The idea of Grace is at the heart and core of the Christian faith. It is a key foundational idea. In fact it would not be going too far to say that if someone has not understood Grace then they have not understood the Christian faith.

Grace is the free unmerited favour and forgiveness of God to us. It comes to us, not because we deserve it, but because God loves us and has mercy on us.

Paul’s words in Ephesians 2 make it crystal clear how the New Testament understands the way grace works. Ephesians 2:8-10:

	Now this Grace once experienced and understood and lived by, not only restores our relationship with God, but it has another wonderful spin-off – it provides the strongest and most profound foundation for a free and democratic society, the way we can live together justly and fairly and caringly.
	There are compelling reasons why grace is a key foundation for a healthy, democratic and free society:   Because grace makes us all equal

It transcends race, gender, tribe and class. In Ephesians 2, immediately following his classic statement on grace that we read earlier, Paul goes straight on to draw out one of its radical implications that Jew and Gentile are now one. (2:14-21).

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

Christianity of all faiths is the most culturally pluralist. (Not philosophically pluralist but culturally pluralist.) Christianity attacks tribalism, racism and xenophobia at its roots. In Christ we have a radically new identity that transcends all the other communities of identity that we have been shaped by: ethnicity, family, gender, employment, class, etc,. Paul expresses it this way in Galatians 3:26-28.

You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you all one in Christ Jesus.

People who understand grace do not feel superior or inferior. This is a great foundation for free and democratic society.

2. Grace produces the inner attitude of gratefulness and humility. Before God’s mercy we are all the unworthy but grateful recipients of grace. Deep in the hearts of those who have experienced grace is the awareness of the brokenness, darkness and dysfunction that lurks below the surface in all of us. We know deep down that “there but for the grace of God go I.”

Eg. I have a friend who is a recovered alcoholic. He lost his marriage and his children through alcoholism, but AA rescued him.He is now very honest about his life and weaknesses. Recovered alcoholics (or sober alcoholics) are some of the most honest , unpretentious and humble people I know. And that’s because they have been to the bottom. They know how low we humans can stoop and yet they found grace and came back and now live everyday by grace. They are frank and tough but very slow to judge others, very humble.

3. Because forgiveness is at the heart of grace and the experience of grace it produces people who realise the crucial importance of forgiveness and reconciliation in all our relationships. Forgiveness and reconciliation are crucial values for a free society

4. Because grace proceeds from love - (Grace is God’s love in action towards us) – it produces people committed to the ethic of love in all our social relationships. Because we know we were loved by God even when we ignored or rejected him we realise we must love even those who reject us, even our enemies. This is a powerful and positive value for a healthy society.

5. Grace places an enormously high value on the individuals life. People are of supreme value because each one has been redeemed with the blood of Christ. The cost of grace - the price - was incalculably high. So the weakest most powerless individual is precious.

6. Grace also heightens the importance of community. It is to the Christian Community that God gives his ‘graces’/ ‘charisms’ or gifts of ministry to strengthen and grow us to reach out beyond ourselves to others. We understand ourselves as a mutually interdependent ‘body’ where each part or limb needs and depends on the other.

	Our understanding of Christian community makes us people who value and see the importance of community and mutual responsibility throughout the whole society.
	It is no accident that many of the great social reforms that we now enjoy in western society had their origin in the Christian social reformers of the 18th and 19th Centuries in England.
	English society went through a tremendous social upheaval with the Industrial Revolution. As well as producing wealth, it also created enormous social problems with the growth of the vast new industrial suburbs. England changed from an agrarian village society to an industrial urban one in a relatively short period of time. The social challenges were great.
	A group of Christians, motivated by God’s grace to them tackled the social challenges of this period.

Eg.

- John Howard pioneered prison reform.

- Elizabeth Fry and Anthony Ashley Cooper tackled factory reform and worked to abolish child labour.

- John Ludlow pioneered the Friendly Societies, out of which came modern insurance and medical benefits schemes.

