1 Corinthians 15:10 “I worked harder than all of them–yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Serving God was no picnic for the Apostle Paul. It wasn’t for any of the men Jesus sent to make disciples out of the whole world. When Paul talks about working hard here, he is not talking about mere activity. The word he chooses for work highlights the unpleasant features of working. This is toil. This is labor. Work involves sweat, and sore muscles, and tired bodies.

In his next letter to the Christians in Corinth, Paul outlines some of the things he suffered. There were plots on his life and attempts to kill him. They took him to court. They flogged him. They stoned him. They beat him with rods. Traveling exposed him to heat and cold, and bandits and shipwrecks. At times he went without food or sleep. Life as a traveling missionary was hard.

Paul’s hard work and sacrifice put me to shame for my complaints about life as a Christian minister. Maybe my hip is a little sore after leaving flyers at a couple hundred homes. I don’t like it when someone is a rude to me at the door.

But in over thirty years of ministry no one has threatened my life or physically touched me. I have known some weeks with long working hours, especially around Christmas and Easter. Once in a while someone needs a pastor’s attention in the middle of the night. But for the most part meals and sleep have come on a regular schedule in my life.

God doesn’t ask us to go looking for hardships like Paul suffered in his gospel work. There is no virtue in enduring artificial or self-made sacrifices.

But grace has the power to make us ready if they come. Paul didn’t put up with the pain or unpleasantries because he felt guilty about his past. He wasn’t forced and driven to it under threat against his will. He didn’t do it because he was just such a swell guy.

Grace, the undeserved love of God in giving us his Son and forgiving our sins, was working in him, like it is working in us. Paul worked hard, “yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Grace makes us different people, all of us. Whether ancient apostle or modern minister, whether steady church volunteer or simple person in the pew, God’s grace is taking everything we say and do and making it part of our Christian witness.

The better we know that grace, the harder we will work in service to the Lord who gave it to us.

1 Corinthians 15:8-10 “Last of all he (Jesus) appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am.”

The word “Grace” means “undeserved love.” Do you have any idea how many times a day we hear the phrase, “You deserve,” linked to something someone is trying to sell us? And we agree, don’t we? We love it! Dentists promise the smile you deserve. Dating services offer the perfect match you deserve. Employment services help you get the job you deserve. Politicians promise you the tax relief you deserve, or the services and programs you deserve, or the safety you deserve, or the prosperity you deserve. Listen to the marketers, and you deserve a better salary, creamier chocolate, relief from your pain, and a good night’s sleep.

If we are obsessed with ourselves and convinced we deserve so much, what interest will anyone have in a love that is not deserved? How can we even understand that that is a real thing? There can be no appreciation for grace, no desire for God, and no grasp of the desperate spiritual condition that has sucked the life out of our souls.

Paul’s honest humility about himself is refreshing. Jesus “appeared to me as to one abnormally born.” Instead of a “preemie,” Paul was a “posty.” The due date for him to repent came and went, and nothing. Months stretched into years before Jesus literally knocked Paul off his horse on the way to Damascus in a blaze of light. The circumstances around Paul’s conversion were something of an embarrassment for him. They were a testimony to his stubborn pride.

The fact that it even happened was more than Paul deserved, “because I persecuted the church of God.” You would never hear the Apostle Paul say to God, “I just want what I deserve! Give me what I deserve!” What does the man deserve who oversaw the execution of another whose only crimes were giving food to widows and helping them see Jesus in the Scriptures? What does the man deserve who devoted his life to destroying people’s faith? “God had no good reason to pick me for his team,” Paul is saying. “I gave him nothing but reasons to destroy me.”

“But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Because Paul was aware of his shortcomings (the Lord had really given him no choice), he also understood God’s grace. Grace, undeserved love, meant “I am what I am.” And what was that?

Grace made Paul a justified person. For Jesus’ sake the Lord did not hold his sins against him. He treated him and regarded him like an innocent person, not a criminal. Grace had sent Paul’s sin to the cross for Jesus to pay in his place. Grace brought God’s forgiveness. Grace worked to free the apostle from the consequence for his sins.

Grace made Paul a believer. That whole, dramatic confrontation with Jesus on the road to Damascus may have been frightening in some ways, and confusing in others. But it was undeserved love at work, God’s seeking love leading Paul to know his Savior and claiming him as a dear son and member of his family.

