Grant, we beseech you, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of your grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.1
Psalm: Ps. 122
O. T.: Exod. 16:2-21
Epistle: Gal. 4:21-31
Gospel: John 6:1-14
The Gospel’s “center of activity, attention, or concentration” is God’s gracious act of redemption in Jesus.
In Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, there are two principal definitions for the word locus.1 The second of which is:
b : a center of activity, attention, or concentration
I start with this simple definition in order to clarify today’s Gospel focus. The Gospel’s “center of activity, attention, or concentration” is God’s gracious act of redemption in Jesus. That is where we must constantly, consistently, and courageously put the emphasis.
If we ever shift the focus of the Gospel to our ability or inability, we have lost the locus.
If we ever try to live up to God’s expectations in such a way as to try and earn what God has freely given, we have lost the locus.
This issue of the Gospel’s locus is vital to our understanding of the Gospel and of our salvation. Let’s start with the Gospel.
The Gospel is the message from God to a lost world. It is a message that declares that God has provided a way of being reconciled to Him. The Gospel is a message that calls all lost sinners to repentance and faith in the finished work of the cross. The Gospel is a message that reminds us that we are unable to overcome the inertia of sin in our lives. And because of this inability, God must intervene and counteract the pull of sin in our lives.
Under no circumstances can we, as those in need of redemption, contribute anything to the salvation process. It is not only impossible, but it is also unnecessary.
When we think about the Gospel’s locus in relation to the Gospel message this is what we must remember. But there is a second area where one must understand the center of activity or attention. And that area is that of salvation.
Because God is the enactor of redemption, at no point are we involved in the accomplishment of salvation. We are recipients of God’s grace. We are the beneficiaries of God’s manifold gifts of mercy and love.
This does not mean we are passive. We hear the Gospel and we respond with faith, but this is not contributing to the saving. We are called, compelled even, to turn to God. To accept what He is offering us in Jesus. But, none of that adds anything to what God is doing. Because if it ever did, it would shift the locus to us and away from God.
The Gospel’s locus is an important consideration and aspect of the Gospel because it reminds us that God is the one doing the saving. We are not saving ourselves. We are not helping God.
What we do is turn to God and receive what God has said we can now have.
If God’s power to save and to keep us saved rested on our ability, consistency, and strength, there would be no hope for salvation. But our salvation does not rest on anything we bring to the situation.
One of the most common themes that Christians I have encountered struggle with is that of their salvation. Specifically, the issue of whether or not it can become lost again. There are various answers to this. Each theological system will argue that its point of view is internally consistent. That the reasons for their positions are valid even when the conclusions are difficult to understand. My goal is not to enter some extended argument against any particular system.
For me, I am not interested in getting into those debates. We all must study Scripture for ourselves and seek the counsel of trusted mentors. We all have to decide which theological traditions and what they argue make the most sense to us. What I want to do, what I am more interested in looking at the implications the Gospel offers to us in regard to the subject of salvation. More specifically, what is the Gospel’s effectiveness in saving a lost soul?
Many times, conversations about salvation revolve around whether or not a person believed the correct version of the Gospel on the one hand; or whether a person is growing sufficiently in spiritual matters on the other. Yes, these are generalizations and even over-simplifications. But, if we listen to what people are asking and how they are asking about it, we will find these are far more common points of origin. Many people do not have sophisticated views about doctrine in general, or salvation specifically. Most Christians are simply holding onto the part of the Gospel they understand. Even if it is only one or two aspects of it.
A greater reality is that because of the many facets of the Gospel, people struggle to see how they all work together. This is part of the reason for this series of reflections. Maybe, if we look at these varied realities of the Gospel in smaller portions, we can better appreciate the whole.
Today’s focus shifts the emphasis of salvation away from the recipient to the giver of the Gospel. The great promise of the Gospel is that God is at work. That God has prepared and provided a means of salvation. And, if we take God at his word, we can experience the fullness of what the Gospel points to.
The effectiveness of the Gospel does not depend on my ability. The effectiveness of the Gospel does not require my effort. The effectiveness of the Gospel rests solely, completely, entirely, and unquestionably in the hands of God.
