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UNCONDITIONAL
SURRENDER — UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE #2
A SERMON FROM RAY CHARLES
Someone recently shared a marital strategy with me
that I thought was kind of interesting. "Lonnie," he told me,
"I NEVER tell my wife anything that's bad news until AFTER dinner.
My wife can't take bad surprises on an empty stomach. If the worst thing
in the world has just happened, I come home, we eat supper, and I just
wait and bide my time until she's had dessert and EVERYTHING. And THEN
I say, `By the way, honey, our in-laws are coming to spend the weekend
with us.' Or, `I think they're going to move the corporate offices to
Death Valley next month and we're going to have to sell the house and
go too.'"
I suppose many of us have learned that FIRST you tell your spouse you
love them, and THEN you tell them about the car being bashed up. That's
the correct order-of-operations, as a mathematician would say.
Now friend, WHY do we act this way? Why do we only put the good stuff
on a resumé? Why do we need to be so cautious about how or when
we reveal our flaws?
I heard once about a famous media personality — you'd recognize this person's
name — who REFUSED to be photographed except from one side. If you caught
him from the left, he'd want to pull out your film and smash your camera.
And if a picture of him got into print showing that left side, boy, he'd
make sure you never held a job higher than street-sweeping for the rest
of your life. Why? Well, his hair was a little thin on that side, but
the way he combed it, the other side looked pretty good. So you always
and ONLY saw Mr. Big from the right.
All this week we're trying to understand and comprehend the almost incomprehensible
idea that a holy God in heaven is willing to accept us UNCONDITIONALLY.
It doesn't matter what bad news you've tried to hide from Him. It doesn't
matter to Him that you have a good side and a bad side. You don't have
to wait until after supper, hoping to get Him in a good mood before you
approach the throne. You can come to Him right now, with your blotched-up
resumé . . . and be UNCONDITIONALLY accepted.
And you know, the Bible is jammed from cover to cover
with this very headline. God's Word spells out over and over the revolutionary
concept that God wants you RIGHT NOW! AS IS!
Listen to just a few of the more blockbuster memos we find in the Bible.
Jeremiah 31:3:
"I have loved you with an EVERLASTING love,"
says God.
Matthew 11:28:
"Come to me, ALL you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest."
Romans 8:35:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Let me comment just on that one. In human terms, there's always something
that can separate us from the love of another HUMAN. WHO can separate
us? WHAT can separate us? Lots of things! A new girlfriend. An irritating
habit. An inadvertent moment of anger. Or, as that tragically beat-down
little boy named Chris shared yesterday, he was sure his cleft palate
— his deformed lip — was going to separate him from God . . . just like
it had separated him from others down here.
But only God really understands and reveals absolute, pure, unadulterated
UNCONDITIONAL acceptance. Only God follows up His own question — "Who
can separate us?" — with the answer, just three verses later.
For I am convinced, writes Paul, that neither death
nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
You know, it almost makes us think of that old torch song, "I Can't
Stop Loving You." There's an old Ray Charles recording of that lying
around in our studio, which I won't play on the program today — but you
can just FEEL the emotion in that person's heart. And in God's . . . "I
CAN'T STOP loving you! NOTHING can stop Me from loving you! It's useless
to try."
It's unbelievable irony, isn't it, that the God who knows us BEST loves
us MOST. Have you ever thought of that? All your life, all MY life, we've
been programmed to think that if we can just cover up THIS and throw a
blanket over THAT and hide these two or three things behind a bush somewhere
and put some makeup on this little blemish . . . we'll be able to get
someone to love us. We choke back our selfish thoughts; we try to paste
a cheerful smile on our faces at Sunday School. And we say, "Thank
God nobody knows how I really feel. Thank God no one knows what I'm really
like inside." No one except God. And even though He knows ALL of
it, He continues to love us.
I love how English writer George Eliot described the quiet beauty of being
with someone who is such a true friend that they love you NO MATTER WHAT.
