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Episode 18
A Contemporary Story
Some pastors including Alan Leong, David Lim, Matthew Lim, Henry Lee and Richard Ong gathered for an informal lunch to celebrate the Convention’s acting director Alan Phua’s fiftieth birthday and to welcome former colleagues Henry and Angela Goh. In the conversation, Alan shared that a charismatically-inclined Baptist church sought his help to obtain a marriage licence from the government. This church was critical and did not support the Convention. Now the church needed help from the Convention. I asked Alan, ‘Are you sure you want to help a church that has been very critical and judgmental about the Baptist Convention?’ His reply was, ‘Any church that needs my help regardless of their smug or critical attitude, I will help’. That was grace in action. He gave them what they needed and not what they deserved.
In human relationships, when we forgive people who hurt us, help the undeserving and refuse to retaliate against those who speak ill of us, we are practising grace on them. People who practise grace are the happiest and most stress-free people in the world.
People Need Grace
We live in a fallen world. People make mistakes and do wrong things. We hurt others and ourselves both intentionally and unintentionally. We need to forgive and restore others and ourselves. Things happen that cause the ‘old monster’ in each of us to surface.
The way to practise grace is to be more understanding. Try to give people space or ‘cut them some slack’ when they go through difficult times. It’s difficult to practise grace but easier to condemn and judge. If you are in an environment where there is suspicion, rivalry and jealousy, you can say that there is no grace. The irony of life is that sometimes you find the least grace when you expect it most, and vice versa. When there is bickering, jealousy, rivalry and division, there is no grace.
Pastors also need grace. You have pastors who labour for God but do not see results. They work very hard but somehow they can’t get a ‘breakthrough’. They feel like quitting but the call is so strong they have to persevere. They need your grace and God’s grace.
Or perhaps the churches they are pastoring are small and never grow. They get excited when they attend church growth conferences on how to become mega-churches and how to triple church attendance. But however hard they try, nothing seems to work. They become discouraged. Members need to show and practise grace rather than fire the pastor. We should not equate bigness as the only sign of God’s blessing.
You May Need Grace One day
None of us should be arrogant to say we do not need grace from others. If we don’t practise grace on others, why should others practise grace on us? The golden rule of human relationship is ‘Treat others as you would like them to treat you’ (Luke 6:31). Remember what Jesus said, ‘If you do not forgive others, your heavenly father will not forgive you’.
Who are we to think that we are so special that people must practise grace on us if we do not reciprocate? The calling of a pastor does not make a person very special. It only means God marks that person out for a ministry. Remember Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy’. It can be paraphrased as ‘Blessed are those who practise grace, for they shall receive grace’. If people need grace and we withhold it, why should not God do the same to us?
Blessed are you who practise grace because you never know when one day you may need grace from others. To practise grace is to learn to be forgiving. To practise grace means not to be judgmental about others. It means learning to be tolerant.
The dean of my former school Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the United States once said to me ‘I would rather err in grace than in judgement’. What he means is that, it is better to be wrong on the side of grace than judgement. He is right. When you give grace to those who do not deserve it, God can't fault you. You will not find a text in the Scripture that commands you to be stingy with grace. But when you are judgmental, God can and will judge you in accordance with the Scripture which says, ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged. For as you judge others, so you will yourselves be judged, and whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt to you’ (Matthew 7:1-2).
People need the transforming, forgiving and healing grace of God in their lives. When was the last time you practised grace on someone? Or when was the last time you withheld grace from someone in need?
Let grace be a dominating factor in your life. Be ministers of grace because the Bible teaches it. Be ministers of grace because people need it. Be ministers of grace because one day you may need it.
Be models of grace because in the end, grace always triumphs. Grace is giving people what they need, not what they deserve.
God has taught me many lessons on grace. Lessons on grace are not always easy to learn. The Christian life is like a hurdle race. Each hurdle must be crossed before we go on to the next hurdle. That is how God works in our lives. There have been times in my life where I was unable to move forward because I did not manage to cross the previous hurdle. In those failed attempts, God taught me precious lessons. What are some of the precious lessons I have learnt about the grace of God?
Be a Recipient as well as a Dispenser of Grace
I must not only be a willing recipient but also a willing dispenser of God’s grace. It is sad that many of us are willing recipients of grace but unwilling dispensers of grace. We have received grace willingly but yet we give grace unwillingly. Why? Can it be the ‘elder brother syndrome’? Or, perhaps we have not tasted grace? There is a difference between experiencing the stream of God’s grace and the river of God’s grace.
I have discovered when it comes to dispensing grace, the laity is more willing than the clergy. Pastors and leaders who have been to seminaries, training institutes and bible colleges are expected to have a better grasp of the biblical concept of grace but it is not always true. In fact, I know churches whose pastors lay down minute rules and regulations where young people are not allowed to go on single dates without a chaperone! It is interesting how pastors, instead of lightening burdens, put extra load on members. Perhaps their motives are good but their methods are wrong and need more biblical reflection.
I once asked a layman ‘why do lay people seem more willing to dispense God’s grace than pastors do?’ He answered knowingly, ‘We have seen a lot and been exposed a lot to this world. If pastors have seen what we have seen, if they have gone through what we have gone through in this world, perhaps they would also be more compassionate when it comes to dispensing grace’. Perhaps pastors who are unwilling dispensers of God’s grace have not drunk from the river of God’s grace but only tasted it. Perhaps they are so cocooned in their ivory towers and lost touch with the harsh realities of life.
On two occasions, I have heard laymen pray: ‘Lord we are all sinners. We are no better than our brother who has sinned. The only difference is that our sins have not been exposed like this brother….’ When I hear such prayers, I cannot help but thank God for these lay people. It took courage and humility to pray such prayers around pastors. I long to hear pastors pray like that.
The classic example of an unwilling dispenser of God’s grace comes from Matthew 18:21-24. Peter asked Jesus how many times must he forgive someone who sins against him. Jesus replied, ‘seventy times seven’ (verse 22). Jesus then told the story of a king who decided to collect his debts from the servants. One man owed him millions of dollars but he couldn’t repay. So the king ordered his wife, children and everything he had to be sold to repay the debt. The man knelt before the king and pleaded for more time. The king was moved with pity, forgave his debt and released him.
But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow-servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed the man by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow-servant knelt before him and begged him to be patient, promising to repay his debt in due time. But the creditor had the man arrested and jailed until the debt could be paid in full.
The other servants became angry with the unkind servant and reported to the king what had happened. The king called that man whose debt he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you for that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison until he had paid every penny. Jesus ended the story with these words, ‘That’s what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in your heart’ (Luke 18:36; NTL). The message is plain and clear. Withhold grace from others, God will withhold it from you.
The moral of the story is: God has forgiven us all our sins which are many and major. How dare we withhold forgiveness from others who have wronged us? Since God has exercised grace towards us, we should exercise grace on others too. Note that forgiveness or grace must come not from the mouth or the mind but from the heart. That is tough, isn’t it? (1690 words)
Discussion Questions