One Way

We finished up our salvation discussion last night by talking through the question of why doesn't everyone believe in Jesus.  After all, over the past 3 weeks we have laid out a very simple but profound argument for not only our position as sinners, but also what God has done for us by extended grace through His son so that, by faith, we can be redeemed.  So why don't people just accept that and become followers of Christ?

We started by listing different reasons that people might not believe.  The kids were very thorough with their responses.  Maybe they practice another religion or none at all.  Perhaps they don't understand that they even need a savior or something bad happened in their life and they blame God and refuse Him.  And some people just reject Jesus for no other reason than they are their own god and want to do what they want.  All of these are valid excuses, but obviously not something that anyone can use in an argument with a holy God.  Again, all have sinned and all earn death and separation.  The fact that He offers any of us salvation is amazing.

We started in John 1.  We talked through the first thirteen verses as we see John explain some very fundamental things about our faith.  The first is that Jesus is equal to God which is equal to the Word.  And so Jesus has existed since before time.  While his physical presence was on earth 2000 years ago, he has always been.  And he had an equal part in creation, which we usually attribute to God the Father.  So he came to the earth and people that he created, and even though there was tons of prophetic evidence to support that he was the Messiah, he was rejected by most.  He was the light in the darkness but the darkness didn't want him.

John also mentions John the Baptist, who came to proclaim that the Messiah was coming.  I used the illustration with the kids that if it was night time and pitch black outside, except for one light shining far off on the horizon, we wouldn't be able to tell what the light was.  It could be a street light, house light, headlight, lantern or any number of other light sources.  So we would need one of two things: either to go to the light to see what it was or have someone who has been to the light to come be a witness.  John the Baptist's role was to tell what the light was before it showed up.  But even once Jesus arrived, people still refused to accept that he was the Messiah.

I told the kids that part of the reason that Jesus was rejected was because the Israelites had something else in mind.  I asked them what kind of a person they would envision when they heard the word "savior".  They did a great job of thinking through the list: Tall, handsome, strong, wealthy, maybe a king or prince, well educated and a warrior.  They were expecting something along the lines of Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan who would come in and set up a powerful kingdom on earth.  They were expecting someone to come kick Rome out of the picture and make them the world power.  Instead... they got a carpenter kid born in a barn.  They rejected him because what they were expecting and what God had planned didn't line up.  But God had much bigger goals with the Messiah than a temporary kingdom on a temporary rock.

If the people who were looking for him - who got to see him and witness his miracles and everything else - still rejected him, why would people who just read about him in a book believe?  It's definitely a good point and another reason why not everyone follows something that we all accept.  And the most incredible part is that become a Christian isn't hard.  We looked at Romans 10:6-13.  Paul's instructions here are simple.  Say it with your mouth and believe it in your heart.  There are no hoops to jump through, no balancing scale of goodness to maintain, no level of enlightenment to obtain - just admitting and believing.  And it is for everyone.  Paul ends by saying that anyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.

So, if that's all there is, why doesn't everyone do it?  I don't know.  I don't know why most people do what they do, especially me.  But as I closed with the kids last night, I told them that we have to understand our role in that process, too.  As followers, part of what we are supposed to be doing is shining that light.  I told them that the best way to think about it is like being a mirror.  We should be a reflection of Jesus to others.  And by doing so, we shine light into the darkness.  For the most part we'll be ignored or even despised.  However, for those that are drawn to the light, we become witnesses to what God has done.  The second part to that is that once we attract them with the light, we need to be able to share with them the good news.  Our witness and the relationships we have with both God and others takes Jesus out of the book as a character and makes him a real-life savior.  That's what the past 4 weeks have been about.  We all need reminders and refreshers of how we can verbalize our faith and tell someone how they can receive eternal life.  It is part of what we are called to as followers.  And while not all will receive, we can be certain that it won't be from our lack of shining.

Power in the Blood

As we entered into the third week of our discussion on salvation, we talked through the method of God's plan of redemption over the course of the Bible. More specifically, we talked about the need for blood to cover sin. This is a tricky conversation to have, not only because of the "icky" factor, but also because it is something that a lot of people have a hang up over. Why does God require death and blood to cover up sin? And even as we talk about it, there are a lot of answers we simply will never get and can only follow by faith.

For the beginning of our conversation we look to the beginning of sin. In Genesis 3, we read the account of Adam and Eve in the garden.  We know about the serpent, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the realization of nakedness. After the giggles settled down, we talked about how the first response by Adam and Eve to their realization of sin was to cover themselves. They did so by fashioning garments out of fig leaves. But when God shows up and they talk through the whole sin and curse thing, God replaces their fig-leaf clothing with animal skins. And while trees can afford to cough up a few leaves without bringing about their demise, animals don't have quite the same luxury. And so, even with the first sin, we see a glimpse of the system God would put into place to cover sin. A sacrifice would need to take place in order to forgive sin.  Death would be required to cover it up.

