The One Thing You Need for Intimate Communion with God and That So Many Miss

When they told me, I honestly thought I had misunderstood.   They couldn’t be telling me that.   But they were.     They were telling me that.

At my old church in New York, I used to lead a course on how to share your faith.  One year, I only had two folks in the group, John and Doris. Both of them were leaders in the church.   Everything was going according to plan until the next to last session.   I was talking about how to explain the gospel to people who were curious to know more.   But as I explained it, Doris and John had these really puzzled faces.  

I asked them.  Is this making sense?   They nodded.   Then I asked.  Then why are you looking so puzzled?   Then John said it.   I don’t think I’ve done that.   And Doris nodded and agreed.   I still didn’t get it.   What haven’t you done?   They both pointed to the explanation of the gospel and said, that.    Doris and John had served for years in the church.   John had been on the search committee that first brought me to the church.   But they were saying to me that even so, they had never actually become Christians.

Now they thought they had been Christians until that night.   As I talked with them further, I asked.  How did you think you became a Christian?   They said.  We thought it meant trying to follow the ten commandments, to live by the teachings of Jesus.   They never realized. None of that would ever make you a Christian.   And so that night, Doris and John, after years of service in the church, finally became Christians.

How is it possible for people to worship years and years in a Christian church, to even become leaders there, and yet never become Christians?   It’s far more possible than you might think.   Why?  Because lots of folks, both in the pews on Sunday morning, and those who haven’t darkened a church door in years have the same wrong idea about what it means to become a Christian.   So what does it mean?   What has to happen for the intimate communion with God that the Gospel promises?  In these words, God shows you the way.   So let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

I John 1:8 – 2:2

How can you think you’re a Christian, be absolutely convinced that you are, and still not be one?   You could even be serving actively, even become an elected leader, and still not get it.   How is that possible?   Here God tells you.   It happens because you don’t realize that the human problem isn’t ultimately with the things that people do.  It has to do with what people have or rather what has them.   Only when you realize that will you open the door to the intimate communion with God that God yearns to give.     

Do you see how John opens up this section we just read?  He says.  “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”   If you think about what most folks believe about sin, doesn’t that sentence sound a little weird?   You see.  Most folks think that sinning has to do with what you do.  If you lie or steal, if you cheat on your spouse, basically all the ten commandments stuff.

I mean.  You can’t have sin can you?  You can have a cold.   You can have a disease.   But can you have sin?   In these words from John, God is saying not only can you have sin, but everyone does.    Everyone has sin.

And you can think about that in the same way you think of a cold or any illness.   A few days ago, my son developed croup.   Now my wife and I found that out, when he began coughing one night, and it woke him up.   But that’s not when the croup happened.   He had already developed croup before that.  He already had the virus.   It’s only then that what he actually had became evident to us.   Before, the croup appeared as an outward condition, it was already working within.   In fact, that’s what scary about certain diseases.   You can think you are perfectly healthy, when inside you, unbeknownst to you a cancer is growing or an artery is clogging.  

In the Bible, God tells you again and again, sin works that same way.  You may not even know that you have it.  Why?  It’s because sin isn’t something you do.  It’s something you have.   You may see the symptoms of it in your outward behavior or not.   But even if you do, that’s not where it begins.   It’s not what it actually is. 

And then God goes further.  God talks about sin not as something you have but rather something that has you, that has taken over your life.   

When the Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Rome, he made a stunning statement.  Paul compared devoutly religious Jews, striving to do everything right to Gentiles, doing, well, pretty much everything wrong, and do you know what Paul said?   He said that both the same problem.  Both are under the power of sin.  How can someone who is doing everything right be just as bad as someone who is doing everything wrong?  It’s because sin isn’t ultimately about what you do.   It’s about something that has you.

Think about it, even with a bad cold, isn’t it that way?  You don’t really have a cold as much as a cold has you.  It gives you pain you don’t want.   It drains your energy.   It hijacks your life.   

In the same way, at a much deeper level, this power that the Bible calls sin does the same thing.  It takes over your life, but unlike a sickness, it can actually deceive you into thinking you’ve got nothing wrong at all.

So, what is this power that captures every human being on the planet?   What does the power of sin actually do in you?   It captures you with the delusion that you not God are at the center of the universe.              

And if you think to yourself, I don’t think that.   Let me ask you some questions.  Do you get irritated when you hit a lot of red lights?   Why?  Is it because you assume that all the lights should be green when you drive.  When you hit a traffic jam, does it irritate you?  Do you think?  How can this traffic be so jammed when I need to get somewhere?   Now, you may catch yourself and think well somebody could have had a bad accident, and that’s a lot worse than my inconvenience.   But let’s be honest, that’s not your first thought.

