemeth Him best. This makes my will subject to His,
instead of, as in the former case, seeking to bring His will into subjection to
mine. No prayer is pleasing to God unless the spirit actuating it is “not my will, but thine be done.” “When
God bestows blessings on a praying people, it is not for the sake of their
prayers, as if He was inclined and turned by them; but it is for His own sake,
and of His own sovereign will and pleasure. Should it be said, to what purpose
then is prayer? it is answered, This is the way and means God has appointed for
the communication of the blessing of His goodness to His people. For though He
has purposed, provided, and promised them, yet He will be sought unto, to give
them, and it is a duty and privilege to ask. When they are blessed with a
spirit of prayer it forebodes well, and looks as if God intended to bestow the
good things asked, which should be asked always with submission to the will of
God, saying, Not my will but Thine be
done” (John Gill).

The distinction just
noted above is of great practical importance for our peace of heart. Perhaps
the one thing that exercises Christians as much as anything else is that of unanswered prayers. They have asked God
for something: so far as they are able to judge they have asked in faith
believing they would receive that for which they had supplicated the Lord: and
they have asked earnestly and repeatedly, but
the answer has not come. The result is that, in many cases, faith in the
efficacy of prayer becomes weakened, until hope gives way to despair and the
closet is altogether neglected. Is it not so?

Now will it surprise
our readers when we say that every
real prayer of faith that has ever been offered to God has been answered? Yet we unhesitatingly affirm it. But in saying
this we must refer back to our definition of prayer. Let us repeat it. Prayer
is a coming to God, telling Him my need
(or the need of others), committing my way unto the Lord, and then leaving Him
to deal with the case as seemeth Him best. This leaves God to answer the prayer
in whatever way He sees fit, and often, His answer may be the very opposite of
what would be most acceptable to the flesh; yet, if we have really LEFT our need in His hands it
will be His answer, nevertheless. Let
us look at two examples.

In John II we read of
the sickness of Lazarus. The Lord “loved” him, but He was absent from Bethany.
The sisters sent a messenger unto the Lord acquainting Him of their brother’s
condition. And note particularly how
their appeal was worded—“Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” That was
all. They did not ask Him to heal Lazarus. They did not request Him to hasten
at once to Bethany. They simply spread their need before Him, committed the
case into His hands, and left Him to act as He
deemed best! And what was our Lord’s reply? Did He respond to their appeal and
answer their mute request? Certainly He did, though not, perhaps, in the way
they had hoped. He answered by abiding “two days still in the same place where
He was” (John 11:6), and allowing Lazarus to die! But in this instance that was
not all. Later, He journeyed to Bethany and raised Lazarus from the dead. Our
purpose in referring here to this case is to illustrate the proper attitude for
the believer to take before God in the hour of need. The next example will
emphasize rather, God’s method of responding to His needy child.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

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