In Vain

Wednesday, March 09, 2011, 2:34 a.m. – I woke with this song playing in my mind:

Much Too High A Price / Jesus Paid It All / Phil McHugh and Greg Nelson

You paid much too high a price for me, Your tears, Your blood, the pain –
To have my soul just stirred at times yet never truly changed.
You deserve a fiery love that won’t ignore your sacrifice
Because You paid much too high a price.

Full Lyrics - http://www.music-lyrics-gospel.com/gospel_music_lyrics/much_too_high_a_price_9499.asp

I knew the Lord had gotten me up, so I sat down on the sofa to spend time with him and to hear from him what he had for me. I prayed, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Then, I opened my Bible to where I had left off reading last. I read 2 Corinthians 6:

As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 2 For he says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

Paul’s Hardships
3 We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. 12 We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. 13 As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also.

Do Not Be Yoked With Unbelievers
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
17 “Therefore come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
18 “I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”

My Understanding: As soon as I read verse 1, where it said to not receive God’s grace in vain, I knew why the Lord had woken me with that song in my mind. The song said that Jesus paid much too high a price for me (us) to have my soul (our souls) just stirred at times but never truly changed. God’s grace is his kindness, favor and mercy toward us. His grace was provided for us via Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins and his resurrection to life in conquering death, hell, Satan and sin – both the penalty of sin and bondage to and the control of sin over our lives - so that we could receive new lives in Christ Jesus.

To receive something means to hear and to grasp something, to welcome it, and/or it means to obtain and accept it. To accept something means that we consent and agree with it. Yet, if we receive something in vain, it means it is ineffective, unsuccessful, useless, unproductive and/or pointless. It appears, thus, to receive something in vain is to not truly receive it at all, i.e. it appears to me that this receiving of God’s grace must have been on a very surface level and the seed must have never really taken root for it to be in vain.

James 2:17 says: In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

And, I Co. 15:2 says: By this gospel you are saved, IF you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

So, if the receiving of God’s grace, i.e. if our faith does not result in changed lives, it is dead and we have “believed” in vain, which is really no belief at all. We need to understand this because there are so many preachers and teachers who are saying just the opposite. Many are claiming that Jesus does everything and nothing is required of us. Some even take it so far as to not even require faith, which would mean that everyone would be saved. Yet, scripture teaches us that narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13-14).

Then, Paul contrasts a life that is truly changed by the gospel message with one that is still hanging on to the world and to worldly influences. In vv. 3-13 Paul gives a vivid description of a life that has truly been changed (altered and transformed) by the gospel message. It is essential to Paul’s relationship with Jesus Christ, as well as to the productivity of his ministry in other people’s lives, that he lives an exemplary life so that his ministry is not discredited. In other words, Paul and his fellow apostles knew that, if they were going to be effective ministers for Jesus Christ in all that they said and did, that their walk needed to match their talk. I am certain they were not entirely perfect, yet they made it their goal to please the Lord Jesus in every way.

In contrast to a life completely sold out to Jesus Christ in every way, though not in absolute sinless perfection, is a life that is still mixing with the world and its influences. To be yoked together with someone or something means to be in partnership (agreement) or in a contractual or covenant relationship with someone, as well as to be yoked means to be in servitude and/or slavery. So, if those who claim to be in Christ are in agreement with and are serving alongside those outside of Christ, it would be like two oxen, yoked together for the purpose of pulling a plow, trying to go in opposite directions. They will both end up going the same direction or they will go no direction at all and will be completely unproductive, which is what it means to believe in vain.

This is not to say that we, as believers in Jesus Christ, should cut off all associations with non-believers. The Bible says that we are to live in the world, but we are not to be of the world. We are to be lights to the world, and witnesses for Jesus, and we are to show his love to those in need, following Jesus’ example. Yet, we are not to be in agreement with darkness and wickedness, with false gods, or with worldly (based in sin) ways, methods and/or philosophies that stand in stark contrast to God’s righteousness and holiness.

This is also not to assume that all non-believers live lives that we would consider truly wicked or that all believers in Jesus Christ live exemplary lives in all righteousness and holiness. Sometimes non-believers appear much more righteous than some who claim to believe in Jesus Christ. Yet, God does not define wickedness in contrast to righteousness in the same way the world does. We cannot earn God’s grace by trying to make sure that our own goodness outweighs anything bad that we do. We can never be good enough, because we are all sinners and we all fall short of having the glory of God within us outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ. The only way we can attain true righteousness is through faith in Jesus Christ, because then it is not of ourselves, it is a gift of God, so that none of us can boast of his or her own goodness.

So, when the scripture tells us to not be yoked together with non-believers, it is warning us against partnering together with those outside of Christ to where we would be drawn back toward unbelief and/or drawn toward returning to a life of sin and rebellion against God, once again enslaved (yoked) to sin, instead of taking upon oneself the yoke of Jesus Christ. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, because he took the weight of it all for us when he died on the cross for our sins so that we could go free. So, being yoked to Jesus Christ, though still slavery, is a yoke that brings with it true freedom from the control of sin over our lives. We cannot be yoked to the world and yoked to Jesus Christ at the same time. Again, it is like believing in vain or like receiving God’s grace in vain, because we would be trying to go in the opposite direction of the one we are enslaved to, and it would be futile.

So, we are told to come out from them and be separate, not removing ourselves completely from the world or from the people from the world, but removing ourselves from slavery and partnership with those people and/or influences that would lead us away from pure devotion to Jesus Christ and that would lead us back into a life of slavery to sin. Then, God will receive us and be a Father to us and we will be his children.

Jesus paid much too high a price for us - by not only going through all the emotional, mental and physical pain and suffering he endured on our behalf, but by taking upon himself all our sin, going to the grave, but then rising again triumphantly over the grave and sin – for us to just have an occasional emotional stirring in our hearts but to never truly change. He paid much too high a price for us to spurn his grace by going our own way, by us partnering and agreeing with the world by how we live our lives, by us refusing to repent (turn from) our sinful lifestyles, and/or by us following after other gods or a different gospel that is really no gospel at all – one that does not slay the sinner but entertains him.

Instead, Jesus deserves a fiery love that won’t ignore his sacrifice. Paul described for us that kind of “fiery love” when he described the life of one who lives an exemplary life in order to not put a stumbling block in anyone’s path that might keep that person from believing in Jesus. Yet, that was not his main or only reason for why he did what he did. He loved Jesus with all his heart and he desired nothing more than to obey him in all things, and that is the kind of fiery love that does not ignore Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins, i.e. it does not receive God’s grace in vain.

I pray that we all would examine our hearts and lives to see whether or not we have ignored Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins in any way, whether or not we are yoked together with the world and with unbelief, or whether or not we have that kind of “fiery love” that is willing to be who God wants us to be, go where he wants us to go, say what he desires of us to say, and do what he requires of us that we do. I pray that none of us will have received God’s grace in vain, but that we will live productive, God-fearing lives that are eager to please our Lord Jesus in every way, and to have hearts that are willing to suffer and die for the sake of the gospel so that other people can know the way of salvation and can receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in all its fullness into their own lives.