What we saw last week
Last week we talked about a posture, a disposition toward God: true repentance. We said that God isn't so interested in grand services or celebrations, in everything external. What does he care about? What truly comes from the heart. We discovered that God cares a whole lot about our inner life, and that he longs to be with us so much that he took on human form. What is the most tangible way he shows us that desire? The incarnation: God became flesh to be with us.
This week we remembered other moments when God visited humanity in a special way, so that together we might discover a logic all his own.
God visits Abraham
One of the first passages we read was from the book of Genesis, and it has a hugely important detail. It says that “the LORD appeared to Abraham,” and right away three men appear. When it says LORD, in most Bibles it is written in all capitals, because it stands in for God's personal name: Yahweh. So Yahweh appears to Abraham… in the form of three men. Is the account written wrong? No: God makes himself present through those three people. It is what we call a theophany.
“The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.” — Genesis 18:1-2 (NIV)
And what does Abraham do faced with these strangers? He welcomes them, he welcomes them, he takes them in. In the ancient world the foreigner was very valuable: he had seen lands you had never seen, he knew languages, he brought talents your town didn't have. And it was also believed that the gods would come in the form of strangers. For that double reason, people welcomed the stranger for everything they might learn from him.
Thanks to Abraham's hospitality, God gives him a promise: his wife is going to have a son. And the passage is fairly blunt about it: Sarah was already an old woman, and Abraham older still. When she hears the promise, Sarah laughs. Where does that laughter come from? It could be nerves, disbelief, even a bit of cynicism: six chapters earlier God had already promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky… and still nothing had happened.
So God is building his people, and with whom? With an old man and a barren woman. God didn't work in human resources, right? He didn't look at people's résumés. But that is exactly how he builds his people: because he wanted to know them and, through them, to make himself known to all the nations.
At Sinai: his treasured possession
Then we moved to Exodus 19, to a wonderful scene in the wilderness of Sinai. The people are standing before the mountain, and God speaks to them:
“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” — Exodus 19:4-6 (NIV)
Here's what's interesting: in the eighteen previous chapters there weren't only the promises and the works of God to rescue his people from Pharaoh; there were also the complaints, the disbelief, the laughter of Israel. And even so God tells them: if you want, you can become my treasured possession. The people answered with one voice: “We will do everything the LORD has said.”
Does anyone have a treasure at home? I think of my grandparents and great-grandparents, who kept their things in a safe —if they were lucky— or under the mattress. When my great-grandmother passed away, we found a whole lot of money under her mattress. Everyone has a treasure, and it isn't always valuable to others: it's special because of something very much our own. And God tells his people: you are my treasured possession. He sets them apart from evil and from false gods, and he calls them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
A kingdom of priests
What does it mean to be a kingdom of priests, if at that point there had been no talk yet of the tribes or of the Levites? It didn't mean everyone was a priest, but that the whole people would function as one. What is a priest's role? He exists to mediate the presence of God, to invite people to enter into it. That was to be the calling of the whole people: to encourage others to enter the presence of God, to speak with him, to know him.
Doesn't it remind you of a verse? Peter takes all these words that were meant for Israel and applies them to the church:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” — 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)
We are still God's treasured possession: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, set apart for him.
Peace with God, tribulation transformed
That's all well and good, but how do we live it out? In Romans 5 we saw a beautiful passage. Sometimes the story of Christianity is told as if God were angry with us, and then the Son came to rescue us from the Father. That is very wrong. If you've never heard it, all the better: because it isn't so. Who has been behind human beings from the very beginning to love them and be in communion with them? The same God.
In Romans 5 we discover that, justified by faith, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus. And I love what comes next:
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” — Romans 5:3-5 (NIV)
Who likes tribulations? No one. People who don't have peace with God live through tribulations, and people who do have it live through them too. So what's the difference? That in God that same life produces perseverance, character, and hope. We live it in a different way, because his love has been poured out into our hearts.
I like to think of God as an alchemist. In the ancient world many people searched for the recipe to turn cheap metals into gold. I'm not talking about sorcery or magic, but about the fact that God takes what is bad, cheap, trivial, sad, unjust, and mixing it with the peace we now have, what comes out? Perseverance, character, and hope. Who can do something like that? Only God.
That's why, if someone told you the Christian life is easy, they lied to you. It's hard, and many times we suffer the same tribulations as anyone else. But we open the door to God, he comes in, and he changes our reality.
Hope is for the here and now
Sometimes we misunderstand salvation. We're told that Jesus died, rose again, ascended, and is coming back —and that's true—, but we tend to place all our hope in the hereafter. If you look at a hymnal, almost every time it speaks of hope it speaks of heaven. I too eagerly await the day Jesus puts an end to all evil and all suffering. But our hope isn't only in the hereafter: thinking that way is an incomplete understanding of the gospel.
Where does our hope begin? The day we were baptized we already began to enjoy it. That hope has to do with the transformation of our present reality. If you stop to think about where you were five, ten, or twenty years ago, many of you weren't here, you didn't have the same heart or the same priorities. We were different people. That love poured out into our hearts is already bearing fruit.
That's why salvation is also for today and tomorrow: the reconciliations we can live out in the family, growing in patience, loving our neighbor more. That too is salvation. Sometimes we think it's always in the future, and that's a bit discouraging. But God is with us in the struggle of each day as well. Salvation is for today, for tomorrow, and for eternal life too.
The missionary heart of Jesus
We finished by reading Matthew 9:35 to 10:8, where we see the missionary spirit of Jesus: he names disciples, then apostles, and sends them out to share the good news. From the very beginning we see in God a missionary heart.
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” — Matthew 9:37-38 (NIV)
What is a missionary? A person with a mission. Can you be missionaries? Yes. Should you? You have the mission of bringing the word of God to those who don't yet know it. And this is the continuation of what God had already begun in Exodus: being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation was never about keeping the treasure to ourselves. The way we glorify God is for him to be known among all people.
God's logic
If we put it all together, a logic all God's own comes into view:
He knocks on the door. He knocks on the door of your heart, because he wants to come in.
When he comes in, he blesses us with promises and with hope.
He asks whether we want to be his treasured possession; he never forces us.
He fights for us and transforms our life.
And he sends us out as missionaries to the world.
I love that God didn't force Israel to follow him: he asked them, several times in the Torah, “Do you want to be my people?” And they answered yes. When they later complained, he would remind them: remember that you also chose me.
Questions to carry through the week
I'll leave you with a few questions, but stay with just one of them through the week:
Have we been hospitable toward God? Have we opened our heart and our home to him?
Have we embraced the hope he offers, or do we keep laughing out of disbelief?
Do we realize that we belong to God's most treasured possession, to his people?
How has God transformed our life in the here and now?
Have we understood our missionary calling?
Closing with Psalm 100
I want to leave you once more with Psalm 100, one of my favorites:
“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” — Psalm 100:1-5 (NIV)
May God bless you.
