Our

Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm 139:13-18; John 17:20-26

So how in the world do I give a sermon on the word “Our”?   I mean it is simply an adjective that is used as a possessive pronoun to speak of a group of people.

Although it is used to talk about a group of people, I was thinking about the fact that in that “our” are individuals.  So today as we look at the word Our from the Cross acrostic “Christ Redeemed Our Sinful Souls” we will first look at who we are as individuals and then who we are as group of people who are called “our.”

As individuals we are all unique.  God makes all of us in a very special way with specific features and characteristics.  None of us are exactly the same.

Even identical twins have some distinctions that separate them from each other.  God’s creativity is so vast that he has created human beings for thousands of years and hasn’t made a duplicate yet!

The story of creation from Genesis is helpful for us to know how God first made humankind but it is not the ending of God’s act of creating.  God continues to create each person through His amazing love.

The creation story is one thing but it is Psalm 139 that moves me to really think about God’s act of creating me and you.  When I read that God created my inmost being; and knit me together in my mother’s womb, it brings an image to my mind that makes me feel ever so special.

The psalmist must have had a similar feeling because the next line says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  To think that God, the Creator of all things, formed me, makes me realize that God really does know who I am from the inside out.  There really is nothing I can hide from Him and that He loves everything about me.  This brings me to a point of feeling closer to God than ever!

How about you?  Have you ever really read Psalm 139 and thought about what it is saying?  How can we read about being formed and knitted together by God without feeling a connection with our Creator?  We are and would be nothing without the work of God our Creator.  The bodies we have, and that we so often complain about, or even abuse with cigarettes, drugs, overeating or over-working, were formed by God Himself!!

We were given the gift of life by God who formed us and knew us even before the world knew we existed.

So who are we as individuals?  We are creations of God.  We are God’s children.  This helps to explain how and why – when Jesus, God in the flesh, hung on the cross at Calvary He thought of you and me.  When I heard this the first time I could not understand how Jesus could have been thinking of me while He was on the cross.  It was thousands of years before I was born, how could He have been thinking of me?  It is because He already knew me.  Time is nothing to God.  God is Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end – and He knows and sees, at a glance, everything that is in-between.  This is how we could be on His mind as He hung on the cross.  This is how Jesus can be our individual Savior.

Because we know God created and intimately knows each of us, we can also find peace and hope in the fact that Jesus is our personal Savior.

We can’t though, leave this message without considering how we as individuals become a group that can be so connected that we can use the word “our.”  First of all, how do we use the word “our”?   We talk about “our church” right?  We say things like, “our church family” or “our ministry.”  The word, “Our” describes us a group of God’s children.  We are individuals but when we come together we are creating a Family of God who are all connected through our belief in Jesus Christ – God’s one and only Son.

When we as a group of Christian believers use the word “Our,” we are recognizing that we are all joined together through the saving power of Jesus Christ.  Our church – Our family – Our ministry – would be nothing if it was not based on the power of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus’ prayer from John 17 we read that becoming an Our was more than coming together as individuals.  It is in coming together in Christ that the word Our takes on meaning.  Jesus prayed,

“I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”  

In this, Our  – becomes even bigger than a single church or ministry.  Our includes all those who believe in Jesus Christ.

Our – such a simple three letter word but when we look at what is really behind it we can see the importance of it.  This Lenten season may we each know how special we are individually but also the significance of being included in the “OUR.”

We are all individuals but we find hope and meaning in knowing that: “Christ redeemed OUR sinful souls.”