Jane and I are in Cornwall for Lowenna’s 9th birthday on Monday, 26th February. It has been raining pretty much nonstop since we arrived on Thursday. However, yesterday we did manage the walk into Mevagissey. Being a small fishing port one of the obvious signs around the harbour are about life saving. There is no RNLI Lifeboat but plenty of information about how to contact them and the coastguard. Plus, there is a locker with life jackets readily available.
This morning, we joined with our friends at Holy Trinity, St Austell for morning worship, as we explored Romans 4 and the ‘free gift’ of God which through the ‘saving work of Jesus’ put us into ‘credit’ with God. From the ‘Bank of God’ we can withdraw all that we need in our daily lives, peace, patience, love, forbearance, hope, etc. etc.
All of this comes as a gift of God; Ephesians 2:8-9 ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.’
GRACE = God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense
Many years ago (1978) I was a volunteer with a Church Army Beach Mission in Great Yarmouth. On the beach one day I saw a child in trouble and being pulled underneath the pier. I am not the strongest of swimmers, but I was able to swim over, lift them up out of the water so they could catch their breath. We then managed to get the child back to the shore and safety. I was musing the other day and wonder if they recall that day.
Sometimes the phrase ‘being saved’ is used in a Christian context and features in numerous worship songs, as it did for us today.
But what do we mean when we declare we are saved? I would like to expand that word and what we may mean by it. Particularly if we have constricted it to a particular ‘transaction’ that means we consider ourselves ‘saved’ from post-mortem banishment from God’s presence and being welcomed into ‘heaven.’
Surely it means much more than that.
Doesn’t it mean we can be saved from saying and doing hurtful things? Doesn’t it mean we have hope? Doesn’t it mean we are saved, should we choose, not to follow the path of destruction either our own or somebody else’s, and we might include in that the environment as well.
Doesn’t it mean we search the Scriptures, we worship God and seek to follow his will and his way for we know that is the best for us, for our family and friends and for the whole world, both ‘our’ world’ and the larger world.
Doesn’t it mean we can say to those in prison, Jesus can save you, but mean so much more than this means you will now go to heaven when you die.
Not on salvation as such but I am reminded of a story of a reformed alcoholic who was ‘saved.’
His former drinking friends were teasing him one day, ‘so now you have become a Christian do you believe in miracles?’ ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘if you come to my home, you will see how Jesus has turned beer into tables and beds and furniture, how Jesus has turned alcohol into food on the table for my family. I don’t know if you would call that a miracle, but it’s enough of a miracle for me!’
How many ‘miracles’ of ‘salvation’ do we experience every day?
We have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved - ‘and this will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.’ Ephesians4.13
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