While We Still Were Sinners

Romans 5.1-11

 

“God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

William Barclay, the late Scottish New Testament scholar, begins his commentary on this passage of scripture with these words: “Here is one of Paul’s great lyrical passages in which he almost sings the intimate joy of his confidence in God.”

“The intimate joy of his confidence in God.” Faith has done what the works of the Law could never do: it has justified us, it has made us righteous, it has brought us into a right relationship with God. Before Jesus came, no one could really be close to God. Now, we can, and that’s worth boasting about!

Up to this point, in his letter to the church in Rome, Paul has been explaining justification – essentially, salvation by grace through our faith in Christ Jesus. Here, Paul points out the results of justification. That’s why Paul begins chapter 5 with the word “Therefore.” “Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness combined with our faith” … all these other things follow. Through justification, our status with God has changed. Being made righteous by faith, we are now in a right relationship with God.

What does this mean for us? First of all, it means we can have peace of mind. We no longer have any reason to fear God, because now we know just how much God loves us: “God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Instead of running and hiding from God, we can be in a loving relationship with God, because of the gracious act of Christ Jesus. This peace of mind is really a confidence in the faithfulness and goodness of God – a God who will share his glory with us.

All too often people spend their time worrying about what’s going to happen when they die, wondering if they’re really going to be accepted into God’s glory. Probably every pastor has been asked the question, “Will God really give me eternal life?”

Paul would say, “Don’t worry about it. Be at peace with it. Since you are justified, made righteous, by faith, you will share in God’s glory. Justification gives us peace with God.”

Justification also gives us hope. What Christ did enables us to live with hope, in the midst of all the trials and tribulations of life. I mean let’s face it: life is full of suffering. We can’t ignore suffering, we can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. Instead, Paul says we should “boast,” or as some translations put it, “rejoice” in our suffering, because suffering leads to hope.

I read something a few years ago where verses 3 and 4 here were called the “Family Tree of Suffering.” Suffering, or “trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” In other words, Paul is saying that suffering is necessary for hope. If we never suffer, if we never have trouble, then we cannot possibly understand what it means to have hope. When we are justified by our faith in Christ Jesus, then when we suffer we find the power to endure, the strength to resist the temptation to just give up, the temptation to give in to despair.

Trouble leads to endurance.

Endurance is another word with several translations. I found it translated as fortitude, patience, and perseverance. But it all comes down to the same things: when we are justified, we find the will to keep going.

And in finding that will, that endurance, we also find a strengthening of our character, and a deepening of our trust in God. And in that deeper trust, we find our hope, hope that will not disappoint us. Even in the midst of life’s most difficult trials, we can hang in there because of our hope in God’s promises, our knowledge and assurance that God will be with us, that God will love us and will give us the strength to hold on.

Because as we – the disciples, the followers of Christ – as we seek to do what Christ asked us to do, as we seek to offer Christ to those who don’t want to hear about it, as we seek to fight for a justice that few people seem to care about, as we seek to minister to people who obviously are in need but who don’t really want our help, it’s easy to become discouraged and disheartened.

God knows how we feel, and God cares. And God will come and help us, in our lives, in our ministries. What we do, the actions we take in this world, really do matter. We have that hope. We must keep on following in Christ’s footsteps. God’s love will not fail us. We know this because justification gives us hope.

And that brings us to some of the most amazing words in all the scriptures. Paul illustrates the depth of the love of God by telling us – reminding us, really – that while we were helpless, while we were lost in sin, while we were, for all intents and purposes, enemies of God, Christ died for us.

Did you hear that? While we were lost in sin, Christ died for us! God didn’t wait for us to clean up our act. God went ahead, while we were in the process of fighting against God, God went ahead and sent Christ Jesus to love us. It’s like God just couldn’t contain the great and wonderful love that God has for us any longer. So God let his love loose in Christ Jesus.