Now, he was writing about human friendships, but listen to these words
and see if they don't make you think of God . . . and maybe ONLY of God.
"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a
person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words but to pour
them all out, just as it is, chaff and grain together, knowing that a
faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping,
and then, WITH THE BREATH OF KINDNESS blow the rest away."
Now you see, that's UNCONDITIONAL. Love with no conditions placed on it.
No contractual restrictions and amendments and codicils and codes. Unconditional
acceptance springing from the heart of a God who knows you best and loves
you anyway.
It's interesting that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands us to
love others that way. Verse 44's instructions to us are just three words
long:
"Love your enemies."
Well, is there a loophole in there somewhere? Are there some follow-up
instructions? "Love your enemies after they've repented and stopped
acting like such jerks"? "Love your enemies once they've gotten
the victory over talking about you behind your back and spreading false
rumors about you"? Friend, I'm sorry . . . there aren't any such
qualifying statements. Jesus tells us to simply LOVE . . . OUR . . . ENEMIES!
Now, doing that — and HOW we do that — is a topic for another time. Today
I only bring it up to suggest that this is an area where we are simply
following GOD'S own example. He would not tell us to love our enemies
unless He was willing to love His. And that's exactly what He has shown
us.
Because of sin, we ARE His enemies — and He loves us. Despite our faults
and imperfections and rebellious natures, He's adopted us. He's made us
His sons and daughters. No wonder the apostle John exclaimed in amazement
in First John chapter three:
"Behold, what manner of love the Father
has bestowed upon us, that WE should be called the sons of God."
In the New International Version it reads this way:
"How GREAT is the love the Father has LAVISHED on us, that we should
be called CHILDREN of God! (exclamation mark)"
As we close today, let me take you to probably the most poetic passage
in the Bible. Have you ever sat down and read the entire book of Song
of Solomon? Incredible! These eight short chapters are some very amazing
reading; they're all about love and passion and a lover searching for
his mate. Sometimes Christian adults remark among themselves that this
is one book in the Bible that almost has to be rated "R" because
it's clearly written to give mature men and women an idea of the intensity
of what God's love can be like.
You know, as you read it you really find yourself protesting: "But
this is being written about someone who's lovely and desirable! This woman's
incredible; she's perfect, with beautiful teeth and hair and so on."
Listen, friend. THAT is how God sees YOU. He doesn't see you as flawed
and worthless, as a castoff. He sees you and He sees me in those metaphor-packed
Song of Solomon expressions.
Did you know that Jesus sat at that supper table on a Thursday evening,
the night before He was crucified, and He looked into the eyes of the
disciple Judas . . . and He loved him? Jesus didn't just love the 11 good
disciples — although all of THEM had acted kind of worthless that particular
week. He loved JUDAS!
Let me quote just a few lines from The Desire of Ages, one of my favorite
commentaries on the life of Jesus. Listen to this:
"The disciples knew nothing of the purpose
of Judas [to betray Jesus]. Jesus alone could read his secret. Yet He
did not expose him. Jesus HUNGERED for his soul. He felt for him such
a burden as for Jerusalem when He wept over the doomed city. His heart
was crying, How can I give thee up?"
You can almost hear that Ray Charles theme music, can't you? "I Can't
Stop Loving You! Even you, Judas! I can't stop loving you. Even though
I know what you've done, even though I can see right into your purse and
see those 30 pieces of silver, even though I have a transcript of every
word you said to those priests when you sold Me out — I love you. I can't
stop loving you."
Friend, never forget it, Jesus' love for you is unconditional. Maybe you
sang it in Sunday School and just never noticed what the words were saying:
Jesus loves me when I'm good.
When I do the things I should.
Jesus loves me when I'm bad.
Even though it makes Him sad.
Yes, friend. Right now Jesus loves you. No matter what, Jesus loves you.
The Bible tells us so.
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