Work out Your Salvation

 

The Apostle Paul writes, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:11-12).  Paul knew salvation was a gift from God, not something the diligent believer could achieve through works.  However, once the gift was received, Paul also knew, as we need to understand, that it does take great effort to live as a saved person.  Following Jesus is free in the sense that he welcomes all without qualification.  Free?  Yes.  Cheap?  No.  Following Jesus requires to give our all in developing as disciples.

In the verses immediately preceding Paul’s ‘work out your own salvation,’ the apostle tells of Jesus ‘emptying himself and taking the form of a slave.’  Why did Jesus give up so much and suffer so much?  He did that you and I might be saved.  He took the death our sin brings on himself.  He put in the ultimate effort, and he expects us to give everything to be his followers.

Consider Jesus’ words in Luke 14.  “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  Jesus’ call is a far cry from the effortless mandate to just “believe” issued in so many churches.  We ignore our master’s own words when we present Christianity as something simple and something that doesn’t require anything of us. 

Of course, by “hate” Jesus actually meant prioritize.  He loved his own mother and provided for her as he hung dying on the cross (John 19:26).  Sets of brothers were among the disciples.  Jesus did not despise family relations.  But loyalty to family (or to any human institution) had to come below the top priority: loyalty to Jesus.  When these causes conflicted with each other, Jesus did commit to God’s mission for him over and against his own blood relations’ objections (Mark 3:31-35).  Follow him as his disciple is the primary life calling for all believers, above any vocation or familial role.

Hence, living a life of faith requires much of us.  We must work out our relationship with God through prayer, worship, study, service, and an intentional effort at refining our attitudes so that we see the world and see people as God does.  We have to stay determined, carrying our crosses.  We give ourselves to discipleship.

Under the specter of the society-disrupting COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have put faithful living (and other things) on the shelf.  We’ve become physically, relationally, and spiritually lazy and inert.  It’s time to get up and get working!  We can follow Jesus with determination and safely socially distance.  And we must.  Enduring the political strife and working through the minefield of racial tensions requires that we keep our eyes on Jesus and act out of His values and His priorities.  We can only be ready to live as Jesus followers during turbulent times if we commit to growing in our faith. 

Thus, the best way to live in our times is base our outlook on who Jesus is.  We do this by growing in our knowledge of who Jesus is.  We grow in our knowledge by working on our faith.  So, my fellow disciples, get to work!

“The Personal Gospel” (1 Timothy 1:8-17)

Sunday, September 1, 2019

            Allen Langham saw a flock of birds take off from the sill outside the window of his prison cell.  In that moment, he knew God was real.  How did this convict become a follower of Jesus?

            Growing up, he was abandoned by his father and, though his mother truly loved him, her discipline was severe.  He saw her abused, and he himself was abused by neighborhood bullies.  It filled the young man with anger. 

            He started skipping school.  He excelled in sports, especially the violent sport of rugby.  But, he constantly got in fights.  He ended up becoming a very tough scrapper who sold drugs and fought for money.  Landing in prison at 17, he became a hardened criminal.  Then came a series of incidents where he’d determine to turn his life around only to fall back into violent crime once he was out of jail.

            His safe place was the prison chapel worship service.  Church had been his refuge growing up and the prison chapel provided the same support.  So, when he landed back in custody again, he felt it was truly rock-bottom.  Through tears he cried out to God, “If you’re real … put a white dove outside my window.”  The next thing, he looked out and the birds took off and he gave his life to Christ. 

            His journey into salvation and the disciple life had some setbacks, but the three steps forward outnumbered the two back and today he has reconciled with his family.  He is now an author, a chaplain for several sports teams, and someone ready at a moment’s notice to tell you about Jesus.  

Allen went from violent brawler to passionate Jesus follower.  This journey from lost to saved is the heart of the message in 1 Timothy 1:8-17.  Paul writes that the law – the Law of Moses found in the Old Testament, Exodus – Deuteronomy, is good.  The law convicts us of sin.  Then Paul lists types of sins including idolatry, disobedience, sexual sin, kidnapping and slave trading, and dishonesty.  It’s a representative list, not an exhaustive one.  With this list, Paul makes two very clear points. 

