(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 01/07/07)

INTRODUCTION:

What do you learn about God from the following: 1) the creation of the world – he is awfully strong and powerful; 2)  the flood in the days of Noah, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah – he’s serious about his hatred of sin; 3) the intricacies of the human body – the Lord is most definitely wise beyond words; 4) the reunion of Joseph and his brothers – he does want us to get along; 5) the call of Isaiah – God is unapproachably holy.

One more – what do you learn about God from the arrival of Jesus?  You learn that God is not a remote, out-of-touch deity.  He doesn’t merely scratch out an “I love you” on a piece of paper, fold it into an airplane, fly it down here and hope we all get it.  Hopefully we haven’t become desensitized by oft-repeated phrases like, God loves everyone, or, God loves all people, or, God so loved the world.  Those are all very true, but when we talk about the fact that God loves people, maybe it would help if we remember what people mean when they use the phrase “a people person.”  In the highest sense of the term, God is a people person.  He loves being around people, interacting with people, spending time with people, talking with people.  He can’t get enough of it.

Do you think about God’s love in those kinds of terms, that his love for you means he loves to be involved with you?  You will when you take note of the information about God that Paul shared with Titus.  It’s something about God that’s actually an epiphany - something that God caused to appear before us that we would never have known otherwise.  We could call it an -

Epiphany Newsflash – God Loves People!

That truth about God comes very much into focus when we examine what is written in our Bibles about why God rescued us.  Growing up in small town America, I can clearly remember the days when there would be twelve or fourteen kids down at the park, and we would expect two of the older kids to step forward and express their willingness to serve as captains, and then it would happen – picking teams, one kid at a time.

Getting picked last, or not at all because neither team wanted you, would be demoralizing enough.  But what if the park supervisor walks through and tells everyone they can never play – from the captains to the kids picked first to the kids not picked at all – none of them can be on the team.  Game over, for good.  Say it till you figure out the full impact of it – God wouldn’t have picked me.  God would never have picked me.  It ought to make us feel far worse than what it would feel like to be picked last.  On any kind of merit system, God wouldn’t have picked me at all.  Welcome to the depressing world of what it means to be a poor sinful being. 

In the context of our lesson, here are some of the things we have to come to grips with.  Titus 3:1,2 (the kinds of things God expects) - Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.  Titus 3:3 (the kinds of things God sees)  At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.  We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.  About the only thing God would have chosen us for is extermination.

But listen now – you hear it?  It’s your name, your full name, like maybe only your mother would call you, but it’s God the Father calling out your full name, choosing you to be on his side.  For the good that he doesn’t see in you and the evil he does, there can be only one reason that he’s picking you to be on his team.  It doesn’t have anything at all to do with who you are.  It has everything to do with who he is.  There’s a furnace of compassion and pity burning in his heart for you, so when he called your name to be on his team, he also called out his own name (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit).  He added water to the words that were spoken so that you would believe that he washed you clean and adopted you into his own family – a brand new birth into the family of God when the Holy Spirit invisibly entered you, planted faith in Jesus in you, and told you that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, your Father sees only good in you and no evil at all.

God loves people!  He must, if he rescued the likes of us. 

In your baptism, God got very close to you.  Actually, close is the wrong word.  As if you were a cup and God had the pitcher in his hand, he poured the Holy Spirit into you, whose testimony about Jesus your Savior gives you not only a clean slate but a new attitude – to love the God who loves you.

Do you know what his plans are for you?  I don’t mean how things will go for you this year or how long you’ll live.  I mean his eternal plans.  God wants you to be able to live every day, whatever that day may entail, knowing that one certain tomorrow will come when you will hear the reading of Jesus’ last will and testament.  As Jesus’ will is read, your name will be named, and your inheritance specified – eternal life.

Now there’s another one of those terms that shows up an average of five times per sermon.  So let’s describe what it really means.  The Holy Spirit is testifying within you that the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus and his coming to life again have truly made you God’s child, and that God actually wants to and will live with you forever.  How could he want to do that?  For as much as you love anyone, forever never ends and it’s only going to take about 1% of forever for you to get awfully fed up with that person’s faults.

And yet, the Lord has this all worked out.  Beyond the pardon that God has granted you through Jesus, there’s a part of your inheritance that you collect only when you’re in heaven.  That would be the removal of your sinful nature.  Unlike today when God simply says he doesn’t count your sins against you, the day comes when you are no longer a sinner at all, when you live with God in sinless purity, when you actually no longer have any faults.  And if you think you’re looking forward to that day, remember that God’s looking forward to it more.  It was his idea. 

God loves people!  He must, if he wants to live with us.  He does, and he will, in a faultless, sinless setting where he can talk with us and laugh with us and we can be  absolutely lost in how happy we are being with each other, and his joy of being with us and our joy of being with him will never diminish but only increase.  Newsflash for Epiphany – God loves people.  He loves you more than you know.  He’ll spend eternity showing you just how much he does.

(Top Of Page)

(Back To Archive)

(Current Worship Page)