8/3/25 - Sermon written and preached by Leigh Rachal @ FPC Abbeville

Scriptures: Isaiah 43:1–2, 4; Luke 15:1–7; John 3:16–17

If someone asked you, “Are you saved?”

What would you say?

Some traditions expect a specific answer:

a date, a place, a moment when everything changed.

And for some, that moment is deeply meaningful.

But for others, maybe it feels like a loaded question.

Or it just sparks confusion….

What exactly is salvation?

What are we being saved from?

Why does any of it matter?

Somewhere along the way, salvation became a “get out of hell” card. And the point of believing in Jesus got reduced to a cosmic transaction:

Say the right words, believe the right things, and God will sign your spiritual release form.

But I don’t believe God is running a cosmic ledger.

And I don’t believe Jesus came to change God’s mind about us.

I believe Jesus came to change our minds about God.

Now, I’ll add this caveat. It’s really a caveat for the whole sermon series.

What I’m sharing is what I believe… 

Others might believe differently. 

You might believe differently. 

And that’s ok. :) And I’m happy to talk with you about it all. 

But at the end of the day, I think it still helps for you to know what I believe….

So, today, we start digging into what I believe “Salvation” is -  not with doctrine or debate, but with poetry:

The voice of God, through the prophet Isaiah:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…

Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”

THAT is where I believe salvation begins.

Not with our sin.

Not with our fear.

Definitely not with divine wrath.

But with belonging and God’s abiding love for us. 

God doesn’t say, “Once you prove yourself, then I’ll love you.”

God says, “You are mine. You are precious. I love you.”

We do not have to be saved from God.

Because God is not an angry divine being sitting up in the clouds, judging us and looking for the right justification to throw a lightening bolt at us. 

But we are saved by God—who walks with us through the fire,

who whispers our name in the flood,

who refuses to let us be lost.

Scripture has lots of stories about God refusing to let us be lost. In fact, we might conclude that this is the whole story of Scripture… told again and again…. 

Today we read one of these stories that Jesus tells - one of his most beloved stories of God refusing to allow us to be lost.

A shepherd has a hundred sheep.

One wanders off.

Is there a shepherd that might have considered that an acceptable loss? Maybe. 

But not this shepherd.

He leaves the 99 to go after the one.

He searches. He finds. He carries it home.

And then he throws a party.

“Rejoice with me,” he says, “for I have found my sheep that was lost.”

You might hear echoes there of the story of the prodigal son, with the father who rejoices when his lost son comes home. 

Jesus tells other stories too - of lost coins and lost treasure. 

He seems sometimes to be desperately trying to make the point clear for us: 

This is what God is like.

Not a God who punishes.

Not a God who tallies our mistakes.

But a God who goes searching for us. 

A God who carries us when we’re too tired to make it back to safety on our own. 

A God who rejoices in our return.

This is the God of our salvation. 

The God who refuses to allow us to be lost. 

In the letter to the Romans, Paul says:

“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Not after we got our act together.

Not once we passed the right tests.

But while we were still stumbling in the dark, God moved toward us in love.

And then there’s the famous John 3:16 passage:

“For God so loved the world…”

Note: God was not angry at the world. 

God did not despise the world. 

God Loved it.

“That God gave his only Son…

Not to condemn the world,

But so that the world might be saved through him.”

The word “save” in the Greek is sozo: it means, “to heal, to restore, to make whole.”

Salvation is about healing and making us whole.

Salvation is about restoring us (and all of creation0 to what God had in mind for us in the first place…..

It’s not about getting out of this world, but it’s about being transformed by love even in this world.

,_______________________________________

But, you might be thinking, if all that’s true, then how did we end up with the other version of salvation?

The one where Jesus saves us from God?

Where salvation means Jesus appeasing God’s divine anger?

Well, that came from a theology that took shape in the Middle Ages,

when God was imagined as a feudal lord whose honor had been offended by our sins. 

Anselm of Canterbury said Jesus had to make it right.

Later, Calvin and others turned it into what theologians call, “penal substitution”—

that Jesus took our punishment so God wouldn’t have to give it to us.

It’s a compelling legal theory. But it has never sounded like good news to me. And it places the Father and the Son in opposition to each other - as if Jesus is loving and God is angry and mean.

But Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.”

Paul says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.”

