Ruined by Grace
I am very into cars…basically most things with motors and wheels really. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc. Sadly, this makes me a bit passé in one regard (maybe more than one) because I love the things that most people agree are slowly killing our planet. But as the band Tow’rs sings, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t help myself!” (amazing song!) While all of the advanced hybrid techie stuff is way cool and will ensure that I get to enjoy automobiles for years to come without a constantly guilty conscience…I still prefer a fire-breathing V8. It’s what powers our truck, and I have no illusions, the earth cries a little every time I drive past. Still, it’s utilitarian, we need it to haul stuff all the time, and we bought it used, which is like recycling. So there!
My lovely wife knows me very well, and has been very gracious towards my often very expensive hobby of automobiles. Let’s just say that I have purchased my fair share of cars that did not always pan out the way that I had hoped. They are usually of the older German variety, which are in my opinion simply the best, but can be very expensive when they break. On that note, however, I think our worst car ever was actually Kate’s little 90s VW Golf. The car was sexist…whenever I drove it and only when I drove it, it broke down. It was a lemon. But I digress, Kate has been quite supportive, and I am grateful.
A few years back she surprised me with an amazing Father’s Day gift. Through some sort of Groupon she bought me a few laps around a race track in a Ferrari 458, which even if you don’t know anything about cars I am sure you realize that a Ferrari is something special. Well, the 458 (which has a V8) just happens to be one of the most special Ferraris ever built. It is one of those cars where everything works together perfectly. The engineering is just that good. So much so that I watched a car show where one of the hosts was driving one around the countryside and literally began to tear up a bit over how good the car was. And it wasn’t some stereotypical ridiculous man; it was a woman, who was British, which means she was automatically more sophisticated than all of us because the British just are. The accent alone makes them about 10% smarter than any American. Her reaction was what happens to many of us when we encounter a beautiful piece of art, and I assure you the 458 is an engineering and design masterpiece.
The sexy 458
So, Kate got me this awesome gift, and it was indeed awesome. My 6’5 frame had to be squeezed into the car with a giant shoehorn, but it was completely worth it. I only got three laps, and they were simply amazing. I have never driven anything that fast before nor anything that handled like that before. It was perfect. I loved every second, and I will never forget it. A funny thing happened though. Kate asked me how it was. I was obviously quite elated, but I was also very sad. As we drove away from the track I was depressed. I said to her, “That was probably the greatest and worst gift you could have ever gotten me because now I am ruined.” I am ruined by that car. It was so good, so beyond what I had ever experienced before, that I knew nothing would be able to compare with it, at least nothing that I would ever be able to afford. The front brakes alone on that car cost over $5000. I was and am ruined by that car.
Don’t worry, we laughed a lot about it and enjoyed it together, and Kate could basically phone in the rest of our marriage, and she would still be the greatest wife ever. I’ve been ruined for her since I was a teenager anyhow (cue the “Awwwws!”).
I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like that where you get a taste of the absolute best of something…something or someone that just explodes your expectations, and everything and everyone else just pales in comparison. Grace is like that. It blows up our paradigms. It exceeds our expectations so much that it seems impossible, too good to be true. It makes what we think is good look like complete trash, worthless. It redefines goodness for us. It becomes the paradigm, and it ruins us for anything else. There’s no going back. As Sinead O’Connor sang “Nothing compares to you!”
Peter says as much in one of my favorite moments between Jesus and his disciples (John 6:22-71). The day after Jesus feeds the five thousand he teaches the people that he is the bread of life and that they must feed on his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life…pointing ahead to what he would do on the cross and to our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Much of the crowd had a very difficult time with this teaching. They said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” And it was. What Jesus was telling them was incredible. Flat out ridiculous to our logical minds. And Jesus knew this would be difficult. The passage tells us he already knew who believed and who did not, and reiterates the fact that belief itself is a gift, something that God gives to a person. He says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all” (John 6:63). In other words, you cannot attain eternal life through will power or effort. It only happens as a result of the Spirit’s work in a person’s heart through hearing the good news of grace. He concludes, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him or her by the Father” (6:65).
Most of his followers leave. He had exposed the fact that they didn’t really believe in him and they go. But he turns to the twelve and asks them if they were going to leave as well, and that is when Peter says the amazing thing. He says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” They had been ruined by the grace of Jesus. He chose them, loved them, built into them, and revealed himself to them in amazing ways. They knew that there was nowhere else they could go, no one else that they could follow that would satisfy or even begin to compare to Jesus and his love for them. They were ruined. You have the words of eternal life. Something in their hearts had changed.
The interesting thing about this was that they did not fully understand what Jesus meant by his flesh and blood yet either. They did not understand or even realize that Jesus had come to die for them. The cross was not in their view at all. But enough had transpired for them to know that this man was different. He spoke with power and authority and displayed power and authority as well, and he did all of it while being compassionate and loving towards them. But they still would struggle and fail in the face of what was to come.
The disciples would all turn away, but then they would also be brought back in. They would be restored by the resurrected Jesus himself, and the truth about his grace and forgiveness would hit home for them. They would come to understand what he did for them fully. They would look back on his teachings and miracles and actions through the new lens of the cross and resurrection and they would never be the same. They would be ruined forever by grace. SO much so that many of them would actually follow Jesus to their own crucifixions and deaths for their faith because nothing else in this world came even close to the grace and love he gave them.
And this is what Paul exhorts all of us to in Ephesians 6. He calls us all to stand…stand in the grace that God has given us. To stand as forgiven. To stand, nothing else. Grace is the only thing that will win out in the end. It is the final word. Everything that Paul lists in the famous armor of God passage from Ephesians 6 has to do with grace. They are all gifts from God: the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. All of them are based on God’s promises to us…you are forgiven. None of them are things that we do or make happen. We are given the armor of God’s grace to stand just like the early disciples.
God’s radical grace rocks us to the core. It decimates our old ways of thinking and living. All of our efforts of justifying ourselves, proving ourselves, trying to earn our way become laughable. Everything about us that before we might have said, “Well, at least I’ve got that going for me” becomes completely insignificant in the face of His incredible and unconditional free grace. His grace becomes the paradigm. There is no going back.
Dandelion Ministries is all about magnifying his grace so that we can simply stand in it free and alive. He alone has the words of life…where else can we go? Nothing that comes at us will be able to trump it. Praise God that we get to be ruined by his grace.
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