Experiencing God: The Chink In God's Armor

"Experiencing God:  The Chink In God's Armor"
Hosea 11:1-9

Has anybody been watching the movie series, "The Hobbit"?  It's based on J.R.R. Tolkein's book by the same name, so maybe some of you have read it.  It's a fantasy story about a little dwarf like man--a Hobbit--named Bilbo Baggins.  Bilbo, against his better judgement, agrees to go on a perilous journey by the wizard, Gandalf.  At one point in the story, Bilbo helped a village get rid of the dragon, Smaug.  Smaug lived inside a dark mountain and slept on a pile of jewels and gold that it had stolen from surrounding villages over a period of many years.  And dragons live a long time.

Because Bilbo had found a magic ring that made him invisible when he wore it, he was chosen to sneak into Smaug's cave and see if the dragon had a weakness.  Bilbo discovered one of the dragon's thick scales had broken off.  The gap in the scales was in the middle of its chest, directly over its heart.  The next time the dragon attacked the village, the archers were ready.  They aimed for the thin spot in the dragon's chest, that one small spot of vulnerability.

Or, there's the Greek myth from Homer's Illiad, about the hero, Achilles.  As a child, Achilles had been dipped in the magical river.  Since that point, Achilles was protected against all foes.  He was dipped all the way in the river, except where he was being held by his heals.  So his heals were not protected from the river's enchantment.

Achilles became a great warrior and the leader in the Trojan Wars.  But he was killed by Paris when Paris shot an arrow that struck Achilles in the heel.  It was his only vulnerable spot.  So the term "Achilles heel" has come to mean those parts of us that are susceptible to attack.  They are our weak spots.  They are the chinks in our armor.  No matter how well we try to protect ourselves, there are those vulnerable spots where our defenses are weakest.  Where there are no dragon scales to protect us.

We believe God is omnipotent.  That is, God is all powerful.  We believe that there is no power or force that is greater than God.  God can do anything.  God can resist all attacks.  God has no unprotected spot.  God has no chink in the armor.  God has no achilles heal.  God has no weaknesses.  We have believed that is true.

I'm not sure I believe that anymore.  I believe I have discovered a weakness in God.  I think I have found a place where God has chosen to be left unprotected.  It is an achilles heal on God.  It is a place where God has chosen to remain vulnerable.  The verses read earlier from Hosea is one of the more poignant places in scripture where God's soft spot is described.

This is how God's chink in the armor came to be.  God fell in love with people.  The way that happened, as described here in Hosea, is through an adoptive process.  God's love is an adoptive love.  It is a love that comes out of choosing rather than obligation.  God adopted--that is, God fell in love in a lovingly, parental way--with people.  It is a conscious choice.  Apparently, if I'm reading these verses correctly, God didn't have to make that choice.  But God did.  God chose us, adopted us, out of a tender love.

God didn't leave it at that.  God could have merely said, "OK, I adopt you; I name you my children."  And then left it at that.  Instead, God took time to be the kind of adoptive parent who takes his choices seriously.  God spent great amounts of time and energy pursuing and adopting us as children.  God uses tender, parental imagery here:  "I was the one who taught Israel how to walk..."  God's love for us has been, and continues to be a pursuing, hands on love.  God is not absentee parent.

Some children were asked what the difference was between plain old love and true love.  One little girl answered, "Love is when my mommy reads me a bedtime story.  True love is when she doesn't skip any pages."

God's pursuing love for us is that kind of not-skipping-any-pages kind of love.  God wants to make sure we know that He is involved with us every step of the way.  And that God will not skip anything along the way to get to us.

God's pursuing love is full of touch and affection.  As it says in these verses in Hosea:  "I took my people up in my arms...I picked them up and held them to my cheek...I drew them to me with affection and love."  God's loving arms are ready for us.

The problem is that we often don't see that.  We don't realize how often or how much God tenderly cares for us.  Touches our spirits in affectionate ways.  "I took my people up in my arms," says God.  But then God follows that statement up with, "...but they did not acknowledge that I took care of them."  God said, "...I called to them, but the more I called, the more they turned away from me."

In the middle of this love poem from God to God's people is an interlude of frustrated love.  Of love spurned.  God's love pursues us; we run away.  We turn to others who promise us much less than what God has offered, and we run toward that, and leave God behind.

Remember I said that God's pursuing love is like an adoptive love.  There are adoptees who search for their biological parents.  I have walked with some parishioners over the years who went through that process, and wish they wouldn't have. Sometimes it breaks the adoptive parents hearts when a child wants to look for his "real" parents.  I try to explain what it means to be a "real" parent.  That it doesn't take much effort to get pregnant and have a child.  Just giving birth doesn't make you  a parent.  It's what you do after the birth that makes you a parent.  That's what real parenting is all about.  To adoptive parents, the adoptee isn't just an adopted child.  He or she is their son or daughter.  Period.

I have a feeling that that is what this interlude of frustrated love in Hosea's love poem is all about.  People said to God, "I'm going to find my 'real' God.  You aren't my real God.  You say you are, but you really aren't."  But even then, God's love doesn't give up the pursuit.

John Henry Jowett once said, "Love doesn't come from doing something; it comes from being with Somebody."

Maybe you've read the book, The Little Prince.  It's just a small book, but packed with insight about love.  It is a fable or parable about the Little Prince who has a special rose.  At one point in the story, the Little Prince is frustrated because of all the time he thinks he has wasted caring for his rose.  The rose, in turn, doesn't seem to appreciate the Little Prince.  The Little Prince tells his woes to the fox.  The fox thinks for a minute and then said, "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes it so important."

That's what God is saying, I think.  "I've been with you since you were a tiny child.  I have never faltered from being with you.  I have never strayed from pursuing you, or been absent from you.  I have dried your tears when you cried.  I have cheered you on.  I have swelled with pride, just to be with you.  I have wasted time on you, never thinking it a waste.  It was just something I wanted to do.  You can turn away from me all you want.  But I will always be with you, pursuing you with my love, no matter what."

And there lies God's vulnerable spot.  There is God's achilles heal.  There is the chink in God's armor.  God may have to say with Forest Gump, "I may not be a very smart man, but I know what love is."  That's the way God chooses to appear: maybe not very smart in continuing the pursuit (just like Forest Gump did with Jenny in the movie), but God is very loving.  Very forgiving.  Very accepting.  Very unvengeful.  Very faithful and loyal.  No matter what.

Sir Thomas More was an Irish poet.  He got married early in life to a beautiful Irish lass with flaming red hair and green eyes.  Her beauty surpassed them all.

Sir Thomas was called away to teach for a time at a distant university.  During his absence, his beautiful wife contracted smallpox.  The dreaded disease left pock marks and scars all over her body, especially her face.  She couldn't even look at herself, and forbade others to look at her as well.  She was so fearful that Sir Thomas would reject her that she resolved her face would never agains see the light of day.  She kept herself in her room, and had heavy drapes fitted to block out all sunlight.

When Sir Thomas returned, he was informed about his once lovely wife.  He went immediately up to their bedroom.  She recognized his footsteps in the darkness and said, "No, Thomas, come no nearer.  I have resolved that you will never see me again by the light of day."  Sir Thomas quietly, without saying a word, turned and left the room.

