Today we’re diving into a topic that’s beautiful, powerful, and… honestly, uncomfortable: grace. Specifically, why grace—something we talk about all the time in church—still offends us.

Grace is one of the most central ideas in Christianity. It’s the heartbeat of the gospel. Unmerited favor. Forgiveness. Restoration. A gift we could never earn, no matter how hard we try. And yet, for all its beauty, grace is also deeply scandalous. It offends our sense of fairness. It disrupts our categories of who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out.’ It forces us to wrestle with the reality that God’s love reaches people we think don’t deserve it… including ourselves.

In this episode, we’re going to explore what grace really is, why it has always stirred tension—especially among the religious—and why, even today, it continues to provoke frustration, skepticism, and even offense. We’ll talk about moments in Scripture, in the Church, and in my own life where grace has shown up and messed with my sense of what should be. We’ll also reflect on how we can become people who not only receive grace, but extend it—even when it costs us something.

Let’s step into the tension together. Because understanding the scandal of grace just might change the way we see God—and everyone around us.

Let’s start with a simple question: what even is grace? I mean, we throw the word around in church like confetti—‘by grace you’ve been saved,’ ‘give them grace,’ ‘grace upon grace.’ But if we’re honest, most of us would have a harder time defining it than quoting it.

So here’s a working definition: grace is undeserved favor. It’s receiving something good when you did absolutely nothing to earn it. In fact, grace often shows up when you've done the opposite of earning it. It’s God saying, “You’re forgiven,” when you fully expected Him to say, “You’re finished.”

It’s the kind of thing that makes zero sense in any other area of life. Try telling your boss, “I didn’t finish the report, but I’m hoping for some unmerited favor.” Or ask a traffic cop, “Can I be let off with some grace today?” Let me know how that goes.

Grace doesn’t work like the systems we’re used to. It’s not transactional. It’s not earned. And that’s exactly why it’s so beautiful… and why it gets under our skin.

Jesus told stories about this kind of grace all the time. One of the most frustrating ones—if we’re being honest—is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. You’ve got workers who show up early in the day, sweating under the sun, doing the work. Then, at the very end, a bunch of latecomers roll in and work, like, an hour. And what happens? The landowner pays everyone the same. The early workers are furious—and if I’m standing in that field, I probably am too. But the landowner says, “Are you envious because I’m generous?”

That’s the scandal. Grace looks unfair when you're the one who feels like you've earned more. But God’s economy doesn’t run on merit. It runs on mercy.

I experienced something like that—on a much smaller scale—when Laura and I were preparing to move to Alaska. We’d been serving at our church in Sisters, Oregon, a beautiful mountain town nestled at the base of the Cascades. It’s got this small-town charm—think pine trees, Western-style buildings, and more flannel than a lumberjack reunion. We were bi-vocational at the time, which is a fancy church word for “doing two full-time jobs for one salary.”

We’d been called to Alaska, but due to some sudden job changes, our move was bumped up unexpectedly. We had to tell our congregation we were leaving… in two weeks. Not ideal. To make matters worse, we had no idea how we were going to afford the move. Like, zero dollars for gas, let alone a U-Haul.

The day we made the announcement, one of the elders came up to Laura in tears and handed her a check for $1,000. He said the Lord had told him to give it to us. A couple days later, I got a call from my future employer—they offered $1,500 to help with moving expenses. In just a few days, we went from completely broke to fully funded. We didn’t earn that generosity. We hadn’t asked for it. It was just… grace. And it floored us.

Moments like that are humbling. They mess with your pride a little. I mean, we like being the givers, right? The ones in control. But grace flips the script. It reminds us that we are receivers—that everything good we have is a gift, not a paycheck.

That’s how salvation works, too. Ephesians 2:8–9 says, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” No bragging rights. No performance reviews. Just open hands and a generous God.

But here’s where it gets interesting—and maybe a little uncomfortable. Grace is amazing when we’re on the receiving end. But what happens when someone else gets it—someone we don’t think deserves it? That’s when grace starts to offend.

That’s where we’re heading next.

Let’s talk about why grace has always been scandalous.

We like to think grace is this soft, comforting, watercolor kind of word—something we hang in our kitchens next to a Bible verse and a ceramic rooster. But if you actually look at Scripture, grace has always stirred up conflict. It made people angry. It disrupted the religious system. It got Jesus killed.

You look at the Gospels, and Jesus consistently extended grace to the “wrong” people—tax collectors, prostitutes, Roman soldiers, the poor, the unclean. He touched lepers, had dinner with crooks, and publicly forgave people who didn’t even ask for it. It made the religious leaders furious. Not because they didn’t believe in forgiveness, but because it wasn’t on their terms.

