What does it mean to be a “grace-filled” church? That was my assignment to preach at Calvary Church today as part of a series on the church’s DNA. I hope to post some things about being “grace-filled” over the next day or two.

One of my assertions was that “a grace-filled church is filled with people who are outrageously good to others, especially those who don’t deserve it.”

As I prepared the sermon, one challenge I didn’t have time to deal with was that JESUS, the embodiment of being “grace-filled,” sometimes didn’t seem very gracious when He was very angry with, insulted, offended, and rebuked people using very strong language. How could Jesus respond that way and be “grace-filled”?

We know that Jesus was “full of grace and truth”(John 1:14). Grace and truth are not incompatible but rather are inseparable. Grace is willing to confront in order to help someone change and to expose someone who is dangerous and deceptive in order to protect others from them. Grace believes that the truth sets us free.

I didn’t have time to talk about the three categories of people  Jesus most often condemned in the strongest of terms in personal confrontations, in His sermons, and in the stories/parables He told. Those groups were:

(1) rich people who did not use their wealth to help the poor and needy,

(2) politicians who were corrupt and used their power to oppress others and enrich themselves, and

(3) religious leaders who aligned themselves with the greed-filled rich and the corrupt politicians in order to keep their own positions of power and enrich themselves.

As we approach election day, perhaps it would be helpful to remember that Jesus identified withthe poor, the needy, the marginalized, the oppressed, women, children, the sick, prisoners, and immigrants (“strangers” and “aliens”), and He condemnedthe three kinds of people mentioned above.