He went downstairs and went into the music room where he sat at the piano working on the words of a poem.  The next morning he returned to the upstairs bedroom.  He came to the door of the bedroom, pushed it open, and there in the half light of the hallway, he took the poem and read it to her:

Believe me,
if all those endearing young charms,
which I look on so fondly today,
were to pass in a moment,
and flee from my arms
like fairy dreams fading away,
thou would'st still be adored,
as this moment thou art.
Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
and around that dear visage
each throb of my heart
would entwine itself
verdantly still.

Sir Thomas placed the paper in his vest pocket, moved to one of the large windows, and threw open the heavy drapes.  As the first rays of the early morning's dawn flooded into the room, he turned just in time to receive his wife into his arms.

God's love poem here in Hosea carries the same message:
How can I give you up?
How can I abandon you?
My heart will not let me do it!
My love for you is too strong.

In those words lay the soft spot that leads to God's own heart.  It is a spot that God has chosen not to protect.  It is the place God leaves open, hoping we will see it and take advantage of it, not to wound God, but to embrace God and allow ourselves to be embraced by God--right next to God's exposed and ever pursuing heart.

Experiencing God: Crisis of Belief

"Experiencing God:  Crisis of Belief"
Acts 14:1-7

As a large part of the message this morning, I want to share the story of how Rosaria Butterfield heard God's invitation, and how she became a person of faith.  I don't know Rosaria.  I found her story on a website of people whose lives were transformed when they became a Christian.

I'll read a piece of Rosaria's story, then stop and make some comments based on one of the "seven realities" Henry Blackaby writes about in chapter 5 of Experiencing God.  Here's how Rosaria starts out her story:

The word Jesus stuck in my throat like an elephant tusk; no matter how hard I choked, I couldn't hack it out. Those who professed the name commanded my pity and wrath. As a university professor, I tired of students who seemed to believe that "knowing Jesus" meant knowing little else. Christians in particular were bad readers, always seizing opportunities to insert a Bible verse into a conversation with the same point as a punctuation mark: to end conversation rather than deepen it.

Stupid. Pointless. Menacing. That's what I thought of Christians and their god Jesus, who in paintings looked as powerful as a Breck Shampoo commercial model.

As a professor of English and women's studies, on the track to becoming a tenured radical, I cared about morality, justice, and compassion. Fervent for the world-views of Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Darwin, I strove to stand with the disempowered. I valued morality. And I probably could have stomached Jesus and his band of warriors if it weren't for how other cultural forces buttressed the Christian Right...

After my tenure book was published, I used my post to advance the understandable allegiances of a leftist lesbian professor. My life was happy, meaningful, and full...

I began researching Religious groups and their politics of hatred. To do this, I would need to read the one book that had, in my estimation, gotten so many people off track: the Bible. While on the lookout for some Bible scholar to aid me in my research, I launched my first attack on the unholy trinity of Jesus, Republican politics, and patriarchy, in the form of an article in the local newspaper about Promise Keepers. It was 1997.

(Inside, though) I was a broken mess. I did not want to lose everything that I loved. But the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world.

The article generated many rejoinders, so many that I kept a Xerox box on each side of my desk: one for hate mail, one for fan mail. But one letter I received defied my filing system. It was from the pastor of the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church. It was a kind and inquiring letter. Ken Smith encouraged me to explore the kind of questions I admire: How did you arrive at your interpretations? How do you know you are right? Do you believe in God? Ken didn't argue with my article; rather, he asked me to defend the presuppositions that undergirded it. I didn't know how to respond to it, so I threw it away.

One of the "Seven Realities" that Blackaby brings up in chapter 5 of Experiencing God is that God's invitation to join him always leads to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.  In other words, God is going to make you think.

But it's not a kind of thinking where you're sitting in your barcalounger ruminating and cogitating about some philosophical religious falderal.  Instead it's the kind of thinking that forces you to ask some basic questions about two fronts of your life.  First, belief in God.  Do you believe in God and do you believe God?  Notice that question doesn't have to do with God.  It has to do with you.

So, if you are serious about asking yourself that question, and answering it, that will bring you to the crisis of belief that Blackaby mentions in this chapter.  Do you believe or not?  And notice the two different shades of questions that I asked:  Do you believe IN God?  And, Do you BELIEVE God.  You ask yourself those two questions, and you will very much find yourself in a crisis of belief.  If you say, "Yes" to both of those questions, then what does that mean for your life, how you're going to live, the choices you make?  If you answer "No," then what does that mean?  They are two very basic questions that you can't avoid.

They were questions that a perceptive pastor asked Rosaria, not to get into an argument with Rosaria, but for her to understand she's not going to get away with little self-reflection about where she was at with God.  So, let's hear some more about this crisis of faith that came upon Rosaria.

Later that night, I fished the (pastor's) letter out of the recycling bin and put it back on my desk, where it stared at me for a week, confronting me with the worldview divide that demanded a response. As a postmodern intellectual, I operated from a historical materialist worldview, but Christianity is a supernatural worldview. Ken's letter punctured the integrity of my research project without him knowing it.

With the letter, Ken initiated two years of bringing the church to me, a heathen. Oh, I had seen my share of Bible verses. That Christians who mocked me...were happy that I and everyone I loved were going to hell was clear as blue sky. That is not what Ken did. He did not mock. He engaged. So when his letter invited me to get together for dinner, I accepted. My motives at the time were straightforward: Surely this will be good for my research.

Something else happened. Ken and his wife, Floy, and I became friends. They entered my world. They met my friends. We did book exchanges. We talked openly about sexuality and politics and faith. They did not act as if such conversations were polluting them. They did not treat me like a blank slate. When we ate together, Ken prayed in a way I had never heard before. His prayers were intimate. Vulnerable. He repented of his sin in front of me. He thanked God for all things. Ken's God was holy and firm, yet full of mercy. And because Ken and Floy did not invite me to church, I knew it was safe to be friends.

I started reading the Bible. I read the way a glutton devours food. I read it many times that first year in multiple translations. At a dinner gathering my partner and I were hosting, my friend J cornered me in the kitchen. She put her large hand over mine. "This Bible reading is changing you, Rosaria," she warned.

With tremors, I whispered, "J, what if it is true? What if Jesus is a real and risen Lord? What if we are all in trouble?

J exhaled deeply. "Rosaria," she said, "I was a Presbyterian minister for 15 years. I prayed that God would heal me, but he didn't. If you want, I will pray for you."

The "what if?" questions that Rosaria was voicing to her friend is the crisis of faith that Blackaby says we will experience if we are seriously entertaining God's invitation to join Him.  All the years of Rosaria's dealing with Jesus by not dealing with him are now up for question.  The crisis of faith is now fully engaged.  What if she was wrong all those years?  What if she was wrong about Jesus?  What if what she read about Jesus in the Bible is true?  All of us have to answer that crisis-creating question.  God will not allow us to do otherwise.  We all have to go through the crisis of faith in order to experience God.

Here's more of Rosaria's story:

I continued reading the Bible, all the while fighting the idea that it was inspired. But the Bible got to be bigger inside me than I. It overflowed into my world. I fought against it with all my might. Then, one Sunday morning, I rose from my bed...and an hour later sat in a pew at the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church...

