Jesus and Women | The God of Missional Grace

The narrative of the Samaritan woman is a story of a broken heart and a broken soul. She represents a broken people living in a broken land. John 4 shares how Jesus makes his way into all of this brokenness and displays one of the millions of reasons why we can say that God is a missional God.
 
In perhaps one of the most well known portions of the Bible Jesus makes his way into a land that was expressly avoided by good Jewish people. He was not afraid to go into places of need, places that other people avoided. Why would he go there? Simply, because God loves Samaritans. Not because they deserve love but because God is a God of grace. How ironic that a people who celebrated God choosing them would try to withhold him from others. How much more ironic that many try to do the same today.

In Samaria, Jesus comes to an interaction with a woman that has come to the well at midday. She comes at a time of low social interaction around the well. She is about to be surprised. The interaction with Jesus displays at least two things: One, this woman is deeply affected by sin and shame. She had been married many times before and she was still not done (she lived with another man). These attempts at "fixing" her deepest needs with these poor substitutes had taken its toll on her life. The second display is the need for a better reality. She needed something more real that what she thought was real. Relationships are real. They cause hurt and pain and longing and despair. Relationship without foundation and purpose becomes a cheap alternative to the real thing. Reconciled relationship with the Father of all things is what makes real, become real. She interacted with Jesus over her sin and shame and water. She found grace that addressed all of these. She found a satisfaction for her real thirst.

The grace of Jesus Christ doesn't stop with this woman. Even the confused disciples needed the missional grace of God. Why? Well, because they did not understand mission...at all. So Jesus explains to them the mission that he is on. They got it. Well, maybe not right away but in the book of Acts we find Peter and John back in Samaria, back among these people, preaching, laying hands on them, and praying for them to know the love of Jesus by grace through faith. They were unaware at the time that they met this Samaritan woman how this missional grace would change their future. But eventually they got it...by God's grace we will too.

Finally, the missional grace of God becomes contagious. Grace is like that. This woman declares that she is known. She calls the people that she purposely avoided to come to know the one that knows her. What good news! You are known. Really known. Known by grace. Known for all of your faults...failures...shame...guilt...and yet...grace. Grace that moves toward you. Grace that steps into your mess. This grace is overwhelming to those that know the depths of their failure. This grace is life-giving to those that have failed at life.

Here, with this woman that is not known by name... not pictured or described... just a nameless, faceless woman, the savior of the world declares his mission of grace, openly, for the first time. The cosmic purposes of God, that have been millennia in the making, collide here...in Samaria...with this woman...such amazing grace.

When Jesus was moved to mission, even mission to people unlike himself, he did not pack up his stuff and move to a new country. He did not buy a house in Samaria. He did not stop doing all that he had been doing in his life before this time to make room for mission. Why do we?

Why do we feel that mission is moving? Or mission is special training? Or that mission is something foreign and forced? Mission is meeting. Meeting people that God is calling and sharing with them cosmic moments of God's amazing grace. They are your neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers...for now. God's grace transforms us all into his adopted children.

We have people all around us that are broken and seeking to quench an unquenchable thirst with water that will never suffice.

Pray that our hearts are ripped by grace.

Pray that we step out of our patterns and see the people that God is calling all around us.

Pray that we equip and encourage one another to offer living water.

Pray we follow Jesus, the face of the God of missional grace.

Right Between the "I"s

For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. Romans 7:15

In chapter 7 Paul will begin a process of placing us right in the middle of two powers. This is a continuation, or a fleshing out, of his argument about those is Adam and those in Christ. These are application rich verses (esp. 14-25) that put justification up for examination.

What does justification look like? Will I stop sinning when I become a believer of Jesus Christ?

The answer to these questions (and those like them) have been asked by the church and of the church for years. 

Today, we have unfortunately traded these important issues for simple, glib, and lacking answers that leave everyday Christians confused about what their faith is supposed to look like and the outside world looking suspect at the church while labeling followers of Christ "hypocrites."

We have some things to learn from Paul's dealing with the flesh (not the NIV's "Sinful Nature") and the law. First, the life of following Christ is a fight (verse 15) and if we are going to progress in the faith then it is a fight in which we must be engaged. Most often, I notice Christians taking this fight to others. Maybe because that is what they hear from the pulpit. But the truth is, the fight is right here in me. I must fight the things I want to do, even if I put up a fight against myself. This is Paul's logic (verses 15-20) and it is powerful! I could read these words again and again. They bring me such hope for veracity toward my own sin.

Second, this battle is one of the mind (more on this later). We do not do what we do not believe. We may not always do what we believe. When I seek my own sinful desires, I do it because I believe (as twisted as my mind can be) that I will benefit from it. The truth is, I am wrong (a lot) and I end up harming myself more often than not. I love Paul's words in verse 24, "Wretched man am I." This is Paul! This is the guy that is supposed to have it all together! But his mind leads him down the same road my mind leads me. I am torn between myself. There are two "I"s. The "I" that I am and the "I" that I want to be (the one that I am created to be).

This is why God's Word (and a full, driven, and passionate knowledge of it) is absolutely necessary for us to grow and for us to help others grow. Keep your "practical" advice on how to live my life, pastors, just give me the Word to line my life up to (which seems to be what is cut out of sermons in the name of being "practical"). The Word is practical, in and of itself! It reveals us and it comforts us (even those hard passages that no pastor will preach, like Romans 7:14-25), it gives me strength to fight the good fight!

The fight is not only in me, it is also with me!

God's Grace in Porn Addiction

Pornography takes its toll on men and women all over the world everyday. Its effects can be seen in broken families, distorted self-images, and warped senses of self-satisfaction.  Pornography has all of the promises of sin and all of the destruction. It is the promise of satisfaction that ultimately leaves the user and its actors completely unsatisfied. This epidemic has not avoided the church or the pastors that serve her. It seems everyone has been swept up into the web of this vicious lover and she does not let go easily. There is hope…

Heath Lambert has written a book that points readers to this hope in Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace. Lambert takes a bare knuckles approach to the fight against pornography in a way that also extends grace and mercy to the users and their families. In fact, the very center of Lambert’s approach is the grace of God that has been made known through Jesus Christ. From this center of God’s grace the fight is taken to the sin of self-satisfaction through pornography.

Lambert argues for eight areas where this sin must be attacked. He explains that sorrow, accountability, radial measures, confession, your spouse (or singleness), humility, gratitude, and a focus on the pure worth of Jesus Christ will allow you and your family to be finally free from the ravages of porn addiction.

If you are looking for someone to excuse the sin or to explain away the behavior by focusing on why so many are effected by porn then you need to look elsewhere. Lambert takes a hard line against the temptation of porn and explores the solutions with the basic premise that you have the power and means made available through God’s grace to be free from this sin.

Lambert’s work could have spent some time on giving a background and understanding on why we are seeing this addiction reach epidemic numbers. He could have shown the effects that involvement in this industry takes on daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers as the utter lack of recognition of God’s image as present in women. He opted for a very simple and straightforward punch in the face of pornography addiction.

When you or someone in your family is ready to get serious about a fight against pornography or if you are engaged in helping someone become free from this addiction then I highly recommend that you read this book.

* The publisher provided me a free copy of this book for purposes of review. I was not asked for a positive review.