Listen to the Song

When I can’t hold on much longer
To a rope weathered and frayed
When I can’t find hope and I’m losing faith

The Savior reaches in
To still the howling wind
To calm the storm within
To rescue me
To rescue me

When I think I might surrender
To the vengeance of the tide
When I’m lost in sin and I don’t see light

The Savior reaches low
Under the torrid flow
To save my sinking soul
And rescue me

The Savior calls my name
When I feel most ashamed
He comes to take the blame
And rescue me
To rescue me
To rescue me

This simply means that we do not worship a dead God. He’s alive. We have a living hope.

Among other things, this means that God is actively involved in our lives. When we pray, he hears us. When we sing, he hears us. He’s doing things right now, in your life and in mine.

So, I’m looking for proof. I’m looking for stories from your life that demonstrate that Jesus did not reamain dead in that cold, damp tomb 2,000 years ago. I want to hear testimonies of what God has done and is doing in your life right now.

Is He alive? Prove it in the comments below.

By the way I hear some preachers talk, you’d think Jesus is disinterested completely in the fate of the world that He came to save as though He’s a petulant child.    Still others make Him seem powerless and worried.  All of them 2-dimensional.

How many times have we reduced Him to a sound-bite at the end of a meeting or only displayed a 2-dimensional version of Him to our friends?  Perhaps that’s, at least in part, the reason why so many people simply fizzle out into mediocrity.  And maybe that’s why we so often find it impossible to trust Him.

Toss your plastic Jesus in the trash can and seek out the real one.  See Him healing the sick, touching the leaper, calling the Pharisees dogs, displaying His glory at the Mount of Transfiguration, dying in humility and victory at the cross.  Imagine Him returning for His spotless Bride at the end of days.  See Him as the hero of this great story of the gospel.

Following a powerful 1.5 hours of inspiration, I wrote the following article.  I delivered this, word for word, this morning for our Easter service.  I’ve never delivered a message in this way before.  It’s always much more free-flowing and less “theatrical”.  I almost never write down the exact words that I will say, only a skeleton of notes and triggers for my memory to keep me on track.  However, when I sat down to construct my sermon this week, I got really inspired to write it word for word.

This is probably the longest post ever done on this blog, but I hope you will take a few moments to read it anyway.  It just sort of poured out of me all at once.

Today I’m going to tell you a story.  It is the greatest story ever told.  Maybe you have heard it before, maybe you haven’t.  Maybe you think you know this story, but you have only heard a poor retelling of it where the wonder and mystery of its storyline has been replaced with pragmatism, stiff religion, hypocrisy.  Or perhaps you have heard this story many, many times and you’ve allowed familiarity to breed contempt.

The story I am going to tell you this morning has been unfolding since before the dawn of time.  It is not only the centerpiece of mankind’s history, it is the driving force behind every event, every triumph, every defeat, every tragedy.  It is the impetus behind the rise and fall of every world leader and every nation on the planet.  It is the common thread that runs through every seemingly coincidental and serendipitous event in history.

Peter says that it is the story that the angels long to look into and understand.  It is a story so wondrous, mysterious, and alive that it has held the attention of the angels for eons.  It confounds the wise and makes fools of otherwise restrained men.  It is the only story that can fix all that is wrong with the world.  It is the only story that can make straight what is crooked in humanity.  It is the pathway to peace.

And what makes this story so irresistibly alluring is that it is completely true.  It is the foundation on which all Truth rests. So much so, that nothing on earth or in heaven can call itself the truth if it stands in conflict with this one story.  What I am about to tell you is not a fairy tale told to scared children to help them sleep.  It is not the duplicitous fabrication of power hungry patriarchs created to control the masses.  This story is the TRUTH, and it is greater than any corruption that has attempted to abuse it.

Our story begins before time.  Before the existence of water, dirt, trees, air, the beauty of a sunset or the twinkling of the stars.  Our story begins with God.  His name is Yahweh, the self-existent, self-directed, self-sufficient One.  He has always been and He will always be.  He cannot be defined by, or constrained  by time.  He has no need, no emptiness, no loneliness in Him.  He created us so that He could lavish His love upon us wastefully and extravagantly.  And in turn, we would respond with joy to worship Him.

