“Free
Restoration”
February 26,
2023
Dear brothers and sisters, grace and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Amen.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone been
experiencing more car trouble than usual in this winter weather we’ve been
having? I actually have the last few years. A few years ago, I was in between
vehicles: this was actually shortly before I’d gotten my truck, and I had a van
at the time, which I later ended up trading away. One particularly freezing night,
it was so cold, I not only couldn’t get my van started, but I ended up breaking
my starter, so I had to have that be fixed. Fast forward a few years, to last
year about this time of year during our really bad snowstorm, actually. After
that snowstorm, my truck started overheating, and mysteriously leaking coolant.
I took it in, and it turned out there was a small plastic covering underneath
the truck which had cracked, causing the coolant to leak. Turned out to be a
really expensive fix as well. And now, just this last month, I went outside one
morning to start my truck after one of the extreme freezing and snowy days we
had, turned the key, heard some whirring, then a few clicks, then nothing.
Hoping and praying – literally – that it wasn’t my starter or alternator, I
called my insurance company, who sent someone to give me a charge, and get my
started up again. Turns out, and to my relief, all I needed was a new battery –
simple fix, thank God. But living here and experiencing more and more extreme winters
every year has kind of reminded me that, every so often, things break down and
need to be fixed.
A lot of times, that’s what Lent has
turned into: a focus on being broken and needing to be fixed. Traditionally,
Lent has been a time for us to focus on how sinful we are, how much we need a
Savior, and how God sent His Son to be our Savior. And while all that is true, the
problem is that, after a while, if that’s all we focus on, our whole religion
becomes guilt and shame-based. That means our whole relationship with God
becomes based on our “badness,” and we are continually beating ourselves up
over how we can never measure up to God’s standards. In other words, God
becomes someone we have to be afraid of because we have to feel ashamed of who
we are compared to God, and, like Adam and Eve, we are always trying to hide
from Him, and cover up ourselves and whatever we do because we are afraid of
God. But that’s not the kind of relationship God wants us to have with Him.
Instead, the whole reason He sent His Son in the first place, as we hear in
today’s Second Reading from Romans, was to restore us to a close, personal,
comfortable relationship with Him. So instead of thinking we have to punish
ourselves because of what we think we’ve done wrong, we instead can see and
experience God as being our friend, who accepts and loves us just as we are,
and who, through gentle and patient guidance, leads us to live the kind of life
He wants us to live – in peace with ourselves, our neighbors, and the world.
We have to realize, God originally
created the world as a good place. The problem is not that the world itself is
a bad place, because it’s really not. There is actually a lot of good in this
world, if we are willing to look for it and accept it. God has made the world
for us to enjoy, just as He did right at the beginning, and He has given us
life to enjoy. He has especially given us a lot of things in this life to
celebrate, as good gifts to make us happy and show how much He loves us. While
we tend to focus on everything going wrong in our lives and in the world, God
wants something more: to see that He has made this world for us and for our
pleasure. So the world is not a bad and evil place: sin has made it so at
times.
It would be easy for us to try to
identify certain political or social trends or tendencies with “good” or
“evil,” or even “sinful,” but the problem when we do so is that we are imposing
our own views and opinions, without being willing to hear the experience of
those on the side we oppose, and perhaps learn from each other. Furthermore, we
end up vilifying those whom God has given us to be our friends and neighbors,
whom we are to love, accept, and live with. For example, it would be easy for
me to stand up here in the pulpit and try to point fingers at certain people,
or groups of people, and try to place blame for what I think are the ills and
evils in society. It would also be easy to try to guilt trip everyone, and try
to make everyone feel bad because of sin. And, it would be even easier to try
to target people over personal petty arguments or differences, and to confuse
those differences with God’s commands; in other words, it would be easy to
“name and shame.” But the easiest way is not always the best, and that is also
not what the purpose of preaching ought to be. Instead, it is to speak God’s
words of encouragement and hope, especially to us who are struggling to deal
with problems caused by imperfections in the world. The words God wants us to
speak, whether up here in the pulpit, or down in our homes, neighborhoods,
schools, work places, anywhere else we happen to be, ought to be ones which
build up, rather than tear down; help, rather than harm; affirm, rather than
destroy; and encourage, rather than discourage.
