February 17th:
Assure vs. Insure
Call: Psalm 91: 1-2, 9-16
Text: Romans 10: 8b-13; Luke 4: 1-13
Read: W&S #17
Assure vs. Insure
Sometimes things fall into place for the most unusual reasons
Proving what our grandmothers taught us:
"The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways."
This week, for example, I came to understand more clearly
a concept which I have known for years.
My improved understanding resulted
a little bit from the fact that this service follows Ash Wednesday
but that not particularly mysterious
we celebrate Ash Wednesday every year
It resulted considerably more from the fact that I felt compelled to preach
On three suggested scriptures - not just one
This is more mysterious
Seldom do I preach on two scriptures - let alone three
But this week,
the psalm, the gospel reading, and the passage from Romans
Seemed to be intertwined and interrelated
And all three spoke to me.
The trouble was that they all seemed to be speaking at the same time
And thus I could not figure out
what to say or how to approach this intertwined trio.
That is where the third - and most mysterious - factor in my greater understanding comes in.
This third factor was my dissatisfaction with my original sermon title
I thought it was too blah
I thought that people driving by and reading our sign would say
"That doesn't get me excited."
"It sounds like the Methodists are in for
a bland - even boring - Sunday service."
[Give me a chance to prove whether or not it is boring.]
For my first title was simply "Assurance"
That was in the newsletter and it is in this morning's bulletin.
But Friday, as I went to work in earnest on this message,
I found that it neither told me what direction to take
Nor excited me
And I knew that title would not make any one here ponder,
"I wonder what he is going to do with that."
And then, as I played with more interesting titles,
I began to consider more carefully what direction to take
And I began to more completely grasp the difference between
Being saved by grace through faith
And Being saved through the law.
It is not that I was unfamiliar with the concepts
I could already recite and even explain them
but now I see them and grasp them more clearly.
So I ask you to join with me on the journey which began
In our Ash Wednesday service
A service which began with a warning through the prophet Joel.
A warning that the Day of the Lord was coming
And that it would be dark and terrifying.
A warning which, however, was followed by an expression of hope
That if we turn toward the Lord and away from our sins
And if we repent of those sins
The Lord might relent of his intent to punish us.
And taking that hope seriously, we responded to
By adopting for ourselves Psalm 51
The prayer David prayed after recognizing his sin with Bathsheba.
As we prayed, and despite all of us having let God down at times,
We watched the fire of the Christ candle burn up and destroy
Our sins, errors, and regrets
Converting them into ashes.
And we left the Ash Wednesday service understanding that
We all have to pay heed to the warning
We all have to hold on to the hope
We all - imperfect persons that we are - have to pray David's prayer.
The words of Joel and David and the sight of those destroyed sins launched us forward toward a stronger relationship with our God.
We resumed that journey today with the 91st Psalm
Where we listened to the psalmist proclaim to us
That God, in whom we trust is our refuge and our fortress
And That God will give his angels charge over us
To guard us in all our ways.
And in the last three verses of that psalm, we hear God assure us
That because we cleave to God in love, God will deliver us
That because we know God's name God will protect us
That when we call on God, God will answer.
In the NT we find Paul sharing that same assurance with the Romans
And he shares it with us [Romans 10: 8b - 13]
The apostle tells us that with faith
We confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord
That with faith
We believe in our hearts that God raised Christ from the dead
And that when those who so confess and so believe,
Call upon the name of the Lord They will be saved.
Paul tells us of that assurance from God
Right after explaining that
Righteousness which comes from the law
Differs from
Righteousness that comes from faith.
Now anyone of us who has ever read or heard Paul's letters knows
That he consistently and persistently says that because of Jesus
We are saved by grace through faith
And not saved by the law.
In other words, we are saved by
The undeserved, unmerited, unearned
grace of Jesus the Christ In whom we trust
And that we are not saved by actions measured
Against how well we have obeyed the jots and titles of the law
Because if we were so measured,
we would try to earn our salvation by that obedience.
But because we are all
At one time or another disappointments to God
No one would ever be saved.
Paul believes that the law informs
And that it played a useful function
But that because of the gracious sacrifice of the Christ
The law has been superseded as the defining characteristic of our relationship with God.
Because of this, Paul at times writes dismissively of the law
Despite his respect for it
But I fear that many people today,
Treat the OT law and the detailed additions and interpretations
that humans added to it.
Not as useful and informative, but as the way to God
Rejecting by their thinking,
Paul's idea that we are saved by grace through faith.
And rejecting too Christ's teaching and example
of love, justice, forgiveness, kindness, and sharing
As I said, we've all heard this before
But for me a true appreciation for the difference
Came when, trying to avoid a blah sermon title on our sign,
I found myself comparing
Assuring to insuring
Being assured to being insured
Assurance to insurance
And in so doing, I turned to a book that was neither
Scripture or commentary
The book was the American Heritage College Dictionary
That secular book defines assure as:
to state positively as to remove doubt
To cause to feel sure
To make certain
To make safe or secure
And that dictionary adds a "Usage Note" after the definition:
"Assure, ensure, and insure all mean 'to make secure or certain.' Only assure is used with reference to a person in the sense of 'to set the mind at rest.'"
Giving as an example "(I) assured the leader of my loyalty."
Insure, in addition to "To make sure, certain, or secure"
Is defined as, "To cover with insurance."
And "insurance" is, according to the same dictionary:
"The act, business or system of insuring"
"coverage by a contract binding a party to indemnify another against specified loss in return for premiums paid."
What we have from God is assurance
Not insurance
God makes us feel certain and secure by setting our minds at rest.
We have been given that sense of certainty and security by God's grace
Not by our earning it through the payment of required premiums.
We receive that assurance through our trusting God
Not through our knowledge that the courts will enforce the contract
If the law is the defining characteristic of our relationship with God
We have chosen to understand that relationship as insurance
And we would have no need for Christ
Whose life, death, and resurrection set our minds at rest
by demonstrating instead a relationship based on assurance.
Other than the cross itself, no story better demonstrates trust than the story of Jesus in the wilderness [Luke 4: 1-13]
The question for this Lenten season is,
"Will we? Will you and I? Will some or all of us,
demonstrate during these 40 days, our trust in God's assurance?"