Painful Grace

By Dan Franklin, Pastor of Teaching 

For most of us, it is no problem to understand why the Apostle Paul would write a scathing letter to Christians who are practicing immorality, violence, and greed. But it is a little bit harder to understand why the Apostle Paul would write a scathing letter to a church that places great importance on obedience to rules and rituals. Yet this is what we find in the book of Galatians. Paul does not write because they have rejected the moral standards that he left with him. He writes because they have rejected grace.

What in the world could cause anyone to reject grace? Why would anything seem preferable to receiving the free gift of the favor of God Himself? While we may wonder at their actions, the Galatians found something preferable to grace. They found grace to be difficult, painful. And the fact is that we also often find grace too painful. We often throw it aside and prefer to live a life in which we attempt to earn God’s favor.

There may be a number of reasons why we find grace to be painful. In the space below, I want to identify what I see as the two main reasons why we tend to abandon God’s grace in light of inferior options.

Grace reminds us that we are undeserving. Have you ever had trouble accepting a gift from someone? Most of us have. Some of us instinctively respond with a polite ‘no’ when offered help. Others of us may have trouble receiving compliments. Why would we say no to gifts and words that we clearly want?

Let’s say a friend came to my wife and me and offered to babysit our kids for free, while we enjoyed a night out. We could feel awkward accepting the offer, but if we had just watched their kids for free, we would probably have no problem accepting. The reason is that we would feel that we have earned that offer. In this case we could enjoy our evening out, feeling that we were worthy of what we were enjoying. However, if we felt that we had done nothing to deserve the free evening out, it would be hard to accept.





We may think that it is noble to reject gifts that we have not earned. The fact is, though, we are kidding ourselves. When we reject gifts, it is not about nobility; it is about pride. I want to feel good about myself and grace only serves to remind me that I am the recipient of someone else’s goodwill.

The gospel of Jesus invites us to be recipients of God’s goodwill. He sent His beloved Son to be sacrificed on our behalf. Jesus paid the full price so that we could be adopted into God’s family. We don’t have to do anything to maintain our status as children of God. No gift could be so great and no gift could be more humbling. But this humble reception can be painful. And this pain can allow pride to win out and rob us of God’s grace.

Grace kills our sense of superiority. If I work hard in a class and get an A, then this allows me to feel superior to others who did not work as hard and did not get good gifts. If, however, someone else works hard and then offers me a free A as their gift to me, this will rob me of any possibility of bragging. It will rob me of the opportunity to consider myself to be better than others. Grace can be painful because it takes away our sense of superiority.

In Galatia there were clearly some people who felt that their obedience put them in a superior position. This allowed them to erect barriers and exclude people whose background or ethnicity or obedience was not up to snuff. Paul, however, says that the gospel of Jesus breaks down these barriers because we all come to Christ through the grace of God.

The gospel of Jesus tells us that we were lost. Worse, we were enemies of God. We were rebels who were so far from God, so destroyed in the mess of our own sin, that we could do nothing to repair our situation, nothing to make it up to God, nothing to earn God’s favor. But Jesus came and sacrificed in order to bring us into His family. If we embrace this, we give up any sense of superiority. We admit our utter reliance on God.

While this is a liberating reality, we can only enjoy it if we accept the pain of losing any opportunity to feel superior to others. The Galatians struggled with this trade-off. Do we?

It is okay to admit that grace can be painful. But don’t allow this light, benevolent pain to cause you to think that grace costs us more than it gives us. Don’t allow the desire to be superior or the need to feel deserving keep you from living in the great freedom that God’s grace brings to us. Revel in God’s grace, celebrate the freedom you have as God’s child, and walk in the freedom that Jesus purchased for you.