Real Life Change Inspide Out
Tom Shrader explores 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Romans 12:1-2, emphasizing that true Christian transformation comes from God working inside out, not through external religious effort. He teaches that believers are called to a ministry of reconciliation, loved unconditionally by God, and empowered by the Spirit to live lives marked by love, humility, and genuine change that flows from the heart.
“There's nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to cause Him to love you less.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC August 2012
Recorded: 2012 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 42 min
Themes: transformation, love, reconciliation, humility, change, grace, relationship, ministry, new believer, struggling with change, seeking purpose, feeling unworthy, young adult, questioning faith, wanting growth, needing direction
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 2:1-10, Romans 1, Romans 8, 1 John 4:10, John 13:33-35, Philippians 2:3-8, Galatians 5:16-25, James 3:13-17, 1 John 2:15, John 15
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, regeneration, new creation, unconditional love, divine love, ministry of reconciliation, spiritual transformation
Full Transcript
That You, the mighty God who created this world and spoke it into existence, desire and indeed establish a relationship with us, and that relationship is based on Your love and care for us. God, thank You for that. Thank You for loving us. Thank You for taking time to show us what it means to be a friend of Yours, to be Your son, Your daughter.
We pray this morning that as we open Your Word, You'll remind us that indeed You change us from the inside out. God, will You do that in our life? We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.
Let me invite you to be seated and also invite you to open your Bibles to exactly where we left off last night: 2 Corinthians chapter 5. So if you have Bibles with you, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17.
Building on Last Night's Foundation
I shouldn't need a big summary, but just to remind you what we talked about last night and just my goal for my part of the week. That's to just take things that maybe are very simple and very obvious, maybe new to you, maybe familiar to you, maybe passages of Scripture that you've read many times and just take them and like a prism let that sunlight shine through and see maybe God saying something to us that would take the gospel and bring it even more alive.
To remind you what we said last night: we believe the Bible is the Word of God. Every time I walk in this place, and Jeff made mention of it, that picture of the McNeils is in the back and it just stares at me. I feel like this huge burden and I feel them looking at me and going, "Look at him wearing shorts." But I think they're okay with it. In fact, I think they're okay with it. And I would encourage you at six o'clock, if you haven't seen the movie, that's just a wonderful movie and just a reminder of God's provision.
What built Cannon Beach was God's grace and mercy and love through the effort of the McNeils and then a whole bevy of other people, and God still does that today. So we talked about the Bible's the Word of God. That's where we go for our direction. That's our true north.
The Gospel: God's Story of Reconciliation
Then we talked about the gospel, and the gospel is the story we really read in all the Bible of God creating, of man sinning, our sin separating us from God, and then God reconciling us to Himself. So it's the passage you have in front of you, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I told you last night that this would be the basis for the rest of what I do this week.
Let's read it, make a couple observations, and we'll just come back to it again and again and again. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ" - that means to believe Jesus is who He said He was, to come in repentance and faith - "he is a new creature, and old things have passed away and new things have come. Now all these things are from God." God's the one who instituted that, began that. God is the one who initiates that relationship with us. "These are all from God who has reconciled us to Himself" - how? Through Christ.
But that's not the end of it. We shouldn't read that gospel and think it's just about heaven, though heaven is part of it.
More Than Just Getting to Heaven
There's an opportunity, a small group Bible study that about three times a year we meet and do a book for maybe six to eight weeks. One of the guys in the study passed away last Monday, and he had pancreatic cancer and suffered a long time. The first note I got was "no more suffering, no more pain," and indeed that's true, isn't it? I watched that with Susan. I watched that pain. I watched how difficult that is.
But going to heaven isn't just getting rid of our pain. I'm going to heaven to see Jesus. That's the point of heaven. That's the joy of heaven. I could say this is how selfish I am - remember we made the point to you last night, I'm worse off than I ever imagined meaning my sin, but more loved than I ever dreamed. My son-in-law says it this way: if sin were blue, we'd be Smurfs. That sin has just riddled us. That's our heart. That's what we are.
But God comes along in that condition, and God reaches down and loves us, changes us from the inside out. Just think - I can't drive to Cannon Beach and not think about the creation. Think about the ocean, the world, the planets, the universe that they tell us is getting bigger every minute. That God who created that and sustains that, that God is the one who reconciles you to Himself, and you have a personal relationship with Him.
