Looking Upon His Friendly Heart

Next weekend I'll be working a Walk to Emmaus and will be speaking on the topic, "Justifying Grace." I've worked many Walks and given lots of talks, but never this one. Each time I speak at one of these glorious weekend Walks I've always tried to do more than give theology...I tell my story, which is what most of the others do. For the past few weeks as I've prayed over and wrestled with this talk, what came to mind as framework for this message was the movie, "Luther."

I'm going to show a clip from the early part of the film, where this terrified monk is in his room crying out to God in anguish because of the lack of peace in his heart. His father in the faith, an older and wiser monk, walks by his room and hears Luther mumbling his prayers of despair. The senior monk walks gently into his room, listens to young Luther, then kneels down with him and began ministering to this tormented soul. He asked, What is it you seek, Martin?" Luther replied, "I want a merciful God. A God who loves me."

Then the elder monk did the coolest thing. He took off from his neck a necklace with a large cross hanging from it and placed it in Luther's sweaty hand. He looked with love into Luther's eyes and said, "Then look to Christ. Bind yourself to Christ. Say, `I am yours. Save me. I...am...yours. Save me." And Luther rather sheepishly repeated these words while clinging to the cross with one hand and squeezing his mentor's hand with his other.

Not long after that incident Martin was sent to Wittenburg to teach and he began reading the New Testament. While reading the book of Romans he discovered the gospel of grace...and Christ set his heart free.

There's another great scene in the film I must tell you about. He is speaking to his congregants about his newly found freedom in Christ. And he tells them, "If we truly believe Christ is our Savior, then we have a God of love. To see God in faith is to look upon His friendly heart."

I love that line: "We look upon His friendly heart." When we trust Jesus to save us, we become a friend of God and know this God who LOVES us."

Eugene Peterson describes this "friendly heart" of God so well in this paraphrase of a passage in Romans 5:

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us – set us right with him, make us fit for him – we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us.” – Rom. 5, The Message

As we trust completely in Christ and what He did for us on that cross, may we be filled with His Spirit and know deeply in our hearts that we are deeply loved by Him...and that we look upon His friendly heart.

Jim