The road begins with the Greatest Love. God has
lavished love upon us. He has slopped and splattered us with love,
as an inexperienced painter might slop and splatter walls, ceiling,
and floors. How great a love is God’s love? He wants not simply to
call us His creation, but His children! “This is love,” declares
John, “not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice
for our sins” (1 John 4:10). What a frank declaration of human
need! None of us knew or cared for God! What a breathtaking show of
divine intervention! God put on flesh and allowed it to be pierced for
us! This is no Internet fantasy; this is historical reality. If
God would do this for us, surely the only
logical response is, “What are we doing for Him?” How can we live
the same old way, knowing God’s desire not just to make us good but
to make us His? The road ends with the Greatest Hope. If the
love of God pushes us forward on the road to reality, the hope of
seeing our Rescuer pulls us along that same path. The older I get,
the more I realize that virtue is not simply a task God has given me
to perform (under threat of Hell for failure), but part of the
delight of my relationship with Him. The more we love Jesus, the more
real He becomes to us. The more real He becomes to us, the more we
want to be like Him. A child who believes good ol’ Uncle Bob is
coming
to visit may only be interested in the presents his uncle brings.
The child of God who believes Jesus is coming in glory is distressed
to think he may have no gift of love — no soul won, no sinful habit
broken, no treasure sacrificed — to lay at His bronzed feet. The
girl who truly loves her serviceman will remain faithful till he
returns from overseas. If she didn’t believe she’d see him, she’d be
relieved not only of love but of duty. In the same way, everyone who
hopes to see his Lord purifies himself (1 John 3:3).
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The road
between love and hope is the High Road.
Of course, we remain sinners as we travel. That’s the condition that
brought us to the Great Physician in the first place: “If we claim
to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”
(1 John 1:8). If sinless perfection were possible for us here, Jesus
would not have had to die. But I’ve never met a believer who didn’t
want to be better than he was. He doesn’t want to go on breaking God’s
law, and he yearns to stay clean for Christ’s sake.
A child playing in the mud may cry in rage as he’s
dragged into the house for a bath. The child of God, however, cares
whether he steps in the muck of sin. If he does, he’s not happy
about it, nor will he be content until he’s cleansed of the filth.
God helping him, he yearns for the High Road. Fantasies will no
longer satisfy. He yearns for reality. He clings to Christ to keep
him on that road.
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Sermon brief provided by: Gary Robinson, Preaching Minister at Conneautville (PA) Church of Christ.