Austin Gardner | The Balance of Grace and Truth

"Grace without truth lead to compromise. Truth without grace leads to harshness."

Today, Austin Gardner dives into one of the biggest tensions in ministry: the fear that grace makes us weak on sin. Austin shares personal stories and biblical insights on why blessing is actually the key to transformation. If you've ever felt like the church was more interested in punishing you than restoring you, this episode will provide a refreshing, gospel-centered perspective on how God actually views your struggles.

What you’ll hear:

• The difference between religious rebukes and Jesus’ approach.
• Why "restoration" is a medical term for mending what is broken.
• How to speak blessings even in the middle of correction.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Transcript

Blessing, Grace, And Sin

Austin Gardner 0:27

I can hear the accusation now. If you talk about blessings and God wanting to bless his people, you'll be soft on sin. But there's a biblical balance of grace and truth. A concern that pastors would have is if we emphasize blessing and grace too much, we'll be false, we'll be soft on sin. I understand that. We are to confront sin and warn people and teach righteousness, but we're also taught to bless people, encourage believers, and speak grace over them. The truth is, biblical leadership combines both grace and truth. I have to remind you also that it's the Holy Spirit who does the work. It's the Holy Spirit that changes people. I think sometimes as a preacher, I was like, I've got to be tough, I've got to be hard, I've got to be strong because I was acting like I was the Holy Spirit. I was told by my friend in Mexico one time, you need to back off. Sometimes you come across like you're the Holy Spirit. You need to back off on that. Grace without truth will lead to compromise. Truth without grace will lead to harshness. But when grace and truth come together, God's people experience real transformation. Jesus is the embodiment of grace and truth. That's how the Bible even describes him in John 1.14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. You hear that, full of grace and truth. But notice that Jesus wasn't partially grace and partially truth. He was full of both. And the Greek word for truth here is reality, divine truth, morally right. Jesus never ignored sin. But he also treated broken, he never treated broken people with contempt. I think what I've come to see is that sin is like cancer. I have cancer. And in my family, we all hate cancer, but they don't hate me because I got cancer. They hate what cancer is doing to me. And God hates sin, but he hates sin because of what it's doing to you. It's, I think we need to be honest and about the sin and explain the sin, but there ought to be tears in our eyes because we ought to be realizing sin is to hurting people and separating them from God and what he's doing. So together, grace and truth should be a part of our life. Now, Jesus confronted sin directly. He didn't avoid sin, he confronted it. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, for you're like white at sepulchres. Jesus wasn't afraid to expose their hypocrisy. He confronted religious leaders who use religion to control others. Notice something. He reserved his strongest rebukes for self-righteous religious leaders, not for sinners. When you realize you've sinned and you realize sin has beat you up and you realize sin has hurt you, you become open to the gospel. You need the good news. When you're dying of cancer, you don't need to be yelled at for having cancer. You need help. That's what Jesus said. He said to the woman who was taken in adultery, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. He said, In grace, I don't condemn you. And in transformation, don't sin anymore. Don't let sin do this. Don't let sin hurt you. Walk away from it. You can. He didn't excuse the sin, but he showed compassion. Imagine somebody drowning in deep water, and you do not begin by lecturing them about poor swimming technique. First you pull them out of the river, then you teach them how to swim. Grace rescues people. Truth teaches them how to live. So be careful that you don't turn worrying about grace into something or worrying about truth and being soft on sin into something hard. Paul followed that pattern. Therefore, put away from among yourselves that wicked person. Paul was addressing serious sin in the church. He was giving correction, and he will continue to bless. That's 1 Corinthians 5.13. But in 1 Corinthians 16, 23 says, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. And so even after rebuking the church, he still reminded them of God's grace. Why? Because correction alone can discourage believers. Blessing restores hope and strength. So I challenge you to be careful. It's a gospel of grace. Correction, the real purpose of correction is restoration. I know somebody who's really hurt by church and they don't even want to go back to church because they were called on to stand before the church and to apologize. And it was one of those horrible situations. Some churches almost have a goal of confronting sin and saying they're strong. They don't realize it's not about punishing it, it's restoration. In Galatians 6, 1, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual restore. That doesn't happen. They'll throw you out because they've taken a stand for what's right. Notice the word restore. The Greek word, it means to repair, to mend, to restore something that's broken. Correction is bringing people back into the benefits of grace. It's helping them have the victory again. When a bone breaks, a doctor resets it. It might be painful, but the goal is healing. Correction should be the same thing. It should be to realign people with God's truth so they can heal. True grace leads to transformation. Blessings strengthen believers. Ephesians 1.3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now then later on in Ephesians, he's going to correct them about how they've been living and what they've been doing. He's going to talk to them about not stealing. He's going to talk to them about not living in anger. But you know what? He's speaking blessings to help them remember who they are, whose they are, and where their strength comes from. We belong to Jesus, and it's him doing the work. A coach who constantly criticizes destroys his team. A wise coach will encourage. We've talked about that. Blessings work the same way. So there's a biblical balance. 2 Timothy 4, verse 2, preach the word. Be in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering. Three responsibilities. Reprove, rebuke, exhort. Reprove, expose, or error. Rebuke, confront sin. Exhort, encourage and strengthen. Blessing is part of that exhortation. There's no need to worry about we can be faithful to be truth and grace. We practice both. Jesus confronted sin and restored sinners. Paul corrected churches and blessed believers. The goal of leadership is not simply to expose sin. The goal is to help people grow into the life God called them to live. 2 Corinthians 5 3.18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Even after correction, Paul sends believers out under grace and blessing. Truth shows us what's wrong, but grace gives us the strength to become what God intends. Blessings remind us that God is still working in our lives. You and I ought to be blessers. We have been blessed. Let's bless. I hope that somehow this is helping you see that being a somebody the other day I walked in the room and they said, here goes, here's Austin, the grace preacher. Well, you know, they they were kidding me, and they were a very good friend, but there's this whole part of us that's scared of grace and scared of blessings because we need to be hard and tell people how to live. Let's be careful not to fall into that trap. Let's help them understand it's all grace. It's all grace. It's all grace. It starts with grace, grace carries us through. Grace will be the end of it. So we bless people from God. God wants them blessed.