THE WORD IS NEAR JIM HARTMAN
Romans 10:8-13
(NOTE: Jim Hartman is a man in our congregation who just happened to get his picture on the front of the bulletin for this week! He is pictured holding his open Bible in one hand, a pen in the other, and his mouth open teaching. He is wearing a John Deere Tee-shirt, which is representative of the rural farm country in the area of our church. He is a perfect example of faith and having that faith on his lips and in his heart, as the scripture passage speaks to.)
Travel back to your days in high school English class. Do you remember a poem by Robert Frost titled, The Road Not Taken? Listen to this poem:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost talks about living life in two different ways. He chose to live a different way than most people: one perhaps more challenging, one perhaps requiring more of a personal investment and commitment than the other.
In our lesson today, Paul explores two ways of having a relationship with God. One way is a legalistic way. It’s the way of following all the rules, taking the words of the Bible literally instead of considering the culture in which it was written. For example, 1 Peter 3:3 tells women not to adorn ourselves outwardly by fussing with your hair or wearing gold jewelry and fancy clothes. Women who have a legalistic relationship with God often believe this means they must look shabby and not be concerned at all about their appearance, even to the extent of hygiene.
The other way of having a relationship with God involves faith. It involves believing in the love of God in a way that can’t be understood by our human brains but can only be known by our hearts. It’s not a complicated process, it’s not a long “to-do” list that has to be completed before you can be accepted by Christ. Romans 10:9 wraps up the whole rule book on what you have to do to have eternal life in heaven instead of hell:
“…if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” How hard is that? Albert Edward Day writes in his book, Discipline and Discovery, “Humans working out their salvation alone, are a pathetic spectacle—hopelessly defeated moralists trying to elevate themselves by their own bootstraps. God, seeking to work in a person who offers no disciplined cooperation, is a heartbreaking spectacle—a defeated Savior trying to free from sins and earthiness a person who will not lift his or her face out of the dust or shake off the shackles of the egocentric self.”
You’re not even expected to do anything, you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. Suppose there is some old root in you—greed, lust, jealousy or hate—that seems so ingrained in your very bones, in your very nervous system, in your very blood, that there is no way of getting it out. Then lean back and let Christ work the miracle.
These are the words of faith that welcome God to go to work and set things right for us. That’s the “word” Paul is talking about in the beginning of today’s scriptures from Romans Chapter 10: “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim.”
So often we talk about The Word, meaning the Holy Bible. But Paul says it’s the word of faith that is near you, on your lips and in your heart. Look at the cover of your bulletin. Here we see a man who clearly has the word of faith on his lips and in his heart. Our own Jim Hartman. I have invited Jim to share about his faith….
There are just two ways of having a personal relationship with Christ, personal in the same way you have relationships with other loved ones—you can know him in your mind or you can know him in your heart. Two ways, but only one that truly works. Relationships only grow in intimacy through our hearts. If you don’t believe in your heart that God will do the same work in us that he did in raising Jesus from the dead, if you believe you have to “do something,” then you are thinking too much!
It is so simple! The word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us is near you, just waiting to be expressed from your heart through your lips. One current saying that illustrates what I’m trying to say goes like this: ”Being in McDonalds doesn’t make you a hamburger and being in church doesn’t make you a Christian.”
Paul knew a lot of people who may have been at McDonalds, but they weren’t hamburgers. They may have been very faithful, religious people. They were good people, they read the Bible for hours, they tried to be obedient to all the laws, rules, and guide lines required by their religion. They know their faith. They know all the ins and outs of what’s expected of them - when to pray and how to pray, what the Scriptures say and the special code of ethics for relating to other people. But there was one very crucial element missing in their life. Their relationship with God was one established through knowing the expected religious practices, but they didn’t necessarily know God in their hearts.
Such a person today may be one like you who attends church fairly regularly. Maybe you actively participate in a small group of some kind. Perhaps you give regularly of their finances. Perhaps you diligently work physically hard supporting Union’s fundraisers. Perhaps you regularly pray for those on our prayer list and even read your Bible occasionally.
You may know who Jesus is, you may know all about him and his life, but maybe you don’t have a relationship with him.
