Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23
“Life Is Not a One Way Trip to Nowhere”
by: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, Soddy Daisy, TN www.graceumcsd.org
In the 1997 blockbuster movie, As Good As It Gets Jack Nicholson plays the dysfunctional, acid-tongued, romance novelist Melvin Udall, who suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder.
In one memorable scene from the movie, following a rage-filled explosion in the office of his psychiatrist, Nicholson storms out into the waiting room which is packed with depressed and anxious looking patients.
Nicholson stops; he looks at this desperate mass of humanity and in a way only Nicholson can deliver he coldly sneers, “What if this is as good as it gets?”
The most fundamental question human beings have asked throughout the ages is this: “Is life absurd or does it have a purpose?”
Jesus Christ replies that not only do our lives have purpose but God has directly intervened in human affairs to make it abundantly clear to us what that purpose is!
In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel Brennan Manning writes:
“In the end, will life triumph over death?
With unshaken confidence Jesus answers, ‘The Kingdom of My Father cannot be overcome, even by death.
In the end everything will be all right.
Nothing can harm you permanently; no loss is lasting, no defeat more than transitory, no disappointment is conclusive.
Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors…”
That is the promise of our Savior!
That is the key to our faith, and the hope for our lives!
Whatever difficult time you may be going through here on this earth…
…whatever tragedy may befall you…
…this…
…this is not as good as it gets!!!
Life is not a one way trip to nowhere!
Life is not some cruel joke where, in the end, we are the punch-line!
God is not vindictive or forgetful or determined to keep us in our place.
What the life, death, resurrection and everlasting reign of Jesus Christ makes quite clear is that, at the core of the universe is LOVE…
…God passionately wants to be your friend, my friend and through the power of the Holy Spirit provides us, if we so choose to accept it, the strength and the courage and the creativity to love one another as Christ loves us…
…and life in Christ will always and ultimately triumph over hell and death!!!
And yet how many of us are willing to make the exchange of the cynical, hopeless life for the Life of Christ?
How many of us have the confidence to risk everything on the Gospel of Grace?
How many of us are staggering around with the delirious joy of the man who found the buried treasure or the pearl of great price?
Let’s raise some intimate and personal questions about our relationship with Jesus Christ.
Do you live each day in the blessed assurance that you have been saved by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?
After falling flat on your face, are you still firmly convinced that the fundamental structure of reality is not works but grace?
Are you moody and melancholy because you are still striving for the perfection that comes from your own efforts and not from faith in Jesus Christ?
Are you shocked and horrified when you fail?
Are you really aware that you don’t have to change, grow, or be good to be loved?
Are you as certain of the triumph of good over evil as you are of the conviction that bears live in the woods?
Though on a given day you may be more depressed than anything else, is the general orientation of your life toward peace and joy?
Are you ruled by other people’s perception of you or your own definition of yourself which is rooted in Christ?
Do you possess God’s Spirit which enables you to transcend doubt, fear, self-hatred and accept that you are accepted by Jesus Christ—and that is all that matters?
If not, we may be a bit like the early followers of Christ who, in our Scripture passage from Acts for today, stood bewildered like deer caught in the headlights—“looking intently up into the sky” even after “a cloud” had hid Jesus from their sight!
After Jesus’ Ascension His followers were staring at nothing but clouds.
They didn’t appear to have a clue what to do or how to go about doing it.
And isn’t this how all of us are without the guidance of the Holy Spirit?
In our natural state, we are stuck in a fog of confusion with no real meaning and no clue as to what we are to do with our lives.
And so, we adapt.
We join the crowd.
Without a knowledge of the voice of God in our lives, we listen to other voices in order to try and make our way.
And these other voices often lead us down paths of overindulgence, reactions based on fear, and a general disregard for others….
…which is a terrible place to be…
…it’s hell, really.