First, we don’t tell God our lives are not sinful.  We look at where our own lives fail to conform to God’s standard and we confess.  When it comes to sin, we do not justify it.  We do not try to reframe our sins or say they aren’t sins.  We just confess them, ask for forgiveness, and turn away from the sin.

The second point established by Paul’s enumeration of sins is that when we talk about salvation, we have to talk about our sins. We have to take sin seriously.  Paul did.  In verse 13, he says, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.”  He’s referring to the days when he denied that Jesus is Lord.  He tried to have followers of Jesus arrested.  And when one of the original deacons, Stephen, was stoned to death by angry mob, Paul cheered and held the coats of the stone-throwers (Acts 7:58; 8:1).  For this reason, in 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners.  In his own mind, he truly believed he was the very worst.

Allen Langham, the rugby player and brawler from London I talked about to open the message would have said the same about himself.  He was not into justifying his sins.  He tearfully confessed them.  I read his story in the June 2019 issue of Christianity Today magazine.  The monthly has a back page feature that shares the story of how individuals become followers of Jesus.  Paul went from Pharisee and Christian-persecutor to tent-maker and apostle.  Allen went from criminal tough guy to sports team chaplain and Christian author.  What are some other stories of conversion?

Rosalind Picard is a scientist and professor at MIT.  She has always been academically gifted.  In high school, she loved science and actively opposed religion or the idea that there might be a God.  So, she was shocked when the family for whom she was a baby-sitter invited her to church.  She really respected this couple because of their intellect.  The dad was a doctor.  How could smart people go to church? 

She resisted going to church, so they tried convincing her to at least read the Bible.  She started with Proverbs.  She was amazed by the wisdom she found in the Bible.  It surprised her and forced her to think. She did not have a vision or any supernatural experience.  She just felt that as she read scripture, someone was speaking to her. 

She resisted God.  She resisted faith.  But when she got to college and reconnected with a high school friend, he invited her to church.  And he was so smart she actually needed his help with her physics homework.  So she went to church and resumed her exploration of faith until, many weeks later, something in the sermon brought her to a point of decision.  The pastor challenged the congregation to stop trying to be masters of their own lives and instead let the Lord be master.  She decided to accept the challenge and gave her life to Jesus.

She writes, “my world changed dramatically, as if a flat, black-and-white existence suddenly turned full color and three-dimensional” (Christianity Today, April 2019).  Becoming a disciple of Jesus actually made her a more curious scientist.  She says, “I once thought I was too smart to believe in God.  Now I know I was an arrogant fool who snubbed the greatest Mind in the cosmos – the Author of all science, mathematics, art, and everything else there is to know.”

Make note of these different salvation stories.  Allen’s story is of rough and tough guy whom God gave a sign – birds on the prison window sill.  The Apostle Paul’s conversion came in the context of religion.  He went from persecuting what he thought was a false messiah cult to realizing that Jesus truly was Israel’s Messiah and the Lord of all creation.  Allen left behind his life as a brawler and became a chaplain.  Paul left behind his life as an up-and-coming Pharisee and legal scholar to make tents and himself receive threats and beatings as he traveled about preaching that salvation is found in Jesus. 

Rosalind Picard did not leave anything behind except her skepticism.  Before she turned to Jesus, she was a brilliant scientist.  After she gave her life to Christ, she was still a brilliant scientist.  The point is every story of conversion to Christ is unique.  You story doesn’t have to be more or less dramatic than someone else’s.  It’s you story.  What every story does need is that moment when we make faith in Jesus our own – not our parents’ or best friends’.  We don’t become Christians to please a spouse or make a pastor or Sunday school teacher happy.  We turn to faith because we realize we are sinners and are lost without Jesus leading our lives.  His death on the cross and his resurrection are what each one of us needs no matter what life we live.

Casey Diaz was a high level gang-member in Los Angeles.  Within the gang’s system, he had the authority to order hits on people, and he did.  Then Jesus met him in a vision in his prison cell: a vision.  He turned his life from crime, drugs, and violence to faith.  Now, he is a part-time pastor and owns a sign-making company in LA. 