The Awesome Reality of Our Relationship with God
I'm not sure I totally understand what "awesome" means, but that has to be in there somewhere. That I can call the creator of the universe Father, not based on anything I did but based totally on what He did. He reconciled us to Himself, and then He's not done. If all He wanted to do is get you to heaven, He would have taken you at that moment.
But He left you a ministry of reconciliation, namely that "God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He's committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. It's as though God were making an appeal through us, and we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."
Verse 21 - I'll take the pronouns, let me just mess with this just a bit: "God made Him" - Jesus - "who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." That's what took place in the cross. That's the gospel.
A Moment of Prayer
So what I want to do again this morning is begin exactly what we did last night. Just remind you, take a moment quietly. There are things you prayed about for this week. Just take them before the Lord again. Ask Him, ask in His name, ask big, whatever God needs to do. Is it comfort? Maybe it's healing. Maybe it's emotional, relational, family. Let's sit quietly before Him for just a moment and then I'll close us.
Because You're a big God. Everything in this world apart from You is part of Your creation, and You're in control and You're sovereign. So we come to You and we come with hurt and pain. We come with joy. We come with celebration.
We come with anticipation. We know that in this world there will be suffering and hardship, but one day this will be over. It's not just that those things are gone, but it's that we will be in the presence of your son Jesus. So we boldly pray to you now in His name because He is our Lord, our Savior, our master.
Father, we love you. But even then it's only because you first loved us. Remind us of that this morning. Take that deep into our hearts that it's an experience and feel—not just in word, but experientially experience the reconciliation that you are our father. That we are linked to you and nothing can separate us from you, not because of our determination, but because of your love. God, we love you, worship you, and praise you in Christ's name. Amen.
Our Ministry of Reconciliation
Second Corinthians chapter 5 will be the basis for what we look at. Everything's going to flow out of that. Those of us who know Christ as Lord and Savior have been given a ministry of reconciliation—the word of reconciliation. God has called us to take this message as He came to the world. We go to the world.
The night before He died, He prayed for the disciples and He said, "Father, as you sent me into the world, I send them into the world." Incarnationally, to go out into a hostile environment, to go bathed in prayer with the understanding of God's word, His protection, and His promise.
Dead in Trespasses and Sins
Let me take you to Ephesians chapter 2 and remind you of this: "You were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Paul says we were "by nature children of wrath." That's every person that ever lived. But God being rich in His mercy and because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive.
There is one God—one God who creates, one God who now reconciles, who brings us into right relationship with Him. Man is incurably religious. Man constantly wants to do something to appease a holy God. Probably in this country, maybe more than any on earth, that's just part of our DNA. We get the idea that there is no free lunch. You don't get something for nothing.
But in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, it says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." He says that relationship is broken and it's God—a holy God—who puts it back together again.
The Power of Salvation
Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation." Paul uses that word salvation five times in the book of Romans. He uses it eight times in the verb form. It means to deliver or to rescue. It means apart from this personal relationship with God, our life is lost.
We're rescued from spiritual blindness. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," Jesus says as He begins the Sermon on the Mount. That word that's translated "poor"—there's several options there in the Greek. One of them could mean poor like I'm begging: "Hey, do you have any spare change?" The word that's used there is a word that depicts somebody who's curled up in a corner, who is totally dependent on people walking by to give them something to sustain them.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed am I when I understand that apart from Christ, I am totally helpless. I'll pursue other gods. I'll try to make it right. That's religion. Man loves religion. I'll do this, I'll do this, and somehow God's obligated to do that. But I'm saved by grace—unmerited favor. I'm saved by grace through faith, and it's the power of salvation.
Saved by God from God
I'm saved, and this is something to contemplate: I'm saved by God from God. I don't know if we often think about that. I get the idea that I'm saved by God and for God. Well, what am I saved from? I'm saved from God—from God's wrath, from God's judgment.
"For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." God so loved the world that He gave His son that He might die to be—and the word is "propitiation." It means to satisfy, to satisfy the wrath of God. Propitiation: P-R-O-P-I-T-I-A-T-I-O-N. It means that God, because He's a God of love, has to be a God of hate. Because He loves righteousness, He hates sin, and sin must be judged.
God simply couldn't say to Adam and Eve, "Everything will be okay. You're forgiven." There had to be the shedding of blood. They tried to resolve it themselves, remember, with fig leaves. That's called religion.