What that means is that regardless of what goes wrong on our side of the relationship God will uphold his end of the promise. God cannot fail in saving us. God will not fail in keeping us.
If God’s power to save and to keep us saved rested on our ability, consistency, and strength, there would be no hope for salvation. But our salvation does not rest on anything we bring to the situation.
There is nothing that can keep us from receiving and being the beneficiaries of God’s grace once we have believed. Our vacillating nature was a part of the eternal calculus God did in drafting the Gospel message. God knew that we would struggle with holding on to his promises. God knew, from the foundations of the world, that faith would not come easily to so many. that’s why the Gospel is simple and clear. So that we could accept it even when we struggled to hold on to it.
But, God does not rely on our faithfulness to save us. God has declared that salvation is an eternal promise. Not a conditional one. And by virtue of the eternal nature of the Gospel, we can know that the Gospel will accomplish the mission for which it was created.
Yes, we can have a discussion about what it means that some believe and some will deny. We can consider what it means that some people never fully embrace the life of faith. We can even have our doubts about whether or not a person was ever really saved. But in the end, the question of the Gospel’s effectiveness is about God’s side of the salvation issue.
Too often people look at the people who don’t seem to be living up to what we think they should be and then turn and blame God for failing. This is not only a disingenuous form of argumentation, but it also betrays a self-righteous spirit within the person arguing in such a way.
Allow me to put this as simply as I can:
The Gospel is effective because God is God. That’s it. And if he says that the Gospel leads to eternal life, then I will take God at his word.
On each of the Sundays of Lent, we have been looking at God’s grace. Trying to better understand this precious gift that God has bestowed upon us. Today we transition to the beginning of Holy Week. In this, the final week of Jesus’s earthly sojourn, we prepare to remember and experience the fullness of the Gospel’s promise for eternal life.
The Sunday before Easter is known as Palm Sunday. It is a Sunday that marks Jesus’s final entrance into the city of Jerusalem. During that time many of the inhabitants of the city and some of those who had gathered for the Passover celebration greeted Jesus. They threw palms at his feet and cried out hosanna. They believed that he would usher in a new earthly reign governed by God’s chosen ruler. What the people failed to understand was that God’s plan would not look like they desired.
The contrast between Jesus’s entrance on Palm Sunday and what happened at the end of the week is quite remarkable. But we will look at that in a few days time.
What is the focus of our consideration today is that often times we make assumptions about how God will work in our lives and in our midst. These are assumptions grounded in our own desires rather than God’s wisdom. The circumstances of life can cause us to cry out to God for relief and in the process blinds us to the reality that God’s character will not change. For some, this may be a point of discouragement. But for me, I find it reassuring, that God will maintain his integrity in order to remain faithful to his character.
These are important ideas as we look at Jesus’s entrance. The people had made up their minds regarding what they wanted to see Jesus do. But God was not swayed by what can only be described as a shortsighted understanding of what was needed. The temporary reign of an earthly king does not compare to the eternal victory of the Son of God. So while Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday in a far more humble posture than would be expected of a king, his purpose would not be thwarted by the misconceptions of those who received him.
I think one of the important lessons we can take away from Palm Sunday is recognizing how God will accomplish his purposes in the world. And even more vital to our faith is understanding how God will accomplish his will in our lives. That God can hold these realities without causing contradiction or catastrophic collapse of his plan is so mind-scramblingly astounding I cannot articulate it properly.
So as we enter into this Holy Week, I encourage you to remember we can trust in God’s goodness to accomplish his perfect will. We may not always understand how he will do it. We can simply know that he will. God has never failed to accomplish that which he has promised. And I do not believe that he will begin now.
Often times comes when life is lost. It is only when contrasted against death that the precious nature of life becomes easier to see.
Any discussion about life requires a greater appreciation for what it is. The insight required to make this assessment often times comes when life is lost. It is only when contrasted against death that the precious nature of life becomes easier to see.
According to Christian teaching, putting our faith in the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ on the cross produces an effect in our experience of life. We come to realize how sin has fractured our relationship with God and distorted our understanding of self. In the sacrifice of the son of God on the cross of Calvary we see how seriously God saw our sin. And in this clarifying understanding we can make sense of why the life we now have in Jesus is to be cherished and valued.
