“Throw the Rock: How Grace and Faith Work in Discipleship“ Ep#48

In this episode, Chris Jones lays down the absolute bedrock of his faith and discipleship, breaking open the relationship between grace and faith to show how people in deep need actually experience the love of God. By stepping through his signature "Three Zones" framework and unpacking Paul's thorn in the flesh alongside a vivid rock-throwing analogy, Chris dismantles traditional, compliance-driven views of religion that keep us trapped at neutrality. Re-anchoring in Paul's divine definition of grace from 2 Corinthians, he reveals that faith isn't passive belief or striving for moral perfection—it’s the active, tangible conviction to step past zero, show up in active love, and leave the results entirely in God's hands.

Transcript

Chris Jones 0:00

Today we dive into the foundation of my personal faith, discipleship. And for me, if this isn't real, then none of it's real. It's the relationship between grace and faith, how those in need experience God's love. Welcome. I'm Chris Jones, and this is Spiritual Hot Sauce. Grace and faith. These are two incredibly important words to me. And I hope after I share what I'm about to with you, they will be important to you as well. They are the foundation for me of what discipleship is supposed to be and how we, the herding, connect with the divine. I want to start by giving us an overview of those two words and their relationship. I think of grace as the spiritual side of it. It represents how God connects with us. And I think of faith as our part. It's the physical side, the religious part. It's what binds us to God in this promise. And I think it's in that connection of what brings God's love and healing to humanity here through us, through discipleship. I think in order for us to be able to fulfill the commandment of Christ from John 13, 34 and 35, to love one another as he loved us, by this the world will know that we're his disciples. I think in order to love like Jesus loved, the kind of love that changes lives, you have to have grace, because only God's love can do that. Now, if you haven't listened to the last episode on sin, it would be a good idea to go do that, because it really does give clarity on what we're about to talk about. But I do want to give us a refresher so we get a good clean start. Now, if you remember, we talked about the three zones, and this is directly in regards to sin and mosaic law. But I presented the idea of a scale that started with a zero in the middle. And to the left of that zero, I had said, think of negative one, negative two, negative three, negative four, negative five. And to the right of the zero, think of positive one, positive two, positive three, positive four, and positive five. These represent the three zones. You have the zero in the middle, which is neutral or compliant. You have the negative zone, which is bad, and then you have the positive zone, which is good. Now, Paul describes this beautifully when he says, let the thief steal no more. In other words, get out of the negative zone, but go to work with his hands so he can make his own way. In other words, get into the neutral zone or compliant zone, not hurting other people. But he goes on to say, for the reason that you can help other people when they have need. There's the positive zone. Now, Paul said that the law was a curse because it could only condemn you. In other words, it could only get you to compliance. You could never get into the positive zone. It could only get you to a place of refraining from doing bad, the neutral zone, zero. I think that's why Paul called the Old Testament or Mosaic law of the mitzvah, a babysitter. Because a babysitter isn't there to raise you and bring you into maturity. A babysitter is just to keep you safe and keep you from hurting others or hurting yourself until mom and dad can get home. That's why Jesus, when he showed up, said, I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it or complete it, to bring you the positive zone. Okay, so here's the thing. If we don't have a really good, clear definition and understanding of grace and faith, we'll find ourselves trying to get to zero compliance rather than the positive zone. In other words, where Jesus is trying to lead us out of that, we are going to use him in a sacrifice through a misunderstanding in a religion of pushing our way back to zero and making it the target. Weird. We're trying to use grace to be sin free in the sense of neutrality and compliance at zero. Now, I do want to say that in no way, shape, or form am I not saying that there's going to be transformation in your life to become a disciple, because there absolutely will be, but it has more to do with becoming than it does refraining from. Now, I think where this problem comes from is Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10. And it's how we translate or how we read the scripture that takes us to a place of trying to get to neutrality or zero, the wrong target. And I think our misunderstanding comes from where it says, by grace have you been saved, through faith, not by works, lest anyone boast. And what we've been taught or what we hear is that if you believe in Jesus, that's your faith, and that through that faith, God will give you grace and save you. But we're taught not to sin. And if you do sin, you pray to God and ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins, and that is what fully synthesizes you into salvation. Now in James chapter 2, verse 26, it says that faith without works is dead. If Paul really does mean that works has nothing to do with anything in your faith, that just it's strictly grace and is what we believe. And what's believe, it's an opinion of. So in other words, we are believing that your opinion that Jesus is Lord and Savior is all you need, and God will give the grace for that. But James is saying, faith without works is dead. In other words, James is saying, you don't have any faith unless you've got works. So either Paul and James are in huge contradiction or we're misunderstanding