Destined and Free a sermon on L

Destined and Free

a sermon on Luke 22.1-6, 20-23, 47-48
& Acts 1.15-20 by David C. Mauldin Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

Consider two Christians. Both were born into Christian families and grew up in the church. Both were baptized as children. Both had a faith from early on that grew up with them. Both professed faith in Christ in their preteen years. In high school, both discerned a call to ministry and pursued it. One of them will tell you, “I am a Christian because I made that decision. Christ said, ‘Follow me,’ and I did. He honored that decision and has blessed me. I might have chosen a different path, but I am glad I did not. I would make the same decision all over again if I had to.” The other will tell you, “I really do not think it was my choice at all. God was working in my life with a plan and a purpose. God chose me, just as Jesus told his disciples in John 15.16, ‘You did not choose me but I chose you.’ I thank God for my faith and my commitment to Christ because I believe they are his gifts to me. It was his plan. I could not have turned out any other way.”

Who is right? Can they both be right? And does it make any difference?

I grew up Baptist. Growing up Baptist means a steady diet of decision theology. Jesus invites you to follow him, and you had better; but he leaves it up to you. God doesn’t coerce anyone. I remember special pleading that we are still saved by grace because faith is not a work. I think we talked a lot about grace because we were not sure quite how to fit it in with the idea that God took the first step and he will carry you home, but you have to take at least one significant step on your own. I also remember anxiety—my own and other people’s. Did I get the step right? Was my decision sincere enough? Was my faith right? And so on.

Now I am Presbyterian. Presbyterians are not the hardcore double predestinarians we used to be, saying God chooses some people to be saved and others to be damned, not because of anything they did but just because he said so. But we do believe in election. We believe that when you come to faith in Christ it is not something you did that you ought to be commended for but part of the Holy Spirit’s work in you. We know what to do with grace. We even baptize our infants as a sign that God’s grace precedes anything you might do. What we are not so clear on is how to avoid that hardcore double predestination if salvation is God’s work in us. After all, if I have faith because God gave it to me, why doesn’t he give it to everyone?

This sermon is about how God’s sovereignty and human freedom work together in our lives. Somehow they must. My interest is not academic. At its root are two concerns I think we all share: Am I free? And what assurance do I have of my salvation? If it is up to me, can I ever be sure? If it is not up to me, what choice do I have? I do not want to be philosophical but personal. That’s why I chose to explore the issue by looking at Judas. Judas has always fascinated me because scripture talks about him as if he had no choice about what he did, but I am sure he did—and scripture never comes out and says he did not choose his action freely, just that his actions had to happen. In John 17.12, Jesus calls him “the one destined to be lost.” Luke says Satan entered him. In our reading from Acts, Peter says scripture was fulfilled. So Judas did choose freely, or not? If he didn’t, how could he be responsible for what happened? Luke shows him doing things. Judas goes to the authorities. He leads them to Jesus. It is implied that he brought up the issue of money. So here is the mystery: Judas had to go the route he went, yet he did so freely. Destiny and freedom.

You may think Judas was a special case, but I think all of us are destined yet free. In the Passion story, two others stand out as examples: Jesus and Peter. Jesus obviously has his destiny chosen for him by the Father, yet he must choose it freely himself. That’s the point of his prayer in Gethsemane. He chose the cross. Peter freely denied Jesus, but Jesus had prophesied that he would. Obviously when Peter went out and wept, he did not think that just because Jesus had foretold it that he (Peter) had no choice in the matter.

On the plus side, it is not necessary for us to sort all this out. There is mystery here that we will never explain. Besides, we know the gospel and we know what a correct response to it is. When you hear about God’s love and promises and what he has done for you through Jesus, the correct response is to believe the good news, repent of your sins, submit to baptism if you have not already been baptized, and give your life to Christ. You can speculate for the rest of your life what part you played and what part God played. Argue with the Christians I mentioned earlier if you want to, but the important thing is, you are now in Christ. You are God’s child. You can trust him to save you and bring you to eternal life. And, if you ever begin to worry about your standing with God, you can look, not into your own heart or the decision you made, but at Jesus Christ. What he did for you on the cross is enough.

So we do not have to explain the mystery, but I would like to marvel at it. I also want to convince you that you are both destined and free—even if I cannot explain to your satisfaction how this can be so. I want you to know you are free so that you will accept Christ’s invitation and make a commitment. If you think you are not free, you will think you are not responsible. Scripture teaches clearly that you are. I want you to know you are destined, so that once you have come to faith in Christ, you will not be puffed up with pride and feel superior to all those poor fools who don’t believe. You were saved by grace. God did it. Not you. Give him the glory. I also want you to find your assurance in him. To enjoy the Christian life the way God wants you to, you need to know in your bones that he loves you and has saved you. Nothing is worse than spiritual navel gazing, in which you look inside yourself to see if you measure up, if your faith is good enough, and on and on. Look to Christ and let that fear go.