I fought with everything I had.
I did not want this.
I did not ask for this.
I counted the costs. And I did not like the math on the other side of the equal sign.

But God's promises rolled in like sets of waves into my world. One Lord's Day, Ken preached on John 7:17: "If anyone wills to do [God's] will, he shall know concerning the doctrine..." (NKJV). This verse exposed the quicksand in which my feet were stuck. I was a thinker. I was paid to read books and write about them. I expected that in all areas of life, understanding came before obedience. And I wanted God to show me, on my terms, why I was a sinner. I wanted to be the judge, not one being judged.

But the verse promised understanding after obedience. I wrestled with the question: Did I really want to understand (my sin) from God's point of view, or did I just want to argue with him? I prayed that night that God would give me the willingness to obey before I understood. I prayed long into the unfolding of day. When I looked in the mirror, I looked the same. But when I looked into my heart through the lens of the Bible, I wondered, Am I a sinner, or has this all been a case of mistaken identity? If Jesus could split the world asunder, divide marrow from soul, could he make my true identity prevail? Who am I? Who will God have me to be?

Remember, I said earlier that the crisis of belief comes at us from two directions.  The second direction, the second crisis of faith has to do with belief in yourself.  The heart of this part of the crisis of faith has to do with the question, Are you doubting that you can do what God is asking you to do?  Do you know who you are, and what you're here for, and if you don't, how are you going to find out?

And here is another question that fits in here:  Do you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you?  We talk a lot about how important it is to believe in God.  But we don't talk enough about how God believes in us.  If God didn't believe in you, He wouldn't ask you to join Him in His work.

Believing in someone is to love them.  I found this version of 1 Corinthians 13--the love chapter--that I really like.  1 Corinthians 13:7, in the "Easy To Read Version" says:  "Love never gives up on people.  It never stops believing in them, loses hope, and never quits."

Believing in someone doesn't mean you believe they can do anything they set their mind to.  Believing in someone doesn't mean they look up to you, although that may be a part of it.   To say you believe in God is saying more than you know God exists.  To believe in God is to have confidence in God, to esteem God, to trust God.  Aren't we saying the same thing to someone when we say we believe in them?  In other words, we love them.  And that's what God means when God believes in us.  Even if we don't believe in God, God always believes in us.  And there's the crisis:  do we believe that?

Here's the last little piece of Rosaria's story:

Then, one ordinary day, I came to Jesus, openhanded and naked. In this war of world-views, Ken was there. Floy was there. The church that had been praying for me for years was there. Jesus triumphed. And I was a broken mess. Conversion was a train wreck. I did not want to lose everything that I loved. But the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world. I weakly believed that if Jesus could conquer death, he could make right my world. I drank, tentatively at first, then passionately, of the solace of the Holy Spirit. I rested in private peace, then community, and today in the shelter of a covenant family, where one calls me "wife" and many call me "mother."  (Rosaria Champagne Butterfield is the author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert.)

That's what it all comes down to--working through the crisis of faith God's invitation to join him ultimately brings, with all the questions I've brought up.  That crisis demands at one point, faith, and then action.  Because, how you respond to God and God's invitation reveals what you truly believe about God.  What has your response told God what you think of Him?  As you think about that question, watch out.  You might be headed towards a crisis of belief.

Experiencing God: Being God's Servant

"Experiencing God: Being God's Servant"
John 13:1-17

In this chapter of Experiencing God, Blackaby gives an illustration from the life of the evangelist, Dwight L. Moody.  The illustration has to do with Moody first being confronted with the question, "Imagine what God can do through the life of one dedicated man."  Moody took that question seriously, and being only a shoe salesman at that time, dedicated his life to Christ and began serving him.

Moody had some great qualities as a Christian human being.  One of those was being a servant.  Not many great leaders get how important this is, nor live a life of servanthood.  One of my favorite Dwight Moody stories had to do with shoes.

A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned and polished by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.  No one was there to shine those shoes.

 Walking the dormitory halls that night, Moody saw the shoes and determined not to embarrass those overseas Christian leaders who attended his conference. He mentioned what needed to be done to some ministerial students who were there.  But Moody was met only with silence or pious excuses. Moody returned to the dorm, gathered up the shoes, and, alone in his room, the world’s most famous evangelist began to clean and polish the shoes. Only the unexpected arrival of a friend in the midst of the work revealed the secret.

 When the foreign visitors opened their doors the next morning, their shoes were shined. They never knew by whom. Moody told no one, but his friend told a few people, and during the rest of the conference, different men volunteered to shine the shoes in secret.

Perhaps the episode is a vital insight into why God used D. L. Moody as He did. He was a man with a servant’s heart and that was the basis of his true greatness.

As I said, servanthood is not a quality of character that many people, especially our leaders, get.  Our culture is much like the Greek and Roman cultures of Jesus’ day.  Greek culture valued freedom above most everything else.  To have personal dignity meant that you were free.  Those who were most esteemed were those who had no one above them making demands, or exercising power over them.

Thus, in Greek and Roman culture, there was a violent aversion to bondage, to being a slave or a servant.  This even was a part of the Greek pagan religions—there was no kneeling in any of the rites of Greek worship, because kneeling before someone, even a god, meant that you were a servant or a slave.  A true Greek worshipper would have nothing of that.

Taylor University is a Christian college in Indiana. Years ago, Taylor admitted one of the first African students, a young man who went by the name of Sam, as a foreign exchange student. This was before it was commonplace for international students to come to the U.S. to study. He was a bright young man with great promise.

When he arrived on campus, the President of the University took him on a tour, showing him the classrooms and the dorms. When the tour was over, the President asked Sam where he would like to live. The young man replied, "If there is a room that no one wants, give that room to me." The President was overwhelmed. Over the years he had welcomed thousands of Christian men and women to the campus, and none had ever made such a request:  “If there is a room that no one wants, give that room to me.” That's the kind of servanthood meekness Jesus talked about.

Imagine other servanthood kinds of statements that would be similar, but that you probably wouldn’t hear very often in our power oriented culture:
If there is a job that no one wants to do, I'll do that job.
If there's a kid that no one wants to eat lunch with, I'll eat with that kid.
If there's a hardship that has to be endured, I'll share that hardship.
If there's a sacrifice that needs to be made, I'll make that sacrifice.

Paul opened up all his letters by identifying who he was.  In his letters he used one word most often:  doulos.  Most translations use the English word, servant.  But doulos literally means slave.  Paul described himself as a slave of Christ.  When Paul described Christians, he uses the same term.  We are the douloi of Christ—the slaves of Christ.

What’s interesting in Paul’s theology is that he wrote about the conversion from being one form of slave to another.  That is, we were once slaves of sin.  But we need to be converted from that to being the slave to Christ.  Paul wrote about how we are set free from sin by Christ.  But that freedom isn’t some kind of autonomy in which we get to be and do whatever we want.  Instead that freedom is so that we can make the choice to be in relationship with Christ.  We move from doing what we want to do—which is a kind of awful slavery—to doing what Christ wants us to do within our loving relationship with Christ. It’s the movement from being self-serving to Christ-serving, which includes serving others.