Grace then made Paul a coworker with his Savior. The Lord employed him as a trusted servant in his mission. That was like handing the keys to the store to the thief who had ransacked it days before. But because God loved him, he trusted him to take this good news of new life to people all over the world.

Grace works the same way for us. The story of our opposition to God, conversion, and work for the gospel may not be filled with the same kind of drama Paul’s had. I know mine isn’t. Our own narcissistic tendencies may tempt us to defend and promote ourselves as people God should be only too happy to love. Our quiet Christian hypocrisies–practicing the same greed, sexual standards (or lack thereof), and meanness as everyone else–are often the number one thing standing between the lost and faith in the Savior.

It is time for us to end the charade. Like Paul, it is time for us to be aware, and frankly acknowledge, our sinful shortcomings. Grace still works for us: forgiving, converting, claiming, and transforming us into sons and citizens of heaven Jesus is not afraid to involve in bringing God’s grace to others.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

So this is how much God loves you. He gave his one and only Son. A friend of mine once suggested that this wasn’t so hard for God the Father because Jesus was God and wouldn’t have to suffer so much, and God knew that Jesus would rise from the dead.

Don’t think there was anything easy about making this gift. Jesus was the only perfect Son who ever existed. He and his Father were knit together in a perfect bond of love that far surpasses the love between any human parent and child. There is no greater sacrifice any parent could ever make than to give up their one and only child for someone else, even for a little while. But for a sinful world, God says, “I am willing to make the trade.” For you, as part of that world, he says the same.

And when God gave Jesus up to mocking and whipping, and cross and death, there was no avoiding the full brunt of the experience. You may remember that the soldiers who carried out the deed offered Jesus something to drink to take the edge off his pain. But Jesus refused it, because he didn’t want the edge taken off. He was there on a mission, to carry and pay for the sins of the world.

At the cross Jesus was, so to speak, carrying every one of us on his back. As a result, it is as though our sin never existed. It has completely vanished, drowned and washed away in Jesus blood. We became as pure and as clean as the driven snow in God’s eyes. Remember, this is how much God loves you. He gave up his only Son, the Son he loved, to rescue us from sin and make us his very own.

Such a gift, you might think, could only be had for a high price. I mean, with the cleansing of our sins Jesus is presenting to us the cure for death. If the pharmaceutical companies could create such a product, how much would they charge for the drug that cures all death?

About twenty years ago my oldest son was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A single IV bag of the chemical the nurses called “big red” cost $15,000. Curing cancer isn’t cheap.

But because God loves you so much, he doesn’t charge you anything for his gift. He gives it away for free to those who simply trust Jesus for it.

This faith we share in Jesus as our Savior is not something we have because we are so smart. It is itself his gift to you and me. “Faith comes from hearing the message,” Paul writes. God didn’t wait for us to figure him out, as if that were possible. He told us this wonderful story about how much he loves us. He showed us a bigger love, more faithful and committed and sacrificial and forgiving than any we had ever known. Knowing this love, how could we not put our trust in him?

This is how much God loves you: his Son, your faith, and never-ending life are all his gifts…for you and for our whole world.

Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

If we are God’s children and heirs of heaven, why should we have to suffer? You know, if my dad owned the grocery store, I wouldn’t expect to go hungry anymore. If my dad owned the factory, I wouldn’t think it would be hard to find a job. If my dad ran the universe, wouldn’t you think my life would be a little easier?

But it’s not easy. We suffer. Whether we like to think about that or not, at least Paul is being real. He spoke from personal experience. He himself had been imprisoned, flogged, pelted with stones, and beaten by the enemies of the gospel. Hazards of his travel left him shipwrecked, cold, hungry, and sleepless at times. His concern for the churches made him no stranger to stress and heartache. He knew what it was like to suffer, and he knew that he wasn’t alone.

Our suffering as God’s children may take different forms, but it hasn’t gone away. I could name at least a half dozen men right now who worked for major corporations you would all recognize. Their careers were artificially limited, they ran into a glass ceiling of sorts, they weren’t allowed to rise as high as their skills could have taken them, because they refused to compromise their personal morals. They lived as God’s children and they suffered for it.

I could walk you through the membership list of my congregation. For each active family I could mention at least one serious tragedy they have endured, or one substantial burden they bear beyond the little irritations that afflict us all. They are God’s children, but they suffer, and that’s hard for us to understand.

