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Sharing the Faith, Part 1:
Do You Really Want to be Saved?
(Subtitle: And All the Robots Sang Songs to Jesus)
A sermon by Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick, January 24, 2004, Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church
Do you really want to be saved? That may seem like a foolish question. But is it?
Most will answer right away, “Yes, I really want to be saved.” But maybe we need a thoughtful look at what that might mean. Would you join me in turning to 1 John 3:2?
Eternity is a very long time, yes sir. In what kind of environment do you want to live for eternity? Streets of gold, a balmy, just-right outdoors environment, an optimally thought-out apartment in the New Jerusalem prepared with life-enhancing wonders even today's most cutting-edge technology only imagines—there wouldn't be many who would object to these.
Then there will be the food. Bright, striking flavors tasting better than anything we can here imagine; food as it was always meant to be, rich, sweet, nutritionally ideal, pleasant, textures and aromas to please; nothing so overly done that it leads us to overindulgence. And if we still want more, there will always be a tomorrow coming; a zero-anxiety culinary eternity.
Then there will be our changed natures: no pull to evil, no wanderlust pushed from within by selfishness and twisted mind. No selfish drive to be first, no inward goading-onward to pride, no need to best others. No temptation to this sin or that sin, no manifestation of wickedness in going against God's revealed will. Yes, all is changed. Consider it. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye our natures are changed. Shazam! We're different people. Jesus came in the sky. God snapped His fingers and our character was changed. Now, forever more we'll live and let live. We won't lust for our neighbor's spouse or possessions or talents or anything. Roll the credits. And it was so easy. God finally did something He never did for 6000 years. He just rose up and intervened directly; He came and changed us, reprogrammed us, upgraded us to His new operating system (maybe X-XP), and He turned His eyes upon Satan who looked as if he was about to protest, and whooooshp, he was blinked out of existence. And all the little robots lived happily ever after.
Because they had to. And they didn't know any better. And God said, “Let there be bondage.” And all the little robots said, “Yes sir,” and bowed before Him, and the books were closed, and the angels inhaled, and began to sing again, and a bead of nervous sweat formed on Gabriel's brow, and he stared straight ahead. And eternity rolled on. And the robots sang songs to Jesus.
There you go. So I ask again: Do you really want to be saved?
A Twisted Picture
Somewhere along the way, what we just heard took a strange turn. Maybe that isn't the future you had in mind exactly. Not all of it. Let me ask you, based on the scenario we just heard, who won the war between good and evil? Did God win it? Satan was wiped out of existence. Everyone was reprogrammed, drastically changed so that they couldn't sin. Sounds like paradise to me. God was stronger, and after thousands of years of conflict, He decided to end the whole thing. Case closed. God wins. No more sin. And bliss reigned forever more.
But something's amiss in the scenario. It is not just that God wins, but the question is how He wins. Does He win fair and square, or does He color outside the lines, does He bend the rules, does He cheat in the great controversy? Is the question to be resolved in the great controversy, who is strongest, God or Satan, or, who's plan is the best one to govern God's created universe by—isn't it really a question of ideology?
Two kingdoms are vying for our fealty today. Two roads lay stretched-out in front of us, two options: at the end of one road, weeping and gnashing of teeth, final nonexistence; at the end of the other road, what? Eternal programming, eternal slavery? Forced change of character? What does the Bible say? First John 3:2: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”
Character Lock-in
When He shall appear what? We shall be like Him. The Bible is full of calls to personal decision, personal change, personal moral growth. When is it to occur? Our body is to be changed in the twinkling of an eye, in a split-second when Jesus appears. We call that moment “translation.” But that is the body. That is what, in the composition of man is the “dust” part, the material part, only the chemicals and minerals and physical structure. The character will be formed here and now and when Jesus comes it will be what it is. Remember, before Jesus comes we undergo a sealing, a “settling into the truth both intellectually and spiritually so that we cannot be moved.” Again, when? Before Jesus comes.
When Jesus comes, then we will be like Him. That teaching of the Bible says enormous things about what a sound theology, a sound view of God and of His plan of redemption, will be. It says volumes about what salvation must mean. What you believe about God affects how you live. Always. Your theology, your understanding of the word about God impacts how you behave. Always. Everyone seems agreed on their wanting to be saved, but over the years few have actually weighed-out with care what a belief in a need for salvation implies. Many have been content to consider Christianity to be just a taxi ride to Heaven's gate, paid on Jesus' tab. Or maybe it is seen to be like a hospital ride to Heaven's door, and the goal of the medics is just to keep you on spiritual life support, offering forgiveness injections until Jesus comes.