Here’s an example of that.  Maybe you’ll remember the movie, “Patch Adams.”  It’s based on the true story of a man who wanted to be a doctor in an unorthodox way—not the way medical school was training him.

At one point, before he had become a licensed medical doctor, Patch bought a house at which he and others were giving basic care to anyone who walked in the door.  The medical school staff caught wind of it and brought charges against Patch.  There was a hearing, open to the public, and this movie clip is part of that scene at which Patch makes his defense.

Patch Adams movie clip:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXWDSeVeaAE


This is a great movie, if you haven’t seen it.  As you can see from this small clip, one of the main themes is, in the medical profession, in any profession, or just humanity in general, is it all about authoritarian domination, or is it about servanthood?  In the opening part of his defense, Patch says, “If you treat disease, you win some and you lose some.  But if you treat people, you win every time.”

Servanthood is about touching other’s lives.  Primarily, first and foremost, it is about being in touch, through a loving relationship with God.  Once that relationship is started, then you see the value of serving others, and the servanthood life.  The children who came in at the end of this clip and put on the clown noses, were all children from the cancer ward at the hospital where Patch volunteered and became a resident.  It’s caring about the “least of these” that makes the servanthood so winsome and amazing.  The rewards are indefinable.

In an earlier century, there lay a large boulder in the middle of the roadway. Traveler after traveler walked past the boulder, veering off the side of the road to get around it. All the while, they were shaking their head and muttering, "Can you believe that? Someone should get that big thing out of the way. What an inconvenience!"

 Finally, a man came along and, seeing the boulder, took a branch from a tree and pried the boulder enough to get it rolling and rolled it off to the side of the road. Lying underneath the rock, he found a small bag with a note. The man picked up the note and read it. It read as follows:

 "Thank you for being a true servant of the kingdom. Many have passed this way and complained because of the state of the problem and spoken of what ought to be done. But you have taken the responsibility upon yourself to serve the kingdom instead. You are the type of citizen we need more of in this kingdom. Please accept this bag of gold that traveler after traveler have walked by simply because they didn’t care enough about the kingdom to serve."

 I wonder what "bags of gold" we’re missing each day, simply because we don’t bother to get involved in serving our heavenly kingdom. Are we the type of heavenly citizens our Father needs more of?

That’s the point Jesus is trying to get across to the disciples when he washes their feet.  The kinds of disciples Jesus needs aren’t the ones who are demanding, who make others wash their feet, who want to get their way in the world.  Instead the loving Father God needs those who aren’t afraid to kneel, and serve others in some real, foot washing way.  And John makes it clear that Jesus even washes Judas’ feet—the one who would betray him.  As servants of the loving God, we wash any and all feet that come our way.

Jesus said that he came not to be served but to serve.  Washing the disciples feet encapsulates the mission of all who will follow after him.  The method (kneeling, washing, serving) is the message (we are here to serve not to be served; lower yourself rather than promote yourself; the best way to love and show love is to serve.)


Ruth Bell Graham, in one of her books, told of a scene that moved her.  The date was February 11, 1973.  Captain Jeremiah Denton stood at the door of a plane, saluted smartly, then made his way carefully and painfully down the steep steps to the tarmac.  Stopping in front of the microphone, he said, “We are honored to have served our country under difficult circumstances…”  Ruth Graham remembered watching, with the rest of America, as this man just released from years of being a POW in North Vietnam, as he expressed his gratitude.  Gratitude about serving his country!

Ruth Graham then wrote, “Is this how the believer will feel when he, or she, stands one day before God?  Liberated from this earth and its struggles, will we say, ‘We are honored to have served…under difficult circumstances’”?

Experiencing God: Doing God's Will

"Experiencing God:  Doing God's Will"
Genesis 12:1; Romans 4:18  (Msg)

It’s important to get a vision of the total canvas upon which this story of the call of Abraham is painted.  That picture includes the whole of the first 11 chapters of Genesis.  The title of this painting could be “Not Your Will But Mine.”  On that canvas there is painted the story of the first man and woman eating fruit from the one tree they weren’t supposed to.

There is painted the story of the first murder of a human being:  brother against brother.

There is painted the story of the complete waywardness of the world and how God wiped it all away in a catastrophic flood, except Noah and his floating zoo.

There is painted the strange story of the world’s people building a tower in an attempt to reach the heavens and to God.

As you can see, this larger painting, with all its sub-sections is covered with the broad strokes of a mistrustful, distant, and resistant people.  When God created the world, you’ll remember he brought creation out of chaos.  But in these first chapters of Genesis, it seems the chaos has a way of continually leaking back in to God’s world.

Upon this canvas of “Not Your Will But Mine,” there is one more piece of the picture: the call of Abraham.  The contrasts of his story with all the other stories that come before are stark and full of hope.  Where people were mistrustful, Abraham puts his uncertain future in God’s hands.  Where people were distant, Abraham walked with God.  Where people were resistant and willful, Abraham responded without excuses or hesitation, in effect saying, “Thy Will Be Done.”

This is all the more remarkable when we consider what the challenge of God meant for Abraham.  It meant abandoning his land.  Without land he would have become a non-person in the eyes of his neighbors.  It meant the renunciation of his past and all that he had built up to this point in his life:  especially those things that brought him comfort, security and stability.  It meant relinquishing any dreams he might have had about himself, his family, and their future.  It meant allowing those dreams to be reshaped and refashioned by a God who had never spoken to him before.

Above all, it meant saying to this unknown God, “Thy will be done.”

David Lloyd George, once Prime Minister of England, said, “Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is needed.  You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”

Here’s an illustration of that statement.  During an international chess competition several years ago, a man named Frank Marshall made what has since been called the most amazing move on a chessboard.  It was a crucial game.  He was matched against one of the Russian masters.  Marshall’s queen was under serious attack.  There were several ways Marshall could escape the attack.  Everyone watching thought that Marshall would move his queen to safety, since she is one of the most important pieces on the board.

Deep in thought, Marshall used all the time available to him to consider his options.  He picked up the queen, paused, and placed her down on the most illogical square of all:  a square from which the queen could be captured by any one of three opposing pieces.

Marshall had sacrificed his queen.  It was an unthinkable move in chess, made only when she would have been trapped and no other option was open.  But that wasn’t the case with Marshall.  He could have moved her to safety.  The spectators were dismayed and Marshall’s opponent was overjoyed.

But slowly the Russian, and the onlookers, realized that Marshall had actually made a brilliant move.  It became clear that no matter how the queen was taken, his opponent would soon be in a losing position.  Seeing the inevitable defeat, the Russian gave up and the game went to Marshall.

For Abraham to venture out with God to some unknown land would have been like sacrificing the queen.  No one would understand why he was doing it.  They would think he was crazy, because all he had to do was to say, “No,” to God:  “Not your will but mine.”  Then Abraham could retreat into the safety of his existing life.  When Abraham said, “Yes,” to God, it was as if he were setting himself up for an apparently losing and crazy move.

Abraham had a lot of explaining to do.  Maybe a man back then didn’t have to explain himself.  He just said, and everyone else had to obey.  It doesn’t mean there weren’t behind-his-back conversations going on about Abraham and the Voice he heard.  Wives, extended family, servants.  All wondering why Abraham was bending his will to the Voice’s will.