- George Cadbury turned his factories into model workplaces. He introduced labour reforms and the forerunners of workplace accident insurance, superannuation and decent housing for workers. He created model villages around his factories.

- James Kier Hardie created the modern labour movement. He had a strong influence on the first Australian Labor Prime Minister.

These were all deeply committed Christians.

Listen to this prayer by John Howard the prison reformer. His life work began with his conversion at 45 years of age. This is the prayer of commitment he recorded in his journal. It reveals the motivation of deep gratitude to God.

“Oh compassionate and divine Redeemer, save me from the dreadful guilt and power of sin and accept my solemn, free unreserved surrender of my soul, my spirit, all I am and have into your hands, unworthy of thy acceptance.”

His experience of God’s grace motivated him to travel 42,000 miles by horse in the pursuit of the reform of prisons.

The experience of grace heightens the importance of community , an incredibly important value for a free and democratic society.

7. Experiencing and receiving of the generous grace of God produces generosity in us and the whole idea of sharing our wealth and abundance.

In 2 Corinthians 8 & 9 Paul is writing to the Corinthian church about their giving to the struggling Christians in Jerusalem.

In 8:9 he sets up the generosity of God’s grace as the basis for our generosity.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

This is “the Christian generosity principle”. Our generosity is motivated by Christ’s generosity to us.

Then at the end of chapter 9 he tells the Corinthian Christians that their giving will produce great thanksgiving to God – and the reason for that is not just their financial generosity but the source of it – the surprising grace of God given to them. 2 Cor 9:12-15:

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, people will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Notice verse 14: “the hearts” of those receiving the Corinthian church’s gifts “will go out to them” because they realise how powerfully God’s grace has worked in them. They realise that the origin of the Corinthian’s generosity was the generous grace of God to the Corinthian Christians.

This example of generosity from God flows over into our role in society. The willing sharing of our wealth by reasonable taxation is something that “grace receivers” support as necessary for a fair and caring society.

The weak, the frail, the poor, the disabled must be cared for by generously sharing our resources through taxation.

8. Grace is more morally powerful than legalism. P.T. Forsyth, a great Christian thinker and writer from earlier times said, “Public liberty rests on inward freedom.”

Forsyth’s point was that those enslaved by fear or prejudice or anger or resentment or selfishness or greed are much more likely to enslave others than those who have found the inner freedom that comes from experiencing grace and forgiveness.

Nothing can ever be totally guaranteed but the modern liberal democratic state will rest far more safely on this inner freedom than anything else. The experience of grace is always more morally powerful and personally transforming than laws or legislation.

There is a world of difference between someone who keeps the law because they have to, or are afraid, and those who keep the law because they want to, whose hearts tell them it’s good and right.

The author of “Amazing grace” was John Newton a sea captain and slave trader. After his conversion he not only gave up his terrible trade but worked tirelessly with William Wilberforce for the abolition of the slave trade.

Grace is not opposed to law, but it is opposed to legalism. Legalism assumes that you can develop a good society with laws. Good laws are important but they do not change the heart or form inner values. Good laws can express and help support good values and be a signpost to good and fair behaviour, they can protect the weak and restrain self interest and evil but they cannot provide inner motivation or change the heart.

Jesus confronted this very issue in his own society – a society with a deep respect for the Law, but one that constantly descended into legalism and bureaucracy over the Law.

Eg. Healing on the Sabbath … He lashed the teachers of the Law as blind guides, who ‘strained at gnats and swallowed camels!’ Who laid burdens on people too great to bear, hypocrites who kept the letter but missed the Spirit of the Law. He constantly went for the heart, the motive. ‘The Law says, do not murder but I say watch out for anger and hatred.’ The Pharisees are constantly on about the purification rules and hand washing. ‘I’ll tell you what makes someone unclean, it’s what’s in his heart and what’s in his heart will spill out of his mouth.’