Kim Cash Tate is lawyer from DC who landed a really good job with a federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin.  Though she didn’t grow up in church, her mother instilled in her Christian values that stayed with her even as she strayed from those values in her young adult life.  She also attended Christian schools growing up, so she had some context for Christianity when she arrived in Wisconsin.

She hated living there.  An African American, she felt very disconnected from black culture.  All she saw around her was white people and white people are OK, but she felt isolated and just wanted to get back to DC.  She also felt something inside her was looking for something more and though she couldn’t clearly articulate it, that something more that she needed was God. 

She and her boyfriend decided living together outside of marriage was wrong.  So they got married.  It was the first time in her life she made a decision based on what she thought God wanted her to do.  Later, her husband found a new church while she was out of town and when she returned, she went with him.  She writes, “For the first time, I heard the true gospel preached and it rocked me.  Finally, I saw myself as God saw me – a sinner in need of redemption.  I asked God to forgive me, and I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  For all my prayers that God would save me from Madison, WI, his plan all along had been to save me in Madison” (Christianity Today, July/August, 2019).

A brawler, a Pharisee, a scientist, a gang member, and a black lawyer living in a town of mostly white people; each story is of someone coming to faith and new life in Jesus.  Some instances involve supernatural interventions, others invitations to church, and others recollections of morality instilled from childhood.  Each is a story of salvation.

What concerns me most this morning is the story of your salvation.  How would you write the “from this” to “that” as your think of your own faith journey?  I was an 11-year-old kid when I realized I could no longer live the faith of my parents.  I needed to take what they had taught me and claim it for my own.  I needed to give my life to Jesus.  I did that in the summer of 1981 and have never looked back.  An outsider might not be aware of the change that started in me, but I know from that moment, I lived in a God-awareness that has stayed with me.

Your conversion might be like this: From “church attendee” to “born-again follower of Jesus.”  As 1980’s Christian singer, Keith Green put it, “going to church makes one a Christian about as much as stepping into a McDonald’s makes you a hamburger.”  You’re not a Christian because you show up in church on Sundays.  Paul writes that “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are sure in Christ Jesus; … Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1:14, 16). 

We realize that grace, mercy, and love as we confess our sins, turn from them, and turn to Christ.  It’s a conscious step we must take.  We are among the saved when we actively turn to Jesus and receive the forgiveness and salvation he offers.  Until we take that step, we are not among the saved.

I invite you, if you know the Gospel but have never turned to Jesus and asked Him into your heart, to do so today.  This can be that moment when you receive new life in Christ.  If you have never made the decision to follow Him, I pray you will today.

If you have, tell your story as Paul did, as I have, and these writers in Christianity Today magazine have.  They aren’t famous, and we need not be.  Just tell your story.  The first act is coming for baptism.  Next, in our lives, we share with others who we are in Christ.  The Gospel is Jesus is Lord.  The personal Gospel is your own account of how Jesus is your Lord and Savior.  Share your personal Gospel with someone today.

AMEN           

God-Sized Prayer for the Community

The truth is I have repeatedly asked God to send more people to our church.  This year we have experienced more departures than the normal attrition our church cycles through.  In any given year, we see a dozen or more people move whether it is because of graduation or moving to a new town.  Or, people leave the church for other reasons.  As that happens, new people join us.  Families move to the area.  People already living here decide they want to give our church a try.  In over decade, we have not had significant numeric growth or decline – until this year. 

            This year, our new arrivals are not keeping pace with our departures.  As the lead pastor of the church, this has troubled me and I have prayed fervently for God to do something about it.  However, recently as I walked through the neighborhood near our church property, I experienced a paradigm-rattling thought.  I may have been praying the wrong prayer.

            Does God want people to attend HillSong?  Maybe.  But more than filling the seats in our building with bodies on Sunday mornings, God wants people turning to Him in faith.  God wants the hearts of people turned to him for salvation. 