There’s a moment in Luke 7 where Jesus is eating at a Pharisee’s house, and a woman—probably a prostitute—shows up. She’s weeping, washing Jesus’ feet with her tears, and drying them with her hair. The host is scandalized. He thinks, “If this man were really a prophet, he’d know what kind of woman this is.” But Jesus doesn’t rebuke her. He rebukes him. He tells a parable about two people with debts—one small, one large—and asks, “Who loves more when both are forgiven?” The answer, of course, is the one who was forgiven more.

Grace offends the proud. It exposes the illusion that any of us are better than someone else.

That same theme continues into the early church. The apostle Paul—who loved rules and righteousness before he met Jesus—ended up writing most of the New Testament about grace. But even he had a hard time getting people to believe it.

In Galatians, Paul is furious because Christians were trying to add requirements to grace. “Jesus is great,” they said, “but you still need to follow all the Jewish laws.” Paul’s response? Absolutely not. If grace is conditional, it’s not grace. If you can earn it, it’s not a gift. He even says in Galatians 5:4, “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”

Yikes.

Grace was scandalous then, and it still is now. Because when it shows up in real life, it doesn’t always look neat or fair.

There’s something in us that wants wrongs to be punished, lines to be drawn, and grace to be reserved for people who have shown enough remorse. We don’t mind grace, as long as it comes with a decent amount of groveling.

But grace doesn’t work that way. It moves toward the undeserving. And that can be hard to swallow.

I remember watching someone in ministry who had a major moral failure return to the public eye way too quickly. They had hurt people. The situation was messy. And yet, within a short time, they were back in leadership, preaching, posting inspirational quotes on social media. And I’ll be honest—my gut reaction was, “Seriously? Already?” It didn’t feel like grace. It felt like skipping the hard part.

That’s when the tension hits: when you see someone else get the grace you think they shouldn’t. Or when you want justice more than mercy. That’s when the scandal rises.

And yet—this is the hard truth—God doesn’t consult us before He extends grace. He doesn’t need our approval. He gives it freely, and it always reflects His character, not the recipient’s merit.

The cross is the most scandalous act of grace in all of history. Jesus dying in the place of sinners—criminals, liars, betrayers, people like me. Like you. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t deserved. But it was grace.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that the message of the cross is “foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” He even says it’s a stumbling block—a scandal—to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who believe, it’s the very wisdom and power of God.

Here’s what that tells me: if grace doesn’t occasionally make us uncomfortable, we might not be looking at it clearly. If it never offends our sense of fairness or stretches our ability to forgive, maybe we’ve tamed it into something safe and sentimental instead of letting it be what it really is—a radical, undeserved, boundary-breaking gift.

And grace isn’t just scandalous because of who receives it. It’s also scandalous because of who it calls us to become: people who extend it, even when it costs us. Even when we’re not ready. Even when it’s hard.

That’s where we’re going next.

Let’s be real for a second—grace still offends us today. Not just in Bible stories or theological debates, but in everyday life. It rubs up against something deep in us that says, “That’s not fair.”

Because most of us are trained—from a young age—to operate on a system of merit. You work hard, you get rewarded. You slack off, you miss out. We track progress with gold stars, report cards, promotions, and likes. We like fairness. We like earning things. And if we’re honest, we also like being able to compare ourselves to others.

Grace doesn’t let us do that.

Grace messes with the systems we’ve built to feel good about ourselves. It ignores spiritual performance reviews. It tears up our resumes and says, “None of this qualifies you, and none of it disqualifies you either.”

That’s hard to accept. And it’s even harder when grace is given to someone we don’t think deserves it.

I’ve felt that tension. You probably have too. You hear about someone who hurt people or made terrible choices or walked away from God—and then, somehow, they’re restored. They’re blessed. They’re used by God. And part of you wants to be happy for them, but another part of you is like, “Really? Them?”

You might even spiritualize it: “I just think they need more time to heal.” And sometimes, that’s true. But other times, what we’re really saying is, “I don’t want grace to come too easily for them.”

We want people to earn their redemption. To pay some dues. To prove they’ve changed.

But grace doesn’t wait for all that. Grace comes while we’re still messy. Still selfish. Still unsure. Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Not after we cleaned up. While we were still broken.

And that’s hard to apply in real life.

I remember a time when I was wrestling with this myself. There was someone in my life—a fellow believer—who had made some really poor choices. The kind that hurt people and caused division. And I just couldn’t understand how they were still being invited into leadership circles. People were publicly supporting them, and I couldn’t reconcile that with what I’d seen behind the scenes. It didn’t feel right.

I wasn’t angry for myself—I was angry for the people who had been hurt. I felt like grace was skipping over justice.

