Prayer: May your way, your truth, and your life be ever clearer to us as we worship you, O God. In Christ we pray, Amen.

We all know what blueprints are. Most every architect, upon completing the design of a building, has the drawings copied into blueprint format. These are mainly the technical designs which are considered to be the paper-based reproduction of the real thing. In common language, however, the term ‘blueprint’ has come to refer to any detailed plan (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint> retrieved February 22, 2008).

In our text today, perhaps Paul is sharing what he thinks is God’s blueprint of salvation. In this long letter, Paul constructs a logical argument describing what is needed for God’s salvation. It is kind of like a paper-based reproduction of the real thing. There are four parts to this blueprint.

Part one—articulated mainly in Romans, chapters 1-4: “no one is righteous, and we all need help.” Boy, I’ll say! I need help! We all need help! But, what about the “no one is righteous” part? That’s where Paul says that no one, on their own, is acceptable to God. God won’t accept any person because all the laws found in the Bible were obeyed. No one will be found worthy of God’s favor by going to church every Sunday. No one will be approved by God by doing something nice for someone else. Everyone falls short of being righteous before God. The Jewish person falls short because they couldn’t live up to the Jewish law. Moses fell short, even though he had the law. The Gentile, (non-Jewish person) falls short because they didn’t have the law.

Modern day Christians fall short, also. Rev. Billy Graham falls short. Oswald Chambers falls short. Martin Luther King, Jr., Norman Vincent Peale, Mother Theresa, Joel Olstein, Robert Schuller, even Rev. Galen E. Russell III, all fall short! Everyone falls short of the glory of God. And, everyone needs God’s help in making us righteous, in making us holy, because not one of us has the ability to do that! But we have faith that God can do that. We trust that God does that.

That leads to part two. If everyone one of us needs help in being righteous and holy before God, then (part two) God has provided the help we need in the form of God’s Son, Jesus, making peace with us. According to Paul, through Jesus Christ, we now can be reconciled with God. Through Jesus, we have a wonderful new friendship with God. Amen! But, there’s a catch. It’s not pretty.

The Discovery channel has a show on called “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe. Ever see it? Mike Rowe investigates the most disgusting, the dirtiest, the stinkiest, the worst ‘you-never-would-be-caught-dead-doing’ jobs ever. He’s cleaned dairy farm floors. He has plucked stinging blood worms out of low tide muck. He has scrubbed out penguin enclosures above and below the water line at the zoo. He has slogged through the muddy swamps in search of gators. The people who actually do those jobs are proud to show Mike the filthiness of their jobs (Sermon Resources, www.esermons.com, retrieved February 22, 2008). It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, right?

But none of those jobs comes close to the dirtiest job in human history. Jesus did the dirty work for us by dying on the cross, and suffering incredible torture on the way to the cross. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, right? And, Jesus did. And, he did it “while humanity was still weak, while human beings were entrenched in ungodliness.” He did it, not because we were able to become righteous or holy on our own, but because we can’t become righteous or holy ourselves. He did it while we were still sinners, not after we figured out how to be right with God. His death, despite humanity’s unholiness, opens the door to a beautiful new relationship with God.

Groucho Marx was famous for saying he wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would let him in (Warren, Rick, The Purpose Driven Life, Zondervan, 2002, p. 163). Perhaps each one of us could say the same thing about ourselves if we are honest about our inherent ability to be imperfect and our inability to become perfect. I mean, why would God let the likes of us into eternal life with God? We who cannot measure up to God’s laws… we who have no power to fix the broken relationship with God. Fortunately, God sent Jesus into the world to offer the help it needs to be in a restored relationship with God. And, Jesus did this!

Once Jesus accomplishes this, part three takes over. Part three for Paul is that God no longer condemns people, especially those who desire to experience this restored relationship with God. Instead, Paul says that God is now justified in letting the Holy Spirit transform the inner life of a person. God no longer ostracizes people, rather God reconnects with people. God no longer rejects or disapproves of the human race, instead every member of the human race can come unto God to realize this free gift of restoration. People come unto God, all the while looking to Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). That is what Paul means to be “in Christ.” In Paul’s way of thinking, being “in Christ” means that people are welcome to experience a life full of God in this earthly life and in the next life.

We have heard about St. Francis of Assisi as one of the most Christ-like of all the church’s saints. In his early twenties, St. Francis had a vision of Jesus, renounced his wealth and all of his possessions, and began a life devoted to God. For Francis, it was all about God. Francis found God everywhere—in birds, the animals, the sun, the moon, even in death. His life was marked by contagious joy because he experienced the fullness, the graciousness, the openness of God in this life. He lived a life full of God! Jesus was even better at it.

We can do it, too! We can live a life full of God. We can be in Christ. We can live in this restored relationship with God. God creates something new in us. The old life of not caring about God or what God loves is replaced with a new life within us, that lives for God and loves what God loves. That is the fourth part. God’s Holy Spirit becomes alive in us and begins in us a process of personal transformation.

As changed people, as new creations in Christ, we are encouraged to live differently. Ever since we knew our inner lives had changed, the new life full of God reflects in everything we say and do. The Holy Spirit is imploring us to share with everyone around us about God’s love for them and for the world. God is still speaking, through us.

A Mercedes-Benz TV commercial shows one of their cars colliding with a concrete wall during a safety test. Did you know that Mercedes-Benz has a patent on the energy-absorbing design for their car body? And, did you know that almost every other car maker in the world has copied the design in spite of the fact that they have this exclusive patent. Someone in the ad asks a Mercedes engineer why their company does not enforce their patent on their car’s energy-absorbing car body. The engineer in a very German accent says, “Because in life, some things are just too important not to share” (Sermon Resources, www.esermons.com, retrieved February 22, 2008). Whoa! The message of God’s restorative grace is one of those things in life too important not to share! Through actions and words offered by God-filled people, God is still speaking.

As new creations in Christ, we are able look back at our history and see places where God-filled, God-centered, faith-filled people worked diligently for God, advocating what God loves, and acting against what God hates. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the cause against the oppression of people of color whose rights were continually being violated in the sixties. I think God was still speaking in that day through Dr. King.

If we look at the history of our own Chapel Hill United Church of Christ, we see a long track record of Christians reaching out to others who have need—emotional need, spiritual need, physical needs, financial needs—whatever the need, as new creations in Christ, we reached out to people who have need, we reach out today to those who have need, and with God’s Spirit giving us strength, we will continue to reach out responding to the need in the days to come. Through our actions and words, God is still speaking.

That’s the blueprint… the reproduction on paper and in your hearing of the real thing—God’s wonderful love for the world and God’s blueprint addresses the great divide people had with God. The divide is closed, the breach repaired. Because help came in the form of Jesus Christ. Now humanity lives in a restored relationship with God. It’s up to humanity, it’s up to each of us to believe the truth of God’s blueprint, and trust that God is still working in us, still speaking through us. Amen.