Have you ever had someone ask you if you were saved?
As we talk about United Methodism
and what it means to be a United Methodist, this is one of the places where we
differ from some other denominations.
There are some denominations that believe everyone needs to be able to
point to a specific date and time at which they were saved, and that if we
cannot do that, then we’re not really saved.
Now, if any of you can do that, if
you had a dramatic religious experience and can point to a specific date and
time at which it happened, that’s wonderful.
I am not up here telling you there’s something wrong with that or that
it’s somehow not legitimate. As we
talked last week, the United Methodist Church allows for differences, including
differences in how we come to our faith.
In the United Methodist Church,
though, we don’t necessarily look at salvation in quite that way. We look at salvation more as a process, one
that takes place throughout the course of our lives. Again, that’s not to say we cannot have a dramatic experience
that changes our lives. Even if we do
have that kind of experience, though, we still need to look at our salvation as
a process, because salvation is based on love, and for love to stick it needs
to become a habit. Sometimes we can
have a dramatic religious experience only to have the drama fade and slip back
to being just like we were before, like in Jesus’ parable of the sower. That’s not what we want. We want to form a habit of love: love for God and love for others.
That’s why, as United Methodists,
we don’t just look at salvation as going to heaven. That’s an important part of salvation, of course, but it’s not
all of it. In the United Methodist
church, we don’t say, “we have been saved” or “we will be saved.” We say “we are saved”. Present tense. Salvation is a process of love that goes on all during our lives
on earth.
True to our name once again, we
United Methodists believe there’s a method for this. We don’t believe that it’s our method, though. There are other denominations that believe
in it. We don’t believe it’s a method
that’s just available to United Methodists, either. It’s a method that’s available to anyone, anywhere. We don’t believe that you have to be part of
the United Methodist Church, or part of any church, to receive salvation.
The reason for that is that United
Methodists believe that salvation comes only through the grace of God. None of us can earn our salvation. None of us will ever deserve salvation. We cannot be good enough, or loving enough,
or holy enough, to be saved through anything we do. We have salvation only through the incredible love and mercy of
God. God sees each one of us, as sinful
and unworthy as we are, and yet offers salvation to each one of us. It’s such an incredible gift of love that
God offers us.
Not only does God offer us this
incredible gift of love, God encourages us to accept it. The way God does this has come to be called
“prevenient grace.” The word
“prevenient” just means “to come before.”
In other words, God’s prevenient grace comes before we’ve accepted Jesus
Christ as our Savior. It can come
before we’ve even heard of Jesus Christ.
God’s prevenient grace gives us an awareness of that God exists, even if
we cannot put that awareness into words.
It makes us aware that we are not the people we should be, and that we
need to do something about that. We
become aware that we need to do something to get closer to God, even if we’re
not sure what it is we need to do.
This awareness is what can lead to
another type of grace that has come to be called “justifying grace”. Justifying grace is the way our relationship
with God is restored to what it should be.
Now, again, this is a gift of love
from God. We don’t do anything to earn
it. We do need to accept it,
though. The way we accept it is by
going to God, confessing our sins, and repenting of them.
We talked a little about this last
week, but repentance does not mean that we’re never going to sin again. Repentance means that we acknowledge who we
are and ask for God’s help to change the direction of our lives. We can do that by accepting Jesus Christ as
our Savior.
What this really is, is a change of
our hearts. It happens both through our
action and through God’s action. God’s
prevenient grace makes us aware of our need to change, and the Holy Spirit
guides us to the change we need. The
role we have is to be willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s loving guidance and
accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.
I don’t want to gloss over that,
because it’s not easy. It’s not easy to
change our hearts and turn them toward God.
Our old, selfish habits die pretty hard. That’s why we say repentance does not mean we’re not going to sin
again. We are going to sin again. No matter how sincere we are in repentance,
no matter how much we want to change, no matter how much we want to accept the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, even if we’re sincere about accepting Jesus Christ
as our Savior, we’re going to sin again.
And again. And again. It’s part of who we are as human beings.
That’s why this process of
salvation does not end when we repent and accept Jesus as our Savior. It continues to something that has come to
be called “sanctifying grace.”
Sanctifying grace is something that
draws us toward the greatest of all God’s gifts, the gift of Christian
perfection. And you say, now wait a
minute, Jeff, are you saying you think United Methodists are perfect? Well, the answer is yes! Of course United Methodists are
perfect! No, actually, that’s not what
we mean when we talk about Christian perfection.
John Wesley described Christian
perfection as having a heart “habitually filled with the love of God and
neighbor” and as “having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked. In other words, Christian perfection is
taking those old, selfish habits we talked about a minute ago and replacing
them with the habit of love. Think
about that. Having our hearts so filled
with love of God and love of our neighbor that it just becomes second nature to
feel that love. We don’t even have to
think about feeling love any more, we just do it naturally, because our hearts
are so full of the love of God and of our neighbors that there’s no room for
anything else.
Is that possible? Wesley believed it is, although he did not
believe he had done it himself. Even if
we don’t think we can reach Christian perfection, though, it still should be
our goal. Because, after all, that’s
what Jesus told us to do. Jesus said
those are the two greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbors.
There’s one more aspect to Christian
perfection. Whether love has become a
habit for us or if we’re still trying to move in that direction, love needs to
be shown by our actions. As I said
earlier, we don’t earn our salvation.
If we truly love God and love others, though, love has to make itself
known in some outward way. Both faith
and good works are part of God’s grace, because they both come from God’s
gracious love.
We have all kinds of chances to
show that love. All around us are
people who are hurting in some way. All
around us are people who are in need.
Almost everyone we see, including everyone in this church, is struggling
with something. It may be physical. It may be emotional. It may be financial. It may be personal. It may involve themselves, it may involve a
family member, it may involve a close friend.
Other people may know about it or they may not. But almost everyone we see is struggling with
something.
We are put on this earth in
families and in communities to help each other with those struggles. We need to show God’s love to each other
within this church. We need to show God’s
love to people in this community outside of this church. And we need to show God’s love to people
beyond our community, in every way that we can. We need to make love for others a habit, one that we indulge in
every chance we get.
That may sound like a lot. Well, in one way it is, but in another way,
it’s not. If we have hearts filled with
the love of God and the love of our neighbors, showing God’s love to all these
people won’t seem like it’s so hard.
Instead, it will seem like a joy.
Remember, too, we don’t do this
alone. We do it with God. Prevenient grace is a gift of love from
God. Justifying grace is a gift of love
from God. Sanctifying grace and moving
toward Christian perfection are gifts of love from God. We can only do these things through God’s
gifts of love.
If we let God’s Holy Spirit fill our
hearts with the love of God and the love of others, there is literally nothing
we cannot do. Love will become a habit
for us, and we’ll truly understand what Jesus meant when he said that with God,
all things are possible.
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