What are those words? What we hear in
today’s Second Reading, Romans 5:17: “For if, by the trespass of the one man,
death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s
abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through
the one man, Jesus Christ.” God has given us a lot of grace, and He has given
us a new life and a new way of living in Jesus. Ultimately, the words we are to
speak to others is, God loves you. Even though you may be struggling, you may
be under attack, you may be having to deal with something you’ve done, or
something someone’s done to you, God still loves you, and He is there to give
you victory. Just as He caused victory over sin through His Son Jesus, He will
give you whatever victory you need.
Are there ills and evils in society
going on right now? Absolutely. But what is needed today are not words which try
to lay excess guilt, or shame, but which help soothe the hurts caused by those
ills, and which help to restore what was lost a long time ago, because of Adam
and Eve’s sin. What their sin was was not simply disobeying a command, or even
eating a certain piece of fruit: it was wanting to be like God, and put
themselves in God’s place, trying to live without Him. And that’s what’s
actually responsible for a lot of the world’s ills right now: trying to think
that we know better than God. Wars are caused by leaders and nations trying to
conquer each other; crimes are committed because people think they deserve
something more than another person; murders happen because people think they
have the power of life and death over others. All of these are ways in which people
try to be in the place of God, and damage what God originally had in mind.
There was a lot that was lost in the
Garden of Eden. But we always have to remember that the God of the Old
Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament: one who fixes what was
broken, makes whole what was shattered, and restores what was damaged. The
restoration is already taking place – just as it has ever since the world
began. God is always personally involved at every moment: He did not simply
create the world, and then stand back and watch everything unfold, but He is
actively involved at all times. God doesn’t view the world as being like a
machine, or even a toy: He values us, and is always acting in our best interest.
He is right where there is war, disaster, hurt, or injury, working to restore
things to how they were before, even making things better. Even though things
may not be the same as they were before, and even though some things may not be
able to be restored completely, God will still bring everyone safely through.
And why is this? Because Jesus has
already overcome the power of the devil. He was able to sidestep and outwit the
devil’s temptations in the desert. And, when He died on the cross and rose
again, He defeated the power of Satan once and for all. Even though sin may
rear its head every so often, it ultimately will not win, because Jesus has defeated
it. But we still have to be careful: if we focus on the sin and evil going on,
we will succumb to its influence and think that it will win. But if we focus on
Jesus, and remember that He has won the ultimate victory over sin, evil, and
Satan, then we too can be able to say, “Away from me, Satan!” We have to
remember that Satan is a liar, and that any threats he makes are completely
empty. If anything Satan threatens us with actually happens, it is because
we’ve chosen to believe Him. But if we believe God instead, then we can defeat
Satan.
Today God is giving every one of us
– and you personally – an invitation. That invitation is to come to Him to be
healed and restored. If you have been struggling with something in your life
that has been dragging you down, and keeping you from living a fulfilling life,
then come to God today, turn it over to Him, and receive His peace. If you have
been broken in any way, whether by something you have done, or what has been
done to you, then come to God, and be made whole by Him again. If you have been
under attack, especially from Satan or anyone else, then ask God for help, for
patience, and for victory over your attacks. If you are frustrated by anything
going on in your life right now, and you don’t know whether it’s worth it to
keep on going, then come to God, let Him take control of what’s going on and
causing you to be frustrated, and let Him comfort you by telling you He’s got
everything well in hand. Or, to talk about cars again, just like we have to
bring in our cars for maintenance checks every so often, maybe you just need
some kind of maintenance check, and there is something genuinely broken in your
life that needs to be fixed. Or maybe there’s something you’ve been laying off
to the side that would help your relationship with God, like praying regularly,
reading your Bible, or something else that would help you keep connected with
God on a daily basis. God wants to heal and restore you today – come to Him to
accept what He wants for you.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
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