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Sermons
Destined For Love
Ephesians 1:3-14
The Downtown Presbyterian Church
Rev. Kenneth M. Locke
Let’s say you are in a class in
school and you are struggling for your life.
No matter what you do you can’t grasp the subject. On a good day you have a D-. You face the final exam with a sense of utter
despondency. The grades come back and
you have an A. In fact, you have an A+.
Being honest you go to the proff and say, “Ma’am. There’s been a mistake. There’s no way I earned an A+ in your
course.” “No mistake,
that’s your grade.”
“No Ma’am, I’m sorry, but this can’t be
right.” “That is absolutely
your correct grade. I chose to give you
an A+.” “But Ma’am,
this is wrong. Why are you doing
this?”
“When I first became a teacher, I
decided my 1000th student would get an A+, no matter what grade they
deserved. It’s something I want to
do and it’s my decision. You are
my 1000th student and I’m giving you an A+, even though you
certainly don’t deserve it. Now go
about your business, your grade is irreversible.”
If something like that happened to us
it would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Absolutely dumbfounding.
Maybe even a little crazy. And I
suspect that’s how Calvin felt when he had his insight into God’s
amazing love.
Remember, in Calvin’s time
everyone sincerely believed you had to work for God’s love. Getting to heaven was tough and cost a lot of
time, energy, prayer and good deeds.
That’s what Calvin’s colleagues believed and that’s
what many people still believe.
You’ve seen the t-shirts: “Life is Short. Pray Hard.” There’s a song on the radio about
southerners who are always eating cornbread and chicken and working hard to get
to heaven.
But Calvin realized something
different. Calvin realized in Jesus
Christ we are all destined to be loved.
In Jesus Christ God has chosen to save us all by grace, a grace we
can’t possibly earn. From the
beginning of time, from the foundation of the world, God chose to save us
through the life and sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is the doctrine of
predestination. In Jesus Christ we were
chosen for God’s love long before the foundation of the world. In Jesus Christ we are destined to be God’s
children. In Jesus we are destined to
live for the praise of God’s glory and we are sealed in our destiny with
the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Unfortunately, modern Presbyterians
seldom understand predestination in all its original joy. In fact, it’s become kind of a stain on
our denomination.
That’s largely thanks to
Calvin’s successors, who began looking for signs that some people were
predestined and others weren’t.
They made predestination complicated and used terms like “the
elect” and “double predestination” and “triple
predestination.”
Instead of saying, “In Jesus
Christ, God loves us all,” they were saying, “In Jesus Christ, God
loves me and you’re going to hell.”
They were using predestination as a way of dividing people into the
saved and the unsaved. They forgot that
for Calvin predestination meant in Jesus Christ God’s love encompasses us
all.
I think most of us today would enjoy our lives more
if we tried recapturing the joy of what Calvin realized. Working hard won’t make God love
us. God already loves us. In Jesus Christ God chose
to love us before the foundation of the world. God chose to make us God’s children
through Jesus Christ. In Jesus we are
destined to live for the praise of God’s glory and we are sealed in this
destiny by the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Of course there’s still
free-will. We can turn our backs on
God’s love if we like. That is our
essential freedom and God does not deny it.
But God’s essential freedom is to love us
anyway. This is our great spiritual
blessing, the great joy of Christmas, that in Jesus Christ,
God has chosen to love us.
Obviously there is more we could say on this
subject. But for now rejoice in this:
Unlike the teacher in our story God’s love is not just given to the 1000th
sinner and we learn about our A+ long before the final exam. But like the teacher God’s love in
Jesus Christ is irreversible. This is
our great spiritual gift, God’s predestined love. Merry Christmas. Amen.
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