May 10, 2020 ~ Fifth Sunday of Easter Sermon & Sermon Video link

Mother’s Day                                                                          05/10/20—Highland—Meute

“The Unconditional Love of God”

Psalm 31: 1-5, 15-16; I Peter 2: 2-10; John 14: 1-14

Pearl: The inclusive love of God and God’s plan to save everyone

Function: Listener will expand and open their understanding one small step toward a broader view of God as Savior of all (Jesus pointed to God as Savior, deflecting attention to himself and toward God).

Mother’s Day being today affords a very good context for a sermon on the “unconditional love of God” for every person who lives and who has ever lived. I say this because parental love often provides the best metaphors we can use to talk about God.

1. As soon as I say that I have to follow with the notion that no human metaphor we use to understand God is near enough. For in fact, while God is personal God is not a human being. God is Spirit. God is neither male nor female yet God has both male and female personality characteristics.
   1. This has to be true if indeed we are all made in God’s image, both male and female.
   1. One of the greatest errors of the church is to promote male as superior to female. It is not God’s intent to elevate male over female.
      1. But this is not the subject of today’s sermon.
   1. Though we will return to a “mother story” later on.
2. The Gospel lesson from John 14 is a favorite passage for many.
   1. First there is the immediate invitation of Jesus to be at peace: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”
   1. Then there is the image of a mansion with many rooms at which believers can hope to arrive some day. This image of a mansion with many rooms is one analogy for the afterlife. It is a passage frequently used at funerals and for those who are close to death as a source of comfort and hope.
      1. “I prepare a place for you and I will take you to myself.”
   1. This passage is very comforting to many. But one verse on the other hand can be disturbing.
      1. The verse which reads, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” can send chills to those who don’t see themselves as “believers,” as “Christians,” or as “people of faith.”
      1. And what about those of other faiths: Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and on and on? What are they to do with such a notion that Jesus is the only way to the Father?
      1. Basically this verse is viewed as “exclusive” by most, including by Christians, for sure.
         1. At funeral services I have conducted sometimes Christians thank me for reading it and sharing their dismay that sometimes it is left out. And then they speak of their being “saved” and assured of salvation because they have confessed faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
         1. They mean no harm or ill will but they view God’s salvation in a very exclusive manner.
            1. Indeed, I used to view it that way myself.
3. I no longer believe that Jesus ever intended this saying to be used in such an exclusive way.
   1. You have to understand that the Gospel of John differs from the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in many ways. It departs from the others in key ways. Most markedly it differs in how Jesus did not seek attention for himself. According to the other three gospels, Jesus did not seek to make a name for himself. He constantly pointed away from himself to God the Father. He spoke of how he and the Father were one. So one could come to know God by listening to his teachings and following God’s ways. But Jesus always squirmed away from being the center of attention.
   1. Jesus pointed to the Father as Savior. Jesus pointed to the Father as God. He did not refer to himself as God. He came close sometimes. But he usually veered away from self-glorification.

God is the Savior of every person. God loves every person ever created and yet to live on this earth. The destiny which God places within every single person who lives is to be a reflection of the love of God. God is love. So everyone is predestined to be a lover of God and to embrace the God who loves them. No one is predestined to destruction or separation from God.

1. Jesus pointed to God’s way. The first followers of Jesus were known as people of the way, God’s way. It is too bad this didn’t stick. Rather than “Christians” we would be called people of the Way. People of God’s Way, of God’s kingdom.
   1. Jesus pointed to the kingdom, to the way of God. Jesus pointed always to what God destines life to be. He didn’t seek to make a movement about his name, but about the way of God on earth.
   1. Jesus wanted people to know God and to love God. He wanted people to know God’s way and to live within God’s way.
2. But he pointed to God in all that he did including to God as Savior. The Old Testament also viewed God as Savior.
   1. Psalm 31: 2: “Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.”
   1. Isaiah 43: 11-12: “I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed.”
      1. To quote from the powerful book, If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person (Philip Gulley and Thomas Mulholland), “From the beginning, God chose to save his children” (p. 129).

We refer to Jesus as Lord and Savior but in truth God the Father, whom Jesus revealed day in and day out though his life is also Lord and Savior.

