March 15, 2015 Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 3:14-21

14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
   16 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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
 “The Gift Of God”

One of the most difficult truths for us to handle is that it is...”by grace that we have been saved through faith; and this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God...There is nothing here to boast of, since it is not the result of our own efforts.”  Eph. 2:8,9

We like to boast of how we have God in our control, as one ‘good’ Christian said recently,  “God doesn’t hear Jewish prayers” - as if we know and control who God listens too!

When God becomes predictable, God also becomes impotent!

Grace means that  God loves the person who first said, “God is dead.”
God has compassion for the person who rejects him.
For God’s primary concern is that we allow God to love us, to save us, to touch our hearts and change our living; to rescue us from our ability to self-destruct!

God makes it easy for us, as with the Israelites of old.  Just look and you will live!  Just look at Jesus and live!  God wants us so badly that if we just give him the least little excuse, God will shower his grace upon us and call us his own!  God is the waiting father!

God also trusts that once this gift of grace hits home, things will start happening in our lives.
For the person who truly lives by grace is the last person who can be judgmental towards others.  That is simply a contradiction which leads to hypocrisy of the worst kind.

The line God draws is not a judgment line, but a grace line.  To cross that live is to live in love and forgiveness.  Faith is crossing that line and letting God have at you!
It is looking at Jesus, and living.


“This Is How Believing Works”

Sometimes the most common or familiar is the most difficult to hear, see, experience in a new and living way. This is true when we come to words such as today - “By grace you have been saved...”  “For God so loved the world...”

There is more to this then just hearing it again in the same way.  Believing in Jesus is a lot more then saying I believe.  As verses 19-21 indicate, it is coming to the light of God’s truth, wanting it, yearning for it, searching for it, welcoming it when it comes;  when it comes, as it always will,  in human form.
This means that those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord should be the first to welcome the liberation of the black man, first to struggle with those who are struggling for then own identity, the first to listen to the other side.

To welcome the light of God’s love into our lives is to open ourselves up to all the evil which is within us...our greed, selfishness, bigotry, envy, jealousy, lust, pride.  It is to have it all out in the light of day.

Woman in NY: “If you’re not interested in the rats in my apartment, I”m not interested in your Jesus.”
Judgment words on me;  it exposes me rather then giving me reason to condemn others.
First act of faith is to confess often that I love darkness more then light.

This leads to true forgiveness and the good deeds which follow; as I then live in the light of God’s love and share it with others - not judgment but compassion.
AA is a good example of this dynamic at work.