From Scales to Grace: Embracing God's Unconditional Love

Oct 09, 2024

Devotional

Day 1: The Futility of Balancing the Spiritual Scale

Trying to balance our good and bad deeds before God is a deeply ingrained instinct, but Scripture reveals that this approach misunderstands both the depth of our brokenness and the height of God's holiness. No matter how many good intentions or actions we stack up, we cannot tip the scale in our favor, because our sin runs deeper than we admit and God's standard is higher than we imagine. The impulse to measure ourselves by our own efforts leads only to confusion, burden, and ultimately a sense of spiritual bankruptcy, as if we reach the checkout of life and find our payment declined. [10:18]

Genesis 6:5 (ESV)
"The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Reflection: In what ways do you find yourself trying to “make up” for your mistakes or bad days by doing good things, and how does this mindset affect your relationship with God?

Day 2: God’s Justice and Mercy Meet in Jesus

When faced with our inability to measure up, the question arises: will God respond with justice or mercy? The Christian faith proclaims that in Jesus Christ, God does not simply choose one or the other—He gives both. Jesus lives the perfect life we could not, fulfilling God’s standard, and then takes upon Himself the punishment for our failures. In Him, the scale is crushed, justice is satisfied, and mercy is poured out, so that we are invited to come to God not on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of Christ’s finished work. [18:25]

Psalm 103:10 (ESV)
"He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."

Reflection: How does knowing that Jesus has already satisfied both justice and mercy for you change the way you approach God today?

Day 3: Grace Transforms Our Relationship with God

When the scale is removed and replaced with grace, our relationship with God is no longer marked by fear, striving, or avoidance. Instead, we are free to worship Him with awe and gratitude, recognizing that the holy and powerful God chooses to love and be with us. This worshipful awe is not about being afraid of punishment, but about being overwhelmed by the goodness and compassion of a God who knows us fully and still draws near. [21:47]

Psalm 103:13 (ESV)
"As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him."

Reflection: What would it look like for you to approach God today with gratitude and awe, rather than with anxiety or a sense of needing to prove yourself?

Day 4: Grace Frees Us to Love Others Without Conditions

When we are no longer trying to earn God’s favor, we are set free to love others without using them as a means to our own spiritual ends. Relationships are no longer about keeping score or demanding fairness, but about showing compassion and mercy, just as God has done for us. We can love, serve, and give to others simply because we are loved, not because we need to earn anything in return. [25:39]

Psalm 103:14 (ESV)
"For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust."

Reflection: Is there someone in your life you find difficult to love because it feels unfair or unreciprocated? How might God’s grace toward you empower you to love them freely today?

Day 5: Grace Brings Peace to Our Own Hearts

Living by the scale leads to a pendulum swing between pride when we think we’re doing well and despair when we fail. But when grace replaces the scale, we find a steady peace: on our best days and our worst, we are equally loved by God. This truth quiets the inner critic and brings rest to our souls, freeing us from the exhausting cycle of self-justification and self-condemnation. [28:41]

Romans 5:1 (ESV)
"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Reflection: When you notice yourself feeling either proud of your goodness or discouraged by your failures, how can you remind yourself of the unchanging peace and acceptance you have in Christ?

Sermon Summary

We all have a “junk drawer” in our homes—a place where we stash odds and ends that don’t have a proper place, things we can’t quite let go of “just in case.” In the same way, we carry a spiritual junk drawer: a collection of half-remembered sayings, inspirational quotes, misapplied Bible verses, and cultural ideas about God and faith. These fragments often shape our understanding of God, but many of them are more clutter than truth. One of the most persistent and damaging items in this spiritual junk drawer is the idea of a cosmic scale—a belief that God is keeping score, weighing our good deeds against our bad, and that our eternal destiny depends on which side is heavier.

This scale mentality is deeply ingrained in us. It shows up in how we try to “make up” for our mistakes, how we comfort ourselves or others by saying, “He was a good person,” and how we try to balance out our past with present good behavior. But this way of thinking, while common, is fundamentally at odds with the heart of the Christian faith. Scripture teaches that God’s holiness is far greater than we imagine, and our brokenness is deeper than we care to admit. If God truly kept score, none of us could stand. No amount of good deeds can tip the scale in our favor.

