God's Mold

Try it! God works.

Bring up works and the Church starts to grumble. Some people want to do the good works of God, and some argue that is trying to work your way to heaven. Indeed some people probably do think that their works earn them points in Heaven. So they work hard because they are being obedient to what they think is expected of them. Some people probably work hard to hide what they know they are inside. We don’t really know WHY a person would try to do the works they feel a believer is supposed to do. In fact we shouldn’t judge them at all, that is for God to do. We can’t judge another master’s slave, they work for Him. But for whatever reason someone is working someone is contemplating their motivation and whole churches and doctrines are formed because of it.

So what is it, are we to work or aren’t we? Isn’t salvation by Grace alone and that through faith so that no man can earn their salvation?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in “The Cost of Discipleship” about cheap grace. Some people call it “Easy Believism”. This is the thought that salvation is made at the altar call and the magic bath and no matter what, you are “in”, and go to heaven. That nothing else is required and that nothing else needs to be done. That God saves us out of love because we asked. In short God appears to be a Santa figure that goes out of His way to make our worries and lives easy and smooth.

I want you to think carefully in how that was explained. It’s expected to draw ire from each side of this coin. There will be those that are angry that salvation is explained so easily. There will be many others that are angry that salvation is explained with a hint that something is expected. Could it be both? Could it be neither? What does works have to do with salvation?

First of all I don’t ask to challenge your salvation. I believe that every person’s salvation is between them and God. No one can know if another person is saved. I’m not going to tell you that there are deeds waiting to be finished and by them you are saved. But when the conversation on works gets more energy put into it than the caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, as a Church we have a problem.

One of the Rulers of the Holy Lands once asked a colleague what he should do about those called the Christians. They were odd he felt, as well as being atheists for only believing in one God which was against the Roman expectations. But he couldn’t find fault with them. They lived alone in a community apart from the others. They fed the poor, and buried the dead of the citizens that needed help.

The early church used their examples of caring for community to be a major part of their witness. They didn’t do this by design with planned motives contingent on the service. They served because there were needs. They served because Jesus said, “if you feed the hungry, clothe the needy you do these things for me.” They served because they felt it was expected. But, they served out of love, expecting nothing back. This was convenient because what they received back was condemnation and sometimes death. Their service surely wasn’t to make their lives easier. Their expectations surely weren’t related to rewards for their works.
The word Agape is a word that is most often translated as Love today. But it’s not always used in a loving way as we Americans see it. It’s certainly not a warm-fuzzy love, although it could be that as well. The word as best I can tell can’t be considered without the picture of it being demonstrable or exemplified. The early English translations used the word Charity for Agape.

The words change and so the translation has changed. Maybe the charitable, demonstrable part of that word is overlooked today. If I say I agapao you, it would require that the agape be demonstrated by an action. When we are told to love our neighbors, and to love God the love we are to exercise is this agapao. That means sitting back and watching them work and feeling sorry for them having to change their flat is NOT the love described. This doesn’t mean if you change your neighbors flat that you agapao your neighbor necessarily either.

How do you love your neighbor? Who is your neighbor? And ask yourself, do you know anything about them more than their name, maybe where they work, or their kids or spouses name? What is their favorite color? Are their parents alive? Do they have any needs we might help with? Does that scare you as much as it does me?

I can give you a list of dozens of reasons why this isn’t a smart thing to do. All of them will be good reasons why I do not help my neighbors or some stranger with a flat tire. Lucifer is a great terrorist. He’s convinced us that sometimes bad things happen to people when they stick their noses into other people’s business. Don’t pick up hitch hikers. Don’t change a strangers tire. We must protect our lives at all costs. Whose life is it anyway? Can’t we, the people who outdid the tower of Babel and put man on the moon figure out a way to help someone and be safe doing it? Or do we consign the opportunity as a test of our wisdom and avoid doing the work? A terrorist creates a scenario where you are taught your actions will bring wrath or ill upon you. A terrorist uses this fear to control you. We are sometimes controlled by Lucifer’s terrorism.

People are quick to point out the verse in Ephesians that reads…
2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from work, so that no one can boast. (NET)

But I have to ask them, how meaningful is it when we ignore the next verse…
2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. (NET)

So, why are we to do good works? We are God’s tools to be used to demonstrate His love to the brothers, and the neighbors in the world.(Romans 6:12) We are to care for His sheep. We are not to decide who His sheep are. Every person we aid with this Love experiences God’s love. They experience it in life, something real and tangible that they can take to the bank. They aren’t reading and studying it and trying to formulate it and organize it in their heads so it will make sense. They don’t have to read the directions, they were given a demonstration. AND when they show their appreciation, or when someone loves us, we receive that demonstration of His love. Both sides grow in Love. They grow in exercise and not in philosophy. They grow from execution and experience, not from safe and distant observation. They get more than thoughts; they get the full benefit of Obedience to His will. (Romans 6:22; 1 Peter 1:22)

God wants us to put our devotion to Him before our devotion to ourselves. By keeping us off balance and leading us into encounters we don’t see the outcome we learn to depend on Him and to trust Him.( 2 Cor 1:9)

Let’s be honest, most of us don’t trust our best friends. I paint a pretty picture for them of who I am and they adore the picture. But the picture gets all their love, not me. If I showed them all of me, I may be without friends. I don’t want to be alone. So I protect the image of them I see.

