March 22, 2009 Message

John 3:14-21; Ephesians 2:1-10
Saved For What?

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” –John 3:14-15

Jesus makes reference to a story found in Numbers 21:4-9 that Nicodemus would have known - the story of the Israelites… whom God had already saved and delivered out of the land of Egypt… being impatient with both Moses and God. They complained, “We should have gotten to the Promised Land by now. We’re tired of eating and drinking God’s manna and miraculous water. It’s boring. We want something else.” They whined to Moses, “This is what we have been saved for - to die out here in the wilderness? Ask God, do something!” So God gave them snakes… lots of snakes. That must have been a shock!

When asking, “Saved for what?” snakes weren’t even a possibility. Now the Israelites, terrified they were all going to die from snake bites, went to Moses and said, “Ah, um… we’re sorry about what we said. Ask God to get rid of the snakes, please!” Well, God didn’t get rid of the snakes, but he did have Moses make a bronze “snake on a stick” so that those bitten could look up to it and live.

There are two ways poisonous snake bites might kill a person… they stop your heart from beating or they stop your respiratory system from breathing. The heart dies when it stops beating and life ends. Likewise, in sin, we no longer have a heart of God - compassion for others – and we are dead. Or we stop breathing and the breath of God – the Holy Spirit – is no longer there… and we die. That’s what happened to the Israelites in the wilderness, who forgot they were a covenant people; it happened to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, who became preoccupied with the law and forgot what it meant to be God’s people; and it can happen to us as well, when our God is too small. Today’s gospel lesson helps to expand our understanding of God.

Here Jesus tells Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, God is a god of grace – of second chances and new life. Who lifts up a “snake on a stick” and “the Son of Man” on a cross to save God’s people? God does this Jesus says, “so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” We look to Jesus and we live, we don’t and we die. This is God’s great gift to God’s people - a new heart and new breath– if only we look up to Jesus, the Son of Man (the Christ), raised up on a cross to take away our sin. Jesus saved us from the death of sin - from the darkness that overwhelms us. But, saved for what?

Hear how John Maynard, Minister of the Uniting Church in Bunyip, Australia has paraphrased John 3:16:
"God loved His world so much that He sent His beloved to be with us.
This He did so that all could entrust their very lives, souls and bodies to Him
- not for death, but for life!
For God did not send Him to us to consign us to eternal damnation,
but so that through Him
God's world (and we)
may be restored to health and wholeness for all eternity."

We are saved for life. We are saved for living the life we were created to live – totally and completely in relationship with God. God doesn’t want us to perish. God doesn’t want us to die. God wants our heartbeat and breath to be compassionate and Spirit filled. God wants for us the life that was always intended. Lent is a time for God’s people to look up, to turn back to God, to repent, and to begin living. So asking

The apostle Paul adds more to our understanding of ourselves and God when he writes in the second chapter of Ephesians, “You were dead through the trespasses and sins… we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.” In other words, we are all sinners. Then he writes, “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” God is merciful, abundantly so. God loves us, a great deal Paul says. And all of this even though, when it comes to sin, we are in way over our heads. He says God’s loving grace is found in the Spirit, even now at work in the wayward and the lost (something John Wesley called prevenient grace) – inching them ever closer to God.

This is what saves us – or gives us life - Paul says, “when we are dead.” This is what lifts us up from the pit. God’s grace in Jesus Christ saves us – and God’s grace, working in us through the Holy Spirit, makes us holy. Paul is clear it is God’s doing, writing:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

It IS God’s grace that saves us, that’s true, but saved for what? To go to heaven when we die? To be with God forever when this life is over? But there is more to it than that! Jesus himself said by God’s loving grace we are given eternal life – a life complete, restored to wholeness. Life as God intended for us is now possible. This is what we are saved for – for life as God intended. And what is the life we are saved for?

Paul writes, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” It is a way of life that includes good works. We are saved by faith for good works. Not only does God want us to have faith, but God intends for us to do good works as well. And it’s a gift - all of it! That’s the best part.

And the really neat part about this life we have all been saved for is that these good works come about through us, not from us. God has already planned them – they’re just waiting to be done through you. God wants to do good works through us all. That’s what we are saved for. When we allow that to happen (this good works stuff), life becomes more complete or eternal; and we find we don’t have to wait to enter the kingdom and be in God. This is what God has intended all along and what we are saved for – to live in God and in the light.

Is it possible for us to have good works and not faith? Yes. Is it possible for us to have faith and not good works? No. So, can there ever be faith without works? Our God loves us very much and has planned both for us. How can we receive one and not the other?

John 3:21 says, “those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” Let us pray…