Series: The Hope of the Season: “Are You Saved Or Are You Being Saved?”

I Timothy 1:15

1. Robert Webber, one of the evangelical churches best thinkers & theologians over the past 30 years, recently had dinner with 2 young couples. They asked him if he was working on a book & he replied that he was writing on spirituality.

Isabel responded, there has to be something more than the material world. I don’t know what it is – a power, an energy, a mystery. There is something there, something more than meets the eye.

John, I just don’t think you can know (if there is something more than the material world).

Alexandra, I remember when I was a little girl, I saw a sign on a building that said, ‘all paths lead to God.’ I thought to myself, ‘that makes a lot of sense.’ There are many religions & everyone has their own path to God, and that’s okay.

Jack, what I can’t stand is someone who thinks they have truth, that their view is the right one & everyone else is wrong.

This exchange was followed by an extended discussion about the validity of all spiritualities.

Robert Webber, I asked a few questions, but mainly I just listened. Jack finally asked Webber what he believed.

Robert Webber, I’m a committed Christian. As a matter of fact, I’m one of those Christians who believes Jesus is ‘the way, the truth, and the life.’ Jesus declared himself to be the way to God, so I affirm that spirituality is uniquely connected to Jesus.

Jack (agnostic), explain yourself, I’m willing to hear you out.

Robert Webber took most of the next hour to sketch out God’s story. There were lots of laughter, interaction & interfacing. I did not try to prove the faith with historical facts or scientific data or build a presuppositional case. Instead I simply told the story of God: how God created us to be in union with himself, how this unity was broken (through Adam & Eve’s disobedience), and how Jesus, by God’s Spirit, brought us back into union with God by becoming one of us, by living to show us what true humanity looks like, by dying to destroy all that is death in the world & by rising to lift us up into a new life in God.

Webber, consider that Jesus really is the way to God, that he really does disclose the truth about life, and that through Jesus the vision for humanity & all of history is revealed.

The 1st question after Webber finished God’s story, what God did in Jesus, did God do that for everybody? Webber, yes he did.
For Buddhists? Yes
For Hindus? Yes
For Muslims? Yes
For all people? No exceptions. Everybody.

Jack, I got it! I’ve never heard spirituality expressed that way before. That’s incredible.

Isabel with a look of astonishment on her face, that is a good story! What are we to do?

2. during this season of Advent I’m asking the question, why Christmas? Why the birth of Christ? Why God becoming a human? Why all this beautiful music? Why?

3. Robert Webber just told us & his 4 dinner guests.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). So said an angel to Joseph after he found out that his fiancé Mary was pregnant.

Here is a trustworthy statement that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. (I Timothy 1:15). So wrote Paul to Timothy, his young protége.

…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Philippians 2:12-13). So wrote Paul to the church at Philippi.

4. the “why” of Christmas takes us into a large & spacious theological land. And brings us face-to-face with both bad news & good news. The bad news – there is nothing we can do to restore our union with God. The good news – God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

5. question: how does God do for us what we cannot do for ourselves? Answer: In & through his Son Jesus.

When I go to the Canby pool to swim over the noon hour there is often a car parked out front. This car has a huge sign in its rear window. It reads Jesus saves.

This is an in-your-face sign. You can’t miss it. And as much as I think that in today’s culture signs like this hurt the cause more than help it, I have to agree with it. If I believe anything I believe that Jesus saves.

6. this is illustrated for us by Paul himself in an autobiographical reflection in I Timothy 1:12-17.

I Timothy 1:12-17
1. early on in the 1st chapter, nestled between his comments on false teachers & his instructions on worship, Paul thinks back to the Jesus saves story of his own life. He writes something that totally transcends his personal story.

2. I want you to get inside of it – so that- it can get inside of you.

thanksgiving & praise – 1:12,17
1. this parenthetical statement begins with thanksgiving (12) & ends with praise (17). Paul is a person of God-centered gratitude. Christ has given Paul strength, which has made him faithful, which is followed by Christ calling Paul to be an apostle. And he is quick to praise God.

2. since following Christ Paul has experienced a bunch of “ups” – people saved, churches planted, kingdom advancing, influence expanding. And a long list of ‘downs” – conflict, persecution, character assassination & hard work.

3. but what comes 1st to Paul’s mind? Gratitude & worship. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord & now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. Gratitude & worship.

4. are you living by gratitude? Are you living by praise?

mercy, grace, faith, love
1. before coming to Christ, Paul was a “mean dude” as some would say today. A blasphemer – he slandered God. A persecutor – he led the charge to persecute Christ-followers in the early church, kill them, send them to prison. A violent man – he deliberately mistreated, wronged & hurt innocent followers of Christ. He insulted & humiliated them.

2. he admits he did all this out of ignorance & unbelief. He was acting with wrong information.