We were created to worship our Creator, but instead we rejected Him.  We accused Him of not being good.  We accused Him of not loving us well.  We told Him that He needed us and that we didn’t need Him.  We turned our backs on His love and made ourselves His enemies.  At that moment, sin entered the hearts of mankind and we were separated from God.

And God was patient with us.  He told His people through Moses that He was a Holy God and longed to purify His people.  He longed to set them apart for relationship with Himself.  He made Himself known to them  yet, His people rejected Him.  They complained against Him and called into question His goodness and faithfulness.  They tested His patience to the point of worshipping other gods and exalted their pagan names above the mighty name of Yahweh.

And God was patient with us.  For centuries He sent prophets to herald the coming of a King who would set His people free and bring with Him the Kingdom of God.  His prophets told us to repent for the kingdom of God was coming.  They prophesied to us that we belong to God and we are His people.  And we mocked, rejected, and killed the prophets of God.

And God was patient with us.  So, He did what He said He would do.  But He didn’t send an earthly king, for no man could do or be what was required.  Instead, God Himself came down.  He entered into human history.  God Himself came to us to rescue us.  His name is Jesus Christ.  Fully God, and fully man in one person.

He came and He told us that He was our deliverer, the Shepherd of Our Souls, the Way the Truth and the Life.  He came and showed us how to love, how to believe, how to obey, and how to serve.  He told us who He was and then proved it over and over again through miracles and through mercy.  He shook the prison walls of tired religion, He confounded the wise, and confronted hypocrisy.  He turned the weakest of men into heroes, and He gathered the sick, the poor, and the marginalized to Himself so that they could find rest. He told us that if we would follow Him, He would lead us to safety, peace, and forgiveness.

Yet, we rejected Him.  We mocked Him with the tongues that He created.  We beat Him with fists that He formed in our mother’s womb.  We betrayed Him while breathing the air that He provided.  We told Him that we didn’t need Him and that He needed us.  We called Him a liar and a fool.  We killed our King like a criminal.  We turned our backs on the one who came to save us.  The only One that could.

And God was patient with us.  He was patient because this was the plan all along.  You see, the story had already been written and was simply being unrolled like a scroll, one chapter at a time.  God was not surprised, alarmed or worried.  He has always been in control and always will be.  No one drug Jesus to the cross, rather Jesus gave up His life to satisfy the demands of our deserved punishment.  When He died, He bore the full and terrible weight of the searing wrath of God.  He stood up under the torrential onslaught of centuries of just wrath being stored up in the cellar of God’s justice.  Worst of all, Christ who had known perfect fellowship with God for all eternity past was suddenly and horrifically separated from God.   Forsaken.    This was wrath that you and I deserve.

He paid for every moment when you see the sunset and in your indifference refuse to acknowledge His handiwork.  He paid for every time you take credit for what He has done.  When you take credit for how smart you are, how successful you are, or how religious and good you are.  He paid for every time you have feared created things more than you feared Him.  He paid for every time you worshipped something He has made, instead of worshipping the Creator.  He paid for every time you stubbornly refuse to worship Him because there’s no music and no preacher to excite you.  He paid for your dispassionate resistance to His loving advances toward you.

He paid for every time you hear this story, and reject him with your indifference, your misguided trust in the intellect that He gave you, and your fear of what following Him might cost you.  Yes, He died even for the things you do that are too shameful and wicked to say with words.

He.  Died.  For.  You.

But, the story doesn’t end there.  After 3 days, Jesus Christ took death, Hell, sin and the Devil by the throat and put them under his heel.  He stood over them as our conquering hero and He dominates them now like a master dominates His dog with a leash and the command of His voice.  Jesus Christ stood up from death under His own power and left the burial clothes where they lay.  Death cannot hold our King Jesus.  Therefore, death, sin, hell, and the Devil hold no power over those that belong to Jesus.  You have nothing to fear!  Death is now a puppet on a string, a tool in the hands of God.  Now, for the Christian it is a tool of blessing, a ticket home and for the unbeliever it is a terrifying reminder of the reality that time is short.

