PRP 59 | Amazing Grace - Big Words, Good God Series

Grace is one of the most common words in the Christian faith — but do we really understand what it means?

In this episode of our Big Words, Good News series, Pastor Lindsey and Chris Lautsbaugh unpack the deep and life-changing meaning of grace as described in Romans 3. While grace is a word many of us use regularly, Scripture reveals something far more radical than simple kindness or second chances.

Together, they explore how grace is God’s free, undeserved, and unearned gift — given not after we prove ourselves, but at the very beginning of our relationship with Him.

In this conversation, you’ll hear about:

• What the Bible actually means by grace
• Why grace feels so difficult for humans to accept
• How Christianity differs from performance-based religion
• Why grace isn’t an excuse to sin — but our greatest motivation for transformation
• Moving from relating to God as slaves trying to earn approval to sons and daughters living from acceptance

If you’ve ever felt like you need to “pay God back” or prove yourself worthy of His love, this episode is a reminder that salvation was never something you could earn.

Because grace isn’t a reward for good behavior — it’s the gift that changes everything.

Subscribe and continue the journey with us as we unpack the big words of faith and discover why they truly are good news.

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:10  
You're listening to the pursue reality podcast from reality church. Each episode is a conversation about what it means to be real people pursuing a better reality in Jesus.

Unknown Speaker  0:22  
You welcome everyone to the pursue reality podcast. My name is Lindsey, and I'm one of the pastors here at reality church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I have with me a very special guest. Well, special to me that he's been on a lot of our episodes in the series that we're in, and that is the one and only. Chris Lautsbaugh, hello, everyone. And if you're wondering why that's special, because I am Lindsey Lautsbaugh, the one and only. Right? Yes, this is just a little date night podcast going on here, podcast, and I have invited my husband to be on the podcast because he actually you are a Bible teacher. That's one of the main things you do in your career, is teaching different Bible schools

Unknown Speaker  1:18  
domestically and internationally, and especially on the foundations of the faith and teaching through books of the Bible. And so I thought that you are the perfect person, perfectly qualified. And we're in this series called Big words good news, where we are

Unknown Speaker  1:37  
talking about a lot of these words in scripture that we use. Some of them big words, some of them may be common words where we don't actually know what they mean, or maybe how scripture specifically

Unknown Speaker  1:52  
defines them. Sometimes big in their depth. They're big in their depth. Yeah, so they could be deep words, good news or big words. Some of them were pretty big, and we've been looking at a passage of scripture and just taking all the different words in there and unpacking them episode by episode. So the passage of Scripture, I just want to remind everyone, this is the first episode. Is out of that you're listening to in this series. It's out of Romans, chapter three, starting in verse 23 it says, famous verse that says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus. And we've been going through some of the following verses too, but today we're going to hit one of those words where it says and are justified by his grace as a gift. And this is the word grace that is a big word in that a deep word, and it's very, very good news. And I, I'm excited to unpack this, because grace is actually maybe an exception in this series, a lot of the episodes we've been saying, you probably haven't used this word this week, but grace is actually word right that we use all the time, kind of like love. Or we say grace before a meal. We say grace before a meal, or we say, oh, let's just give them some grace. You know, they made a mistake or mess something up. But we want to actually look at what does Scripture mean by grace. So when we read this that Paul wrote, What does Scripture mean by this word grace? Yeah, I mean our salvation itself. You know, if you ever try to summarize salvation, salvation is by faith, through grace. And so we it's good for us to look at this and grace, when it's used that way in the New Testament, actually comes from a Greek word called Charis. So you might even be familiar with that. Some people are named Grace, some people are named Charis. It's actually the same name. So charis, C, H, A, R, I, yes, that correct. Yes, yeah. Okay, and in Greek, that word was not initially used for salvation. It was not used for Christianity. It was just used in normal, ordinary life, because it simply means that it's a gift.

Unknown Speaker  4:12  
So if, if I were to give you an anniversary charis, I would be giving you an anniversary gift. And yeah, you wouldn't have a problem. And so even there, we kind of see in that particular verse, it says, by His grace as a gift. It actually is kind of like saying by a gift as a gift. Yeah, it's almost redundant. Redundant there kind of helping us to understand what this is.

Unknown Speaker  4:40  
Sometimes Paul will attach the word free, which a gift is free. You don't pay for gifts. You don't earn gifts. And so if we really want to kind of flesh out the full meaning of grace when it pertains to faith and our salvation,

Unknown Speaker  4:56  
it would be a free gift that.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Is undeserved kindness and unearned favor. So God is showing us kindness that we don't deserve. Since we've already done the sin episode, we are all very familiar with the fact that we deserve death. The wages of sin is death. We have not earned this gift by our good deeds, because even one sinful act breaks the perfect standard of God. So this whole picture of grace, it's a free gift that is undeserved and unearned, undeserved and unearned. And would this if we're just to kind of dive into this scripture a little bit. Would this have been something normal for these early Christians to hear? Yeah, I don't the early Christians or even just humans in general. I think this is very odd. We we don't do well with something for nothing.

