Gifts for (Recovering) Jerks--September 10, 2020

Gifts for (Recovering) Jerks—September 10, 2020

"Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing." [Philippians 1:27-28]

Even with free gifts, it is possible to receive something well… or badly. You can be a gracious receiver—thankful, appreciative, and conscious of the thoughtfulness and sacrifice that went into the gift. Or you can be a jerk—rude, ungrateful, and smugly entitled. 

The question is, why would you want to be a jerk about a free gift? Even if it didn’t mean that the gift would be rescinded, even if you would still receive it if you were an ungrateful clod, why in heaven’s name would you want to be? 

I mean, I suppose you could brag to yourself that you were milking the system or that you were getting away with something, but that hardly seems worth the effort it takes to deliberately be a jerk about things. After all, you are diminishing your own ability to enjoy a gift if you belittle it—whereas you find even more delight in it when you practice a little gratitude, or appreciate the lengths the giver went to in order to place the gift in your hands. So, sure, you can be intentionally rude and unappreciative when you receive something, but in the end, it sounds rather like cutting off your nose to spite your face. 

This is essentially the question in front of all Christians, too. We have received a free gift through the Good News of Jesus Christ. We have received the promise of life, full abundant, everlasting life, by grace. We have received freedom, forgiveness, and a permanent place in the new family of God. It’s a gift we were given while we were still ungrateful clods toward God (see Romans 5:6 and following on that point). It’s a gift that God refuses to rescind, even when we fail to appreciate it fully (because, seriously, who really can completely appreciate an infinite gift?). So why would we want to intentionally be pompous, entitled jerks about it? 

Or, to frame it the other way around, why would we not want to receive the free gift of God in a way that reflects that we “get” it… that we understand and recognize what a precious gift has been handed to us from God in Christ? 

This is really what it means to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,” as Paul puts it. It’s not about being good enough to earn the gospel. It’s not about proving yourself worthy as a way of achieving God’s good graces. Because—as Paul will be the first to tell you—the Gospel itself is about God’s reach to unworthy people, to claim us and wash us and make us new, while we are messes, apart from our saving up points or saying the right prayers. 

You’ll notice that Paul doesn’t add as a warning something like, “Or else God will cancel your account…” or “in order to keep yourself on God’s good list.” Paul says, “Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel,” the same way you might subconsciously tell yourself, “Don’t be a jerk when you receive this gift.” The giving and the receiving of the gift are not dependent on you being polite when you open it—but you will hardly be able to enjoy the gift as it is intended when you make a deliberate point of spitting in the face of the giver. You will be spiting your face… at quite a cost. 

So, what will it look like for us to do what Paul says, to “live a life worthy of the gospel”? Well, what do you do when you receive a really great gift from someone else? Chances are, you find yourself drawn to want to do things for the giver to express your appreciation. You find yourself learning how to use the gift as it was intended, rather than getting dusty on a shelf. You find yourself brought into a closer relationship with the giver, wanting to spend time with them. So… for us, who have received the free gift of God’s saving grace in Christ, we will find ourselves wanting to do things that bring delight to God—not to earn anything from God, but because love just has a way of doing that to you. We will find ourselves making use of the gospel as it was intended—welcoming others with the same embrace that it embraced us with. We will find ourselves seeking to spend time deepening our relationship with God. And we will be doing all that because we have been given a wonderful free gift—not in order to earn it. 

See, the thing about God’s grace is this: the more you realize God would still have given it to you if you were a jerk about it (or more accurately, when you realize God did still give it to you when you were a jerk), the more you want to be done with actually being an ungrateful jerk about it. 

In other words, the more we let the Gospel message of God’s love for the unworthy sink in, the more we want to lead lives worthy of that kind of news, lives that are grateful, grounded, and faithful. 

Lord God, humbly we recognize that your love reached out to us when we were not worthy of it. Even more humbly, we realize we are still not worthy in the sense of having earned your love. But because you have lavished that love on us, let us live today in grateful response to that love. Help us to be good receivers today.