Viewing God’s Mercies – a confirmation drama

 [P. and D. are seated side by side in a plane, D. has Bible and catechism book open]

P:  Studying for a test?

D.  Yep

P:  What’s it on?

D.  The Bible.

P:  The Bible . . . .  Hmmm, that would make you either a Jew or a Christian, right?

D.  Christian.

P:  What’s the class?

D.  It’s called catechism.  Kind of an introduction to the Christian faith.  Everybody my age does it.

P:  This is for what - a little quiz? a big test?

D.  It’s the final.

P:  The final!  So by now you’re supposed to know it all.

D.  All the basics, I guess.

P:  So if someone sitting next to you on the plane were to ask you, What’s this Christianity thing all about? you could tell them.

D.  Like I said, the basics.

P:  Is that little red one your text book?

D.  Not really.  It helps us study the Bible.

P:  Tell you what: we’ve got some time.  Tell me what Christianity’s about.  Not trying to convert me - give me the facts.

D.  I don’t know . . .  I’m not done studying.

P:  Ah, come on.  Call it preparation for your final.  Please?

D.  I’ll try.

P:  So where does one start?

D.  We started with the Bible.

P:  Why’s that?

D.  Well, that’s what Christianity is.  What God says, about himself and us, and everything.

P:  So that’s what the Bible is, God talking?

D.  Sort of.  This is what Paul said (2 Timothy 3.16)

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

P:  So God breathed it and Paul wrote it, like taking dictation?

D.  Kind of.  Almost.  This is what Peter says: (2 Peter 1.21)

²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

P:  So God used people like Peter and Paul to write his word.  By the way, you sound like you’ve got it memorized.  Do you have to do that?

D.  One of the Psalms says, (Psalm 119.11)

¹¹ I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

P:  Makes sense, if you need to keep in handy, I guess.  What does your Bible say sin is?

D.  This one’s in First John: (3.4)

⁴ Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.

P:  Is that like the Ten Commandments?

D.  There are actually a lot more than 10, if you count them all.  But the Bible says you can boil them down to just two.  Somebody asked once what were the most important of the commandments (Matthew 22.37-40)

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

P:  So, God’s like Santa Claus: he knows if you’ve been naughty or nice, whether you’ve kept his law or not.

D.  It’s more like, he knows we’ve all been naughty.

P:  Ah, come on. 

D.  It’s what it says, (Romans 3.23)

There is no difference, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

And Romans 3.10:

¹⁰ As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

P:  But what about all the good people, like Mother Theresa? – What about your Peter and Paul and John?

D.  I guess it depends on who’s calling them good.  James says in his letter (2.10)

¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it

P:  In other words, everybody’s in the same boat.  How did that happen?  How did everyone get to be naughty?  Didn’t God create them good?

D.  He did, but the first one sinned.  And it messed up everybody.  (Romans 5.12) 

Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned

P:  You say death came through sin?

D.  Romans again. (6.23)

²³ For the wages of sin is death,

P:  So it’s like we’re all on death row - we’re sinners and we can’t help sinning.  He gave his law and if we mess up even once we’re out.  And we can’t help messing up.  Why’d he give the law, if he knew we couldn’t keep it?

D.  This is all in Romans.  (3.20)

²⁰ Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

P:  So it’s not enough to be doomed, you have to know you’re doomed.  That’s cheerful stuff.  And they teach it to kids?

D.  It isn’t all gloom.  That one verse I read goes on: (Romans 6.23)

²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

P:  So how do I get off of death row, if I’m this poor wretch who can’t help sinning?  Your verse mentioned Jesus.

D.  This verse maybe you’ve heard.  (John 3.16-17)

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

P:  God sent his Son Jesus, to get us off the hook.  How does that work?

D.  Paul’s letter to the Galatians (3.13)

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

P:  Hung on a tree.  That’s that crucifixion business?

D.  Right.  He suffered that for us, in our place.  (Isaiah 53.6)

⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

Or this one, in the second letter to the Corinthians: (2 Corinthians 5.21)

²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

P:  That 3.16 one, that talked about believing?  What does believing have to do with it?

D.  Ephesians this time, 2.8-9

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

P: By grace, through faith?  Help me get a handle on that.  What’s the difference between grace and faith?

D.  How I heard it explained is like this: Grace is the gift package the FedEx guy delivers to your door, faith is your signing for it.  You didn’t work for it, but if you don’t accept it, it goes back to the truck.

P:  Ok, but believing what?  I mean practically everybody believes in some sort of God, don’t they?