            There’s a middle school a block from our church campus.  There are hundreds of homes within a one-mile radius of our location.  I walked across that campus praying for the kids who would be taking year-end testing.  I prayed for cafeteria workers, teachers’ classroom aides, the school nurse, the janitors, and the resource officer.  I prayed for office staff, the principal, and assistant principals.  And of course, I prayed for the teachers.  From the school, I walked up and down residential streets praying, asking God to send a wave of revival through this community. 

            Our church is not influencing or affecting this community in which God has placed us.  A few families are core members of our church family, but for the most part, the community is indifferent to the church.  I know.  I live in the community. I talk to my neighbors every day.  As I walked and pray, it hit like a thunderclap.  I need – we all need – to be praying for something much more important than increased attendance at our church.  We need to pray for a bigger impact in our community. 

            The second entry for “impact” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary reads that this is a noun which means “the force or impression of one thing on another.”  What Gospel force is our church exerting in this community?  What Godly impression are we making?

          People in our town don’t know how much they need Jesus.  They don’t realize they are lost without him.  I know.  I live here.  One of the nicest men I know decide Sunday morning was the perfect time an amusement park.  He’s a great dad and I love it when my kids play at his house because I know they’re safe, they’re having fun, and they don’t spend the time staring at screens. 

I love my neighbor.  But, it never occurred to him that Sunday morning is a time for the church to gather and worship God.  It just isn’t in his mind that his children need to be formed in the image of Christ and part of that formation is the teaching that comes in Sunday School, in extended session, and in worship services.  I hope my friendship with him is a witness.  He knows who I am and what I do.  But whatever effect our friendship has, in our half a dozen years of acquaintance, his family has been to our church exactly 1 time.  And they’re not missing our church to worship elsewhere.  In his life, Sunday morning is time for taking kids places or for working out.  He is but one example of the people around us – our church’s mission field.

We not called to encourage people to be nice.  We are called to help people become disciples of Jesus.  One of the most important and maybe one of the most overlooked passages to inform our calling is Luke 19:41-44.  Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem and knows he will soon be arrested and executed.  He knows this is coming, but he also knows he will have a week where he is able to teach in the temple’s outer court.  It is his last chance to give his vision for life in God’s kingdom before he goes to the cross.

As he approaches the city from the outlying village where he spends his nights, Luke writes he weeps. He weeps for Jerusalem.  His tears do not fall because he desperately wants to see better temple attendance for Sabbath day worship services.  He’s crying because he says of the people of the city, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!  Because now they are hidden from your eyes.  … You did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

Jesus was God-in-the-flesh and too many people in the city could not see it and totally missed it.  This broke God’s heart.  We are nearly 2000 years removed from Jesus’ time in Jerusalem, from the crucifixion and resurrection.  Today, we live in the age of the church.  The Holy Spirit has come (Acts 2) to empower the church to draw people to Jesus.  We are the witnesses to what God has done and is doing – saving men and women from sin and from an eternity apart from Him.  Our testimony is meant to convince people to render a verdict: they are guilty and their only hope of rescue from judgment is Jesus. 

Would I love it if our church got bigger (had more people)?  Most definitely!  That’s why I have continuously asked God to send more people to us.  God responded to that prayer by challenging me to pray something much bigger and more important.  God wants the hearts of the people in this community.  We as a church need to pray that we would have a God-sized influence and a resurrection-persuasion.  We need to impact this community for Christ. 

That’s why I am urging you to make salvation prayer a crucial part of your daily prayer life (and if you don’t prayer daily, then start.  Now!).  Pray for the salvation of the people in our community who don’t know Jesus.  Pray for our church to be an effective witness.  Have your heart burn for people like many of my neighbors.  These are wonderful, upstanding folks, but without a sense of how much they need Jesus.  Pray that God will work through our church to help people find their way to Jesus.  If it means many end up attending our church, that’s great.  But that’s not the prayer.  The prayer is that people’s hearts would turn to God through faith in Jesus Christ.  Let this burn in you.

The Heart of our Faith (Romans 10:8-13)

First Sunday of Lent, March 10, 2019

* Originally preached at HillSong, October 31, 2010.

