I think that is what Jesus described for us by living an eternal life.  He and God are one.  To see one, you see the other, and it is interesting that he says that is the summum bonum of our lives — to live our lives to where when you see one, you see the other.  To love self for God’s sake.   The difficulty with eternal life is not that we don’t love God.  The difficulty comes when we don’t love ourselves, and, I believe, to have the relationship with God we must first have a love for ourselves.  Luke describes Jesus saying this as “Love God and other as yourself.”  It all starts with the first thing God did for us — namely, creates us.   God created our bodies, our minds and he put us in a certain family systems, and sometimes it is very difficult for us to affirm ourselves.  After all, how can I love God if I cannot affirm his first act of love for me — my life as it is.

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If you were to walk the streets and ask 100 people, “Are you talented?”  I would be very surprised if you got an unequivocal “Yes!”  “Oh no, I was absent the day they passed out the gifts.”  Or, “I have no talents, really.”  Some may see this as a form of humility, but the truth is, it is self — dislike, and it lies at the bottom of our relationship with God.  We don’t seem to believe that God really knew what he was doing when he created us.  To regard our own creation as Genesis Good — very good — is the essence of Christian redemption and the essence of eternal life.

To experience this love of self for God’s sake, we are dependent on God.  The word, “dependant” comes from a Latin word meaning “to hang.” We are like a chandelier, hanging, held in place by something other than ourselves.  Should that something ever let go, it has no power in and of itself to avoid crashing down into brokenness.  This does not need to depress us.  The essence of eternal life is to trust in God on whom we can depend.  It reminds me of driving by McCallie School in Chattanooga to be reminded that man’s chief end is “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

Carlyle Marney once said, “When I die, I am going to get to the place where I will have to say, “If there is anything more, it is up to God.  I have no power to make anything else happen.”  This is radical dependence on God.  To those who have learned to trust, it is not despair.  If he teaches us anything at all, it is that when we get to the end of our ropes, we are not at the end of anything.  There is God at the end of our utter extremity, and He is good and it is his goodness that makes us good.

In a scene from Shadowlands, a film based on the life of C. S. Lewis, Lewis has returned to Oxford from London, where he has just married Joy Gresham, dying from cancer, in a hospital at her bedside.  Through her struggle with her illness, Lewis and Gresham discover the depth of their love for each other.  As Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches, he is met by Harry Harrington, an Episcopal priest, who asks what news there is.  Lewis hesitates, then deciding to speak of the marriage and not the cancer, he says, “Ah, good news, I think, Harry.  Yes, good news.”

Harrington, not aware of the marriage and thinking that Lewis is referring to Joy’s medical situation, replies, “I know how hard you’ve been praying.  Now, God is answering your prayer.”

“That’s not why I pray, Harry,” Lewis responds.  “I pray because I can’t help myself.  I pray because I’m helpless.  I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.  It doesn’t change God; it changes me.”

So, now that you have thought about it, what would you say to the ones that you have gathered in your minds who have contributed something significant to your life?   Can you say that you have reached the summum bonum of life that Jesus described as eternal?  If not, you know that can change.

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Sermon brief provided by: David R. Tullock, pastor of Parson’s Porch, a ministry in Cleveland, TN