Three Stages of Safety

 

[Sermon given by Lou Hodapp on Mother's Day, 2013, at the Missouri Veteran's Home]

 

Well Hello veterans on this Mother’s Day.

Here is what some well-known people have said about mothers:

George Washington said: "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

Abraham Lincoln said: "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."

Napoleon Bonaparte, one time leader of France said: "Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons."

And God Himself said through Isaiah the prophet: "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you."

My mother was born in 1903 so if she was here on earth now, she would be 110 years old. I have many great memories of my mother. I felt SAFE with her.

Yes, most of us felt very SAFE when we were with our mothers.

Safety is a big issue in the modern world. With the instant communication systems developed today, we are able to see and hear about bad things that have happened to others and can happen to us. And there are certainly many bad things to hear about these days. If you watch TV too much you can get “crisis overload” – one crisis after another.

We all look for safety for ourselves and those around us. Oh sure, there are some of us who seem to be dare-devils. Some seem to want to live on the edge and risk all. But do they really?

I believe that, deep down, even the supreme dare-devil has his safety net. There are some things that even he considers stupidly dangerous and dangerously stupid. Anyone in his right mind has a limit on and respects safety. We abandon our own particular safe limit for only two reasons: one - we become mentally unbalanced or two - we care for others enough to heroically give up our own safety.

I believe that our built-in safety mechanisms are perfected by God in three distinct stages of growth and maturity.

 

Stage One: Learning That GOD Is Safe

 

As people come to a recognition of a supreme being called “God”, they seldom, at first, see Him as “safe” to them. Our religious cultures have often taught us to keep God at arm’s length because it is not safe to get Him riled up by our actions. We see Him as judgmental and harsh toward our bad deeds and capable of causing danger for our future. Fire and brimstone church sermons about sin and its “hell” consequences paint a picture of a God who is far from safe to get near.

But as it is revealed to us that God IS love - not that love is something God can portion out to us as He sees fit, the picture begins to change. We grow to see that only total love could account for the death of the Son of God. The apostle John tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him  shall not perish but have eternal life. We learn that the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present and EVER-LOVING God is ALL, WHOLE and WITHOUT LACK – SO…, therefore, He is TRUSTABLE. He is not out to “get us”. GOD IS SAFE!

 

Stage Two: the Universe - His CREATION - Is Safe

 

The logical extension of God’s safety is that what He has made is safe. As an expression of God, no person, no place and no circumstance could come to us that was not actually Him in disguise.

But how can this be? Many things that we confront every day seem to represent danger to us. But do they really? For people separated from God, they certainly do. But as we are reborn as children in the Family of God, the material world develops an eternal “safety-net”. We then grow to relate everything material to how it affects our eternal, spiritual life as a child of God.

Crime, natural disasters, sickness, etc., do not present any real danger to the child in the Family of a totally loving God. God promises protection for His children. The form which that protection takes varies. The danger may avoid us completely. Or it may affect us but be turned to God’s good purposes and even correct us toward a closer trust in God’s guidance. Or it may affect us in such a way that the way we handle the situation becomes God’s light to others. Or we may only be rescued from the danger by death and going to be with God after death.

Yes, for a Christian, THE UNIVERSE IS SAFE!

 

Stage Three: I, PERSONALLY Am Safe

 

Here God provides the finishing touches on your safety system. We have come to believe that God is safe IF we are obedient - the universe is safe IF we are obedient. And we continue into stage three with the concept that I am safe IF I am obedient. But the problem is that I am NOT always obedient! I do not always follow God’s rules and guidance as a Christian, therefore, I must not always be safe!

But the culmination of our spiritual growth as a Christian is the awareness and understanding that, as a rebirthed child in God’s Family having the divine nature of the Father and the indwelling Son and Holy Spirit, I AM ALWAYS SAFE, EVEN WHEN I SLIP UP AND AM NOT OBEDIENT!

The apostle Paul probably had the best understanding of any Bible writer about how the Christian life really worked out in practice. But he did not get an instant revelation of salvation when he was struck down at his conversion or even during his solitude in the deserts of Arabia. Even Paul had a period of frustration trying to make the Christian life work. He did not feel safe - he did not have the “peace that surpasses all understanding”. He had to grow into peace and safety.

Paul’s chapter Seven of Romans is what I call the “Frustrated Christian Chapter”. Many have looked here at Paul’s wailings about his inability to be obedient to God and they have come to the conclusion that Paul here must have been recalling the time before he became a Christian. This giant of a spiritual person, Paul, certainly couldn’t have been this frustrated AFTER his new birth in Christ!

BUT HE WAS! Even knowing who he was in union with Christ, Paul became exasperated with obedience. He felt UNSAFE, insecure, and not at peace with himself, the world, or God.

Paul’s learning process as a child of God had to continue and progress into Romans Eight - what I call the “Safe and Secure Salvation Chapter”.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2)

The key to living the Christian life is, as Paul came to see, knowing that you are SAFE and at peace with God during every second of your life from conversion and new birth onward. Your life as a child of God will never be taken away from you.

It took a period in Paul‘s life before he understood that he was SAFE. And every Christian must go through a similar period of variable length before he knows that he is SAFE.

In my own life, it took as long as the Israelites in the wilderness - forty years - for me to come to the understanding that I am SAFE in the Family of God. I probably became an “official” “born again” Christian somewhere around ten or twelve when I was really able to choose to follow Jesus and make Him the Lord of my life.

As a teenager I wondered how I could ever please God. I lived four blocks away from my church. I went to confession to a priest on Saturday afternoons so that I could be forgiven and receive communion on Sunday morning.