Individually, why any of us suffer this particular way, or this much compared to everyone else, is information our Father hasn’t shared. But this much he has revealed: Our suffering helps us to realize how helpless our sin has made us. Over and over again it rehearses us in our utter dependence on our heavenly Father for all things. It leads us to repent of the pride that thinks, “I can do this all by myself,” whether that is achieving our own salvation, like the Pharisees who wanted nothing of Jesus’ message of forgiveness and grace; or achieving earthly success, like the laundry list of people past and present who think that their own talent and hard work are going to put food on the table and money in the bank.

In the twelfth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians Paul says that God uses suffering to make us weak so that we won’t become conceited. But then something wonderful happens. We discover God’s sufficient grace. We find the love that justifies us and forgives our sins sustaining our faith. We experience his steady, quiet power resting on us and supplying our needs.

We are God’s children, who share our Savior’s suffering. But because we are God’s children, even our suffering will bless us in the end.

Romans 8:16-17 “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

God’s sons are also his heirs. As good as it is to be God’s children now, there are better gifts waiting in our future. But like most heirs, we don’t know all the details about what is to come.

Are you an heir in someone’s last will and testament? As far as I know, I am included in the will of my earthly father. Right now, his estate involves a nice townhome overlooking a pond and a large park, investments of various sorts that currently support my parents in retirement, and the tools, vehicles, appliances, and furnishings he has collected over a lifetime. I suspect that about one fourth of what’s left when my parents die will be mine. I have some vague ideas about what that could include, but time can change things, and I don’t know the specifics of much of what they have or plan.

There is no doubt that you and I are included in the will of our heavenly Father. He has been very specific in promising us a piece of heaven, a resurrected and perfected body, and life that never ends. Still, he has chosen not to reveal many of the details of what these include.

But since we are heirs of God and coheirs alongside Christ, we can safely conclude that our inheritance will be 1) perfect. God is without fault and so are his gifts.

It will be 2) generous, even lavish. God has inexhaustible resources, and he desires to take care of us richly and lavishly.

Everything we find there will be 3) suited to us. He put a lot of time into making each one of us unique individuals with our own tastes and abilities. One of the wonders of his creation is the variety and originality he has displayed in making his people fit together like one body with its many parts. We can expect heaven to be personally tailored to each of us so that our uniqueness can finally reach its potential and purpose.

Fourthly (4) our inheritance will be wholesome and good. Sometimes people try to picture heaven as a place where their sinful desires can be indulged, like the suicide bombers who expect to satisfy their lust. But what God has prepared ennobles us, it lifts us higher, and it respects those who will share heaven with us.

This inheritance isn’t an exclusive gift for a few special saints who have lived distinguished lives. As believers in our Lord Jesus we are all God’s children, and we all share that sacred status that makes us heirs of God and coheirs with Christ.

Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’”

As children of God, we don’t live as slaves to fear. That is not our status, though it once was. From time to time we find ourselves returning to that view of life. It is the product of our sinful nature. We live as slaves to fear when we view God mainly as the enforcer, an other-worldly task master who will let us feel the lash of his whip if we do not keep in line and behave ourselves.

You know what that is like. When we think that the heartache of today is God’s repayment for the sins of our past, we are living as slaves to fear. When we resist the urge to indulge ourselves because we might get caught, or we might catch some disease, or we might be shamed, we are living as slaves to fear.

Siegbert Becker tells the story of a man he knew when he was in graduate school. “Do you mean to tell me,” the man asked one day, “that if you knew that you could get by with it, there’s nobody in the world you’d want to kill?” When Becker replied he didn’t think he could do something like that, the man continued, “If I knew that the police wouldn’t catch me, there are six people on this campus that I’d kill right now.”

That’s living as a slave to fear, and it can be effective at controlling behavior. But we should not think obedience like that pleases God. Even if it gets us to obey, it reflects a bad relationship with him, not a good one. God is no more pleased with obedience like that than parents are pleased when the threat of a spanking or a grounding is the only thing that gets their whining children to do their chores.

What the Lord is seeking even more than obedience are sons. The sacred status we share as children of God is sonship. Being sons is more than being children. All of us, men or women, male or female, are sons. That means that we have a recognized, legal status in God’s family. All the rights and privileges of membership belong to each one of us.

That involves a striking change for people who once were slaves to fear. That change was possible because the one and only Son, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, was willing to trade places with us. By his death on the cross he removed the sins that disqualified us for a place in the family. By sending us his Spirit and calling us to faith, he adopted us into our place in the family.

