When is God Satisfied?
We were made by God and for a relationship to God. Sin entered the world and with it a fall from grace due to disobedience. Scripture teaches us that God wanted, over the ages, to bring man back to Himself after the fall. Men did not come back to God out of conscience, fear or a desire for salvation. God wanted men and women to love Him freely. So, the final appeal of God to man was unconditional love, shown through the incarnation of his Son.
The Christian life is about sharing the message of salvation and living one’s life in accordance with natural laws that God has establish in nature, conscience, and the Scriptures. Animal behavior is instinct-driven, a human being has rational power to deliberate and choose a means to an end. St. Thomas Aquinas said that personal freedom is rooted in intellect and will, allowing individuals to act or not act, and to govern their own actions. We choose to do good or evil. Our conscience and the Bible present us with contrasts between them.
The book of the prophet Micah provides us a picture of godly living. He has told you, O Mortal, what is good and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? (6:8) These lines, are a standard of ethical simplicity.
Jesus was a master of simplicity. His original message echoed that of his prophetic cousin John: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matt. 4:17) The word repentance originated as a military command: ‘turnabout face and go in the opposite direction.’ Some of the most important decision in life must be made quickly and determine the course of ones’ life. Peter, and Andrew his brother, were Galilean fishermen casting a net into the sea when Jesus called them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Shortly after Jesus called James and John the sons of Zebedee. “Immediately they left the boat and their father.” Matthew 4:18-22, Mark 1:16-20 and Luke 5:3-12 confirm that those four men, who were to be his lifelong followers, chose to do so in that moment.
In June of 1971, we were living in Alpine, California. I was teaching a summer school class at Mesa college in San Diego and had interviewed at a few colleges. Margaret and I were praying about our future. An Administrator at Mesa college interrupted the class and told me Dr. Dale Wren, the president of Feather River College, in Quincy, wished to speak with me on the phone. I walked to his office, picked up the phone and Dr. Wren offered me a position; saying yes would mean leaving family and friends. I had one second to make a decision that would affect the rest of my life and that of my family.
Most Jews were not ready to repent. They trusted their ancestral relationship to Abraham and outward obedience to the laws of Moses. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount will make it clear that heritage was not enough. We all need an internal righteousness that we do not and cannot alone possess. The Jews wanted a king who would use divine power to free them from the Romans. They did not realize that they needed a Savior. Christian faith is not inherited like DNA. And it is not enough to superficially accede to the gospel. The Lord wants to change our life.
Soren Kierkegaard is a 17th century (1813-1855) Danish writer whose works are still published world-wide. As a young man he realized that most Danish people did not consider the need to seek salvation through a personal relationship to God through Christ. ‘To be a Christian was to be born in Lutheran Denmark.’ Most thought formal religious observance was all that was necessary; “to be a Christian was to be born in Denmark.
This led him to write a number of books that focused on the inner life of a Christian, including, Fear and Trembling and Christian Discourses. St. Paul in Philippians admonished believers to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”(2:12,13) In Fear and Trembling, using Paul’s metaphor, Kierkegaard argued that a Christian was someone who trusted God with their vary life; A person who was willing take a “leap of faith,” not knowing where their leap would take them. Those who do, Christ will care for as He does “the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.” (Matt. 6:28)
Kierkegaard was a driven man. As an adult he was often in poor health and would only live 42 years. He did not have regular meals, exercise or have a family. He spoke of forcing himself to set down his ink pen, get up from his desk take his cane and walk to a nearby café. On one occasion he said that ideas from God poured into his mind like water from an open water faucet, coming to him came faster than he could write them down. His efforts have led many thousands of men and women since then to seriously consider following Jesus as Savior, rather than as a part of their national culture.
Jesus began his ministry after being tempted in the desert by Satan; and after His example-setting baptism in the Jordon. His ministry would extend to Syria, Galilee and to Judea because of its’ proximity to Jerusalem. Matthews’ narrative of this time period sets the stage for the ‘Beatitudes.’
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.” (Matt. 4:23-25)
Capernaum, a Town about 20 miles north of Nazareth was the home of Peter, Andrew, James and John, men who fished on the sea of Galilee. They were his first followers, who were captivated when Jesus asked them to quit fishing and “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matt. 4:19) His call was clearly evangelical, but not only evangelical. Jesus sets the stage with ideas that may have been a surprise to his hearers. Because he extolls behavior that is good for others: humility, hunger for righteousness, mercy, ethical purity, peacemaking, accepting persecution for righteousness, accepting ill-treatment for following Jesus. Nothing about social prominence or wealth creation. Following Jesus always makes a difference in our lives. Repentance is revolutionary, following Jesus is revolutionary. Those who make Jesus not only savior but Lord, may welcome some of his commands, and not others. But we must remember what it means, whatever following Jesus costs us, it is but little when compared to participation in the kingdom of heaven.
James, the brother of the Lord Jesus, a leader in the Jerusalem church many years later wrote, “as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” (James 2:26) The Apostle presented two examples. Abraham, in faith offered his son Isaac on the altar; and Rahab the prostitute, 400 years later hid Jewish spies in Jerico. Both acts required a willingness to sacrifice.
James emphasized Christian behavior so much that Martin Luther referred to his letter as “an Epistle of straw,” and did not wish to include it in his translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible into German. He believed that it conflicted with the doctrine of ‘Justification by faith alone,’ the Cornerstone of the Reformation. Luther had struggled to gain an ‘assurance of salvation’ as a Catholic monk, and priest. Martin joined the Augustinian monastic order, in thanksgiving for an answered prayer, after being nearly killed by lightning. According to Catholic teaching for a person to be saved, they must (1) have faith in Christ and be baptized; (2) regularly receive Holy Communion and (3) live a Christian life. Luther had no problem with the first two requirements. But the third had caused him dread and sleepless nights, because he wondered, “when is God satisfied with my good works?” Luther’s life was changed by Paul’s letter to the Galatians. “The just shall live by faith.” (3:11) Luther concluded to his great relief that the answer to: When is God satisfied by our good works? is never. We are saved Sola Fide, by faith alone. Justification, being made right with God, is solely the work of Jesus, not by any of our own works or merits. Jesus wants us to live a ‘just, kind and humble life,’ as called for by God in the book of Micah, but “We are saved by grace, not by works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8,9) Our savior restored us to the state of grace lost in the Garden of Eden. Jesus did it all! Is there any service or praise sufficient to thank such a Savior?
God be praised, Jesus is Lord and King
Christ the King Church Quincy, California Joseph J. Muñoz Professor Emeritus Feather River College