Christ died for us in our helplessness, in our sin. As a result, we don’t have to be helpless anymore. We no longer need to live our lives lost in sin, and absent from God. Jesus Christ justifies us. Jesus Christ reconciles us to God. Jesus Christ saves us! What an amazing love! We don’t deserve this kind of love, but that doesn’t matter. God gives his love to us, anyway.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter who you’ve been. God loves you. It doesn’t even matter what you’re doing with your life right now at this very moment, it doesn’t matter how lost you may be. God still loves you. You matter to God. We all matter to God, and God will do whatever is needed in order to help us, in order to forgive us, in order to bring us into a loving relationship with God.

Don’t say that you can’t give your life to Christ because you’re not worthy. Don’t say that there are too many things wrong with your life. It just doesn’t matter. In God’s eyes, our worthiness is not based on anything that we have done, or even anything that we are doing. Our worthiness is based on the grace of God, given to us through Christ Jesus.

Simply put: God has decided that we are worth loving. How can we refuse that kind of love?

“Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness combined with our faith,” we are now in a loving relationship with God. “God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

“God so loved the world” – and that includes all of us – “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

God loves us. That’s something to boast and rejoice about! Because our “hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” God loves you. You matter to God.

Saving, Sending, & Blessing

Luke 24.36-53

 

There was once a little boy who decided to run away from home.  He packed his suitcase with some Twinkies and a six-pack of root beer, and set out on his journey.

About three blocks from his house he came to a park.  There he saw an old woman sitting on a bench.  The boy was thirsty, so he sat on the bench next to the old woman and opened his suitcase.

He was just about to take a drink when he noticed that the old woman looked hungry.  The boy silently held out a Twinkie.  The old woman gratefully accepted, and smiled at the boy.  Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he handed her a root beer.  Once again, the old lady smiled at the boy.  He was delighted.

The two of them sat on that bench all afternoon, eating Twinkies, drinking root beer, and smiling, but neither of them ever said a word.

As it began to grow dark, the little boy realized that he really didn’t want to run away from home.  He got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps he turned around, went back to the old woman, and gave her a hug.  She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy got home a few minutes later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face.  “What did you do today that made you so happy?” she asked.

The boy replied, “I had lunch in the park with God!  You know what?  She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!”

Meanwhile, the old woman returned to her home, where she lived with her son and his family.  Her son was amazed by the look of peace and contentment on his mother’s face, and so he asked, “Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy?”

She replied, “I had Twinkies and root beer in the park with God!  You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”

“Because they were wondering and questioning in the midst of their happiness, Jesus said to them, ‘Do you have anything to eat?’  They gave him a piece of baked fish.  Taking it, he ate it in front of them.”

It seems to me that, quite often, we are able to experience the presence of the risen Christ best in the sharing of a meal.  Dr. R. Alan Culpepper, of Mercer University in Atlanta, says that “although Jesus may not appear in our midst to eat broiled fish, his presence is tangible in soup kitchens, around the kitchen table, and around the altar table.”

I would add that Christ’s presence is also tangible on a park bench, when two people share some Twinkies and root beer.  We “see” Christ in the sharing of a meal.

The disciples “saw” Jesus when he appeared in their midst.  Jesus showed them his hands and his feet; he had them touch him, so that they could feel his flesh and bones.  But they were still wondering and disbelieving, so Jesus asked for something to eat.  It seems that when all else fails, we are able to recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread – or, in this case, the fish.

Why is it so important that the disciples recognized Jesus?  Because these eyewitness accounts prove that the resurrection is real.  The risen Christ was no phantom, no hallucination.  He was real.  The Jesus who died was in truth the Christ who arose.

And, at one time in history, there were people – real, live people – who could stand up and say, “We saw him.  We touched him.  We ate with him.”  The good news of Jesus Christ isn’t fiction or fantasy.  Christianity is not founded on dreams or wild visions.

The proof of the resurrection rests on the experience of those who were there; the Apostles and the women who went to the tomb.  Jesus Christ did in fact face and conquer death.  Jesus Christ did in fact arise from the grave.

We know it’s true, because nothing else could have changed the lives of the disciples in such dramatic fashion.  Nothing else could have sustained them through the trials and persecutions they experienced.  And nothing else could change our lives and sustain us, today.