But no matter where we are; no matter what kind of mess we find ourselves in; no matter what kind of person we have allowed the world to mold us into—God’s voice is calling: “Riley, Suzie, Barbara, Ken ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky?’ Do not worry, Jesus Christ will come back—in the meantime, there is much work to be done for the Kingdom of God right here and right now!
There is a reason, a most important reason why you remain on this earth.
I have great plans for your lives!
Wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit and you will be baptized with the Spirit.
And when this happens you will receive power and you will be my witnesses in Soddy Daisy, in Hixson, and in all of Chattanooga and America, and all the way around the world!”
When this happens you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Life is not a one-way trip to Nowhere, but the most amazing of journeys!
Life is the ultimate gift from the Ultimate God!
You were created by Love in order to Love!
You were saved by Love in order to praise the One Who loves you!
And you remain on this earth to do the good works which you were created to do!!!
So live into it!
Get on with it!
This is not as good as it gets…
…the further and further you continue on the journey of being a follower of Jesus Christ the better and better and better it gets!!!
The more you allow God to mold you—out of the image that the world has given you—and into the image of the One Who Lives and Reigns forever and ever—the more purpose, meaning, joy and peace you will find!
As a matter of fact, you may, at times, be overwhelmed by just how good life can get!!!
Paul writes, in the Letter to the Ephesians that Ron read earlier, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
The Greek word which Paul uses to describe God’s power in dynamis, from which we get dynamite.
God’s power is like a great explosion which is used to remove mountains.
This is the power which raised Christ from the dead.
This is the power which took Christ back up to heaven and seated Him at the right hand of God the Father Who put everything under his feet!
This is the power that is available to us who believe!!!
Have we tapped into it?
Or are we still staring blankly up at the clouds wondering what we are supposed to do next?
Life is not a one way trip to nowhere but a round trip to our spiritual home.
In John 15:4 Jesus says simply, Remain in me, and I will remain in you.”
Our home is not so much a heavenly mansion in the afterlife as it is a safe place in the midst of our anxious world!
Jesus says, “Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
Home is that place found only in the love of Jesus where we don’t have to be afraid.
In our world we have many homeless people sleeping not only on the streets, in shelters or cardboard boxes, but unsettled folks who are ‘on the run,’ who never come home to themselves.
They seek a safe place through alcohol or drugs or security in success, friends, pleasure, fame, knowledge, or even a little religion.
They have become strangers to themselves, people who have an address but are never at home, who never hear the voice of love or experience the freedom of God’s children.
If that is you…
…if you are on the run and afraid to turn around for fear of running into yourself…
…Jesus says, “You have a home.
I am your home.
Claim me as your home.
You will find it to be the intimate place where I have found my home.
It is right where you are, in your innermost being.
In your heart!”
Is Jesus’ home in your heart?
That is to be your home as well.
In Ephesians Paul prays that the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened in order that we may know the hope to which God has called us.
The Message reads as follows, “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for…so that [we] can see exactly what it is he is calling [us] to do…”
We are encouraged to “grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him…”
Before Christ Ascended back to heaven He told His followers to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
For when that gift is received, “you will receive power…and…be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
That happened.
What Christ predicted came to fruition!
And it all started with this small band of followers—a group of about 120 men and women with little or no education, worldly power or religious clout!
The odds were wildly stacked against them, but within a few days 3,000 persons were added to their number.
A few days after that there were 5,000 believers…
…and the number has continued to swell and swell and swell!!!
May we never take this life for granted!
May we never give in, give up, sigh and sneer, “What if this is as good as it gets?”!
When we take the chance and put all our eggs in the one basket of God’s grace through Jesus Christ our Lord; when we make the mad exchange of everything for Christ we will indeed find ourselves with the minority of folks who stagger about with the delirious joy of the man who found the buried treasure or the pearl of great price!
And when that happens, there is nothing stopping us from being all that God has intended for us to be!!!
And as the Church that means we are Christ’s Body, and as Paul puts it in Ephesians, the Church is the fullness of Christ who fills everything in every way.
May it be so.
Amen.
