Our almost four year old son, Jeremiah, is an Angry Birds fanatic. Actually, I am not sure that someone this young should be as proficient at the game as he is. He has taught multiple adults how to play and we get a kick out of watching him play. This kid is passionate about Angry Birds. So, we gave in and bought him an Angry Birds stuffed animal for Christmas. Also for Christmas, my good friend, knowing Jeremiah's slight obsession, bought him a box (which later turned into several boxes) of Angry Birds fruit snacks. (He feels compelled to call her and let him know when his supply is out-- we are working on that). This same friend often comes over and lets my kids play Angry Birds on her iPhone, and this Tuesday was no different. As she was leaving, there was talk about Jeremiah being upset over "deleting" Angry Birds. Sure enough, she checked her phone and he must have held down the icon too long, and had a 50/50 chance to answer "Are you sure you want to delete this app?" correctly since he can't read yet. It seems he went with the three letter choice and thus, Angry Birds was deleted. At dinner that night, we asked the kids what their "high" for the day was and what their "low" for the day was. Jeremiah quickly said his low was "'downloading' Angry Birds from (our friend's) iPhone."
It turns out, that syncing did re-install the app, but all of her husband's extensive Angry Birds' achievement over the last several months was lost for good. I gently shared this with Jeremiah the next morning-- that the levels completed had been lost and our friend was sad. Quickly, he got up from the breakfast table and came back with a Ziplock bag full of the cardboard Angry Birds images he had cut out from the fruit snacks boxes and had been saving. With urgency, he said, "I will give him these!" It was as if to say, "I want to fix it and make it right and this will do it!" It almost brought me to tears and I told him I thought it was a great idea to give those to him to say he was sorry.
Later that night, he chose to pray about the Angry Birds situation. Today, first thing in the morning and unprompted by me, he brought out the bag of cardboard Angry Birds images and asked me to write a note on it saying he was sorry and asking for forgiveness. And then, he said that he wanted us to take it to our friend's house. He was very specific that he wanted to go in the house and see him and hand this package over himself. He then turned as if we were going to go do this right now. I explained it would have to wait until later. He then brought out something more expensive and more precious to him that the same couple had given him, to which I said, "Sweet boy, (our friend) would not want you to give that back to him. He wants you to enjoy this good gift he has given you. This gift of a toy is not going to get all of those completed Angry Birds levels back. Yes, you have done something that you cannot fix, but you can ask him to forgive you. And I know he will. He loves you. And he is able to fix it." You have to understand that these are our very good friends, like an aunt and an uncle to our kids and some of the most charitable people I know.
As I saw this turmoil unfolding in Jeremiah's heart, I started thinking about and thanking God for His amazing gospel of grace. As our pastor recently said, "God is holy. We are not. That's a problem." I thought about how we try to bring pieces of cardboard to God to atone for our sin. Not only does cardboard not fix our separation from a holy God, just like it doesn't fix losing completed levels of an iPhone game, but God doesn't want our cardboard. He doesn't want our better gift. He wants us to acknowledge our sin, and to turn to Him. He is the only One who has the ability to fix our sin problem and He wants to give us the solution-- His forgiveness, mercy and grace through Jesus' death and resurrection. He is an unbelievably good God who truly loves us and really wants us to be with Him. He is FOR us unholy, sinful people. And that, is incredible to me. I am thankful.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast."
Titus 3:4-7 says, "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."
Andi
Here is a link to our pastor's sermon:
http://www.yourchurch.com/sermon/the-mystery-of-godliness/
Here is a simple, but helpful website:
http://www.getchristiananswers.com/articles/what-romans-road-salvation#.T0jlOIcgeSo