That’s what it comes down to.  Will.  The will of God.  Or your own will.  The whole opening of our scriptures is a continual story of people following their own will.  And then the awful repercussions and consequences of people’s willfulness.  You’d think if it was the Bible, it would open with happy stories, and people’s blissful walk with God, allowing their will to be shaped by his, skipping hand in hand through the elysium fields.  But that’s hardly the case, is it?  Instead it’s mayhem that not even Allstate Insurance could protect you from.  Murder.  Bold-faced arrogance.

The one common thread through it all is living within or outside of the will of God.  This thread is fundamental to who we are as human beings.  And who we are as God’s people.

Blackaby does a great job, in the chapter you will be reading for this week, describing how we come at this question of God’s will all wrong.  Mostly what we do is come at this question of God’s will from an individualistic, American cultural direction.  We want to know what God’s will for my life is.  Because, it is, after all, all about us.  In our self-centered way, we want to know what God’s got up his sleeve just for me that no one else gets in on.  We look at God’s will as if it’s this one special thing, that God has reserved just for me.

Coming at God’s will from this direction, the focus is totally inward at ourselves, our lives, our self-centered perspective.  We ask the wrong question, which is, “What is God’s will for MY life?”  Instead, the proper question is, “What is God’s will?”  See how that question puts the focus squarely on God, and what God is up to?  God’s will may have something to do with us, or maybe nothing to do with us individually.  But we can’t abide the thought of that.  To think that I may or may not fit in with the will of God goes against our individualistic and self-centered cultural way of thinking.  Our grand view of ourselves.

There are a couple of things that go wrong very fast if you start with yourself in trying to understand God’s will.  Both of these went wrong in the early chapters of Genesis to varying degrees.

The first way you will go wrong if you start with yourself in trying to understand God’s will is that you will be hindered by fear.  Fear of what you may or may not be asked to do.  Fear that you won’t measure up.  Fear that you will fail God.

That’s why I like very much Paul’s assessment of Abraham in Romans 4, that was read a few moments ago.  I love how The Message puts it:

When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.  (Romans 4:18)

Notice a couple of things that Paul perceptively picks up on about Abraham.  The opening part of the verse says, “When everything was hopeless…”  But hopeless according to whom?  To Abraham!  Because Abraham was only thinking about himself and his fears that were overwhelming him.  It certainly wasn’t hopeless from God’s perspective.

But Abraham “believed” through that hopelessness by shifting his focus away from himself and his fear, and centered that focus on God and what God can do.  That made all the difference.  Focusing on yourself in trying to understand the will of God will only get you wrapped up in fear and hopelessness.  You have to shift that focus solely on God.

Secondly, if we come at God’s will trying to assess what we think we are equipped to handle or do, we will do very little.  We always, ALWAYS, assess ourselves, and our abilities downward.  We do that so we won’t have to do very much.  We come at trying to understand God’s will based on our appraisal of our gifts, talents, abilities, whatever, and say, basically to God, “This is what I’ve got; I know it isn’t very much; so, what’s your will for me based on my meager resources.”

Can you get an inkling of how God must be so frustrated hearing that time after time, from person after person.  It’s what God heard from Moses.  “I can’t go down there and talk to Pharaoh.  Public speaking isn’t one of my gifts.  How about Aaron?  I’m just not equipped to do what you’re asking.  Ask me to do something within the wheelhouse of my meager abilities.  OK, God?”

God’s reply is always, “I don’t care about your abilities or your personal assessment of those abilities.  In fact, I’m going to throw them all out.  There.  Now you have none.  You are totally stripped of any and all abilities.  So now, in order to do my will, I’m going to give you the abilities you’ll need to accomplish that will.  They are my abilities, and my abilities are limitless.  So now you can accomplish that which I will you to do.

Uh, Oh.  Now we’re in a fix.  Because if we are to understand and do the will of God, it has nothing to do with us.  It has to do with God, with God’s will, and God’s equipping us fully and totally for that will.  Do you see the difference?

Can you do that, Jakob?  You, literally, have no idea what you will be facing.  You have heard God’s will to follow God to Bolivia.  You may have been given a bare outline by the Mennonite Central Committee, of what you might be doing.  But I’m here to tell you, based on my 35 years of experience with the church and with God, that may not be it at all.  Are you willing to let God strip you of your abilities so that God can fill you with his abilities that will fit perfectly with what following God’s will means in that place?

That’s why the Abraham story is so pivotal in our understanding of the will of God, and how we will fit in with God’s will.  Abraham didn’t start with himself.  Nor did he demand the full traveling guide book of following God’s will.  He just went.  God was Abraham’s guidebook, because Abraham put the focus on God, not himself.  And that was enough for Abraham.  It has to be enough for you Jakob.  It has to be enough for us all, to simply let God lead and equip, as we seek to understand and do God’s will.

Experiencing God: God's Loving Nature

"Experiencing God:  God's Loving Nature"
1 John 4:7-8

If we're going to have a relationship with God we need to have an idea of who we're getting into a relationship with.  We, of course, will come to find that out the longer we develop that relationship.  But we'd like to know a little about God first.  Before we start.

Like an executive, meeting with another executive for the first time to work on some kind of deal between their companies.  They try to find out something about the other before the first meeting.

Or the general of one army gaining intel on the general of the opposing army, in order to gain some perspective.  Or better yet, an upper hand in the battle.

Or a boy trying to find out some things about a girl before asking her out.  He pumps her friends for information.  Or in this day and age, looking up someone on an online dating site, assuming you’re getting an accurate picture.

(Here’s a video clip from the movie, “Mall Cop”:  http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/paul-blart-mall-cop/internet-dating)


What if what you find out is wrong?  By asking others, you are giving them a level of credence they may not deserve.  By checking someone out on the web, that information may not be entirely accurate, or maybe you’re not getting the whole story.  What if your own experience with "the other" is very different from what you've been told?  Either your source is wrong.  Or, the "one" you are getting to know is deceiving you.  Or, the mix between you and the "other" brings out aspects of the "other" that others did not.

So, the question is, are there basic characteristics of the "other" that will always be in play?  Deeply set attributes, no matter the circumstance or audience, that will always be part of the "one"?  A constant nature that is unchangeable?

Blackaby says, in relationship to God, the answer to those questions is "Yes."  That there are three attributes of God that are constant and unchangeable.  Always have been a part of who God is, and always will be.

I'm not going to talk about all three, this morning.  I’ll let you do that in your small groups.  I'm only going to talk about the first attribute of God that is unchanging.  That is, God's love can be trusted.

If there is anything we've learned by living in our American culture, it is that love can NOT be trusted.  We tell each other we love each other.  We speak solemn and precious vows "before God and these witnesses."

But then we hear statements like, "We've just grown apart."  Or, "My love has grown cold."  Or, "You aren't the same person I married."  Or, "I've found someone new that I'm in love with."  Or a whole host of other similar statements.

I read an interview last week with a couple who were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary.  The interviewer asked them what has kept them together for so long.  The wife replied, "When we were growing up together, we had the ethic that if something was broken, you fixed it.  You didn't throw it away."  What the wife was saying was their love, some times during their 70 year marriage had become broken.  They ran into some hard times.  Life together wasn't always easy.  But they had stopped and fixed what was broken before they went on together.