As the nation of Israel begins to establish their relationship with God while wandering in the desert and finally entering into the promised land, laws are given specifically relating to how this system of sacrificial atonement would work. In Leviticus 1:1-4, we read about the most basic of sacrifices. Here we see that the animal must meet certain requirements and that great care would be needed to make sure that the animal being sacrificed was sufficient. This wasn't the lame, sickly cow that was about to die off anyway; this was the flawless animal that the family would have prized. And through it's death, sins would be forgiven. In Hebrews 9:22, the Bible says that the law requires that blood must be spilled in order for there to be forgiveness. It is God's system for redemption.

Now, to serve as review, we looked at Romans 3:23 and 6:23 to see that, not only does no one measure up to God's standard, but the wage we earn by falling short is death. It is what we should get. However, God loves us and decided to give us a way out. The old system He used required the shedding of animal blood to temporarily cover that debt. In Hebrews 10:1-10 we see that those sacrifices had to be made over and over to cover the person as they continually fell short of God's standard by sinning. But this system was merely a temporary thing; just a shadow of what God had in store. Through the death of Christ, the grace sufficient to cover all sins is made through the shedding of God's only son's blood. In 1 Peter 2:22-24 it says that Jesus carried our sins in his body on the cross.  When God turned His back on him, it wasn't anything he had done that caused the seperation.  It was my lies, greed, malice and all the rest of my sin and everyone elses.  He bore it all for us.  And through his death, we have a way to become holy to God, once and for all. Not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus did for us.

The wording in Hebrews 10 is great in that it shows that Christ was always the plan. The first system was merely a shadow, a first step in the process of God's ultimate solution to the problem of sin. I asked the kids why they thought God did it this way. I mean, technically, God could have sent Jesus right after Adam and Eve first sinned. Why wait thousands of years using a temporary system? They thought about it, but didn't really have an answer. And to be honest, I don't really either. What I do know is that there is a time and place for everything. While I might not understand the timing that God used, I do understand that the final solution to the problem of sin came at just the right time in just the right way to bring about God's glory in just the way He designed it. Ephesians 2:1-5 tells us that in spite of our sin and the way people lived under the Law, God loved us and had mercy on us. Instead of allowing us to stay dead and separated in our sin, He sent His son to pay the price so that we could have new life.

As to the question of blood; God only knows. Why does something have to die in order to make sin clean to God? Why not money or prayer or something less gross? Beats me. But we found it ironic that the payment due for sin - for separation from God which is death - would be found only in death. For whatever reason, that sticky, smelly, staining fluid of life is the only thing that cleans us and makes us presentable to a holy God. And while the old system served its purpose well, I am so thankful that it was just a shadow of what Jesus did for me on the cross. And even if I don't understand it, I can't deny the wonder-working pow'r in the precious blood of the Lamb.

The Good, the Bad and the Filthy Rag

Another fantastic night in Surge as we continued our discussion on Salvation by asking the question "Why isn't being 'good' good enough?".  After all, we're pretty good people here in Surge.  So I started by getting them to stand up and move to a spot on an invisible scale between 1 and 10 to show where they felt they were on the "good" chart.  Most of them rated themselves between “9” and “6”, which by the standards society uses, would be pretty accurate.

But let’s get into the Word and see what God says.  We started in Psalm 14:2-3.  Here we read David telling us about God looking down from heaven - looking for anyone who understands and trusts Him - but that all have turned away and all are evil.  In the NIrV he uses the word "all" 4 times and the results are bad.  No one does anything good.  Not one.  Yikes!  But maybe David is just having a bad day.  Just to be on the safe side, we flipped to Matthew 19:16-17.  Here we see the rich young ruler asking Jesus what “good things” he must do to receive eternal life.  Jesus replies that nothing is good.  Only God is good.  The son of God is saying that nothing is good, except God.  So if the standard for good is equal to God, then it is easy to see why David says that none of us are good.

But why stop there?  Isaiah 64:6 says that we have all become like someone who is "unclean" to God.  We didn't get completely into the Old Testament laws (specifically the lists like what we see in Leviticus chapter 15) regarding "unclean" but we did at least talk enough about it to get the gist of what Isaiah is talking about.  Then he talks about how the good things that we do are like "filthy rags" to God.

Parent Note:  The most accurate translation for "filthy rags" relates to menstrual cloths.  And while I personally hate it when people dilute the Word, there is a time and place for everything.  A mixed-gender, 4th and 5th grade class is not the place to bring up something that is going to embarrass them or introduce something their parents haven't had the chance to discuss first.  To that end, the wording that I used was vague enough that the kids who had no clue, still have no clue, but those who do know could read between the lines and understand what Isaiah was referencing.  While even bringing it up might seem unnecessary, I think it is important to distinguish just how gross our best efforts are to a holy God.  This isn't the rag you wash your car with or dirty socks gross... this is a used sanitary pad gross.

