The Rescue

Part 2 of Last Sundays sermon--again keep in mind this is designed to be spoken more than read.

I broke up the big story into three small stories within the story of God's love. The first was called Epic, this is called Rescue, and the last is called Love Story.

The Rescue

Let�s face it. We have a lot of preconceived notions about �the world� and people in it. I grew up hearing about "the world" as a bad place from people I went to church with. Certainly there is reason for this. We are commanded to keep ourselves unpolluted from the world. We realize that as long as we are in �this world� we will have pain and hardship. We realize that there are times that the world hates us just as it hated Jesus. Nevertheless, we also see that Jesus loves the world in John 3. We see in Matthew 28 that God sends us into ALL the world to tell EVERY creature about him. It is THEN that God�s presence will be among us according to the Great Commission.

Yet, often times in the church our preconceived notions deceive us. As overhead point 1 shows us, we tend to think those of us in the church as better than those outside the church. We become like the Pharisees. We think that our ability to put on a good show for God on Sunday morning endears us to him. We think that the fact that our ethics conform to the standards of our small community and the evangelical Christian subculture makes us better people. Yet, we are a community of people that have been or are being rescued, not a community of people who have it all together. As the old saying goes, we are just spiritual beggars who know where to go to find bread.


Furthermore, we tend to think of the world as a BAD PLACE instead of a place GOD LOVES. Let me repeat overhead point 2. We tend to think of the world as a BAD PLACE instead of a place GOD LOVES. So what do we do? We put a label on those outside of the family of God or less than, and that in turn decreases our sense of urgency to reach out and love others. We look at people having problems and say to ourselves and others they deserve it, forgetting that if we got what we deserve.

Jesus had a different attitude. He was the King of Kings, and he was born out of wedlock to teenage girl in a barn. That took radical love for this earth. He created the whole earth, yet was a refugee in his own country. He did blue collar work at a job that required hard labor, but did not pay much. When, for all eternity past he had all the angels at his service in heaven. That takes love. He so loved the world that he came to live on earth. He lived among us. He went to the seedy clubs on the bad end of town and spent time with whores, drunks, traitors, and terrorists. He lived as a homeless man during his ministry, and depended on handouts from tax-collectors for dinners at times. That took humility.

The church leaders of the time didn�t like all that. So they tried to shame him for violating all the church traditions. When that did not work, they tried to trick him into embarrassing himself. That did not work. So they conspired to kill Jesus. So they arrested him, took him to a cross, and killed him. By doing so they silenced him and thought they had won. But it was not so! They fit right into Jesus� plan. As slide 3 says. Jesus died to save and redeem us. To save and redeem us. And this is what Jesus gets to in John 3. It is clear this is his mission from the beginning. To love to world by dying on a cross so that each person would have an opportunity to spend eternity with Him. In John he says he will be lifted up on a pole.

What does save mean? I think of the Old Westerns where the guy we are all rooting for is about to be executed by hanging. Suddenly at the last moment his friends came riding into town. They cut off the rope, or shoot it off, and he runs, jumps on a horse to get out of town. He has escaped death. He has been saved from his impending doom. He does that for the world.

The word redeem has the connotation of buying a slaves freedom for them. And the whole world without Christ setting us free are slaves to sin. But redeem also refers to land. One way I think about redemption is a golf course I used to play on. At one time in its history the land that the course lays on was a landfill�at least the front 9. It was recreated into a beautiful golf course. Deer and bunny rabbits run across it. It is beautiful. The course goes uphill and slowly across the field of green you see mountains. Somebody redeemed that part of earth from garbage to something valuable and useful, with a hope and a purpose. Jesus wants to do a similar thing. He wants that type of change to happen to the whole world. He calls to movement to make this happen the kingdom of God.

Even as we look to the end of revelation, we see that this world is not abandoned. God miraculously makes a new heaven and a new earth. The kingdom comes on heaven as on earth as the Lord�s Prayer asks of God. All of earth is annexed by heaven and made into God�s territory. Jesus did all that because he loves the world.

John 3 has a hard word for us. It says that some will be condemned. Why? Scripture is clear. They don�t want to be a part of the kingdom of God. They have preferred darkness to light as John says it.

What is our purpose as the church? To love people to the light. God calls us to love the world like he does. To love our communities like he does. To love lost and low individuals like he does.

As a matter of fact, Starting with the Great Commission God tells us to orient our whole church toward loving the world. Our whole church purpose, goals, resources should go toward loving the world outside of our little group that meets here as members. Trying to be a growing healthy church with all your friends and social life centered on the people you meet in religious settings and church activities makes as much sense as trying to find your future spouse at a family reunion. Relationships get confused, and healthy new life is greatly jeopardized.

God tells us to go into the world. Over and over again you see God�s people and the world blessed AS WE GO out into the world. Loving the world. With compassion instead of judgment. With hope instead of fatalistic resignation that things will never change. Why do you think mission trips are so powerful in changing the world? Because we are united with Jesus when we are going into the world, loving the world. Can you imagine what would happen if we started loving the world that we live in every day? Can you imagine what would happen to our churches if we thought of them as mission central to reach out in love to a community that is desperate for a church that both has Biblical convictions and loves people whoever they are without judgment and condescension? We must choose. We can choose to be a social club doing nice things. Or we can be the church.

The church goes out; starting in the world they live in�their community, then the world around them, then to the end of the earth. That is what Acts says. That is what God�s word says. That is the lifeblood and the heartbeat of a healthy church.