The good news is that God does not operate by the scale. Instead, in Jesus Christ, justice and mercy meet. Jesus lived the perfect life we could not, fulfilling God’s standard of holiness, and then took upon himself the punishment for our failures. In him, the scale is crushed—justice is satisfied, and mercy is poured out. What remains is grace: God’s unearned, unmeasured love for us.

When this truth takes root, it transforms our relationships. With God, we are freed from fear and striving, able to worship in awe and gratitude. With others, we are released from using relationships as a means to earn favor, and can love freely, without demanding fairness. And within ourselves, we are delivered from the exhausting pendulum of pride and despair, finding peace in the constancy of God’s love. The scale is gone. Only love remains.

Key Takeaways

1. The “scale” mentality—believing God weighs our good and bad deeds—distorts our understanding of both God’s holiness and our own brokenness. Scripture reveals that God’s standard is perfection, and our sin is deeper than we realize; no amount of good can balance the scale. This realization humbles us and points us away from self-reliance toward a desperate need for grace. [07:52]
2. In Jesus Christ, justice and mercy are not in competition but are perfectly fulfilled. Jesus lived the life we could not and bore the punishment we deserved, so that the demands of justice are met and the gift of mercy is freely given. The cross is where the scale is destroyed, and grace becomes the new reality for all who trust in him. [16:22]
3. Grace radically changes our relationship with God. No longer do we approach him as a taskmaster to appease or a judge to fear, but as a loving Father who delights in us. This produces a worshipful awe—a humble gratitude that God, in his greatness, chooses to love and be with us despite our smallness and failures. [20:40]
4. Grace also transforms how we relate to others. When we are freed from the need to “earn points” with God through our treatment of others, we can love, serve, and give without ulterior motives or keeping score. True relationships flourish not through fairness or reciprocity, but through the same compassion and mercy God has shown us. [25:39]
5. Finally, grace brings peace to our own hearts. The scale mentality leads to a cycle of pride when we think we’re doing well and despair when we inevitably fail. But when we rest in Christ’s finished work, we are loved on our best days and our worst, and our souls find the peace that striving can never provide. [27:19]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[01:01] - The Spiritual Junk Drawer
[02:31] - The Scale: Measuring Good vs. Bad
[03:28] - Everyday Life and the Scale Mentality
[07:52] - God’s Holiness and Our Brokenness
[08:47] - The Grocery Store Analogy: We Can’t Pay
[12:02] - The Question: Justice or Mercy?
[13:32] - Waiting for the Father: Justice Dad or Mercy Dad?
[16:22] - Where Justice and Mercy Meet in Christ
[18:25] - The Scale Is Gone: Only Grace Remains
[20:40] - Grace Transforms Our Relationship with God
[22:43] - Grace and Our Relationships with Others
[25:39] - Compassion for Others: Loving Without the Scale
[26:27] - Grace and Our Relationship with Ourselves
[29:21] - The Desire to Be Seen as Good
[31:24] - Bono on Grace vs. Karma
[33:29] - Closing and Benediction

Bible Study Guide

Bible Study Discussion Guide: “Throwing Out the Scale: Living by Grace, Not Scorekeeping”

Bible Reading

Genesis 6:5 (ESV)
> The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Psalm 130:3-4 (ESV)
> If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

Psalm 103:10, 13-14 (ESV)
> He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities... As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

Observation Questions

According to Genesis 6:5, how does God describe the condition of the human heart? What does this reveal about our ability to “tip the scale” with good deeds? ([07:52])
In Psalm 130, what does the psalmist say would happen if God kept a record of our wrongs? What is the alternative that God offers? ([07:52])
How does Psalm 103 describe God’s response to our failures and weaknesses? What imagery is used to show God’s attitude toward us? ([25:39])
The sermon compared our spiritual “scale” to a junk drawer. What are some examples the pastor gave of things people keep in their spiritual junk drawer? ([01:01])