Isaiah goes on to say that we are like dried up leaves.  We don't even choose what we do or where we go, but rather, sin just blows us around and we are helpless against it.  This paints a very good picture of how sin works in our life.  We stopped and referenced what we talked about last week regarding our sin nature.  I also talked about how - as sinful, fallen creatures - we tend toward sin even when we want to do what is right.  When we make choices, they are based almost entirely on the reward/punishment system.  Our "goodness" isn't so much good as it is either seeking to gain reward or to avoid punishment.  We are conditioned that way.  So even our best effort fall short and gross out God.

Paul takes this one step further in Philippians 3:8 when he says that, compared to God, everything is garbage.  I love the King James Version of this as it is actually translated to "dung" and some commentaries would even go so far as to describe it as another 4-letter word.  The point is the same no matter how the word is translated.  Not only our actions but everything in this world is worthless compared to the treasure of God.  Nothing is good.  Only God is good.

Pretty depressing, huh?

So basically, we are all bad and there is nothing good.  What are we supposed to do?  Even our best efforts disgust God.  What chance do we have of being righteous?  We then flipped to Romans 3:21-28.  Here, Paul gives us some hope.  He tells us how to become right with God.  And the shocker is... it has nothing to do with being good.  It has nothing to do with following rules or obeying God's Law.  It is all completely reliant on our faith in His grace.  Nothing we can do is going to be “good enough” but God did something for us - a gift that we haven’t earned - that gives us a way out of sin.  Through the blood of His son, Jesus, we have a way to be reconciled with God.

So, does that mean we can do anything we want since following the rules don’t matter?  We brought up our dot and line examples of justification and sanctification that we talked about last week.  The rules, the Law, being good; none of those matter as it relates to justification.  Nothing but faith in God’s grace can save us, or justify us, from our sins.  However, while God did give us the Law so that “sin would increase”, He also uses the rules to help guide us in being more Christ-like in our process of sanctification.  So while following the rules can’t save us, it can make us more like Jesus.  And when we do that, we reflect Jesus to those around us as witnesses to his grace.

Hebrews 11:6 wraps it up perfectly.  Without faith, there is no way to make God happy.  No matter how many nice things you say, no matter how many homeless people you feed or how much money you give to the church, no matter how polite you are or how many rules you follow, it doesn't please God.  The only way is through faith.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says that nothing you do can save you.  It is all through God's grace because of our faith in Christ.  It is a gift.  You cannot earn it.  And because of that, no one can brag about how good they are.  We're all bad.  It's only when we've been redeemed that we can be good enough for a holy God.

So where does that leave us?  I had the kids get back up and re-vote at the end of class to see if they had changed their ideas about where they fall on the 1 to 10, bad to good scale.  The vast majority of them went to the “1 spot”.  I tried to explain that “1” was equal to the worst people, like murderers and criminals.  They wouldn't move.  They understood that their sins set them apart and make them as filthy as the worst of what society labels "bad".  But we didn't stop there.  I told them that while it is important to understand our place as sinful creatures, that as Christians, we are new creations.  Through our faith in God's grace, our sins have been covered.  They are no longer held against us.  God sees us through the filter of Jesus.  Our sins have been remove and we are clean in God's eyes - not because of anything we have done - but because of what Jesus did for us.  With that being said, I had them all move over to the “10 spot”.  We can't brag.  Our best isn't good enough.  But we can celebrate the fact that God's grace covers a multitude of sin.  And that is the only thing that is good enough to matter.

2 easy 2 take 4 granted...

Last night began a new 4 week study for us in Surge on salvation.  To be honest, I had a hard time getting excited about the topic when I saw it coming up.  For the weekend Bible study, it is such a great subject and one I look forward to when we talk through it.  We are constantly introducing the concept to those who don’t know or who haven’t made that choice yet.  But this is Surge.  These kids know all about this stuff already.  Can't we talk about something else that would fuel great discussion and lead to amazing transformation and discipleship?

I am so not the smartest guy all the time.

So I decided that we would go ahead with it.  I mean, we'll cover it more as it relates to evangelism.  The more comfortable they are with understanding the ideas surrounding salvation, the more likely they will be to share it with others.  So, we'll just call it an "in depth review".

But the reality is that it is way too easy to assume that these kids have made the decision to follow Christ.  It is way too easy to take for granted the things that they should already know because they've “been around the block”, have godly parents or have made the choice for themselves already.  Even if they have heard it all before, they are in process on this journey and everyday the same information hits them in completely different ways.  So, within a few minutes of starting the lesson, it became clear that this series is going to be a good one.  The question was "Why Doesn't Everyone Go to Heaven" and it is not a fun topic to discuss.  We touched on it a bit back at the beginning of the year, but last night it was all about it.  No one likes to talk about the fact that some people will go to hell.

