My Dear Shepherds,
When I first came to one of our churches, our worship leader was a wonderful guy whom everyone loved—warm, earnest, smiling, and gifted. But inside, where none of us could see, he was dealing with explosive anger. As I recall, when it finally got the best of him, he saw a Christian counselor who led home to God’s grace.
It turned out that the poor man was exhausted by all his efforts to be good—to do everything expected of him, everything he expected of himself. He thought that’s what God required. But when he grasped the loving, embracing grace of Christ, he just melted inwardly. He began to heal. Tears often came to his eyes. He was a man astonished. Like a blind man who received his sight he walked around blinking at the beauty of God’s grace. He’d talk about grace every chance he got.
That dear son certainly didn’t have the hard heart of the older brother in Jesus’ story, but he hadn’t really grasped the loving, heartfelt assurances of the Father either. Despite being free, grace doesn’t come easily to a lot of people. It seems too good to be true. Our job as pastors and teachers is to help them listen:
“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me . . ..” (Luke 15:31)
Put that way, inverted like that, it’s a little startling. “You are always with me.” And he said it to his hard-hearted ingrate of a son! Our dear saints (even the ones who aren’t so dear) are always with the Father, whether they realize it or not. We can say, “Did you know that this week, when your life was a mess, you were with our Father? You were never by yourself.”
“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”
Who can grasp how rich we are in Christ? As long as we have been with Jesus we have never wanted for any good thing. He pronounces Amen to all of God’s promises. Our pastoral challenge is teaching God’s people how to draw upon the inexhaustible riches of God’s kingdom. No one who remembers their prodigal life, when they squandered their inheritance and came to envy pigs, ever thinks, “Those were the good old days.”
In Jesus’ story, the father pleaded with his older son:
“But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:32)
The older son in Jesus’ story griped that he’d never once gotten to have his own party. The thing is, God doesn’t offer to give any of us our own party, with our own goat meat and our own friends. He offers something better. He invites us to his party, his feast, to share his joy. And nothing gives God greater joy than welcoming sinners home.
God’s compassion never stops with the repentant, broken son at his feet. It always leads to the festivities of heaven. Pastors are constantly showing God’s people the range and wonders of the gospel. When churches love to celebrate God’s grace to sinners and all the treasures the Father gives us, we are rehearsing for heaven. Instead of being old sourpusses, we learn to be glad like God is glad and to relish his grace.
It’s also how pastors keep our flocks from the soul-killing sin of self-righteousness. Constantly celebrating God’s grace makes a proud elder brother as uneasy as a fat man at a fitness club. A good church grace-izes her people. So . . .
Be ye glad!
