Great News for Great Sinners

“On one end you walk in a quiet and undisturbed glorious garden, fresh as life with its pure and endless stream flowing through its center. At the other end, you revel in an alive and energized city with an impeccable river-sustained garden around which it is built. But in between, you struggle to stay focused as you slug your way through a hot and barren wasteland.” Such is one description of trying to read the Bible!

Now, one can almost comprehend God coming to walk in the sparsely populated and pristinely maintained Garden of Eden. One can even imagine God being very present in the greatly populated New City and coming into its central park, visiting with those strolling by its gently flowing crystal stream. But how can one wrap one’s mind around God coming into the barren wasteland of human destruction that lies in the chasm between those two glorious paradises?!?

Yet the #RESCUE story finds its pinnacle moment when John writes, “And the Word (God) became flesh and tabernacled (pitched His tent) among us…”

Chew on a couple of foundational #RESCUE truths as we ramp it up toward the finish line of this series of studies.

1. There is no #RESCUE unless God Himself initiates the mission.
2. There is no #RESCUE unless those separated by sin from God respond in faith and accept His saving call.

Abraham was comfortably living in a family devoted to the worship of idols.
Lot was uncomfortably acclimating to residing in sin-saturated urbanity.
Abimelech was just doing what Philistine kings do…accumulating wives.
Jacob was conning and deceiving everyone within his sphere of impact.
Rahab was giving to a common “trade” of selling self.
Judah was a rebel of despicable reputation.
Naaman was the victorious conqueror of the very people of God’s choosing.
Nebuchadnezzar was a self-exalted despot given to frightening manic rages.
Zaccheus was willing to sell-out his family for a few dollars more.
And the elder son made the prodigal brother look like a Sunday School teacher!

If God could save ANY of these, then God can save even me. For God’s #RESCUE mission saves certifiably unsaveable sinners!

“…and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of GRACE and TRUTH!” He walked in the Garden…He walks in the Garden…He walked among men. #RESCUE

See you Sunday, Church!
Pastor Tom