Safe? - Matthew 7:21-23
After twenty years of
shaving himself every morning, a man in a small Southern town decided he had
enough. He told his wife that he intended to let the local barber shave him
each day.
He put on his hat and
coat and went to the barber shop which was owned by the pastor of the town
Baptist church. The barber's wife, Grace, was working, so she performed the
task. Grace shaved him and sprayed him
with lilac water and said, "That will be $20."
The man thought the price
was a bit high, but he paid the bill and went to work.
The next morning the man
looked in the mirror, and his face was as smooth as it had been when he left
the barber shop the day before. Not bad, he thought. At least I don't need to
get a shave every day.
The next morning, the
man's face was still smooth.
Two weeks later, the man
was still unable to find any trace of stubble on his face. It was more than he
could take, so he returned to the barber shop.
"I thought $20 was
high for a shave," he told the barber's wife, "but you must have done
a great job. It's been two weeks and my
beard still hasn't started growing back."
The expression on her
face didn't even change, expecting his comment. She responded, "You were
shaved by Grace. Once shaved, always shaved."
How many of you men can
imagine being shaved like that? Shaved
one time, only to never have to shave again?
I imagine if there were truly a barbershop like that, the waiting line
would be out the door, down the street, and around the block.
How many of us can
imagine being not shaved like that, but saved like that…saved once, only to
find that in it that we are saved forever more?
We’re familiar with the thinking behind the barbershop humor, “Once
saved, always saved.” Many of you would
expect me to argue against that kind of thinking, especially in light of our
Scripture reading this morning. In fact,
as I started writing this sermon, that is exactly what I thought I was going to
say—that the idea that of “once saved, always saved” needs to be tossed out
because it is not true.
However, the more I
thought about it, the more I reflected on it, the more truth I came to find in
the statement, “once saved, always saved.”
This truth is not in the way that we typically think.
Most of the time when we
think of “once saved, always saved,” we tend to think that it means that if we
get on our knees and pray that “sinner’s prayer” or in some other way surrender
our lives to God, then through our actions we have obtained, through grace, the
salvation. From this point forward, it
does not matter what we do. It’s okay to
only come to worship once or twice a month, maybe even only on Christmas Eve
and Easter morning. In fact, since we’ve
been saved through falling to our knees and praying when the preacher called us
forward that day, we really don’t need to darken the doors of that church
anymore…we’ll leave our seat open for someone who really needs it, the beach,
the lake, the golf course, the mountains, they’re calling our name. Since we’ve said that one prayer, there is
really no need to pray again. We’ve said
everything that needs to be said to God.
We may even develop the mindset that it really doesn’t matter what we
do—getting drunk or high, sleeping around, gossiping, ignoring the needs of the
poor, mistreating those who don’t share our ethnicity or nationality as
ourselves—none of it really matters in the long run because when all is said
and done, we prayed that prayer—God has to take us in. If we think any of that is what “once saved,
always saved” is all about, then we have travelled down the wrong path.
The truth of the matter
is that through the grace of God found in Jesus Christ, in His birth, life,
death, and resurrection, each of us, in fact the entire world, has been saved
once and for all. All of creation has
been saved—one time, forever more: “Unlike
the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first
for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all
when he offered himself”[i];
“But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then
through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this
creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of
goats and haves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption”[ii];
“But as it, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by
the sacrifice of himself”[iii];
“And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”[iv] The author of Hebrews makes it very clear
that “once saved, always saved” is completely true…and that one time occurrence
of salvation has nothing to do with us—not anything we do, but everything to do
with God’s action through Christ. Christ
has once, for all time, brought salvation to the world.
This is the grace, the
gift, that God offers to us…to surrender to the fact that nothing we can do can
save us and that only His Love offered to us through Christ is capable of
saving us from ourselves…only complete surrender…and that complete surrender is
not a one-time event, it is a daily surrender of our will to God’s. God loves us enough that He accepts us where
we are when we surrender our lives to Him, but after we have surrendered to
Him, God expects us, through the strength of His Holy Spirit residing in us, to
daily lay down our lives and be conformed to Christ.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the initial surrender,
whether it be through response to an “altar call” or the traditional “sinner’s
prayer” or some other means is not important.
It is of upmost importance.
However, surrender is not a one-time historical act. We cannot lay our lives down, surrender our
wills to Christ one time, or even here at the altar on Sunday morning, and then
take them up again on our way out, or tomorrow morning, and just do what we
want.
Jesus said, ‘Not everyone
who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the
one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your
name?’ [Did we not when we were twelve
years old, twenty years old, fifty years old, seventy-five years old, pray
“Lord, I am a sinner, I need you to save me, come into my life.” Did we not
feed the hungry in your name? Did we not
welcome the stranger in your name?]”
Then, [Jesus continues], I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you go
away from me, you evildoers.’”
Jesus says, just because
you call me Lord, just because you said you need Me, just because you prayed a
prayer one time, just because you did a good deed one time, it isn’t what saves
you. A one-time special status with God
does not ensure it forever. The prophet
Ezekiel says, “But when the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit
iniquity and do the same abominable things that the wicked do…None of the
righteous deeds that they have done will be remembered….”[v]
What saves us, my
brothers and sisters, is Christ and Christ alone, and we find ourselves assured
of that salvation—we can feel safe—when we daily surrender to the grace of God
in Christ Jesus—who is the one and only source of our salvation now and
forevermore—and in that surrender allow our lives to be transformed to look less
and less like who we were when we began our relationship with Christ and even
who we are now, and more and more like Christ Himself…it means surrendering so
that we are not trying to make God’s will the same as our will, but so that our
will reflects the will of God. So that
in the end, who we become is identical to Christ—as John writes, “Beloved, we
are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed,
we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify
themselves, just as he is pure.”[vi]
Daily
surrender—assurance—peace—safe…
In the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen!
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