Alive By Grace: Made New

 

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5

 My son is a mechanic. When he comes home from work, he is covered in dirt and grease and brake dust. It is embedded in his eyebrows, streaked across his cheeks, and coating everything from the edge of his t-shirt to the beds under his finger nails. He doesn’t even notice it. He looks just like everyone else he works with. I often ask if he wants to wash up before dinner. He looks at me sideways, as if that is a very strange thing to say. He has no idea how filthy he is!

 I think we are all very much like that. Before Christ, we thought we were pretty good people probably. At the very least, we weren’t as bad as some. We (mostly) obeyed the law. We opened doors for people with their arms full or let someone cut in front of us on the freeway when they clearly needed to exit. Really, we may have felt like we were better people than many of the “Christians” we knew. At least we didn’t run around calling everyone sinners and judging them. 

 The thing is, God doesn’t work by comparison – at least not like that. He doesn’t say, “Oh, you were better than about 75% of the people on the planet, so I’ll let you into heaven.” Sadly, though we may think otherwise, we probably wouldn’t even get in on that measure. Praise God, though, that He knew that and had a much better plan! I am so thankful that He loved each and every one of us, not just the top 25%. He loved us not because of who we were, or what we had done, but because of who He is. Because of His great love and mercy, He showed us grace when we were completely undeserving, when we didn’t even know we needed it. Then He showed us the grace of helping us to understand that we need it!

 We were dead in our sin. As I wrote about before, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). There’s no way around it. Even if our sin doesn’t seem that bad, sin is sin. God doesn’t have a measuring rod of sin, bad sin, and really bad sin. It’s all just sin to Him, and all of it separates us from His presence because He can’t be a part of any sin. God is perfect and holy and righteous, and that can’t be involved in any level of sin, not even a “little white lie.” Praise God for that! It means we can trust Him implicitly and never wonder if He will let us down. But what it also means, is that a way needed to be made between our sinfulness and God’s righteousness in order that we could be together.

 Have you even been in a situation, or known someone in a situation, where they truly loved someone but they couldn’t be involved with them, at least for a season, because of choices they were making in their lives? It’s sad and tragic and horrible. Sometimes it even has to happen between parents and children, or sometimes between spouses. You see, we can love a person and not love what they do. We can recognize that what they are doing is wrong and that being with them would make us a part of it. This is my understanding of how God saw us when we were in sin. He didn’t love us any less, but He couldn’t make His home with us (John 14:23-24).

 So, loving us as He did, He did the only thing that would fix it all. He sent His only Son, a part of Himself, to earth to live and die for us, so that the unnavigable gap between us could be bridged. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross, our sin-debt has been paid. Now, there is a way for us to come to God, to be with Him, to have Him be our Father and us His children. Because of His grace, not anything we have done, He has made us alive!

 Of course, God introduced me to a new song this morning that celebrates this truth, I’ve linked to it below. I love how God prepares my heart for what He is about to teach me, then teaches me, then drives it home in a way I can understand and remember – no small feat! The chorus for the song goes:

Again and again and again and again
You rescued me out of the mess I was in
Traded my sorrow for something to sing
Now I'm dancing on the grave that I once lived in

Here’s the Thing: Just like my son has no idea what a state he is in when he comes home from work, I had no idea that I was literally the walking dead, living in a grave. It wasn’t until God opened my eyes to the state I was in and my need for Him to save me from it, that I had any idea that I was walking around covered in the muck and stain of my sin. Praise God, He washed me clean (1 John 1:9) and made me new (2 Corinthians 5:17) in Christ!