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Tonight were continuing a summer sermon series called faith lessons for life. Last spring I gave a group 15-20 possible faith lessons for this series, and I asked them to pick the ones that would be most helpful. Some of the faith lessons weve looked at Making Wise decisions, Living the Golden Rule, surviving setbacks and storms, forgiving as God forgives. This series has been very practical. `Tonight were looking at the faith lesson, Justification by faith. If you would like to take notes I encourage you to use the placemats on the table. If youd like to learn more about Justification by faith I encourage you to use this Life Card that is in your bulletin. Were used the game of Life as a way to understand these life lessons. The game of Life is a journey. Really the journey in the game of Life is a middle-class journey of going through school, developing a family, and surviving some setbacks and storms. At the end of the game a person lands in millionaire acres. The game of Life represents the American Dream. In the church we celebrate a different dream. We celebrate the Jesus dream. Nowhere did Jesus every say that by following him we would live out what we understand as the American Dream. Jesus never promised anyone that we would win 58 million in the lottery like a man did in Ham Lake last week. The Jesus dream doesnt end up in millionaire acres. The Jesus dreams ends in heaven, which I would accept in a heart beat over 58 million dollars. The Jesus dream is even better. Its a promise that we can live life with passion and calling and energy. My desire for everyone in our new faith community is to live out this Jesus dreamto know at our core that we are loved, to understand our caling, that is to live out our Inspirational Intersection, to make an impact or bless the world. God wants us to live out that Jesus dream. But we have to be intentional about it. We have to master some basic faith lessons. Faith lessons for life.

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Tonights faith lesson is the simplest and most complicated to understand. Were looking at the faith lesson called Justification by Faith. Its a term that has described the Protestant Reformation. This was the hardest sermon for me to write this summer. I wrote a 20 page paper in seminary on Romans 5, so you would think that this would be easy. But its not. How do you put into words something that is so amazing as justification by faith. There is a physical description, but there is something far deeper than just a description. How do you put into words something that is incredible and amazing. Its like trying to describe a meteor shower. Did anyone stay up or get up early to watch the meteor shower this past week? There is a physical description of a meteora meteor is shooting stars. That doesnt describe it, though, does it? How do we describe a meteor shower that captures its essence? Or a sunset. This past Monday night after Music Camp someone pointed out the sunset. It was a huge orange ball that went down. That is a physical description. How do we put something as phenomenal as a sunset into words? Or the birth of a baby. The first time I was present to the birth of a baby was when my niece was born. The physical description is new life came out of a woman. But the birth of a baby is far deeper than a physical description. I can put into words the ideas of justification by faith, but the idea goes beyond words. That is why this sermon is so hard to write. The physical description of Justification by faith is easy. Jesus died on the cross so that you and I have peace or a relationship with God. Paul wrote about this in two verses. Say them with me:

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Therefore, since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; Romans 5:1-2a Thats the physical description. But that doesnt describe it. We need to get underneath it to capture the essence. As Presbyterians we profess our faith by saying that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Justification by faith gets at the Savior part. The physical description is Jesus died on the cross so that you and I can have a relationship with God. You and I have a Savior. I think we can start to get at the essence of the idea when we capture the idea that you and I cant save ourselves. God saves us. We cant become complete people without God in our lives. We cant become the people we desire to be without submitting ourselves to God and saying Lord, save me Lord save me. Every since the beginning of creation there has been a tension between people who believe that we can save ourselves and people who believe that only God can save us. We see this tension in the Scriptures. People believed that if you followed the law you would be saved. We saw this tension in the Reformation when some people said that if you follow a specific program you would be saved. We see this tension today by the proliferation of self-help books and self-help journals and self-help ideas. There is part of us that wants to just follow a program so that we can be saved. Go to Barnes and Noble and look at all of the programs for becoming a better person. Go on this diet and lose 20 pounds; try this time system management system and become more productive; try these financial ideas and become a millionaire. There is nothing wrong with dieting or time management or being prudent financially, but we cant save ourselves through

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through a book or a program or a relationship or any other human endeavor. We can only be saved through God. We might ask the question, why cant we save ourselves. Why cant we just go our own way. Why cant we develop our own self-improvement program. Paul wrote about this in Romans. He said this. Paul wrote about this in his letter to the Romans. Romans is Pauls final letter that he wrote which is in the Bible. It is the most theologically dense of all his letters. The letter is worth reading even if it is hard to understand at times. In Romans Paul wrote that For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:23 We cant save ourselves because it is impossible to escape our own sin. This doesnt mean that we are horrible people. Ive shared this before, but in the church we make two mistakes when it comes to sin. The first mistake is to talk about it so much and as a result is people feel so bad about themselves that they dont even want to approach God. We are sinners, but we arent terrible and horrible people. My task is not to pound it into us that we are bad people. To say that we are sinners does not mean that we are terrible people who deserve condemnation. When it comes to talking about sin in the church sometimes we talk about it so littler that we dont think that we need God. For if we are good and true and upright peole and if we have everything going our way, why do we need a Savior. If I dont believe that I sin, why do I need Jesus. He might teach me a few good moral lessons about life and he certainly does. Jesus didnt come into the world to teach us a few good moral lessons. He came into the world to put us into relationship with God. We need a Savior.

