| 2001 Spring Meeting - Roy Adams Devotional |
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April
18 Devotional
Roy Adams
The
Motivation of His Grace
"The Motivation of His
Grace"-that's the topic the committee assigned me.
As I understand the topic, it basically means to get at the
reason(s) behind God's grace. The driving force behind His
mercy. In other words, Why did He choose to act in our behalf?
Why has He been so kind to us?
About six years ago or so, my son Dwayne was in charge of family worship at
our home, and an illustration he used fascinated me. It came from an article
in the April 1997 issue of National Geographic magazine, documenting some of
the findings of the giant Hubble telescope, launched into space back in 1990.
One of the graphics in the report Dwayne used depicted what
astronomers know as the Eagle Nebula [screen]-here it is, named
(as you can see) from its shape. It consists of a series of
pillar-like formations, as you can also see, composed
(according to the report) of dense, cool gas and dust.
Now, what would you guess is the height of the tallest of these?
Suppose I say it's 88 million miles? That would be a fairly decent guess, wouldn't you
think? But I'd be wrong-it's more than that. Suppose I put the figure of 597
billion in front of the number I just gave, making the distance come to 597
billion, 88 million miles? I can imagine, if I did that, some of you would
be inclined to say: Wrong again-that's too much. But then we'd both be wrong-it's
a little more than that. According to the National Geographic article, the
tallest of these measures three light years in height, which Dwayne calculate
to equal 17 trillion, 597 billion, 88 million miles. And my head begins to
spin.
Imagine now, Dwayne said-imagine a spacecraft traveling about 20 MPS (which,
I understand, is the approximate speed of these things)-imagine a spacecraft
traveling at a speed of 20 MPS. In one hour, that craft will have traveled
72,000 miles. At that rate, it would take the craft a total of some 27,900
years to travel from bottom to top.
This means that if that craft had taken off from on one end
of the pillar the day Adam was created (and I leave you to
put your own figure in there as to
how long ago that was-my own assumption is in the illustration)-if that craft
had taken off from the bottom end of this pillar the day Adam was created,
heading to the top end of the nebula, and traveling at the fantastic speed
of 72,000 miles every hour-all through the lifetime of Methuselah, through
the time of Abraham, through the hundreds of years of Egyptian captivity, all
through the time of the Judges, the Kings, the prophets; through the time of
Jesus and the early church; through the Middle Ages and the Reformation; through
the time of the Great Disappointment, through the period of the Civil War in
America, across two world wars, and down to this morning, April 18, 2002, that
spacecraft will have done less than 1/3 the distance.
And remember, we're talking only about one little segment of
the universe!
National Geographic, describing a shot to which it gave the
intriguing caption: "World
Without End," explained that Hubble pointed at one of the (apparently) emptiest
parts of the sky, and focused on a region the size of a grain of sand held
at arms length. And what it found was what you see coming up now on the screen-layer
upon layer upon layer of galaxies, as far as Hubbles' eyes could see!
Moreover, the report said, only a few objects in this picture
are individual stars (which appear as spiked points of light).
Everything else is a galaxy,
each one containing billions of stars. The large white galaxy at the top center
is the closest to us-at 4 billion light years away. [Now, a minute ago, remember,
we were dealing with 3 light years-which yielded those fantastic numbers. Now
we're talking 4 billion (that's billion with a "b")-4 billion light years away.
You think about it for a second, and the mind shuts down in sheer astonishment
and wonder.
Brothers and sisters, measured on the scale of the rest of
the universe, this planet-our planet-- is less than a speck-it doesn't
exist. I laugh inside every time I hear reports that scientists
are trying to discover whether there is
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and I think, forgive me, how dumb
can we be! To even entertain the notion for a split second that in this whole
colossal cosmos, intelligent life would be found only on this spec of an outpost.
No, you and I can infer from the inspired writings, that there are literally
billions and billions and billions of other beings that God has created, scattered
throughout the unending vastness of space.
And yet-and yet, God in Jesus Christ has literally emptied
heaven for us. And the question is: WHY? What is the MOTIVATION
of such awesome grace? What made
Him do it?
As I reflected on the question, and knowing that all you bright people were
coming from all across North America and from around the world, I felt the
temptation to come up with some brilliant answer that would simply blow you
away, something you had never thought about before. (Does anything like that
exist?) But while these thoughts were fleeting across my mind, I recalled an
incident that took place when my family spent some time in the Philippines
back in the 1980s.
There in Puting Kahoy where we lived, we had a terrific view
of the night sky, especially at the back of our house at the
top of the hill. Our children had
the opportunity to be wowed each and every evening by God's great cosmic canvas,
without the distraction of excessive artificial light.
