Made Right

Friday, March 3, 2023

We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.  And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.  For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.  He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.  People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.  Romans 3:22-26

In many dramas you will hear a character resolutely say:  I’m going to make things right.  He or she lied, or stole something, or in some way offended another person.  The statement is the desire to undo the wrong…to make it right again!  This is the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the making right of all the wrong that’s ever been done, via the cross. 

I am aware that there are still five weeks left until Good Friday, but that is part of Lent…looking ahead to the Good News of forgiveness, being made right with God.  And making things right begins and ends with God’s love.  Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome puts a bow on this concept.  He explains the cross and God’s heart in nine sentences, 158 words…modern preachers could learn that lesson.  Ouch!

It's amazing to entertain that God’s longsuffering put-up with sins in ancient times, looking forward to the forgiveness He would make possible on the cross.  That should alert us to how gracious God is, because that means he was also looking forward to our days in the 21^st century.   He knew we would need forgiveness to be made right with Him.  In fact, you were on God’s mind before Day #1 of creation.

Some years the anticipation of Lent just about overwhelms me.  I want to rush to Good Friday, get the suffering, pain, and blood in the past, and sit, vigil-like by the empty tomb until the Easter dawn, so I can shout with the angels.  But with these thoughts of God’s forgiveness worked-out for time past, present, and future, there is a calmness to my joy, knowing that I have been made right with He who knows me best, and loves me most.

For You Today 

There is, and has been, only one caveat to being made right with God, and that is the leap of faith to believe Jesus died so you could be forgiven; he took the punishment for your sins.  Paul said it clearly in his letter to the Roman believers:

God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.   Romans 3:26

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

            Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Blush  and  Lenten Walk - Part 6      

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Galatians 3:27-29 Joint Heirs with Christ

 

Title and other images:  Wikimedia Commons

And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.  There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.  For you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.  Galatians 3:27-29

The day I got my driver's license (in 1963) I proudly drove my Father's '52 Chevy "Yellow Bomber."   It was a good car, but it belonged to Dad.  So did the '56 Taunus (a Ford made in Germany).  Now THAT car was a challenge!  It had an electric clutch that whined like a sick cow, and the gearshift lever on the steering column never engaged unless you wound it in kind of a loop when you shifted from second to third!  After driving other people's cars for two years I finally got my own - a 1954 Olds, big as a house, with "fluid-drive" (whatever that was).  It was mine, all mine.  But, still, it was Dad who had paid for it.  The first car I ever owned that I'd actually paid for was a '60 VW Bug.  By then it was 1968, and who really knows how many times that odometer had turned over.  You know the smell, grease, musty fabric, dents, and rust...but it's YOURS!

Fast-forward to 1993.  My father-in-law was very ill and was going to come to live with us.  He was too sick to drive his Buick Park Avenue from Las Vegas to Florida.  I took a plane to his home and drove the car back.  He was to follow, but on the night before his scheduled flight to Jacksonville, his heart stopped, and he took a different flight to be with Jesus. 

Suddenly my automobile world got turned upside down.  I'd worked my way up from a VW Bug all the way to a Ford Escort.  Now we had a luxury car.  Elizabeth was going to drive it, but Russell wound-up behind the wheel instead. 

Pity poor old Russell, driving a nearly new Buick Park Avenue around.  Well, my Father-in-law's Buick has become a model of my salvation in FIVE ways:

1.  It was FREE

Once again I was driving something paid-for by another.  Tony worked hard, while Sofie saved.  The fruit of a lifetime meant being able to afford a fine car.  Every time I sat in the driver’s seat I was reminded of how my first house cost less than this car!

My salvation cost me nothing.  It was free to me.  Not only was there no purchase necessary, there was NO PURCHASE POSSIBLE!  Jesus died and rose again as a perfect sacrifice, and the hardest thing for any of us to understand is that it is offered without price.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the GIFT of God.  Ephesians 2:8

Salvation is not only free it is.....

2.  It is BETTER

It is unnecessary to go through the list of cars I've purchased to do a spreadsheet analysis on which one is best.  Just like my motorcar fiascoes, all my plans for my life are like buying Edsels for investment, when compared to the salvation Christ offers. 

The Bible declares:

no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."  1 Corinthians 2:9

Beloved, God has something better in mind for you than your own plans.  His salvation is like Tony's Buick compared to the VW's of my own plans. 

Free, better, and....

3.  It is the FATHER'S UTMOST

You would have had to know Tony to really appreciate how much this means.  My father-in-law was a mechanic.  Not just any mechanic...he was a master.  On the job, in the neighborhood, everybody came to Tony for their sick cars.  He could fix a diesel, gas, or anything with gears.  Cars were Tony's pride and joy.  He took care of them inside and out. 

