“Who” is your savior? We sometimes throw around that term very casually in our day. We attribute the idea of being a savior to things far outside the realm of spiritual salvation. The mayor of San Juan for instance could become known as “the savior of Puerto Rico” for her dogged persistence to bring the plight of our American brothers and sisters on that island to our attention. She calls us to remember the destruction that continues to cause so many, so much misery, and motivates us to want to do something about it. In that sense, perhaps it is fair, to call her the savior of her people. Her actions are selfless. And the work she does will lessen the suffering of many, most of whom she does not know. Far less likely to be known as “the savior of Puerto Rico” will be our president Donald Trump, no matter what he does, or says. He is simply not on the ground there. Nor is he obsessed with the island’s recovery. He is distracted, and perhaps his job requires it. But our assessment of Donald, is not ever to be as favorable as our assessment of Carmen, because she is there, she is in the midst of it, and she sends us the messages of it every day, even when the rest of our country might have grown tired of hearing it.
But when power has been restored, when the water is clean, when gas is abundant, when medicines and food have been fully restocked … will the people of Puerto Rico truly be saved? Or will they have simply returned to the point in which it is possible to have a lifestyle like the rest of America? There are many homeless in Florida who do not sleep in comfortable beds, in air-conditioned rooms, benefiting from regular meals or good health care. One could argue they could have all these things if they held down a job. But lacking skills, and once having lost it all, it is hard to get back into a system that requires you have all these things first, in order to maintain them. Are the homeless of Florida in need of a savior like the mayor of San Juan? And even if she took up their cause, and restored them all to the lifestyle the rest of us take for granted, will the formerly homeless be considered saved? I guess you must ask, saved from what? Saved from a severe way of life, saved from the physical suffering natural destructions bring, or bad cyclical patterns that self-destruction brings. But there is so much more we need to be saved from.
When we look inside of ourselves, at the elements or weaknesses of our character that cause us misery, we look for a different kind of savior. In this sense, love can provide great motivation. The love of a spouse, or the supporting love of family, might provide the strong willed of us, a reason to change a behavior that causes their circle of pain. The alcoholic becomes the recovering alcoholic. The drug addict becomes the recovering drug addict. The criminal becomes the former criminal. Love can prove to be a powerful means of motivation. For the strong willed, a solid motivation to change, provides the catalyst to simply go cold-turkey and change errant behavior. For the weak willed of us, the desire is there, but the ability is far from available. In either case, what remains missing, is the change in desire that spawned and fostered the errant behavior in the first place. Circumstances then only make regression easier, or harder. But put into a circumstance where the previous bad behavior is easy to do again, and even the most ardent recovering criminal, or addict, is likely to fall back into the old patterns that give them a momentary spike in adrenaline, followed by a lifetime of regret. In this case, love can motivate, but it cannot recreate who we are. We need a bigger savior for that.
Our need demands a God-based salvation. Our deformity of will, and perversion of thinking, demands a recreation that only our Creator will ever understand. We will not find true salvation looking at our human counterparts. Nor will we find it, even in the better angels of our family’s love. Our need requires something greater, something divine, or regress we will until the core of who we are is cemented in the failures we are unable to detach from. To rip the sin from the core of our hearts and minds and hands, we require the divine recreation that a divine redemptive love has to offer. It is here, where all the false gods are segregated from the only real One. For only Jesus offers to redeem us from the state in which we find ourselves. No work on our part. All the work on His part. We do not need to accomplish some set of tasks first, or ever. Our behavior changes only after He changes how we think, and how we love. It is then we find the actions of our hands in harmony with the will of our God. Not before, and never by our own strength. Allah, Buddha, Ganesh, Odin, pick any other supposed deity and what you find are the demands of action first, followed only then by favor selectively pronounced. With Jesus, favor is offered how we are, reformation conducted within us by Him from where we are, until what Jesus envisioned for us, is who we become. There are no competing offers of this anywhere else, none that would work anyway, for our need demands true divinity to fix who we are.
The message of the gospel, encompasses this one fact alone. The message of the gospel, given in the commission by Jesus to His followers contained only one thing. It is Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Messiah, “who” will be our savior. None else. Matthew dives back into this central theme in chapter ten of his gospel picking up again in verse 32 saying … “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. [verse 33] But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” To confess, to submit your own thinking to Jesus, to submit your own will to His, to understand how little you do, and how great He does on your behalf. To understand your place, next to the place of your savior. That is confession of Jesus Christ in the world in which you live, in any age, across any culture. It is eternally relevant, for it is the singular way in which your life will ever be any different, or any better, than it is today. There is no other way. You will do nothing to save you. The mayor of San Juan will do nothing to save you. The pope will not. Your parents or preacher will not, nor will your spouse. All of your human community may work to lift you up. But only Jesus can truly save you.
