Here is the Bible study we went through last night on “Costly Grace.” As musicians, singers, and leaders, Bonhoeffer’s message challenges us to take a inward look at our beliefs and faith before we lead others in worship. Our guest preacher this last week quoted A.W Tozer: “what you believe about God will tell everything about you,” and it is the same about our worship leading….what we believe about God will tell everything about our worship leading. So I hope you are challenged about the ‘costliness’ grace by our study this week!
This study concludes our introduction to this series. In future weeks and months we will be exploring these themes:
- gospel beliefs
- gospel character
- gospel discipleship
- gospel excellence
- gospel artistry
- gospel leadership
And lastly…..I want to encourage you, if you still attending the church and living close to Den Haag, to attend the Prodigal God Study in September. This study will just confirm and deepen your understanding of the topics we have been discussing over the past months. You can sign up on the website or at church.
So.....here is this weeks study:
INTRODUCTION WEEK 9: Costly Grace
READ:
Philippians 3:7-11, Luke 5:1-11
DISCUSS:
1. How did we define cheap grace last week? How can we ‘cheapen’ Grace? What are some characteristics of ‘cheap grace’?
2. What is it about Grace that is costly? How did grace cost God everything? How does it cost us our lives? How is your life/the church/the world, better because of Grace?
3. Is your life and your church characterized more by costly or cheap grace? What step could you take to follow Jesus Christ in your life today?
REFLECT:
Who, or what, would you say, is the chief enemy of the church? Secularism? Humanism? Atheism? All of those movements definitely disagree with the claims of the church, but are they our ‘enemies’? Probably not. The worst enemies often come from within, and as we learned from Deitrich Bonhoeffer last week, the chief enemy of the church is cheap grace. It is the enemy of the church because it distorts the very core of the Christian faith and deceives us into believing a ‘gospel’ that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we talked about last week, Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as ‘data without life’, forgiveness without repentance’, and ‘forgiveness without discipleship.’ All of us can testify to how we have ‘cheapened grace’ in these ways at times in our lives and we have all experienced churches that practice cheap grace. Bonhoeffer though reminds us that Grace is something much greater and much more wonderful that we often imagine it to be. And he assures us that the Holy Spirit is always calling us back to ‘costly grace’, which is the only answer to the world’s problems and a priceless gift and treasure to those who would receive it. As Bonhoeffer writes:
“Grace is costly because it calls us to follow and grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life and grace because it gives a person the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘ye were bought at a great price.’ And what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.” Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p45
Grace is costly for Bonhoeffer, because it cost God everything to give, it costs everything for us to follow, and though it might mean death for us to follow, it is the only thing that can give us true life.
1. Grace is costly because it cost God everything.
Grace is such a nice idea that often we forget how much it cost God to give it. Whenever we trivialize grace or God’s love we need to remember that Grace cost God everything to give. Our sin and wretchedness as humans is so evil and corrupt that the only way God could save us is through the willing sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The gripping moments of Matthew 27:45-46 where Jesus cries out from the cross “my God, why have you forsaken me?” become even more poignant when we realize that God, at that moment, experienced God-forsakenness. God himself experienced desperate hopelessness. So often we forget what it cost God to come and save humanity. God gave His only Son…..so God knows what it is like to experience their child tortured and killed. But even more, Jesus is God incarnate….so at that moment God knew the terrible anguish of the cross and the darkness of hopelessness in Himself. He knows what it is like to lose everything. He knows what it is like to be forsaken, to be lost, to die. And God does this willingly for us. As Jurgen Moltmann writes in his book, The Crucified God, "God's power is not expressed by the fact that he controls all things (the opposite of love), but in that he bears all things and suffers all things." This is amazing grace!
2. Grace is costly because it costs us our lives.
Grace is the gift of the Christian life and it is the only way to know Christ and what Christ has done for us. There is no other way we can understand God’s love for us. Yet God’s grace is more than idea….it is a person. Jesus Christ. And through the Grace of God in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are called to come and be transformed by grace. This involves a death as well as new life, and that is why it is so costly to us. It is costly because it cost God’s son his life and it is costly because it costs our life.
