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A Critical Question
Sunday Worship Sermon
AUGUST 23, 2009 - “So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’”
John 6:67
We’ve been using a house to represent grace: the ways God’s love is active in our lives.
In Prevenient Grace, God’s love reaches out to us and we begin to know God. It’s like going up the steps and onto the porch of a house. We know something about the house yet there is much more to discover.
In Justifying Grace, God’s love continues to reach out to us. We decide we want stop living a life controlled by sin. We decide we need God to save us, because we have come to understand that we are not capable of saving ourselves. It’s like walking across the front porch and going up to the door and knocking. At this point we confess our sins to God, ask for forgiveness, and say to God. “I believe in you.” Christ opens the doors and invites us in and we come to learn that he has been waiting for us all along. Even before we were born, Jesus had died for us on the cross to save us from our own sin and death. Jesus justified us before God. Jesus restored the broken relationship between God and humankind. That’s what makes it possible for us to enter God’s house.
In Sanctifying Grace, God continues to love us. We may say “I believe you are my Lord and Savior” but Christ continues to help us get to the point where we actually die to our previous self and are born again in Christ. When once and for all, we completely surrender our lives to Christ and truly make him Lord of our lives. And God’s grace doesn’t stop there. It’s called Sanctifying Grace because God’s love is active in our lives for the rest our life to help perfect us; helping us to sin less and less and to become more and more like Christ. Sanctifying Grace goes on for the rest of our lives. That’s why no one can ever boast, “I’ve made it.” God is always working on us to make us more and more perfect.
Why is that important, that we become more and more perfect? Isn’t it enough to say, “I believe, and therefore I’m saved.” Two things come to mind. First, if we stay where we are we actually run the risk of backsliding into the sinful persons that we once were. And once we go in that direction the end result can be that we turn away from God. Satan likes when that happens. It gives him a foothold into people’s lives and he uses it to try to get people to return to a life of sin and ultimately to reject God. That’s a dangerous path.
Second, God wants us to become more and more like Christ because God knows that will allow us to live an abundant, satisfying, joy filled life.
For those who respond to His Sanctifying Grace, God holds out that promise. He held it out to his disciples in today’s Gospel reading from John. In chapter 6, verse 56, he said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me.” In other words, I will feed and sustain all those who believe in me, turn their lives over to me, and want to become more and more like me – I will feed them.
Think about a delicious steak that is served, tender and juicy. We don’t sit down at the table with the steak in front of us and say, “I believe you are a steak.” We eat the steak and it nourishes and sustains us.
Think about an interesting book that has been recommended to us. We don’t pick the book up and say, “I believe you are a book.” We read the book, and in doing so it becomes part of us, and we tell other people about it and recommend that they read it too.
God comes to us as Jesus. We don’t just say, “I believe you are Jesus the Son of the living God.” We accept Christ into our lives to save us, recreate us, and sustain us forever. That is what Jesus promises when he says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me.”
But people rejected that invitation back then just like they do today. In verse 31, John tells us that the disciples “complained about Jesus’ offer because they thought it was too difficult to accept.” In verse 64, we are told that some just would not believe in the promise of Jesus to feed and sustain their lives. And in verse 66 we are given the sad news that “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” So Jesus asked the twelve, his closest followers, “Do you wish to go away.” It was a critical question.
Peter, quick to answer as always sometimes at the risk of putting his foot in his mouth, responded confidently to Jesus, saying “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Here, Peter was quick to confess his belief in and loyalty to Jesus. But in the future, on the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied knowing him. And on that night the rest of the twelve fled and hid fearful for their lives. Fortunately all but one of them returned to believe in Jesus and to help continue his ministry after he was gone. In the end, they stayed and helped build the church that Christ had formed to be His continued presence in the world.
Like the original twelve, Christ continues to ask us the question, “Do you wish to go away?” and each of us must answer to God on our own. When we decide to stay with Jesus, we open our hearts to the outpouring of God’s Sanctifying Grace. Christ takes us from the hallway, and begins to show us around all the beautiful rooms in his kingdom. The tour takes the rest of our lifetime. It is a glimpse of the unparalleled wonder and beauty of God’s heavenly kingdom, but even this glimpse is an amazing thing to experience. It brings joy into our hearts and lives. Being familiar with Jesus as our guide through life, building a closer and closer relationship with him as we visit each of the rooms has its advantages.
First, we gain assurance that we know where this journey is going to end: in heaven, seeing God and being reunited with our loved ones.
Second, we are so familiar with having Christ in our lives that when the tough times in life come our way, and they will, we have that familiar friend right there with us to comfort, reassure, and strengthen us. And we have those things through are church community too, who are Christ’s very presence in our lives: spending time with us, quietly listening to us, never judging us, sending us cards, calling us on the phone, bringing us meals, letting us know others love us and care about us.
It’s always wonderful to share in the joy of another when they have first come to believe. It is inspiring to be around one who has died to themselves and been literally reborn again in Christ. And one of the tenderest things I’ve witnessed is an elderly person who approaches each new day with the wonderment of a child, saying “what new thing will Christ show me today.” The critical question Jesus continues to ask is “Do you wish to go away?” We too may experience abundant life when we answer, “No God, I want to stay in your house, I want your entire grace active in my life always.”
Amen.
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