I don’t know about you, but I’m embarrassed by all this fuss and bother!  Actually, I’m mortified.  To be lifted up and called a son of The King, to be embraced by the Master of All!  The Man I killed! To be pushed up velvet-covered steps and set like a sack of wet sand on a golden throne!  Who am I — a sinner condemned, unclean — to be so exalted!  This isn’t just embarrassing, folks, this is ridiculous! 

And the voice of the Lord says, “Okay, Gary.  If you can’t see yourself as a co-heir with Me, can you see yourself as a turtle on a fencepost?”

I can do that.  Because, like they say, when you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know he didn’t get there by himself!  In other words, “Surprise!”

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Through the Gospel of Grace we went from Dead and Damned to Alive and Above.

What made the difference?

I’ll give you a clue: It was nothing we did!   

It was God.  God and His mercy, God and His love, God and His grace, God and His big ol’ gift that cost Him more than any of us could ever dream of paying. 

You see, God doesn’t love us because we’re lovable.  He doesn’t love us because we’re nicer than we used to be.  He doesn’t love us because we do more good than bad.  He’s not a scorekeeper!  As Robert Capon says, “If the world could have been saved by good bookkeeping, it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus.”

Am I saying it doesn’t matter how we live?  Not at all.  I’m saying, let’s not put the cart before the horse.  Paul writes of doing good works.  But notice how everything flows from God:  First, our identity “created in Christ Jesus.”  We have no life apart from Him!  Second, our activity: “good works.”  God is the author of those good works.  We didn’t think them up, He did.  To bolster the idea, Paul bookends verse 10 with God:  “His workmanship . . . good works which God created beforehand.”

It’s not about us and what we do.  It’s about God and what He has done.  Obedience does not create grace.  Grace creates obedience. 

There was a boy who used to practice his golf swing in the back yard.  He wasn’t allowed to use a real golf ball because that could be dangerous so near the house.  So he used a plastic ball.  But he longed for the feel of a real ball at end of his club.  One day when he thought his parents were away, he switched balls, swung, and sent the ball crashing through his parent’s bedroom window.  He heard his mother scream.  He raced upstairs and found her bleeding by the broken window. 

“I started to cry and I couldn’t stop, and all I could say was, “Mum, what have I done, I could have killed you.” . . . she just kept hugging me and saying, “It’s all right, I’m all right.” 

After that, the boy could never again take a real golf ball into the back yard.1

We caused God to bleed.  But everything’s all right now.  Don’t you see?  Everything’s all right now.  For you, me, everybody.  That’s why the boy took his golf ball elsewhere, why that lady I told you has slowed down, and why you’ll change your ways too, I bet. 

Now won’t that be a surprise!

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Gary D. Robinson is Preaching Minister at Conneautville Church of Christ in Conneautville, PA.

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1. Ian Pitt-Wilson, A Primer for Preachers, Baker Books, 1986, p. 52.