And one evening as we got back inside, Dwayne-the same lad I quoted a minute
ago (he was probably about 9 at the time)-he suddenly said: "Daddy, will there
be stars in heaven?" I heard the question; wished it were never asked; but
was nevertheless fixing to let loose some profound theological response, when
his little sister, seven year old Kim, came to my rescue. Without even raising
her head from her coloring book, and totally oblivious of the profound response
about to descend upon her big brother, she calmly answered: "Of course not.
There'll be no night there."
"Uhm," I said to Dwayne, "I think your sister's got it." Sometimes the simplest
answers are the best.
So the answer I have to the question before us this morning is a simple one.
And it comes from the most well-known of all biblical passages, a passage which,
however, is the mother of all soteriological pronouncements, the Magna Carta
of our salvation: John 3:16.
What this passage says about the MOTIVATION of God's grace is that the impetus,
the stimulus, the force behind that grace is LOVE-pure, unadulterated, unconditional
love. [And right at this point, to avoid misunderstanding, may I just say that
we're not talking here about unconditional acceptance. We're talking unconditional
love. It's downright dangerous, in my thinking to confuse the two. And we shouldn't.
When I think of unconditional love, the motive behind God's grace, my mind
goes back to one of the most gripping stories in the Old Testament-the story
of Absalom. The narrative documents the tense, rocky relationship between the
young man and his royal Father David (a tension provoked by Absalom's murder
of his own half brother Amnon for sexually violating Absalom's sister Tamar).
It's a long story, as you know-taking us through Absalom's self-imposed exile;
his return following an ingenuous scheme devised by Joab, the head of his father's
army; his temporary reconciliation with his father; and his eventual rebellion.
The Bible describes the young prince as an exceedingly handsome
chap. It says in 1 Samuel 14:25 that "in all Israel there was not a man so highly praised
for his handsome appearance as Absalom." "From the top of his head," it says, "to
the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him." My dear, wouldn't Hollywood
like to get hold of a guy like that! The Bible says that when the guy cut his
hair (adding, parenthetically, that he cut it from time to time when it got
too heavy for him)-it says that when he cut his hair, it would weigh 200 shekels
(which I understand was something like 5 lbs).
But in time that handsome head plotted treason against his
father's government;
and there came the day when a messenger rushed into the throne room of the
king with the awful news that the king's own son had launched a coup d'etat.
The account describes how the king, upon receiving the news,
hastily abandons the palace and the capital, accompanied by
the rest of the royal household,
as well as his personal bodyguards and fighting men. The text says that "the
whole countryside wept aloud as all the people passed by," heading in the direction
of the desert. (15:23). And "David," it says poignantly, "continued up the
Mount of Olives, weeping as he went; his head . . . covered [,] . . . barefoot.
All the people with him covered their heads too [,] . . . weeping as they went
up." He was heart-broken. Absolutely crushed and devastated. And the keenest
humiliation came from knowing that the one now hunting him down was not his
envious predecessor, but his own child.
But as David's men prepared to engage the forces of Absalom,
something exceedingly tender transpires, something that begins
to look more and more like grace.
Standing beside the gate as the troops marched out, David, in the hearing of
the whole army, gave a strange command to the leaders of his forces: (2 Sam.
18:4, 5).
Incredible!
The decisive moment of that bloody day in the forest of Ephraim needed no video
to enhance it. Here it is-in 2 Sam 18:9.
Poetic justice, one might say. Here's this rebel against the kingdom of his
own father caught up in a tree by his head--that same handsome, Oscar-winning
head, graced by the most beautiful dark hair anywhere in Israel-the same head
that plotted the bloody rebellion that day, now caught up in a tree; still
full of murderous mischief, but powerless to take them anywhere. What irony!
Scrambling frantic to General Joab, the young soldier could
hardly get the words out quick enough: "I just saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree,"he says.
And Joab was like: "What!"
That's what Joab said when the soldier came to him with the astonishing report
that he'd just seen the most wanted man in Israel caught in a tree."
"What!" Joab said. "You saw him? Why didn't you strike him to the ground right
there?" Within minutes, Joab had reached the critical spot. Wasting no time,
the Bible says "he took three javelins in his hand and plunged them into Absalom's
. . . [chest] while [he] was still alive in the . . . tree. And ten of Joab's
armor-bearers surrounded" the young prince "and killed him" (18:14, 15). They
then dumped his body into a large pit in the forest, and piled a large heap of
rocks over it.