When we first had children, Tony had a new Mercury.  It had cloth upholstery; we had formula in bottles.  The two met, and formed a wonderful little round stain.  Tony never could get that stain out, so he gave us the car and bought a new one! 

The one that Elizabeth inherited, the Buick Park Avenue, was the finest car Tony ever had.  He polished it and talked to it like a baby.  It was his utmost, and he gave it to us.

The Father's utmost was more than a Buick.  It was His Son, Jesus.  Salvation through Christ is more than we can understand or appreciate.  It is like giving a diamond tiara worth $100,000 to a child.  Yet, Jesus died for us.  His salvation is free, better, the Father's utmost, and....

4.  DEATH made the TRANSACTION

When I drove that car home from Las Vegas, I was simply doing a favor.  The car was arriving, then Tony.  It was his car.  (NO MISTAKING THAT!)  Then came the awful message at the other end of the phone; Tony wouldn't be coming. 

Some weeks later we received an envelope in the mail, copies of the death certificate.  With those in hand, the transfer was made.  Where the ownership papers on that Buick had once said, Tony Inghilleri, now it was Elizabeth.

How much like God's plan.  In the ancient language of the Bible the Greek word tetelestai is what Jesus cried out as the last word from the cross, It is finished!

This is the same  word that would be written across a debt document once it was paid off.  That is what Jesus did; with his death the price was fully paid for our salvation.  This is why we sing,

Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe,

Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

Only death could make this transfer.  You can sell a car, or give it away.  But inheritance only comes with a death.

...and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [of sin].  Hebrews 9:22

God's salvation, free, better, the Father's utmost, transferred by death, and....

5.  It is a FAMILY MATTER

There's a fraternity among first-generation Italian-Americans that can never be entered-into by outsiders.  I may have married Sofie and Tony's only child, but I wasn't Italian.  Sofie was always worried – about everything!  She constantly reminded us (me particularly) about every danger that the world held.  This outsider needed to be instructed in the care and protection of their child. 

Sofie was constantly warning me to keep more than a half-tank of gasoline; well, you never know.  This was in the middle of the 70's oil crisis.  During one of those long lines at the gas station, my car (the beat-up VW) ran out of gas.  The next time I saw Sofie she didn't SAY a word.  But the LOOK she gave me shouted everything I never wanted to hear:  Hmmpf, told you so!

The Buick, free, better than anything I'd ever hoped to own, the utmost of Tony's best, transferred by death, was a family thing.  It was Elizabeth's.  She was the heir.  So how did Russell wind up with it?  I am a good friend of the heir.

Hear again that verse about being a good friend of the heir:

And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.  Galatians 3:29

For those of you are baptized into Christ…that is who you are, joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and good friends with the Father.

Jesus Christ is the heir, the Son of the living God.  His free, wonderful, utmost, death-bought salvation is yours if you will be a friend of the heir.  There is a Civil War story that tells of a soldier who needed a favor only Abraham Lincoln could grant.  But the soldier couldn't get an audience with Abe.  Dejected, he was standing on a street corner when a small boy went by.  Noticing the sadness of the soldier the boy asked if he could help.  One thing led to another, and the boy, whose name was also Lincoln, took that soldier by the hand, and led him to the Oval Office, where his father Abraham sat.  The favor was granted.

Do you want to be a friend of the heir?  Accept His free, better, utmost, death-purchased gift and go to the Father.  He'll not turn you away!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen!  

This sermon preached on March 27, 2022, at Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church, worshipping at Seagrove, North Carolina.  The occasion included the joy of receiving Bud into the family of membership upon reaffirming his baptismal vows, and baptizing Selena, Dylan, Noah, Jozlyn, and Serenity. 

 

In This Time of Our Deep Need

 

Friday, December 11, 2020

I have heard all about you, Lord.  I am filled with awe by your amazing works.  In this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by.  And in your anger, remember your mercy.  I see God moving across the deserts from Edom, the Holy One coming from Mount Paran.  His brilliant splendor fills the heavens, and the earth is filled with his praise.  His coming is as brilliant as the sunrise.  Rays of light flash from his hands, where his awesome power is hidden.  Pestilence marches before him; plague follows close behind.  When he stops, the earth shakes.  When he looks, the nations tremble.  He shatters the everlasting mountains and levels the eternal hills.  He is the Eternal One!  Habakkuk 3:2-6

A friend came to me years ago to ask for help.  I responded immediately, because the need was there, and this was my friend.  Simple as that; end of story.  Reflecting on the prophet’s words, I thought of my friend and what my response might have been if he weren’t in the friend category; what if he were my enemy…what would I have done?

