"For God So Loved the World"......
There are some persons who are considering looking for and considering being a part of a church. They may even, on some rear occasions, have attended a Church, they deep down want to know God, but when they look at their own lives. they feel a sense of shame or unworthiness. They may be trapped in a pattern of behavior that is decidedly un-Christian. They tell themselves that they will need to clean themselves up before they could ever be a part of any church. Before they could be “accepted.”
They wrestle and struggle with the issues of
life. They see themselves as being out side of the love of God, and
unfortunately if, and when, they have gone to a church they may
have been made to feel unwanted or unloved and unaccepted.
They may have concluded that God will not or
does not love them. But, is this the truth? It may "feel" real but is it the truth? Does God
hate those who live in un-Christian life styles? Do they have to, by some
means "earn" God's grace and forgiveness?
For Us
The verse which is called the most beloved
verse in the Bible, is John:3:16, this
makes it plain that God does not "hate" the
world, he may not love what the world does but, God does not hate the
world.
"God so love the world that he gave his
only begotten Son".(16a)
This tells much, it is explicit that God
recognized the need of the world that apart from God's act of
Salvation, the world had nothing to look forward to only death without God
for eternity.
"that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life."(16b)
It also makes clear that salvation is
dependent not upon us, but upon what Jesus has done and who Jesus is.
What is our part, is acceptance of the reality
of the finished work of Jesus. This belief is not just a causal acknowledgement,
it is transformational. God acted out of love for and toward us and sent, that
is gave, his Son Jesus Christ, to die for each and
all.
Love, is why God gave Jesus. That through
Jesus God has saved the world so we do not need to be condemned. Jesus makes
condemnation unnecessary, yet Scripture shows that some will reject what
God so freely offers.
" For God did not send his Son into the
world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”. (17)
From the Foundation of the World
When, or at what point, did God act on
all of our part to bring this salvation for us? We tend to think of events
or actions as occupying a particular place or point in time and in our limited
human vantage point, this is natural for us to do so, but God is
not bound by our perceptions of time, the Holy Trinity inhabits eternity,
from God's divine vantage point everything is "now”, with God
regardless of "when" we observe its
manifestation in the history of salvation.
So, in God's" now” of
eternity, God acted on our part in his Son to provide salvation for any
who would but freely receive it by grace even before the material creation came
into being.
"the Lamb who was slain from the
foundation of the world."Rev:18:8
Here the Holy Spirit inspires St. John to
employ the Language of Accommodation to stress that no matter how
far back we peer, even into eternity, we will see God's act of salvation
in Jesus for all of us.
This just does not speak to God's intention to
make provision for salvation if it became necessary, but rather, that God
himself was guaranteeing that salvation would be an accomplished reality for us
in Jesus.
Yet, it is true that there was in a, "right time" for God to enter his own
history of salvation through the incarnation and become fully one of us in the
Person of Jesus Christ. The humanity of Jesus makes salvation possible for us
all. Being fully one of us he could die for all of us.
"in the beginning was the Word and
the word was with God and was God" Jhn: 1:1
"and the Word became flesh"(14) “
You see, at just the right time" Rm:5:6a
Forgiveness was not something that God would
resort to but would be a reality even before we ever knew that
we needed it.
As We Sinned
This tells us that God's love was for us and
toward us even as we went about our lives, maybe in indifference or in
ignorance of who God is and what is there for us all, maybe before we heard the
message of the Gospel about Jesus.
"when we were still powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly."(6b)
Yet, even then, in our lives of sin before we
knew God and his love for us, even as we lived in sin, even as "we were powerless”, he had made salvation a
realty for us, if we will just freely receive it. God did not wait for us
to "get good enough" we could never
be "good enough”.
We all alike are
in need of a Savior; we could not save ourselves Jesus had to save us. This is
what St. Paul addresses in his Epistle to the Roman Church.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath
through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him
through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we
be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
reconciliation" (8-11)
Jesus' death and the salvation through him
shows us God's love for and toward us even in the wretched state we may have
been living in. It also tells us that God want us and loved us more than he
loves himself.
