Deepening Your Roots
Notes
Transcript
One of the best opening sentences to any book I’ve ever read comes from M. Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled. It begins with this line.
Life is difficult.
There is a truth that we can all agree on. Life is hard.
Life IS hard. Family, friends, co-workers, relationships get strained, feelings get hurt, nerves get frazzled. Life is difficult!
One of the “Four Noble Truths”, in fact the first of the four taught by Buddha was that “life is suffering.”
Aw, man! First you said it was difficult, then you said it was hard, now you’re saying it’s suffering, I came to church to be uplifted, and this is just a downer. Pastor, you better turn this thing around or I’m going to quit listening and start thinking about where I’m going for lunch!
Before you do that, I want you to stop and remember a passage we talked about last week:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Alright, that’s more of what I”m talking about. I like the idea of rest, I’m already planning my nap for this afternoon!
That’s not quite what Jesus was referring to.
He goes on:
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
There’s still work to be done. Paul wrote:
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
“Holy Tension! Batman!”
First you say life is difficult, hard, and suffering - then you say Jesus will give us rest from the weight of it all, then you say there’s work for our salvation with FEAR and TREMBLING!
Wait! Isn’t there something called grace?
Yes, there is.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
So, grace is God’s gift? Not by my works? So I don’t have to do anything, right?
That’s what some have come to believe. Dietrich Bonhoeffer described this as “cheap grace.”
Bonhoeffer: “Cheap grace means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The world find in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be set free.”
He summarizes it with this:
“Cheap grace is that grace which we bestow on ourselves.”
Cheap grace is not the grace of the Bible. The grace the Bible teaches is bestowed upon us by God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
So as you and I read through the Bible, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the Old Testament recently, and we can see all the law, the requirements for righteousness that God required of His people. And we have seen how we all fall short, even our most righteous works are as filthy rags to God.
And yet, God extends grace to us, and it is through His grace that we are saved, not by our works of righteousness, but because of his love and mercy.
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
So wait, you’re saying he’s offering this as his gift, how do I take this gift?
That’s the question we all need to think about.
Are we accepting the gift, or are we choosing to try and make our own way. Even in the church too often we try and make our own way. We do all kinds of works to EARN our way into the Kingdom when God is inviting us there. It’s a matter of the heart.
For the past several months we’ve been working our way through the Old Testament. In doing so we’ve seen lots of rules, or laws that God has given to his people so that they would know how to follow Him. It was never about the Law, it was about following Him. Yet they made it about the Law. They made it about the rules. They made it about what they could do, and what they found was that they couldn’t follow God’s Law. In a matter of verses after proclaiming that they would do whatever God asked of them we find them violating the very thing they just affirmed they would do.
The book of Ephesians gives us a great glimpse of the contrast:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
We need to remember that God’s written word is a sign post to the Living Word, Jesus Christ. That is who we are called to follow. And follow we must. We are called to be his disciples.
Bonhoeffer speaks of this as costly grace:
Bonhoeffer: It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God’s Son—“you were bought with a price”[10]—and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God. Above all, it is grace because the life of God’s Son was not too costly for God to give in order to make us live. God did, indeed, give him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.
[10] 1 Cor. 6:20.
Bonhoeffer, D. (2003). Discipleship. (M. Kuske, I. Tödt, G. B. Kelly, & J. D. Godsey, Eds., B. Green & R. Krauss, Trans.) (Vol. 4, p. 45). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
Deepening Your Roots
Deepening Your Roots
Beginning next week we’re beginning a series for Lent on Vital Congregations. This is not some self imposed diet of 7 weeks to a better you. It’s a foundational piece for us as a congregation for a time of research and development that we are doing as a congregation. Our hope as a session, my hope as your pastor is that it will help you reflect on some questions and aid you in your personal growth as an individual follower of Christ; and help us all deepen our roots, that we might produce good fruit.
Amen.