Talking about Jesus

This last week at F2:19 we worshipped on the circular drive outside the church offices, the doors to which open onto the main street in Southside Birmingham. In the message grounded in Revelation 7:9-17, we hear the absolute affirmation "Salvation belongs to our God alone" and that affirmation is made with the promise that every tear will be wiped away, that all suffering will be transformed into comfort, and that all the hungry will be fed. Salvation becomes more than a spiritualized hope that can only comes to fruition after we die. It happens in this world as we become more aware of God's presence in the world. Salvation is liberation and deliverance from actual death and from the powers of death in this world: the apparent obsession with sex and the compulsion to hoard money are just two of the obvious deathening worldy influences. They pull us away from the human satisfaction that comes from being in communion with God. God saves us from the temptation to clutter our lives with those temporary and short-lived satisfactions. To understand that we are saved is to take delight in what could God has done for us that we could not do for ourselves. That kind of delight cannot be met by the worldly investments that we make but only by the sincere love of a God who sacrificed his son's life in order to have ours.