And likewise, in physics, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you choose to cut yourself off from the source of your salvation, you will end the possibility of your salvation. When we exalt self, even within the Christian religion, by making statements such as we are in partnership with our God to save us. Or that we must do some things first. Or that we must obey in order to be saved. We deny the power of Jesus Christ to save us. Instead we exalt the power of self and our own actions to accomplish our salvation. We choose not to relinquish control to the Savior, instead holding on to some portion of it ourselves. Our obedience can never truly come, until our minds are brought into harmony with the will of God. True obedience is not found only in our hands, it must be found in our hearts, minds, and motives as well. We cannot obey until we love differently than we do today. Those changes are not something we can will for ourselves. They can only be wrought by the hand of our Creator, as we submit ourselves to Him for re-creation. When we cut ourselves off from that, we wither in the conditions of sin we have long embraced.
In principle this should be an easy thing to digest and do. But it is not. It is at war with our “common sense”. It is at war with our natural instincts. And it is at war with Satan and his entire philosophy of life which he has drilled into us over a long period of time. Man does not need a god. But when connected to true salvation, as if by magic, the fury of your opposition will be revealed. It is the sword that was predicted. Matthew continues in verse 34 saying … “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. [verse 35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. [verse 36] And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” The family whose love you may have counted on all this time, was based on who you used to be, not upon who you are becoming when connected to Jesus. Your changed thinking is not what your wife or husband signed up for. Your changed priorities, and desire to sacrifice what you own for the sake of another, is not what your kids are used to, or were counting on for their own financial security.
The true changes in you that bring you into harmony with God, as wrought by the hand of Jesus alone without your interference, make you a different creation. And not necessarily one, your family will appreciate. They actually prefer the old you. And where there was no strife before, now there may be much of it. Like Adam of old, you are faced with a dilemma of love and trust. Matthew continues in verse 37 saying … “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. [verse 38] And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. [verse 39] He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Much to unpack here. As Adam faced a choice between his love of Eve, and his trust in God, so you will face the same dilemma with family members who do not share your love and submission to Jesus Christ. But do not fall as Adam fell, not trusting in the power of Jesus to save those who do not yet believe.
Then there is the notion of taking up your cross. Your beliefs in the salvation Jesus provides will have real results in who you are. Results the world around you will not be happy with. It is not just family that may be unappreciative it may be the world, with the force of the nation’s laws, attempting to suppress your beliefs, your speech, and your actions. Violating the laws of the nation, in order to remain in harmony with God becomes taking up your cross. The Roman empire put the cross upon Jesus, because they falsely believed Him a threat to themselves. The nation in which you live, may have similar thoughts about you. Jesus did not resist that cross. Nor should you. The response is not to be war, believers on one side and non-believers on the other. The response is to be willingness to bear that cross, even to the point of death in this world. For certainly death in this world is life in the next one. All the while that cross was on Jesus, His only thoughts were of love for those who placed it there. That is what harmony with God looks like. That is what true obedience looks like. A change of heart, and how we love. This is what submission to the will of the Father can do within you as well.
Matthew concludes stating this is not all bad news, picking up in verse 40 … “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. [verse 41] He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. [verse 42] And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” The love of God burns to demonstrate itself to us. The rewards of salvation are not only self-evident, they are reflected in the lives of those we touch. It is as if His love were a virus that spreads quickly, does no damage, but lifts all it touches upwards. The savior of Puerto Rico may begin a good work, but the Savior of mankind takes it to a whole other level. While Carmen tries to turn the air-conditioning back on, Jesus frees you from who you were while you are still in the heat, hungry, thirsty, or whatever shape you find yourself in from mansion to hovel. Jesus is concerned with insuring your life is one worth living in the here and now. Air-conditioning does not decide this. It may help, but it is nothing next to the love of Jesus reflected through you.
The rewards granted even to those who do something nice to one who is connected to Jesus Christ, are a demonstration of the love of God. Even for one who calls them self His enemy, love is shown in gratitude for something nice they do for a follower of His. Imagine a love that deep, that is demonstrated to self-described enemies, that reaches out to them. That offers itself in gratitude to those who do not believe, just because they have done something nice for someone who does. Following this truism, the lives of Carmen, and of Donald, may experience the gratitude of God just because something they did helped a follower of Jesus, even if their own belief system does not include Jesus for themselves. And based on the wide number of followers they may have helped, I am not certain if they will be able to withstand the shower of love from God that is headed their way. For the follower of Jesus, the ability to help another is its own reward.
And so concluded the first gospel commission, the first community outreach, and you and I are equally commissioned by this same chapter in the gospel of Matthew. The singular doctrine is still relevant, it is still good news, it still works, and it is completely wrapped up in “who” our Savior truly is, and what He longs to do within us …
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