Grace Alone or No Gospel

I read the headline twice. Something about the author of a bestseller on grace needing a double dose of it now.

And I sat there for a minute. Because I could not tell if I was reading news… or reading grief.

Philip Yancey. That is the name attached to it. The man who wrote What's So Amazing About Grace? Seventy-six years old. More than fifty-five years married. And he has confessed to an eight-year affair. He says he has nothing left to stand on now. Nothing but the mercy and grace of God.

Nothing to stand on but grace.

His wife Janet spoke too. And what she said was that she understands God through Jesus forgives, her husband included. God, grant me the grace to forgive him.

So the internet is asking the obvious question. Will Christians give Philip Yancey the same grace he spent his whole life writing about? The grace he spent his life trying to get other people to follow?

That is a fair question. But let me press it closer. Closer to you. Closer to me.

When you hear a story like that… what does your heart do?

Because I know what some of us do. We say, well, how could he do that? After all those years of writing and teaching, how could he? I would never do something like that. And then, underneath it, quieter, almost too quiet to catch…

at least I have not done that.

You feel it? That little move. When we fall, we want grace. But when somebody else falls, the scorecard comes out. How could you? What about this? And this? All that stuff you claimed. All that stuff you professed.

The instinct is grace for me… scorecard for you. That is the human heart. It is Jesus plus me equals security.

And that is exactly what Acts 15 puts on trial. Either it is by grace alone, through faith in Christ… or we have slipped into something else entirely.

Open your Bible to Acts 15 with me. (The full sermon is here if you want it: https://youtu.be/rXt1BQ9DkBo)

Acts 15 drew blood

The early church is finishing up a kind of missionary church-planting tour. And back at the end of chapter 14, God is saving Gentiles. That is the good news. That is the joy. But there were some people who had a problem with it. Not that Gentiles were being included, exactly. It was that they were not like us. They can be included… they just need to become like us first.

So some men came down from Judea and started teaching, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1).

Now catch the subtlety. It is not to deny Jesus. Jesus is good. Jesus is necessary. Jesus is just… not quite enough. You need a little extra added on. Grace gets offered, and then immediately it gets fenced in.

And I want to give you the picture that stuck with me all week. It is like trying to put a fence around a lion. A muzzle on him. Trying to tame him and make him a house cat by adding your own works to him. But here is the thing. When you try to leash grace like that, when you put the lion on a leash with your conditions… you are not protecting holiness. You are undoing grace.

As if the work of Jesus needs an upgrade from me.

Paul said it flat out in Galatians. "Take note. I, Paul, am telling you that if you get yourselves circumcised, Christ will not benefit you at all" (Galatians 5:2). Not less. None.

You cannot be partially saved by Christ and partially by your own works. You are either rescued or you are not. You are not halfway rescued. It is fully leaning on Christ… or fully standing on yourself.

Our "Jesus plus" now

Here is the thing. That grace-plus struggle will never die. Not in our church. Not in our own hearts. It just changes appearance. It changes clothes.

Today it might sound like, yes, Jesus… but have you had this experience? This success? This family? Do you belong to the exact right church? It can even sound like a nice little saying. God helps those who help themselves. No. Grace is not a boost. Grace is all there is.

And if we want to get a little dangerous here… what is the plus at our church? At Red River? What do we add?

This year we will celebrate 177 years. And that is a heritage we are proud of. I would not trade it for anything. I love the community we have here. I love that I know all of your names, your faces, your stories, that I get to pray for you one by one. And I love that we are not flashy. No spinning lights. No fog machines. I love it.

But that does not make us better than somebody else. That just makes us who we are. It is fine to be those things. God is just not more pleased with us because of them.

Because the second your heart whispers God is more pleased with us because we are not like them… you just left grace. That is not Jesus alone. That is Jesus plus the fact that you are not those people over there.

And every heart drifts this direction. Mine too. From grace plus nothing… over to grace plus me. And the sneaky part is that the "me" never feels like rebellion. It feels responsible. Mature. Serious about holiness. Right up until it hands you the bill. Anxiety. Comparison. That quiet resentment you cannot quite name. A yoke that gets a little heavier every year you carry it.

Peter's anchor line

And then Peter stands up.

And listen to how he speaks. Not with authority. Not as the expert. God made a choice. God is working. Not me. He does not defend his actions. He does not defend his interpretation. He just points at what God already did. God gave those Gentiles the Holy Spirit. Same as He gave it to us. He made no distinction. He cleansed their hearts by faith.

And remember what God taught Peter back in that vision. The sheet coming down, the animals, and God says eat, and Peter says no way, by no means. The lesson was this. When God says clean… we do not get to say almost. We do not get to add something to it.

Then Peter drops the line that levels the room.

"We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are" (Acts 15:11).

Now if we were writing this, we would say it the other way. We would say they get saved the same way I did. We would make ourselves the standard. But Peter flips it. He says we are saved the same way they are. Even us. With all our religion. All our history. All our Scripture stacked up behind us. Peter is stripping all of it down, because it has nothing to do with salvation. The most seasoned saint and the newest believer stand on the exact same terms.

And here is the gospel math, plain as I can make it. Jesus plus anything equals nothing. Jesus plus nothing is everything. That is Acts 15 in a line.