Grace costs our lives because we cannot understand and be transformed by Grace without following Christ. And God will not be content until He is the only Lord of our lives and our whole lives are transformed by Grace. Christ is the answer and everything else is just dead religion and empty doctrine. Bonhoeffer challenges all Christians that Grace requires a response and it becomes less real and urgent in our lives if we don’t stay close to the source of all grace, Jesus Christ. Consider the story of Peter on the beach in Luke 5:1-11. Jesus encountered Peter and asked him to follow. Would Peter have grown in faith without actually putting down his nets and following? No. It’s the same with us. Our faith will just become a bunch of dead religion unless we do something about it. When we actually follow Christ where he goes, that is where we will find life and understand Grace. If we continue to stay ‘Christ observers’ and not ‘Christ followers’ then we will never understand and be changed by ‘costly grace’.
3. Costly Grace gives a person the only True life.
So costly grace costs our lives but at the same time Grace is the only thing that brings us new life. In dying to our old life we see true and untainted life in Grace. Life not ruled by sin, but ruled by love. In Grace we are assured that we accepted by God and given new life in Jesus Christ. We are no longer as we were and we now have a new identity, a new assurance, a new hope, and a new purpose. Bonhoeffer echoes all of scripture in describing Grace as a fountain of life. It is true, unbridled, real life, and following Christ leads us to the challenge and also the blessings of living Grace out in our ordinary lives. Grace leads us to to give our lives to God and to forgive others, to confront our anger, selfishness, and greed, to value ourselves and others, to work for the thriving and blessing of people, and to be healed….of our own self-hatred, of our deep wounds, our brokenness, and the sin that often so controls us. Grace is liberation….yet it is not cheap.
In our worship leading, it is easy to preach a message of cheap grace. It is easy to get moralistic or to focus on emotions or performance. So, the question for us is: are we following Christ? Are we, as worship leaders, being challenged by ‘costly grace’ in our lives. And are we letting that Grace form the kind of songs we sing, words we say, ways we perform, the ways we plan worship, and the ways we encourage and challenge our congregations? What does this mean for our lives and for our walk with Christ?
“Happy are the simple followers of Jesus who have been overcome by His grace, and are able to sing the praises of the all-sufficient grace of Christ with humbleness of heart. Happy are they who, knowing that Grace can live in the world and not be of it, who, by following Jesus Christ, are assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world. Happy are they who know that discipleship simply means the life which springs from grace and that grace simply means discipleship. Happy are they who have become Christians in this sense of the word. For them the word of grace has proven to be a fount of mercy.” Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship p. 56
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Luke 15:1-10, Luke 19:1-10, Ephesians 4:17-24, Ephesians 5:1-7, 8-20,
REFERENCES (for further reading)
The Cost of Discipleship by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Letters and Papers From Prison by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Philippians 3:7-11, Luke 5:1-11
DISCUSS:
1. How did we define cheap grace last week? How can we ‘cheapen’ Grace? What are some characteristics of ‘cheap grace’?
2. What is it about Grace that is costly? How did grace cost God everything? How does it cost us our lives? How is your life/the church/the world, better because of Grace?
3. Is your life and your church characterized more by costly or cheap grace? What step could you take to follow Jesus Christ in your life today?
REFLECT:
Who, or what, would you say, is the chief enemy of the church? Secularism? Humanism? Atheism? All of those movements definitely disagree with the claims of the church, but are they our ‘enemies’? Probably not. The worst enemies often come from within, and as we learned from Deitrich Bonhoeffer last week, the chief enemy of the church is cheap grace. It is the enemy of the church because it distorts the very core of the Christian faith and deceives us into believing a ‘gospel’ that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we talked about last week, Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as ‘data without life’, forgiveness without repentance’, and ‘forgiveness without discipleship.’ All of us can testify to how we have ‘cheapened grace’ in these ways at times in our lives and we have all experienced churches that practice cheap grace. Bonhoeffer though reminds us that Grace is something much greater and much more wonderful that we often imagine it to be. And he assures us that the Holy Spirit is always calling us back to ‘costly grace’, which is the only answer to the world’s problems and a priceless gift and treasure to those who would receive it. As Bonhoeffer writes:
“Grace is costly because it calls us to follow and grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life and grace because it gives a person the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘ye were bought at a great price.’ And what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.” Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p45
Grace is costly for Bonhoeffer, because it cost God everything to give, it costs everything for us to follow, and though it might mean death for us to follow, it is the only thing that can give us true life.
