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THIS CABOOSE CALLED OBEDIENCE
#2
SAMMY’S SALVATION
We had two very personal stories just fall into our
laps recently — and I’m frankly stunned at how they so powerfully reveal
the answer to the question we’ve been grappling with for the past week
or so. Because I have to openly admit: the question of faith and works,
or grace vs. obedience, is one that just slips out of our hands. It’s
hard. It’s agonizingly difficult. It’s the core doctrine that led to the
separation in the church, the Reformation led by Martin Luther. Does our
obedience earn salvation — at least a piece of it — or does Calvary cover
everything? And once Calvary DOES cover everything, does the Christian
who has faith in God need to THEN obey? And if he DOESN’T obey, is the
free gift of Calvary undone or taken back? Hard, hard questions, being
debated in good Christian churches all around the world.
Yesterday we talked about going to a car dealership to get a new car.
And the big ad in the paper says: “No down payment! No money out of your
pocket! Come on in.” And yet we know that the MONTHLY payments are lurking
in the shadows. Those monthly payments — keep the Commandments, love your
neighbor, practice good works, bear fruit — threaten to be our undoing.
So . . . let me tell you about Sammy.
Sammy is a six-year-old kid out there somewhere; none of us at the Voice
of Prophecy have ever met him. Even today, I couldn’t give you an address:
city, state, or even country. But early in this anonymous Oriental boy’s
brief history, his family discovered that he had leukemia. Without some
kind of miraculous treatment, he would soon die.
Obviously the family tried everything. But the treatments failed, and
the options dwindled. Finally it came down to just one thing left: a bone
marrow transplant. This little Sammy simply HAD to find a bone marrow
donor out there somewhere, or it was soon going to be all over.
And then, all at once, it landed right in our ministry. Because it turned
out that one of our own team was a dead-on match for this boy. The necessary
blood factors — there are six of them — were perfectly lined up: six for
six, like a Lotto winning ticket. He had in his own marrow the necessary
ingredients to save Sammy’s life.
Well, of course, he agreed to do it. Believe me, there were a lot of prayers
going up from our office on that Thursday morning, March 2, 1999. I woke
up several times, in the middle of the night, and just couldn’t stop thinking
about it.
But let me tell you what some of us were thinking about in the midnight
hour. Sure, we were excited and thankful to God that He had arranged for
this incredible opportunity to save a kid’s life. That was so moving.
But there’s something more.
You see, ten days before the big operation, the marrow transplant, young
Sammy had to undergo a kind of cleansing. As weak as his immune system
was, the doctors and nurses there at City of Hope Medical Center went
in, and with chemo and radiation and all the rest, absolutely STRIPPED
him of all his defenses. They killed it all. I don’t know if he was in
an oxygen tent for the rest of the way or what, but for ten days, our
little anonymous friend Sammy was completely BARE. He had nothing left.
Then they told our staff member, the donor, “This is completely voluntary.
We can’t make you come in. We can’t compel you. We can’t force you. But
if you back out during these ten days . . . the boy will die. Because
he’s surrendered all other options.”
And you know, that was just about the heaviest thing any of us had ever
heard. Here was an act of total, complete, absolute, nothing-held-back
faith. This little boy had to put his entire LIFE, his everything, his
future, into the hands of our brave staff member here at the Voice of
Prophecy. He was down to this one option, and no other. Nothing left.
Well, friend, here’s where the message of the Christian gospel comes in.
You and I are fatally infected. We have leukemia of the soul, and we’re
marching toward the cemetery. All human resources are exhausted; all other
avenues have been explored and they’ve failed. And then Jesus comes along,
and He goes up on a cross. He dies for us. In a sense, He goes under the
knife and He provides us with life-saving bone marrow. He, and only He,
has the perfect six-for-six match we need — I could give you a whole other
sermon on that, by the way.
And then the point is this: you and I have to commit everything — I mean,
EVERYTHING — to this Person. To Jesus and to His blood and to His Cross.
