Aimed Like An Easter Series: Thriving, Not Surviving: The Ripple Effect Miracles of Easter Romans 8:28 (Miracle #4: “Purpose”), Easter III, April 26th 11:00 Facebook Live

Let me show you a visual parable. We have before us a target and arrows attached to balloons. As we let go of the inflated balloons with the attached arrows, what are the odds these balloons will land on the desired target? Let's try one. Let's try two. Let's try three. It's clear we could attempt these dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times, and we'd be depending on whichever way the wind blows to carry us to where we need to be. We have this one life and our lives are drifting to and fro as we're not even sure we need to aim at anything. Perhaps the first step in the right direction is to realize our lives are like an arrow and that our identity demands an “aim.” Paul's letter to Romans represents the magnum opus of his writings. Anyone who has read it has considered it a spiritual earthquake. This letter has ignited revivals in several episodes of history. The letter of Romans ignited a revival for St. Augustine in the 5th century. The letter of Romans ignited a revival for Martin Luther in the 16th century. John Wesley credits the letter of Romans for igniting a revival for him in the 18th century. Karl Barth one of the great theologians of the 20th century credits the letter of Romans for igniting a revival for him in the 20th century. To pick up this letter is like exposing yourself to spiritual dynamite. There's no coincidence this letter has served over the last 2000 years as the source time and time again of new spiritual eruptions. In this letter Paul will use a particular Greek word as key descriptive term for capturing what our life looks like apart from connection to Christ. The Greek word is Hamartia. This word is literally translated, “Missing the mark.” At least for the letter of Romans, we are well served to consider our lives in terms of identity as an arrow. We have one life and to ensure we are not drifting aimlessly, we need to live as if our lives are sharply guided and definitely directed toward a desired goal. This Easter season we are exploring a series we're calling, “Thriving, Not Surviving.” In this series we are examining the ripple effect miracles which unfolded out of the first Easter. No doubt the supreme miracle is the resurrection but the raising of Jesus from the dead set forth a ripple effect of other miracles. So far we've looked at Proclamation, Praise, and Peace. Today, we turn attention to the fourth great ripple effect miracle, Purpose. If we were to ask a person to name the most recognizable passage in the Bible, chances are they would cite, John 3:16. If we were to ask them to name the second most recognizable passage, chances are they would cite,

1 Romans 8:28. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Contrasted with a life of Hamartia, which is drifting aimlessly, without even knowing life has a target is a Greek word that is the exact opposite. This is the Greek word, “Tugchano.” Do you know what the Greek word, “Tugchano” means? It is literally translated, “Spot-On.” It would seem for Paul, there are only two ways to live and two ways only, We are either living missing the mark or living a life spot-on. Outside of life connected with Christ, we live dependent on whichever way the wind blows. When the wind is pleasant, my life is in turn dependent on the surrounding currents. I need those currents to forever remain favorable. I live when the currents are supposedly favorable as if I'm floating along and in the drift it seems as long as I'm not colliding up against obstacles, that ignorance is bliss. Does your life have a purpose? Never thought about it. What is all this moving toward? Never given a second consideration. Paul says it's not until we run up against undesirable obstacles that I move from ignorance is bliss to a rude awakening. Then, I'm aware that my free floating life is now in a tailspin. I'm going nowhere. The first temptation is shift to panic mode. Paul seemingly had it all as he was floating along never giving a second thought to what might constitute the arrow's aim of his life. He floated along with power, prestige, position, and prominence. It wasn't until the awakening on the Damascus Road he became aware what he thought was his life direction was exposed as hapless, aimless, misdirected, and misguided. It took a tailspin to bring that all to the forefront of his attention. On those good days, hamartia is missing the mark, but falling for a season feels like flying. We're already in a tailspin but we just don't know it yet. The crisis will reveal what has been true long before the crisis ever emerged. We were in a spiritual crisis long before. A crisis of a misguided life. A crisis of aimless life. A crisis of living without even knowing life has an aim. We can spend years of life free floating never ever stopping to consider whether our lives are closer or further away from the “point.” Paul will describe his former life as the “Worst of Sinners.” What made it the worst is that we can live in a way that we think we are guided and yet our trajectory is haphazard and without guidance. The worst form of lost is we're drifting along assuming all the while we're in route to a desired destination, where we have no clue, how we get there, we've never thought about it, what it will take to arrive, hasn't occupied a second of our time. Paul says the moment Easter occurred, history now had the all encompassing failure proof event. For those who saw the implications, for those who discerned what had happened, no matter what was going on, no matter what was happening in the world, imagine