Now to trust God, whom I’ve never got to buy coffee, or take out to dinner, or host at my home… not even got to shake hands and look Him over to make sure I approve… someone I’ve never seen, touched, smelled, felt, heard and is nothing more than an understanding in my head is scary. It’s like being shown a room with no floor, blind-folded, having the lights turned out, and being told to walk across the floor. There is nothing rational about it. God wants to do just that to you, so after you do it once, you gain trust.

Do you think Gideon felt comfortable charging with only 300 soldiers armed with crockpots and bugles against an army of tens of thousands? Do you think he had a little trust there?
God is asking us to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and house the un-homed for a reason. Those people need love. They can feel His love. BUT we also will feel His love when we do it. We now have felt God. Our blind faith becomes more substantiated. God grows and begins to manifest Himself and is witnessed in other ways in our life. We begin to get to know God.

When we first come to “God’s Team”, it’s sort of like joining a baseball team. We walk in pretty nervous but confident in our skills and abilities. We’ve worked hard to be the player we are, and we have a lot to bring to the table, and we… are… FIRED… UP!!!
We bat right handed. We hit over half the balls thrown to us. We play error free defense. Let’s face it we are ‘primo’ athletes.

But to get on God’s team He tells us we have to bat left handed. So we start to watch film. We watch other players, and we study their swings. We read books. We hear stories. We hear advice, and consult with our doctor. We are ready. We go out and take our first pitch and throw the bat half way to first base. It feels so unnatural. We take another pitch, and another and we walk to the bench. God smiles and points to the water jug. We bat again and again and it just doesn’t feel right. Who does God think He is taking my skills and telling me to not use them? How can he expect to win? Who does He think He is, GOD?

So I finally get so frustrated I give up and ask for some Help. God tells me that I won’t learn it watching film, reading books, or consulting others. He says the only way to learn to bat this way is to practice and let Him coach me. So I expect to go to the field for batting practice, but apparently God watched Karate Kid. He plays Mr. Miyagi on me. I can’t believe this, I’m on God’s team and I’m playing wax on, wax off. Who does He think He is, God? How will this help me to bat.

We need to learn to bat left handed so we can leave our old life and grow into a new life. We have paths to walk we don’t understand. We try to take control of them and make sense of them. As a result we build “better” paths than what God provided for us. We put down the crock pots and horns and pick up the sword and the shield. THIS is how you charge into battle God, see?

In life, God asks us to take care of His sheep. Some of them are ugly, smelly, unfriendly, and undeserving. They don’t deserve to be loved. We can tell they don’t. I’m not going to risk myself around them. But God wants me to learn something new. He wants me to practice loving His way. I have to love over and over and over and learn to lean on Him and depend on Him, and to be content with the outcome He desired. I’m having to learn to bat left handed. I’m learning a new discipline.

This is what the author of Hebrews talks about in verses 12:1-13.
12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, 12:2 keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 12:3 Think of him who endured such opposition against himself by sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls and give up. 12:4 You have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed in your struggle against sin. 12:5 And have you forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons?

“My son, do not scorn the Lord’s discipline
or give up when he corrects you.
12:6 “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts.”
12:7 Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 12:8 But if you do not experience discipline something all sons have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons. 12:9 Besides, we have experienced discipline from our earthly fathers and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life? 12:10 For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness. 12:11 Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it. 12:12 Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.

The word for ‘discipline’ in Greek has a context of training more than punishment. The discipline talked about here is more like a military discipline. Did you watch the movie 300? Or it could be like a sports discipline—learning to bat left handed instead of the natural right handed.

God wants to train us. The training isn’t going to feel natural. It’s not going to make sense to us. The training is to teach us to depend on Him, even with our lives as Paul said in 2 cor 1:9. I’m not suggesting we should all run out and become martyrs ‘loving’ on someone. But we need to keep the focus clear and pure here as to His intent. We need to learn to trust Him.
Let me ask you this. I know loving on neighbors is hard. I know it’s rough and scary and requires an investment we may not be ready to make. But maybe we can start with baby-steps. If you were driving down the road, and saw one of the neighborhood kids take a bad spill on their bicycle, bend the wheel, scrape their knees and elbows, and just lose it and sit there and start crying, would you stop and help them up and get them home safely to their parents? Would that be a safer way to start with loving someone?