what Paul is saying. Now we got to keep in mind, this is Paul. Paul's the one who wrote Ephesians. But before Paul wrote Ephesians, he wrote 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9. That is the literal definition of grace given to him by God, as he says, the Lord said, whatever he was given in that definition previously, before he wrote this in Ephesians, is the definition of what he is using here in grace. Because I promise you, if the Lord gives you a definition, you're not going to change that definition over time. You're going to cling to that because now it's foundational in your faith. So guess where we're going? Yeah, we're going to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Now let me set the stage for you of what's happening. Paul is frustrated in this chapter. Paul has been doing his absolute best, given everything he has, because he believes that God has told him and given him a directive to go out, spread the gospel, establish churches, do all of these wonderful miracles and things in the name of Jesus to spread Christianity to the Gentiles. Now, Paul is frustrated because no matter what he does, he feels like he is failing. And there's a thorn in his side, as he calls it. We don't know what it is, but he we know he goes to God over it a couple of times and asks, God, please take this thorn from me. In other words, please help me. Let me give you an example of this whole situation. And this helps us understand. Think of it like this God has told Paul, Paul, I want you to go down to the river and I want you to start throwing rocks across the river. So Paul goes down to the river and looks, and it's a huge, vast distance to get to the other side. So Paul hears what God has told him is you're going to be like a superhuman. At will, you're going to be able to pick up those rocks and throw them across the river, and they're going to land on the other side, which you really can't do as a human being. They're all going to hit the water. You don't have the ability to do it. But Paul goes down to the river because that's what God has told him. Now, Paul picks up the rocks and starts throwing them. Again, confidently thinking at will he's going to be able to throw these rocks across the river. But that's not what happens. The vast majority of the rocks he is throwing is just going in the water and they're falling short. In addition, there is something else that he calls a thorn in the flesh that's keeping him or frustrating him of throwing the rocks and getting them to dry land on the other side. So he's incredibly frustrated. So he goes to God and says, God, you told me to throw the rocks across the river. I'm trying to throw the rocks across the river, but I can't. Most of these things are just going in the water. And on top of that, I've got this thorn on my side that is trying to keep me from throwing the rocks. I need help. At least give me some relief with this thorn. God says to Paul, it's in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9, My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Now it's in that statement we get the definition of grace. So let's start here. First of all, what is weakness? Weakness is a demonstration of lack of strength. It's like somebody that's lifting weights and they're trying to get to 200 pounds. They can't, they're not strong enough to do it, but we don't know how weak you are, or you don't know how weak you are until you try. It's in the action that demonstrates the weakness, or how far you can throw the rock. Now it's after he is told this, Paul starts rejoicing and says, When I am weak, he is strong. I will rejoice. Why is he rejoicing when God just basically told him no? You know what I mean? What God told him and why he rejoiced was this. Paul, I didn't tell you to throw the rocks across the river to dry land. I told you to give the effort. The results belong to me. If the rock carries a cross, that belongs to me. That's my results. I did that. Your effort takes it into the water. I carried it the rest of the way and it hit dry land. If it goes into the water, you didn't fail. I asked for your effort, and that's all. I mean, think about why Paul's rejoicing. I mean, that's a tremendous amount of weight to feel like that you have to throw rocks across the river every time. What a huge amount of pressure and stress. What a relief to hear that you're not responsible for any of that. Just go do your best and throw the rocks. Whatever results come aren't yours, you didn't do it. That's God's. You just do your best. That's easy. That's why Paul's rejoicing. That's God's grace. See, faith is showing up to throw the rock. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 says, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. See, faith has substance. In other words, it's tangible. See, we we confuse faith and belief. They're two different words. Belief is an opinion of, it doesn't require action. Faith is the conviction to the point that there's action. You throw the rock. It's tangible. You're doing something. Here's the disconnect. We go in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, and we read it, and we replace the word faith with belief. So we hear it like this. We are saved by grace through belief, an opinion of that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Belief just means there's another opinion in the world. Faith means there's changes in the world. In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, and once you get the verse 2, it says, by this the elders obtained a good testimony. It's like Abraham. We know Abraham made some really bad decisions, but he kept showing up to throw the rock. And God gave the rock grace, and so Abraham had a good testimony. What God had promised him came about because he kept showing up to throw the rock. Now, if we go back to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10, and we read it again, but with new information, it reads completely different. And again, remember, Paul wrote Ephesians after he wrote 2 Corinthians 12, 9. Same definition. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works. Let's read it like this to clear it up. You are saved by grace, God's results, in your effort of throwing the rock of faith. You are not saved by your results. What we sometimes do is we take these scriptures and we attribute them to the law and sin, the zones of neutral zone, of trying to be compliant with God's law, that we are refraining from hurting others, that we're in that neutral zone, like Paul said, let the thief steal no more, that we're not stealing, that we are working with our hands, taking care of our own in compliance and not hurting others, not sinning. I think that James and Paul are both talking about the commandment of Christ. James refers to it as the perfect law of liberty or freedom. Paul refers to it as fulfilling the whole law through love. And when we fulfill that commandment, we bring life and more abundant life here and now. And as disciples of Jesus in this, we give on need, not deserve. We don't judge, we don't condemn, we don't condone, we help the hurting. We're here on a mission of mercy. We just throw the rock. And if there's still any confusion whatsoever, he goes on to say in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I believe he's talking about our path as a disciple. I don't think there's a contradiction between James and Paul. They're both saying the same thing from different perspectives. Paul's just introducing grace. Now, what I'm about to say might be controversial, but I think a lot of us believe that God doesn't work in human beings anymore spiritually or miraculously. I don't think that's true. I think he does, but it's how we're expecting to see him versus how he does it. I believe it happens when we're trying to help other people on behalf of Jesus, giving his love to those who are hurting and in need. I've thrown a lot of rocks and I've watched a lot of them just go into the water. But I've also thrown rocks where it was so life-changing in that person's life that they had such a personal experience with God that it changed everything. Something I said or something I did was confirmation that it was God. I'm totally oblivious. I'm just throwing the rock. But what God gave to them was an answer to their prayers. And it was done in such a way that it was miraculous. You talk about a boost to your faith to see God do something like that from a front row seat is pretty amazing. I've seen widows be helped. I've seen the hungry be fed. I've seen people that's lost their children recently be comforted. I've seen the sick be prayed for and visited when they were in need. I've seen the discouraged to be encouraged. And all of that came from putting my target past the neutral zone, like we talk about, of trying not to sin and just trying to do good by not hurting others. Once I realized that and I started leaning outward and trying to get into the positive zone and doing things as a disciple, not a believer, where I tried to become like Christ and how he loved others, that's when things started to happen. That's when I started seeing things. And there's no way to determine when God shows up and when he does them. I have no way of knowing. All I know to do is throw the rock. I am not responsible for whatever results come from that, but I am responsible for being faithful for trying to do good works when they're put in my path. Because that's what Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10 says. If we only allow ourselves to put our target at zero, compliance of the three stages, the neutral zone, then we are not allowing God's grace to come through us in people's lives. We will never become the antidote to the poison. If Paul would have approached what God gave him to do like we look at those scriptures, it would have been a different outcome. Paul would have gone down to the riverside like he was told to do, but after throwing a couple of rocks and not being able to do what he thought he should have been able to, Paul would have sat down waiting for God to show up and give him the ability to throw rocks across the river at will. Paul would have been in belief that God was coming to deliver what God had said would happen, which means Paul would have never thrown the rocks in faith, and we wouldn't be reading these scriptures now. In episode 46, we talked about where the problem came from, the poison, that from a tree of knowledge of good and evil, a serpent would give us a fruit that is the poison to humanity. It was the lie that he told Eve. You'll be like God, you'll be able to judge good and evil. And that produced a selfish autonomy. And that led us all into the negative zone. Now in episode 47, we talked about the babysitter, getting us out of the negative zone and into the neutral zone, mosaic law, learning how to refrain from hurting one another, becoming what Paul talked about, and let the thief still no more but go to work with his hands. This keeps us from hurting one another, but it doesn't solve the heart's autonomy problem, which leads us to what we just heard: that Jesus hanging from a tree would bring us the fruit that is the antidote to that poison. That we no longer sit on a throne determining who deserves God's mercy, that we give on need in the positive zone, active outward love and mercy without judgment, autonomy of stewardship versus selfishness. That change in us brings changes to the world. As I say often, there is a difference in being a worshiper of the deity of Christ in belief versus being a disciple of Christ through faith and loving others. When you have the opportunity, throw the rock. That's a lot to get your head around, guys. Thank you for sticking with me. I mean, we're basically introducing a new theology. Actually, it's not a new theology. This is old theology. This is like the first 200 years of theology. This is how the original Christians believe. If you like what you're hearing, please follow, please share. But if you do share, share your favorite episode and let people know why it's important. Guys, thank you. I'll see you on the next episode.