She was also saying that you learn to trust people you work with on the brokenness that comes with life.  Especially when the broken thing is love.

It's sad that we have assumed love will be a fixer of brokenness.  That love, somehow, magically by itself, will fix things.  That if we love more, or love better, or love differently, then that will make a difference in our relationship problems. But in our modern culture, love breaks people just as much as it fixes them.  So we've learned not to trust love, or those who say they love us.  We have learned not to trust other's love.

Psychologist Erik Erikson was one of the first to identify and develop the idea that human develop happens in stages.  If we don't make it through early stages well, we will be set up to make a mess in later stages.

Erikson's first stage of human development is called Basic Trust vs. Mistrust.  Newborns and infants are gauging whether they can trust this new, harsh environment outside the womb.  They are asking themselves, "Can I trust these weird others, who babble at me unintelligently and make sappy faces at me, to take care of me and make sure I feel safe and secure--in a word, loved.”

Take a look around you.  We live in a society of fellow people groping desperately, who feel unsafe, insecure and unloved.  That's what we want and deeply desire.  According to Erikson, it is our most basic desire before all other stages of human development can be navigated.  And as infants, we are looking around to these weird others--fellow seekers, fellow human beings who, themselves, are oozing a lack of trust coupled with a desire for love.  What do we get.  A bunch of messed up people who don't know how to fix what's broken about love.  So we just replace, replace, replace.  That's us.

Then Jesus comes a long.  His whole ministry is a banner that says, "God's Love Can Be Trusted!"  The people who read that banner, during Jesus' time on earth, these people who had no further reason to trust anyone's love--the prostitutes, the demonized, the chronically ill, the blind, the tax collectors, even a thief on a cross--were the ones who tried, one more time and found with God, finally, a love that can be trusted.  If people like that can take one more chance at a love that can be trusted, can't you?

There was a couple.  Dorothy and Bill.  Dorothy felt like she really did love her husband, Bill.  But she was a contrary, irritable, self-centered, and sometimes thoughtless woman.  Knowing Bill's love and tolerance for her, she took advantage of that and was often short and impatient.

Bill died unexpectedly, of a heart-attack shortly after turning 40.  While Dorothy set about the business of cleaning out Bill's dresser drawers, she found short loving notes to her, special cards he was saving to send to her.  At his office she found that at least once on every page of his date book was written, "Call Dorothy," or "Take Dorothy out to dinner."

Now, Dorothy spent long, sleepless nights as she recognized, too late, how Bill's love was exemplary, and how she had made him suffer under her childish irritabilities.  She had a hard time forgiving herself for her thoughtlessness.  Again and again she cried, "Oh, if only I could see him once more, if only for a moment to tell him that I loved him.  He never, never knew."

What Dorothy did, we all do to God.  We don't trust love when it's staring us in the face.  We don't trust God when God has given us so many reasons to trust him and his love.  We look at the banner that Jesus lifted across his time on earth (God's Love Can Be Trusted), and we just shake our heads and disbelieve.  That which you desire above all else--a trustworthy love--is right here, right now, being offered by our God.  What will it take to trust that love?

I like how Blackaby weaves personal stories in and through this book.  I encourage you to do the same as you meet in your small groups.  Take the risk and see what happens.

Most of you know that I've been dealing with some heart stuff.  Over the last six months of last year, the pumping function of my heart has decreased markedly.  This comes with a lot of new symptoms I've never had to deal with before.  As well as a host of medications new to me, as they try to bolster the strength of my weakening heart.  So far, not much has worked.

So the heart doctors recommended, and I agreed, that I have a defibrillator installed in my chest.  This is simply a life insurance device for me.  People with my combination of heart issues, if they have a heart attack, it drops them and they are gone almost before they hit the ground.  So I've got this little implant in my chest to keep me alive in case that happens.  It's a constant reminder that I'm not in the great health I used to enjoy and take for granted.

We all face that, I know.  Some of you have the little black box in your chest, like me.  Some of you have dealt with cancer.  Some have chronic illnesses, like MS, that isn't going to go away.  We all have problems and issues with which we struggle.  For me, this all has hit me on an emotional level I didn't see coming, nor was prepared for.  When things like this happen to us, we find ourselves asking questions that we naively thought we'd never be asking.

But there's one question for me, that I've had to face, as I deal with all this.  Maybe you've asked this question also.  You may find it an odd question for a minister to ask, assuming that I have, on some intellectual or theological level, already got this question figured out.   It wasn't until I was facing issues of the reality of my own mortality that I asked such a question seriously.

The question is this:  No matter what happens, can I trust God?  I've helped so many people struggle with that question as they dealt with a whole host of bad human circumstances.  But at the time it was their question to ask, and to find not just an answer, but the loving God behind the answer.  I could keep myself at an objective distance from their struggle as they had that conversation with God.  Not any more.  Now it's my question.

What I have found is that there is a huge and strong element of love in this conversation with God over this question.  It isn't just a matter of coming to the point of trusting God no matter what.  God's love is wrapped up in that conversation.  It's more than just trusting God with your life and death.  It is knowing that that trust is coming out of the very heart of God and God's love for me.  For you.  No matter what.

I have released myself into that loving embrace of God, because that's who God is, and who God will always be--the embracing, loving God, who no matter what holds us, in life and in death.  That's who God is at God's best.  It's part of God's unchanging nature.


As you talk about the three attributes of God's unchanging nature, or as you ponder them this week in your journal, don't look at them as theological concepts.  Instead tell your stories of how you have come to know, personally, how these attributes of God are really true.  Encourage each other with your stories of faith.

Experiencing God: You Have To Start Somewhere

"Experiencing God: You Have To Start Somewhere"
John 3:16-17

If you want to have great experiences in life you have to start somewhere.  Life’s                      great experiences don’t just happen, don’t just fall in your lap, or ask nothing of you.  If you want some great experience in life you have to start somewhere.

I was talking to my friend Terry Gatlin.  Terry is one of the pharmacists at Dillon’s here in town.  Maybe you know Terry, too.  I’ve known Terry ever since he was a little boy.  His family attended the church I served in Colby.  His mom was the custodian for the church for years.  I was very happily surprised when I saw Terry behind the counter at the pharmacy soon after I moved here.

So I was talking to Terry the other day about what he did for Christmas.  He went to his wife’s folks up in Lucas.  I asked how he and his wife met.  Terry’s first pharmacy job was up in Hays.  She lived up there, too.  He had run into her a few times, was interested but did nothing to show he was interested.  Three years later, he finally got up the nerve, and in a conversation with her, made her a bet of some kind.  The loser of the bet had to make Valentine’s dinner for the other.  Terry lost, so he had to make her dinner.  I said, “But even though you lost, you hit the jackpot!”  He said, “That is true; I sure did!”

That conversation, where he made her a bet, was where Terry started.  Had he never started with that, after three years of doing nothing, his life would be very different right now.  He has great kids, he volunteers in the community, coaches, very involved with his church, etc.  He is having a great experience in life.  But it all had to have a starting point.

