“Who” is your
savior? We sometimes throw around that
term very casually in our day. We
attribute the idea of being a savior to things far outside the realm of
spiritual salvation. The mayor of San
Juan for instance could become known as “the savior of Puerto Rico” for her
dogged persistence to bring the plight of our American brothers and sisters on
that island to our attention. She calls
us to remember the destruction that continues to cause so many, so much misery,
and motivates us to want to do something about it. In that sense, perhaps it is fair, to call
her the savior of her people. Her
actions are selfless. And the work she
does will lessen the suffering of many, most of whom she does not know. Far less likely to be known as “the savior of
Puerto Rico” will be our president Donald Trump, no matter what he does, or
says. He is simply not on the ground
there. Nor is he obsessed with the island’s
recovery. He is distracted, and perhaps
his job requires it. But our assessment
of Donald, is not ever to be as favorable as our assessment of Carmen, because
she is there, she is in the midst of it, and she sends us the messages of it
every day, even when the rest of our country might have grown tired of hearing
it.
But when power has been restored, when the water is clean,
when gas is abundant, when medicines and food have been fully restocked … will
the people of Puerto Rico truly be saved?
Or will they have simply returned to the point in which it is possible
to have a lifestyle like the rest of America?
There are many homeless in Florida who do not sleep in comfortable beds,
in air-conditioned rooms, benefiting from regular meals or good health
care. One could argue they could have
all these things if they held down a job.
But lacking skills, and once having lost it all, it is hard to get back
into a system that requires you have all these things first, in order to
maintain them. Are the homeless of
Florida in need of a savior like the mayor of San Juan? And even if she took up their cause, and
restored them all to the lifestyle the rest of us take for granted, will the
formerly homeless be considered saved? I
guess you must ask, saved from what?
Saved from a severe way of life, saved from the physical suffering
natural destructions bring, or bad cyclical patterns that self-destruction
brings. But there is so much more we
need to be saved from.
When we look inside of ourselves, at the elements or
weaknesses of our character that cause us misery, we look for a different kind
of savior. In this sense, love can
provide great motivation. The love of a
spouse, or the supporting love of family, might provide the strong willed of
us, a reason to change a behavior that causes their circle of pain. The alcoholic becomes the recovering
alcoholic. The drug addict becomes the
recovering drug addict. The criminal
becomes the former criminal. Love can
prove to be a powerful means of motivation.
For the strong willed, a solid motivation to change, provides the
catalyst to simply go cold-turkey and change errant behavior. For the weak willed of us, the desire is
there, but the ability is far from available.
In either case, what remains missing, is the change in desire that
spawned and fostered the errant behavior in the first place. Circumstances then only make regression
easier, or harder. But put into a
circumstance where the previous bad behavior is easy to do again, and even the
most ardent recovering criminal, or addict, is likely to fall back into the old
patterns that give them a momentary spike in adrenaline, followed by a lifetime
of regret. In this case, love can
motivate, but it cannot recreate who we are.
We need a bigger savior for that.
Our need demands a God-based salvation. Our deformity of will, and perversion of
thinking, demands a recreation that only our Creator will ever understand. We will not find true salvation looking at
our human counterparts. Nor will we find
it, even in the better angels of our family’s love. Our need requires something greater,
something divine, or regress we will until the core of who we are is cemented
in the failures we are unable to detach from.
To rip the sin from the core of our hearts and minds and hands, we
require the divine recreation that a divine redemptive love has to offer. It is here, where all the false gods are
segregated from the only real One. For
only Jesus offers to redeem us from the state in which we find ourselves. No work on our part. All the work on His part. We do not need to accomplish some set of
tasks first, or ever. Our behavior
changes only after He changes how we think, and how we love. It is then we find the actions of our hands
in harmony with the will of our God. Not
before, and never by our own strength.
Allah, Buddha, Ganesh, Odin, pick any other supposed deity and what you
find are the demands of action first, followed only then by favor selectively
pronounced. With Jesus, favor is offered
how we are, reformation conducted within us by Him from where we are, until
what Jesus envisioned for us, is who we become.
There are no competing offers of this anywhere else, none that would
work anyway, for our need demands true divinity to fix who we are.
The message of the gospel, encompasses this one fact
alone. The message of the gospel, given
in the commission by Jesus to His followers contained only one thing. It is Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus
the Messiah, “who” will be our savior.
None else. Matthew dives back
into this central theme in chapter ten of his gospel picking up again in verse
32 saying … “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I
confess also before my Father which is in heaven. [verse 33] But whosoever
shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in
heaven.” To confess, to submit your own
thinking to Jesus, to submit your own will to His, to understand how little you
do, and how great He does on your behalf.
To understand your place, next to the place of your savior. That is confession of Jesus Christ in the
world in which you live, in any age, across any culture. It is eternally relevant, for it is the
singular way in which your life will ever be any different, or any better, than
it is today. There is no other way. You will do nothing to save you. The mayor of San Juan will do nothing to save
you. The pope will not. Your parents or preacher will not, nor will
your spouse. All of your human community
may work to lift you up. But only Jesus
can truly save you.
