Text: Isaiah 58:6-9, Psalm 107:10-16<\/p>\n
For the first 20 or so years of my life, I understood salvation as one concrete idea: that Jesus died for my sin on the cross.
\nSubstitutionary Atonement is what we call it. Jesus took our place. He was our substitute and paid the price for our sins so we could go to heaven.
\nBut before too long, I discovered that I was terribly mistaken.
\nNot about Jesus dying for our sins.
\nBut about thinking that was all salvation meant.<\/p>\n
In its fullest sense, \u201cSalvation is \u2018God\u2019s deliverance of those in a situation of need\u2026 resulting in their restoration to wholeness.\u2019 It is restoration because salvation does not offer something new; it is God\u2019s original intent for creation.\u201d (Introduction, The Lord is Our Salvation)
\nThe best word I can find to describe that original intent, the life that God intends for each of us is the word shalom.
\nIt means completeness, wholeness, well-being.
\nAnd God\u2019s work of salvation in Jesus Christ rescues us from whatever hell we might experience in our lives that has destroyed shalom, so we might experience life and life abundant once again.<\/p>\n
Christ dying and paying the price for our sins is one piece of that work of salvation. But it isn\u2019t the only one.
\nIn fact, in the Western world, there are three major understandings of what the cross means, all different ways of talking about how Jesus saves us.
\nThese are called atonement theories.
\nThey describe how we become at-one again with God\u2026 how we are brought back into shalom\u2026 how we experience wholeness once again.
\nThe first is the one most of us grew up being familiar with \u2013 a Forensic understanding of salvation. These theories say we are like a defendant on trial and have been found guilty of breaking our covenant with God. So, a penalty must be paid. Jesus knows we are guilty and out of love, pays the price for us. He satisfies the debt we owe.
\nThe second is called Moral Example. This grouping of theories claims that the cross is the natural outcome of the life of Jesus, who spoke truth to power and dared to love those who society rejected. And in his life and death, Christ shows us how we should live, too.
\nThe third of the major groupings is called \u201cChristus Victor\u201d \u2013 Christ as the Victor! This theory talks about an eternal battle between the forces of this world\u2026 good and evil, life and death, abundance and scarcity. We find ourselves trapped and imprisoned by sin and destruction, but Christ comes to set us free and restore us to wholeness.<\/p>\n
In Psalm 107, this story of God\u2019s redeeming love is told.
\nSome wandered away and found themselves lost and starving, but God rescued them from their trouble and led them back home.
\nSome were foolish and stumbled down a destructive path, but God rescued them from death itself and healed them.
\nSome set out to make their own way and their own pride became their cage, but God rescued them and brought them out of their distress to safety.
\nAnd some became prisoners, sitting in darkness, suffering in iron chains because they rebelled against God\u2019s commands. But God rescued them and broke away their chains.<\/p>\n
We were lost, but now are found.
\nWe were trapped by addiction, but now we are free.
\nWe were dragged down by our addiction, but we have been lifted up.
\nWe were drowning in our fears, but we have been brought back to the shoreline.
\nWe needed freedom and saving, but we\u2019ve got a prison-shaking Savior.<\/p>\n
For a couple of years now, we have been singing, Chainbreaker, in our contemporary worship service. Written by Zach Williams, it captures those redemptive stories of Psalm 107 and invites each of us to tell the story of how God has invited us into a better life.
\nWilliams had been doing prison ministry through his church and wanted to speak to what God had been doing through the lives of the people he worked with\u2026 but his own life as well.
\nHe had found himself for years walking a dead-end road and kept hearing a voice that said he wasn\u2019t going to make it. That he was a failure. That he wasn\u2019t good enough.
\nAnd to be honest, that is all of us. We are not good enough. We are trapped by our own mistakes and failures. We buy into the lies of this world that tell us we cannot fully claim our identity. We let our worries and our addictions and our pride bind us up like chains.<\/p>\n
As we say in our prayer of confession before communion:
\nWe confess that we have not loved God with our whole heart.
\nWe have failed to be an obedient church.
\nWe have not done God\u2019s will.
\nWe have broken the law.
\nWe have rebelled against God\u2019s love
\nWe have not loved our neighbors.<\/p>\n
We are those prisoners, suffering in iron chains, sitting in darkness.<\/p>\n
But then comes the line we pray after we ask for forgiveness:
\nFree us for joyful obedience.
\nFree us for joyful obedience.
\nFree us.<\/p>\n
Williams found himself trapped by that voice in his life that told him he wasn\u2019t good enough\u2026 until Christ came along and set him free from the weight of the guilt and the chains that he was carrying around.
\nHe found a liberating freedom and joy in surrendering his life to Christ.
\nBut he also realized that this freedom was not a personal gift.
\nNo, it was meant to be shared.
\nAnd there is great joy and life that is found when we in turn head back out into this world to set others free.<\/p>\n
In Isaiah chapter 58, the people have been trying to please God in their own way, but the prophet reminds them of what God wants from them.
\nThis is the kind of fasting that God has chosen:
\n\u201cto break the chains of injustice,
\nget rid of exploitation in the workplace,
\nfree the oppressed, cancel debts.
\nWhat [God is] interested in seeing you do is:
\nsharing your food with the hungry,
\ninviting the homeless poor into your homes,
\nputting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
\nbeing available to your own families.
\nDo this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once.\u201d<\/p>\n
This morning, we sent out volunteers from our church to be in mission in Memphis. As they make that long drive today, they are heading out to souls that are hungry and burdened and stuck.
\nOur friends and neighbors and family have the opportunity this week to tell their own stories of God\u2019s saving love, but also help to break some chains themselves.<\/p>\n
But you don\u2019t have to go on a mission trip to joyfully obey God\u2019s will.
\nRight here in Des Moines, you can help us tackle hunger with your food pantry donations.
\nYou can work to honor the dignity of women and girls and speak out against human trafficking.
\nYou can volunteer with local refugee support groups.
\nYou can donate your funds to our annual Peace with Justice Sunday offering \u2013 which is used to help effect change in a broken world.
\nThis offering is used to support ministries like a peace ministry on Arizona border communities and address civil rights violations in Liberia.
\nIn North Georgia, it helped provide resources to help low-income students attend preschool.
\nGrants from this offering have supported the Alaska Innocence Project, that helps to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals.<\/p>\n
This is what God wants for us.
\nGod wants to rescue us from the hell we experience in our lives.
\nJesus wants to save us from our guilt and addiction, from our sin and temptation, from our fears and our failures.
\nAnd then the Holy Spirit empowers us to turn back around into our communities and neighborhoods so that we can help take away pain, make a way for the lost, and break the chains of all who need freedom.<\/p>\n
The story of salvation\u2026 the story of how we are made at-one with God\u2026 is about far more than a personal debt being paid.
\nIt is also the story of coming home\u2026 of finding our place\u2026 of being rescued from anything that holds us back so that we can be restored back into the abundant life of community God desires for us.
\nThat better life that waits for us is not simply a heavenly destination beyond the grave\u2026
\nThere is a better life right here and right now, for all of us, because Christ has set us free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Text: Isaiah 58:6-9, Psalm 107:10-16 For the first 20 or so years of my life, I understood salvation as one concrete idea: that Jesus died for my sin on the cross. Substitutionary Atonement is what we call it. Jesus took our place. He was our substitute and paid the price for our sins so we…<\/span><\/p>\n