Game Changer

 Read John 3

For those of you who are here every Sunday and wonder what happened to Chapter 40 of Genesis, I preached it at the first service.

On most Sundays, I preach about our discipleship—our response to God’s grace that we know in Christ Jesus.  That’s what we need on most Sundays.  How will I respond to this wonderful gift of life, life abundant, and life eternal?

This morning, following a week of our Vacation Bible School, I will talk to you about salvation. I am also going to use a theological term.

If I tell you that I am going to use a church term or theological term, you usually know that I am a little tongue-in-cheek and will say something like cool beans or that dog don’t hunt.

This morning I will give you a real term.  It’s regeneration.  Regeneration is preceded by repentance.  It includes reconciliation. It brings us to redemption.

We were dead in our sins but we are not only revived, we are reborn.

This morning, I am talking about being born again.  If you read the part that precedes this morning’s scripture selection, you find Jesus and Nicodemus—a Pharisee who is curious about Jesus—in a discussion about being born again.  Jesus does most of the talking.

Nicodemus cannot get his mind wrapped around being born again.  What do I do?  Do I try to crawl back into my mother’s womb?  You ask the impossible.

Jesus is a little terse.  And you call yourself Israel’s teacher?

We have all been born in the flesh.  Jesus tells us that there is more.  There is a lot more!

We are to be born of God’s Spirit.  Do you remember the story of God making Adam out of the earth—the humus and then breathing life into him making him a living being? We are of this earth and we are of God.

We have all been born of the flesh.  We must also be born of the Spirit if we are to fully live this life and have life eternal.  We must be born again.

We must be made new!  How do we do this? The is no complicated formula or ritual.

We must believe in the One whom God sent—Jesus Christ.  We must believe that God raised him from the dead.  In that belief, we declare, Jesus is Lord!

Jesus is Lord!

In this single profession, we have passed from death to life.  We will live.  Even though these bodies will wear out, stop working because of an automobile accident, or explode if we get hit by a meteor or a trampoline doing 90 mph through town; we will live.

And from that moment forward, we will never make another mistake or have any more problems.  Not exactly.

Having trouble is part of living in this world.  Making mistakes is just being human.  But once we have declared JESUS IS LORD, we take on his yoke and learn from him.

There will still be trouble in the world.  We will still make mistakes, but they fall under this umbrella that we know as grace.

We get to grow and learn and serve in God’s grace. Grace is this umbrella of unmerited mercy and forgiveness and blessing that comes from God not because of what we have or have not done, but because of who God is.  He is love.

What’s that mean?  God will never kick us to the curb.  His grace goes beyond all of our sins.  We are not the sum of our past mistakes.  We have been born again.

Paul would say that we are a new creature—a new creation. The old is gone. The new is here. We are made new.  You don’t have to get a new driver’s license photo but you are made anew.

We want to do the best that we can.  We want to bring glory to God.  We want to be thankful people.  We want to be known by our love.

We understand that we will miss the mark time and again, but God is faithful to forgive every time that we confess.  He has promised his forgiveness.

The God who is holy and righteous and sovereign is most of all love.  God is love and God loves you.

Most of you know this.  Most of you have professed JESUS IS LORD!  If you have not, I challenge you to remain under the death curse of sin no longer.  Come to know the one true God by professing belief in his Son, Christ Jesus.

Do not profess Jesus out of the fear of an eternity in hell.  Those who do that often think they have reached the finish line. Game over. I win.  I’ll just sit out the rest of my life until Jesus comes to get me.

Profess Jesus as your Lord and Savior because you believe in a God of love. When you do this, you will have eyes to see that you are only in the starting blocks of life. 

Life is all ahead of you.  Live to the full now and live in the loving presence of God forever. Respond to the grace of God in everything you do.

This response to the grace of God is our discipleship. As I mentioned when we began, that is the substance of most of my messages as I preach mostly to the saved.  But what about those who are not?

Your human mind—your human understanding—will try to convince you not to do this.  This can’t be true.  This is just church nonsense.  I just refuse to believe it. It just seems too easy.

