Do I Still Need a Rescuing Savior?

As I write this note, our church building at Hope is being transformed for our week of Vacation Bible School. Scenes of water, sand, and palm trees will welcome over 130 children as we engage them with Bible accounts, songs, games, snacks, crafts, and stories of real-life application under the theme “Shipwrecked: Rescued by Jesus.” May God bless our week – all the kids, volunteers, and families who come to hear the life-giving news of our rescuing King!

If I were to ask you what it means to be rescued by Jesus, I’m guessing that your mind would journey to a moment in your past. My mind goes all the way back to March 4, 1984, when Jesus grabbed me and joined me to Himself in baptism (truthfully, I don’t remember that moment personally as a two-week-old infant, but others remember it for me!). Maybe your mind goes to a particularly low moment in your life where the news of God’s unconditional love and saving grace became especially meaningful. Perhaps God worked through someone in your life, a believer in Jesus, to literally rescue you from a destructive pattern of behavior like an addiction. As we think of these moments, our hearts are meant to overflow with humility and gratitude in response to the rescuing love of God.

But those things are in the past. Do we still really need a rescuing Savior? Or have we begun to believe that we’ve grown enough to do the Christian life by our own strength? While it is true that maturing Christians are meant to display the fruit of the Spirit more and more, and while it is true that our patterns of thinking and behaving are being renewed day after day by the Holy Spirit living in us, we are also meant to realize that we never outgrow the need for a Rescuer. Jesus said that we bear much fruit as we abide in Him, and that apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). In other words, Christian growth is not an exercise in getting spiritually stronger and more independent. In truth, Christian growth is coming to a deeper awareness of our spiritual weakness and our dependence on Jesus. The older I get, the more I’m meant to understand that I need a Rescuer – One to save me from my sin, manifested in worry, doubt, impatience, distraction, apathy, and so many other ways. And the older I get, the more I see how good Jesus is – that His rescuing grace is my only hope, and that His rescuing grace is enough!

I’m excited for the message that our kids will hear at VBS. And I’m honored to share life with our Hope family – the fellowship of the rescued in Jesus! May God the Holy Spirit lead us always to live in thanksgiving for God’s rescuing grace.

Christ’s peace and joy,
Pastor Baye