1. Grace is costly because it cost God everything.
Grace is such a nice idea that often we forget how much it cost God to give it. Whenever we trivialize grace or God’s love we need to remember that Grace cost God everything to give. Our sin and wretchedness as humans is so evil and corrupt that the only way God could save us is through the willing sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The gripping moments of Matthew 27:45-46 where Jesus cries out from the cross “my God, why have you forsaken me?” become even more poignant when we realize that God, at that moment, experienced God-forsakenness. God himself experienced desperate hopelessness. So often we forget what it cost God to come and save humanity. God gave His only Son…..so God knows what it is like to experience their child tortured and killed. But even more, Jesus is God incarnate….so at that moment God knew the terrible anguish of the cross and the darkness of hopelessness in Himself. He knows what it is like to lose everything. He knows what it is like to be forsaken, to be lost, to die. And God does this willingly for us. As Jurgen Moltmann writes in his book, The Crucified God, "God's power is not expressed by the fact that he controls all things (the opposite of love), but in that he bears all things and suffers all things." This is amazing grace!
2. Grace is costly because it costs us our lives.
Grace is the gift of the Christian life and it is the only way to know Christ and what Christ has done for us. There is no other way we can understand God’s love for us. Yet God’s grace is more than idea….it is a person. Jesus Christ. And through the Grace of God in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are called to come and be transformed by grace. This involves a death as well as new life, and that is why it is so costly to us. It is costly because it cost God’s son his life and it is costly because it costs our life.
Grace costs our lives because we cannot understand and be transformed by Grace without following Christ. And God will not be content until He is the only Lord of our lives and our whole lives are transformed by Grace. Christ is the answer and everything else is just dead religion and empty doctrine. Bonhoeffer challenges all Christians that Grace requires a response and it becomes less real and urgent in our lives if we don’t stay close to the source of all grace, Jesus Christ. Consider the story of Peter on the beach in Luke 5:1-11. Jesus encountered Peter and asked him to follow. Would Peter have grown in faith without actually putting down his nets and following? No. It’s the same with us. Our faith will just become a bunch of dead religion unless we do something about it. When we actually follow Christ where he goes, that is where we will find life and understand Grace. If we continue to stay ‘Christ observers’ and not ‘Christ followers’ then we will never understand and be changed by ‘costly grace’.
3. Costly Grace gives a person the only True life.
So costly grace costs our lives but at the same time Grace is the only thing that brings us new life. In dying to our old life we see true and untainted life in Grace. Life not ruled by sin, but ruled by love. In Grace we are assured that we accepted by God and given new life in Jesus Christ. We are no longer as we were and we now have a new identity, a new assurance, a new hope, and a new purpose. Bonhoeffer echoes all of scripture in describing Grace as a fountain of life. It is true, unbridled, real life, and following Christ leads us to the challenge and also the blessings of living Grace out in our ordinary lives. Grace leads us to to give our lives to God and to forgive others, to confront our anger, selfishness, and greed, to value ourselves and others, to work for the thriving and blessing of people, and to be healed….of our own self-hatred, of our deep wounds, our brokenness, and the sin that often so controls us. Grace is liberation….yet it is not cheap.
In our worship leading, it is easy to preach a message of cheap grace. It is easy to get moralistic or to focus on emotions or performance. So, the question for us is: are we following Christ? Are we, as worship leaders, being challenged by ‘costly grace’ in our lives. And are we letting that Grace form the kind of songs we sing, words we say, ways we perform, the ways we plan worship, and the ways we encourage and challenge our congregations? What does this mean for our lives and for our walk with Christ?
“Happy are the simple followers of Jesus who have been overcome by His grace, and are able to sing the praises of the all-sufficient grace of Christ with humbleness of heart. Happy are they who, knowing that Grace can live in the world and not be of it, who, by following Jesus Christ, are assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world. Happy are they who know that discipleship simply means the life which springs from grace and that grace simply means discipleship. Happy are they who have become Christians in this sense of the word. For them the word of grace has proven to be a fount of mercy.” Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship p. 56
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Luke 15:1-10, Luke 19:1-10, Ephesians 4:17-24, Ephesians 5:1-7, 8-20,
REFERENCES (for further reading)
The Cost of Discipleship by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Letters and Papers From Prison by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
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