You all can think of your own starting points for the great experiences you’ve had in life.  Usually, we think about the great experiences, and we smile when we think about them.  But we had to start somewhere.  What was that starting point?  Where and how did it all begin?  Those are the stories that really interest me.

I haven’t told too many people this story.  Three years ago, in October of that year, I was sitting up in the lounge of this church.  The Committee on Ministry of Presbytery met here monthly in Fellowship Hall.  I had driven in from Leoti, in far west Kansas for this meeting.  I was waiting to be interviewed by them, to become a full member of Presbytery.  As I was sitting in the lounge, waiting for my turn, I felt the Lord’s presence, and the Voice I have heard before, simply said to me, “You will be here.”

I had no plans on moving from Leoti, and away from serving the Leoti and Tribune congregations.  Some things were coming together out there, in terms of ministry, and doing ministry differently in those tiny congregations.  I was planning on being out there, after I got past the hurdle of joining presbytery.  But God had other plans.  And that day, sitting in the lounge, is where it all started.  Where my great experience of being here in Pratt began.  It had to start somewhere.  The Voice in the lounge is where.

All great experiences have to start somewhere.  Especially your great experiences with God.  Though we may have different starting places for most of the great experiences we have had in life, this starting place with our relationship to God has to be the same for everyone:  You have to start with turning your life over to God and God’s love for you.  That is where your great experience with God must start.

(Alan’s, “I am God” story:  Alan will tell it)

This starting place in experiencing God is not learning about God.  This starting place is foremost about developing a relationship with God.  I think I, as pastor, make the assumption that all of you, because you are here in worship often, have already had your starting point with developing a relationship with God.  That you have your own, "I am God" stories.  But 35 years in the ministry has proven otherwise.  There have been some, in all the congregations I’ve served, who are in church, who have started with church, they have an ongoing relationship with church, but have not really started with God.

This starting place in your relationship with God must be a time when you understand that you don’t have a relationship with God, that you have, for one reason or another been avoiding God, keeping God at arms length, that you've been treating God like a cosmic slot machine, and that you are ready, finally to stop all that avoidance behavior, and ask God to forgive you, and turn yourself over, fully, to God’s amazing love for you in Jesus Christ.  There is no other starting place than this in a relationship with God.

Blackaby says in the introduction of our book, “I encourage you: Don’t let any previous failure or disappointment stop you from confidently moving forward with God” (page 7).  That’s what I’ve found is most getting in the way of people’s holding back in starting a relationship with God.  They feel they’ve done something awful, had some stellar failure that not even God can forgive.  Or whatever their awful experience is, these people feel that what they’ve done would certainly keep God from loving them and embracing them.

Or maybe they’ve been disappointed with God.  Some negative, hurtful, grieving experience has made them rethink God, what God is about, or even if God is there.  In the throes of those disappointments, they gravitate away from God.

When I was serving the church up in Hickman, NE, I ran into a man in the post office who was the father of one of our members.  I told him I’d love to see him in church, and that if he’d like me to visit with him some time, I’d love to do that too.  He shook his head, in a droop, and said, “It’s too late for me.”  I assured him that God has no time-line, where once you move past a certain amount of time, too bad for you.  The man just shook his head again, and walked out the post office door.

I felt so bad for this man.  He had a notion in his head that he had used up all his chances, and starting a relationship with God couldn’t happen because it was just too late.  I had several other conversations with this man and talked to him about giving up his misunderstanding of God and how God works.  How God desires him and loves him, and through Jesus Christ wants to embrace him.  Instead, this man decided to hold on to some previous failures and disappointments, than give in and start a relationship with our loving God.  So sad.

So this is the first truth of Experiencing God:  you have to start somewhere.  You have to start.  You have to begin your relationship with God, or you will never grow beyond who and where you are now.  If you haven’t started with God, then do so.  Don’t put it off.  Don’t let time and distance fool you, like it did my friend in the post office who had convinced himself it was too late.  It’s never too late.  Start here.

Secondly, you have to tell the truth about where you are with God right now.  Just because you started, maybe years ago, doesn’t mean you’ve developed a deeper relationship with God.

There was a couple who was down stairs watching TV, late one evening.  All of a sudden they heard a thump come from their daughters bedroom upstairs.  The couple ran upstairs to see what had happened.  They found their daughter on the floor beside her bed.  “What happened?” her father asked.
“I don’t know,” the girl replied.  “I think I fell asleep too close to where I got in.”

That often happens when we begin a relationship with God.  We fall asleep too close to where we got started.  We don’t move farther in or farther on in developing our relationship with God.  We have to be willing to face that truth as we figure out why we may have allowed that to happen.  All real growth starts with telling and facing the truth.

On page six of Experiencing God, Blackaby has given a list for your truth telling. (on slide)  This may be a good list to look at together in your small group—to go around and tell where you are at, and honestly describe why you are at that place in your relationship with God.  If you aren’t in a group, then I encourage you to keep a journal as you read this book, and deal with this list in your journal with as much truth as you can muster.

Following this list, Blackaby asks an important question, for you also to deal with.  As you evaluate your present relationship with God, it’s not a matter of being truthful with where you are now in that relationship, but where are you going?  Blackaby’s question is:  (on slide)  “What does God want to do in my life as I read this book?”

How is your life going to change as a result of reading this book?  Where are you going to be in your relationship with God, when you’re done with this book, that you’re not at now?  Maybe you’ve felt some inklings that God has been interested in you, and wants to make some changes in your life, to use you in some new way, or kindle some new passions in you.  If you have felt those inklings, what might those look like when you are done reading this book?  Begin to get a vision for, not only where you are now in your relationship with God, but where God might be taking you with Him in some new direction.



And lastly, as you start out, or as you start anew in your relationship with God, you have to know that you have already been equipped with at least three resources that are strategic for you.

First, prayer.  I know that for most of you, prayer is an odd activity, and you’re not sure what it’s all about.  Think of prayer as a personal way to get to know God better.  When you’re starting out with any new relationship, how do you get to know each other?  You talk.  Maybe all the time.  You’re on the phone.  You’re on Facebook.  You send emails.  You text.  But you’re communicating all the time.  You do that because you want to get to know the other person better.  That’s what prayer is at its best—it’s that constant communicating with God and God with you because you want to get to know each other better.

Secondly is the Holy Spirit.  Think of the Holy Spirit as your personal matchmaker between you and God.  The Holy Spirit is the one who has been working on you, maybe for years, to get started with God, and with a relationship with God.  Long before you started with God, the Holy Spirit has been working on you so you’d be ready to make that first starting motion towards God.

The Holy Spirit is personal in that way.  Personal, because the Holy Spirit knows you, inside and out, knows what you need, and how you tick.  The Holy Spirit knows what you need to know and makes sure you learn those lessons along the way with God.  Have you ever been thinking about something pertaining to your relationship with God, and you’re not sure if it’s right or not, and then something happens where you are given some little confirmation.  That’s how the Holy Spirit is working with you, nudging you closer and closer to God.

And thirdly, there is Scripture.  We believe Scripture is God’s word to you.  Notice the objective truth of that statement and the personal side of that statement.  Scripture is God’s word.  Scripture is the way God communicates.  If you are not spending time in Scripture, hearing the voice of God is going to be like hearing a faint echo from a long distance.