That means we enjoy a Father’s tender affection: “And by him (that is, the Spirit of sonship) we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ God doesn’t want some distant and formal relationship with the children he has adopted. He doesn’t keep us at arm’s length.  He wants us to know the deep affection and closeness of a loving family. The sin that once kept us apart has really and completely been removed. We don’t have to be afraid.

Think of what it means to call him Father. Most of the people I am closest to I call by their first names. My brothers and sisters are David, Debbie, and Becky. My children are Carrie, Aaron, Nathan, and Stephen. My wife is Robin.

But I don’t call my father, “John,” or my mother, “Mary Elin.” In this case there are titles that express the affection between us more intimately, terms of endearment that reflect the care they have always had for me, and the trust, and at times even dependence, that I have had in them. Whether you say “father or mother,” “mom or dad,” “mommy or daddy,” “mamma or pappa,” these terms describe people who love you unconditionally. They would give their lives to help you. They have sacrificed and denied themselves so that you could succeed. They have always been on your side, even when that meant laying down the law to keep you out of trouble.

At least, that’s the ideal. But even if human parents fail, we are God’s children who enjoy a divine Father’s love and affection. It’s one of the privileges we enjoy as sons who share a sacred status.

Matthew 5:23-24 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

Are you content to have certain people as enemies? Have you resigned yourself to not liking them, and them not liking you? Maybe your relationship went south because of something he did. Maybe it is because of something you did. Maybe it will be possible to repair the damage and heal the wounds. Maybe it won’t. But if we understand what Jesus says about anger, insults and righteousness, we are going to try fix it.

Consider the context of the scenario Jesus presents. You are an Old Testament worshiper, and you have brought your lamb, or your calf, to sacrifice on God’s altar at the temple. Why would you be doing such a thing? The sacrifice was an object lesson in finding a restored relationship with God. We offended him with our sin. The wages of sin is death. We are sorry for what we have done and repent. Forgiveness comes only with the shedding of blood.

But God doesn’t want to kill us. It’s not our blood he seeks. He wants to restore us. He wants to be friends again. So he allows a substitute. We bring an animal as a picture of the sacrifice his Son would someday make in our place. This satisfies God’s justice. It restores the relationship. God forgives us. We are reconciled.

Now there is another person God made and redeemed no less than you or me. The Lord loves him or her just as much. The two of you are having a tiff. Who started it really isn’t important. Anger and insults invite God’s judgment, as Jesus makes clear. The Lord is willing to forgive us for the way we have offended him. It is why we can approach his altar with our gift. Does it make sense to seek to be God’s friend while we are living as enemies with another one of his children? Is that even possible?

This scenario for New Testament Christians is only slightly different. We don’t bring God cattle and sheep. Jesus has sacrificed for our sins once for all at the cross. But the altar on which we lay our monetary gifts, in front of which we bring God our sacrifice of praise and worship, is still a symbol of God’s forgiveness and grace.

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Maybe we can’t convince the other person to be forgiving to us. But we can show them the grace in our hearts. We can show God that “we get it” when it comes to the way he has forgiven us, by reaching out to those who have something against us. Then we can come and offer our gifts as people God has made righteous by grace.

Matthew 5:21-22 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with is brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,” is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

Almost everyone agrees that murder is bad. Even then, some try to justify certain versions of the crime. When I lived in Texas, there was a joke that in some parts of the state “He needed a killing’” was a viable defense in some courts of law. Still, almost everyone agrees murder is sin. Don’t do it.

Anger, on the other hand, seems natural. It is a feeling that is hard to resist. Everyone does it. You can’t treat anger like a crime. We would all be in jail or sitting on death row.

Jesus isn’t having any false distinction between murder and anger. Both make us “subject to judgment.” Now before we get distracted by objections like, “Didn’t Jesus get angry?” and “Doesn’t the Bible talk about righteous anger?” the answer is “Yes” and “Yes.” Jesus is not taking the time to explore all the variations, exceptions, and circumstances thoroughly.

But I think we know what he is talking about. We all know how anger turns us against people. We all know its power to dump water on the fires of love and concern. It may be entirely appropriate that we humans punish people differently for murder or anger. The consequences for my neighbor are vastly different in each case.

