Quote from Forum Archives on June 16, 2002, 6:25 pm

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

NOTES TO GOD
June 16, 2002

TEXT: 1 Peter 4:7-11

A recent newsletter from Our Father’s Library included an article
entitled “Children’s Notes to God.” “A Sunday school teacher asked her
students to write personal notes to God. Here are some of their efforts:

Dear God: I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset
that you made on Tuesday. That was cool.
Dear God: If you watch me in church on Sunday, I’ll show you my new
shoes.
Dear God: Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an
accident?
Dear God: Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a
puppy.
Dear God: They told us in school that Thomas Edison made light. But in
Sunday school they said you did it. So, I bet he stole your idea.
Dear God: I think about you sometimes, even when I’m not praying.”

While there is some great wisdom and observations in those, I think the
most telling one is this: “Dear God: I bet it is very hard for you to
love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in
our family and I’m having a hard time loving all of them.”

Of all of the awesome attributes of God - His holiness, His power, His
eternal nature, His justice - it is probably His love that we have the
most difficult comprehending. Can God really “love all of everybody in
the whole world?” His Word says He can: “For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son…” (John 3:16)

As difficult as it is to comprehend God’s love, it begins to get real
difficult to apply God’s love. There is probably no more difficult
commandment in all of Scripture to apply to our personal lives than John
15:17. Turn there with me so that you can read it for yourself. I’m not
making this up. “This is my command: Love each other.” The words of our
Lord Jesus Christ himself. “This is my command: Love each other.” If you
have any arguments about it, take them up with Jesus.

As we well know, the twelve men we know as the disciples let their human
qualities show plenty of times. Each of them, on occasion, received a
rebuke from Jesus. One even betrayed the Master. The one who emerged as
the group’s leader, Peter, was certainly no choir boy. He was
contemptuous toward others; he was impetuous and acted without thinking;
he even lied about his relationship to Jesus following Jesus’ arrest,
denying that he knew him altogether. Yeah, Peter had his faults.

But I tell you this, after Jesus’ resurrection and the special anointing
by the Holy Spirit that Peter and the others received, Peter got it
together. Or, more accurately, Peter allowed God’s Spirit to get his life
all together. From that point on, Peter knew what it meant to follow
Jesus and to call Jesus Master. Oh, a few more episodes are recorded
where he had some things to learn, but he learned them. So it is with all
sincerity and honesty and awareness that Peter wrote, as we read in 1
Peter 4:8, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a
multitude of sins.” As the Master spoke, “Love each other.”

In writing of a love that “covers over a multitude of sins,” Peter draws
upon his Biblical heritage as a Jew and his personal learning from Jesus.
Look first at Proverbs 10:12. “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love
covers over all wrongs.” Now Luke 7:47. Following the anointing of Jesus
by a sinful woman with her tears and hair, Jesus told his astonished
hosts, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - for she
loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Throughout
their history, the Jews were taught that acts of kindness and mercy were
marks of their own treatment by God. Upon inheriting the Promised Land,
they were reminded to treat the stranger in their midst with kindness
because God had shown them unmerited mercy. As modern history now shows,
continuing the hatreds and deep-seated animosities only continues the
strife of war and terror. Interventions of love breaks the cycle of
violence.

Jesus carried the tradition one step further by relating love and
forgiveness together. For Protestants who have been brought up with such
a strong emphasis on salvation by faith, not by works, Jesus’ comments
regarding the woman who anointed his feet can be disconcerting. But the
purpose of Martin Luther’s stand against the practices of his church in
his day was to expose the errors of human teaching, not to deny the
divine truths of God’s Word. It is God who ties love and forgiveness
together in this manner. There is a sense in which we cannot experience
much forgiveness if we do not practice much love, nor can we experience
much love if we do not practice much forgiveness. Writes noted Bible
scholar F. F. Bruce, “Where there is a genuine response of love, there
will be a forgiving spirit, and where there is a forgiving spirit, there
will be a still greater appreciation of God’s forgiving mercy, and still
greater love in consequence… Love and forgiveness set up a chain
reaction: the more forgiveness, the more love; the more love, the more
forgiveness.” (F. F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1983, p. 80)

Peter then continues with his thought, “Offer hospitality to one another
without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to
serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”
Without any doubt, as if there were any after learning of God’s love from
the Gospels, Christian love is meant to be a concrete act not an abstract
philosophy. In other words, Christians do not love by talking about love.
Christians love by actually doing those things that are love.

Peter wrote about hospitality because Christians were called upon to
house and feed other Christians who were traveling and needed shelter.
Some Christians, like Paul, traveled in order spread the Gospel and
establish churches. Other Christians traveled because they were forced to
by persecution or changing economic situations in their part of the
world. Whatever the reason, Christians were supposed to provide
hospitality “without grumbling.”

In our own day, that specific type of hospitality is not needed too
frequently. Occasionally, there will be someone passing through who needs
shelter and food, but more often than not we are able to find and afford
motels in our travels. Still, there are many ways to actively love in
ways that are consistent with the intent of Peter’s letter. “Each one
should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully
administering God’s grace in its various forms.” Each of us have received
gifts from God. We live in a land that provides us more opportunities and
wealth than any other place in all of history. Probably all of us here
don’t consider ourselves rich beyond imagination - probably everyone has
some financial challenges in their lives - yet compared to almost any
nation we can think of, we are rich. Now I say this not to make us feel
bad or ashamed in any way. The benefits we experience in our nation have
been purchased with great sacrifice. Sacrifices are still being made to
ensure our freedom and safety. For whatever reason, God has blessed
America over the centuries and everyone living here benefits from that to
some extent.

No, I do not share this to make us feel bad or ashamed; I share it to
remind us of our responsibilities. As Christians, we have a
responsibility to God and His Kingdom. We have a responsibility to obey
Jesus’ command, “Love each other.” And we have a responsibility to love
each other in meaningful ways. We promote various offerings, the One
Great Hour of Sharing for instance, not because we need someplace else to
spend our money, but because they provide real ways for us to share God’s
love in God’s Kingdom. The children who wrote their notes to God in their
Sunday school class probably enjoy, and will continue to enjoy, the
benefits and blessings of living in this land. There are many children
the world over who do not live with such hope. Our One Great Hour of
Sharing insert in today’s bulletin illustrates one example of children
caught in the struggles of social, political, and economic changes. The
“Diamond” Christian Education Center in Poland is just one ministry that
extends our Christian love and hospitality to others in need worldwide.

We have been given, through Christ, the gift of grace which we receive
not once, but continuously, without fail. With such a gift in our hands
and hearts, we are forever replenished, equipped to offer - joyfully,
with the abandon of a child - who we are and what we have to others.
Teresa of Avila, a 16th century woman of faith, wrote, “Christ has no
body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours
are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion looks out to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he goes about doing good; Yours are the
hands with which he blesses people now.”

Our acts of grace and mercy and love become, as they should, our notes to
God who wants us all to “love each other deeply.”

Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN

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