Unknown Speaker  6:02  
Every religion on the planet, essentially is there's a bunch of rules or things you need to do, and people will climb their way towards that standard, hoping that they make it so. For

Unknown Speaker  6:15  
the Jewish Christians that lots of the Bible is written to, they would be thinking about following the 10 Commandments keeping the law, that that would be things that they would often evaluate themselves on. Now, if you really understand it, it does actually point to having faith in a God who can do those things on your behalf. Similarly, in Islam, you know, a good Muslim will pray five times a day. They will eat certain foods, avoid others, travel to Mecca, they will try to climb that ladder, hoping that Allah, in this case, approves of them. But there's never a guarantee here in Christianity. Christianity has God giving us the gift of grace the moment we believe at the beginning of our journey, not waiting till we've been a good Christian or or done enough to deserve it, but literally, the day, one hour, one minute, one of our journey with Christ, we are given this gift of grace. So this is something we get at the moment of salvation, not down the road, right? And you know, there's places in scripture that we see that we know that we're forgiven at salvation, we know that God's Spirit comes to live in us. And in many ways, grace is a little bit of a word that is connected to so many of the other things that happen at salvation. There's actually a really amazing passage in Titus chapter two that even begins by saying, the grace of God appeared bringing salvation. And if you really try to figure out what, what is grace, when did Grace appear? It's, it's when Jesus appeared. So literally, as we put our faith in Jesus, we're putting our faith in grace, we're receiving grace. And so it's all of the things that are connected to salvation and what we get the moment. We believe are a free gift. They are not earned. They are not deserved.

Unknown Speaker  8:07  
This sounds too good to be true,

Unknown Speaker  8:10  
and that's why, in our humanness, we struggle with it. We think there's strings attached. We think it's too good to be true. Sometimes we say, can you abuse this? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  8:20  
and because it doesn't make sense, we think I work, I earn, I deserve. God says you trust you believe, you declare you can't, and you need me, yeah, it kind of short circuits our brains. He earns. We did. He earned it. We receive it. Jesus earned it. Jesus deserved it. Jesus kept the law and never sinned. Okay, so if this is true, then how do you get people to behave?

Unknown Speaker  8:51  
Yeah, I mean, that's sometimes I hear people like, oh, you know, cheap grace, and if you just tell people that they're sloppy, agape, sloppy, agape. Like, if you just tell them that God loves them, they're going to do whatever they want, and you're not going to, like, people aren't going to do the things they should do. What would you say to someone that is kind of throwing, throwing that thought or accusation at this? Yeah, there's a lot of thought that if you teach too big of a grace, people are going to

Unknown Speaker  9:25  
sin. The last time I checked, a small Grace was not keeping people from sin.

Unknown Speaker  9:30  
So why wouldn't we want to present grace for as big as it is? I actually was faced with this at one time. I was invited years ago to speak to a group at a youth camp, and I was thinking, okay, teenagers actually isn't my preferred audience,

Unknown Speaker  9:47  
but when I looked at the syllabus the curriculum, it was really about grace. And I thought, Man, if I teach grace for as big as it is, these youth pastors are going to hate me. They're going to think my kids are going to do whatever they want. And.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Bunch of raging teenagers going off. And as I was praying about I really felt God say, Well, is it true? And I was like, Yeah, it's true. So said, You got to teach it. So I started teaching grace as big as it is. And you know, to their credit, most of the youth pastors trusted me in this, and one even came up to me and said, I think I know where you're going, but you are going to talk about holiness and right lifestyle? Yeah, we'll get to that. Don't worry.

Unknown Speaker  10:24  
But I think we often think, how are we going to control people's behavior? If we tell them, This is how big grace is?

Unknown Speaker  10:34  
What if Grace wasn't an excuse to sin, but it was our greatest reason not to

Unknown Speaker  10:43  
what is that mean? Because we have such an incredible gift that God has given, we actually respond with obedience, and we respond by wanting to look more like Jesus, not less like Jesus. What if this is our greatest motivation, not just to keep the rules to earn something, but our greatest motivation is we already have something. We are forgiven, we are sons and daughters, we are justified and redeemed and all of these things so that then changes how we live. Yeah, it does remind me of Titus also says that it is grace that trains us in righteousness, which is a mind blowing like that goes against our human especially religious concepts. We think it's the law and harshness discipline and telling people to work harder that will train them to do the right thing. And Scripture actually says that grace trains us in righteousness, which, if we want a religion that says you do it and you earn it. There are plenty of options out there, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  11:45  
but you never have a confidence that you actually hit the mark. You do your best and you hope, you hope.