Receiving the gift is easy.  Living in response to the gift of salvation might take some work, but that work is not debilitating.

But for those who will take the faith that God has granted each of us and take a single step in faith, life awaits you.  We are saved by grace through faith.

We all come out of disobedience to receive this gift of life by faith. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  All come out of disobedience to receive this gift of life by faith

Will you still have trouble?  Sure.  That’s part of life. Life involves struggle.

Will you still make mistakes? Only if you are human.

So, what will I gain?  Life, life abundant, and life eternal.  Sin and death will have no more power over you. Sin will try to mess with your abundant life but it will have no power over your eternal destination.

But, but, but, I’m doing ok now doing things my own way.  I like my Frank Sinatra theology.  I did it my way.

What good is it to gain the whole world yet lose your soul? You might think that life is good doing things your way—the world’s way.  If that’s true, how much better is it to do things God’s way—to follow the instructions of the Designer himself.

You will still have trials and temptations but you will never face them alone.  Everything that happens to those who believe in God through Christ Jesus will one day see how God used everything that happened to you for the good.

This is our VBS Sunday.  I hope we made a difference in the lives of many young people, but I am also speaking to those who may have gone through life and never professed Jesus as Lord. 

Many have read the Bible and have verses that they like, but have never professed Jesus as Lord.  Lord is a tough word to say in our time.  We are independent.  We can make it on our own.  I’m not surrendering to anyone. And we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us for we have all fallen short of the glory of God.

Do not remain a prisoner of sin and death.  For all who have not professed Jesus as Lord, death is your preexisting condition.  That condition does not disqualify you from what the Lord has in store for you.

The kids this week might just call that a GAME CHANGER.

If you have never professed Jesus as Lord, turn away from the sinful ways of the world—the church word here is repent—and receive the life that God promises in Christ Jesus.  Make a wholesale exchange of your mind, body, soul, and spirit for the ways of God. Receive the Spirit of God to live within you. 

Come and be saved.

Amen.

Three Questions -- One More Time...

 This is what you have been waiting for all year, a chapter on rape and circumcision, and the vengeance of brothers upon every one of the Hivite men.  Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the water, here comes circumcision again.

We are going to save all of that for the next service.  There really are not two distinct stories here that deserve to be split between services, so I am going with an old favorite—three questions.

The questions are:

How long will God love you?

How much does God love you?

What are you going to do about it?

To the first question. How long will God love us?

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

    I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

Here it is in The Message translation.

God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.

    Expect love, love, and more love!

It seems that our world is going absolutely bonkers, but our God just won’t stop loving us.  It’s not about how well the world is doing.  It’s not about our performance, though our very lives should be a living sacrifice—on ongoing offering—to God.  It’s not about how well we scored on our Law of Moses test.

It’s about love.  It’s all about love.  Why?

God is love!

God wants us to have his divine nature. He wants us to know love and to be love and to do that he just keeps on loving us. 

Evidently, he thinks that we are worth it.

Question 2.  How much does God love us? We know this answer by heart.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

I can comprehend my own child going into the service and perhaps risking his life for his country.  I get that.

I have a hard time comprehending the trust that Abraham had in God when he told him to sacrifice his one and only son, Isaac. That’s some stuff right there.

Risk of death is one thing.  Giving your son over to death is another.  I am glad that God called me to be a Marine officer and to pastor a church in Burns Flat, America.

I don’t know if I would have it in me to sacrifice my own son.  As much as I preach trust in the Lord and as much as I try to live trust in the Lord, sacrificing your own son just seems like a bridge too far.

Yes, there were some teenage years when it might have been easier, but sacrificing your own son is too much.

When it came to loving us, God said that no price is too high. He paid the price in his own blood—the blood of Christ Jesus.

When you wonder how much God loves you, visualize Jesus on the cross.  His arms are stretched out wide to make it difficult to breathe.  The Romans were devious like that.  They built good roads and aqueducts, but they knew how to maximize pain as they killed you.