The proof of the resurrection rests on the experience of the eyewitnesses, yes, but it also rests in the lives of all the faithful disciples who have lived since then, including those of us still living today.

We know that Christ is risen because Christ lives in us.  We know that the work of Christ’s kingdom still continues to this very day, through us.  Even though Jesus’ physical hands and feet are not longer present, the ministry of the hands and feet of countless disciples around the world bears witness to Christ’s living presence.

So, back to our scripture:  Jesus proves to the disciples that the resurrection is real.  Jesus then opens their minds to the scriptures.  Everything written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Jesus did his part.  Jesus went to the cross.  All the scriptures point to the cross.  The cross wasn’t forced on God; the cross was a part of God’s plan all along.  The cross is the one place on earth, and the one moment in time, where we see the completeness of God’s eternal love.

Jesus did his part to fulfill the scriptures.  Now it’s up to us to do ours.  “A change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in [Jesus’] name to all nations.”  You see, Jesus didn’t appear to the disciples in order to tell them to stay forever in the upper room.  Jesus appeared in order to send the disciples out into the world, to spread the good news.

“He led them out as far as Bethany, where he lifted his hands and blessed them.”  William Barclay once said that God really only does three things for us.  God saves us, God sends us, and God blesses us.

God saves us.  God is our redeemer.  We manage to get ourselves lost in sin, but through Christ Jesus God offers us redemption and salvation.  Ephesians says, “You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith.”  By his grace, God saves us.

God sends us.  In Matthew, Jesus says, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.”  In Mark, Jesus says, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news.”  In John, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  In Acts, Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.”

And here, in Luke, Jesus says, “A change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in [Jesus’] name to all nations.”  God sends us.

And God blesses us.  Sometimes so much attention is given to the importance of salvation, and to the importance of telling others about salvation, that God’s work in blessing us is overlooked.

God blesses us with life.  God blesses us with family and friends to share life with.  God blesses us through all of God’s creation.  Sometimes it seems as though we have to strain a bit to find God’s blessings, but they’re always there.  It’s our fault, not God’s, when we have trouble finding them.

And, don’t forget, God blesses us with Christ.  All three of God’s actions – saving, sending, and blessing – are centered on Christ Jesus.  Through Christ God saves us; through Christ God sends us; and through Christ God blesses us most of all, because our lives are changed through Christ.

And our response to God’s saving, sending, and blessing should be the same as the disciples’:  “They worshipped [Christ], and returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy.  And they were continuously in the temple praising God.”

The disciples received Jesus’ blessing with great joy.  They worshiped Christ and praised God.  And they began immediately to do what Christ had instructed them to do.  Jesus blessed them, and they turned right around and began passing on that blessing.

Joy, worship, and obedience are the natural by-products of blessing.  Joy, worship, and obedience will always be God’s gift to those whom God has saved, sent, and blessed.

“As he blessed them, [Jesus] left them and was taken up heaven.”  The ascension of Jesus will always remain a mystery.  William Barclay says that Luke’s account of the ascension “attempts to put into words what is beyond words and to describe what is beyond description.”

We know that the ascension was absolutely necessary.  There had to be a definite ending to Jesus’ time on earth.  It’s inconceivable that Jesus could have simply stopped appearing to the disciples without some sore of closure.  So the ascension marked the end of Jesus’ time on earth, and the end of the disciples’ dependence on a flesh and blood teacher.  From that point on, the disciples, and all of us who have come after them, are linked to a Savior who is eternal – forever alive.

Equally, however, the ascension marked a beginning.  Remember, the disciples left the scene, not in sadness, but with joy, because now they knew for certain that they had a master from whom nothing – not even death – could ever separate them.

They knew then – just as we know today – without a doubt that we have a Master, a Savior, a Friend, not only here on earth, but a Master forever, a Savior who is waiting for us at the right hand of God.  A Friend who has saved us, a Friend who sends us, and a Friend who blesses us.

Who Are We to Hinder God?

