Baptists talk a lot about grace but find it hard to practice.  We like grace when it suits us but fear what it means at other times.  Real grace is dangerous.  Real grace is risky.  It mean leaving control of the universe to God.  It means accepting the bad behavior of others while not depending on our good works.  Such a paradox is really difficult for us to accept.  We learn about grace all of the way through scripture.  Even during the time of the law you will discover a God who acts in grace.  Then you look at how Jesus behaves in the gospels to get a clearer view of such grace.  Our struggle with grace shows up in our relationships.  It reveals itself in how we deal with God.  People who really get grace are often misunderstood in how they relate to God and those around them.  They are often seen as weak on sin even if the opposite is true.  What we often fail to see is how much of our thinking is more law than grace.  We are going to have to come to grips with this should we want to see God work more in our world.

How do we engage a world with its immorality and its resistance to God?  Just believing or even quoting the truth is not going to be enough.  Doing the business of the Kingdom means also exhibiting grace in our behavior.  People who are lost today may not view behavior as we did even thirty years ago.  We lost that battle years ago.  Does this mean we stop talking about sin?  We cannot ever fail to point out sin in our world.  Grace does not ever mean not recognizing failures.  It very well may be that having a stand on sin will increase our grasp of grace.  Paul will write in his letters of how the law or our view of sin will shine a greater light on grace.  But what we often do is say we can accept the sinner but not the sin.  Grace may force us to not make that choice.  People behave for better or worse from their humanity.  What we will learn is how to accept people along with bad behavior as we nudge them toward God. 

So what would I do if a gay person or any other sinner talked about life or faith with me?  You can be sure of my pointing out conduct that goes against scripture.  But you can also know my emphasis would move far past behavior.  People are lost not just because of how they behave but of how they believe or don't.  That is a matter of a heart relationship with God.  We often cannot see past how people act to offer them the hope they need.  That hope is in the grace of God who can change lives far beyond my approval or disapproval.  Imagine how shocked the early believers were to hear that Saul was converted after he tried to wipe the church out?  It could be we would have the same doubts about Paul as they did.  Our prayers are often for sinners who don't sin too bad rather than imagining grace can change who we consider to be really lost.  Those who are gay, had abortions, or live a lifestyle of addiction we do honestly tend to write off.  Those who gave birth before marriage we tend to leave some scarlet letter on them.  We could go on with the list but you get the idea.

Grace is radical.  It has to be to change a radical sinner.  That is something only God can do.  But will God get to transform sinners if we fail to live or practice grace?  That decision is up to us.

Bro. Trey