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WEre good people, but our goodness isnt enough. We need a Savior Look at the world and we can see how much of a mess we are in. Ive always been interested in the issues of nuclear weapons. Last week was the 68th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan. I was curious to see how many nuclear bombs are in the world. According to the Federation of American Scientists there are more than 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world. 4,300 of these are considered operational and 1,800 United States and Russian warheads are on high aleart, which means they could be used in short notice. What leads people to construct one weapon that can wipe out an entire city and whose radiation fallout can harm the planet for generations. Fear, anxiety, protection. Its a mess Look at the world and we can see how much of a mess were in. If any person understands the messes of the world its Alika and the people of Kwanzaa. Im sure Alika will tell you how Kwanzaa has gotten involved in human trafficking, especially human trafficking that takes place on the northside of Minneapolis. Its hard for me to get my mind around why anyone would want to traffic another human. They are one of the few churches in the country who have developed personal relationships with people in the sex trade. Shes going to make a presentation at Presbyterian Church of the Way in Shoreview in September. We should get a group to go. I know that a lot of people in the church are concerned about how Jesus saves us. People have developed different theories about how Jesus saves us. We call these atonement theories. Its important, of course, to have an understanding of how Jesus saves us. People in the church can get quite particular about how Jesus saves us. I experienced that this week in a blog I wrote.

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I shared that some people in the Presbyterian church dont believe in the substitionary atonement of Jesus. Some people got upset about what I wrote. It is important to have a believe about how Jesus saves us. But Im more concerned about whether we believe that we need a Savior. It doesnt matter what we believe about how Jesus saves us if we dont believe from the bottom of our heart that we need a Savior and that we cant save ourselves. To say that we need a Savior doesnt mean that God is magically going to enter into our messes and fix everything. To say were justified by faith doesnt mean we wait around for heaven to happen. God is not going to magically elimate 1,700 nuclear bombs; God is not going to stop human trafficking in a magical way. God expects you and I to do that. God expects the church to do that. To say we need a Savior does not mean we can sit back and coast and expect someone else or even God to fix our problems. When we believe we need a Savior were FREE. Were free; were free to engage the world. Weve started this church called Chain of Lakes because we believe that together you and I can share a message that is valuable with the community. We want to express the love and mercy and justice of God with this area. We dont believe that this hasnt happened. But our faith community can help that. Jesus died so that you and I can share this message of love and mercy and justiceits a message that we cant share too often. We share it in a variety of ways. Right now were working on getting people to be mentors at Lino Lakes Elementary STEM school. As I understand it we have three new mentors signed up and if we can get one more mentor we can have a training program. This is a simple program of having lunch with a

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child every other Thursday. We dont have to tutor, we dont have to be a psychologist. The only requirement is that we like to eat and are willing to talk to a kid. Does this really make a difference. It does. This past year my mentee was Matthew. He was a shy kid. But over the year we got to know each other. I cant even say that I know too much about Matthews home life. But I know that he needs a mentor. This past Saturday night I was at the festival for St. Joseph Catholic church in Lino Lakes. My wife is the Administrator of the church. They work all year on that festival. On Saturday night they share fireworks. At about 10:00 I was sitting in my chair waiting for the fireworks. It was very dark out. I hear this voice. Hi, Paul. I recognized the voice. I had heard the voice before, but it was so dark that I couldnt see who said that. I started talking to the voice. Hi, how are you. We started this conversation. I didnt know who I was talking to. Then I saw. It was Matthew. He had come up in the pitch dark to talk to me. We started talking about his summer and his playing baseball and all the other things that 7th graders do in the summer. I found out that Matthew has a grandmother who goes to St. Joes. We talked for a few minutes. As Ive reflected on that conversation this week, I have this feeling of joy. Matthew who is this very shy kid; Matthewsomeone who needs adults in his life; Matthewwho I didnt even know a year ago. He came up to me in the dark to talk to me. He initiated the conversation. Im getting to know 7th graders really well. They dont initiate conversations unless they want to. This conversation isnt about me. IN a way it isnt even about our churcheven though weve made it an emphasis to send kids into the school. This conversation is about Godwho

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sent a Savior into the world so that you and I are FREE to engage people. justified by faith. Because without God there is no church; without Jesus there is not message of justification; without justification there isnt a community called Chain of Lakes who is willing to send mentors into the school. We are justifiedand because of that a kid is willing to walk up in the dark of night to talk to an adult

Over the centuries the church developed a number of metaphors, such as penal substitution or the ransom theory, to speak about Christ's death on the cross and the theological concept of the atonement. Yet too often, says Scot McKnight, Christians have held to the supremacy of one metaphor over against the others, to their detriment. He argues instead that to plumb the rich theological depths of the atonement, we must consider all the metaphors of atonement and ask whether they each serve a larger purpose. A Community Called Atonement is a constructive theology that not only values the church's atonement metaphors but also asserts that the atonement fundamentally shapes the life of the Christian and of the church. That is, Christ identifies with humans to call us into a community that reflects God's love (the church)--but that community then has the responsibility to offer God's love to others through missional practices of justice and fellowship, living out its life together as the story of God's reconciliation. Scot McKnight thus offers an accessible, thought-provoking theology of atonement that engages the concerns of those in the emerging church conversation and will be of interest to all those in the church and academy who are listening in.