I met Ludarites ten years ago. We met when we were both invited to a Bible study at friend’s church in Miami. At that time Luda was a dancer in a men’s club. She was from Brazil and had come to the United States with little money and no green card and a dream for a better life but she was making a living as a dancer.
The last time I saw Luda, we ate dinner together at a nice restaurant in Miami where we talked long and hard about God’s grace and how this free gift was something that God desired to give to her personally. It had taken many years and many people speaking into her life, but that evening Luda finally came to believe that that God’s grace was sufficient for her.
I was so excited I said, “Luda, God is going to use you to do amazing things!” “No,” she said, as she put her head down, “I’m not like you.” “But I’m just like you” I said. “a sinner saved by God’s grace and God has given me the grace to do amazing things. That’s the promise Luda. We’re not just saved from sin, but we’re saved to do amazing things, things that are bigger and better than ourselves.”
Did you hear that? Do you believe it? I believe it is true for all of us. We are saved to do amazing things. Saved to do things bigger and better than ourselves. That’s the promise right from Jesus lips.“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these… because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12
Doing amazing things is not just our idea. It is God’s plan. When God saves people in this life it is so that they can be a sign and a foretaste of what God wants to do for the whole world. And because God wants to do amazing stuff for the whole world, right down to every last piece of creation, I believe it’s God’s plan that we would all do amazing things.
And don’t you want that? I believe most people who believe in Jesus are looking for this…looking for more than the forgiveness of our sins. Don’t most of us want to know that God has saved us for something? Don’t we all want to know that the grace that saved us is not the end of “the amazing”, but the beginning?
Are you one of the people looking for a more than forgiveness? Not that forgiveness isn’t a lot. I’ve heard it said that if all God did was forgive us it would be more than we deserve and that’s true it would be more than we deserve but it’s not all that’s promised. God promises to send us the power of the Holy Spirit to live within us. God promises us access to the same power that resurrected Jesus from dead. And it is through this power that we are able to do “Greater things than Jesus did.”
Yesterday, I was having a conversation with Tony Zamble, our Urban Outreach Coordinator and he provided me with a great illustration. Perhaps an illustration with which at this time of year you are all too familiar. On most antibiotic prescriptions there is the instruction to take all of the pills. “Do not stop if you begin to feel better. Take the whole prescription.” Some in the church today have not finished the regimen. They have believed in Jesus but not lived into power promised through the Holy Spirit. But as Tony reminded me, “If you only take half the dose it never works as well.”
Come and join us this morning as we talk about what it looks like to enter into the full regimen of God’s Spirit so that we might all do amazing things for the benefit of God’s Kingdom.
In the Spirit of the Resurrection, Pastor Judy
