Abridged version of the message presented to Warehouse Mission 614, 2:30pm service, 21 January 2018 and Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 12 July 2009 by Captain Michael Ramsay.
There is a Disney movie, The
Emperor’s New Groove. Basically what happens is that some people try to
kill the emperor with a magic potion but they get mixed up and accidentally
turn him into a lama instead. The emperor does not like being a lama. As the
movie progresses, the emperor attempts to regain his throne and turn back into
a person. There is one clip at the climax of the movie where the emperor finds
a number of magic potions -without labels- and all the bottles have been mixed
up. While the guards, who are trying to kill him, are in hot pursuit he is
drinking these potions very quickly, trying to turn back into a person –
because he does not like being a lama.
Some potions are more
advantageous than others. One potion turns him into a turtle (not so good for escaping
the guards chasing him). He turns into a small bird from another potion. He is
frantically trying to turn back into a person as he drinks potion after potion:
turtle, small bird, giant whale, and then finally he drinks this one potion and
looks down and he changes and cheers, “yeah!… I’m a lama again! … Oh wait…I
don’t want to be a lama”: all those potions and adventure and there is no
difference, he still isn’t a person. There is no difference.
Romans 3:22b-23: There is no
difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In this
letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul has already been building his argument
about how neither the Jew nor the Gentile is saved any differently than the
other. According to Paul in Romans 1&2, anyone who denies the abundant evidence
of God’s eternal power and divine nature is rightly exposed to the wrath of God
which results in being given over to unnatural desires. As a consequence of
their sin, their rebellion, they are condemned and deserve to die. At the
conclusion of the second chapter of Romans, it is clear that both the Jew and
the Gentile stand on equal footing. The practices that mark Israel out from other
nations cannot be the means of salvation (as some in Paul’s time had suggested).
They merely point out the fact of sin. All fall short. I read a story by John Phillips:
‘Paul describes sin as a coming
short of the divine standard.
Two men went
to the recruiting office in London to join the guards regiment. The standard
height for a guardsman was a minimum of six feet. One man was taller than the
other, but when they were measured officially both were disqualified. The
shorter of the two measured only five feet seven inches and was far too short;
his companion measured five feet eleven and a half inches and, stretch to his
utmost, as he did, he could not make it any more. Nor did his pleas avail. It
mattered nothing that his father was a guardsman, that he promised to be a good
soldier, that he had already memorized the drills and knew the army regulations
by heart. He was short of the standard.
We know that “There is
no difference, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”
(Romans 3:22b-23) and we also know that we “are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). This is good
news. Like so much in this world, it is not ‘what you know’ but it is ‘who you
know’. Now to some this sounds unfair but when you take into account that no
one knows enough to actually pass the test and merit salvation, then we really
do appreciate this grace.
Speaking
of grace, I don’t know if everyone knows what the word ‘grace’ actually means?
Grace means ‘a gift from God’. It is a present. It is not a trophy we can earn
like the Grey Cup, the Stanley Cup, the World Cup, or the Super Bowl. Grace is
something even more precious than that. It is a special present from our
father. It is like a special little present that a dad buys his daughters. It also
is like each of my daughters’ first pictures they drew that I have sitting on
my desk at home. Our salvation is a ‘love present’, a special gift from God
that He gives us because He loves us and all we have to do is accept that gift
of His love.
Now God loves the world so much
that He did send His only begotten son so that whosoever believes in Him shall
not perish but have everlasting life. He sent His son into the world to save
the world not to condemn the world (John 3:16-17) and since He did that at such
a great personal expense, let us please accept that gift today and let us not
be ashamed of this good news (Romans 1:16-17), let us let all our friends and
family know that the Lord our God loves us all. He has purchased this special
gift of salvation for every one of us and all we have to do is not decline it;
so please let us each accept that love present, that gift of eternal life
today.As we accept this gift, our lives will never be the same again.
Let
us pray
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