Acts 11.1-18

 

“If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

In their classic song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” The Who sings:  “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  What the Who are implying is that it doesn’t really matter who is in charge of things – liberal, conservative, fundamentalist, universalist – things are pretty much going to stay the same.

Sometimes I’ll hear people say something like, “I wish we could be like the early church.  If only our church was like the church we read about in the New Testament, everything would be okay.”

Well, you know what?  Our church is just like the early church.  Even after 2,000 years of studying the scriptures; 2,000 years of being led by the Holy Spirit; 2,000 years of changing from old bosses to new bosses, old theologians to new theologians, old preachers to new preachers – even after all of that, things are pretty much the same now as they were in Peter’s day.  Meet the new church, same as the old church.

In the old church, Peter had the audacity to go and preach the gospel to people who were considered, by a lot of people in the church, to be “unclean.”  And Peter got called on the carpet for it.  This despite the fact that, as far back as Abraham, God made it abundantly clear that all the peoples of the earth would receive God’s blessing.  God chose to use Abraham’s descendants as the means of delivering that blessing, but God never implied that the blessing itself was to be limited in any way.

When Jonah tried to keep God from blessing the people of Nineveh, God insisted, and, as is always the case when God insists, God got his way – the Ninevites received God’s blessing.  The prophets Elijah and Elisha each raised a young man from the dead; neither of those young men was Jewish, yet they both received God’s blessing.

There are other stories as well, yet despite this evidence in their own scriptures, the idea persisted among the Jewish people that, because they were God’s “chosen” people, they were the only people God cared about.

And that is such a dangerous trap to fall into.  When we start thinking that we are God’s “chosen,” then it’s not too much of a stretch to start seeing everybody else as “unchosen,” or unclean, profane, an abomination.  We start thinking that everybody who disagrees with us, everybody who wasn’t born where we were born, everybody who doesn’t look like us, talk like us, live like us – we start thinking that God really doesn’t like them.

God chose us, not them.  Therefore, we are better than they are.  We are good.  God likes people like us.  People who aren’t like us are bad; they’re unclean.  God doesn’t like them.

The next thing you know we’re making up names for such people.  They’re liberals, or conservatives, depending on which side you’re on.  They’re Jews, or Catholics, or Muslims.  They’re black, they’re gay, they’re Hispanic, they’re rednecks, they’re elitists.  Often we come up with truly ugly names or labels for “those people.”  Why?  Because we’re better than they are.  We belong to God!

Peter thought the same thing.  Peter was a Jew, a circumcised believer, and Peter honestly thought that only circumcised believers could receive the Holy Spirit.  Peter genuinely believed that only Jews, God’s chosen people, could become disciples of Jesus Christ.

And you know, it’s hard to blame Peter for thinking this way.  That was the way Peter was raised, that’s what Peter was taught – at home, at school, at church.  Day after day Peter was taught, by people who were in positions of authority, that the Jewish people were “chosen,” and that Gentiles – anyone who wasn’t Jewish – were “unclean.”

The fact is, Peter probably never gave the issue much thought.  And, of course, that’s the problem right there:  not giving the issue much thought.  Seems to me that we always get into trouble when we make up our minds about something without really giving it much thought.  Whenever we simply repeat what we’ve heard others say – whether it be our parents, our teachers, our preachers, or someone on Fox News or MSNBC – when we simply parrot the thoughts of others, we’re not using the gift of reason that God gave us.

Now, let me make it clear that children should listen to their parents, and their teachers, because children haven’t yet learned how to use their gift of reason.  That’s part of growing up:  learning to use our minds, learning to think for ourselves.  Until we’ve reached the point of maturity – and some reach it much later than others! – we’re not expected to be responsible for our own thoughts.

But we can’t stay that way forever.  Eventually, whether at the age of 18, or 21, a little younger for some, a little older for others, at some point you have to be responsible for yourself.  You have to use the brain that God gave you.  You can’t just keep on believing everything that someone else tells you, without thinking it out for yourself – because someone else might be wrong.