But the Bible proposes something different. It says that when Jesus comes, we will have already become like Him in character. Hebrews 9:27 offers, “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment,” the (in Greek) “khreesis,” the word from which we get “crisis.” Whether we are alive and remain until Jesus comes, or whether we die before then, there comes a point of closure, a time when what we are becomes settled, locked, determined, definite, final. Revelation 22:11 says that a time arrives before Jesus' second coming when he who is unjust will for the remainder of his existence past that time remain always unjust, when he who is filthy, will for the remainder of his existence after that time, remain filthy, when he who is righteous will, for the remainder of his existence after that time, remain righteous, and when he who is holy when that time comes, for the remainder of his existence after that time shall remain holy.
We are all headed straight for the judgment, the kreesis, the crisis, the close of probation, the second coming, the time when Jesus appears and those who have learned to follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Revelation 14:4) will be like Him. How do we get there? Not by our own strength! It is entirely by following Jesus, entirely by copying Him in God's strength, entirely by in this life letting Him make us, not less selfish merely, but unselfish altogether.
You know, of course, what this biblical experience is called? Turn to Revelation 7:1-3: “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
Yes, it is the sealing. You know, preachers used to talk about topics like the close of probation and the sealing and the mark of the beast and the great controversy and so many other truly crucial things years ago. I am finding sometimes today that our people have never heard of them. What are you reading out there? Listen, if you are a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and you have no picture about the sealing, and you are reading popular books like Purpose-Driven This, or Philip Yancey that, don't wait one more moment, but put those books down and go get your Bible and go get your Great Controversy and resolve to see what saith the Lord on this! Sister White puts it like this: The sealing is “a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually,” so that we cannot be moved (See Ellen White's, Last Day Events, p. 220).
When does that happen? When you are alive. “Settling into” is an enlightening phrase, for it tips us off to the fact that this sealing is a process. It is a process of character development, a process of personal change, a process of entire transformation, of realignment from one kingdom to another. It is movement from participation in a fallen world as one of its boosters and advocates, a salesman for selfishness, to a kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36). We are to leave Satan's kingdom, which is limited here to this little planet, and join God's kingdom that stretches from one end of the universe to the other.
There is a change that must happen. Genesis 3:15 records God's precious promise to “put enmity” back into us. At the Fall the enemy status between us and Satan was changed, a new alliance was formed between the devil and the race of humans. The kingdom of selfishness gained some advocates. But God promised He would intervene. He would change His people. But this is no passive thing. Philippians 2:12 and 13 show that this “working out” of our salvation is a co-operation. God does part and we do part. Some run for cover when they hear about a co-operative aspect in the plan of salvation, but they are running from that which the Bible shows is their personal responsibility
Ellen White discusses this change that has to occur in Great Controversy, p. 506: “God declares: ‘I will put enmity.’ This enmity is not naturally entertained. When man transgressed the divine law, his nature became evil, and he was in harmony, and not at variance, with Satan. There exists naturally no enmity between sinful man and the originator of sin. Both became evil through apostasy…. It is the grace that Christ implants in the soul which creates in man enmity against Satan. Without this converting grace and renewing power, man would continue the captive of Satan, a servant ever ready to do his bidding. But the new principle in the soul creates conflict where hitherto had been peace. The power which Christ imparts enables man to resist the tyrant and usurper. Whoever is seen to abhor sin instead of loving it, whoever resists and conquers those passions that have held sway within, displays the operation of a principle wholly from above. Whoever sees the repulsive character of sin, and in strength from above resists temptation, will assuredly arouse the wrath of Satan and his subjects.”
There exists in fallen humans no natural enmity between ourselves and he who gleefully would destroy us, Satan. God works inside of us to change that.
It takes some effort for fallen people to be changed back. Our whole nature was damaged at the Fall. God will change us back but we have to chose to let Him do it, to take His prescriptions, to let Him inform us, Him tell us how our ways need changing. Of course, in contrast to that, today there is a market for anything you can pawn-off as being truth. People are buying gospel placebos all over the place and in ten thousand pulpits this weekend gospel placebos will be sold. And many who buy will not realize what they are buying. Satan does not believe in truth in labeling. His pills don't come with a warning from Jesus, the great Physician, instead they come greased in slippery snake-oil. They pitch you a gospel that takes you right up to the door of heaven on life support and unprepared for eternity. If we would get ready for eternity we need to let God put back into us the enmity, the state of enemyhood lost at the Fall. We must become enemies with Satan again. We have to leave his kingdom of selfishness which has been manifest in our lives in so many ways, and see what God says we must do in order to be restored. Not by our works, but by God working in us.