Interpretation Questions

The sermon says that believing in a “scale” mentality means we have too low a view of God’s holiness and too low a view of our own brokenness. Why is this a problem for understanding the gospel? ([07:52])
The pastor described how Jesus “crushed the scale” by both living a perfect life and taking our punishment. How does this answer the question of whether God is just or merciful? ([16:22])
According to the sermon, how does grace change the way we relate to God compared to living with a scale mentality? ([20:40])
The pastor said that demanding fairness in relationships can “ruin” them. Why does grace offer a better way to relate to others? ([25:39])

Application Questions

The pastor shared that many of us try to “balance the scale” after a bad day by doing something good to make up for it. Can you think of a recent time when you tried to make up for a mistake this way? How did it affect your view of God or yourself? ([03:28])
The sermon said that if God truly kept score, “none of us could stand.” How does this truth affect the way you think about your own spiritual performance or failures? ([07:52])
When you think about your relationship with God, do you see him more as a judge keeping score, or as a loving Father who delights in you? What would it look like to approach God with “worshipful awe” instead of fear or striving? ([20:40])
The pastor said that grace frees us to love others without keeping score or demanding fairness. Is there a relationship in your life where you tend to keep score? What would it look like to show compassion or mercy instead? ([25:39])
The sermon described how the “scale” mentality leads to a cycle of pride when we’re doing well and despair when we fail. Which side of the pendulum do you tend to swing toward? How can resting in Christ’s finished work bring you peace? ([27:19])
The pastor told a story about wanting to be seen as “good” at the end of life. How much does the desire to be seen as good by others shape your actions or self-worth? How does the message of grace challenge or comfort you in this area? ([29:21])
The sermon ended with Bono’s quote about “holding out for grace.” Are there areas in your life where you are still trying to earn God’s favor or tip the scales? What would it look like to let go of that and trust in grace instead? ([31:24])

Closing Prayer Suggestion:
Thank God for his grace that crushes the scale and frees us from striving. Ask for help to live in the freedom of his love, to show compassion to others, and to find peace in Christ’s finished work.

Sermon Clips

“We also have a spiritual junk drawer. It's the place where we keep all of the little spiritual and religious ideas that we have collected over the years that make up our religious worldview. It's made up of a whole bunch of different things. There's an old saying your grandmother used to spout off out about all the time that sounded like it come from the scriptures but really didn't. You know, God helps those who help themselves or something like that. It sits next to some inspirational quote that you took a screenshot of on Instagram that sounded kind of religious. And that's sitting next to some idea that you're holding on to from an undergrad philosophy class that really challenged you. And that's tangled all up with some story from Sunday school way back in the day that you misremember. And all of these things together and so much more, they come together to fill your spiritual junk drawer and they make up your spiritual world, your understanding.of the divine. But the thing about the stuff that's in a spiritual junk drawer is that most of it is junk. It's stuff that clouds the real message of Christ and turns your faith from a joyful thing and a freeing thing into a burdensome thing and very often a confusing or conflicting thing.”

“It's the idea that there is a God out there who is watching and waiting to judge us and who is going to measure all the good and all the bad that is done by us. It's the idea that life and in particular spirituality, religion consists of making sure that you put more good on the scale.than bad on the scale because if you get to the end and your bad outweighs your good oh no you you're not going to heaven you're not going to be in good with the big guy you're not going to get to nirvana or whatever it is that you're holding out for for many people spirituality comes down to a game of balancing the scale I got to make sure there's more good than bad.”

“We are people who are always playing with the scale believing that in the end it comes down to making sure that there's more good than bad and this is seeped its way into everyday life in more ways than you realize you you have you have a wild weekend with friends where you where you have a little too much fun so what do you do the next weekend you say you know what I'm gonna be I'm gonna be good this weekend guys I'm gonna stay in you know I can't I can't be the kind of guy that does that every weekend don't want to be that guy I got wild last weekend gonna take it easy this weekend I youyou know i gotta i gotta balance the scale right.”

