The Ugliness of Licentiousness

"For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ" (Jude 4)

"Licentiousness" is truly an ugly word, beloved! Not to mention hard to pronounce. So let's deal with the easier of the two first. "Lie-sen'-chus-ness." There! At least we know how to pronounce it.

The notion for me to take the time to deal with such a word occurred as a result of a minor "provocation" in traffic a few days ago. I am always amazed at how, to gain even a one car-length advantage, some drivers will drive well beyond the speed limit and dart into a small opening between two vehicles, often narrowly avoiding collisions and also often without signaling their intentions at all. And what do they gain from such antics? They get to make their desired exit or turn from the highway a full car-length ahead of where they would have made it anyway had they not pulled such a foolhardy maneuver! At such times I usually just shake my head, say to myself "Amazing!" and then marvel at what seems to be in so many people a total disregard for the rules of the road.

So what is the point? The point is that such wanton disregard for what is right and acceptable is what lies at the heart of "licentiousness." The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "licentious" as "marked by disregard for strict rules of correctness," while W.E. Vine refers to it as "absence of restraint." Spiros Zodhiates agrees, using those same words to describe the Greek term aselgeia.

But again, what is the point? How does any consideration of this ugly word fit into the issue of living in this world of sin as Christians? The problem is, beloved, that one of the most oft-repeated and serious offenses we commit as Christians falls into the very same realm of "licentiousness"! You see, we convince ourselves that, because we are saved by God's grace for all eternity, it really does not matter how we live our lives. "Once saved, always saved," right? We fall for the delusion that the standard doesn't matter as long as our sins are forgiven and we're glory-bound. In his book The Cost of Discipleship, German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguished between what he called "cheap grace" and "costly grace":

"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ"

"Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says, 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light'"

Put very simply, beloved, any form of "licentiousness" in a Christian's life is "cheap grace." It is totally unacceptable. Just this past week Dr. Charles Stanley made the statement that as Christians our "value" to God never exceeds our "obedience" unto God. We must put away, then, the notion of "free license" in our living. As the Apostle James put it so profoundly:

"Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works" (James 2:18b)

We as followers of Jesus Christ have been saved by grace alone! So let's demonstrate the reality of that grace by bringing our lives into line with the standard of God's inerrant and infallible Word. The world is watching! Grace is free, but it is not cheap! Let's not do anything to send the wrong message.

Ron