Lead With Grace, Not Guilt!

  • Brad Edwards
  • Jun 17, 2010
  • Series: A Perfectly Skewed Logic Devotion

For this second installment in a three-week mini-series, we welcome Brad Edwards, Coordinator of this year’s 20:28 Serve Our City, to A Perfectly Skewed Logic.  As we prepare for our St. Louis-wide day of service on June 19, we will explore what it means to love, serve and care for our neighbor as God has loved, served and cared for us.  The theme for this year’s 20:28 is “Our Neighbor,” which is drawn from Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees’ question, “who is my neighbor?” (The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37).  To find out more about 20:28 Serve Our City, please visit http://www.greentreechurch.com/reach/2028-serve-our-city/. 

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I just received an answer to an unspoken prayer.

I was sitting at my laptop, trying in vain to think of what to write for the next Logic when I get a phone call from a Christian charity that my wife and I supported in the wake of the Haiti earthquake.

The operator, following a prepared script, began immediately after I said “hello,” thanking me for my generous donation that “made such a difference in war-torn countries like Somalia and disaster-ridden nations like Haiti.”  She went on to explain that they “recently received a government grant that matched private donations up to a very large amount,” and that she was calling to see if I wanted to “help starving children, broken communities and the desperately needy (who of course, God and His people are devastated for) by finding it within our hearts to donate $______ or did I want to match my previous donation of $______?”

I mean, she laid it on thick.  I felt guilty less than 2 sentences into her script!  I even remember thinking, “wow, whoever wrote this sure knew what he/she was doing.”  I was made to feel that saying “no” to this very meager request would be just as damaging to orphans and widows as the wars and natural disasters that created such dire need in the first place! 

With last week’s Logic freshly in mind, I seriously questioned my motivation.  Was I truly hard-hearted, not being broken for the broken as God is?  I confess, I certainly haven’t prayed for Haiti or Somalia lately, much less many of my friends… but how do I respond to this?  Sure, “God likes a cheerful giver,” but that also doesn’t mean I only give when I’m feeling in the mood…

I told the well-intending operator that we just weren’t in a position to give right now, but I appreciated the phone call, loved their mission and would keep them in mind in the future.  She barely let me get the sentence out before saying, “Oh, sir, we are grateful for the generous donation you gave previously, but maybe a slightly smaller sum of $______ could fit into your comparatively larger budget and help those who are in much greater need than us?”

Let me pause here.  If I or anyone else who has spoken about 20:28, have ever come off with this kind of tone, let me repent and apologize immediately.  The first attempt at shoving motivation-by-guilt down my throat is one thing, but doing so a second time was just too much.  I told the operator that she was actually digging a bigger hole and making me want to give even less.  I explained that, as a future pastor, I found no place in scripture where God uses guilt to motivate us to service.

I think all she heard was “no thanks,” because she launched into the next bullet point, thanking me for my original donation and accepting the call.  But by now, I was tired of speaking to a script and wanted to speak to her. 

I told her I understood she has to follow a script as part of her job, but I sincerely hope that my response is taken into consideration by the script-writers and her supervisors because I felt that their methods were profoundly unbiblical.

“Oh, of course, sir, I will put a note of your response in this conver-… wait … what did you say?”

Now I had her attention.  I said that her script was meant to guilt me into giving, when all of God’s word says that we are to love, serve and sacrifice because that is what He has done for us (Romans 12:1).  We are all (at the bare minimum) spiritually needy, broken and desperate for healing and God is our cure.  Thus, our motivation should be borne out of what he has done for us (GRACE) rather than what we have neglected to do for others (GUILT).

Finally breaking from her script and sounding human: “So, sir, are you saying that this should be added to the script?”

NO!  I’m saying that it should replace the script! Lead with grace, not guilt! If you are speaking for a Christian charity, talk about what God has done for us: freely, graciously and without condition.  God has never said, “Help people because they are worse off and gee, aren’t you lucky to have so much more money to give.”  Yet everywhere in the Bible, God says, “Help those worse off than you because you were lying dead, in a pool of your own blood on the side of the road, but are now secure in my Grace and nothing will ever change my love for you.” While I might not have said that with the polish that I write this, I told her I recommended they do whatever they had to do to motivate their donors by Grace, and never by guilt.

“Oh… well… thank you, I… I agree with that.  I’ll make a note of what you said and… really, thank you.”

I hung up my phone, amazed at the conversation we just had.  I instantly started searching my own heart: Is that my motivation for giving? Am I even motivated to give? Likely not as much as I could be or am called to be, but either way I know that God never wants us to give, or serve, from guilt.  Apart from Christ, we stand dead in our sin: condemned and guilty of rebelling from our Fatherly Creator.  We are like the robbed victim on the side of the road in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  But Jesus (the Good Samaritan) came to our rescue. In Christ, we are freed!  Freed to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves.

In Romans 12:1, Paul says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (emphasis mine).  We are called to love, serve and sacrifice, motivated by the “mercies of God.”  This is nothing less than worship. 

As we prepare to serve our neighbors during 20:28, let us search our hearts and ask ourselves:

  • What is my motivation for serving?
  • Am I motivated by self-centered guilt or God-centered grace?
  • Am I offering my service to God (Romans 12:1), or am I demanding to be served by only serving in certain ways or places?

No matter what your answers are, God’s response is always the same: “My children, you were completely and utterly dead.  I died in your place to raise you to new life.  That will never change, period.  Go, love your neighbor and allow me to use you, the broken, to bring healing to others who are broken.  Love radically and risk greatly, because I have done that and more on your behalf.”

Brad Edwards 

 

20:28 Serve Our City 2010 

Saturday, June 19

8 AM – 12:30 PM

Kirkwood High School (801 W Essex)

 

20:28 Celebration Service 

Sunday, June 20

10 AM (one service only)

North Kirkwood Middle School (11287 Manchester)

 

A Perfectly Skewed Logic is an eDevotion by Dr. Tom Ricks, lead pastor of Greentree Community Church, that is sent to your email box weekly.  Dr. Ricks challenges us with the truth of the Bible, asking hard questions and telling honest stories from history, current news, and his personal life.   

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