“It is deeply embedded into who we are as human beings and how we operate we walk around with this belief that if there's a god out there looking down on us he's going to hold us accountable and he's going to judge me based on my good versus my bad it's hard to escape the scale now of course the the christian faith takes issue with the scale being in your spiritual junk drawer in the christian faith in in the real true traditional understanding of the christian faith there is no placefor a scale. No place for it at all.”

“If you think that you can do anything to balance the scale, you think too little of God and too little of your own sin. Just look at these two scriptures. The first is from Genesis chapter 6, and the second is from Psalm 130. Genesis 6, this is God looking down on humanity just prior to the flood with Noah and the ark, you know, that whole thing. This is God when he looks down on humanity. This is what he sees. This is his take on humanity. You'll note that no one ever puts this verse on a Christmas card. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Has much changed since the days of Noah? Noah, it has not. And that every intention of the thoughts of his heart, look at that, every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Yikes. Psalm 130. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, if you kept track of the stuff I did wrong, O Lord, who could stand?”

“The message of Jesus is this. We are more than a little messed up. God is more than just God. God.a little holier than us. God's holiness is supreme, and man's depravity is deep. And there is nothing that we can do to try and meet his standard of holiness through our own efforts, and there's nothing that we could do to try and counterbalance the evil outside of us, the evil done by us, and even, the scriptures say, the awful and the evil that is within us.”

“You can say there's a scale, but you can't move it. You can't.”

“If you believe in a scale in any capacity, when you get to the very end, when you have loaded your whole life onto the conveyor belt at the checkout counter, you'll have loaded everything you've got onto that, the good, the bad, all of it. And what will happen is you will walk up there with your good intentions and with your other long list of good works, and what you'll discover is if you try to pay with that, what you'll discover is that that little tiny terrible beep goes off, and you will discover that you have been declined. And you'll be left with that horrible sinking feeling of, I've got a ton of stuff on that belt, and I, like, I can't pay for it.”

“God is too high for us to reach him with our own efforts. Man is too low, too bad, too broken, too messed up for us to dig ourselves out of the hole, for us to balance the thing, counterbalance the good, the bad with the good. We just can't do it, so what's left?”

“If there is a God above us, if there is an intelligent universe watching us, then in the end, what will the universe, God, Jesus, the one who stands over us, what will he do? Will he bring justice, or will he bring mercy? Because man is incapable of solving the problem on his own. Man can't fix the problem of his profound imperfection. So in the end, if there is to be a reckoning, what will God do? Will God show up in justice and say, look, the scale is tipped towards the bad, and you've got to pay? Or will God wipe away the scale and show up and offer mercy?”

“Well, the Christian faith believes it has an answer to that age -old question of will mankind receive justice or mercy? For thousands of years, people have waited and the Christian faith believes that an answer has been delivered and that the answer is this, that God does not give us justice, nor does he merely give us mercy. But instead, God gives us his Son, Jesus Christ, and in Him, justice and mercy meet.”

“In Him, God actually delivers both. And in doing so, He crushes the scale and He cuts the tension that it creates. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ comes into this world and He lives perfectly. He is God's own Son, God in flesh, and He meets the world.and exceeds even the holy standard. And in doing so, he takes the scale for humanity and presses it all the way down to the good, all the way down. But then, but then he is crucified and he is punished for all the evils of humanity. He's punished because we took the scale and we pushed it all the way down to the bad. And so in Jesus Christ, both perfection and punishment take place.”

“In Christ, is there justice? Yes, he's punished for mankind's sin. In Christ, is there mercy? Yes. Yes, there is. Both perfection and punishment have taken place. Justice and mercy are both delivered in Jesus Christ. And so now, now, Psalm 103 and the promise that it makes can be fulfilled. Psalm 103 says this in verse 10, he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. He dealt with Christ according to our sins. And he dealt with Christ according to our iniquities. So now, justice is done in Jesus. Mercy is offered in Jesus. The scale is crushed and pushed away. And now the only thing that remains is a God above us who says, look, come to me. Only love remains. And that, my friends, is grace.”