So this is the story of an unfathomable God, making Himself understood.  This is the story of an unknowable God, making Himself known.  This is the story of an infinitely Holy God extending mercy to the ones most deserving of His wrath.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 says,

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

THE STORY IS NOT OVER!  IT IS STILL UNFOLDING.  Will you enter this story?  Will you be reconciled to God?  Will you allow Christ to come in and exchange your sin for His righteousness.  Will you let Him wipe your slate clean, making you a new creation?

It’s time that you did what you were created to do.  It’s time for you to stop rejecting the one that made you.  Now is the time, because there will come a day when He will no longer be patient with you.  There will come a day when He will release you to your own rebellion to suffer the consequences of your indifference.  Do not fool yourself – your time, and your desires, do not belong to you.  Yahweh, God alone, holds time in His hands and His grace is the only thing that restrains the sin in your heart.

[tags]gospel, jesus, easter, resurrection, the cross, salvation, saved, christian, christ, grace, mercy, yahweh[/tags]

Whenever I read this story (Luke 15:11-32), it immediately reminds me of a story from my year-long adventure as a drug rehab counselor in Britain. Never have I seen this parable of repentance played out in real-life drama like I did then.

There were several guys I met in my time there that had the same story, but the one that sticks out the most in my memory was a fellow named Geoffrey. Geoff was an older man who had been an alcoholic for as a long as he could remember. He had never really managed to hold on to a job or keep a family. His alcohol addiction was his first love. He spent most of his time wandering the streets living on the welfare system. He finally got desperate enough to come to us.

I helped check him in and get him to his bunk. We picked through all of his belongings removing anything that would be a problem for him during his time with us (whether an addiction temptation or merely a distraction to his reason for being there). Then I showed him to his bunk and introduced him to a few people.

Immediately the complaining began. He didn’t like his bunk area. He didn’t like how many people were in the room and the lack of privacy. He didn’t like that I followed him everywhere. He didn’t like the food we ate. He didn’t like the tea we drank. He didn’t like much of anything.

It was like this on into the next day. Then during dinner, he complained about the food again. One of the experienced leaders, Victor, stood from his seat, walked around the table to where Geoff was sitting and said, “Get up and get out.” There was no anger in his voice, no shouting, not even and angry look. Just simply, “Get up and get out.” Geoff looked at him like he was crazy. He began back-pedalling and apologizing.

I’m sorry, Geoff. You simply aren’t ready for this. It’s time for you to leave.

Geoff finally stood and began to walk out angrily. I was offended. It was now dark outside and raining. This man was easily iover 65 and those were 65 years of HARD living. I couldn’t believe Victor didn’t have more patience. More mercy and compassion. Victor looked at me and told me to help him gather his things and to not let him linger.

I helped Geoff get his few belongings together and walked him to the front door where Victor was waiting. Victor held the door open for Geoff and said,

When you hate the cold rain more than you love drinking, give us a call.

With that, Geoff stepped into the rain and the dark. I was really mad. I guess Victor could tell and he pulled me aside.

He told me that until someone is really broken and desprate to change. Until someone is willing to do anything to change, they simply won’t. For us to keep Geoff there, would be to shelter him from the breaking influences in his life.

You see, the pig sty was the thing that God used to bring the Prodigal to a broken state. It was only then that the Prodigal was able to clearly see his situation and repent. The same was true for Geoff. He came to us wanting to escape the pig sty, not get his life straight.

Several months later I got a phone call in the office. It was Geoff. He had been disqualified for welfare, and had been living on the street for months. He didn’t even have enough money for booze. He sobbed on the phone asking me to please come get him. We made him find his own way to us and I met him in the parking lot. When I saw him, I was amazed. He must have been 50lbs thinner. His eyes were sunken and dark and he smelled like the street. He was the picture of brokeness.

This time he stayed. He was still cranky, but he was broken. This time he was pliable and teachable. When I left there to return home several months later he was doing well. His addiction was broken and he was slowly rebuilding the life that he had destroyed.

I saw this same pattern over and over again. It was the defining difference between those who succeeded in shaking their addictions and those who remained addicts. I think the same is true for all of us. Those who grow in their faith and fulfill their God-given destiny in life are those that do not hide from the pig sty or even try to escape it. They simple learn all that they can from it because they know where home is and how forgiving their Father will be.