Jesus was of course just continuing the tradition of the great Hebrew prophets – they understood and expressed with the clarity of desert light that the heart must be changed. No amount of observance , if your attitude or reasons were wrong, was acceptable to God.

They thundered out: “Rend your hearts and not your garments” (In other words truly repent don’t just observe the outward sign.)

“Circumcise your hearts, not just your bodies” (Bear the sign of separation from God in your heart not just your bodies.)

Because our legislators today have lost touch with these foundation ideas of our culture they have fallen into the legalism trap.

We have more legislation than we have ever had and yet a moral and ethical vacuum continues to grow at the heart of our society.

We have legislation enacted with good intentions, but poorly drafted, like the Victorian Racial and Religious Vilification Act that in its enthusiastic political correctness undermines the fundamental democratic value of freedom of speech particularly in relation to freedom of religious expression and debate. It’s intention may have been good but the result is disastrous.

Grace changes hearts, not Law!

9. Grace produces hope

When a person experiences the grace and forgiveness of God they know they have a new start, a fresh future.

When someone is at a point of emotional, spiritual and moral despair and they find that God loves them, is still extending his hand to them, and is saying to them – “Come on, lift your head, stand up, you can be forgiven, I can give you the strength to go on” – at that moment hope springs alive again.

Societies must have hope to be healthy, to have energy and creativity.

Grace produces hope!

The following is a list of the core values of a modern democratic society like Australia

Core Values of a Modern Democratic State:

- The separation of powers, church and state, parliament and courts.

- Universal suffrage – one person, one vote

- Representative democracy elected by the people

- Equality of men and women

- Equality before the law

- The freedom of the individual to choose who they will marry, where they will live, work etc

- Trial by jury

- Freedom of speech

- Freedom of religion

- Freedom of assembly and association

- Equal rights to own property

- The protection of and care for the poor, unemployment, vulnerable, sick and aged.

- The sharing of wealth via taxation as well as voluntary charity

- Protection of the rights of lawful minorities

- The provision of non-sectarian education by the State

- The freedom of people to also provide independent education for their children.

(A cohesive society can only be constructed out of culturally diverse groups if there is a core of shared values to which everyone is committed.)

It is a matter of historic fact that these values have evolved and developed primarily within and out of those nations who were most influenced by the Christian faith and the gospel of grace. Subsequently they have been adopted by others like India, now the world’s largest democracy, but they were nurtured in cultures influenced deeply by grace.

Classical Greece receives far too much credit for democracy!

In fact they were slave states. Democracy was only for a small aristocratic elite, quite unlike a modern liberal democracy.

If modern democratic principles they are to be protected, then the message of grace must be maintained at the heart of our society.

Now, if grace is a key foundation stone for building and sustaining a free democratic society, how can we and how should we promote grace?

Well, not by law or power or force

But by:

(1) promoting the message of grace – i.e. Spreading and sharing the gospel

(2) living graciously among others in our society

(3) not being apologetic in our culture about our Christian faith, but being very confident and positive about its value to our society. Promote grace – argue its case as I have done here.

(4) By promoting politically and legally the core values of the modern democratic state like freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Grace is a far better basis for a free and good society than secularism or paganism or a relativistic pluralism – the three current boys on the ideas block these days!

Secularism is such a closed circle that shuts out so much that the human heart longs for.

Paganism has a nasty history and has been the seed-bed for facism’s many forms in the past.

Relativistic Pluralism is so anti-foundational that it produces a confused and ethically empty culture focussed on the individual’s self fulfilment and their subjective interior world with no objective moral compass point.

Remember P.T. Forsyth’s statement: “Public liberty rests on inward freedom” and that freedom is found in the experience of grace.

Australia was first discovered by a European explorer in 1606, Pedro Ferdandez de Quiros – he named his discovery “Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo” – the Southland of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray that we will indeed be a nation guided and influenced by the Holy Spirit, the one who leads hearts to the grace of God.