Biblical Christianity vs. Everything Else
This should be one of the big things for me for the week that you should walk away with: you've got biblical Christianity and then everything else. Everything else has some degree—maybe a little, maybe a lot—of man trying to please an angry God. Biblical Christianity is about a holy God reaching down to a sinful man. Now my life begins to change.
As you look at the book of Ephesians and we look at those amazing doctrines that are in Ephesians chapter 1 and chapter 2 and chapter 3, when Paul gets to Ephesians chapter 4, he changes the pace. He moves from heavy doctrine to huge application. "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called." He said, "Listen, if you say you're a follower of Christ, live like it." And here's the characteristic you're going to see: humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance towards one another in love.
It's the same pattern. Look at the book of Romans. It's the same pattern you have in the book of Romans.
Romans chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 are all heavy doctrine. When Paul gets to Romans chapter 12 verse 1, it's as though he moves now into application. Here's what he writes: "Therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Eugene Peterson in The Message, as he's dealing with that passage, tells us that we should present our bodies, and in doing that and all we do—whether we eat, stand, sleep, whatever we do—we do it for the honor and the glory of God.
The Battleground of the Mind
What I want to focus on this morning is the phrase that we see in the second part of verse 2. Here's the contrast, and I just made a note: it's the battleground. Then I wrote as I was preparing for today: God changes from the inside out, the very thing that we sang about. He said here's the battleground: don't be conformed.
J.B. Phillips in his paraphrase says don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. Don't be conformed, but be transformed—how? By the renewing of your mind.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 that though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. Momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. He said here's the key: because we don't look at the things that are seen but the things that are unseen, because the things we see are temporary; the things that are unseen are eternal.
He said in this world, there is this battle. There's this affliction, there's this struggle that the normal Christian life is marked by struggle. The struggle, I think, starts really in the heart, in the mind.
Our Vision for Transformation
Here's the way over the years at our church we've expressed it: our desire is to have people have transformed hearts, informed minds, and lead radical lives. That salvation is utterly, completely, wholly, entirely God-originated, God-ordained. That salvation is from God, that salvation is not a human effort.
When I come into this right relationship with God now, I'm indwelled by the Holy Spirit. I now have eyes to see things as they really are.
Here is a concept that for a lot of you, I think, begins to kind of shake your world: there's nothing you can do to make God love you more, and nothing you can do to cause Him to love you less. That runs contrary to all of our human experience. Our thought is, "If I perform, then God will love me more."
The Nature of God's Love
First John chapter 4, way in the back almost to the very back of the Bible, John is writing and offers this amazing insight. He says this: "This is love, the love of God, that God manifested His love toward us and that He sent His only begotten Son into the world so we might live through Him. In this is love"—First John 4:10—"not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin."
When we look at love, the picture of love is Jesus on the cross. Love is an action word. The reason that you and I can say Jesus is Lord, the reason you can sit here and sing these songs and I can look around and see the emotion—and my assumption is God's touching your heart and maybe at that moment revealing some of your sin to you, His holiness to you, His love for you—that He loved you. Remember we saw last night: while we were yet sinners, while we were helpless, God loved you and saved you not because of you but in spite of you. That is really love.
Paul tells us that this love of God is an unbreakable love. There's a magnificent chain that Paul brings out for us in Romans chapter 8. He said, "And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. And all those that He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image that they would be the firstborn among the brethren. And those that He predestined He called, and those that He called He justified, and those that He justified He glorified."
Then Paul said this: "What then shall we say of these things? If God is for us, who's against us? What can separate us from the love of Christ?" Not our love for Him, but His love for us.
The Perfection of God's Love
God loves you with a perfect love. Again, three things that I mentioned here: You're not on probation. You're not subject to God getting new information about you. And it's not a selfish love where God says, "I'll love you if" or "because" or "when."
God did not say, "I'll love you as long as you're lovable." How many times have you heard somebody say about a spouse, "If I knew that about you, I never would have married you"? God's never going to say to you, "If I knew that about you, I would have never chosen you. I would have never—" But He knows everything there is to know. Everything you've ever done, everything you've ever said, everything you've ever thought, what you're thinking right now, what you'll do in the future. And He says, "I love you."
Sandy and I watched a good chunk of the Olympics, and we probably—she tends to be cynical—several times we wondered if the coaches and the parents would have been as supportive if the medal wasn't won as if it was won. "I love you, son, if you score the basket." Some of you experienced that too, haven't you?