And now for the crux of the story. A messenger, later that day, fresh from
the battlefront, rushes in to the king at his secure hideaway with a report
on the battle. I go now to the poignant exchange:
2 Samuel 18:31-33.*** Two thousand years ago, the One whom
some of His contemporaries called "Jesus, son of David" traversed the same grounds as did his ancient
human father. And from the Mount of Olives, days before His death, as He looked
down upon a city filled with Absaloms, His heart broke: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," I
put words in His mouth, "if you only knew! If you only knew!" [See Matt. 23:37;
Luke 19:41-44]. Days later he hung dying upon the cross. But it was not Roman
nails that killed Him. It was us! It was we who murdered Him. And yet He loves
us still.
In Jesus we see the embodiment of unconditional love. Which is not as easy
a concept to understand, as many mistakenly think.
I was watching America's Most Wanted recently. And as this pregnant woman and
her male co-worker are closing up at the end of the day, a man (who perhaps
had been hiding in some washroom on the premises) emerges from the darkness
and confronts them, the security cameras at the bar recording the whole scene
on tape. The two workers do as they're told. They surrender all the cash they
had in the register, and the pregnant woman, her hands shaking with fear--
a gun at her head, struggles to remember the combination of the safe. Finally
she manages to open it. The guy empties the contents into his bag and orders
the two people to lie flat on the floor. He makes to leave, then turns back.
He stands over the pregnant, cowering woman and pumps three bullets into her
brain, killing her. How do you respond to such human vermin? If that pregnant
woman was your wife, gentlemen, and you were shown a video of the horrible
and degrading way she met her end, how do you love the creature responsible
for it?
In Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor, the agnostic Ivan (one of the
Karamazov brothers) is posing difficult situations to confound his religious
sibling. He tells the story of atrocities committed by soldiers of a certain
country there in Central Europe-soldiers who "burn villages, [who] murder,
[and who] outrage women and children." "They nail their prisoners by the ears
to the fences," he said, "leave them so till morning, and in the morning they
hang them. . . ." They toss babies up in the air, he said, and catch them on
the points of their bayonets before their mother's eyes." Then Ivan proceeded
to mention what he considered the ultimate atrocity. He says: "These . . .
[soldiers] took pleasure in torturing children . . . . Imagine a trembling
mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading . . . [soldiers] around
her. They've planned a diversion; they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh.
They succeed; the baby laughs. At that moment, a . . . [soldier] points a pistol
four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its
little hands to the pistol, and . . . [the soldier, at that very moment] pulls
the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains."
Has anyone in this room arrived at the state of holiness where
they find it easy to love such beasts in human skin? But what
my Bible tells me, and the
point of John's great "whosoever," is that there is Somebody in the universe
who actually loves the vilest, the wickedest, the most contemptuous human being
on the face of the planet, and who would give His life all over again for them
alone. Brothers and sisters, you may understand such motivation, you may understand
such love, but I confess it blows me away.
But that's the MOTIVATION of God's grace: sheer, unadulterated, unconditional
love. Love that reaches out to you-that reaches out to me-no matter who we
are, no matter where we are, no matter what we are. However degraded. The Hound
of Heaven is on our trail, and will never give up the chase until there's utterly
no hope left. God looks past the externals, and sees some spark that He can
nurture into life, some little flame He can rekindle.
I thought of this the other day as I reflected again on George
Orwell's renowned
political satire, Nineteen Eighty Four, with its uncannily prophetic commentary
on many of the issues and atrocities of our times.
Winston and Julia, two of the characters Orwell created, live
in Oceania, whose government, otherwise known as "the Party," ruthlessly
puts down all opposition, creating a completely manipulated
and brutalized society.
Winston and Julia are rebels-secret rebels, against "the Party." They're also
lovers-married for all intents and purposes, we might say, given the inhuman
circumstances under which they are forced to exist. In a cloak-and-dagger meeting,
they appear before rebel leader O'Brien, a bulky man who, with brutal candor,
leads them through a frightening oath of loyalty that sought to match atrocity
with atrocity:
-Are you prepared, he asked them, to give your lives? They answered, YES.
- To commit murder? YES.
-To commit acts of sabotage that may cause the death of hundreds of innocent
people? YES.
-To betray your country to foreign powers? YES.
-To cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, . . . to
do anything which is likely to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the
Party?
Yes.
-Are you prepared to lose your identity and live out the rest of your lives as
a waiter or a dock-worker? YES.
-Are you prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order you to do so? YES.
Then O'Brien came to the final question:
-Are you prepared, the two of you, to separate and never see one another again?