We cast it ALL at His feet. “Jesus, You are all I have,” is how one preacher
put it, and friend, it’s how I have got to put it today, and how you have
got to put it today as well. Today and every day.
What does this mean? Real faith, where we put our EVERYTHING, at Jesus’
feet, means, first of all, that we’re given eternal life. Forever. Guaranteed.
Written in blood. Nobody can take it away.
That bone marrow transplant, by the way — it required two procedures,
but it finally took hold. Today Sammy is alive and well and heading toward
his seventh birthday, with 70 or 80 more to come, I’m sure. Isn’t that
incredible, wonderful news? And with Calvary, our eternal life is even
MORE sure than anything the City of Hope can offer.
But now here is the point about grace and obedience, or about down payments
and MONTHLY payments, or about justification and sanctification, or however
you want to put it. Two things. Friend, if you put yourself ENTIRELY in
the hands of Jesus — we call that faith, pure faith — that involves trusting
Him for salvation, and also trusting Him in the arena of following Him.
It’s not a case of “Hey, thanks, Jesus, for the marrow . . . now I’m outta
here.” No, to have faith means to follow. To have faith means to obey.
To have faith means to bear fruit. Because Jesus is our Savior, and Friend,
and Mentor, and Guide, and Example, and Leader and everything.
And here, of course, has always been where we have begun to say, “Oh dear.”
Here is where our faith has begun to fail. Here is where Catholics and
Protestants have begun to sharpen their pencils. Because this is where
the monthly payments seem to come in. In the following and obeying.
But what we have to realize is this — and this comes right from the experience
of little Sammy. Total faith, where we put ourselves COMPLETELY in the
hands of Jesus Christ, means as well that we ALSO surrender to him in
this way. We accept His offer where He says to us: “I will help you to
obey. I will help you to grow fruit. I will help you to love your neighbor
and live a life of faithfulness. In fact, in My own time and in My own
way, according to the timetable that I and My Father, and My Helper, the
Holy Spirit, have designed, I will actually take you all the way to perfection,
to glory.”
We’ve used some marvelous Christian quotes before, like where C. S. Lewis
writes about obeying “(quote) in a new way, a less-worried way.” But it
never really struck home before, until we all corporately went through
the Sammy Story together. You put your SELF in the hands of this kind
Benefactor, and then the matter of obedience is one HE cares for. The
matter of Commandments is something HE leads you into.
What is there for us to do, then? Friend, it boils down to the attitude.
An attitude of surrender, of LETTING Him help you obey. That boy and his
family turned to us and said: “You’re all we’ve got. We GIVE our son into
this final option. Holding back nothing . . . because there IS nothing
else.” Do you and I have that attitude toward Jesus and His leadings?
Are we willing to follow? True, we will often stumble. We will often turn
our own way, and then come lurching back. We will often be tempted to
try other pills, think about other potions and procedures, because human
beings are not good at surrendering ALL. But do we have an ATTITUDE of
ALL, of saying, and meaning it: “All to Jesus I surrender”?
Back in August, 2000, we all got an e-mail from a precious Christian friend,
Bj Christiansen. He was a former president in our Adventist faith community,
serving in our Illinois Conference and then here in Southern California.
What a great man of God! Then cancer struck. And after many treatments
and options explored, he wrote to tell us that he was finally discontinuing
the procedures, which weren’t working, and was now entering a hospice
program.
And notice this final line from a man of such great courage:
“We continue to trust in God’s GOODNESS.”
He enters a hospice . . . and trusts in God. He had
modern medicine fail him . . . and he trusts in God. He’s gone now, but
Bj looked into the gathering shadows, the twilight, and said: “God is
good.” Friend, THAT is total faith! Faith to follow even in the darkness.
When it comes to living, or dying, or obeying and following, I think we
all should sing this song: “Safe in the arms of Jesus.”
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