Irony: something that has a different or opposite result from what is expected:
It’s impossible to experience God unless you have a sense of irony. There’s no chance of even coming close to understanding Jesus or the Gospel unless you can get irony.
You’ll never have the sense of humor for it, for one thing. You will always take yourself too seriously. You’ll always be trying too hard. You’ll always be like the Ted Baxter character in Caddyshack, positioning yourself for things that don’t matter and are absurd.
It’s impossible to understand what God has done for us without knowing how ridiculously ironic it is.
This Sunday at the Gathering Church we will look at one of the clearest descriptions of irony. Found in Romans 5:1-11 the apostle Paul cannot hardly fathom the result of God’s love.
It is so unexpected.
It makes no sense.
People whom by their failures and constant attempts to live for the wrong things and should be rejected by God become the focus of his greatest act of love.
People who royally mess up become the guests of honor to God’s celebration.
People who should have nothing when it comes to God suddenly have everything – peace, grace, joy, purpose and everything else one can imagine.
As we continue the message series, First Things First, a look at what it means to worship God we will see why the first followers of Jesus were marked by a joy that made no sense.
They were gripped by irony.