Conditional vs. Unconditional Love
I mentioned last night saying I've been married 11 weeks, so we're in this process of getting to know each other. We love each other—well, I love her, and I presume she loves me. She will say frequently, "I love you," and I will say, "I love you."
Periodically she'll say, "I love you," and I'll be unresponsive, and she'll say, "Do you love me?" and I'll say yes. Here's the question that should be asked: what is it? Why do you love me? Well, because you're pretty. Because I think you're a great person. Because I think we go well together. I think we make a good team. Ultimately...
This sounds weird after 11 weeks, but I love her more now than I did 11 weeks ago because I know her more now. And I love her more now just because of who she is. But we had an interesting experience not long ago. She went to get her hair cut and she came back, and it didn't look like I anticipated it would look. It was pretty, but it wasn't beautiful. This isn't going well, is it? I should have thought this one through. This is one of those you should think through before you say it. No, and I'll be fine, I'm a professional.
And it was interesting because I kind of shut down on her, and I'm sure she sensed it, and she walked away. And here was the thought I had: I thought, is my love for her so weak that bangs can ruin it? And it really launched me into this whole idea of thinking about God's love for me. And then we had, I think, a great conversation about it. As much as I love her, I really do think the question "why" is an important question. And one of the deep reasons that I love her is because I said I would—better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health, all of that. This is, to me, an amazing concept and thought.
God's Unconditional Love
God loves you and is not trying to change you and then love you. He's trying to see our life change from the inside out, but He's not withholding His love. He's not going to say, "Oh boy, if you do that, I'll love you more," or if you don't, "You know what, you're on the outside. You were one of my kids for a while, but not so much anymore."
God loved us and showed us how He took the ultimate picture of death—the cross—and turned it into the ultimate picture of love. "For God so loved the world..." We were at a Good Friday breakfast this year, and there was a lady singing, and I think a couple of her friends, and they were great. And then she decided it was time to talk. So people don't want to hear me sing, and I don't really want to hear singers talk—no offense. But she decided it was time to talk, and so here's what she said. Maybe you've heard this before.
She said, "Jesus died on this day. We celebrate that." And then she said, "If you were the only person that ever lived, Jesus would have died for you." Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but think with me for a second about that. If you were the only person on this earth and Jesus was to come and He was to die for you, to be crucified for you, you would have had to crucify Him. You would have had to been the one to nail His hands and feet and stab Him in the side, and you would have had to be that. Think about that. Now think about that statement in that context.
If you were the only one that lived and Jesus came to die for you, you would have had to kill Him. That's how much He loves you. And He loves you with a deep, perfect love. Now He says, "I want you to be like me."
The New Commandment of Love
Look at John's Gospel, John chapter 13. When we get to John 14, 15, 16, we know we are at that night before Jesus died, and Jesus is here in John 13 with His guys. He has washed their feet. He has outed Judas essentially. He now in verse 31 tells them that the Son of Man is to be glorified. And then He says in John chapter 13, verse 33: "Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'"
He said, "A new commandment I give you. Here's the new commandment: that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." Verse 35: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples."
Again, it's hard to do because we're familiar with it, but imagine if you're hearing this for the first time. And if we were watching on a tape and we could hit pause right there, imagine if you were hearing this for the first time and Jesus was saying to the disciples, "This is how the whole world's going to know you're mine." He had a blank slate there. He could put anything He wanted in there. He could have talked about Bible study. He could have talked about conferences. He could have talked about church. He said, "Here's how the world's going to know. Here's how the world's going to know that this is real: that you love one another, that your family works."
Love That Transforms Families
So when I came in today, I couldn't help but notice the high school students are here. I love that. Here's how the kids at school know your faith is real: they see you work with your family in a way that it never occurred to them.
Every June we take about 500 kids to summer camp, and we had a kid last year stand up. He was a high school senior, really a cool kid—valedictorian, a little bit of an athlete, just a cool kid, a lot like I was in high school, just a cool kid. And he said, "I just want to thank God for my sister Judith. She's awesome. She's an eighth grader." And then he spent two or three minutes just telling us what an awesome girl Judith was.
That's what speaks to the world: when all of a sudden our families work, our churches work, our schools work, our community works. And it starts from the inside out.
