06-20-10 Are These All For ME?

One of the most enjoyable memories of my childhood

concerns certain events that would take place in our house

during the last few weeks before Christmas.

The first great hurtle my brother and sister and I had to overcome

was getting my dad to come up with a Christmas tree.

The three of us took upon ourselves

the high calling of using all of the skill,

and abilities,

and motivational techniques at our disposal

to get him to put up the Christmas tree

as early in December as possible.

We always figured December 1^st would be a great date

and he seemed to think the 24^th was a whole lot better.

In the end we always seemed to arrive at a compromise somewhere in the middle.

We could care less about little things like

needles dropping by the thousands

from dry and lifeless limbs

days before Christmas ever arrived.

In fact,

the actual appearance of the tree

made no difference to us whatsoever.

But we knew that until there was a tree

there could be no presents.

Then, once the tree was up,

the fun could finally begin.

And the fun, of course,

was the daily excitement of then checking the tree

to see if any new presents had magically appeared under the branches.

We would check it in the morning when we got up,

we would check it in the afternoon

when we got home from school.

The fact that we rarely found any new gifts

as we searched day after day

never seemed to deter us.

If we found no new ones,

then we would shake, and squeeze, and rattle the ones already there.

And by the time Christmas finally arrived

we knew the shape,

and the sound,

and the size of every gift that had our name written on it.

Last week we began examining seven presents

given to us by our God

the day we enter His family

through faith in Jesus Christ.

These gifts are listed for us

in the first 11 verses of Romans chapter 5.

They are not things we must earn.

They are not things we acquire through right choices

or faithful living.

They are not things reserved for a faithful few

who somehow achieve some sort of special standing in the family of God.

They are gifts handed to each of us by our God

as His expression of the beginning of the kindness He seeks to pour out

on all those who come to Him through faith in Christ.

I mentioned this just briefly last week,

but I want to state again

that these gifts are intended to set the tone for everything else that happens between us and our God for the rest of our lives.

These gifts are the beginning

of His efforts to correct

the twisted and distorted perspective

concerning our God

that we all bring with us when we first come to Him.

In these gifts

it is as if He is saying,

“I know the fear of Me you bring with you into our relationship.

I know you understand very little of what I say,

and most of what you do understand

you are afraid to trust.

But I want to begin

this new Father-child relationship between the two of us

by offering you some gifts

that will help you to begin rewriting those mental rules within you

that govern your perceptions of Me, your Creator.

Set aside all those lies you have believed about Me,

all those strange ideas floating around your culture

about what I am like,

and through these gifts

let Me begin to tell you the truth.”

And that truth began last week

when we opened the first of those seven gifts.

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

We spent most of that morning

looking at this remarkable statement

given to us by our God,

a statement intended to be

the very first thing we hear from His mouth

after we enter the family of God through faith in Christ.

We have peace with God!

That is the beginning of wisdom,

the beginning of truth,

the starting place from which all correct Christian thinking begins.

Whatever correct thoughts we have about God

will begin with this truth.

Whatever correct responses

we have toward God

will be based upon this truth.

The prophet Isaiah looked for a mental image

to help convey the relationship

that would exist between us and our Creator

once the war was over,

and this is what he came up with:

Is. 40:11 Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs, And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.

It does not communicate as powerfully to us

because we are not shepherds,

and we have never knelt down next to a new born lamb,

stumbling and struggling to stand

and wrapped that tiny creature in our arms

and carried it next to its mother to safety.

Maybe it would be easier

for us to relate to an event that took place

between me and our now dearly departed dog Pepper

the first day he came to live with us.

Pepper came from a litter in Anchorage.

He was the last of the litter to be taken

because he was the least attractive of the bunch.

No one else wanted him.

He was a remarkably quiet puppy,

and he sat next to Joni almost without moving all the way home

in the little padded box we’d brought along for him.

When we got home that day

we decided to go for a family walk

and of course Pepper had to go too.

It was in the Spring, still cold outside,

so we all put our coats on,

and then I took this tiny puppy

and tucked him down inside my coat with just his little nose sticking out,

and we all went for a walk together.

And about half way through the walk

Pepper wet on me.

I didn’t grab him and fling him out of my coat,

I didn’t slap him,

or yell at him.

I just kept him safe,

warm,

secure with my arms around him

because he was just a puppy.

That is what Paul means

when he says we now have peace with God.

And let this be the first test you place

upon every thought you have about your God -

is this thought consistent with that kind of peace?

Or do you still see Him uncaring,

or angry,

or irritated,

or vengeful,

or out to get you?

The first gift given to us

the instant we step into His family through faith in Jesus Christ is this:

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

Everything He does,

everything He says,

every response and interaction He has with you

is deeply rooted in that peace,

and comes from Him to you

as an expression of His love for you.

And that, my friend, is only the beginning.

Let’s open our next present

and I’ll show you what I mean.

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Rom. 5:2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...

I told you last week

that, if I was permitted to have just one verse from all of Scripture for myself personally,

I would select Romans 5:1 -

‟Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...”

because it contains

everything I most need to know

about me, and my God, and my Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, if I could select just one verse

that I was permitted to give to the Church world as a whole,

I believe it would be the first phrase of Romans 5:2 -

‟...through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...”

I know of no truth

we seem to forget more quickly in organized Christianity

than the one contained in this second present.

The key word in this verse

is the word “grace”.

“We have obtained our introduction by faith into this GRACE in which we stand...”

Paul wrote an entire letter in the New Testament

trying to correct a church

that had forgotten this principle.

We now know that letter as the New Testament Book of Galatians.