3. how did God respond to him? I was shown mercy. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith & love that are in Christ Jesus. Paul was not given what he deserved. Blasphemy, persecution & violence were matched with mercy, grace, faith & love.
(from Christianity Today magazine) The writer Anne Lamott has a Jesus saves story. She came to Jesus just as she was—a foul-mouthed, bulimic, alcoholic drug addict. One week after having an abortion, she surrendered to him in her very own version of the sinner's prayer. You can read her story in her book Traveling Mercies.

Lamott is an out-spoken liberal but has won her many evangelical readers through her fascination with all things Jesusy. She looks up daily Scripture passages in Zondervan's Women of Faith Study Bible. Zondervan puts out "hundreds of books that I love," she says, including If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg.

A commentator for NPR and a columnist at the freethinking Salon.com, Lamott shops "all the time" at Christian bookstores. She calls herself a "bumper-sticker Christian." One bumper-sticker saying she lives by is: "God loves you just the way you are but he loves you too much to let you stay that way.”


Jesus saves
1. Paul now writes something that is as succinct & accurate a summary of the mission of Christ that I know of.

2. here is a trustworthy saying – this is reliable, you can depend on it, count on it, build you life on it.

3. that deserves full acceptance – this has universal application & meaning. This is for everyone!

4. Christ Jesus came into the world – Jesus was a real person. He lived in our space & time. He walked in history. He had skin, hair, blood. He talked, ate, slept. He needed a bath & had to relieve himself.

5. to save sinners – Jesus is a redeemer, he liberates sinners from their sin. He makes a liberating difference in our lives.

6. of whom I am the worst – Paul personalizes the universal mission of Jesus. I was a “mean dude.” I was headed in the wrong direction. I had it all wrong. Paul had come to grips with his sin. And we must as well.

example
1. now Paul throws out his life as hope & encouragement for us all. If this blasphemer, persecutor, violent, ignorant, “mean dude” sinner was transformed by God’s mercy & grace, then there’s hope for all of us.

2. God in his unlimited patience will wait for his mercy, grace & love to do its work.

praise
1. I’m struck by Paul’s expansive understanding of the God who saved him from his sins in Jesus:
§ King – sovereign over all
§ eternal – beyond time
§ immortal – beyond decay & corruption
§ invisible – beyond the limits of every horizon
§ only God – beyond all rivals
§ honor & glory forever – what God is due by nature of who he is

2. Paul’s worship is God-centered. Paul’s worship is focused on God’s attributes. Paul’s worship is all about God. Does this characterize our worship?

Jesus saves
1. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I want to unpack this according to the time dimension of save. How is salvation related to time?

2. save can mean the beginning point of our Christian life – I have been saved = past. Often this is called justification. We are declared righteous before God based upon Christ’s finished work on the cross on our behalf. Christ “for” us. Justification is immediate & complete at the moment of faith. A finished product.

3. but save can also mean a process occurring throughout our life – I am being saved = present. Often this is called sanctification. We are being made righteous by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Christ “in” us. Sanctification is progressive & incomplete. A process.

4. both are true & biblical. It’s the present dimension I want to close with this morning

I am being saved
1. our “being saved” is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. This is a never-ending process for as long as we are alive. The goal – to be conformed to the likeness of his Son (Romans 8:29). Our part is to participate with the Holy Spirit in making us to be more like Christ.

2. during this Advent-Christmas season, how are you being saved? How is the Holy Spirit changing you, teaching you? Where are you growing? Dying? Being transformed?

3. how am I being saved?

Since coming back from Guinea & Sierra Leone I feel like I am being saved. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a trip that has turned my inside world so upside down as much as this trip.

Harry & I met people in Guinea & Sierra Leone whose faith in God is as pure & muscular as I’ve ever experienced. People with spines of spiritual steel, spines tempered & refined by the fires of persecution, poverty & hardship.

We met African brothers & sisters whose very lives are a prayer. They live by prayer. They pray to live. They depend upon God in prayer for things that we buy at Costco, or receive through medical care, or enjoy without thinking by virtue of living in a country that is free of civil disturbance.

I feel like I came back with my spiritual insides shredded. I feel undone. In comparison my faith seems so shallow, so temperamental. I have to work to stay interested in God. their lives seem to be enveloped by God.

Harry & I sat with Sam Sesay in his house & listened while he described for us what it was like to live through the civil war that nearly destroyed Sierra Leone in the late 90s (Blood Diamond movie currently playing). He barely escaped with his life. His brother was murdered by the rebels. He knows what it’s like to dodge gunfire & walk by dead, rotting bodies on the streets of Freetown.
To all of this Sam would say, “Our God is a good God” and break into a smile. When I grow up I want to have the faith of Sam Sesay. I want Jesus to be in the process of saving me in the here & now like I see him in the process of saving Sam.

4. Jesus saves. This week, get together with a friend, share how Jesus is saving you.