I Agree
If you’ve ever bought a new app for your phone or updated software on our iPad or on your computer, or if you’ve ever signed up for a new loyalty card online, you’ve seen a lengthy legal terms of service agreement. Before you could proceed with the software update or the purchase of the loyalty card, you had to indicate that you read that statement and click the button that said “agree.”
Raise your hand if you’ve ever read it before you clicked the button that said “agree.”
Jonathan Obar at York University says that it would take the average person 40 minutes a day, every day, for a year to fully read all of these legal service agreement statements which we encounter. Thus, most of us never read them. We just click, “Agree.”
To test this, Obar and a colleague conducted an experiment where they tried to get people to sign up for a new social network site called “Name Drop.” When people signed up, there was a typical service agreement that popped up on the computer screen. The user had to click “agree” in order to use the service. Buried in the agreement were two disclosures.
- ? First, any information the user shared would be given to the NSA. Only one person in more than five hundred actually noticed this in the service agreement.
- ? Second, users would be required to give their firstborn to the owners of Name Drop. Ninety-eight percent of those who clicked “Agree” did not see this and thus unknowingly agreed to give their first born in order to use the social networking site. (I don’t know what this says about the two percent who saw it and clicked “agree” anyway!)
Sometimes we agree to something without knowing just what we’re agreeing to.
This happens with baptism. And it’s a point Paul makes in Rom. 6.
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:2-5 ESV)
According to vs. 2 there is a problem: some of these Christians are still living in sin. Paul isn’t referring to the fact that they’re struggling with sin. That they make mistakes. Rather, they are living in sin. Sin came knocking at the door, and they opened the door and they gave it a place at their table and set it a nice lovely dinner, and sat down and watched a movie with it, and then helped it unpack its bags and invited it to move right in and make itself at home.
But Paul says in vs. 3, “Don’t you know…?” Don’t you know what you agreed to when you were baptized? When you clicked “Yes” in baptism don’t you know what you signed up for? It seems that many of us agreed to something in baptism without really reading the fine print.
For a lot of Christian’s baptism is similar to what mathematicians call a “bounded set.” In a bounded set there are distinct boundaries between who is in and who is out of the set. The focus is on the boundaries and how to get across the boundary. Baptism becomes the way to get across the boundary. And once you’re baptized, you’re in. Your saved. And that’s all that matters. You been baptized. You been saved. Once you’re in, it really doesn’t matter all that much what you do afterwards. You can, to use Paul’s words, keep living in sin. Because you’ve been baptized. You’re in.
But Paul wants us to read the fine print. Because what we agreed to when we clicked “yes” in baptism is something different. Notice how Paul ties our baptism with Jesus’ death:
- ? all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death,
- ? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,
- ? we have been united with him in a death like his.
This last word “like” is interesting. Paul uses a word that means to resemble or to be similar to or to become like. The implication is that when we were baptized we not only underwent a spiritual death but that we began a process of being conformed to the death of Jesus. That is, baptism was the beginning of a lifelong journey of becoming more like the death of Jesus.
In this way baptism is more like what mathematicians call a centered set. In a centered set the focus is on what lies at the center rather than the boundary one crosses to get in. The question is not Am I in or out? The question is am I moving toward the center? Baptism is the beginning of a journey of moving more toward the center, toward the death of Jesus, towards the cross. It is the beginning of a lifetime of asking the question Am I continuing to grow more like the one who died on the cross? In other words, baptism is the beginning of a process of becoming increasingly cross-shaped.
If that then is what we signed up for when we clicked “yes,” then it is important for us to understand what happened on the cross. If baptism is the beginning of the process of becoming increasingly cross shaped then it’s important for us to understand what happened on the cross and what it means to be cross shaped. Paul offers an explanation of this earlier in Romans 5:
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7-8 ESV)
The word translated “shows” is an important word. It means to prove or to demonstrate. Paul uses this same word later in 2 Cor. 6:
3 We try to live in such a way that no one will ever be offended or kept back from finding the Lord by the way we act, so that no one can find fault with us and blame it on the Lord. 4 In fact, in everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure suffering and hardship and trouble of every kind. 5 We have been beaten, put in jail, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, stayed awake through sleepless nights of watching, and gone without food. 6 We have proved ourselves to be what we claim by our wholesome lives and by our understanding of the Gospel and by our patience. We have been kind and truly loving and filled with the Holy Spirit. (2 Cor. 6:3-6 TLB)
Paul says, “We show, we demonstrate, we prove that we are genuine servants of God by working hard, by enduring beatings, by living wholesome lives, etc.” Paul points to these things as proof. They are his resume. They are evidence that Paul is a genuine servant of God.
This is the same word used by Paul in Rom. 5:
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7-8 ESV)
What was God doing at the cross? He was showing, proving, demonstrating his love in unexpected ways. That is the point Paul is making. While were were unworthy of love even in the littlest of ways–because we were sinners, God loved us in the largest of ways, his son died for us. At the cross God was showing his love. Demonstrating his love. Proving his love for us. The cross was God showing his love in unexpected ways.
Author and speaker Brennan Manning tells how he got the name”Brennan.” While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated together, enlisted in the Army together, and fought on the frontlines together.