Peter had been taught since childhood that the Jewish people were the only people who could receive God’s blessings, and even though Peter was able to break with traditional thought in following Jesus, he still clung to the belief that only Jews could be disciples.  Peter had heard it repeated so many times that it never occurred to Peter that God might have other ideas.  And this is where Peter’s thought process was, one afternoon in the town of Joppa.

You see, the story that Peter tells here in chapter 11 is the story found in chapter 10 – the story of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius.  Cornelius lived in the town of Caesarea, while Peter was staying in Joppa.  One day Cornelius had a vision; Cornelius’ vision instructed him to send for a certain man named Peter, in Joppa.

The next day, as Cornelius’ men were approaching Joppa, Peter had a vision of his own – and what a vision it was!  In this vision, God showed Peter a variety of animals which the Jewish people would not eat because their scriptures – our Old Testament – said that these animals were “unclean.”  God told Peter to “kill and eat.”  Peter refused, saying that he had “never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.”  But then God said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

“What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  Cliff notes version:  In his vision Peter was also told to go with the men from Cornelius, so Peter ended up going to Cornelius’ house in Caesarea, where Peter preached the gospel to Cornelius and his family and friends – all Gentiles.  After Peter finished, all those gathered in the house received the Holy Spirit.  “The Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.”  Even those unclean Gentiles!

This surprised Peter as much as anyone, but Peter had the good sense to realize that this was God’s doing.  Peter, after all, had been following God’s initiative, doing what God had sent him to do.  Peter put two and two together – what God said in his vision, plus the Holy Spirit falling upon Cornelius and the other Gentiles – Peter put two and two together and came to the conclusion that the Gentiles weren’t “unclean” after all.

Good old Peter.  For all his stubbornness in other areas, Peter came to the realization that it’s not our place to decide whom God should bless, whom God should save, whom God should call.  It’s not our place, it’s God’s place.  God alone is allowed to make those decisions.

That was good enough for Peter, but meanwhile back at the ranch – or in Jerusalem, anyway – the other leaders of the early church, all Jews, of course, all circumcised believers – the other leaders of the church weren’t too happy with Peter.  Let’s face it, Peter had really pushed the envelope.  In fact, it’s safe to say that, in preaching the gospel to, and the baptizing, a bunch of Gentiles, Peter had torn the envelope wide open.  The folks back in Jerusalem were quick to criticize Peter for his actions.

Meet the new church, same as the old church.

Nothing has changed over the past 2,000 years.  Back then it was:  you have to be circumcised, you have to follow the Jewish purity laws, in order to be a Christian.  Today it’s:  you have to belong to a certain church, you have to be a member of the right groups, you have to believe what certain religious leaders tell you – you have to think like we think, act like we act – or you can’t possibly be a Christian.  Trust me, our United Methodist Church is not immune to such thinking.

It’s like we in the church have learned nothing.  We still try to hinder God.  We still try to tell God who God can and cannot bless.  And, heaven help us, we still criticize anyone who dares to take the gospel to people we don’t approve of – people we consider unclean, people we think of as profane, people we call abominations.

Author Michael Crichton once wrote that “there is too much certainty in the world.”  I believe this is especially true in the church.  It’s one thing to have that “Blessed Assurance” that Jesus loves us; it’s another thing altogether to be absolutely certain that our way is the only way.  We are so certain that we are right, and we can’t wait to tell other people just how wrong they are.

I’m certain that God cannot possibly have called you into the ministry, because you’re a woman.

I’m certain that you can’t join our church unless you learn to speak better English.

I’m certain that you’re too young to be teaching a Sunday School class.

I’m certain that you’re too old to work in Vacation Bible School.

I’m certain that if you invite those people to church, God won’t bless our church any more.

In all these ways, and hundreds more, we try to hinder God.  We try to limit God’s blessings to us, and those like us.  The late baseball executive Branch Rickey is reported to have prayed:  “God bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife; us four and no more.  Amen.”