“When the scale gets removed from God above us, we have been closed. And that, my friends, is grace. When the scale getsyour spiritual framework when there's no need to measure because Christ has measured up and the scale gets removed and it gets replaced with grace justice and mercy done in him not in him now as this as this truth takes root in us as it grows within us it has the power and the potential to transform three important relationships for us three relationships that when they go sideways because of the scale tend to make people want to get rid of their spirituality altogether when these three relationships get turned sideways because you think that life is about measuring and measuring up people enter into an unhealthy level of deconstruction about their faith or they just take all of religion and spirituality and throw it away because they're tired of these three relationships being so so dysfunctional and frustrated but when you let the scale be thrown away and replaced with the true message of grace it affects these three relationships in a positive beautiful life -giving way the first is that it changes your relationship with God and it frees you to see your relationship of God as one in which you simply get to worship him if you believe in some kind of cosmic scale where you're weighing everything out God becomes a slave driver that you have to that you have to fear and outrun or someone that you have to simply try and ignore this this God in the sky who's going to judge you someday and you either you either try to please him or you try to outrun him God bless you God bless you God bless you God bless you God bless you God bless you God bless you God bless you God bless youBut now with Jesus,your relationship with God is not one that's laden with a desire to flee from him or try to please him. It's one where you simply get to enjoy him and say thank you to him and worship him.”

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Now in the Old Testament, when we hear that word fear, it doesn't mean fear of punishment. What it really means is worshipful, grateful awe. It's the idea that this holy God who could judge you and reject you, who could push you away forever, doesn't. It's this sense of awe that God is so big and yet he loves and shows grace to someone so small. And it makes your jaw drop and fills your soul with gratitude.”

“You don't have to be angry at him you don't have to try to please him you don't have to try and ignore him or outrun him you just get to look up and say i don't know why you love me so much but man you clearly do thank you and god gets big and you get small in all the right ways and you're overwhelmed with gratitude that gets to be your relationship with god and that is so much better than loathing him because you feel like you gotta please him.”

“It also changes your relationship with others it frees you to actually like truly love other people when you believe that there's some kind of cosmic scale and you gotta balance out your your your bad with your good it it turns relationships with others into a commodity you see if there's a god that i've got to please then then i'm not loving you purely to love you i'm loving you so that he'll love me ultimately in the end i'm not being nice to you because i want to be nice to you maybe i do want to be nice to you but ultimately i'm being nice to you because i i really ultimately need him to be nice to me you you you you you you you.”

“If God is good to me apart from performance, then that frees me up to be good to you, apart from performance. If God loves me because he loves me because Christ has measured up for me, then I'm free to love you because I love you, not because I need anything from you or for myself. I'm free to love you just to love you. I'm free to serve you just to serve you. I'm free to give to you just to give to you with no other toxic spiritual agenda because my relationship with God is already secure through Christ.”

“If you believe in some kind of like karmic balance, if you believe that you've got to measure up and balance the scales, it puts you spiritually on a pendulum where you swing back and forth between spiritual pride and spiritual despair. And when people live in a swinging back and forth between pride and despair, eventually they say, I don't, this is making me sick. I want off of this ride. And that's one of the reasons people leave the faith.”

“But if the scale has been tossed out and replaced with grace, then what you get to have in here is peace because you know that on your bad days, you are loved. On your good days, you are loved. On your good days, you are loved no more. On your bad days, you are loved no less. And that, my friends, leads to peace.”

“It makes God someone you just get to worship. It makes friends people that you just get to love. It makes your own heart a place of peace. If the scale is gone and replaced with grace.”

“All of us wants to be thought well of. In the very end, we want to be seen as good people, people who've measured up. But if you insist on living a life where part of your worldview, your spiritual makeup, your religious makeup is this idea that you have to measure up or that your good works in any capacity get you anywhere, one question I have for you is this. How good is good enough? How will you ever know? How will you ever have peace? How?”

“At the center of all religions is the idea of karma. That's the scale. You know, what you put out comes back to you. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Or in physics, in physical laws, every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that karma, balancing things out, is at the heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called grace grace to upend all of that as you reap, so you will sow stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff. I'd be in big trouble if karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep stuff. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for grace. I love that. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am. And I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.”

“In Jesus Christ, justice and mercy meet. And the scale is thrown away. And only love remains. Amen.”

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