One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened. Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole. Ray looked at Brennan, and threw himself on the live grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan’s life was spared.
When Brennan became a priest he was instructed to take on the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan. So he took on the name “Brennan.”
Years later he went to visit Ray’s mother in Brooklyn. They sat up late one night having tea when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan’s face and shouted, “What more could he have done for you?”
Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, Does God really love me? And Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to her son, saying, “What more could he have done for you?
In the cross God demonstrated, he showed, he proved love in an unexpected way. There’s absolutely nothing more he could do to prove that he loves us.
Showing Love
And since we are to become increasingly cross shaped we must show love in unexpected ways. That is one of the most fundamental meanings of cross-shaped. To grow into the likeness of the image of the cross means to grow in showing, demonstrating and proving love in unexpected ways. It means that people must be able to find evidence in your life of love. It means that even a cursory investigation of your life would turn up all kinds of pieces of evidence which proved beyond a reasonable doubt that you are an exceptional lover of human beings.
Brishan is marking a significant milestone of seven years at Highland and is thus away on sabbatical. I remember when he applied for the position of worship leader at Highland. With tattoos and earrings and spiked hair he did not necessarily look like a Church of Christ worship leader. And, so, just as we did with every other applicant, we asked Brishan to provide evidence that he was actually a worship leader. He had to show us that he could lead worship. We asked for recommendations and we followed up on those recommendations. We put him in situations where he had to lead worship with different groups of people. And after looking at all of that evidence, and comparing it with the evidence of the other candidates, it was clear that Brishan was the best suited to lead worship for Highland.
Similarly, as people who are committed to growing in our cross-shaped living, because that’s what we agreed to and we clicked yes at baptism, we must be able to demonstrate, to prove that we are lovers of people in unexpected ways. That’s what we signed up for when we were baptized.
Showing Love to Neighbors
The cross especially challenges us to love a group of people who we often rarely love in unexpected ways: our neighbors.
Jay Pathak is the author of a book called The Art of Neighboring. In it he provides a very simple diagram. Imagine that your house is in the middle. The houses around your house represent those of your neighbors. Now, he asks, take a moment and just write down the names of each of those neighbors. Can you do it?
Pathak has done this in churches across the country. Can you guess how many people can actually write the names of those neighbors? Only 1 out of 10 Christians. (pg. 39).
Here is the cold and hard truth: the vast majority of those of us who have committed to a journey of becoming shaped into the image of the cross and loving in unexpected ways don’t even know the names of the people who live closest to us, much less are demonstrating and showing and proving unexpected love toward them. If we’re looking for a place to start, we could do no better than right next door.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am no better than most. I am among the worst. I know my neighbor across the street, Michael. I know him primarily because one day several years ago he came to our door and he had cut his finger off with his lawnmower. And I know our neighbor to our left, Jim. We say hello to each other almost every day. That’s about it. But like the vast majority of Christians, I come home at the end of the day and I hardly have enough gas left in the tank for my own family much less the people that I live close to. I can’t even tell you their names, much less what they need or even what they do. I can’t tell you about their dreams or their hopes or their aspirations. If someone was looking for evidence of love in my life for my neighbors, there’s hardly any to be found at all.
Amy Lively will be at Highland next Sunday. She’s the author of the book How to Love Your Neighbor Without Being Weird. She tells how at one point she was just like me. She couldn’t even name her neighbors. Now, however, she knows dozens of her neighbors and has led many of them to faith in Christ. One of the ways she’s been able to demonstrate and show and prove love in a meaningful way is through what she calls an Open House. A couple of times a year she holds an Open House. She invites all her neighbors over for coffee and tea and light refreshments. And she tells them to bring their own mug. She brews the beans, they bring the mugs. And each time dozens of neighbors show up. And they engage in conversation. And they get to know each other. And out of that simple Open House flow all kinds of opportunities for further service and compassion and evangelism and love.
Now What? Spend time this week prayerfully completing and acting on this sentence: My neighbors would never expect me to show love to them by ______________.
The Bosnian War during the early 1990s pitted Bosnian Serbs against Muslims. But after the war, journalist Chris Hedges heard a story of unusual kindness. Rosa and Drago Sorak, a Bosnian Serb couple, told Hedges that during the war the Muslim authorities took their oldest son away for questioning. He never returned.
Five months after their son’s disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled and there were severe food shortages. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade. “The baby was dying,” Rosa said. “It was breaking our hearts.”
But on the fifth day, just before dawn, the Soraks heard someone stomping up to their front door. It was their Muslim neighbor, Fadil, one of the few people in town who owned a cow. He was wearing black rubber boots and holding a half a liter of milk. Other families insulted Fadil and told him to let the children of their enemies die. But Fadil kept showing up on their porch—for 442 days in a row with milk for his Serbian neighbors.
The Soraks said they could never forgive those who took their son. But they also couldn’t forget the kindness of their neighbor Fadil. Drago Sorak said. “Every year at this time, when it is cold and dark, when we close our eyes, we can hear the boom of the heavy guns and the sound of Fadil on the stairs.”
What will our neighbors hear when they close their eyes? Will they hear the sound of our love for them? Well they say that we loved them so much there’s nothing more we could have done for them?
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