                Followers of Jesus Christ get quite passionate - sometimes about faith.  And sometimes that passion is directed toward hotly debated issues of the day.  This is not new.  One of the 12 disciples was Simon the Zealot (Luke 6:15).  He was on fire for Israelite nationalism and he wanted Jesus to be as motivated as he was, but Jesus had a different agenda.  Simon was primed for a violent overthrow of Rome.  The way of Jesus the way of peace.  He subvert the social order through revolutionary love.  He prevented Simon and the other disciples from defending him the night he was arrested.  He ended up dying on a Roman cross.

            There’s the hot-button issue.  They come and go.  And then, there’s way of Jesus.  Simon the Zealot was a disciple who was passionate about the holiness of God’s people.  He wanted to see God’s people rule the land God had promised to Abraham and he could point to Old Testament passages as Biblical support for his zeal.  Today, true disciples of Jesus Christ pour their lives into movements they believe to be rooted in scripture. Consider the following:

Theological passion - some Christ-followers are ardent advocates of reformed theology.

Political involvement - some Christ-followers are so involved in politics it gets hard to distinguish their Christianity from their patriotism.

Social justice - the whole faith expression for some Christians is their adherence to the scriptures which declare God’s love for the needy and downtrodden.

Specific issues - one example (of many) is abortion; I have met Christians who entire faith expression is the pro-life, anti-abortion movement.

            I am not critiquing any of these issues or the people passionate about them.  I bring them up just to point out that people who love Jesus get wrapped up in specific issues and movements.  We are called to love as God loved us.  Often there are Christ-followers on both sides in these debates.  As important as the issues I have named and other issues are, these things are not the heart of who we are in Christ.  

That phrase in Christ names us.  This is who we are.  Everything - politics, identity, vocation - our very lives are determined by this phrase: in Christ.  

One of the Apostle Paul’s chief concerns in Romans is the heart.  How are sin and death defeated?  How is the heart transformed so that the person who was defined by sin is now defined by God’s righteousness?  There’s a one-word answer: Jesus.  (1) All people sin and are lost.  Paul emphasizes this in Romans 1-3.  Sin destroys us.  (2) The only hope for rescue from our sins and the damage they do is Jesus. We can only we stand before God when we stand in Christ.  Talking about Christ, we must talk about the crucial moment in the God-human story: Jesus Christ crucified, and resurrected.

Moving through the stories of Jesus we read during Lent we get to this point, the heart of our faith.  Romans 10:9-10.  “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”

Everything about me proceeds from my belief that Jesus is Lord and that he is the resurrected one.  Everything about who I am stands on that belief.  No other argument, ministry, current issue, or theological debate can claim a disciple of Jesus.  How I vote does not show who I am.  Where you fall in a particular theological camp or ideological system does not tell me who you are.  Nothing we can argue about is the cornerstone or life blood.  Faith in Jesus is the ground on which we stand.  The Holy Spirit is the energy in us.  We are all about Jesus.  And when we speak of Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection inform our thoughts.

To say we believe in Jesus is to say we are a confessing people.  Confession is our verbal witness.  We boldly speak our faith.  Our declaration is absolute and uncompromising.  Jesus is Lord.

When he met the resurrected Jesus, the Apostle Thomas shouted “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28).  He was no longer “doubting Thomas.”  He became “confessing Thomas.”  In Philippians Paul writes that after Jesus died on the cross, God exalted Him so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (2:10-11a).  John of Patmos, writer of the book of Revelation, concludes that collection of spectacular visions by saying, “Amen!  Come Lord Jesus” (22:20)!

We are people who say it!  Jesus is Lord - Lord of our lives.  He’s our God, our Master, and our King.  Ours is a spoken faith. 

Our words, as we saw in Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain which we looked at last week, come from the faith we hold in our hearts.  Paul writes, “If you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead ...”.  We know it intellectually.  Faith is rational.  But, what we know through measured reasoning also grips us in the deepest parts.  We hold this faith emotionally.  We speak it audibly because its too much to be contained.  We can’t keep it in and we shouldn’t.  Jesus is Savior and Lord. 

