“Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling,
calling
for you and for me.
See on the portals he’s waiting and
watching,
watching
for you and for me.
Come home, come home!
You who are weary, come home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling O sinner, come home.”
There is a reason
you are here.
There is a reason
I am here.
It is because,
deep within us, whether we know it or not, we have heard the Lord call our name.
He calls to us,
each individually, by name, and begs us, as sinners, to come home.
If you want to
understand the Church,
Understand, just that.
“Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling O sinner, come home.”
What do you think
of when you hear the phrase “Children of God?”
Perhaps you think
of the basic goodness with which God created each of us. There is a blessed innocence about a
child.
Pure.
Undefiled.
Or perhaps when
you hear the phrase “Children of God” you hear it as a contrast.
Paul writes in
Romans, the 8th chapter:
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God
are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to
fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry,
"Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit
that we are children of God.”
In this way, we
understand ‘children of God’ as a status granted to us by virtue of our baptism
into Christ Jesus.
And so it is a
contrast, children of God, the redeemed, versus the rest who are not.
The
Righteous.
And the
Unrighteous.
The problem with
this understanding of “Children of God” is that we often equate our being a
child of God with something we have done, and thereby, we deserve that status
on our own merits.
There is another
understanding of ‘children of God’, and that is that we are all dependent on
the grace of God.
Paul writes in
Romans, the 3rd chapter:
“For there is no distinction, since all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace
as a gift.”
If the first
understanding of ‘Children of God’ is that we are all created good;
And the second
understanding of ‘Children of God’ is that some are good, and some are bad;
This third
understanding is that we are all sinful, but forgiven, by the grace of God, as
a gift.
Of these three,
the one that is not Biblical is the second one.
Specifically, none of us are righteous on our own account. If we are righteous, it is purely by the
grace of God.
“Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling,
calling
for you and for me.
See on the portals he’s waiting and
watching,
watching
for you and for me.
Come home, come home!
You who are weary, come home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling O sinner, come home.”
Why are you here?
Consider this as
a possibility.
You are here,
because God recognized in you a sinfulness that begged for forgiveness, and a
brokenness that only grace could heal.
Maybe you are
aware of what that might be.
Sometimes we are.
Sometimes we
truly sing that song,
Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see.
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see.
At other times we
simply do not see, and do not understand, the nature of our sin.
But God does, and
God calls us.
Have you ever
experienced an illness, or condition, that you weren’t fully aware of until you
experienced healing???
I think of
numerous examples in my own life.
My eyesight.
It’s often not
until I get a new prescription that I realize how blurred my vision had become.
Or my hearing.
It wasn’t until I
received my hearing aids that I realized how much I was not hearing before.
Or my alcoholism.
It wasn’t until I
stopped drinking that I realized how addicted I was to alcohol.
The list could go
on and on.
Sin creeps up on
us, and gradually takes control of our lives, and we often do not realize it or
the extent of it, until after we have been set free.
“I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see.”
T'was blind but now I see.”
Martin Luther
teaches us that we are, at one and the same time, saints and sinner. The Latin phrase is simul justus et
peccator.
What that means
is that we come here as ‘children of God’, each of us created in God’s image,
and each of us, good.
It also means
that each of us comes here as a sinner, needing God’s forgiveness, and entirely
dependent on God’s grace.
And finally, it
means that by God’s grace, we have been redeemed, and are now that child of God
once again, that is precious and good in the sight of God.
All of this is
God’s gift.
But do we believe
it???
And do we live
it???
The answer to
that lies in how we treat others, especially the newcomer that comes to our
door.
When someone new
comes do we see in them, a precious child of God, who has come here, because in
some way, somehow, God has brought them here for healing and hope.
We should imagine
ourselves as being like an emergency room in the hospital.
People do not
come here because they are well.
They come here
seeking hope and healing, and the forgiveness of their sins.
And we are to
receive them, as fellow members of the body of Christ.
·
People in need of forgiveness as we are.
·
People longing for healing as we do.
·
And people whom God loves, just as he loves us.
Nowhere in there
is there room for us to judge, other than this: we judge them to be equally
under the grace of God as we ourselves are.
This is a sacred
trust that God has bestowed on the Church.
A sacred trust.
To receive those
God has called to us, and to be agents of healing, forgiveness, and hope.
One of the most
powerful images of the Church for me comes from my experience of being in inpatient
treatment for chemical dependency.
All of us were
there because we were chemically dependent and sought healing.
But all of us
there were also helping to heal each other.
Even the
counselors were recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.
When someone
walked in, we’d all know that they had the same problem we had. We knew this.
But sometimes the newcomer didn’t recognize it yet. But they quickly understood.
And, also, we all
recognized that we needed each other to help and encourage the healing that
would be a key to our very lives.
This continued
into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
A bunch of broken people helping each other find wholeness.
That’s what the
Church is:
A bunch of
sinners helping each other experience God’s forgiveness.
And every time, even
one sinner comes home, heaven rejoices.
Amen
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