We started in Matthew 7:13-14.  This is a little bit of a review as we have talked about this verse earlier this year when talking about other religions.  But these kids are 3 months further along in their walk, which seems like nothing to most people, but they took these verses in like completely new material.  We talked about the wide road and the narrow road.  But we paused here to discuss a very important distinction.  I introduced two terms to them: justification and sanctification.  I explained that justification is a fancy word for the one-time decision they make to become a Christian.  It is the accepting of Christ in their lives.  It is salvation.  We used the illustration of a dot to show it as a one-time event.  But then we talked about sanctification, or the process of growing more Christ-like as we learn and incorporate God's Word into our lives.  This is a constant and continual process in the lives of all believers.  I used a line coming out of the dot to illustrate this.

As Christians, there are lots of parts to the process of sanctification.  But the part I wanted them to focus on was evangelism, as sharing our faith is a vital part of that process.  We talked about how we as Christians have found the narrow path that Matthew 7 says only a few find.  And once we find it, we should act like those guys standing out at the airport with their giant flashlights, guiding the planes to the terminals.  We should basically be doing everything we can to get the attention of the people on that wide path to death and hell and say, "HEY!  Look what I found.  Come over to this path that leads to God."

The kids responded thoughtfully, "But what if they don't want to come?".  A great question.  But I explained that everyone has to make the choice.  And even if they ignore us and keep walking down that wide path, our job is to tell them.  If we do our job, then we can trust that God will take care of the rest.  And ultimately they make the choice to keep on walking or to explore the road less traveled.

We then flipped to Romans 6:23.  This is such an important verse.  We talked through the fact that everyone, from Adam until God pulls the plug, deserves death.  We earn it by rebelling against a holy God when we sin.  And everyone sins.  But, God has given a gift to all that will receive it.  Jesus died once to cover all sin.  Past , present and future, all sin is covered by his death.  But not all receive the gift and have their sins covered.  And again, as we said earlier in the year, this is completely unfair.  The fair thing is that we all be separated from God because of our sin.  But grace was extended to those who will believe by a loving and merciful God.

We then looked in Isaiah 53:1-2.  Here was see that God has the ability to save, but sin separates us from God.  We talked about God being holy and unable to associate with sin.  It is only when our sin is covered that we can have relationship with God.  In the Old Testament, under the old covenant, that was done with the shedding of animal blood during regular sacrifices.  But under the new covenant, Jesus' sacrifice covers that sin for all that accept him.

Lastly, and I could have camped out here all night because of the complicated nature of the idea for kids to grasp, we looked at Romans 5:20-21.  Here we see Paul explaining that God gave the Law so that sin would increase.  Talk about being confused.  I told them most of the time, people look at the Law as God trying to keep us from sinning.  That by creating rules, God was giving us guidelines that would make sin decrease.  But this is the opposite reason.  God gave the Law so sin would increase.  I used speed limits as an example to help explain.  I had them imagine that there were no speed limits.  I asked them how they thought people would drive.  The response they gave me was exactly what the reality would probably be: as fast as they can.  Then I asked what the result would be to which they replied that there would be lots of accidents and deaths and problems.  Then I explained that by creating a law and putting up speed limits, people would have a chance to break the law by speeding and face the consequences, so "sin" would increase.

God waited 1,700 years before creating the Law.  From Adam to Moses, there were no "rules" to speak of.  He gave the Law, in part, to protect us from ourselves and make things better.  But that isn't the main reason.  He did it so that we would break the rules and by breaking the rules, understand that we can't follow the rules.  He needed us to understand that we are fallen.  And in that state, there has to be something outside of our own sinful nature that saves us from that state of sin.

Cue grace.

By creating Law which increases sin, God then reveals the ultimate goal: increasing grace.  Without sin, there is no need for grace because if it can't be broken there is no need to fix it.  And without Law there is no evidence of sin.  So to extend grace, God creates the Law so that sin would increase.  I gave the illustration that if two people owed me money, one a hundred dollars and one a million dollars, and I forgave both their debts, who did I extend more grace to?  Obviously the one with the greatest debt.  The bigger the debt, the bigger the grace required to cover it.  So salvation, by grace through faith, is the end result for those of us who accept the gift.

I don't know why God did it this way.  It's why He is God and I am not.  I don't know why salvation only comes through His son, but I also don't know why He puts up with any of us.  We deserve separation.  We deserve the same fate as the devil and demons.  We don't deserve the opportunity of salvation that God designed through the death of His son.  But I sure am glad He extends that grace.  And I'll try and remember that no matter how well I think our kiddos understand that concept, they are in constant process and need reminders.  And I do too.