We are so certain of our own rightness that it never occurs to us that there might be another way, a different way, to come to believe in Christ Jesus, a different way to worship God.  We are so sure that we know best who deserves God’s blessing and who doesn’t, that it never occurs to us that it’s up to God to make that decision.  It never occurs to us that our way might be right, but at the same time those who disagree with us might be right, as well.  God just might be big enough for all of us.

I guess what it comes down to is this:  How do we know?  How do we know what’s right?  How do we know if what we feel is God calling us, or something else?  How do we know it’s God calling us to do something, when everybody around us thinks that what we’re doing is wrong?

I mean, it’s one thing to take Peter’s word for it that he had a vision from God.  The people in Jerusalem did.  After Peter explained everything “they were silenced.  And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”

No, it’s not too difficult to take Peter’s word for it.  But what if I got up here and told you that I had a vision from God – a vision that goes completely against our conventional United Methodist Christian thinking, totally against what you hear from the leadership in the Church?  If I did that, if I did exactly what Peter did, I’d probably be a candidate for a nice, relaxing stay in a mental institution.

And I’m a preacher.  Imagine the reaction if one of you did the same thing!  Would we listen respectfully, and take your word for it that God had called you?  Or would we scoff, and tell you that you’ve completely lost your mind?  I know what I think we’d do.

So, how do we know?  Well, being good Methodists, we have a tool called the Quadrilateral.  John Wesley didn’t actually invent the Quadrilateral, but he tweaked it and made it a part of the Methodist movement.  The Quadrilateral says that God is revealed to us in four ways:  Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience.

Scripture:  the Bible.  Reason:  our God-given ability to think for ourselves.  Tradition:  what has come before us in the Church; what the great thinkers like Wesley, Martin Luther, Thomas A’Kempis, C. S. Lewis and others have thought and written about over the years.  Experience:  the Holy Spirit working in our lives.

Some churches today view the scriptures as the only source of divine revelation.  Sola scriptura in Latin:  scripture alone.  This point of view totally ignores the stories we read right here in the book of Acts – the stories of Peter and Paul and the other first generation Christians.  God didn’t stop Paul on the road to Damascus and tell him to read the scriptures until he understood who Jesus was.  No, God gave Paul an experience – God knocked Paul on his keister and blinded him!

God didn’t tell Peter to read the scriptures about where God promised to bless all the peoples of the earth, about how Jonah was sent to Nineveh, about Elijah and Elisha and Naaman and all the blessings God bestowed upon various Gentiles.  God gave Peter an experience – a vision, followed by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to a group of Gentiles right before Peter’s eyes.

Now, reading the Bible is important, make no mistake about that.  God is revealed to us by the scriptures.  But God is revealed in other ways, as well.  And, let’s not forget that scripture is only as good as our interpretation of it.

Interpretation comes through reason – we use our brains to interpret the Bible; and interpretation comes through tradition – we pay attention to the way those who have come before us interpreted the Bible; and interpretation comes through experience – we interpret the Bible based on what has happened to us in our own lives.

Back to that story about Paul on the road to Damascus.  Remember, Paul was a Pharisee; he knew the scriptures forwards and backwards and upside down.  But Paul interpreted the scriptures a whole lot differently after his experience on the road to Damascus, didn’t he?

It’s not that Paul discovered new scriptures, it’s that his interpretation changed.  Paul went from devoutly believing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God wanted him to persecute, and execute, Christians, to being the instrument God used to spread the gospel message.  And Peter certainly interpreted the scriptures differently after his experience with Cornelius.

We have to be open to our experiences with the Holy Spirit.  God’s word can be found outside the pages of the Bible.  As we can see in this passage this morning, God’s word often takes the form of a surprising turn of events.  But again, how do we know these experiences are from God?

We have to ask ourselves three key questions:  In what I am doing, is God being glorified?  Can people see God’s Spirit at work?  And last but not least, through what I am doing, are people developing new or closer relationships with God?

If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” then we can rest assured that God is at work in our lives, no matter how radical our words or actions might seem to others.  It doesn’t really matter if what God is calling us to do makes sense to other people, as long as it makes sense to God.

After all, who are we to hinder God?