Consider that for a moment, God loves you more
than he loves himself and demonstrated it by dieing for each and all. God would
not be without us, so deep is his love for us. Even while we yet were
sinners.
God's love was in pursuit of us even in our
lives of sinfulness we actively sought out coming to us in Jesus and dieing for
us all and raising from the dead. The resurrection of the dead confirms
the power of the cross for without the resurrection the cross would be
meaningless. It declares that sin has been dealt with and that an all-new life
is available for us.
Through One
At the onset, as we conceive time, Adam as the
father of the race chose to know "good and evil" and
thereby all chose in him.
"Therefore, just as sin entered the world
through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all
people, because all sinned"(12)
What Adam did we all have done, we all
followed suit with him and have sinned. Based on who we were in Adam. Why
would God apply the action of one upon the whole of humanity? Human history
shows that God was just in doing so, for all have followed suite in the choice
of Adam and sinned.
God acted in the greatest kindness imaginable
by placing all of us under Adams choice. But how can this
be true? By placing all under the actions of one,
Adam, condemnation came on all by one, so that
in the same way because of the One, that is Jesus and his perfect
sinless obedience we all can experiences the righteousness that is Jesus'
because of who we are in Christ.
The power of the Second Adam, which is
Christ, is greater than that of the first. Therefore, salvation becomes
dependent of the action of just one, Jesus, for us all.
Jesus acted for us as one of us even as we
lived out of ignorance of this truth. We could not save ourselves. It is a
free gift offered to any and all.
"But the gift is not like the trespass.
For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s
grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,
overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of
one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the
gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the
trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will
those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of
righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for
all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for
all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were
made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be
made righteous."(15-19)
How We Live
When we hear the Gospel about the Lord Jesus Christ and we see the power of life and death and resurrection we are than given the opportunity to experience what Jesus has made true for us all, if we will just freely receive it. Though Jesus God saved us when we were yet sinners, if we have truly taken hold of what he offers then we can remain no longer there-in.
Our Lord calls us forth into a new life
of grace.
There has been a tension in the church
for two thousand years over this very issue. St. Paul address this very thing
after concluding that salvation is given not earned and that it all comes
from and by Jesus, that we of ourselves only share in and are credited for
Jesus' perfect righteousness in that we are incalculable of living
perfectly. Some, therefore wrongly, believed that how we live after coming
to believe in Jesus did not matter.
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on
sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to
sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Rm: 6:1-2
St. Paul is clear that we are to live out of
our relationship with our Lord and that relationship should transform us, that
as we are forgiven, we should live forgiven, that is we live what is now true
for us in Jesus.
Forgiveness of God has the power to transform
us, we can set aside those things which in the past beset us, because Jesus
lives.
"For if we have been united with him in a
death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection
like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body
ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to
sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin"(5-7)
Do Not Forget You Are Forgiven
As we look to Jesus and trust in his
resurrected life, and know that in him we are already counted as righteous our
lives will change. Some may find that their old ways, may at times still
hold their grip. When we find that our progress is slowed it maybe that we are
too focused upon the power of the sin rather than upon the power of God's
forgiveness.
The Apostle St. Peter speaks to this in
his second epistles, admonishing and reminding all, that Christians
not forget the truth that they are forgiven, and that in forgetting
this, they have found themselves hindered in their maturity.
So great is the power of God's forgiveness
that it is life changing and liberating....So great is God's love for each
and all , that He calls out to us and invites us to know him and know that
he loves us and has through Jesus made for us all life everlasting. God so
love the world...
Benediction: May we each and all ever rejoice in the
Love that God has showed unto us, that God sent Jesus all because God so loved
the world, today, tomorrow and forevermore, Amen!
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Rev. Todd Crouch, Pastor, Norman, Oklahoma
"If It Is Not About Jesus,
It Is Not About Anything"
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