Then Peter names grace-plus for what it actually is. He calls it testing God. He says it puts a yoke on people's necks "that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear" (Acts 15:10). That is what you get when Jesus becomes a booster shot instead of a Savior. Jesus gave you a little boost… and now keeping God pleased is on you. Do more. Be more. Prove more.

Nobody has ever carried that. Not one person. Not ever.

But hear me on the other side of it too. Grace is not a free ride. It is a new Savior, not a new yoke. The power of sin over you is broken. The presence of sin still hangs around. You will still struggle. Still grieve. Still hurt. But you are not trying to earn your place anymore. You live from acceptance. From it. Not for it.

Big brother religion

Jesus told a story about this in Luke 15. And we have sanded it down into something sweet. It is not sweet.

The younger son runs off, squanders it all, ends up living with the pigs, and finally crawls home in shame. And the father runs. Robe. Ring. Fatted calf. A party.

But then there is the older brother. And this is the big brother religion. He is out on the farm, faithful, and he hears the music and he will not go in. So the father comes out and pleads with him. And listen to how the boy answers his own father. "Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me…" (Luke 15:29).

Slaving. You do not talk like that if you are a son or a daughter. That is employee language. His obedience became his résumé. The demand for his reward. He was not doing it for the joy of the Father. He was doing it for the paycheck.

And the father says, son, you are always with me. Everything I have is yours.

The older brother's problem was never that he was bad. It was not a behavior problem at all. It is that his own goodness became his confidence. And here is why grace is so offensive to a heart like that. Grace treats salvation as a gift. But the older brother wants it treated as a wage. Because if it is a wage, if I earned it, then the glory goes to me. I slaved for it. I deserve a party.

But if it is a gift… then the glory goes to the Father. Because He provided it. He paid for it. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The scorecard wants a paycheck it can frame and hang on the wall. But grace wants you to drop the résumé and put on the robe.

Where you add the plus

So Acts 15 turns and asks us the same thing. Is there a plus lingering somewhere? Something you added? Something subtle?

I made a decision. Prayed a prayer. Walked an aisle. Did the church stuff. Read my Bible. Say my prayers. The list is as long as you want to make it. And hear me, those things are not bad. But ask yourself the real question. Are you doing them because He has already accepted you? Or are you doing them to try and earn His acceptance?

Look, there are only two ways to stand before a holy God. You get two choices. You can be morally perfect in every thought, every word, every deed. Or you can receive a righteousness that is not yours, the perfect record of Jesus, given by grace through faith. Option one is impossible in a fallen world. You cannot do it. But option two is wide open. For anybody. Everybody. Does not matter your background. Does not matter your heritage.

You can profess grace with your mouth and still live by a scorecard. You can speak like a child and live like a hired hand.

So here is how you find yours. If God took away the thing you quietly lean on… would you feel less saved? Less secure with Him? If losing it would rattle you down to the bones, then it is not a gift anymore.

It became a foundation.

Obedience from love

Now somebody is already asking it. So does obedience even matter then?

Grace alone does not make obedience optional. It makes obedience honest.

Because when obeying is how you stay accepted, you never really obey as a son. You obey as a slave, paying rent on a room in your Father's own house. But when you are already accepted? Already home? You are not paying rent anymore. You live here. Obedience stops being currency you hand over and starts being fruit that grows on you. It grows the day you finally stop auditioning.

"We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are."

That is the line poured in the concrete. Not saved through your follow-through. Not saved through your record. Not saved through fifty-five years of marriage or a shelf full of books about grace. Saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus. The One crucified for every plus we ever tried to add. Raised on the third day so that your standing before God rests on His life. Not yours.

If the risen Christ is holding you… then your record is not.

Bringing it back to us

Grace is a scandal. I think that is exactly why we tend not to like it. It forces us to reckon with a love that is unearned. Undeserved. Unmerited. It strips away everything we worked for in this world to prove ourselves, to boost ourselves up. And we would rather control, manage, and earn than simply receive.

Picture the person who comes with nothing. Naked. And accepts a robe the Father throws over him, and a ring on his finger that says you are a child of the King. But to take it, you have to put down all the other stuff you have been clinging to. All your thoughts and words and deeds that might impress somebody. Because impressive as they are… they earn you nothing toward your salvation. That is the humility of grace.

Some of us are the younger brother and we know it. Dirt on the face. Shame in the chest. Mercy or nothing. Philip Yancey is standing right there this month. In front of the whole watching world.

And some of us are the older brother. And that one is harder to own. Because there are no VIP entrances into heaven. Just a bunch of sinners… and a Savior with scars.

So where are you adding the plus?

I am not going to hand you homework. But here is one idea. Tomorrow, when you wake up, before you touch your phone, before your feet even hit the floor… tell your Heavenly Father how thankful you are that before you do anything today, you are already fully accepted in Christ.

Is that not the most scandalous thing you have ever heard? Before I do anything, I am accepted.

And when you fail, run to Him. The grace is still there. When you serve, do it from acceptance, not for it. And when others fail… give them the same grace you received. If we came to Him empty-handed, how in the world can we look down on somebody else who does the same?

Just do not run from the question.

The Father is already out in the yard.

This article comes from a sermon on Acts 15 at Red River Baptist Church. Watch the full sermon here: https://youtu.be/rXt1BQ9DkBo.