“God’s Spirit Beckons”

Romans 8:12-17

Romans 8:12-17 (The Message): So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a child-like, “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we’re going to get what’s coming to us – an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going through the good times with him.

Max Lucado: God didn’t look at our frazzled lives and say, “I’ll die for you when you deserve it.” No, despite our sin, in the face of our rebellion, he chose to adopt us. And for God, there’s no going back. His grace is a come-as-you-are promise from a one-of-a-kind King. You’ve been found, called, and adopted; so trust your Father and trust this verse as your own: “God showed his love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.” And you never have to wonder who your father is – you’ve been adopted by God and are therefore an “heir of God through Christ.”

[Prayer]

“God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are: Father and children. And we know we’re going to get what’s coming to us – an unbelievable inheritance.” So wrote the Apostle Paul.

“… despite our sin, in the face of our rebellion, [God] chose to adopt us… [We’ve] been found, called, and adopted… And [we] never again have to wonder who [our] father is – we’ve been adopted by God.” So wrote Max Lucado.

Today’s text reminds us who we are and whose we are. We are sinners, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, who are true heirs, along with Jesus, of God our Father. In Christ we have been given a new life: a new way of living, acting, thinking, and believing. There is no going back for the God who has adopted us. And there should be no going back for us. As Paul wrote, “… we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all… God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go.”

This new life isn’t all seashells and balloons. If we faithfully follow Christ, then we will encounter some suffering along the way. We may even have to die for him. But still, our new life in Christ is abundant and eternal. We belong to our Father now and forever. Our inheritance is assured. No one can take it away from us. It is ours. We have been set free from that old life of slavery to sin.

So why do we keep going back to that old life? Why do we keep digging it up? Why do we keep picking at all the old scabs, opening back up all those old wounds? Why can’t we just let it go once and for all time, freeing ourselves to go where God’s Spirit leads is? The Spirit is beckoning. God has laid out a wonderful itinerary for us: things to do and places to go.

This past week I caught myself picking at some of those old scabs again. Tuesday or Wednesday I realized that I was filled with anger. I was mad – at nobody in particular, over no recent event in my life. Then I had one of those ah-ha moments. On Monday as I engaged in a little Face Book correspondence with some long-lost friends from high school I was finally honest with them about how that time in their lives that they considered so wonderful was often hell for me.

Sharing that was good and that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. All the old hurts, all the old scars, all the old resentments and feelings of vindictiveness came bubbling up out of me. Once again I was angry at people who may not even be alive anymore, burning with hatred toward them for all the cruel things they did. I took a look at this guy sitting in my chair, and although he looked like me, I wondered who this person was. Definitely not the me I am today. But somebody else who should have died with Christ a long time ago, for whom the waters of baptism should have been a cleansing, healing experience.

So, recalling in my journal some old words of John Prine about letting go of anger and grudges that wouldn’t budge, and Don Henley’s song, “It’s About Forgiveness,” I gave myself a rather stern lecture about forgiveness, letting go, moving on, turning all that stuff over to God. I reminded myself that I was being held prisoner by my own anger that I was allowing myself to be enslaved once again by all those grudges that just wouldn’t budge. I also reminded myself that I was a new creation in Christ, that the past – that old life - was over and gone.

As was usual in such cases the lecture method – the old stiff upper lip and pull yourself up by your bootstraps verbiage – didn’t work. I couldn’t just grow up and get over it. Nor could I simply pull up my big-boy boxers and move on. That old life was my life. Those old memories were my memories. I could not exorcise all those old demons by myself.

That’s one of the reasons I journal. Journaling is for me a form of prayer. It’s a place where I write down thoughts and quotes so that I don’t forget them. It’s a way to look back and see that I’ve dealt with difficult things before. But more than anything else it is a vehicle by which I open myself to God’s beckoning Spirit. Some people talk things out. Others think them out. I write them out. And some of the things I write will never be shared with another human being. They’re between me and God. That’s how I heal. That’s how I grow.

By the power of God’s beckoning Spirit I remember who I am and whose I am. I remember that I am the beloved child of a loving heavenly Father. I remember that, while I was yet a sinner, Jesus died for me. I remember that that was then and this is now. Now, in God, is where I live and move and have my being. Now is where I’m married to Sandy, have a wonderful family, and am blessed to be the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church. Now is where God has things for me to do and places for me to go.

And the Apostle Paul is right on the money: I don’t owe that old life anything. It no longer owns me, no longer defines me. In truth it can no longer hurt me. In Christ I am beyond all that: all the hurt, all the pain, all the sinful stupidity that I would later go on to engage in. I’ve turned all that “crap” over to Christ. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. It doesn’t really belong to me anymore.

Sinful man that I am I will always be drawn back to those scabs and tempted to pick at them. All that old stuff, along with other old stuff, is going to bubble up from time to time. Like every Christian of every age I will constantly find that I need to immerse myself in God’s Word, spend time in prayer with my Father, get all that stuff out of my system one more time, turn my heart toward God’s beckoning Spirit, and go where he leads me: out of the darkness into the light, out of a less than stellar past into God’s wonderful future.

I’m sure that each and every one of you is haunted by old hurts, old sins, old failures, old feelings of guilt, old moments of shame. Each and every one of you – each and every one of us – keeps thinking that we owe that old life something, that it still owns us. Well, we don’t, and it doesn’t. Anything we owe was paid for a long time ago by Christ as he died on the cross. That old life with all its hurts and sinfulness has no claim on us whatsoever. We are no longer its slaves. The Lord God has bought and paid for us lock, stock, and barrel. We’re his slaves now. And didn’t Jesus say something to his disciples about no longer being his servants but his friends? And something about taking his yoke upon ourselves because it is light?

In Christ we truly are new creations. The new has come. The old is gone. We are God’s adopted children, his beloved children. And day after day after day he blesses us with an abundant new life in Christ. Day after day after day his Spirit beckons, calling us out of what was into what evermore shall be. Amen.