2 the most disadvantages conditions, we are still spot on. By the time Paul is writing this letter to Romans, emperors have already grown long tired of the stubborn behavior of Christians. What frustrated emperors is that no matter what they would do to deter the momentum of Christians, they would always manage to grow more purposeful instead of less purposeful. No matter what life threw at them, they were impervious to disadvantaged conditions. Just when you would think they would throw up their arms and surrender in the face of overwhelming circumstances, Christians planted firm and declared, get ready because here we come. Life would seem pointless, but Christians were unaffected. They weren't dependent on conditions for the point of their purpose. They knew the purpose who represented the point. Whatever was going on around them was incidental. They kept their focus on the point of pleasing Him, glorifying Him. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Such a mindset formed an invincible outlook. They were indestructible. Jesus had said as much when He told you don't hold my life. I lay my life down. In the same way believers knew that by Easter, nothing in this world held our destiny. Jesus' resurrection guaranteed our destiny. Hamartia was missing the mark. Tugchano is a life that is spot on. What life means for evil, that would displace, dislocate, deflect, and derail the unconverted person is now invigorating opportunity for the believer to enter with eyes wide open to see exactly how Tugchano holds true in this particular situation. The challenges will look unique for every historical epoch. What makes it similar is that regardless of what they are, no conditions ultimately dictate our spot on movements. What follows Romans 8:28 is Paul's attempt to go through the most extreme list of possibilities. He lets his imagination run wild. He comes up with the most ridiculous of derailing circumstances. The conclusion is that when we let our imagination envision the most preposterous of events, Paul concludes, “Nothing” can separate the believer from the purposes God has designed through Jesus Christ. What seems ridiculous, meaningless, ludicrous, outrageous, finally gets our attention. For Paul, we were most aimless when things were operating under false comfort. It's when I had illusory power, illusory prominence, illusory prestige, that I was most hapless, misdirected, and free floating with no rhyme or reason. The rude awakening only exposes what was true all along. It's not the crisis that is my problem. It's my false expectations of life that were the problem. It's the false assumption that Jesus isn't the goal of life that's my problem. Once I become aware of what Easter means and how it has reoriented all of history before and after, now I have access to a mindset that undaunted and unrelenting. You might be surprised to know

3 that believers during the time weren't identified as Christians or by the term Christianity. The earliest title of believers was not “Christianity.” Rather they were identified by the “spot-on” image known simply and decisively as “The Way.” We were identified as people who knew despite what was going on around us, our lives had direction, our lives had trajectory, our lives had pin point accuracy. Many things can occur and the uninformed mindset stands back and sees it as absolutely nonsensical. What is the meaning of this? Life is at a standstill. We are brought to a grinding halt. Did it ever occur to you that the standstill isn't the crisis? Did it ever occur to you that all the false motion is the crisis? Did it ever occur to you a life that is busy and simply in movement doesn't imply that it's directed movement with a point and a goal. Some movement is busy and totally aimless. It's not moving toward a goal. In fact, it might be moving in the opposite direction of the goal. We're moving so that's all that matters. That's the picture of hamartia. That's the picture of a hapless, misdirected life that doesn't even know it's hapless and misdirected. It's drifting whichever way the wind blows and experiencing delusional contentment that because I'm free of pain this must be the indication that my movement is productive movement. The fatality of lost-ness is the condition of aimlessness that isn't aware of its own aimlessness. I don't know I'm lost. I operate as if the absence of pain and presence of false pleasure is all that matters. There are some gifts of God that are unreserved in the sense that they are distributed to all persons through God as creator. Romans 8:28 is a specific and reserved gift from God that believers must accept and actualize. What do we mean by this? What we mean is that when God creating us, all persons, by virtue of representing the handiwork of a creator, express God's goodness. Everyone receives some level of grace with each breath we take. God not only creates life but sustains life, moment by moment. Anything good we possess in this world, Scripture says is ultimately traced back to the source from which it originated. In that sense we can say that all persons reflect on some basic, minimal level an aspect of God's grace that is distributed to all persons. However, what Paul is talking about in Romans 8:28 is not one of these universal graces distributed unreservedly upon on. A person must accept this gift. A person must actualize this gift. A person activate this gift. Once a person accepts, actualizes, and activates this gift, then whether we confront open doors or closed doors is really incidental. Our lives are not dictated by whether I confront circumstances that seem open to me or closed to me. There were moments in Paul's life when he was headed on mission that he thought was an ordained purpose and just when he got to the arena to deliver his sermon, he was carted off to jail. How could this be? I thought I was walking through an