The Mind of Christ
Paul is writing in the book of Philippians, and in Philippians chapter 2 he says, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourself. Do not merely look out for your own interests, but also for the interests of others." Philippians 2:5: "Have this attitude in you"—some of your translations will say "the mind," have the mind in you—"which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself"—not of His deity, but of His glory—"taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
And what does Paul say? I want you to go and I want you to think like and be like Him.
Can we go back to now just seeing this flesh out? My son-in-law sent me this quote the other day. It's from Tim Keller: "If two spouses each say, 'I'm going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the..."
The Devastating Reality of Our Self-Centeredness
Can we go back to what we talked about from the very beginning? I'm worse off than I ever dreamt in terms of my sin. If sin were blue, I'd be a smurf. I am a smurf. And now I come into that relationship and I bring that. There's Sandy and my focus is to say what about me? I'll love you if, I'll love you when, I'll love you because.
Timothy: A Model of Christ-Centered Love
There's a wonderful scene here. Paul unpacks this in Philippians 2. He talks in verse 12: "Then beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it's God who's at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure." God's at work in you giving you these desires to please Him. "Do all things without grumbling or disputing."
Then he says I'm going to send a guy to you. His name is Timothy. He says I'm going to send a guy to you and I've got nobody else like Timothy. So imagine you're in your church and you get this letter from the Apostle Paul and he says I can't take this senior pastor job, but I've got a guy that can. I got nobody like him. What would you expect?
Well, verse 19 he says, "I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you shortly so that I may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare, for they all seek after their own interest and not that of Christ."
That's the thing that begins to separate us from the rest of the world. Love. It's a person coming to the marriage saying I know my self-centeredness is the problem. I know how you wear your hair is my issue, not yours. I'll love you if, I'll love you because, I'll love you when. And God says no, I want you to love.
Walking by the Spirit vs. Walking by the Flesh
How should you love? Paul says I want you to be led by the Spirit of God. We're in the book of Philippians. Turn to the left to the book of Galatians. Galatians chapter 5, you have the fruit of the Spirit. But before that in Galatians chapter 5 verse 16, Paul said, "I say to you, walk by the Spirit. Don't carry out the desires of the flesh, for the flesh sets its desires against the Spirit, the Spirit against the flesh. They're in opposition to one another."
Verse 19, these are the deeds of the flesh. If I'm being led by the Spirit, I'm going to see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. How do I know if I'm being led by my flesh? I'll see immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity. Look at these: strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions pulling apart marriages that don't work, families that don't work, communities that don't work, churches that are split over the silliest of things.
Two Types of Wisdom
One last thing, and I just want to give you James. He divides us so perfectly for us. Almost all the way to the back of the Bible to the book of James, that practical book. I did a series in the book of James called "Blue Gene Theology." It's simple, ready to go.
Here's what it is in James. He tells us it's the longest discussion we have in all of Scripture about the tongue. In James chapter 3 verse 13, he talks about wisdom. Now here's how I define wisdom: the ability to connect the dots, to see the forest and the trees, to see the world around you. He says there's two types of wisdom.
Verse 13: "Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good deeds, his behavior, his deeds in gentleness and wisdom. If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't be arrogant and lie against the truth. That wisdom is not that which has come down from above, but it's earthly, natural, demonic."
How do I know if I'm being led by the Spirit or I'm being led by the world? Well, here's what I'm going to see: jealousy, selfish ambition, disorder, every evil thing. God says there's two types of wisdom. One's earthly and one comes down from above. One's natural, one's supernatural. One's demonic, one's godly. One results in jealousy and selfish ambition. The other, verse 17, is "pure and peaceable and reasonable, gentle, full of mercy, good fruits, unwavering."
Beyond Religious Activity to Heart Attitude
In this whole idea to try to live the Christian life, my fear is we become very religious all over again. We start to measure those things that we're supposed to do rather than what we're supposed to be. Even as He talks about the fruit of the Spirit, another opportunity to say here's how you'll know the Spirit's working in our life: you'll see this. He doesn't go to activity. He knows we're religious. He goes to attitude: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
The Battle for Our Hearts
Here's the takeaway from this session: you're in a battle. The world is trying to conform you to its ideas. John tells us in First John chapter 2 verse 15, "Don't love the world or the things of the world." By that He means the world's system. He talks about lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and boastful pride of life. At the end of that letter, First John, John just kind of abruptly closes it and he says, "Little children, guard yourselves against idols."