I said this is a sermon about Judas, so I had better say something more about him. One thing I will not say is anything from the so-called “Gospel of Judas” discovered last year. Although that document provides fascinating access to the second century Gnostics who wrote it, it gives us nothing of the historical Judas. It is simply too far removed in time and worldview from first century Judaism. Imagine a book that describes Abraham Lincoln using stealth fighters to bomb the South and you get a good idea of the disconnect the Gospel of Judas has from the real Judas. It offers us nothing.

Scripture offers us precious little, and I am not one to speculate where scripture doesn’t satisfy our curiosity. I cannot resist, however, one “what if.” What if … Judas had repented? Would Jesus have forgiven him? I confidently say yes. Judas and Peter make an interesting study in contrasts. Both failed Jesus, one through treachery, the other through cowardice. Both were remorseful. Judas’s remorse led him to suicide. Peter’s led to repentance. Compare Peter before Easter and after. He failed through cowardice. But after Jesus forgave him, he could not have been bolder. On Pentecost when he preached to the crowds, later when he stood trial before the high council for preaching about Jesus in the temple, Peter was strong in exactly the place he had been weak. Imagine what a dynamic apostle a forgiven Judas would have been. But he cut himself off from forgiveness.

Let me offer a note to clarify something. I do not believe, nor does our church believe, that suicide sends a person to hell. That is the traditional Roman Catholic understanding, because in their system any mortal sin not confessed and absolved sends you to hell, and of course you cannot confess if you are no longer alive to confess. Reformation churches, like ours, understand salvation a bit differently. If you are in Christ, you are forgiven. On the cross Jesus dealt with all your sin, past, present, and future. Suicide is a drastic act. People are driven to it by great despair and often psychological disorder. Jesus always had great compassion for such people. So I am not saying Judas was lost because he killed himself. He was lost because he was not in Christ. I only presume to make this judgment because scripture plainly states it. Even with that, I do not presume to say with certainty that Judas is in hell. God alone knows. For who can measure the expanse of God’s mercy? Who knows the condition of another’s soul, or God’s hidden plan and purpose? Neither, however, would I suggest Judas did receive God’s mercy. Given all that scripture says, I think that unlikely.

My point is this: Even after he betrayed Jesus, Judas did not have to be lost. He had remorse, but it did not lead him to repent. If Jesus would have forgiven him (and I am sure Jesus would have), Judas didn’t have to be lost. He might have been the greatest of the apostles. Who knows?

Even when we look at the betrayal itself, Judas is responsible. He freely chooses his actions. He is the one who approaches the authorities. He makes an offer. He brings up the matter of payment. Various motives have been attributed to him. Luke thinks Satan was working through him. John describes him as a greedy thief. Some scholars have pointed out that the name Iscariot might be a nickname associated with one of the zealot movements popular at the time. If so, perhaps Judas initially followed Jesus as the Messiah but became disillusioned with Jesus’ vision of the kingdom. In that case, he betrayed Jesus either to goad him into fighting the Romans or just to get rid of him.

I believe Judas was free for the same reasons I believe you and I are free. I probably ought to define what I mean by “free.” I mean that we make decisions and choose our actions, and we are therefore responsible. We experience ourselves as free. If we are not free and responsible, why does scripture call us and encourage us? Why does it warn us? I want you to recognize your freedom, so that when you are faced with a choice, you will choose for Christ. When you hear the gospel, repent and believe. When you face temptation, know that you can resist, and resist. Know that you are free because God wants you to be free. He wants you to love him, and love must be freely given. God would not coerce your love. He has put it within your power to love him. So love him. Inevitably you will fall short. When you do, be like Peter, not Judas.

In a way, the modern world believes in destiny more strongly than any hardcore double predestinarian. Only in the modern view, we are determined not by God but by genetics or social conditioning or social position or family of origin. You have heard of the culture of victimhood. The idea is: “I am a victim, so I am not responsible. I am who I am—not because of my choices—but because of where I grew up, because of the money my family had or didn’t have, because of how my parents treated me, and so on.” Christianity disagrees. Granted all those factors weight heavily on who we are and how we do things. There is no doubting that. I am adopted, and I discovered in my teens that my sense of humor, my analytical mind, my love of words, and even my unfortunate habit of picking at my nails are inherited traits. How’s that for determinism? Nevertheless, none of those factors robs us of moral choice. Those things may condition us, but they do not determine us, nor do they define us. Only God defines us. He reserves that right. What matters most about who you are is what Jesus did for you on the cross. Everything else is a footnote.

Maybe Judas was driven by political motives he got from growing up in an occupied country or a greed he inherited genetically from his parents or even Satanic influence. Do the contributing factors absolve him? No. He chose. And so do we. I never want you to feel that you do not have a choice. You may fall to temptation a thousand times—the same sin, over and over. Get back up. God’s mercy to forgive and power to deliver you are greater than your ability to fail. Never say you are hopeless. On your own, maybe you are. You do not need to be alone, however.

