Restored
I haven’t read Obama’s book, but I must confess that I love the title, The Audacity of Hope. Typically we are not a very optimistic or hopeful people. We are quick to accept the way things are and resign ourselves to brokenness. We don’t believe that things will be better. We don’t believe things can be better.
Take our worship for instance. When Adam and Eve sinned, mankind was banished from God’s presence. For us, God is invisible, immortal, and spiritual. We cannot see him. We cannot touch him. We cannot hear him. When we pray we wonder whether we're really talking to God or to our imagination. When we read the word, our mind drifts off to other matters. When we sing, we feel something more should be happening within our spirit. Our worship is just what it is. This is all we can hope for and expect.
Considerour physical existence in creation. The Bible tells us that God created the whole world in six days, pronounced everything good, and then rested on the seventh day. But when Adam and Eve sinned, our world became subject to decay and death. There is sickness, disease, suffering, and calamity. We get well only to get sick again. Science, medicine, exercise, and dieting all merely delay the inevitability of death. Life. Creation. It is what it is. Our days are numbered. From dust we came andto dust we will return.
And then there are relationships. When Adam and Eve sinned, their relationship was altered from one of cooperation to one of competition. Love and trust was replaced with self-centeredness and rivalry. Our concern is advancing self, advancing our agenda, serving our will, and getting ahead of others. What does true love look like? Are we capable of receiving or giving true love? We're quick to label and write people off these days. It is easier to judge and condemn than to believe that people can change. Relationships are what they are.People are going to do what people are going to do. Live and let live.
And what about our inner self? We can keep up appearances indefinitely, but God sees the heart. We are not who people think we are. We are not who we wanted to become. We are sinners. We are unrighteous. We have a powerful, dark, sinful nature. We have guilt and shame andstricken consciences. We’re captivated by sin and temptation. The darkness is alluring. Deep down inside ourselveswe wonder not so much whether God could forgive our sin, but whether he should forgive our sin. As Popeye used to say, "I yam what I yam, and I’m all that I yam."
Can anything change our broken relationships and world?
Dare we believe, dare we hope that anything might change (that anything can change) in regard to our worship, decaying world, broken relationships, or shattered self?
If Easter is about anything, it is about the utter audacity of our Christian hope to transform our worship, our world, our relationships, and our inner self,to make all things new again, or even better than new.
In Luke 5:17 (NIV) we read of an audacious encounter with Jesus."One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick."
Religious people are often the most skeptical about hope.
Religious people are often the most skeptical about hope. People like the Pharisees and teachers of the law. We are more like them than we would ever care to admit. We’ve spent our lives being taught about God. We’ve been taught the scriptures, taught how to pray, and taught what to expect. We know God’s commands. We’ve read about Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel, Elijah, and Elisha. Theoretically, we know what God is capable of.
There is an interesting statement in Luke 5:17. As Jesus sat with these religious Pharisees and teachers of the law we're told, "...the power of the Lord was present for him (Jesus) to heal the sick."
The power of the Lord was present, but those supposedly closest to God were entirely oblivious to the healing power of Jesus Christ sitting right in their midst. Are we not just like the Pharisees and teachers of the law? Our religion has hard-wired us not to believe. Through decades of worship we’ve been conditioned not to believe, not to hope, not to see, not to expect, not to wait, not to watch, and not to pray.
And so here in Luke 5:17 Christ sits with the full healing power of God just waiting for someone to come along with the audacity to puthishope in God. God was just waiting to rock their little houses, their worship services, their little Bible studies, and their little life groups.
Luke 5:18-19 (NIV) says,"Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus."
Isn’t it tragic how we unwittingly become an obstacle for people to experience the healing power of Jesus Christ?These guys had the audacity, the utter nerve, to go up on the roof of the house and dig a hole through the roof just to gain access to Jesus Christ. I’m sure the owner of the home was quite appreciative of their faith!
Luke 5:20 (NIV) continues, "When Jesus saw their faith, he said, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven.' "
If we have hope in God, our souls can be made whole.
Your sins are forgiven! In the chaos of that momentin the paralytic’s worship, a man’s soul was made whole. There he stood face to face with the creator of the universe. God was no longer invisible, no longer a theory oran abstract theological concept, a distant figment of one’s imagination.God was no longer silent. He could see God, hear God, touch God’s hand, and taste God’s goodness. And he’d just heard God utter the unthinkable, "Your sins are forgiven. Your worship is restored. Your soul is made well." Was it too good to be true?
Notice it is the religious who refuse to believe or hope. Luke 5:21-26 (NIV) says,"The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, 'Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?' Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, 'Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….' He said to the paralyzed man, 'I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.'Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, 'We have seen remarkable things today.'"
What’s lacking this Easter among God’s people is the audacity of hope. The audacity to believe, the courage to seek, the faith to dig a hole in the roof,to go to any length to experience the healing touch of the God of the universe. God can forgive and he can restore. WithGod all things are possible.Nothing is impossible for him.
God's people must have the audacity to hope.
This Easter we cannot make the mistake of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. They were like the false teachers in 2 Timothy 3:5 (NIV), "having a form of godliness but denying its power."
We cannot be like the Sadducees in Mark 12:24 (NIV) of whom Jesus said, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?"
At the center of the Christian faith stands the most audacious hope of all. As remarkable as it was that Jesus could forgive a man’s sin and cause him to rise up and walk again, God was about to do something even more remarkable.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 (NIV) Paul writes, "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born."
I love the question that Paul asks the Jews in Acts 26:8 (NIV) when pressed about his belief in the resurrection. He asks, "Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?"
Is there anything too hard for God?
When you consider who God is, when you consider the world that God created in six days, why couldn’t he raise the dead if he wanted to? What about our worship, world, relationships, and shattered self is too impossible for God?
In John 5:24-29 (NIV)Jesus tells us,"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voiceand come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned."
How can you enlarge your faith this Easter? At the depth of his deepest despair Job expressed his highest confidence in God’s redemption. Job 19:23-27 (NIV) says,"Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever! I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!"
Isaiah 26:19 (NIV) sats, "But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead."
Psalm 49:13-15 (NIV) tells us, "This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings. Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions. But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself."
Daniel 12:1-3 (NIV) relates, "At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever."
Hosea 13:14 (NIV) guarantees us, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?"