No! cried Julia. And a moment later Winston spoke up: No! In
the midst of overwhelming brutality, here, illustratively,
were people who'd managed to retain this one
tender thread, this one spark of decency, this one vestige, so to speak, of
the divine image. And so it is that when to all appearances human beings appear
totally brutalized and corrupted, the Hound of Heaven refuses to give up. As
many of us sang during our Spiritual Emphasis Week in this same room a couple
of weeks ago:
Down in the human heart,
Crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace will restore. I can fall in love with a Savior
like that. Which brings me to the other side of the concept of the Motivation
of Grace-that I want to touch on for a second. You see, so far we've been talking
motivation in the sense of CAUSE. We've been talking about what's behind God's
grace, what propels it, what makes it happen, what makes God act. And we've
answered that the motive force is unconditional love, the purest and most precious
motive imaginable in the universe. That's what's behind His grace. But there's
a sense in which we may speak about the MOTIVATION of God's grace as meaning
the INTENTION of God's grace. That is to say: What does God's grace move toward?
What's in front of it? What does it intend to accomplish? What does it want
to see?
And for me, one of the answers to that question comes in Isa.
53:11: "He shall
see of the travail of His Soul and shall be satisfied." This passage tells
me that what Jesus is looking forward to that grand moment when millions and
untold millions from this minuscule outpost of the universe will gather all
around Him in His kingdom, saved by His blood.
Friend, we've been placed here, by His grace, to help make that happen. And
we can only help it happen, we can only become effective channels of his unconditional
love is we first fall in love with Him. And it occurs to me, brothers and sisters,
that that's what it's all about. Millions will be saved in the kingdom of God
in spite of our failure to get to them. But other millions will be lost because
of our failure to get to them. And the urgency of mission is that we don't
know exactly who they are. It's a mystery locked up in the inscrutable wisdom
of God. And so we go-in obedience to His command. That's the rationale behind
the urgency of mission, motivated by God's redeeming grace.
It is in this mission-- and especially in the One who stands at the head of
this mission, that we should find both our value and our identity. Let me stay
with this a minute as I come in now for a landing.
It's been correctly said in this room again and again that
we who occupy positions of leadership in the church are in
particular danger of confusing our value
and our essential identity with our position in the church. It is altogether
too easy for us to think that our identity lies in the number of prestigious
committees we attend, in the title we hold, in the position we occupy.
The other day a colleague came to my office and the conversation,
for reasons not entirely remote, drifted to the subject of
retirement. And what we both
had noticed was that, generally, in the Adventist Church, after the Adventist
worker retires, they begin to be forgotten, almost as if they never existed.
And why? The reason, if we're brutally honest about it, is that (as a rule)
they no longer wield power. They no longer sit on committees deciding the professional
fate of their colleagues. Their clout is gone. And we who sit here in this
place, give or take 20 years or so from now, and that's precisely where we
are. The letter heads are gone. The crowds around us have disappeared.
And we're all heading for deep disappointment, unless we have something to
hang on to that transcends the job we do now; that's more important than the
power we have now; that supercedes the clout we wield now. Our only lasting
anchor is Jesus.
This is what has kept African Americans on solid ground through
the unspeakable indignity and humiliation they've suffered in this country. And when you ask
the question: What has kept them? What has caused them to stick with Christianity,
knowing full well that it was, in fact, professed Christians who had abused
them-and notwithstanding emotional calls over the years from people like Elijah
Mohammad, Malcolm X, and ------------? Why have they stayed? The answer, I
think, comes down to this: It's Jesus. His motives are pure. His love is deep.
They can trust Him.
In this sense, the Black Americans experience becomes both
a parable and a paradigm for God's Remnant Church as we face
the perils of the gathering storm.
As Martin Luther King, Jr., , the quintessential Black American, peered into
the threatening future on that final night of his life, he gave cryptic words
to his thoughts in front of a congregation gathered under considerable tension
in a Baptist church in Memphis, Tennessee:
"I don't know what will happen now," he said. "We've got some difficult days
ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop;
and I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life--longevity has
its place. But I'm not concerned about that now; I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over, and I've
seen the promised land. I may not get there with you; but I want you to know
tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And so I'm happy
tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have
seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
It's that kind of thickness with Jesus, that kind of hope, that has kept this
people. And that's exactly what will keep us all through the encircling gloom
Carol sang about at the beginning. For when all else fails us, Jesus never
will. And that, precisely, is the message, the burden, of a certain song coming
directly from the heart of the Black American community, born out of trial
and grace, and made popular by the well-known gospel singer Shirley Caesar:
"Jesus, my Jesus, how I love calling your name.
Jesus, my sweet Jesus, everyday Your name is the same." What assurance! What
grace! And what a Savior!
Roy Adams
Spring Council 2002
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