Prayer is a little more complicated, but like that.  We are now in as deep a need for the hand of God as can be.  But the question is still the same, for God’s consideration, as mine about my friend…what if we’re not the friends of God?  Will it do any good, not being His friend, to ask for relief from the many dangers that encircle the camp? 

Habakkuk’s words are like any of the other prophets.  He speaks of the majesty of the Eternal One, His splendor displayed in creation, along with judgment measured by pestilence and plagues.  When God arrives, the earth rocks and nations tremble.  Just a word and a mountain crumbles; this is the God of judgment and grace.  The question becomes, for those who are accustomed to turning to God for help in times of distress, which God are we asking to show up?  Is it the one who holds forgiving grace and mercy, or the one whose fingers flash in destruction and judgment?

The answer to that question is dependent on who’s asking.  When a friend asks, he is evoking the meaning of friendship as a fulfillment of friendship vows.  When an enemy asks, he is implicitly throwing himself at the feet of the judge, asking for mercy.  Friends have a right to ask; enemies can expect nothing.

So the question begs another:  are we, in American culture (or any other nation on earth) friends or foe to the Eternal One?  And this is not a question about what we say – that would be cheap grace.  How have we acted?  What is the measure of our reasons for asking for our “friend’s” help in this time of our deep need?  Or should we be recognizing the enemy status we’ve courted, and just throw ourselves down in front of the bench for the mercy of the judge?

Well, as if a lover picking the petals off a daisy chants, let me count the ways…

·       War after war

·       Empty church after empty church

·       Homeless and starving amid a “Christian nation”

·       Aborted lives in favor of choice

·       Anger and politics the answer to just about everything

As a nation the popular vote seems to be to count on God’s friendship like the Emperor loved his new suit of invisible clothes; we’re rather naked in the end.

For You Today

Please know there are tears ready to flow from my eyes in the next sentence. 

If you’re prone to pray for your nation this day (or any other) pray for God to have mercy on us; we’re hardly in the friend category.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title image, Pixabay.com and    W   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Prayer see:  Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers? and Bi-Polar Prayers  

 

God, Who is Fair and Just

Friday, March 6, 2020

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.                         Romans 3:22-26

In something of an attempt to present a different kind of sermon I once asked a church member to present a paper she’d written which holds the opposite view that Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans, namely that God is unfair and a liar.  The sermon’s main intent was to teach people who were going through very difficult times, and were experiencing a shaking of their faith, how to begin to trust God again.  Two things about this paper, it was my bride, Elizabeth, who wrote the paper in 1988, and it was a college assignment, not a reflection of her relationship with God.  It was simply entitled An Unfair and Lying God.

The paper was a really good argument for the unbelief you see today in people who are whistling in the dark, trying to get past the possibility that there really is a God and they might be in trouble.  The sermon became one of my all-time favorites, because during that Sunday morning worship I saw lights come on in the faces of people I knew and loved.  The place was alive with recognition of that awe of God’s holiness and righteousness; He is a just and fair God!

The Apostle Paul did not think that at one point in his life when he was still going by the name Saul.  In fact, to think God could forgive people that were departing from his orthodox Judaism to worship a sinner who’d been put on a cross, well that was just too much!  So, Paul went on a rampage, dragging those sinful believers in Jesus into the courts for judgment and death.  And then, at the height of that rampage, Paul met Jesus on the Road to Damascus, and everything changed; Saul had a heart change, because the light stopped him dead in his tracks.  He had an eternity change, because the Christ of that light forgave Saul, who would later call himself the chief of all sinners:

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.  1 Timothy 1:15

And Saul had a name change; God changed his name and destination to Paul, Apostles to the Gentiles, church planter, writer of a third of the New Testament, and martyr for the very Kingdom of God he’d once persecuted.

For You Today

There’s nothing truthful or fair in the heavenlies about the way sin treats you.  But God, in His infinite goodness and grace always tells the truth and is ever exceedingly fair and just!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For more posts on Romans 3 and the whole idea of the fairness of God’s judgment and grace see these older posts The Face of Rebellion and A Light Shines in My Heart

He Was Crushed...for us - Part 2

[i][ii]

Friday, April 12, 2019

Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood.  For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.  Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.  We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham.  Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God.  Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.  Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.  Hebrews 2:14-18

In yesterday’s devotion I asked the question how it could be God’s good plan for His Son, Jesus to be “crushed”.  In this morning’s reading the answer is rolled-out so very plainly it shouts here I am; here’s the answer.  So, let’s dig in with the writer of Hebrews this morning and rest in Lent’s unchanging Good News for all humanity, that we’ve sinned, but there is a Savior!

Let’s explore three important facts about being crushed for us as a good plan:

1.   God is Eternal; He never dies

This is the most easily-accepted of the three; God’s eternality makes sense if you hold Scripture as true at all.  The creator of everything must have been there before everything else existed.  We see this naturally; God having placed it in our DNA that He is before all.  Even as children we understand this; we expect our parents will never die.  As God always existed, so he always exists!

