2013 @ New Hope
The phrase 'so
that' appears over 1,000 times in the Bible. The phrase serves to
demonstrate that a particular action was taken with purpose. God has
a singular purpose—to enable all of creation to praise and worship
him. God has acted with this purpose throughout history, and I
believe he continues to act with this purpose now. The God of
Abraham is no different than the God of Peter & Paul—while he
uses different means, the purpose is the same.
God's purpose for
all of creation has always been the same, and to that end, God
showers us with kindness. I don't believe this kindness is meant to
be a dead-end, an opportunity to hoard blessings and riches
and live comfortably. Rather, as Paul states in Romans 2:4, God's
kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. Rather than build up
individuals, God is seeking to assemble a congregation that will
praise his name in response to the gifts poured out upon them. We
also see this in Genesis 12:2, when God reveals to Abraham that God
will bless him so that he will be a blessing. In him, God says, all
the families of the earth will be blessed.
We have been
similarly blessed. Our blessings are different than Abraham's, but
they are familiar. We have been blessed with the gift of life, with
family and friends to surround us, with money and with freedom, with
love and health. All have blessings of different variety and
magnitude, but we have all been blessed beyond what we deserve. More
important than any other blessing, we have been graciously blessed
with the gift of eternal life, of peace with God, through the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through faith in him, we are
restored to a right relationship with God that would otherwise be
impossible. Without the blessing of Christ, we would be dead, but
instead we can boldly claim life through the free gift of God. This
is the pivotal act in human history, the prime example of God's
goodness to us. It is undeserved, but we are called to receive it
with grateful hearts.
As Paul says, this
kindness is not for us to hoard, to store up somewhere safe to serve
as a security blanket in times of need. It is not meant to be an
insurance policy that is cashed in when we die in the hopes of
obtaining our one-way ticket to the pearly gates. It is given with
purpose. God's kindness is poured out upon us so that we might
repent.
Upon recognizing
the kindness of God that surrounds us, each of us should recognize
the disparity between how we live and how we are called to live.
None of us is perfect, for only Christ achieves that lofty goal—all
of us have sinned and fallen short of the life we were called to
lead. Some of these sins, such as robbery and corruption and
drunkenness and gossip, are public and open to the world's reprimand.
Such sins often lead to public repentance as part of a recognition
that such patterns of behavior are obviously incongruous with a
faithful life. Some of us may have such sins in our own biography,
past or present.
Whether or not we
are committing such public sins, we all have sin. Christ tells us
that hatred is equivalent to murder, that lust stands on equal
footing with adultery. He directs us to examine our hearts and find
the sins that are there. He calls us to root out such sin
tirelessly, efforts that often lead to the sin of pride. None of us
escape guilt—even if the public would not gasp at the size of our
sins, they are enough to separate us from God, rendering each of us
unworthy of standing before God. Our guilt and shame should keep us
from lifting our eyes to prayer.
But they do not
because of God's kindness. Even when we inhabit the depths of sin,
God still loves us. God promises, over and over again, that nothing
shall separate us from the endless love of God. To the sinful
residents of Israel and Judah, whom the prophets accused of
neglecting their worship as well as the least of society, God
promised to visit his wrath upon them in one verse and then reminded
the people of his undying love in the next. God's love is more than
we deserve, and when we recognize this, we are called to repent, to
examine our own lives and see how we are falling short of offering
our full life, with all of its gifts and blessings, back to God.
When we repent, our
lives are laid bare before God. This is difficult for us, but it is
an opportunity. We think of Jonah visiting the great city of
Nineveh, a city that was destined for destruction without the voice
of a prophet to call them to faithful living. They were presented
with an opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to transform their
lives, and they seized it with more energy than any could have
expected. Well, Jonah expected it, and we can find his evident
bitterness in Jonah 4, but the point is that Jonah pointed them to
their own sins and, upon recognizing that they were living lives that
were not being offered back to God, they repented and were
transformed. Life in Nineveh was not the same as it was before
Jonah's visit.
When we repent,
there is an opportunity for transformation. Those habits in our
lives, those sins that separate us from God and one another, however
big or small, are seen as diversions from the narrow way that leads
to abundant life. We can then turn back and find the true path that
leads to life, the life that Jesus Christ modeled for us, the life
that God longs for us to be on, the life that leads to complete joy
and eternal life. In repentance, we are changed. God does a work in
us, pointing out the things that need to go, directing us toward
healthy spiritual practices. We find God's kindness everywhere we
turn, and we pledge to lead a life soaked in the awareness of God's
abiding presence. We are transformed by God.
This transformation
has a purpose. In our transformation, we then begin to see how God
is always reaching out to others. We recognize that Jesus Christ
lived a life of selfless actions, seeking out the lost and pouring
out God's love upon them. We repent from our selfish habits and
actions and seek to live a life that emulates this selflessness. In
this, we are transformed into disciples, and faithful living requires
us to serve one another. This means that we seek out ways to serve
in the places we already are, such as our homes and our
neighborhoods, our places of work and play. We live a life that
points to Christ and his selflessness. We build relationships that
are not solely for our own benefit, but seek to benefit others,
individually and communally, so that others may see our works and
give glory to God.
In so doing, we
show God's kindness to others. As others experience God's kindness,
they see the need for repentance. They profess that Jesus Christ is
Lord and Savior, and they let the Holy Spirit do a work in them,
transforming them for the benefit of God's kingdom, radically
re-shaping their lives to orient towards selfless love and pouring
out God's kindness on others. God uses each of us, pouring his love
into and through us for the benefit of the world. As we experience
God's kindness and open our eyes to a constant awareness of the work
of the Holy Spirit in the world, God sets a chain of events in action
that will change the world, using ordinary people as extraordinary
disciples, tools for the glory of God and the benefit of the Kingdom
of God.
May we have the
wisdom and humility to look for God's kindness everywhere, allowing
this to lead us to repent, so that we may each be transformed and
reveal God's kindness to others, so that at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the death, and
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father.
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