How Do You Protect Yourself From Exchanging Grace For Merit?

Last Sunday Pastor Brent Wells, from our mother church Lakewood Baptist, preached in my absence. He preached on Hebrews 12.8-25.

In this passage there is the contrast between Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion. Both have God. Both have the people of God. And both have God's holiness all over it. But one you can physically touch while the other is physically untouchable. One you can physically pursue, while the other pursues you. One has never been intended to save, the other is intended to save. One does not have a mediator, while the other has a Mediator!

The non-believing Hebrews tried to use Mt. Sinai and the law to approach God. They simply would not put the rights, rituals, and ceremonies down. They wouldn't put the old down for the New. Thus they never understood the full purpose of the law and did not embrace God's grace over merit.

Application for the church today.....How do you protect yourself from exchanging grace for merit?

First let me say, we're not talking about falling from grace, but getting tangled and encumbered with striving to earn God's love even within the Christian life.

How can we have our quiet times without doing it for merit sake?
How can we attend church without doing it for merit sake?
How can we witness to the lost without doing it for merit sake?
How can men pastor their families without doing it for merit sake?
How can women follow their husbands and train their children in righteousness without doing it for merit sake?

In the context of Hebrews 12 we should preach the gospel to ourselves. We should constantly put God's Word before us and examine the ways that He has shown Himself to be holy, righteous, perfect and good. We should constantly see ourselves as helpless and hopeless apart from God. We should constantly make ourselves aware of the fact that we are in desperate need of a Mediator between us and God. We should constantly look to the cross to see how God has provided the way for us to be reconciled to Him through the Mediator....Jesus Christ!

This is the kind of Christian approach to protect ourselves from doing things for merit sake. One is totally from the heart that longs to see Christ glorified. While the other is stoic with no affections for God whatsoever and for a season looks good on the outside, but is nothing more than a tomb on the inside.

We simply must be intentional and aggressive with the gospel!