But as you visualize Jesus being executed on the cross think of his arms stretched out for you. How much does God love you?  More than you can imagine.

So now, to my favorite question.  What are you going to do about it?  What are you going to do in response to this fantastic, unbelievable love of God that we know in Christ Jesus?

Our salvation rests in our belief.  We believe in Jesus and the One who sent him.  In our profession of faith resides our salvation.

But we are promised more than just being saved from the flames of hell.  We are promised fullness. We are promised abundant life.

Our salvation is one thing. Our response to salvation is another.  Our response is our discipleship and our discipleship begs the question:  Do we realize how much God loves us?

How could our response be anything less than everything we have given willingly to God.  Yes, we tithe and make offerings and sing hymns of praise and sometimes stay awake for the sermon, but I am talking about more. 

I am talking about in everything we do, doing it for the Lord.  Our jobs, our school, our time with our families, and our time alone is all meant to be an offering to God.

God wants to see us bring glory to his name and enjoy him while we do it.

Do we comprehend that?  God wants us to enjoy bringing glory to his name.  It’s not a gotta-do.  It’s a get-to-do—a blessed-to-do.

Even our loving response to God’s unfathomable love is designed to be a blessing to us.

Let’s respond to God’s love by living fully for him and enjoying him every step of the way!

Amen.

You Matter to God!

 We will get back to Genesis in the next service.  For now, I ask you a simple question.  What is a sermon?

You may have different answers.  I hope you do, and they better not include the words naptime or hostage situation.

In its most basic form, a sermon is just a collection of phrases and sentences strung together.  That’s all I’m going to do this morning is put some sentences together.  Here we go.

 

God is great.

God is good.

God created everything good, even very good.

God knows all.

God is above all.

God is love.

 

God loves you.

God will never stop loving you.

God will never leave nor forsake you.

God is with you wherever you go.

God lives within you and will be with you through the end of the age.

God will fight for you.

God has stood in your place to pay for your sins.

God has ransomed and redeemed you.

God has released you from the power of sin and death.

 

God has an inheritance for you.

God has a place prepared for you.

Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what the Lord God has in store for you.

God has good plans for you.

God’s ways and his thoughts are higher than our own.

God gave us the mind of Christ.

 

You are made in God’s image.

God loves you so much that he gave his one and only Son to die for you.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world.

You will be with God forever.

You are God’s crowning jewel of his creation.

You matter.

You have important work to do as part of God’s will, as part of  his plan.

God trusts you with important things.

God has already promised to forgive you even before your sin is conceived in your heart, mind, or actions.

God wants you to talk to him and listen to him every day.

God wants you to lift up your voice to him.

God wants you to ask him for what you need, and to be bold about it.

 

We deserve condemnation.  We receive mercy.

We deserve little.  God gives us his grace generously.

We live in a world of disorder.  God brings order to chaos.

Our sin is extensive.  God’s grace goes far beyond our sin.

 

A few weeks ago, I talked with the session about challenge and support.  I know my nature is to challenge, but on occasion, we need some support. 

So, as we go through Genesis and sometimes it’s hard to see the message for today, know with certainty that you matter to God, and as his children and brothers and sisters with Christ, that means you matter to us.

Know that God wants you to know his peace, not peace as the world knows it, but true peace.

Know that God wants you to experience hope.  You are not confined to only those things that you can see, touch, smell, and feel but you hope in the promises of God and believe them as if you could see and touch them.

You know faith.

You know joy.

You live in God’s love.  You love others.  You are known as followers of Jesus by your love.

Paul wrote:  Faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.  We know all three and are blessed to know that God’s love which we know so well in his mercy and grace goes far beyond anything that we can mess up.

God loves you.  You matter.

Yes, you are playing for the right team.  Even when it seems like things have gone to hell in a handbasket—a crazy metaphor but the one that caught on—God’s got this and he has you.

God’s got this!

I hope this morning, I gave you some phrases of affirmation and support so when the world is coming at you a little faster than you think you can handle, remember:  You matter to God.

You matter to God.

Amen.