1. No one is outside of God’s love. There are no “ins” or “outs” with God, there is no “us” and “them” with God.
   1. Sadly the church through the ages is quite exclusive. There were always those seen as insiders and those seen as outsiders with regard to God’s grace.
      1. Wars are fought by those who think they are in favor with God and that the opposition is by no means in favor with God.
      1. Catholics through history viewed themselves as the only ones who would be saved and Protestants returned the favor.
         1. Within the Protestant tradition there are hundreds of sects with many viewing themselves as the “true believers.”
   1. And that is within the “church” not to mention how many Christians view other religions or those who practice no religion.
2. God loves us all just the same. God is the Savior of all.
   1. If Jesus is the “only way” then the sense I make of it is that as the “only way” he is busy making a way to knowing God’s love for everyone regardless of their statement of faith or declaration of no faith. Jesus is busy making God’s love known to every single person in the world. And he is busy making God’s world known at the same time.
3. I know this may be radical thinking to many! It does seem to deviate from traditional theology down through the ages.
   1. I challenge you to take a risk of believing on the side of love. Risk believing that God is more loving and accepting than you can imagine.
   1. Why is it so hard for the church to believe that God is so good! Why is it so hard for us to believe that God loves everyone equally and wants everyone to know the God who loves them?
      1. Some years ago a wildly popular pastor of a mega church in Michigan, Rob Bell, wrote a book entitled Love Wins.
      1. He was soon stripped of his congregation and castigated across the wide church. He was considered an outlaw in the Bible Belt.
         1. He championed the notion that God is love and that God will save everyone.

When I came into the ministry and went through the process of being examined for ordination by Pittsburgh Presbytery there was a pastor member of the Presbytery who would always ask candidates the same question from the floor. Candidates were warned by the Committee on Preparation that the question would come in some form or another. It was this, “Do you believe that God will save some people to eternal life and condemn others to an eternal life in hell?”

1. That belief tends to be the dominant belief of many Christians—that God will save some and condemn others.
   1. Sadly, we so limit God by attributing to God our human tendencies.
   1. Sadly, we make salvation so much a matter of what we believe and what we do. It is subtly a matter of pride. It is viewing salvation so very much from the human side rather than from God’s prerogative. And God seeks to save everyone. God wishes to save everyone.
      1. You have to come to terms about what it says about God to destine some people to be outside of love?
2. Let’s admit our limits with regard to speaking of eternity! Let’s admit our limits with regard to knowing our own soul let alone another soul.
3. Let’s agree to define God as love and as Savior of all, without exceptions, without conditions.

We so limit God by our theologies and by our imaginations.

1. A five year old demanded that his mother buy him a certain toy. She refused, explaining that she didn’t have the money.
   1. The child flew into a rage and screamed, “I hate you.”
   1. The mother was utterly unperturbed. She didn’t spank the child or send him to his room. She didn’t break into tears. She didn’t drag him to a therapist. She most certainly didn’t buy him the toy. She simply said, “Well, I love you, and your hate can’t change my love.”
   1. In word and deed she demonstrated her freedom to respond to hatred with love.
2. Rejection of God cannot change God’s commitment to love. It is interesting how we maintain that human beings have the freedom to reject God’s love but that God doesn’t have the freedom to reject our rejection.
   1. Again, we so limit God.
   1. “God’s love is without condition. He does not accept us because we are good. God is good, loving, and merciful and therefore accepts us. We are free to resist the grace of God, but we are not free to separate ourselves from God’s love” (Gulley and Mulholland).
3. If you ever had an idea of God as being angry and full of wrath, ready to smite those who turned away from him and from Jesus, and truly many of us have a better image of Jesus than we do of the Father; remember that Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10).
4. God was always the Savior of the world. Jesus made God known. The world needed Jesus in order for God’s ways to be understood.
   1. When Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” he meant that he could make God known beyond what any could imagine. It did not mean that some would be eternally separated from the love of God if they didn’t accept him and bow down to him.

In whom do you put your faith? Do you put your faith in yourself? Or do you put your faith in God who is pure love. This is really what it comes down to.

Do you trust yourself more than you trust God?

Trust in the God who loves you! Live in and extend this same love of God. This is the Way of God. Always, always err on the side of love and of inclusion!

God does not exclude, we do; God includes, welcomes, and accepts EVERYONE!