Unknown Speaker  11:52  
But Christianity these confidence because you haven't done anything good, and right the moment you first believed you just got saved, yeah, and yet he gives us what we need. There's a one of my favorite verses in second, Peter one, verse three, says he's given us everything we need for life and godliness. So God has equipped us at salvation with grace, forgiveness, righteousness, all these things, so that we can then go and live it out. Yeah, I think too, I would say that I would challenge people, like, people are gonna go do whatever they want. Like, how you gonna get people to behave you? You likely, or possibly, are thinking in a faulty way about this whole setup? Like, Christianity is not a behavior modification program. Yes, it's not self improvement. It's not a self improvement program. It's not to get everybody to line up and behave. Now, fruit is a result, but it's actually not the goal. Like being reunited with Christ is the goal, and living the way we were created to live before sin, being invited back into our created intention is a goal.

Unknown Speaker  13:04  
But if you're frustrated because we just need to get a bunch of people to behave,

Unknown Speaker  13:11  
yeah, that's I would challenge that. That's maybe not the frame the lens by which you should look at salvation. It's not a behavior modification or a control program

Unknown Speaker  13:24  
in in that way. And I think too, like we've already talked about sin on this podcast. So if you haven't listened to that episode, go back. So sin got bigger. We had a huge problem of sin. The solution to this is salvation, which we receive as a gift by faith in Jesus. So the solution has to be bigger than the problem. So we have a correct posture that we started as sinners. We're given this gift of grace that brings forgiveness and all of these things, and then finally it becomes our chance to respond. But up until this point, God has said, Let me fix the problem, and I'll give you what you need, and then you can go out and begin to love and obey and serve me. Yeah, I think this, especially, this is relevant for humans. But if you're listening and you're in, are there some Non Humans listening? Well, I'm just thinking this is I have found

Unknown Speaker  14:23  
everybody needs the message of grace. I have also found that here in Lancaster County,

Unknown Speaker  14:30  
which is a beautiful place, wonderful people,

Unknown Speaker  14:35  
but especially needs the message of grace, we seem to have an inordinate ability to trust our own ability Yes, and to do the right things, to be good people.

Unknown Speaker  14:46  
And it's it often I find a lot of people in Lancaster are and this is true anywhere in the world, too, that it's I always kind of imagine it like you got given.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Yeah, like this brand new car, like a car you could never afford, just this brand new car. And you're like, This is amazing. You're thankful. You're thankful. Like, it's not like, you're not accepting that you get given this car. But then the next month comes and you're like, okay, and you you write a check, or you set up that debit payment, and you go down and you start making the monthly payments, and the car dealerships like, no, no, no. You want you got this car, like, we're giving it to you. You're like, No, I gotta make these payments. And it's like, I find a lot here in Lancaster. It's a lot of people making monthly payments, and they're, they're working the extra hours because they're like, I gotta cover these payments. I gotta do this. And they're just asking for prayer for all the extra hours they're working, I gotta be worthy of this, yeah, to make the payments on this car. And meanwhile, there's this good father that's like, I gave you this car, like this is in a car is obviously such a terrible comparison, but it is this free, undeserved, unearned gift, and you don't have to make payments on it. I think sometimes too, when we when we enter into that mindset of trying to pay for it, the Bible would describe that kind of more as being a slave. You know that we're our love and our obedience, not even really love, but our obedience is more motivated by duty or obligation, even fear of punishment. And how many times do we meet Christians that they are serving God out of those motivations, rather than if we are living as sons and daughters of Jesus? We love him, we serve Him. We trust him because of gratitude, because of Thanksgiving, because we know that he has our best interests, his mind in mind, His commandments are not burdensome because they're motivated for our benefits. Yeah, yeah. They're they're actually a blessing to us and a gift to live, to be invited back, to live in the way he intended for us to live, there's probably a little bit of slave in all of us. There's probably a little bit of slave in all of us, which would bring us to our next episode, or one of our episodes. That's true so well, I hope if everyone's listening to this

Unknown Speaker  17:15  
and you felt that little twinge, I don't know anyone that doesn't need to be reminded the grace of God. Do you think? I think we need to, it's not our default position, so we need to remember it all the time. Yeah, and it is a grace that costs Christ everything. It's not cheap. It's not cheap, which does not should not make us feel guilty. It should make us grateful, and because it's precious, and is this precious thing that he chose to do. He chose to come and give us this free gift of grace. So I hope this blesses you. I hope that as you go throughout your day after listening to this, that the Spirit of God reminds you

Unknown Speaker  17:56  
that your salvation is by grace. It is a gift of God. It is free, it is undeserved. It is unearned, and I hope that you are able to live into that, not just today, but in the days ahead, in a fresh new way. So thank you for listening. Continue to listen along with us as we explore these big words that are good news for our lives. We'll talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker  18:23  
Thanks for tuning in to the pursue reality podcast. Reality church is a local church in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to learn more or get connected, visit us at pursue reality.org you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai