Rev. Dr. M. Taylor Bach Ephesians 3:1-12 Matthew 2:1-12

I want you to use your imagination for a moment. Imagine that you have a choice to join two country clubs. You've been just dying to get into one. But you discover that one of them has qualifications that require doing. The other has qualifications that simply require being. The one that has qualifications for doing has a board of Governors who will sit in judgment of you. They will review your life. They will want to have references. They will want to know that you are successful. That you have amassed a good deal of money. They will ultimately vote whether or not they will let you in. The other one simply opens its doors and says, “Come on in.” They both have eighteen hole golf courses. They both have indoor/outdoor swimming pools and gymnastic equipment. They both have wonderful restaurants and all the amenities. Which one would you choose? Kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? The one that just wants you to be rather than to do and will accept you for who you are rather than for what you have accomplished or what you've done.

The epistles of Paul make a distinction between people of the flesh and people of the spirit. People of the flesh are the worldly people who judge others, have standards and want to keep up with the Joneses, and all of those kinds of things. People of the spirit are simply those who are willing to say, “Here I am, Lord. Take me. I am here to do your will. I am here to do whatever you want.” In John, we have the last I AM statement that I am going to preach about in this series of sermons on the I AM statements of Jesus. In this statement, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is kind of a harsh statement in some ways. Who does it include and who does it exclude? Is it a being statement or a doing statement? How would you view that statement? I checked some Biblical scholars and many of them say emphatically, it means we can't get into heaven unless it occurs through Jesus Christ. Well, 2/3 of the world supposedly doesn't know about Jesus Christ. Does that mean that they won't get into heaven? Hum. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Now in Paul's epistle to the Romans, the first chapter, 19th verse, he says that everyone knows about God through creation. It is kind of like the Magi following the star. Symbolically, it is a good analogy. The Magi were searching for Christ, God in a man, and they were guided by nature, the star in the heavens. So carrying that further, Paul says, “All of us can know God through nature.” And therefore, all of us can know Jesus Christ through nature because Jesus was the creative Word when spoken brought all the universe and the worlds into being. A similar thing is said in Ecclesiastes 3:11 and also in Genesis 1:26. So we get an idea that everyone in some way has the ability to know Jesus Christ and therefore will be held responsible for that knowledge.

What is the one unforgiveable sin? Do you remember? The one unforgiveable sin in the Bible is the sin against the Holy Spirit. What is the sin against the Holy Spirit? The sin against the Holy Spirit is the rejection of Jesus Christ. Well now, if people in third world countries or a person in our country had never heard of Jesus, will they in a sense be rejecting Jesus? I don't think so. But how many people have heard about Jesus and rejected Him? Will they not get into heaven? How does this work? Jesus comes with credentials to prove that He is to be followed, that He is the Way. His credentials when asked by John the Baptist' followers are& “the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have the good news preached to them.” What is the good news to the poor&that they will be alleviated of their poverty. So following Jesus' way, those things can happen, those things take place. Those are His credentials. He says, “I am the truth.” So when we know Jesus Christ, we know truth. He says, “I am the life.” When we know Jesus Christ, we know the life of God and we know that by following His truth, we can achieve eternal life.

Some theologians have conjectured about this. I remember in seminary, we grappled with the problem of people who don't formally know Jesus Christ. How do they get into heaven or do they get into heaven at all? After all, Jesus also said the road is narrow and most people are walking the wide road and they won't get into heaven. So some theologians have said there is such a thing as baptism of desire. That if a person knows God and actively seeks God but has never been exposed to Christ, through their desire and the goodness of their intention, some how Christ will be made know to them. Maybe it will occur shortly after their death. Maybe it will occur at some point as they are transitioning from this life to the next life. We know at times that there are death-bed conversions. I shared with this congregation at one time, when I was called to a nursing home and found a salty old sailor laying in bed dying, he confessed to me all of his sins and they were a multitude. Then we prayed together and he said that he would repent and give his life to Christ. So I feel confidently that when he died the next day, he went to heaven. It sometimes doesn't feel fair that he got to heaven because he lived such a lousy life his whole life, but the evidence is that he got there. Remember the parable of Jesus, of hiring people to work in the garden. He hired some at 9:00 in the morning and he hired some late in the afternoon and he paid them all the same wage. What is that about? His disciples thought that was extremely unfair but Jesus' point was, He can grant salvation to a late-comer as well as a person who has been a Christian all their life. He can grant salvation to someone who finds Christ only close to the time of their death.

People will believe strange things. The Buddhists have a prodigal son story just like our gospels have a prodigal son story. But there is a huge difference. In the Buddhists prodigal son story when the son comes back, he is punished for his life of debauchery and he is condemned to live a lifetime of servitude to his father. You know our gospel story, when the prodigal comes back, he is welcomed with open arms, he is forgiven, and the father holds a celebratory party for him. A huge difference. One focuses on doing. The other focuses on being. God will save us because we are and He loves us as we are. We really only have to do two things. Repent and believe. That is the essence of the Gospel message. And if we repent and believe, then love will flow out of us and will flow into our actions and we will love one another and we will take care of our neighbors. We will be people of compassion. We will be risk takers in bringing the Word of God to other people. We will then receive our eternal reward. We will get into the greatest country club there is. Heaven! Therefore, I want you to remember this phrase: “Repent and believe. Love and receive.”