And then I realized… that’s exactly what grace does. Grace doesn’t ignore justice—it fulfills it differently. It doesn’t erase consequences, but it reorients how we respond. It pulls us back from the edge of bitterness and into the possibility of redemption.

That realization didn’t come easily. It wasn’t like I had this one prayer and suddenly became the most gracious person on the planet. But it made me ask the hard questions: Do I trust God to deal with what I can’t? Do I really believe His grace is for everyone—or just the people I approve of?

It also made me look in the mirror. Because if I’m honest, I’ve needed grace in ways I hope no one ever finds out about. I’ve had attitudes and moments of pride that would make me unqualified too, if the standard was perfection. But God didn’t give up on me. He didn’t withhold grace until I had learned my lesson.

He came running, again and again. And He still does.

And maybe that’s the heart of the scandal—grace is for them, yes. But it’s also for you. And sometimes, that’s even harder to believe.

Maybe you’re listening to this and you’re on the other side of the scandal. You’re the one wondering if you’ve gone too far. If God’s grace really covers your story. Maybe you’ve felt the side-eyes, the whispered conversations, the distance from people who used to welcome you. And you’re wondering if God feels the same way.

Let me tell you something: He doesn’t. God’s grace is not on a probationary period. He’s not waiting for you to “act right” before He loves you again. The cross was enough. Period.

And if you’re the one struggling to extend grace—if someone in your life is getting a second chance you’re not sure they deserve—take a step back. Ask God to help you see that person the way He sees them. It won’t always come naturally. But grace never does.

Grace still offends. But that might be the best evidence that we still need it.

Next, we’re going to look at what grace actually costs—and why it’s still worth giving, even when it hurts.

We don’t talk about this enough, but grace—real, deep, Christ-like grace—costs something.

It cost Jesus everything. Grace isn’t just some fluffy, feel-good idea. It’s sacrificial. It’s uncomfortable. It means choosing to bless when you could blame, to forgive when it would feel better to fume, and to love when your heart says, “No thanks.”

And sometimes, it doesn’t even feel like you’re the one giving grace—sometimes grace looks like walking away quietly when your flesh wants to make noise. Sometimes it’s trusting God to fight for you instead of going to war for your own reputation.

There was a time in my life when Laura and I had to walk through that kind of grace. We were serving in a church in Anchorage, Alaska. I was in an associate pastor role, and Laura was leading a gap year and internship program that had developed under the church’s umbrella. We had poured so much into that season—into worship, into young adult discipleship, into the life of the church.

Then our senior pastor retired. And, naturally, there was some conversation about what would come next. We had a few assumptions—maybe even some unspoken hopes—that we’d be considered to take the mantle and lead. And while part of us didn’t really want that role, it still would have meant something to be invited to the table.

Instead, the district supervisor flew up and asked us about another candidate—one we gently suggested wasn’t quite ready for that kind of leadership. And that was the end of the conversation. No discussion about us. No exploration of our heart for the church. Just… move on.

Eventually, someone else was brought in to serve as the interim leader. And right away, we sensed there were going to be some tensions. Different ministry styles, different philosophies, different priorities. But more than anything, we were concerned about the health of the church body. We didn’t want to cause division or distract from what God might be doing in that next season.

So we made the hard decision to step away.

We moved Laura’s program under the umbrella of another ministry we were involved with, collected all the resources that had been donated for that ministry, and I submitted my resignation.

Within a couple of days, the locks on the building were changed. We were told not to return. Not even to say goodbye to the people we had served and loved and worshiped alongside for years.

That hurt.

We weren’t trying to make a scene. We weren’t trying to take people with us or start anything new. We just wanted to transition with grace. But it felt like we were being cut off completely—like everything we had poured into that community was erased in a moment.

And I’ll be honest… I don’t know that we extended grace perfectly during that time. We were grieving. Processing. We were a little numb.

But even in the middle of all of that pain, grace still showed up.

A large portion of the church body organized a farewell gathering for us. It wasn’t dramatic or fancy—just a good old-fashioned dinner party. People came. They prayed with us. They hugged us. They shared stories and laughs and tears. They honored the work we had done. And in doing that, they helped us close that chapter with peace.

That moment reminded me: sometimes, grace doesn’t come from the people you expect. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all from those in charge. Sometimes it comes from the body—from the people who were watching all along. And it might not undo the hurt, but it can be the salve that helps it heal.

Here’s the thing: grace always costs something. It cost us reputation. It cost us opportunities. It cost us comfort. But it also protects something sacred—unity and peace. In my case, I found grace for the entire situation and that kep my our own soul from remaining bitter and angry.

When Jesus hung on the cross, the grace He extended to us cost Him everything. And it wasn’t just the physical suffering. It was the emotional weight of rejection, betrayal, abandonment—even from the people He came to save.