D.  Believing the truth about Jesus, about who he is and what he did for us.

P:  I’ve been hearing Bible verses quoted – where does it talk about believing?

D.  Romans 10.9-10

⁹ If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. ¹¹ As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

And Hebrews 11.6

⁶ Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

P:  So if I don’t believe in Jesus I won’t be pleasing to God, and I won’t be saved, and I won’t have eternal life, and I’ll probably end up in that other place.

D.  Yep.

P:  Where does it say that? 

D.  John 14.6:

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

And the apostle Peter said, (Acts 4.12)

¹² Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

P:  So there’s one name, only one, for everybody: one way, one truth.

D.  That’s what it says.

P:  And does it say how your FedEx guy is going to get around to everybody’s door with his free gift?  Since everybody seems to need it?

D.  2 Corinthians 5.19-20

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

P:  God makes you Christ’s ambassador - like you’re the FedEx guy with the gift package, handing me the thing to sign?

D. Yep.

P:  And if I don’t, it goes back to the truck?

  Tell me: Do you believe all you’ve been telling me?  Or do you just have it memorized for the test?

[David testifies to his faith in Christ.]

I remember the first (and in fact only) hockey game I ever went to.  I was puzzled, at the end of the third quarter how suddenly everybody seemed to lose interest and start packing up their belongings.  Not just a few trying to beat traffic, but the whole crowd.  You mean, asked I, that’s it? That’s all there is?  You’ve heard what was intended to be a presentation of the Christian faith, and you might well ask, Is that all there is?  You’ve covered how God for Christ’s sake puts people right with himself, by grace, through faith.  Is that the whole story?

            Obviously, within the context of a play or even a sermon, there are practical limitations.  When the apostle Paul was holding forth in a synagogue, at some point he’d say to the audience, See you next week, the story continues.  Today we have practical limitations.  And no next week.

            But let us touch briefly on the rest of the story, lest you suppose that Christ’s team is in fact made up of miserable wretches who can’t help sinning, rescued off of death row only because someone died in their place.  That story of rescue is gloriously true, but it’s not the whole story.

            If part one is Rescue of a helpless wretch, what’s part two?  I was seeking for something to call it – just to identify it on my computer – and the word therefore happened to pop up on the screen.  And I thought, Perfect!  Rescued by the grace of God, THEREFORE.  We leaned heavily on Romans to establish salvation by grace, let’s lean a moment longer.  Chapter 12 begins:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

It must be possible for people to stall after part one, ignoring the rest, because Scripture takes pains to warn us against doing so.  Again, Paul to the Romans:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? . . . Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

            Someone is famously quoted answering that question in the affirmative (though I’m not sure how seriously): I like sinning, God likes forgiving – Ah, the world is marvelously arranged!

            Shall we indeed go on sinning?  We’ve spoken of rescue from the guilt of sin.  God doesn’t stop there.  His love is deeper than that, his power is greater than that.  Jesus said, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Moving into that full life involves being rescued also from the power of sin, from Satan’s grip on our lives.

            How is that done?  How are we delivered from sin’s power?  That isn’t answered in a sentence, it would be a challenge to answer it in a thousand sentences.  But look at the verse we just read.  Therefore, in view of God’s mercy – in view of what God in Christ did for our rescue - I urge you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.  God is pleased to put to use, through his Holy Spirit whom he sends to live in us, those rescued hands, feet, mouths, whatever that are offered to him. Out of Satan’s service, then, into God’s.

How is that done?  How to offer our bodies?  There’s no altar to climb up on, no ritual to perform.  So how do I put these hands and these feet to his service, if it isn’t just a question of saying, Here, God, take them!?  We’ll be singing shortly, On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.  The author of the song intended those words to speak of our depending on Christ and him alone, especially on his perfect sacrifice on the cross as payment for our sins.  That’s wonderfully true; again, it’s not the whole story.  On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand?  The imagery comes from Jesus, from his conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount.  Two builders he spoke of, one built his house on rock, the other on sand.  Who is this one who built on the rock, who can laugh at the storms of life?  Everyone, said Jesus, who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice.  How practical can you get?  Find out what the Word of God says, and put it into practice.  Paul said, as David recited, the Scriptures thoroughly equip God’s people for doing his will.  Thoroughly equip hands and feet and mouth to be instruments of righteousness, as Paul says it in another context.  That’s the other half: how God the Father, by his Spirit, through his Word, makes those rescued urchins into kids doesn’t have to apologize for, into children that he’s proud to call his own..

            But we must return to that word therefore.  It looks back.  Anything we do for God is in view of, and a thank offering for, what he has done for us in Christ.  That’s the Rock we stand on.