In some of the harshest language found anywhere in his writings,

Paul says,

“Gal. 3:1-5 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain-- if indeed it was in vain? Does He then, who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

Now, let me see if I can explain to you

what’s going on both in Romans 5:2

and in this Galatians passage.

The truth being given to us by our God

is not complicated.

Simply put

what He’s saying to us is this:

the rules do not change

after we enter the Family of God.

When we first come to Him

we bring with us nothing

that in any way,

at any level,

even remotely qualifies us to stand with confidence or security before our God.

The truth is

what we bring is a life of self-centered sinfulness

and rebellion against our God

from the day of our birth

until the day we bow before Him.

The rest of the world may have thought we were pretty good stuff,

but as we stand before our God

even the nice things we did

were done for selfish, self-centered reasons.

And when we enter the family of God through faith in Christ

we stand there with all of our sin piled up beside us,

and our God reaches over

and picks up the entire pile

and says to us,

“These are now MY sins.

I place them upon Myself,

I pay the penalty for them Myself,

and with that debt paid

they can never again be credited to your account.”

And with that sin gone -

completely,

totally,

literally,

eternally gone -

we suddenly stand righteous before God

and find peace with Him.

That’s where we were in Romans 5:1.

But then, without even pausing for a breath

or starting a new sentence,

Paul goes right on to tell us

that the rules do not change ever again.

Having entered into this friendship with God through faith in Christ,

we then continue to live in that friendship

everyday for the rest of our lives

on exactly the same basis.

...this GRACE in which we stand...

The Good News of God

is not God’s offer

to wipe the slate clean.

It is God’s offer to throw the slate away.

The Good News of God

is not God’s offer of a second chance,

one more opportunity to try to do it right.

It is God’s offer of an entirely new agreement between us and Himself,

an agreement that begins with the removal of all our sin

through the death of Christ for us,

and then continues every second from then on forever

on exactly the same basis.

Do you know why Christ could welcome you

into His world and His arms

the day you first came to Him?

It was because His death on the cross truly was sufficient payment for all your sins.

Do you know why, today, at this moment,

Christ is able to dwell in you

and keep His arms of love around you?

It is not because you have cleaned up your life

and are a little less sinful now

than you were when you first came to Him!

It is because

His death on the cross is still an adequate and complete payment for your sins today,

just as it was yesterday,

and will be tomorrow and forever.

...through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...

Does that sound like some sort of easy gospel to you?

Does it seem like a dangerous doctrine,

one that deprives the people of God

from the proper motivation

to get their lives in order?

If so I would respond first of all

by saying that I didn’t write the verse,

God did.

But even more,

I would say that in truth

NOT accepting this gift

is far more dangerous

and the absence of it

will make growth in righteous living

far more difficult for the child of God.

You see, if we do not receive this gift from our God,

and if we perpetuate a belief system within the Body of Christ

that tells us we are allowed to enter the family of God through faith in Christ,

but we must then maintain our standing with God

by achieving a certain level of performance,

rather than motivating Christians to try harder

it will result in the people of God

pasting on an external appearance of Godliness

while hiding from the real sin issues that are creating chaos in their lives.

And I can tell you exactly what will happen

in any group of believers

that fails to understand and accept this second gift from our God.

The group will establish for themselves

all sorts of little rules

that define who is a good Christian

and who is a bad Christian,

rules concerning how often you “go to church”

and what kind of clothes you wear,

and maybe even rules governing the use of make-up and acceptable hairstyles,

and a whole lot of other things

that the group decides should be universal moral issues.

Some of them may even be written,

while most will simply be strongly communicated through social pressure.

And in the process

they will create an environment

in which no one would ever dare

risk asking for help with any real sin issue in their life.

To do so would be social suicide

because it would brand the believer

as a ‟failure” in the Christian life.

And all the little rules

and the carefully constructed external protective religious facade

is incapable of bringing any real healing.

I was an interim Pastor at a church like that many years ago.

It was a closed little group

of mostly older Christians

who knew all the rules

and followed them diligently.

Their lives looked great on the outside,

but it was a church without love,

without compassion,

and without the power to heal.

My arrival on the scene began to attract some very young Christians,

babies in Christ,

curious to hear the new preacher in town.

I have vivid memories of what happened

to one of those young Christians

at one of our Wednesday night “prayer” meetings.

All the faithfuls were there, of course,

to reaffirm their spirituality.

And a young man who was new to the church came as well.

He hadn’t been with us long enough

to learn the rules of the game.

He must not have realized

that building an external image

was far more important in our church

than finding real answers.

When it came time to share prayer requests

he said, “I have come to the Lord

out of the homosexual community,

and I really need your help and your prayers in finding freedom from this in my life.”

The silence that followed was terrifying.

He’d broken all the rules,

and we certainly had no answers for him.

And I was too young,

too immature,

too insecure in leadership myself at the time

to be able to offer him either help or protection.

He didn’t last long in that church.

A few months later he found another fellowship,

one that was more interested in growth and healing

than it was in outward image,

and the last I heard that young man was growing well in his walk with God.

But if I would have known then what I know now

I think I would have shared with that young man

and in fact with that entire group

these first two birthday presents

given to us by our God.

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Rom. 5:2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.

In themselves they don’t instantly solve all the inner turmoil we bring with us into the Body of Christ,

but they do go a long way

in providing us with the attitude toward our God,

and the foundation we need

for finding those answers.

For through them

our Lord makes it clear

that through Jesus Christ

we have entered into a relationship with God in which He is always on our side,

and in which we never need to be afraid

to bring anything to Him,

seeking His pathway to healing,

knowing that nothing can ever again separate us from the love of our God

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.