How many times do fantasies rise up in your mind where you are the hero, where it’s all about you.   Do you ever have fantasies where you imagine someone else being the hero, where it’s all about them, where they win the lottery but not you?  

When you hit a health crisis, do you pray more and more fervently than before, probably more fervently than you’ve prayed for anyone else?   Why is that?  Because, it’s about you isn’t it?   Heck, when my son got sick, yes, I felt bad for him.   But part of me thought.  Sheesh how inconvenient this is for me.  Heck, when you are on a flight, and a baby starts crying, what’s your first thought?  Is it, oh that poor baby or is it, boy this flight is not going to be fun for me. 

Remember, what I mentioned a few weeks ago.   Have you ever worried what people are saying about you behind your back?    Do you realize how self-obsessed that is?  Not only are you focused on you, but you are assuming that everyone else is too.    

And the power of sin so captures you that most of the time, you don’t even realize how self-obsessed you are, and how it limits your life, and your relationship with God.  You see.   When sin captures you, you think about God the same way you think about everything.  You think in terms of what God can do for you, your joy, your fulfillment, your happiness, your well-being.    And when things don’t seem to be going good, you can get upset at God, because isn’t the whole thing about you anyway?

That’s why religion doesn’t work.   You see, Doris and John were doing lots of wonderful things, kind-hearted, generous things.   That actually made their sin problem worse.  How is that? 

 

The great 20^th century church historian, John Gerstner, once said this.  The main thing between you and God is not so much your sins; it's your damnable good works.  What did Gerstner mean?   Doris and John were doing good things, but underneath it all, it was driven by this anxiety.   They thought.  If I do these good things, if I live as Jesus would want me to, then God will be happy.   That will win God’s favor.    But at the heart of this motivation lay the same focus, themselves.  As much as they were doing things for others, they were still trying to save themselves.  

 

But when you are doing the good works, doing the whole self-salvation thing, it can be so difficult to see that.   That’s why, often the folks doing the worst things got the message of the gospel before the religious folks did.   Those folks already realized that they had a problem, but the religious folks not so much.    

 

So how do you break free of this power in your life, this power that captures everyone, from the best to the worst?  You realize that you can’t.   You realize that without God doing something radical to rescue you, you will never be free.

 

That’s the radical message of the gospel.   It’s not the good that get salvation.   It’s the humble.  It’s those who face up to their need.  In fact, all you need is need.   As the second step of Alcoholic’s Anonymous puts it, salvation comes to those who realize that only a power greater than themselves can restore them to sanity.

 

And how does this power greater than ourselves do it?  How did God rescue you?  How did God rescue me?  

 

Before we get to the rescue, we have to see what this obsession with self, this sin power has done.  It has brought untold suffering.   It has destroyed God’s creation.  It has wounded others in countless ways.   It has damaged every relationship you have.   And all this damage came through us.  Even as sin captured us, we became a willing hostage.   We liked thinking that the world revolved around us, that God was there for me.  

 

So what did God do to rescue you?   God took the damage from our self-obsession on God’s very self.   In Jesus, God entered human existence, and from there did two things.  First, God freed you from this enemy that had captured you.  And as God did it by absorbing all the damage that this power did in you, and through you and through me in the world.    When everything had gone so horribly wrong, in one incredible act of infinite love that came at infinite cost, the crucifixion, God made everything right.   And that frees you and nothing else.

 

Do you notice what is unusual about what John says about confessing sins?  John says.  If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.    John doesn’t say, he who is faithful and forgiving.  He doesn’t say.  He who is faithful and merciful.   No John says, he who is faithful and just.    You see.  John knows.   When God in Jesus died on that cross, God made everything right.    Your forgiveness comes not as a matter of mercy.  It comes as a matter of justice.   God paid the price.   You are now free and clear.        

 

And when you know, really know this, it starts to free you from yourself.  That’s why that night, the gospel came as a huge relief to John and Doris.   It took the pressure off.   They still did the same things yes, but now out of a radically different motivation, one that liberated them rather than captured them.    

 

When you get the gospel, sure, you strive to live as Jesus desires you to.  But you don’t do it out of insecurity or anxiety or fear.  No, you do it because you know what God has done for you.    You love God not for what God can give you.   After all, now  you know God has given you everything that ultimately matters.  No, you love God for God, for how utterly beautiful God is in every way.    And as you grow less and less worried about yourself, you become more and more centered on the wonder of this God, who is living love, and on the people around you, whom this God loves.   And you realize.  You’re not thinking less of yourself.   No, you’re just thinking of yourself less.  And it is wonderful.