The Restoration

In the film, O Brother Where Art Thou, the three friends who broke out of jail together at one point cross paths with the legendary bank robber, George “Babyface” Nelson. Before they know what’s happening, Nelson takes them with him to rob a bank. After the successful heist, the four men are sitting around a fire that night counting their loot. Delmar, one of the friends, smiles and exclaims,

“Jackin’ up banks, yesirr. I can understand how a fellar could get a lot of pleasure out of that. It almost makes me wish I hadn’t got saved.”

You see, Delmar and his friend Peter had just been baptized at a revival meeting. Delmar rightly understood that he was a different. Even though their friend, Everett, called them both “dumber than a bag of hammers,” Delmar understood that now he was a Christian, he couldn’t go around “jackin’ up banks,’ even though it might tempting to do so.

If only some that call themselves Christians were as smart as Delmar. If only more people understood the connection between being Christian and leaving old sinful ways behind.

Who of us has not abused the grace and forgiveness of God with our stubborn sin?
When we sin as believers, we cheapen the grace we have received.

St. Paul protests this cheapening of grace:

“Just because we have grace does that mean we can keep on sinning? No! Sin belongs to the old person we once were, not to the new person we are in Christ. We are new because we are baptized into Christ’s life. We were baptized into his death and baptized into new life. We will be resurrected just like he was.” Romans 6.1-5

Our sin is an offense to God. Sin breaks the rules that are for our good. Much more than that, sins breaks relationship. Now, I’m asked sometimes, if I sin once, does God turn his back on me? No, just like when your friend offends you, you don’t quit on them. But at the same time, persistent offense sure puts a strain on the relationship.

In his Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis has a seen where the Pevensie children meet the Christ-figure, Aslan. Aslan is a Lion, the Lion.

Lucy, the youngest child, asks a Narnian, “Is he (the Lion) safe?”

“Safe? If there’s anyone that can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking is braver than most or else just plain silly.

“Then he isn’t safe?” asked Lucy.

“Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King.”

You don’t have to be any smarter than Delmar to know that it’s a healthy thing to give God proper reverence and fear. Yes, fear. I know these days a lot of people want a God who is warm and kind and pretty tolerant of things all in all. We want a grandpa or a grandma up there who always smiles upon us and give us treats and would never really discipline too much. We don’t want to hear about a God who gets angry at sin, our sin, especially. But it’s the goodness of God that is the source of his anger.

Jesus, says, fear God.

“Do not fear those who can kill the body but can’t touch the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell . . .whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” Matthew 10.28, 33

Remember who is most important here! Remember whose opinion of you really counts. It’s God’s. Jesus said if in comparison to your love and devotion to God, your devotion to your spouse, your parents, your children, doesn’t almost seem like hate, then you are really missing the point of your life. Jesus is exaggerating these differences in relationship to get our attention.

It’s our souls at stake here, friends. It’s eternity. That’s pretty big.

We know the grace of Jesus Christ saves us for eternity. But our salvation is not just getting a ticket punched or our hand stamped. It’s getting us dead, buried, and reborn. That’s salvation!


The power of Jesus that gives us new life is the power that will transform us into “heaven-ready” persons, if you will. God wants to make us ready for eternity with him. He will have us ready so he can “set us loose with confidence in the universe.” Adam and Eve were once set loose in the Garden. This time around it will last forever.

We are a key part of God’s big plan to bring history to fulfillment. God is going to transform the earth and the heavens. He’s not going to flood them. He’s not going to allow them to be blown up. He is going to set up everything, finally, just as he wants it to be.

“The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Romans 8.21

This vision of the End is very different from the vision that all other religions provide. In other faiths the end of human history is seen as the illusion of the world melting away or spiritual souls escaping the physical world. Those are the visions that Buddhism, Hinduism, and countless cults portray. Life is a cycle that you work to get out of eventually. You know, karma, dummy, as Joy says on My Name Is Earl.

In the Christian vision, human history is a big story which is part of the bigger story of God’s writing. Timothy Keller says, “It is hard to overemphasize the uniqueness of this vision.”

As believers in Christ we not only care about the salvation of all souls (unlike say Islam, Mormonism, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, which make heaven an exclusive club indeed) but we are called to participate in the transformation of the world on every level. To be sure, the new heaven and new earth will be ushered in, not by the sweat of our brows, but by the Second Coming of Jesus at the trumpet call. But our personal transformation and the transformation of the world go hand in hand.

Look, Resurrection means the beginning of the Real Life, the Real Thing. We are going to know each other and be known. We won’t be walking around as ghosts, but as more real persons than we’ve ever been. It’s like when I’m coaching my 8, 9, and 10 year old baseball players. They do their best and they play well often. They’re in the game and the game is baseball. But then most of them move up to Little League and it’s the same game but it’s a different game. It’s a better game because they have grown. They’re better. They look at themselves and say, “I’m not the same player I was. I’m better. I’m what I knew I could be.”

God knows what we all can be. God knows what the Universe can be. Only God knows these things right now. But someday everyone will know because every one will see it for themselves at the Restoration of All Things.


At the end of the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan tells the children this:

“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.