The message in Romans 10:9-10 is the heart of our faith.  Jesus and nothing else is the cornerstone of the church and the foundation of the individual believer’s life.  Every sinner needs Jesus and everyone sins.  Once we understand ourselves to be in Christ, we realize we are not just saved.  We’re called - called to share our faith.  We tell the good news of salvation in Jesus that others might hear and turn to him and themselves receive his grace and be saved.  

We can share our faith in countless ways and in just about any place; in the driveway after a one-on-one basketball game; at a bar with friends; at the coffee pot with a coworker; in an instant messaging conversation; while jogging; in the foxhole; at the kitchen table; before bedtime prayers; in a song; in a handwritten letter; with a neighbor over the backyard fence; through prison bars.  Jesus is Lord in all these places and we can speak our faith in Him in all circumstances. 

Paul says more about evangelism in Romans 10:14-17:

How are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?  And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?  As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’  But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’  So faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. 

            For Paul, the witness of Christians is the hope the world needs.  In Romans 3:9, he writes, “We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin.”  In the next 9 verses, he make reference to 9 Old Testament passages that show that sin has plagued humanity in all ages.  He sums it up in verse 23 where he says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Arguments about border walls or who can or can’t get married fade to the background.  Paul’s concern is that all sin and thus all are permanently cut off from God.  It is a universal theme.

            But then in Romans 10, Paul declares a second universal theme.  Just as everyone sins, in Christ, everyone can find salvation.  Romans 10:12-13.  “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call him.  For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Just as sin’s curse and death’s cruelty are inflicted on all, so is God’s grace through Jesus available to all.  

            During Lent, we see our own need for God and in seeing, we step toward Him through repentance and confession.  You can begin this journey today.  If you have never put your trust in Jesus, you can do that today.  Come, confess your sin and ask Jesus into your heart.

If you are already a believer, speak your faith.  This morning, pray and ask God to give you the words and the opportunity to share Jesus with someone you know who needs Him.  Ask God to help you see how faith in the risen Lord is a present reality that defines our everyday lives.  Between now and Easter ask God to help you help someone you know find their way to Him.  

Throughout Lent, step toward Jesus.  Step into the heart of our faith.

AMEN

Christmas Eve, 2018 (a sermon)

December 24, 2018

Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

“An angel of the Lord stood before them.” The refers to the shepherds who were tending their flocks in the fields outside of Bethlehem.  Luke writes, “they were terrified” (2:9). You would be too; so would I be trembling in awe if visited by a divine messenger.  Whenever angels appear in the Bible, humans are overwhelmed. It is the reason the most common first word angels speak is “Fear not.”  To Zechariah, the Father of John the Baptist, the angel had to tell him, “Don’t be afraid.” Similarly, to Mary, “fear not;” and the same to these shepherds.  

Can we even hear the words of the message or are we simply too shaken from the encounter with something otherworldly?  Hopefully, we can hear.  “Angel” literally means messenger.  When an angel comes, what he has to share comes straight from God.  It’s a message we need.

That night in the fields near Bethlehem, the message was, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people; to you is born this night in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord (2:11).   All people.  The world is so big.  Life along the North Carolina coast moves at a different pace than here in the triangle; and our daily experiences are not the same as our fellow North Carolinians west of here, in the mountains.  And do some of our traditions differ from the folks in Cherokee, North Carolina? I think so. This vast diversity is just in our state. Think of the numerous cultural expressions in the the rest of the U.S., and the rest of the world!  The angel speaking to those trembling shepherds promised good news for all people - including the millions we never meet.

In the mid ‘80’s our family had only lived in Virginia a few years.  Every December we drove back to Detroit where we stayed at my Grandmother’s house.  My’ mom’s mother lived alone on 7 mile road. On Christmas Eve, we would go out to the suburb of Clawson, where my Dad’s very large family lived.   My mom’s mother would come with us. We stayed out late Christmas Eve every year, enjoying time with family.

