From the Pastor |
Here in the Christian church, we spend a lot of time talking about God’s love and grace… of how Christ’s life, death and resurrection has opened the door making new life available to us. God’s love… God’s grace… the new life born of the resurrection… these are tremendous gifts… great blessings that are offered to all people.
This is the message that has been preached for the last 2000 years. God loves all of his creation… even ‘disobedient’ us! God wants to make creation right again… including us! God wants to have a good and right relationship with God’s creation… even with us! And God has worked to accomplish all of that… through Jesus, God has offered love, forgiveness and salvation to ALL of God’s creation… ESPECIALLY to us! While this is good news indeed, these gifts, freely given in grace and mercy, do not work without a response from us. This response is what our readings today are about. On the day of Pentecost, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks to the crowds… offering the first Christian sermon… and when he finishes… the people are moved by his words… they have heard God’s offer of redemption… and they want to know “Brothers, what shall we do?” “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…” [Acts 2: 37b, 38a] The gifts of forgiveness and salvation were offered… but they required a response. Think about that… if someone offers you a gift… whether it is a birthday present or just a random gift… the first thing you have to do is accept it. Peter called for the people to accept this freely offered gift from God. He tells them that through Christ’s death and resurrection, God has offered the people the gift of forgiveness… but it is up to them to accept it. The power of Peter’s message was really seen when thousands of them DID respond… DID accept God’s gift that very day. Later… Peter wrote to his fellow Christians to remind them that when we respond to God’s gifts… simply accepting them is not enough. When you are offered a gift, you have to take that gift… but then you need to open it and use it for that gift to be effective. It does no good to put it in the closet and never take it out again. “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” [1 Peter 1:22-23] Peter says that “Now that you have purified yourselves” through your faith… now that you have accepted the gift of grace and forgiveness… you MUST respond to it… you must love one another deeply… from the heart. This call for a response from us is a powerful and hope-filled part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus, Peter and Paul all stressed this fact again and again. God has freely offered the gift of salvation… and it is through our faith alone that we are saved… but even the acceptance of the gifts… our faith… requires a response from us… it requires that we not only accept God’s love, grace and forgiveness… but we need to use those gifts… to respond in kind. How can we live out this new life if we do not respond to the new reality that we experience because of these wondrous gifts? It is the main point of this whole first chapter of 1 Peter: Peter tells us that we are to “believe in [Jesus Christ] and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy [1:8]… be holy yourselves in all your conduct [1:15]… AND love one another deeply from the heart.” [1:22] For as Peter wrote: “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” Now… having joy… being holy and loving… these we can understand… but living in reverent fear… this is a little harder. I mean… over and over the scriptures tell us NOT to fear… NOT to be afraid… yet we are told many times to fear the Lord… and today Peter calls us to “live in reverent fear!” All these verses about fear are to remind us that there is NOTHING to fear in this world… the only thing we have to fear is God… God is greater than anything this world can throw at us… and it is God who reigns supreme. If we are to fear anything… we need to fear God… to be afraid of the one who is all powerful and in charge of our immortal souls. Scriptures tells us more than once that we ALL will be judged by God for our words and actions… we ALL will stand before the throne of judgement. But living in “Reverent fear” isn’t about living in terror. Peter does not want us cowering in the corner… hiding ourselves away… afraid to do anything because we are afraid of God… we are called to live our lives… to live out our faith in reverent fear… fear combined with reverence, awe and respect… for the power of God. Living out the knowledge that God alone is our salvation. I think that Peter is reminding us NOT to bother calling God “Father” if we are not going to live our lives as though God is our only judge… the only judge who matters. We need to take our faith seriously… take our relationship with God seriously. Our faith needs to be transforming, and encouraging. We need to be aware that our words and actions… our choices… our lives… all have great implications. What we do and say matters a great deal. To be ‘born again’ means you have been…not simply brought back from the dead… but changed… transformed and made new. The very idea that we become participants in the work God has been doing in the world is one of the greatest privileges of our faith. We become partners in the great work that began with Jesus and has continued every day since then through the work of the Holy Spirit… that same Spirit that we receive when we accept God’s gift of redemption. Because when we accept this gift we are called to actively participate with Christ’s ministry to the world. This is how we must respond when we accept the great gifts God has offered to us. Jesus came to reveal to the world the truth, love and grace of God. We love because God first loved us. And because of Jesus, God has freely offered that love to us. Through our faith we have purified by the “precious blood of Christ.” We are made new in the Resurrection and by accepting this gift of love from God, we are now able to love more fully than ever before… to “love one another deeply, from the heart”… for we “have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” The question we need to ask ourselves today is: what will our response be? Will we accept God’s freely offered gifts? And once we accept them… what will we do with them? Will our words and actions every day conform to the call to live lives of holiness and love? Will we allow ourselves to be changed… transformed into a new creation? One that discovers how it is that God wants us to communicate and spread the good news and great love of God to all people? Our job as followers of Christ is to respond to the wondrous gifts of love, grace, forgiveness and salvation that God has given to us… to actively join in the work that God is already doing in this world. The choice is ours. We can choose to reject God’s gifts or accept them… thereby “[Saving ourselves] from this corrupt generation.” We can choose utilize those gifts… loving God, and our neighbors… loving one another deeply… from the heart… and working with the Holy Spirit to bring transformation to the world around us… OR we can place God’s awesome gifts on a shelf and ignore them… choosing instead to do our own thing, or nothing at all. The choice is our own… but if we truly have faith… if we have truly accepted the gift of salvation, purchased with the precious blood of Christ Jesus… If we have truly been born anew, born into a living hope… if we truly are living lives in reverent fear of God… the choice is pretty clear. Amen.
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Yeon Shin
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