But I had a big problem. Invariably, on my walk home from confession, I would see a pretty girl. My teenage hormones would kick in and I would start to think about what I would like to do with her. Oh no! Sin again! I would turn around and go back to church to confession again. This back and forth would become my Saturday exercise.

The priest would say to me, “Son – you have to understand, those thoughts are not sin if you don’t take pleasure in them.”

I would answer, “Father – you have to understand, when those thoughts came, I grabbed onto them, took pleasure in them for as long as I could and released them very reluctantly. Isn’t that a sin?”

The priest replied, “Well…..I guess it is!”

I never knew where I really stood with God. “Oops, I sinned – I’m going to hell!”

“Whew, I’m forgiven – I’m going to heaven!”

“Oops, I sinned again – I’m going to hell!”

Heaven, hell, heaven, hell – what UNSAFE frustration!

And it was not until my early fifties that I understood being SAFE.

I spent forty years in frustration. That is a long time, longer than God ever intends for His child to learn SAFETY. But each one of us is different, and God is patient with His children.

The problem for me and probably for most others also is that I couldn’t be SAFE and at peace as long as the fear of eternal punishment hung over my head. And the idea of having sorrow and repentance for my sins after they occurred didn’t help very much. I was always fearful of dying before repentance for my last sin. I was like Paul. I wanted to do good and please God - but I so often failed, felt guilty, but couldn’t seem to change. Many things I knew I should do, I didn’t do. And things that I knew I should not do, I found myself helpless to prevent. That spiritual giant, Paul, said, “0 wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?”

This fear of death after sin and the eternal punishment to follow lingered in my Christian life for forty years. Oh, certainly there was much to be happy about and feel good about during those forty years. Even more so than the Israelites in the wilderness, God gave me a physical existence and supplied my needs at a level greater than the majority of people on this earth. And I never neglected being thankful for this. I felt God’s love, I had a desire to please Him. But in the back of my mind I, like Paul, feared eternal punishment and was not peaceful and SAFE.

And then it happened! Almost like a bolt out of the blue I, like Paul, came out of the wilderness of danger into the awareness and understanding that THERE IS NOW NO CONDEMNATION, NO ETERNAL PUNISHMENT, FOR A CHILD IN THE FAMILY OF GOD. I, therefore, am truly SAFE!

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, as Proverbs says. But SAFETY in the Lord is the culmination of knowledge!

So when a Christian grows to the awareness of stage three, he will no longer have a fear of dying at a bad time - before telling God that he is sorry for a particular sin. He will have an awareness of SAFETY. And this awareness will increase the bond between Father and child. The fact is that the Father loves him so much that nothing the child can do will break the Family bond with an all-caring Father.

Does this “white-wash” Christian sin? Not at all. It is still serious and has painful effects, but not terminal!

How does this SAFETY in union with Christ work? Didn’t God say that all sin deserves death and eternal punishment? Isn’t all sin deadly?

The answer lies in the difference between punishment and correction.

PUNISHMENT is a penalty imposed on an offender for a crime or wrongdoing. It has retribution in view - paying someone back what he deserves for his actions. Punishment is looking backward to the offense, is impersonal and automatic, and its goal is the administration of justice.

CORRECTION or discipline, on the other hand, is totally different. Correction is training that develops self-control, character and ability. It is looking forward to a beneficial result, is very personal, and individually applied.

Before our conversion and new birth, punishment for our sins is wholly applicable. But the Bible stresses over and over that Jesus came to receive the punishment of death for us - to pay for our sins so that justice could prevail.

And so, after God births us into His Family in union with Christ and the Holy Spirit, punishment for sin no longer applies to the Christian child of God. Sin has a different result in the life of a Christian. Under the New Covenant, God never deals with His children on the basis of punishment. All of the punishment of God built into sin was fully received by our Savior Jesus Christ on the cross. Now that we are His children, God deals with us only on the basis of correction.

Like any good father, God does apply correction to His children when they slip-up and sin. His child must be made to recognize the mistake and understand that sin is not the “natural” thing to do anymore. Since we are reborn at conversion and, as Peter said, “partake of the divine nature”, God disciplines us as needed to show that sin is no longer “natural” for His child. God does not disown us. Christ and the Holy Spirit remain within us. They will never leave us.

Sin “bends” our relationship with our heavenly Father, but it cannot break it. The Father will see to that. There can never be eternal punishment for a child of God.

But correction hurts! In fact, punishment and correction sometimes “feel” the same to the one on the receiving end! Our sins as Christians can sometimes even have life-long human hurts and consequences. But these are correctional consequences which God turns to good in the development of His child. The sharp difference can be seen in both the attitude and the goal of the One applying it – God.

A Christian can go to bed at night feeling safe whether or not he is absolutely sure about his own repentance.

A Christian can go out on the highway in traffic feeling safe whether or not he is absolutely sure about his sorrow for his last sin.

A Christian can withstand the onslaught of natural disasters, hurricanes and floods, feeling safe whether or not he is absolutely sure that he loves God enough.

The only way to achieve these stages of SAFETY is to be a Christian. And becoming a Christian is just a matter of choice – a choice to turn away from the harmful effects of sin and to recognize Jesus as your Savior and Lord.

For those here this morning who haven’t made that choice, let me pray for you and those who have already chosen Christ can renew that commitment.

Father – we want to commit our lives to you. We understand that we need a Savior from our sins, and that Jesus came to earth to do that for us.

As the man in the Bible said to Jesus, “Lord I believe – but help my unbelief”. He wanted to follow Christ but was still unsure about it. We all come to Christ with SOME sense of doubt. And that’s OK.

As weak as we are, and as best we can, Father, we choose to accept your great gift – Jesus as Lord of my life. We can then be forever SAFE.

We thank you for everything in Jesus Name.   Amen.