Joy--If We Believe

The Sunday morning sermon in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Malachi 3:1-7.

            We think of the birth of the Savior as an incredibly joyful event.  After all, the angel said to the shepherds, “I bring you good tidings of great joy.”  One of our favorite Christmas hymns, which we’re going to sing at the end of the service, is “Joy to the World”.  Another hymn, “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, has the chorus “tidings of comfort and joy”.  Next week’s advent candle is considered the candle of joy.  Joy is a constant theme running through the Christmas story.

            And of course, it is a joyous event.  It is God--God the Son--coming to earth in the form of a human being.  And not just in the form of a human being--God the Son, Jesus Christ, actually was fully human.  He was fully divine, too, of course, even while He was on earth, but while He was on earth Jesus felt all the things we feel.  Joy was one of those things.  But also pain.  Hunger.  Loneliness.  But also friendship and love.  Jesus felt everything that a human being can feel, because again, He was fully human while He was on earth.  What an incredible thing for God to do.

            And of course, the greatest joy of all is what God the Son came here to do.  He came here to take the punishment we deserve for our sins.  And because Jesus took that punishment for us, we don’t have to take it for ourselves.  You and I can avoid that punishment, if we just believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  Not only can we avoid punishment, but if we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, we can have salvation and eternal life with God in heaven.  It does not get any more joyous than that.

            But there’s that word in there--”If”.  “If we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior”.  That’s a choice each of us will have to make--whether or not to believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  If we do, the birth of the Savior is, indeed, a cause for incredible joy.  But if we don’t, the birth of the Savior is not a cause for joy at all.  It does nothing for us.  If we don’t believe in Jesus as the Savior, we are not saved from anything.  We will have to take the punishment we deserve for our sins.

            In our Bible reading for today, the prophet Malachi tells us that the Savior is coming.  But, he asks, “Who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears?”

Malachi goes on to say that the Savior will come as a fire, refining and purifying.  Think about what happens in the process of refining and purifying.  That which is not pure is destroyed, right?  It’s taken away.  Now, if you’re the part that’s pure, that’s great news.  The pure becomes even more pure.  But if you’re the part that’s not pure, if you’re one of the impurities, it’s not good news at all.  The impurities are lost.  They’re burned up.  There’s no second chance for them.

            Malachi says that’s how it’s going to be.  We will either be refined or burned.  We’ll either be purified or destroyed.  There’s no middle ground.  There’s no second chance.  When the Savior comes, we go one way or the other.  Period.

            Does that sound harsh?  Maybe it does.  A lot of us don’t like it.  Maybe you don’t like it.  I cannot say that I particularly like it, myself.  I don’t like to think of anyone losing their chance for salvation.  I don’t like to think of anyone missing out on eternal life in heaven.  And if you take the concept of hell seriously, you would never want anyone to go there.  The whole concept is one that a lot of us don’t like at all.

            And so, a lot of people try to find ways around it.  They say, well, but God is love.  God loves everyone.  A loving God would never let anyone go to hell.  Besides, when Jesus came, he threw out all that Old Testament stuff about judgment.  We’re not under the law anymore, we’re under grace.  And grace applies to everyone, because God’s love applies to everyone.  So we don’t have to worry about all that judgment stuff.  God is love, and love always wins in the end.

            That sounds nice.  It sounds plausible.  It’s what we’d like to believe.  And so, a lot of us do believe it, because we all have a tendency to believe what we want to believe.  I’d like to believe it, too.  But I cannot and do not believe it, because it’s not what the Bible says.  It’s also not what Jesus said.

            In Matthew Chapter Three, we read about John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus.  And he describes Jesus in similar words to those of Malachi.  He says that Jesus will “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”  Again, as Malachi said, it’s either one or the other.  Either we’re part of the wheat that’s gathered into the barn, or we’re part of the chaff that’s burned up.  No middle ground.  No second chances.  When the Savior comes, we either go one way or the other.  Period.

            You know, we love to quote John Three, Sixteen:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  A great verse.  I love it, too.   I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with loving it.  And sometimes we go on to quote the next verse, John Three, Seventeen:  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  Another great verse.  I love that one, too.  And again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with loving it.

            But the thing is, we like to stop there.  Jesus did not stop there.  Here’s the next verse, John Three, Eighteen:  “Whoever believes is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

            Jesus does not say everyone goes to heaven.  Jesus does not say he came to save everyone.  What he says is that he came to give everyone the chance to be saved.  If we believe in him, we shall not perish, but shall have eternal life.  If we do not believe, we are condemned.  Not because Jesus condemned us, but because we were already condemned through our unbelief.

            All of us--each and everyone--deserves to be condemned, because we are all sinners.  But Jesus came to give us the chance to avoid that condemnation.  If we believe in Him, we can avoid the condemnation we deserve.  In fact, we do more than avoid condemnation, we receive salvation and eternal life.  But if we do not believe, we receive the condemnation we deserve.  Not because God does not love us.  But because we failed to accept the way to salvation that God offered us through the life and death of Jesus Christ.

            I hope that everyone hearing my voice today believes in Jesus Christ.  I hope everyone hearing my voice today will not perish, but will have eternal life.  If there’s anyone who does not believe, please let me know so we can talk about it.  

            But even if everyone hearing my voice does believe, we know there are people in our community who do not.  We don’t like to talk about that.  We don’t like to think about that.  But we know it’s true.  It may be people we know personally, or it may not.  But out of this many people, we know there are some who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  That means there are some people in our community who will perish, and who will not have eternal life.

            That’s a sad thing.  It makes me sad, thinking about that.  It probably makes you sad, too.  I’m sure it also makes God sad.  But the question is, are we just going to be sad?  Or are we going to try to do something about it?

            Now, we obviously cannot force people to believe in Jesus.  But there are things we can do.  We can let people know what we believe.  We can let people know why we believe it.  We can let people know the difference our belief has made in our lives.  We can live our lives in such a way that shows the difference our belief has made in our lives.

            Not only can we do those things, we need to do those things.  Partly because Jesus told us to--Jesus told us to go and make disciples.  But also because it’s a way of showing love.  

            A lot of times we don’t think of it that way.  When we say we need to show love to people, we think of things like giving to missions, or helping out the food pantry, or even working on a project to help someone in need.  And don’t get me wrong, those are all good things to do.  And there are a lot of other good things we can do.  But that sort of thing, as good as it is, only helps people while they’re on earth.  And our time on earth, even if we live a long time, is short.  It’s certainly short compared to eternity.  So, as good as those things are, the best way we can show love to someone is to do whatever we can to help people believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  The best way we can show love to someone is to help people have salvation and eternal life.

            For believers, the birth of the Savior is an incredibly joyful event.  We want it to be a joyful event for everyone.  So let’s do what we can to help everyone believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  Then, the birth of the Savior can be “tidings of great joy”.  Not just for us, but for everyone.