When we say there is no God like Jehovah, here's what we're implying: there's a whole bunch of gods that are trying to be. Jesus says to the guys the night before He leaves, "My peace I leave you." It's not peace as the world gives. It's a different kind of peace.
True Peace: Shalom
The world has a view about peace. The word that we would use often, especially in the Hebrew, is shalom. Let me read you what one author writes about that word: "The webbing together of humans and God and all creation in justice and fulfillment and delight is what the Hebrew prophet called shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than peace of mind or a ceasefire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness."
The Way Things Ought to Be
Delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts are fruitfully employed. Shalom. In other words, it is the way things ought to be. That's what we looked at last night at the end of Genesis 2—that Shalom.
Tim Keller writes this: "We have lost God's Shalom physically, spiritually, socially, psychologically, culturally. Now things fall apart." That's what sin did.
The Heart of True Change
Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Here's what He's saying: the outside is changed from the heart.
My girls never knew me as an unbeliever. They were a month old when God saved me, and one of my great fears growing up is that they would never understand sin. They would always give themselves the benefit of the doubt. They were great kids, but one of the difficulties in raising kids is to distinguish between a compliant kid and a converted kid—a kid that just wants to please mom and dad and a kid whose heart is truly changed, changed from the inside out.
If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. There will be people who will keep God's commandments like the Pharisees did in some ritualistic way. But here's what He's saying: if you love me, if you're my kid, if my love's in you, I will see a life that's changed, a life that's transformed. You'll begin to live out the gospel of reconciliation, the word of reconciliation, the ministry of reconciliation.
The Power Is in the Gospel
What does that look like? That's what we're going to talk about, but the answer—I don't want you to hear that the power of that is not in your self-will. The power's in the gospel.
Sandy and I have been on the road, so we've been to a couple of different churches, and you have to take my word for this—I don't walk in and start to snipe and criticize. But the last two churches we were at, the man delivered the message and never talked about the power you have in the gospel. Not just the power to avoid hell and go to heaven, but the power to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control in your life. To walk by the Spirit. To lead a Shalom life.
Not the absence of turmoil—can't do that. It's the presence of God.
The Failure of False Gods
It's not pursuing—again, I love watching the Olympics, and I'm watching Michael Phelps. There's an article on Michael Phelps, and now he's got the 19 gold medals and now he's going to tackle golf. Well, he's going to find out what athletics are all about now. Now he's about to put a bullet in his head here pretty quick. But it's just one pursuit after another after another.
Here's what the gods of the world say: if you get that, you'll be happy. If you get that scholarship, you'll be happy. If you get that job, you'll be happy. If she'll go out with you, you'll be happy. If she'll go steady with you, you'll be happy. If she'll marry you, you'll be happy. If she'll leave, you'll be delighted. I mean, it's that idea. It's that ongoing—it's whatever I don't have. That's the false god.
Here you go, last thought: false gods never fail to fail. They always fail. Every time a false god promises you'll be happy if you do that, you'll be happy if you have that, she'll make you happy for the rest of your life—false gods never fail to fail.
The One True God
But He's the one true God. We saw last night in the garden all of a sudden they thought, "Well, maybe God's holding back something better for me." God's giving you His very best—His love. God wants you, indeed has called you, adopted you, and now you're His kid. And now He's saying, "Let's live like it"—not in your own power. Not in your own power. I'm going to give you the power to do it.
He goes on right after this in John 15 and says, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. You hang in there, you abide in me, and I'll produce fruit."
He's a great God. We are great sinners, and He loves us beyond anything we could imagine. Not because, not when, not if—He loves you. And you can't make Him love you more or cause Him to love you less.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You that You are an awesome, holy God. You were an amazing God beyond anything that we could ever imagine. God, when we hear "love," we think love like we have—some sort of a temporary, conditional love. But You love us unconditionally. You love us in spite of us, not because of us.
Then we can live boldly—not in our own confidence, but in Yours. God, thank You that we can have Shalom. We can have real peace with You, wholeness of life. That we can have what You call the abundant life. God, thank You. Thank You for loving us. Thank You, God, that we can live lives with love and joy and peace and patience in them.
God, thank You that it's not the absence of turmoil, but Your presence in our life that makes us whole. God, we love You, worship You, praise You here this morning. We do that in Christ's name. Amen.