It can be difficult to understand the method God use to provide for our salvation. Everything involved in saving those who are separated from God and lost in their sin would require countless lifetimes to fully grasp. And yet it is possible to see, from an experiential point of view, that death is the end of something that cannot be undone. This is why those of us who trust in Christ lean so intentionally into the promise that our salvation has neutralized the damning effects of sin.
We may still have to endure the process of transitioning from this life to a new life but we have reason to hope that what awaits us is truly there. The totality of the Christian experience hinges on Jesus’s fulfillment of his word to prepare a place for us (John 14:1-3). And so we wait until the time when we transition or Jesus returns.
Life is a precious gift. And it is one we should never take for granted. Even when the journey gets hard and the obstacles seem to be unending we can choose to look forward and hope. And it is a choice we have to make. It can be hard. And sometimes it may feel impossible. But in moments like that I am reminded of God’s gracious gift both in the life I now have an in the new life Christ has given to me.
As we enter the final week of Lent, let us look with both anticipation and joy that God has provided a way for us. I think it’s important to remember that this way is shared by all who put their hope and trust in Jesus. And so as we travel this road we do not have to travel alone. I encourage you to take heart in that.
One of the most challenging exchanges Jesus had was with one of the religious leaders of the Jewish people. The story is found in John chapter 3. A Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus came to Jesus because he had questions about what Jesus was teaching. As a learned man, Nicodemus was well-versed in much of the philosophical and theological knowledge of his day. But there was something about the way Jesus taught that caused him to come late one evening to find answers.
Nicodemus begins his conversation with Jesus by acknowledging that what Jesus was doing both in his teaching and in the performing of miracles marked him as someone having been sent from God. But this is not enough for Nicodemus. Part of the reason for Nicodemus’s struggle was that what he saw in Jesus seemed to be in conflict with what he had learned through his many years of study.
In this passage, Jesus tells Nicodemus that in order for anyone to enter into the kingdom of heaven they must be born again. Another way of saying that is they must experience a rebirth. And this was where Nicodemus began to struggle. Let’s take a look at what Nicodemus asked Jesus that night.
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
John 3:4 ESV
Jesus immediately identifies the problem with the question. Jesus did not consider the question to be asked with an ulterior motive. Jesus realized that for Nicodemus the connection between the physical life he was living and the spiritual reality Nicodemus was being invited into was difficult for him to understand. Therefore, Jesus makes a connection for Nicodemus, and for us. In the same way that we all must experience a physical birth in order to enter into this world, we must also experience a spiritual birth in order to enter into a spiritual kingdom.
The challenge we face is recognizing that the way one is born into the world and the way one is born into God’s spiritual kingdom is not achieved by the same means. And while it may seem apparent to some how this is the case, the reality is it is much more difficult to fully understand and appreciate. I think this is why the apostle John records the story. For if a man as educated and informed as Nicodemus struggled to understand this connection, we should not feel like there is something wrong with us when we also struggle to make the connection as well.
So how do we respond to this situation we find in John chapter 3? We must accept what Jesus said to Nicodemus for ourselves. We must realize that what Jesus is calling us to is a new commitment to living according to the spiritual realities he initiated through his ministry while on earth.
When we try to understand the peculiar and particular mechanics of salvation we have entered into the realm of trying to know what only God knows. But if we trust in what Jesus has said about how we become children of God, we do not have to understand how God accomplishes it. We can find comfort in the fact THAT God accomplishes it.
One of the important purposes of commemorating the season of Lent every year is precisely to remember that God has called us to a new kind of life. This new life began when we gave ourselves — mind, body, and soul — to Jesus when we believe the gospel. And now that we have been born again we must learn to live out the principles and characteristics of God as taught to us by Jesus.
As we continue our March toward Easter morning I pray we will learn to accept our rebirth in Christ. And also that we might celebrate the gift that it is for our good.
Today we celebrate the magnitude of God’s grace.
On these Sundays in Lent, we have been exploring the grace of God. We have been trying to look at various aspects of God’s grace. In the process, my hope has been to give us a greater appreciation of what God has given to us as a gift.