And likewise, in physics, there is an equal and opposite
reaction. If you choose to cut yourself
off from the source of your salvation, you will end the possibility of your
salvation. When we exalt self, even
within the Christian religion, by making statements such as we are in
partnership with our God to save us. Or
that we must do some things first. Or
that we must obey in order to be saved. We
deny the power of Jesus Christ to save us.
Instead we exalt the power of self and our own actions to accomplish our
salvation. We choose not to relinquish
control to the Savior, instead holding on to some portion of it ourselves. Our obedience can never truly come, until our
minds are brought into harmony with the will of God. True obedience is not found only in our
hands, it must be found in our hearts, minds, and motives as well. We cannot obey until we love differently than
we do today. Those changes are not
something we can will for ourselves.
They can only be wrought by the hand of our Creator, as we submit
ourselves to Him for re-creation. When
we cut ourselves off from that, we wither in the conditions of sin we have long
embraced.
In principle this should be an easy thing to digest and
do. But it is not. It is at war with our “common sense”. It is at war with our natural instincts. And it is at war with Satan and his entire
philosophy of life which he has drilled into us over a long period of
time. Man does not need a god. But when connected to true salvation, as if
by magic, the fury of your opposition will be revealed. It is the sword that was predicted. Matthew continues in verse 34 saying … “Think
not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a
sword. [verse 35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father,
and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother
in law. [verse 36] And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” The family whose love you may have counted on
all this time, was based on who you used to be, not upon who you are becoming
when connected to Jesus. Your changed
thinking is not what your wife or husband signed up for. Your changed priorities, and desire to sacrifice
what you own for the sake of another, is not what your kids are used to, or
were counting on for their own financial security.
The true changes in you that bring you into harmony with
God, as wrought by the hand of Jesus alone without your interference, make you
a different creation. And not
necessarily one, your family will appreciate.
They actually prefer the old you.
And where there was no strife before, now there may be much of it. Like Adam of old, you are faced with a
dilemma of love and trust. Matthew
continues in verse 37 saying … “He that loveth father or mother more than me is
not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy
of me. [verse 38] And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not
worthy of me. [verse 39] He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that
loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
Much to unpack here. As Adam
faced a choice between his love of Eve, and his trust in God, so you will face
the same dilemma with family members who do not share your love and submission
to Jesus Christ. But do not fall as Adam
fell, not trusting in the power of Jesus to save those who do not yet
believe.
Then there is the notion of taking up your cross. Your beliefs in the salvation Jesus provides
will have real results in who you are.
Results the world around you will not be happy with. It is not just family that may be
unappreciative it may be the world, with the force of the nation’s laws,
attempting to suppress your beliefs, your speech, and your actions. Violating the laws of the nation, in order to
remain in harmony with God becomes taking up your cross. The Roman empire put the cross upon Jesus,
because they falsely believed Him a threat to themselves. The nation in which you live, may have
similar thoughts about you. Jesus did
not resist that cross. Nor should
you. The response is not to be war,
believers on one side and non-believers on the other. The response is to be willingness to bear
that cross, even to the point of death in this world. For certainly death in this world is life in
the next one. All the while that cross
was on Jesus, His only thoughts were of love for those who placed it
there. That is what harmony with God
looks like. That is what true obedience
looks like. A change of heart, and how
we love. This is what submission to the
will of the Father can do within you as well.
Matthew concludes stating this is not all bad news, picking
up in verse 40 … “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me
receiveth him that sent me. [verse 41] He that receiveth a prophet in the name
of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a
righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's
reward. [verse 42] And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little
ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you,
he shall in no wise lose his reward.”
The love of God burns to demonstrate itself to us. The rewards of salvation are not only
self-evident, they are reflected in the lives of those we touch. It is as if His love were a virus that
spreads quickly, does no damage, but lifts all it touches upwards. The savior of Puerto Rico may begin a good
work, but the Savior of mankind takes it to a whole other level. While Carmen tries to turn the
air-conditioning back on, Jesus frees you from who you were while you are still
in the heat, hungry, thirsty, or whatever shape you find yourself in from
mansion to hovel. Jesus is concerned
with insuring your life is one worth living in the here and now. Air-conditioning does not decide this. It may help, but it is nothing next to the
love of Jesus reflected through you.
The rewards granted even to those who do something nice to
one who is connected to Jesus Christ, are a demonstration of the love of
God. Even for one who calls them self
His enemy, love is shown in gratitude for something nice they do for a follower
of His. Imagine a love that deep, that
is demonstrated to self-described enemies, that reaches out to them. That offers itself in gratitude to those who
do not believe, just because they have done something nice for someone who
does. Following this truism, the lives
of Carmen, and of Donald, may experience the gratitude of God just because
something they did helped a follower of Jesus, even if their own belief system
does not include Jesus for themselves.
And based on the wide number of followers they may have helped, I am not
certain if they will be able to withstand the shower of love from God that is
headed their way. For the follower of
Jesus, the ability to help another is its own reward.
And so concluded the first gospel commission, the first
community outreach, and you and I are equally commissioned by this same chapter
in the gospel of Matthew. The singular
doctrine is still relevant, it is still good news, it still works, and it is
completely wrapped up in “who” our Savior truly is, and what He longs to do
within us …
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