Divine Constructs: Grace

Here is another post from my son Zach. I would love to hear your thoughts about it.

Grace is an easy sermon topic, it is all about getting things that we do not deserve but I think we often miss the heart of grace. Grace has a purpose and a desire. Grace is one of many instruments that God has implemented to bring about the realization of His plan. Grace’s construct or the desire of grace is restoration. The divine construct that grace is exists primarily to reconcile God and humanity but it exists to reconcile also humanity within itself.

Grace is more than God simply pouring His love out lavishly upon those whom he chooses, no doubt this is part of grace but if we reduce God to a divine grandma who spoils us then we have committed idolatry and reduced God to the pathetic musings of our imagination. Thankfully God is much more than a divine grandma and His grace is not the arbitrary dispersion of some abstract characteristic like a sprinkler over your lawn. Though as a culturally conditioned western man it is hard to grasp the idea that I am the bride of Christ it is a true statement and is an important reality. Christ pursues his bride with a passion and intense love that sent him to the cross, demonstrating the perfection of the Father’s grace. The intent of the cross was restoration, reconciling a pathetic people with their Savior King who lavished a divine love to remind the wayward hearts of His people that He is the perfection of good and the embodiment of satisfaction and only in Him can we find these things. Robert Robinson expressed this idea very well in his hymn “Come thou fount” with the lyrics

“O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Robinson understood the failings of his own heart very well and knew tendency to abandon what he knew to be good and perfect. He understood something else though, he understood the role that grace plays in God’s wooing of His people back to him. There are time when punishment is needed but I have found it to be very true in my life that God chooses to show me grace in a variety of ways and I find that it often comes despite my sin and is accompanied with blessed conviction. God desires to show His people how good He is, He promises to bless His people and these promises can be seen throughout the Old and New Testaments to Abraham, Moses, David and through the Apostles and most notably through Christ on the cross. These blessings are the manifestations and evidence of the grace of God being poured out upon us. Though I may seem repetitive it is because I want to try and explain this clearly and from as many sides as possible, the grace God shows us is not impersonal or arbitrary, it is deeply personal and intentional, a divine conspiracy to bring a people hell bent on their own destruction into the presence their mighty Creator and loving friend. The design of grace is not a talent show or God showing off. The construct of Grace is the holy design of a sovereign and loving God bringing his people His people into an active relationship with Him through subtle and extravagant reminders of the radical love of God for his people.