One of the challenges that I have when trying to describe the grace of God has to do with its scope. What that means is understanding what exactly God’s grace covers. This is what I had in mind when I considered the focus for this aspect of God’s grace. The magnitude of God’s grace is greater and more far-reaching than we truly understand. Because of the scale of what we’re talking about it can be difficult to truly appreciate what God has done.
God’s grace is the outpouring of his love on those who have offended against God’s holiness. The seriousness of the situation can oftentimes be minimized in unhelpful ways. We do not have a means of measuring how truly offensive our sin is to God’s holy character. The only indication we have of how awful our sin is is to consider the lengths to which God went to remedy our sin.
The sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross is the price God said would satisfy the offense. From a theological standpoint, the fact God entered into the world and chose to die so sinners might have access to God’s grace cannot be understated. No other man or woman was worthy enough to stand as a representative for the rest of mankind. So God chose to become like those who had offended him and offered himself in the life and person of Jesus Christ for the sake of those who could not restore the relationship to where it needed to be. So, what we could not do and what needed to be done God did for us.
The miracle of salvation is grounded in the reality that God must be true to himself at all times. And by virtue of what we find in Scripture, we can see that God’s love for his people had to find expression in spite of our sin. But that God’s holiness had to be upheld because of it. So how would God find a solution to this problem? He did it in Jesus.
Even in those moments when I find myself wondering why would God do such a thing for me, I must fight back the temptation to make myself the exception from God’s grace. The magnitude of God’s grace helps us to see the fullness of God’s love for sinners. Even for those who ultimately reject the grace he has freely offered to them. God’s grace is better than any person could describe. Better than the wildest imagination could conceive. God’s grace is better than our deepest fears.
So as we celebrate today the magnitude of God’s grace let us look forward with anticipation to Easter morning. That will be another opportunity for us to look back over our lives and see how much more God’s grace has been present than we had perceived in those moments we felt most distant.
Lyrics
Chorus
Praise the King who bore my sin
Took my place when I stood condemned
Oh how good You’ve always been to me
I will sing of Your mercy
I think many times in the church, we spend a lot of time telling people that they need to be saved. But we always frame it in the context of being saved from something.
I think there is something not completely consistent underlying this approach. It tends to be easier to cause people to fear, to get them to behave in ways that we may believe are more consistent with what God desires. However, I think this is wrongheaded, and maybe even upside down.
The reality is that we have been saved for something. We have been saved for relationship with God. We have been saved for relationship with one another. We have been saved so that we might do the good works that God has prepared for us (Eph. 2:10). This is why we have been saved.
We are the beneficiaries of a past reality so that we can enjoy a present comfort, and so that we can look forward to a future hope This is the wonder of living in Christ. That we have been saved, while we are being saved, which we properly call sanctification; until we are saved, which is glorification.
We are on a journey. There is no one on this journey who has arrived at their final destination yet. If they still breathe and walk on this earth we are called to continue in faithfulness. So I want to encourage you in this season of Lent, to remember that what we are moving towards is something that has already happened and that the reality of this final act can give us confidence in our daily lives. For who we are supposed to be in Christ is still being worked out by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s ministry. You have been saved. I have been saved. Let us rejoice in that today!
The Apostle John records Jesus saying these words in John 10:9, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
One of the great promises of the gospel, and one of the great promises of Jesus Himself, is that God genuinely desires for all to be saved. But he places an important condition on this salvation. It is not a condition of works or self-righteousness. It is a condition of surrender. It is a condition that says that if we desire to have the blessings which God promises, we must enter in, by the way he has ordained.
This is not designed to be a rigid situation. Or even an impossible one. It is designed to help us see that in order for us to attain that which our heart and soul long for, we must go to the one who has given us access to the one who can fulfill that longing.
The image of a shepherd is one that is very familiar to us as believers. It is something that calls our attention to King David, the great Shepherd King. But more importantly, it reminds us that we all require leading, as we saw last week, and we’re all in need of surrendering ourselves to the call of God to enter into His pasture.
One of the things that happens in life is that we sometimes forget that in spite of ourselves, we truly need God to lead us. And so God calls us to Jesus and says, “Trust in him, look to him as your final and ultimate hope.” And when we do, we will receive that which he has promised from the beginning, our eternal salvation.
