Rising Up: A Message on God’s Presence in Our World

This morning during the children’s message, we watched something simple but powerful. We mixed water — our world — with corn kernels — us, God’s people — and baking soda, which we said stood for sin. Stirred together, the corn just sat there. Heavy. Sunk to the bottom. Going nowhere.

Then we added the vinegar — God’s presence, God’s forgiveness — and everything changed. Bubbles formed at the surface of each kernel, and one by one, the corn began to rise. Not because the corn did anything differently. Not because the kernels earned their way up. They rose because something outside of them — something poured in — lifted them.

And here’s what struck me: they didn’t just rise once and stay there. Some kernels would bubble to the top, dance around for a moment, and then sink back down — only to be lifted again a moment later. Over and over. Rising, sinking, rising again.

That’s us, isn’t it?

Paul spends the opening chapters of Romans laying out exactly this picture. Romans 1 shows humanity sinking under the weight of sin — turning from God, trading truth for lies, going under. By Romans 3, Paul’s verdict is blunt: “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). We are, on our own, kernels at the bottom of the jar. Heavy. Stuck. Going nowhere by our own effort.

But Romans 3:21-22 turns everything: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known… This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” God’s own presence — his righteousness — gets poured into our situation. And what happens? We rise. Not because we became lighter. Not because we stopped being corn in water. We rise because he entered in.

In Romans 3-28 Paul makes the point even sharper. He writes that we are justified — made right, declared righteous — through faith, not by anything we’ve done to earn it. Not by our own effort to stay afloat. Not by scrubbing the baking soda out ourselves. The rising happens because of what’s poured in, not because of what the corn does.

Romans 4 then reminds us this has always been the pattern — Abraham didn’t earn his standing with God through his own effort; it was credited to him through faith. It was gift, not achievement. Grace poured in, not merit built up.

So take heart if you feel like you’re sinking today. If you find yourself lifted up by grace one moment and pulled back under the next — welcome to being human. The good news isn’t that we stop sinking on our own. The good news is that God’s presence keeps being poured out, keeps meeting us at the bottom, and keeps lifting us back to the surface. Again. And again. And again.

That’s not a one-time rescue. That’s a relationship. That’s grace that doesn’t get poured out once and walk away — it stays in the jar with us, ready to lift us the next time we go under.