2.   Humans, slaves to Sin can’t live

Again, faith in Scripture’s authenticity (and accuracy) opens this fact to us.  In the opening chapters of Genesis, as soon as humans are created they rebel.  Humans, therefore, introduce death to an otherwise perfect environment.  And, as we pass-along in our DNA characteristics of body, defects, hair and eye color, we also pass along Adam’s sin nature; we pass along the ungodlike ability to fear and die.

3.   God came to exchange our Death for His LIFE

As God in Heaven cannot die, the good plan of God to redeem his fallen, but beloved creation (us), is for God to enter humanity, to accept the ability to die.  In short, in the manger and the 33 years that followed, God incarnate took on, in every way possible, our death:

 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.  Hebrews 4:15

But Jesus didn’t just passively take-on, or accept death, He defeated, and will ultimately destroy death.  Hear those familiar words you’ve heard at funerals so often…but hear them now as what began as a newborn in a borrowed birthing-suite rank with barnyard smells, and ultimately culminated in smashing the fear-filled chains of death that were trying to keep eternal God in a borrowed tomb.  This was the other half of God’s good plan – that which he accomplished (defeating death) He gives to all who turn to Him in faith:

Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:  “Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.  But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.  1 Corinthians 15:54-57

For You Today

Lent is a time for looking at the big picture – life, death, meaning; this is it, God’s good plan the best gift in the universe – life, eternal!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

Covenant

[1]

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord’s instructions.  Early the next morning Moses got up and built an altar at the foot of the mountain.  He also set up twelve pillars, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Then he sent some of the young Israelite men to present burnt offerings and to sacrifice bulls as peace offerings to the Lord.  Moses drained half the blood from these animals into basins.  The other half he splattered against the altar.  Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people.  Again they all responded, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.  We will obey.”  Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people, declaring, “Look, this blood confirms the covenant the Lord has made with you in giving you these instructions.”  

Exodus 24:4-8^(NLT)

In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.  

Hebrews 9:22^(NLT)

Moses set up a sacrificial altar with twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel.  The meaning couldn’t be clearer.  God had led the fledgling nation of former slaves to the point of crunch time.  It was time to make a decision about what direction their future would take. 

The altar was a place significant of forgiveness and new life.  If there was going to be an agreement, a choosing to obey God, it was going to be signed in the most fitting way…with the sacrifice of blood.  After multiple readings of the Book of the Covenant, God’s instructions on what their agreement would mean, the people said with one voice that they would do it all; they would obey!

The altar (representing God’s very presence with them) had been splattered with half the blood of a sacrificed animal, and when the people voluntarily agreed to enter this covenant, they too were splattered, virtually covered with the blood. 

Why this bloody ceremony?  The writer of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament made it clear – sin is a life and death thing; forgiveness requires blood.

Later, when Jesus would die on the cross, He was called the Lamb of God.  Jesus was our blood sacrifice, and it is His blood which covered the altar of a cross on Golgotha’s hill.  When we accept this great, grace-filled gift, the blood is also sprinkled over us as surely as it covered the Nation of Israel that day at the foot of the mountain.  That blood is God’s forgiveness washing over our sins; those sins are forever placed under the blood!

This is such a solemn thought.  The ceremony is solemn.  The meaning is unmistakable; our sins, transgressions, rebellion, stubbornness, greed, lust, envy…even murder is forgiven and pardoned by this sacrifice when we present ourselves just as the people did at the foot of the mountain that day. 

How did they present themselves?  It was an act of confession.  In effect, by participating in the sacrifice (they being sprinkled with actual blood, we in baptism) were promising fidelity to worship, serve and love only God.  We promise to turn our backs on sin and the rebelliousness which comes so naturally to us.

How great is this covenant?  Well, consider that the rest of the Bible (all 64 books) recounts how Israel, and later the church, didn’t follow through with keeping their promises.  All of them sinned; today all of us still sin.  The greatness of the covenant of God is that it surpasses the guilt of our past, present and future.  However well-intentioned and fervent our promises to obey, we often fail at keeping our promises.  But, forgiveness is a forever thing with God, and we are the beneficiaries of His incredible love.  He confirmed the covenant with Israel in blood knowing they would stray and rebel.  Jesus reaffirmed the New Covenant for us knowing we are no more faithful than Israel.  That is the mystery of this gift of God we call amazing grace!

For You Today

The next time you come to the Lord’s Table to celebrate His gift, picture in your mind the twelve stones surrounding the altar, and remember that, like Israel, you are a witness of Jesus’ loving act of blood forgiveness.  After the ceremony live like a witness.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: By Alaexis (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons