Law or Relationship?

I subscribe to a podcast of Andy Stanley's sermons. I was listening to the first one of a series this afternoon in the car. It is a great sermon! It's so good that I had Steve listening to it in the car on the way back from dinner.

The sermon is called Rules of Engagement, and it's about the 10 commandments, but it takes a different approach than I've seen before.

If someone were to ask you, "Are you going to heaven?" what would be your first response? Would you wonder if you have been good enough? Would you count how many times you had obeyed God? Would you hesitate, unsure of your answer?

Stanley's premise in this sermon is that the laws of God are not conditions set forth by God to make us "good" enough, but are confirmation of his love of us.

Don't you think it is a norm of our religion and our society to believe that we earn our way to heaven? That God has given us rules, and told us to obey, and then once we die, he kind of checks his tally book to see if we did "well enough" to get in? As Steve was listening to the beginning of the sermon, he said, "But that's the way life is. That's the way it is at work, in society -- that's the way life is."

And he's right. It's exactly the way life is, but God turns it all backwards. In Exodus 20:2a, God says, "I am the Lord your God,..." He doesn't say, "I am the Lord God." His statement implies relationship. The only requirement for us is trust. We belong to God -- we are his people, and he is our God.

I said yesterday that sometimes I am only sorta a Christian. I was wrong. I am always a Christian. God made me that way; Jesus made sure of it.

The next time someone asks, "Are you going to heaven?", answer an immediate and unequivocal "yes." God has made you into an immortal being, so trust him.

Image: Pine and sunrise at the VA.