Put right with God

 The service starts about 15 minutes into the video, although I'm not quite sure when the IT team realised they weren't focussing on me!  

I wonder whether you can remember when you first made a conscious decision to be Jesus’ person?

I know some people can’t remember, they have been Jesus’ person all their lives and it would never have occurred to them to do otherwise.
And some people know that once upon a time they were not Christians,
but their journey to God was such a slow, gradual and yet purposeful one
that they can’t point to a given day when they were a Christian,
yet were not the day before.

And others have a definite date that they can point to and say “Then.
That was the day I became a Christian.”
I sort-of have that.
In many ways the second Sunday in October, well over fifty years ago, was the day for me,
but in fact, there was a lot of stuff that went before it,
and a great deal more that came after it.
It didn’t happen in a vacuum, although it felt a bit like that at the time.

I was just a child then, eighteen years old and on my own in Paris.
I was rather lonely and having trouble making friends,
and my grandmother suggested I went along to the English church
to see whether they had any activities for young people.
They most certainly did, and it didn’t take long for me to hear a sermon on “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.....”.
And this was obviously the thing you did if you wanted to be accepted by this group of people..... so.....
I’m so glad God is gracious and loved me anyway!

But the reason I’m raking up ancient history like this is that when you had become a Christian, as it was called,
you were expected to attend the weekly Bible Study
as well as the more formal teaching sessions which took place on a Wednesday.
The Bible Studies were small discussion groups, people roughly the same age, peer-led.
The minister stayed away, on the grounds that people needed to learn to read the Scriptures for themselves, not just be taught what to think.
And it was noticeable that, very often, if we had got stuck with something,
he would talk about the very thing we’d got stuck on in the Wednesday teaching sessions.

This form of studying the Bible was new to me –
attending Bible Study and prayer meetings –
the two tended to merge, rather –

was not something that was done at the school I attended,
or at my parents’ church.
So I can still remember the very first passage I ever studied with my contemporaries, and do you know,
it was that very passage from Romans that we’ve just heard read.
We used the Good News Bible, only back then it was only the Good News New Testament, which is why I asked Robert to read from this version today.

“Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
He has brought us by faith into this experience of God's grace,
in which we now live.
And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God's glory!”

“Now that we have been put right with God through faith”
What does that even mean?
Most translations say “Now that we have been justified by faith”. “Justified” is a technical term, meaning – well, basically meaning “put right with God”!
All the nasty squirmy bits of ourselves that we really don’t want God to look at too closely –
and that, come to that, we don’t actually want to look at too closely ourselves –
they are –
not swept away, sadly, much though we might like that to happen.
Quite the reverse;

they are brought out into the light so that we can look at them and God can look at them and say –
okay, that needs to change.
And then, if we are sensible, we allow God to change us.

That, of course, is a very long process, and will probably never be completely finished this side of heaven.
That’s what we call “sanctification”, being made holy, being made whole, being made more like God, being made more into the person we were created to be.
But the point is, God doesn’t make us wait until we are perfect before he will put up with us.
All the nasty squirmy bits, what the jargon calls “Sin”,
God decrees they no longer exist.
They do, of course, and we deal with them in due course,
but the point is, they no longer come between us and God.

We have, so St Paul tells us, peace with God.
But I really do think the most important thing that I’ve learnt in all the years since that first Bible study, so long ago,
is that I don’t have to do the putting right!
It took me a really long time to learn that particular lesson!
I thought I had to grow my own faith, as though my salvation were down to me.
It’s not.

Our salvation doesn’t depend on what we do.
We all need to be saved, and we all can be saved –
these days, I’m not entirely sure what I mean by “saved”,
and it’s one of those words that I suspect we all interpret slightly differently, but that doesn’t matter.
The point is, we don’t have to –
and, indeed, we can’t –
save ourselves.
God does that.
All we have to do is to reach out, to say “Yes please!”
and accept what is on offer.
“Listen,” says Jesus, according to the book of Revelation,
“Listen! I stand at the door and knock;
if any hear my voice and open the door, I will come into their house and eat with them, and they will eat with me.”

Of course, one shouldn’t really take a verse out of context like that,
but it is a helpful illustration.
All we need do is open the door to Jesus –
and then let go.
Then we are put right with God by faith,
we do have peace with God,
and we can relax and allow God to re-create us into the person we were designed to be.
That bit isn’t always easy –
far from it –
but it’s worth it.

But it’s not just about us, is it?
Of course, our individual relationship with God is essential
it is something that needs to permeate all our lives.
It’s not just about what we do in Church on Sundays, although that too –
it’s about how we live the rest of our lives.
I have often said that these Sundays in Ordinary Time are where what we think we believe comes up against what we really do believe!
And sometimes, I think, we forget that we aren’t in it just as individuals, but as a community.
Paul says “We” all the time in this passage, not just “I”.
We, as a church, have been put right with God;
we, as a church, are being made more Christ-like, more the community that God created us to be.

We don’t have to wait to come to God;
Paul tells us that Jesus died for us end of story.
We could be the foulest person who ever trod this earth, but Jesus died for us.
We could be almost perfect –
and Jesus still died for us!
And that includes everybody –
even those we want to hate.
Even those who want nothing to do with God and treat religion with contempt.
Even those who set themselves up in place of God….
Jesus still died for them, and longs and longs for them to turn to him.

And Paul also points out that when trouble comes –
as it always does, always has, and always will,
God can use it to help us grow and become more what we can be.
Both us as individuals, and us as a community.

God will continue to work on us, if we let him, right up until the day we die, and probably afterwards, too!
Like butterflies, we are in our caterpillar stage right now, and our journey through the valley of the shadow of death is the equivalent of the pupa, and then, we believe, we will be transformed –
perhaps not into a butterfly, but certainly into something wonderful.
To a certain extent, of course, that happens, and is happening right now, here on earth,
which is why God has already started to work in us and to make us into the person we were created to be.
But how much more work will need to be done on us before we are perfect!
I know John Wesley believed that Christians could be perfect,
but I also know I’m very far from!
And God still needs to do a great deal of work on me before I fulfil my potential.

But the thing is, we don’t have to do it.
And we don’t have to wait until it’s done before we can get on with our lives as Christians, as God’s people.
We have been put right with God through faith, and now have peace with him through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we can get on with our lives.
Amen.