Although Judas was free, he also fulfilled a destiny he did not choose. Sitting at table with the others during Jesus’ last supper, Judas knew what he was going to do. Jesus knew too. Jesus told everyone about it. Why didn’t Jesus prevent it? Because he understood it to be part of God’s plan. Judas chose evil, but God is in control. God was using Judas and his freely chosen evil as a tool for God’s own good purposes. Jesus would accomplish the salvation of the world on the cross. Crucifying the Son of God was evil too, but also part of God’s plan.

At this time of year we always revisit the Passion of Jesus. I marvel at the way God uses the chaotic actions of free moral agents to achieve the result he had in mind from the beginning. The authorities, Pilate, the soldiers, Judas, Peter—everyone made their own decisions and acted, and the result was exactly what God intended. I believe all of life is that way. How it can be I do not understand. I am currently working on the old, old idea that God is even more powerful than we think. He is so powerful that he not only gets what he wants, he gets it in the way that he wants it. He wants a certain outcome, but he wants us to get there freely.

Scripture says a lot about God choosing our destiny. Romans 8: “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (v. 29). Ephesians 1: “[God] chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will” (vv. 4-5). I could go on all day. I also believe God does the choosing because I believe in total depravity—that is, apart from God, sin corrupts us to the point that we cannot choose God or love God. Only his grace makes us free to do that. I believe scripture teaches this too.

Plus, if you have the advantage of many years, you can often look back on your life and see a plan. I am the pastor of this church in no small part because on our honeymoon Rosalyn and I happened to meet a couple who were from Mobile. Two years later they invited us to visit them, and we saw the gulf coast for the first time. I wasn’t even looking for a new call at that time. Some months later I saw information about Westminster, and I sent my information to the search committee. Rosalyn was immediately excited about the possibility because of our previous experience. We believe God planned to bring me here all along, and he caused us to meet that couple. Of course you cannot always perceive how God has been working, but sometimes, looking back, you get a sense that things happened for a reason.

I want you to know that God is at work in your life with a plan for a purpose. First, because the danger once you choose Christ is pride. “I am one of God’s people because I have faith. I made a decision.” Yes, you did. But before you did, God chose you. Remember what Jesus told his disciples, “You did not choose me but I chose you”—even Judas. Give God the credit. Give God the glory. Reserve none for yourself.

Second, because another danger is anxiety. In 1555, at the height of the Protestant Reformation, 5 young men (I think they were students) of Reformed conviction were arrested in the French city of Lyon on the charge of heresy—France being staunchly Catholic. The French king had the Pope more or less under his thumb, and so the king didn’t want Protestants spoiling the good thing he had going, so he persecuted them. Back in Geneva, where Calvin was at work and where the 5 young men were from, the city fathers were wrestling with the troubling aspects of the doctrine of predestination. And to be honest, the doctrine as Calvin articulated it has flaws. He was a brilliant theologian and a passionate Christian, but he wasn’t perfect. No preacher is. Anyway, some in Geneva wanted to change the doctrine, but the students on trial told them not to. They said: We know that we are going to be tortured and probably executed. We do not know what we might say or do under torture. We may be broken and deny Christ. We need to know, going in, that we are in his hands and he will not let us go no matter what. We believe that nothing these people can do to us and nothing they can make us do or say will change our destiny in Christ. So don’t change the doctrine. It may have flaws, but at its core it is sound, and we need it. … Predestination was always safe in Calvin’s hands because of how he used it. For him it meant God got the glory and we have assurance. His followers in future generations were not so careful. They got too philosophical and speculative. They made God seem unloving, and they robbed Christians of assurance.

Sooner or later when you think about how God works out our destiny, you have to throw up your hands and say, “It’s a mystery!” Calvin did. I do too. I just do it a lot earlier in the process than he did. When people go wrong is when they refuse to do that, and they try to work out the details. It cannot be done, for the simple reason that God is God and you are not. Whether you care to ponder this mystery or not, you live it. You are free, and therefore responsible. At the same time, God is working in your life with a plan and purpose. This is a comfort, too, by the way, for those who have children, a spouse, or a someone else they love who does not know Christ and seems resistant to the gospel. Keep praying and keep hoping God will break through. He is at work. You can count on that.

So whether we are talking about Judas or you or me, the picture is the same. Imagine that history is a great tapestry. God is the weaver, except instead of using regular needles, he uses living needles—billions of them. Each needle has a mind and a will of its own. Each one chooses to go here or there, to sew with red thread or blue or green. All the needles go to work, and the result looks like a random mess. But that mess is the back of the tapestry. God flips it over, and behold! A picture! The picture revealed is the exact image of his Son Jesus Christ. How did he do it? How does he take the chaotic events of history—or the chaotic events of your life—and make a beautiful image of Christ? I do not know, but he does. He is God after all, and beyond our comprehension. Amen.

rev_mauldin@yahoo.com

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