Jesus didn’t come to change God’s heart.

He came to reveal it.

To show us that the heart of God has always been love.

This story of divine wrath for human sins and Jesus as the divine appeaser is so embedded in us that it can be hard to shake. 

Thinking of this a different way entirely helps me…. 

A child is playing and accidently runs into the street. But a car is coming fast…..

An adult sees what’s happening and doesn’t hesitate.

They run, push the child out of the way, and take the hit themselves.  

For our story, let’s say the adult doesn’t die. Because it is a happier outcome and death isn’t necessary to make the point. 

Anyway, the child had not run into the street because of willful disobedience.

And even if the child was being willfully disobedient, we would never say that a child deserved to be hit by a car….

Nor would we say that the adult sacrificing his or her life was to appease an angry God or to satisfy the demands of the car….

But the actions of the adult did save the child from the consequences of running into the street. And the adult did sacrifice his own well being.

The child was saved by an act of love. 

It wasn’t demanded. It wasn’t owed to the car. 

It was freely given by the adult - because love can’t imagine doing nothing.

And we see this kind of love all the time:

In a soldier who places his own life on the line for his country. 

In a firefighter who runs into the flames for someone they’ve never met.

In an officer who shields others in the face of danger.

Not because they’re paying a debt.

But because they said, “I’ll go.”

That’s what the cross is.

Not Jesus absorbing God’s wrath,

but Jesus absorbing our own violence, humanity’s fear, our hate, our sin.

Jesus stepped between us and the destructive forces we create in our world. 

Jesus does this because God so loved the world.

He died for us, not to appease anyone.

He sacrificed his life for us, but it wasn’t to anyone….

And it is not transactional. 

It is the pure love of the creator for us, God’s beloved creation.

But maybe you’re still wondering:

“If others have given their lives for love—soldiers, firefighters, neighbors—what makes Jesus’ death different?

Why does his death actually save us?”

The answer is:

It’s not just what Jesus did.

It’s who Jesus is.

Jesus is the full embodiment of God—and of humanity.

The bridge between heaven and earth.

Jesus is Love made flesh, God’s love poured out into humanity.

He entered fully into our pain, our violence, our death—not as a distant observer, but as one of us.

And then—he rose.

Not with revenge,

but with his wounds still showing

and peace still on his lips.

Jesus didn’t just interrupt one moment of danger—he went to the roots of everything that separates us from God’s love:

All our Sin and Shame. 

All our fear and violence. 

And even Death itself.

And he broke their hold.

No one else could do that.

Because no one else carried both divinity and humanity in perfect union.

Jesus didn’t die instead of us.

He died as one of us.

And in his resurrection, he opened a new and abundant way of living. 

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Maybe I’m just in the back-to-school mode, because as I was writing this sermon, an algebra equation kept coming to mind. 

Now, no one panic. This is only a review. There won’t be a test…

But maybe you remember this:

If A = B and B = C, then A = C.

If we apply that to what we’ve been talking about, we know that: 

Scripture says, God = Love.

And that Jesus is the full embodiment of God, so God = Jesus. 

Therefore, Jesus = Love.

Which means…

when we say “Jesus saves us,”

we are also saying that Love saves us.

When we call Christ our Lord and Savior,

we’re declaring that the greatest power in the universe is God’s perfect Love.

That we will follow the way of Love, and that our salvation is found in nothing else….

Our salvation is not found in force or fear or dominance.

But Love—poured out, lifted up, and still alive.

And salvation is what happens when that love breaks into our fear, our shame, our wounds—and makes us whole.

Love saves us. 

And that love has a name: Jesus.

So when someone asks, “Are you saved?”

You can say: Yes—I was saved. on a cross at Calvary, 2,000 years ago.

And also: Yes—I am saved today, every time grace meets me in the mess.

• every time I remember I belong, even when I feel lost.

• every time I choose forgiveness over hate, truth over comfort, or love over fear.

Salvation isn’t something we earn.

It’s something we receive.

And it becomes something we live—

with joy, with freedom, with open hands and an open heart.

You see, we are not problems God needed to solve.

We are beloved children whom God chooses to save from the harm of our own actions through God’s transformative grace. 

We were made by love, in love, for love. 

And we are saved by love, in love, and for love. 

Thanks be to God!

Amen.