SCRIPTURE: Romans 10:8b-13
TEXT: THEME: INTRODUCTION When we believe that God loves us, this relationship saves us. Christianity is not about right belief, as much as it is about change of heart, because of a loving God that transforms our lives and our relationships. SCRIPTURE In Romans 10, the Apostle Paul says, “Confess with your lips and believe in your heart.” This passage is not about what you must do to be saved. This passage is not about what we have to do first, confessing with our lips or believing with our hearts. It is about moving away from salvation formulas into living in relationship with God through Christ loving us and God raising him from the dead. When this becomes the way, we understand our relationship with God then this informs the way we live with others. We live what we believe. The way we live is according to what we believe to be true. If we believe that the world is flat, we will not venture very far away from the sight of land but when we take to the skies and see the curvature of the horizon and realize the roundness of the earth, as it opens us up to new lands, territories, cultures, environments and possibilities. Marcus Borg wrote this commentary on John 3:16, about” Whosoever believes in him will not perish…”: He says believe does not mean believing theological claims about Jesus, but that the word could actually be translated as ‘beloving Jesus’; giving one's heart, loyalty, fidelity, and commitment to Jesus. This is the way into new life. (Believing and Beloving) This seems to fall into place with what God has always been about, forming relationships, partnerships, covenants, agreements, built around promise, hopes and a better future with us and loving caring communities. I know a person right now who is believing as hard as they can for the ‘salvation’ of their loved one. They want their strong faith to bend the will of God towards their desired outcome. I know this is very important for the mental well-being of this parent, but God needs room to operate in the mystery of the circumstance and reveal what God is doing in this situation, in this future, in this life, and through this new reality. Paul is not talking about believing hard enough so everything will be as we want but believing in God well enough to have a relationship with God journeying with us through this broken world of ours, not making everything as we wish, but finding grace and love to live in the world as it is, with hope, love, transformation, peace and joy. APPLICATION How is our living changed when our salvation is not hinged on how hard we believe but on God loving us? God has loved us from the beginning and has never stopped loving us. Yes, there was that selfish incident in the garden where, we called God a lair and our self-pity gave way to fruit eating. There were consequences to our behavior that hurt our relationship with God, but we were not estranged from God as some describe. God has never separated God’s self from us but rather has been our parent, advocate, our helper, come to our aid, been our shelter and provider. How do we live this ‘beloving’ in our lives? Relationship with God raises all from the dead no matter where we trace our ancestral roots. What does a community made of people who are loved by God look like? This is the making of a diverse community of believers. On one side it means the Body of Christ becomes more diverse than uniformed. It opens up new expressions of faith, love and devotion. But it also means that the church has to learn to get along with people who are different from themselves. Rich and poor, Jew and Gentile. Those with deep historic roots of faith and those who are newly planted seeds. We need to be on the top of their game on being tolerant, understanding, listening, and accepting that some things are going to be done in new ways. Maybe we have to set aside some of the glories of tradition and culture for something unseen, untried, still forming that God is wanting to create in us. Now that the doors of the church are open again. We aren’t doing contract tracing or checking for vaccinations, we will still ask you to wear a mask indoors and keep your distance. But we will not be going back to a longer service. We will still be a church on Facebook and YouTube. We were beginning to do this before the pandemic, with just the sermons, but now we include our entire service online. Maybe we will be able to return to refreshments after service soon. I think this is the dynamic of our relationship with God, it is not limited to one form, or expression, but it has life and breath to be lived and find creative ways, in all cultures and communities, branches of government, businesses and in other entities, places, where people are, because God is relational. Relationships take doing the work of reconciliation: Forgiving hurt, admitting fault, acting towards reparations, making behavioral changes, changing direction from hurting to healing, from judging to listening, and from stubbornness to transformation. We don’t need to be best buddies with everyone (that’s God’s job) we just have to stop hurting each other. Sometimes the best way to do this is by keeping our distance. There are some people that we are not going to get along with, but we still can be respectful, caring, loving and generous from afar. Why put ourselves in that uncomfortable situation if we don’t have to, unless God has greater plans for this relationship. CONCLUSION This week I saw a license plate holder that read, “Defend Hawaii”, then in small letters on the top it said, “Don’t mistake Aloha for Weakness” The conclusion of a powerful love was to defend Hawaii. I would have written a different punchline: “Live Aloha” - “Don’t mistake Aloha for Weakness”, or “Aloha raised Jesus from the Dead, don’t mistake Aloha for Weakness”, Paul is encouraging us to live out our relationship with God’s self in our world, Our Christian faith is more than just believing, it is about beloving.
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