Undeserved - A God Who Loves Anyway

Sermon: Undeserved

• Sarah and Abraham were unworthy but God gave them Isaac (laughter) anyway.

• We were undeserving, but Jesus died for us anyway.

• If we know God loves us even if we are undeserving, how should we act towards others?

I was speaking with a group of pastors this week about preaching on sin in our society. I mentioned that I do not preach on sin, because have a call to confession which is always a part of our service.

One of the pastors from a different tradition said they didn’t think that having a call to confession was helpful every week. In fact, they stated that the world was always telling people that they were unworthy, and that they didn’t think their job to “beat people up,” that their job was to remind people that they were worthy.

From the reformed tradition, this is entirely upside down. The whole idea of God’s grace comes from the context of God loving us in spite of our unworthiness. We see it from the beginning. When Adam and Eve sinned, God made them clothing. He cast them out of the garden, lest they eat from the tree of life and be caught forever in their sins, but he did not cast them out of his heart. The world was harder because of their sin, but God still loved them. God always intended to redeem what they had lost in the Garden. In Revelation 22, we find the River of Life flowing from God’s own throne and that Tree of Life, the one left behind in Genesis there for all to partake!

So let’s look at our two passages today in the context of God’s amazing grace – loving us even though we are unworthy.

We know Abraham and Sarah, who were originally called Abram and Sarai. They did a couple of things right and a lot of things wrong. Abram’s Dad was originally called to Canaan as the promised land, but when he found a great place to farm put down stakes and stayed. Only after his Dad’s death did God call Abram to go.

I want you to look at this because it is key. God called Abram and he followed. God was first. In our theology, we understand that this is the way it happens. We become a part of God’s family because God initiates contact with us. We aren’t out there looking for God, God is looking for us.

And so, Abram took his family and all that belonged to them and set out and found the land where God called them. There are many stories along the way, where they messed up. All of us are aware of the two different times when Abram claimed Sarai was his sister (she was really his half-sister, but also his wife) and allowed other men to put her in their haram. He did it to protect himself.

We remember that Sarai gave Abram her maidservant so that he could have the child God promised him, not realizing that God’s faithfulness was to her as well as to her husband.

And the laughter. In Genesis 17, when God reminded the man now called Abraham of his promise, he didn’t just laugh. Scripture tells us he fell on his face he laughed so hard. Then he came back and asked God to bless the son he already had, Ishmael, since obviously God was joking. Sarah herself couldn’t help but laugh at the idea. Laughter was so tied into their relationship with God, that they named their son Isaac, which means laughter.

But there is something Abraham and Sarah did right. God called them, and from that moment on, they knew they belonged to God. They worshipped God and never turned back. And that alone is why God blessed them.

Our Romans passage is pretty familiar. Jesus died for our sins before we knew we were sinning. In our case, Jesus died for our sins before we were even born. We didn’t have to do a thing.

Like Abraham and Sarah, God also called us before we knew we needed God. Each of us came in a different way. Some, like me, grew up in the church. I invited Jesus in as a young child and can today say that God never ever left me.

For others, your path was different. Some of you came to know Christ as a teen or an adult. Some who grew up in the church may not remember a specific moment in time when you made a specific commitment, you just know you belong to God.

All of us who came in different ways all of us have one thing in common. We belong to God because God called us. God is always the lead in the dance. We are always the follower.