Grace To a Sinner

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One of my favorite songs of all time is Rich Mullins’, Awesome God.

My favorite lyric of that song is this line:

Judgment and wrath He poured out on the Sodom 
Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross
I hope that you have not
Too quickly forgotten that
Our God is an awesome God

Up to that point in the song Rich has been explaining why our God is awesome. From the moment of creation, to the time of the Fall, and to the cross, Rich shows us why our God is an awesome God. All summed up in this culminating statement, “Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross”.

Many times when I hear this line, I have been brought to tears. I look to God’s holiness and see my sinfulness. I see His wrath on Sodom for their sin, then I see His mercy and grace at the Cross. That judgment and wrath that He poured out on Sodom... I deserved that. But He gave me grace.

See this passage from 1 Corinthians:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.— 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

This is who we all were outside of Christ. Without Christ, we were dead in sin. We were rebels to the Holy God. We loved our idolatry, our fornication, our drinking, our evil desires. Our hearts craved evil.

But as we attempted to fulfill our cravings, God was working. Nothing would satisfy us. We were lost, and we began to see it and know it. We had numbed ourselves to sin by our sin, but God was working His grace on us, and we saw we would never be satisfied.

I was this way. I loved my sin. I loved my rebellion. And I hated God.

But God. My favorite two words in all of Scripture. “But God, who is rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4) poured out His mercy and His grace on me at the cross. He gave to me His Son. His perfect, sinless Son. When I could do nothing, when I could not merit His love (when I didn’t even WANT that), He made a way for me. He gave His only begotten Son for me.

This is how I know God’s love. I have to know God’s love. Because He sent Christ. And because He did that for me when I was rebellious sinner. Here is true love. That Christ would die for me, a rebel against His will, a rebel that, outside of God’s Spirit working within me, would have never loved Him. But somehow, that was His plan from eternity past. To save me, a sinner, for His glory.

The cross, once foolishness to me, is now the power of God unto my salvation. This foolish message of the cross is the wisdom of God.

The “foolish” Gospel of the Cross saves. It’s the only thing that will save. And it’s saving me.

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.— 1 Corinthians 1:18-25


Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.— 1 Corinthians 6:11

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