“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:14-17
A circus performer carefully walks across the high wire carrying a large pole. Your washing machine begins making a huge racket and eventually stops until you rearrange the clothes. You purchase a new set of tires. The installer puts each tire on a machine and hammers in small weights where needed.
Each of these situations and others like them are examples of the critical importance of maintaining balance. It’s why we review our bank statements each month or watch our step when walking over uneven ground. We know that staying in balance is good for us.
That’s true in our spiritual lives as well. By keeping balance, our spiritual vitality remains strong – like the balance of work and rest or saving and giving. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Balance is critical for our souls.
It shouldn’t surprise us to hear that Jesus was a person of balance. John talked about that in the first chapter of his gospel. He said that Jesus was full of grace and truth – not once but twice in the space of just four verses. Throughout his entire life, Jesus maintained the correct balance between these twin virtues. We need to do the same thing, otherwise our unbalanced spiritual lives will spin wildly out of control as we favor one of these traits as opposed to the other.
Here’s what I mean. Let’s say that we’re totally focused on grace – no truth, just grace. Ah, grace. What a wonderful word. It makes us feel good. And it’s so freeing. With grace we don’t get all bogged down with the limitations that come with truth. Instead it’s live and let live. That’s right – live and let live. When all is grace, no one’s behavior is ever questioned for to do so is too judgmental. And nobody wants to be known as being judgmental anyway. So you live the way you want to live, and I live the way I want to live.
Not only that, but with grace there’s no proper path to take in life. We can all pick whatever path we want, because one way is no better than another. Trying to identify the right path is a matter of truth, but we’ve rejected that in favor of grace.
As for God, He’s sort of like a benevolent grandfather figure. As the divine dispenser of grace, He has no real expectations of us, for that would be too law driven, too much like the truth – too ungracelike. Furthermore with grace, we can configure God anyway we desire. You’ve got whatever God you want, and I have the one I want. They can be totally different, but that doesn’t matter. In the end, it’s all the same. What’s more, you don’t even have to think about God at all. There’s still plenty of grace to go around. It’s like Outback. No rules. Just right. Grace.
But wait a minute. That won’t work. We can’t live anyway we want to live. What happens when your way of life negatively impacts my way of life? And this making no judgment about what others do, it would be anarchy if we lived like that. For that matter, what kind of God just winks when people live in ways that aren’t very godly? Surely, He’s got some expectations for us. And you can’t just make up your own God and have conflicting ways of life and all of them be right at the same time. It’s like saying that 1+1=2 or 3 or whatever you want. The world doesn’t work like that. There’s got to be some order, some boundaries, some truth.
That’s it. What we need is truth. None of this wishy washy grace stuff. We need to know what the truth is – what God expects from us. Then like the Nike commercial, we just need to do it. That’s right. We need the truth like you find in the Sermon on the Mount. That’s where you learn about the kind of life we as believers are supposed to live. Such a life does the following:
• upholds even the smallest of the commandments
• refuses to harbor any rage against others
• doesn’t allow a lustful thought to dwell in the mind
• never fails in marriage and keeps every vow
• honors every promise
• turns the cheek rather than retaliates while loving and praying for enemies
• keeps piety a private matter
• stores up treasure in heaven rather than on earth.
• refuses to worry but seeks first the Kingdom of God
• doesn’t act harshly toward others
• does God’s will by building on the rock by doing what Jesus says
There it is. The basic tenets of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s the truth. It’s the call placed on the life of every believer. No exceptions. No excuses. We either live accordingly, or we betray a false affection for Christ.
“Wow! That’s harsh,” you say. And it is. But then again, that’s the truth. Look it up yourself – Matthew 5-7. Well, yes. But that’s impossible. Nobody can live like that. It may be the truth, but it’s unattainable. You can try to live that way. Discipline yourself – subject yourself to all kinds of religious rigor in an attempt to conform yourself to God’s expectations. But even if you could do it, it would be so oppressive and so fearful. What if you made a mistake? What about a moment of weakness? There would be no hope.
But that’s all theoretical. In the real world there’s nobody who lives according to the truth. We may believe it with our minds. But we don’t have the power to fulfill it. We simply can’t perfectly live according to the truth. What we need is – wait for it. Grace.
That’s what I mean when I say that in order to live a vibrant spiritual life we need a balance of grace and truth. We need the truth to keep us pointed in the right direction and grace to help us get back on track when we venture off that right path. To lose the balance on either side of grace and truth is to forfeit the abundant life that Jesus came to provide.
So where are you in this? Some of you may be big truth people. There’s right and wrong, good and evil, black and white. Your life is dominated by oughts and shoulds, and that’s how you deal with others as well. You have a set of expectations for how everybody around you is to perform. Should they violate any of those expectations, you feel a need to stand for the truth. All wrong should be exposed and in many cases punished. After all, the rules are there for a reason. They’re to be kept, or there’s hell to pay.
How’s that working for you? Likely, not well. Those who are in relationship with you, tiptoe around you walking on egg shells trying to live up to the high standards that you have set for them. They do so not because they love and respect you, but because they’re afraid of you. They don’t want to set you off and have to listen to another truth tirade.
Then there’s you. Oh, you stand for the truth. But do you live it – I mean really live it? You want others to think that you do. But you know better. In those moments when you’re really honest with yourself, you can see your shortcomings, your failed attempts at living according to the truth. You know the hidden dark side – those places where you struggle and fail which cause you to wonder where you really stand with God.
Others of you have lost your balance on the grace side of things. In a desire to be tolerant and understanding, you’ve just about jettisoned any truth at all. It seems like such a progressive concept until it runs into real life. You run from conflict because to face it feels too yucky – too potentially judgmental. You don’t set boundaries for your children who are just floundering from a lack of direction. You struggle being grounded in your own principles, because you’re too concerned with gaining the approval of others.
As for God, it feels good to have a wishy washy God that has no expectations of you. But how do you show your loyalty to him? How do you know who He even is, what’s He like and how to live in relationship with Him. You need truth for that, and you’ve been avoiding truth.
So what do we do to avoid the messiness and confusion of either a graceless or truthless life? Answer: You kept both of them in balance. With one hand you hang onto the truth to keep you grounded and morally centered. With the other hand you grasp tightly to grace for the inevitable moments when you fail to live up the standards that truth has.
Therefore, may we all learn to keep a balance between grace and truth and in the process show the world the heart of God.