The Platform for Jesus’ Plan of Election

On this the day of the mid-term elections I am delighted to share with you the Platform for Jesus’ plan for election.  You will of course recognize that as Christians these terms have different and deeper meanings than they do to people who think only in terms of politics.  But when we talk about election there are three key planks in Jesus’ Platform.  (Being that there are three points you might find this a useful outline to save for your Nov 1^st, 2020 sermon)

Jesus’ Platform of Election: Welfare, Rest, and Free Love.  This is all the basic theology and doctrines of the orthodox church through all the centuries. 

We begin with welfare.  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

At the very core of Jesus’ platform for election is that we are all recipients of the most lavish welfare state in the history of the universe.  We have all the wealth of God the Son’s righteousness assigned to us, placed in our bank account without having ever done a single thing to earn it or to deserve it.  It is a welfare system that is literally for our well fare and results in our being seated with Christ.  As Paul said just a few verses earlier, “…raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  This welfare state is not some future reality in Heaven.  We are currently living in the benefits of being a welfare recipient. 

The second plank on Jesus’ platform is rest.  Rest is a by-product of welfare. We will not take time for a complete study of Hebrews 4 but there is more to this passage than simply keeping the Sabbath.  There is a rest here that’s not about earning a day off or a season of rest.  Hebrews 4:11 gives us an odd statement,  “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”  The contrast is dramatic when you look carefully at this verse.  There is a separation: on the negative side are those who do something, they are active, they are performing, and they are completing acts of disobedience.   On the positive side we would expect to find those who are completing acts of obedience, but that is not what we find.  What we find as the opposite of completing acts of disobedience are people who diligently enter rest.  When we are worrying about being good enough, when we are worrying about accomplishing good deeds it keeps us from enjoying grace and it keeps us from rest.  If we are mature we know this is no invitation to libertine license.  But we must also recognize that as a recipient of God’s welfare state it is more work to disobey than to rest.

The first two planks in Jesus’ Platform for election leads us to the third: free love.  This, of course, is not the degrading free love of Eros, but the grand free love of Agape.  This free love is the love that God has for us which fills us and then flows out of us into the lives of the world around us.  This Agape love is first and foremost divine; we are not capable of expressing it apart from the work of the Spirit on and in us.  This radical love is from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit expressed in His great welfare state and fulfilled in the cross.  Because He fills us His love flows out of us.  Perhaps the best description of that love is I Corinthians 13.  In this passage we see the description of how His love works itself out in our lives.  But for a moment let’s remember that this love is first a Divine love, it is first from God.  While I Cor. 13 is primarily a description of how we are to live, behind it is the shadow of how God loves us.  With that in mind, allow me to paraphrase verses 4-8.

God loves you patiently. His love for you is kind and He doesn’t get bent out of shape when you blow it.  His love is not bragging to you about how great He is and how lucky you are.  His love will not embarrass you about your failures.  He is not in it for Himself and because of His love He is not always on the edge of busting you.  He loves you so much He doesn’t remember your screw-ups.  In His love He is not happy about the contrast between your failures and his holiness; rather, His love causes Him to be thrilled when you get it right.  His love puts up with all your failures, believes in you (in spite of the past), has an expectation for a great future for you, and until then will put up with whatever it takes.

God’s love for you will never fail; all the other stuff in our lives of faith will one day go away, but not God’s love for you.

Jesus’ plan for election is one that I never get tired of hearing about.  We will get a reprieve from the mail, yard signs, commercials and the phone calls.  But when it comes to this platform of “Welfare, Rest and Free love”, that is a campaign I can enjoy every day and it is the reality in which we as believers live.