But both murder and anger reflect the same issue in my relationship with God. He says, “Love your neighbor.” He says, “Love me by keeping my commands.” And in each case we say “No.” Either way, anger or murder, God is not happy.

Just see how ridiculous these distinctions we make to justify ourselves get. “Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,” is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” Raca was an Aramaic term of contempt that translates approximately “air head.” It’s like saying, “He has a little too much empty space between the ears,” or “a little too much yardage between the goal posts.” “His elevator doesn’t quite reach the top floor.” “He’s a few French fries short of a happy meal.”

Now you might wonder, “What’s the difference between that and saying that someone is a fool?” Jesus would say, “Nothing.” That’s the point. The religious scholars of his day argued back and forth about whether you could say this word or that word, and which one was worse. All along the real issue was, “Why do you want to insult your neighbor? Why don’t you love him more?” We set up these false standards of behavior by creating false distinctions. Jesus says, “It’s all bad. Don’t defend yourself. Be honest and admit your failure.”

When we rethink righteousness like this, when we stop using false standards to defend ourselves, then we are ready for grace. We realize our need to be forgiven. Then our perfect Jesus is more than the life coach who shows us what to do. He is the Savior who bears our sins away. His selfless sacrifice and death aren’t an example meant to expose how little we love others in comparison. It is the forgiving of our sins, the wiping clean of our record, the restoring of our righteous status with God. It all requires an honest view of God’s standards and our behavior if we are going to be able to see it.

Matthew 5:20 “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Finding good role models is a concern people have always had. We think we have one. Then they go and do something stupid. Some budding actor or actress seems to set a good example so long as they star on a show on the Disney channel. Then they outgrow Disney and go mainstream. Suddenly they are in trouble with the law. They develop a drug problem. In no time they have gone through three failed marriages.

Some great athlete seems to be a pillar in the community. Then skeletons come tumbling out of his closet from his college days or his private life.

Some politician… well, come on now. I know we do it, we treat them as role models, but what were we thinking? Making them role models must be the result of a temporary lapse of sanity. In all these cases, we might think that our problem finding good role models stems from our fascination with celebrities, but it goes deeper than that.

The people of Jesus’ day thought they had good role models in the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. We might be surprised to hear Jesus mention them in connection with role models. For us, the term “Pharisee” is never associated with “good role model.” But that is largely due to the exposé Jesus made of their fatal flaws during his ministry. These were people whose attempts to live the righteous life were exceptional. They went above and beyond in trying to keep God’s law. Jesus later criticizes them for showing off with their very public fasting and prayers and gifts to the poor. But realize that this means the Pharisees had a reputation for being men of deep faith who prayed a lot and regularly gave substantial gifts to charity.

That Jesus mentions them negatively must have shocked his original audience. If these men weren’t righteous, then who? How could anyone hope to be righteous enough? Actually, this was Jesus’ point. No role model, no Pharisee, no ordinary average Joe makes the grade.

We tend to be satisfied with pretty good, close enough, almost perfect. But even if our role models have managed to hide all their flaws and never betray their imperfections, they all fall short. So do we. Jesus was not teaching something new to the people of his day, just something they hadn’t heard in a long time. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” David wrote in the psalms. “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins,” his son Solomon wrote maybe a half century later in Ecclesiastes. God has set his bar for righteousness far higher than anyone thought. At the end of this chapter Jesus gives the true standard for righteous living from the only role model who matters. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

The stakes couldn’t be higher, either. “You will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” At stake are not community standards or the corruption of little boys and girls. This is a matter of life or death, heaven or hell. Jesus doesn’t tell us directly here what the solution is. At this point he was simply helping his audience to find their appetite for it. And if anyone still thought it was a matter of trying harder or doing better, he knocks over one false standard of righteous behavior after another in the verses to come.

If we can’t do it ourselves then, there is only one solution. Only a borrowed righteousness will do. Only a just life lived by someone else will satisfy God.

That is exactly why Jesus came. He tells us verses earlier in verse 17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And he did. When we set aside the false standards set by role models who are only pretty good, merely mostly perfect, then we are ready to rethink righteousness. Then we are ready to see that we need a substitute, a pinch-hitter, a surrogate or replacement before God if we want him to consider us righteous.

And Jesus is the perfect man for the job. He not only lived righteous. He shares his perfect righteousness with us. In him our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and anyone else who thinks they are holy. He is more than a role model. His own life is the source of the righteousness we need.