When we choose grace, we’re not being weak. We’re being Christlike.

And let’s be clear—grace doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened. It doesn’t mean ignoring red flags or staying in harmful situations. It just means we release our right to retaliate. We trust God to handle what we can’t. We choose love over vindication.

And in doing so, we open the door for healing—not just for others, but for ourselves.

So if you’re in a situation where grace feels costly—where you feel overlooked, hurt, or misunderstood—take heart. God sees. He knows. And He can bring beauty even out of broken transitions. He can fill the gap with the grace you need.

Next, we’re going to talk about what it looks like to live as people marked by grace—to let it shape our posture, our relationships, and our response to the world around us.

If grace is really this beautiful, disruptive, costly gift… then what do we do with it?

Because it’s one thing to receive grace. We’re all for that. But what does it mean to become a grace-giver—to live a life marked by grace in a world that runs on offense, outrage, and self-justification?

Let’s start with the obvious: it’s not easy.

Because giving grace means letting go of things we’d rather hold on to—like the right to be right. The need to win. The satisfaction of proving a point. It means choosing peace over pettiness, mercy over management, and often, silence over “setting the record straight.”

And that kind of grace doesn’t just show up in church disagreements or ministry transitions. It shows up in your marriage, when you’re both tired and someone says something they shouldn’t have. It shows up in parenting, when your kid melts down for the sixth time in one morning. It shows up on Facebook, when someone posts that take and you really want to correct them in Jesus’ name.

Grace is choosing to remember that people are not the sum of their worst moment. Grace says, “You are more than what you did to me.” Grace looks at someone who’s still growing and says, “I’m not giving up on you.”

Now, to be clear—grace isn’t enabling. It’s not excusing destructive behavior. It’s not letting someone walk all over you. Grace has boundaries. But even within those boundaries, it leaves room for restoration, not just retribution.

It took me a long time to start learning that. And honestly, I’m still learning it.

There have been seasons in my life where giving grace felt like the hardest thing imaginable. Someone would disappoint me, let me down, say something behind my back, or just flat-out bail on something important—and my first instinct wasn’t to extend grace. It was to withdraw. To protect. To build a little wall and say, “You don’t get that close again.”

But walls don’t heal. They just insulate. And Jesus never built walls—He tore them down.

There’s a passage in Colossians 3 that’s been an anchor for me when I’m struggling to live with grace. Paul writes, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another… Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

I love that image—clothe yourselves. It’s active. It’s intentional. You don’t accidentally fall into grace. You choose to put it on. Like a jacket on a cold morning. Like a posture of heart that says, “I’m going to walk into this day wearing mercy.”

But you know what might be the hardest place to extend grace?

To ourselves.

Some of us are amazing at extending grace to others, but we are absolutely brutal to ourselves. We beat ourselves up for past mistakes. We replay our failures. We believe lies that God has already silenced. And we keep trying to earn what was never ours to earn in the first place.

If that’s you—if you’re your own worst critic—hear this: God’s grace for you is just as full, just as free, and just as complete as it is for anyone else. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to prove. You don’t have to keep apologizing for things He already forgave.

You’re already loved. You’re already chosen. You’re already clean.

So how do we live this out?

Start small. Ask God to show you where grace is needed in your life. Maybe there’s someone you need to forgive. Maybe there’s a relationship you need to release. Maybe there’s a conversation you need to have, or an apology you need to give. Or maybe you just need to rest in the fact that you are not defined by your worst day.

Grace has the power to heal families. To restore friendships. To disarm enemies. And yes, to reshape churches.

But it starts with us. Not just believing in grace—but becoming people of grace.

The scandal of grace is that it’s given freely. But the beauty of grace is that it changes everything.

Thanks for walking with me through this conversation today.

We’ve talked about what grace really is—how it disrupts our expectations, how it’s always been offensive, how it still stirs tension in our lives, and how much it costs to truly live it out. And yet, grace remains at the center of the gospel. It’s not a side dish—it’s the whole table. Grace is the reason we’re here. It’s the reason we can come to God. It’s the reason we can come to one another.

My hope is that this episode stirred something in you—not just a deeper appreciation for God’s grace, but a desire to carry that grace into your relationships, your work, your church, your everyday life.

Maybe there’s someone in your life right now who needs grace. Maybe it’s someone who hurt you. Maybe it’s someone who disappointed you. Or maybe… it’s you. Whoever it is, take a step this week. Let grace do its work. It might not feel fair. It might even offend something in you. But grace isn’t about fairness. It’s about freedom. And it’s how we become more like Jesus.

If this episode encouraged you, I’d love it if you’d share it with someone who needs to hear it. You can also leave a review or reach out—I’d love to hear how grace is shaping your story.

And remember…

Small ripples can make a big impact—go make yours.