One year, we returned to grandma’s Detroit home to discover there had been visitors: robbers.  They opened all the presents and stole anything they thought was valuable. We felt pretty violated, but quickly we gained perspective.  We weren’t hurt. The things they took were just that - things. We had each other. We had just enjoyed a night of great happiness with family.  How broken were their lives that they thought the best way to spend Christmas Eve was to break into someone’s home and steal from them.

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.  

We’re here together enjoying familiar Christmas songs.  Not 2-3 miles from here are families struggling so badly they have to decide whether to pay the heating bill or buy food.  Forget presents and a Christmas tree and decorations. They just need to survive. But they can’t forget presents and trees and decorations.  They live hand-to-mouth in this land of plenty; the wealth of others is in their faces as they struggle to make it through each day.

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.

Maybe sadder than the desperately poor family is the wealthy one with $50,000 cars sitting in the driveway of their million-dollar home.  Yet, love and laughter is absent from that home. This wealthy family has experienced divorce, suicide, addiction ...

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.

Tonight, Christmas Eve, soldiers from our country and other countries are on duty.  They carry rifles and look for enemies. They are far from home, far from the families they love.  Why, why on this night is this the story? Because war doesn’t take a holiday. Nation against nation, man against man, we humans kill each other.  

The angel promised this to all people, I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord, because all people need a savior.

Police are on duty tonight.  Why? As my story from 30 years ago attests, crime doesn’t take Christmas Eve off.  The world is broken and broken people either sit in their own hurt or do things to hurt others.  We need that angel’s word.

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.

We have had a lot of joy in and around our church throughout the holidays.  There have been beautiful worship services, much laughter, meaningful moments, some surprises, and a full share of joy and good cheer.  Our joy comes from the beauty and power of the story we tell - the story of Jesus’ birth. Right in the middle of this story, from the mouth of the angel, we are reminded that we need a savior and promised that he has come, for everyone.  Even if you think you have it all together, you still have as much need for a savior as anyone else in the world.

This war-torn, crime-filled, drug-addicted, heartbroken, lonely world is the way it is because of sin.  Sin cuts us off from God. Sin is the overall category for choices we make that hurt ourselves and others; and sin is the decisions we make in life that offend God and take us off God’s path.  And every one of us sins every day. This is why Jesus had to come and be in the role he was in. To us is born a Savior, Christ the Lord.

This Christmas Eve, as I wish you happiness, I invite you to consider your own need for a Savior.  As you ponder that, consider that the Gospel of Luke presents Jesus as the Savior you need.

Throughout his gospel, Luke repeatedly shows his sense of the salvation Jesus brings.  Salvation is reversal of status. We were in tension with God, but with our faith in Jesus, we are in right relationship with God.  We were enslaved by sin, unable to break free. Jesus breaks the chains. He is the truth and when we know Him, we are free. Right now we live in a world of war, crime, addiction, broken relationships, and death.  He brings a new kingdom - the kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice and peace. When the Savior visits and we receive forgiveness, we then have new life. We become new creations and a part of a new community as we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.  

When can we hope to begin to see this salvation?  In Luke 4, Jesus, the baby grown up, says “today the scripture has been fulfilled.”  It will be finalized at His Second Coming and we long for that day when pain and death are finally and completely overthrown.  But even today as we live in the world with sin around us, upon giving our lives to Christ, we begin to lean into the eternal kingdom and live a kingdom ethic of love and grace right here, right now.  Salvation begins the day we visit the manger, and recognize that the baby there is our Savior and thus we worship Him as our Lord.

Who is this salvation for? Trust God’s messenger, the angel.  The promise made to the shepherds is good for each and every one of us.  “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people.”

Who is salvation for?  For you. Only you know all the details of your story, but whatever the good and the bad, your story needs a Savior - the Savior.  The same Jesus who will save the world from humanity’s attempts to destroy it loves you and wants to save you from the pain and heartache you have to carry.  If you’d like to learn more about how this Savior, born Christmas night, can be your Savior who completely changes the direction of your life, I’d love to hear your story.  Maybe together, we can talk and pray and ask the Lord to come into your life and change your life’s direction. Please see me after the service, or connect with me in the next couple of weeks.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.  We will close our service by singing together “Silent Night.”

AMEN