4 open door and then it was slammed in my face. Paul didn't see it that way. Romans was written, like many of Paul's letters, from a prison cell. He was often chained, but God's word proved unchained. Paul's life remained forever, spot on. The gift of purpose through Romans 8:28 is bigger than our problems, our pain, and best of all, even our past. Paul's favorite description for himself throughout his letters was that he was the “Worst of Sinners.” We think that circumstances are the worst form that derails our lives. We're in an epidemic and we think external things are what divert us from the desired destinations. Our problem is that we are deceived about our desires and our destinations. The things we are chasing are as fleeting as the wind. That's the fatality of Hamartia. We're free floating aimlessly and never even aware we're free floating aimlessly. Paul thought his power, prominence, prestige, were his desires and his destinations. It wasn't until the Damascus Road when he realized he'd been aimless. We are the source of our own derailment. We are the source of our misguidedness. The tragedy of Judas wasn't that he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The tragedy of Judas was that he thought the derailment of his past that he caused was something even God couldn't overcome. This is the tragedy. No one had caused a greater self derailment. Paul would say if you think Judas is bad, whatever you do please avoid my rap sheet. It's more shocking than his ever could be. And yet, wonder of all wonders there is no derailment caused by our problems, our pain, or our past that is capable of diverting us from the purposes that God can achieve through us in our connection with Christ Jesus. Without Christ Jesus, even on my best days, I'm in Hamartia and I'm free floating aimlessly. I'm under the delusion I'm going somewhere but I'm on a trip to nowhere. On my worst days, connected to Jesus I'm Tugchano, directed to a spot on end. Paul never grew tired of proclaiming his testimony of the Damascus Road. In this witness, Paul makes clear that some derailments in our life are really the paradox of a great awakening. The Damascus Road at the time to Paul felt like a crisis. It felt as if his entire world was spiraling downward. What he didn't know was that he was falling for sometime but for some of us, hamartia for a season falling feels like a flying. I'm free floating under the delusion absence of pain and false pleasure, ignorance is bliss. When the rude awakening comes and it will come, we interpret it as the crisis. Paul would later discover the incredible paradox that what he thought was the crisis was really the awakening and what he mistook for false delusional pleasure was the crisis. Jesus had announced Himself as the Great Physician who had come for people who discover how badly they need a physician. We hear of people who can live with COVID 19 asymptomatic.

5 They are afflicted and yet they don't know they are afflicted. Paul says that's the fatality of a life missing the mark. He operates under the delusion that it is free of problem because it is free of pain. Not every life free of pain is free of problems. Likewise, not every life going through pain, is a signal that our lives are out of step. The Damascus Road for Paul was at least initially a painful awakening. However, for the first time in his misguided life, he was experiencing the paradox of a great awakening. The ignorance is bliss life he was operating with before was coming to a crashing halt. Sometimes we have to rock bottom before our lives take an upward turn. The rock bottom crash isn't a sign of misdirection but a sign of initial reorientation. For Paul, the letter of Romans is the magnum opus on understanding the paradox of great awakening moments. What feels like a crash for Paul could be the most vivid experience you have encountered with God's mighty hand. For the first time you are discovering how God specializes in “course correction.” Hamartia means that we are free floating aimlessly. For those who are aimless, we never question our direction because ignorance is bliss. As long as we are free of pain, we assume that are pleasantly misguided lives are appealing as they are. Does it ever occur to us that we are drifting without any point whatsoever? That the destination of life is so far removed from our mindset that it never occurs to us that are direction pleasant as it is, is totally off course. God's paradoxical great awakenings feel sharp, it feels swift, it feels as if we're blindsided. What was once riding along on the high horse is now brought crashing down. The paradox is that it was the delusion of the high horse which was false. The crash is the first step toward course correction in a direction that will finally live as if life has an aim. For the first time I will move as one who has hapless and aimless as one who is directed spot on. Now my life is locked and loaded. I am a follower of The Way. Before I was follower of the Untoward. I was a follower of the Nowhere Destination. Just this week there was an article about the state of our economy that said the only thing we know for sure is that it is terrifying not knowing where history is headed. Billy Graham provided the remedy for that. He said I've read the end of the story and everything turns out alright. Purpose is to move from a life missing the mark to spot on.

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