Implications for Here and Now
You see, when we talk about wanting to be saved, we are not just looking at the far-end of eternity, the after-the-second-coming end of eternity. We are also talking about the environment we want to live in for all eternity. We are talking about the kind of behavior we want to experience—for all eternity. We are talking about the kind of behavior we ourselves will exhibit—for all eternity. We are talking about a kingdom, a way of life, a mode of existence, that we are committed to—for all eternity.
In fact, when we say we want to be saved, we really are talking also about the kind of behavior we want to model here and now. A behavior that we will continue in—for all eternity. We have to ask ourselves then, what is the claim I am making here and now (and am I making it convincingly)? Because if I support God's plan to govern the universe this way for all eternity, and I plan to live in such an environment for all eternity, and I am committed to living that kind of unselfish behavior for all eternity, if I am looking to make a case for that way of living for all eternity, if I am modeling now the behavior that I believe we should all live-out for all eternity, then what am I saying? I am saying that I am committed to Heaven doing something to me here and now, to God changing my basic moral alignment. I am saying that I want my life here and now to be a window into a different kind of world.
In short, you cannot say that you really want to be saved, that you really want to become unselfish and stay that way for all eternity, and then live in the here and now without reference to that. You cannot just offload the implications to some vague time in the far future. You have to live today very much as you plan to live in eternity future. Not only is it well to get used to that way of living now so as to have a less difficult transition to the kingdom one day, but of yet greater moment is how your personal life affects the credibility of the message you send to others. Suicide bombers back up what they believe by what they do. And they do not have the Holy Spirit. You and I, if we really have a connection with God have a power available to us that is beyond measure. We must live this way even now, and God is ready to empower us to do that. So why aren't we?
A Counterproductive Approach
Could it be that somehow we have been sucked into a truncated way of thinking about the gospel? Why are our distinctive Adventist beliefs so often so muted? Why does our church proclaim itself on its North American Division website, front and center on the main page as being, “a mainstream Protestant church”? Is that what people are looking for? Do people come to our doors knocking on them and saying, “Hello, I am looking for a mainstream church, not too tart, not to sweet. Is this it?” When you are courting someone, do you want them to think that you are an average, brown-paper-bag, generic person, or do you want them to think you are the most interesting person in all the world? Ladies, when you are courting, and you are spending time with your friend, do you keep pointing out to him how much like all the other women you are?
You don't. I know you don't. Why? Because it is counterproductive to your relationship. When we refuse to develop the implications of what we believe, when we stop short of talking about the great controversy between good and evil, when we don't even try to engage people in a way that honors the distinctive truths God has given us, when we go about emphasizing the truncated, shortened, minimized, genericized, having-been-blanded-down picture of what we are about, we are sabotaging God's work. When we can't speak credibly about our goal of living together for eternity forever in an unselfish environment, because we are living in a way that cannot echo that concept off the pages of the story of Jesus and into our real life, we are sabotaging God's work.
Somewhere our profession, our claim, must become our current reality. So we are caught between what we claim to want (I want to be saved), what we actually want (I really want to keep on sinning for awhile longer yet before I finally give some stuff up), and what we know we should desire, and perhaps at least vaguely do desire (to live forever in an environment characterized by unselfishness, and to behave that way, for all eternity).
Pastor Admits He Doesn't Really Want to Be Saved
Let me be very honest with you. I don't want to be saved. But let me explain that. I don't want to be saved, but I want God to help me to want to be saved. I realize that within my heart is no good thing. Whatever goodness God inherently made man with, is virtually neutralized by the impact of the Fall. Humanity was created with a moral predisposition in favor of the good. Adam and Eve had a predisposition within them at the first to follow toward righteousness. But experientially, they were blank slates. They had not learned by experience to choose the good. In their immaturity they chose to sin, they fell. And so all of us have natures that are bent way over, that cleave to selfishness, to evil. So the entire human race is caught in battle between a fundamentally warped nature and the beauty of holiness—the goal God has to do something indescribably beautiful for each and every one of His children.
Something needs to change inside of us. All our little tools need to be laid on the table. All our little escapes and sneaky little ploys by which we voluntarily grant ourselves our own indulgences, by which we justify to ourselves our continued sinning—all of those need to be laid on the table. We need to empty our pockets, ladies and gentlemen. What persuasive tools and gizmos do we have in there? Dip your hands in there and fish around. What do you find?
