3: Space For Yes
In spites of the evidence that God is love and has been eternally, most people have a much different picture of him. “Dorothy Sayers once put this in admirable prose: “The God of Christians is too often looked upon as an old gentleman of irritable nerves who beats people for whistling.” God says yes to us, all of us. Yes, I want you in my company and I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. God’s yes can be seen in two majestic acts of God.
JESUS, GOD’ GRAND YES. We often get this backwards, but “we don’t know Jesus is God because we know who God is, but we know who God is because we know Jesus!” If you want to know about God, look to Jesus and his attitude towards God.
GOD’S YES TO ALL OF US. “God’s Yes in Jesus is for everyone.” Often, the church doesn’t get this. “The revolution God creates in the church begins or ends with this first step: either we embrace that God’s Yes is for all or we don’t.”
SPIRIT, GOD’S GRAND YES. In addition to the Son, God sends the Spirit into us. Paul says that the Holy Spirit is God’s “deposit” in us. McKnight tells the story of opening his life to the Spirit and receiving it.
IF GOD SAYS YES, WHO CAN SAY NO? Paul assume God is for us when he says, If God is for us, who can be against us. Why would that be so? “God loves us because we are made in his image. God’s Yes is this: “I love because you are you!” in addition, God’s love is unstoppable. “Here are Paul’s matchless words to that ramshackle bundle of new Roman Christians about God’s unstoppable, relentless Yes: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Excerpt From: Scot McKnight. “A Fellowship of Differents.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/9W9u1.l
Excerpt From: Scot McKnight. “A Fellowship of Differents.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/9W9u1.l