I don’t want you to think I am discrediting active church participation, because I’m not. Here at Union, we are small so it is extremely important that everyone pitch in to get the work done. Besides, faithful attendance, studying the Bible individually and together, giving our talents and financial resources are all very important aspects our Christian faith.
What I am saying is, these things don’t necessarily give us a relationship with Jesus. They are a means to an end, not the end itself. They are tools that lead us and teach us in our relationship with Christ. We need that kind of obedience to help us discover and continually rediscover who Jesus is. We need those things to help us get to get to know Jesus, and they help us to grow in our relationship with Jesus.
Lets look at this from a different perspective. Think about someone in your life who loves you very much. Name him or her in your mind. You know that this person loves you very much. How do you know this person loves you? Maybe it’s little tokens of affection you have received, a card that was sent to you, this person brings you something cold to drink when your working on a hot day, or he/she has cared for you when you’ve been sick. Maybe its the way this person tries to cheer you up when your down, or given you a hug when you need it.
Now let me ask each of you this: This person who loves you so very much, would they risk their life for you? Enter a burning building, jump in front of a car for you? Would they exchange their own life for yours? (REFLECT ON THIS!) And if your answer is yes, how do you know this?
You believe this person who loves you so much will do this, but if he or she has never been called upon to risk their life for you, has never had to die for you, how do you know they will? You know because you have faith and trust in that person’s love for you. Because you know it in your heart.
And if we, imperfect beings as we are, are loved that much by another imperfect person, how much more does Jesus love us - Jesus who did lay down his life for us, and did it not when we are being obedient, not when we are faithful, not when we have our act together, but he died for us when we are at our worst...when we are hurting others and doing things that certainly don’t help us to be better people.
How much more does Jesus love us, when he died on the cross for our sins, even when we check out of the relationship, decide to go our own way and do our own thing. But nothing we can do will make Jesus love us less. Sometimes we may actively pursue a relationship with Jesus, but sometimes we are content to coast on our own for awhile. And sometimes...well it’s as if we forget that Jesus is even there.
Even then, Christ’s love for us remains steady and strong. He keeps calling out to us, just the same, died on the cross for us just the same, promises us life after death by simply confessing with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead-- just the same….if only we will get to know him by heart.
I want you to know God by heart - to believe in your hearts that God can set things right for us.
I want you to take your relationships with Jesus Christ seriously, perhaps in a way you never have before. I want you to get to know Jesus personally, know Him as well as you know your best friend, your first born child, or your spouse. This might mean opening up your hearts and letting God in for the very first time - to begin to know God the way we know that special person in our lives who loves us.
Robert Frost picked a road less traveled for his life. It required more effort on his part to journey on that road. Today, our “road less traveled” is the path of the cross. Jesus went first; all He asks is that we follow down that road in His footsteps. Jesus didn’t stop to ponder his dedication to us. He didn’t stop to wonder if we were really worth it. He didn’t hesitate for a second to die for our sins, to make us right with God, and provide us with life in heaven through him.
One last illustration: When you recover from an illness is it because you do anything? No. All you do is lie on the bed and rest, and the cleansing blood, continuously flowing through your veins, brings the healing. Open your heart in absolute trust while this “purest and most previous blood in all history” brings you complete cleansing and healing. Open your soul while the love of Christ, the love which has the power to save and redeem the most hopeless of sinners—takes complete dominion over every area of your live.
All we have to do is open our hearts to God and trust in him. Yes, it takes time and energy and setting priorities to actively participate in a relationship. But for Frost, his choice in life made all the difference to him. Traveling the road that holds us in a relationship with our Lord and Savior will make all the difference in us as well.
PLEASE PRAY WITH ME: Father, you ask great faith from us and we owe you great faith. We know you want nothing but good for us and that should make us fear nothing. When you call us, give us ears to hear and an obedient heart to follow you without hesitation. Amen.
Benediction
May Christ our risen brother remove the burden from your soul, reawakening it to His grace. Grip the hands of Jesus with such tenacity that we are connected to his lead. Begin now to obey him in every way you can. Amen.
Sources:
Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity as quoted in A Guide to Prayer, (Nashville, TN: The Upper Room, 2000), p. 93
Lavon Bayler, Gathered by Love (Cleveland, Ohio: United Church Press, 1994), 57.
Irja Askola, from Sing Out New Visions, Jean Martensen, ed. (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress, 1998), 36.