Have you stashed away for ready use your little chrome RationalizerTM? You come to something that you know you shouldn't do, that you know is against God's will, and you set your brain working to think out a deep and masterful explanation for why you can go ahead and do that thing. Or have you got your Exception GeneratorTM with you in your purse? You just might need it when you know that what you are considering doing is against what God has revealed, but you want to find a reason to get out of that truth just this time. Or do you have one of those newer devices, the Caution Field CreatorTM, and have you made sure you've turned it on, so that if you are ever in a setting where God gives you an opportunity to share your faith, you can get an extra jolt of warning and fear and indecision so that you lose the moment because you don't know quite what to say and you are afraid of scaring them away from your faith. Or are you carrying the Sticks-and-Stones Black BoxTM, which is similar to that but works on the principle of making you afraid to tell others what you believe because they might laugh and reject it.
There are many little things like this, many ideas we carry with us like so many little gadgets. So. Are you practicing to be a robot? Are you bent on keeping Jesus at a distance for now and putting the real changes off into the future somewhere? You know, the convenient thing is for the preacher to work in this way: to stir you all just enough, to present truth that the Holy Spirit lays conviction on you about, but then to give you oh so generously some kind of escape hatch so that you can plan for making the major changes off in the vague future somewhere. Then you and I, we can all go home and feel that we've done something religious today, and we can plan to make our changes, and to live unselfishly, but tomorrow rather than today. And when tomorrow comes, all our little pocket gadgets are on and we forget all our spiritual plans until some future time (that never comes). Isn't that, effectively, how we usually live? You know it is. So our witness is muted and domesticated and tamed-down. And we linger in this world, spiraling downward into eternal doom caught in an ever-intensifying centrifugal spin of sorrows and despair. And our world is screaming for something out there, someone, to give them purpose and hope. And you and I hold the key to that. God gave it to us. But we have blockaded ourselves from success, we have reached out and pushed back to a crack the door Heaven has opened to us.
Why? Because we still love our sins and we want Jesus to come someday, but not quite so soon as we say.
Change My Desire, Change My Life, Open My Mouth
Something needs to change. As I said, I don't want to be saved. I don't want God to repair me. I want to go to heaven as I am and then have God do the hard work, the big changes, the necessary changes, the heavy lifting, for me. I want Him to cheat in the great controversy. That's what I want. But not my will, but your will Lord. I want to ask my Heavenly Father to change my earthly desire. I need to ask Lord Jesus, change my wayward heart. I need to plead, Father, grant that the Holy Spirit will work inside of me and in the corrupt mental, emotional, and spiritual sewer of my mind, would you please have Him help me? Would you please do for me that which I cannot do for myself?
My desire has to change. I must pray and ask God to change my desire, to lead me to desire to desire to be unselfish. Yes, I said that right. We should ask God to change what we want. If we choose this, which is very simply, to ask to become willing to be made willing, He will work in us to bring us to that. As our desires are changed, our life will change. What we are will be changing. We will be moving from the kingdom where all our habits were formed, and one sin led to another and another and another and then our behavior branched-out into ever more wickedness until our moral slide was coming in bundles of sin, in torrents of disobedience. We'll be moving toward God's house. The well must be purified. Nothing good can come from a poisoned well. We need something that only God can give us. No education or methodology or training can, without God's empowerment, do anything lasting for us. Without Jesus we are cooked.
With Jesus, we may expect, nay, we inevitably will experience, new spiritual life. We will be changed. What we are will reflect, not the robotic taxi-ride or the spiritual ambulance ride, but a journey taken side-by-side with Jesus. We will actually be moving from the kingdom of sin and death into the kingdom of love and righteousness. We will transition from selfishness, to unselfishness. And those whom our lives touch will know it. This shift will give a renewed witness for Jesus and His kingdom through our lives. The scream of the world for something better will be answered.
The key to this whole situation is simple. “He [Jesus] must increase, and I must decrease” (John 3:30). The kingdom we have grown used to—and all its excuses for lingering just a bit longer, continuing just a little longer, to make choices to sin those supposedly minor sins—those days have expired. Now Jesus must increase, His unselfish kingdom must increase. We are His sales representatives. We are His ideologues, His adherents, His followers, His lawyers, His elect, His army, His evidence. “Here are they,” He claims. So where are we? We are not hard to find, we are prominently perched on the throne. Let's vacate that place and give Jesus our worship. He must increase, but I must decrease. His kingdom must go forward, the kingdom I have contributed so much futile support to, must decrease. God has something better. It is time to go there.
Conclusion
Now we have several things that we can do to be available for God to make us unselfish. To make this practical, we need to talk about some concrete and specific ways of applying all this. This has grown into a multiple part series. We also need to develop how we can use these ideas successfully in evangelism. So. More next Sabbath, with part two! Let's conclude with prayer.
Procede to Message #2 in series: How to Become Unselfish
Procede to Message #3 in series (coming February 7).