But Scripture is also God’s word to you.  It is personal.  You can read along in the Bible and nothing really connects with you.  Then BAM!  Some verse jumps out at you, affirms you, or throttles you, or answers a question you’ve long been struggling with, or is a word you know you’ve just needed to hear.  That can’t happen like it happens when you are diving into Scripture daily, and listening for God as you read.




Are you ready for an encounter with God?  Are you ready to not just learn about God, but to experience God in a personal and powerful way?  Are you ready to have your life changed by your experience with God?  If so, then let’s start now!

How Far Would You Go?

"How Far Would You Go?
Matthew 2:1-2

A lot of people traveled over the Christmas holidays?  Let’s see who traveled the farthest?  Who all traveled out of state?  Where?  What/who did you go to see?

I traveled, but not too far.  Just up to Kansas City.  My daughter Kristin, and her husband, Nic, flew in from San Diego.  So I got to see all my children.  Plus a new member of the family, Serenity, Nic and Kristin’s new puppy—a dachshund, corgi mix.  Kind of a weird name for a dog.  Ryan and I kept trying to come up with a more appropriate name.  None of the names we came up with were acceptable to Kristin, which wasn’t a surprise, considering what our suggestions were.

But I wasn’t NOT going to see my kids.  I wasn’t going to just hole up in my little home for my last week of vacation in the year, and miss the opportunity to see my children.  I could have said, “It’s too far to drive.”  A mere 250 miles or so.  I would have missed so much.  I could have said, “I’m only going to get to see Kristin and Nic for a couple of days, so what’s the use.”  But any amount of time being with my kids is a total lift to my spirits, and that’s what I looked forward to the most—that’s why I went.  To get myself out of the doldrums I had drooped into.  I needed them, so I went.


We have different motivations for our traveling.  That’s why I wonder about the Wise Men.  They were most likely from Mede or Persia to the east of Israel.  They would have traveled over 900 miles to get to Israel.  They, of course, didn’t have cars or trains or planes back then.  Were they on foot?  Did they ride camels?  We don’t know.

Why did they travel such a distance?  The story says they saw a star.  The star was on the rise in the east when they saw it.  So, understand, the Wise Men were from the East, and they saw the star in the East.  Then they traveled in the opposite direction from where they saw the star—heading West.

So why did they pick up and go?  The star was a sign.  A sign they took to mean that a new King was born.  How could they tell that from a star?  They may have been motivated by little more than a hunch, an intuition, a reading from some ancient text they didn’t fully comprehend.

But the point is, they went.  They didn’t have to.  They could have stayed back in Mede and done all the important stuff Wise Men do.  Maybe some priestly duties.  Teaching, instructing and advising the king.  Sitting around Starbucks talking philosophy, medicine and science over a latte.  Interpreting people’s dreams.  Lots of important stuff they could have decided needed their attention, rather than playing a hunch on a rising star.  But they did.  They went.

How far would you go?  One of the Christmas hymns we sing:
O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant,
O come, ye, O come ye to Bethlehem!
Come and behold Him,
born the King of angles.
O come…O come…O come…

The invitation is out:  Come!  The question, then, is what’s the distance you’ll have to travel to heed and accept the hymn’s invitation.  And what does that distance represent for you and for your life?

Some people seem quite content to look on from a distance.  They think they can see or understand what’s happening from a distance, while not getting themselves personally involved.  I had a family in my church up in Colby.  There were 7 kids in this family.  All of them were heavily involved in sports or some school activity like band or choir.  The father of the family bragged to me one day that he had not attended any of his kids school activities.  He was rather proud of himself for this act of looking on his kids lives from a distance, even though they were in the same home.  I just shook my head, wondering how he could not motivate himself to be part of his kids story.

I’ve seen the same with grandparents and grandchildren.  Some grandparents watch their grandchildren grow up by looking at pictures posted on Facebook.  Others get down on the floor with the kids and wrestle or build things with legos.  The more you’re involved, the more the investment, the greater the personal knowledge.

That’s what the distance you have to travel represents, in your relationship with Christ, and the invitation to “come.”  Personal involvement vs. just looking on from a distance.  How much do you really want to get personally involved with the Lord?

Around Christmas time, a college professor was lecturing the class about the absurdities of the Christmas story.  Point after point was thrust home with the precision of a circus knife thrower at this class of college students.  After the professor laid out his crowning argument on the class, he asked if there were any questions or comments.

One young man stood up, walked to the front of the class, pulled an orange out of his coat pocket and slowly pealed it.  Taking one of the sections of the orange and eating it, he turned to the professor and asked, “Was the piece I just ate sour or sweet?”
“How do I know,” thundered the professor.  “I didn’t taste it.”
“Exactly,” retorted the young man.  “And how can you be so sure that what you say about the Christmas story is true, until and unless you have ‘tasted’ it?”

Tasting is the “distance” that professor was being called to travel.  Psalm 34 says, “O, taste, and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusts in Him”  (Psalm 34:8)

Tasting means taking a risk.  Ryan and Amanda made this one meal this past week that was a hash made out of roasted veggies, some of which I’m not totally fond of.  Like brussels sprouts.  But there was bacon in this hash recipe, which redeemed it.  I was a bit wary, taking a bite, putting some of it in my mouth, tasting it.  But it was darn good.  I’m glad I took the (small) risk of tasting their new recipe.  Tasting is a risk.

Tasting also means not reading a report of someone else who has done what you are unwilling to do.  You can google anything on the interweb, and read what someone else thinks.  You can read reviews of all sorts of things by people who have taken the time to report about their experience with some product or movie or food.  But reading a review is not tasting.  You can read a review about what someone else has experienced with Christ, but at some point you have to realize that you have to be willing to taste for yourself.

Which gets us to the third quality of tasting:  Tasting means getting personally involved.  As with my experience with Ryan and Amanda’s hash recipe, I had to put some of that food in MY mouth.  I have to have a personal experience with that which I’m talking about.

Imagine if I said, “I’ve been a pastor and preacher for 35 years.  I’ve tried to help people get acquainted with God and with the scriptures.  But I have never really given myself over to Christ.  I don’t think I need to do that, as long as I’m getting you personally involved.”  You’d be aghast if I said something like that!

Like my father who would drive us to church, drop us off in front, and then drive home to watch sports on TV.  I think he thought he was doing something important, while never getting personally involved—never going in the church himself and opening himself up to experiencing Christ.

Some may say, “I’m not that kind of person who gets personally involved much.  I like being able to keep my distance.  That’s just my temperament.”  If that sounds like you, then maybe that’s the distance you have to travel to really see and experience Christ.  A personality adjustment.  A change of temperament.  The Christmas carol says, “Come!” not, stand back aloof and untouched.  The star of the Wise Men said, “Come!” not hang around your own comfortable country, unwilling to venture out.

And as the Christmas carol states, once you get there, once you “Come…” your activity is not over.  It’s not just coming, it’s tasting.  “Come and BEHOLD Him!”  “O come let us ADORE him.”

What kind of investment of yourself will it take to cover the distance?  What level of involvement?  In his book, When I Relax I Feel Guilty, author Tim Hansel quotes this little ditty:
I would like to buy $3 worth of God please.  Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine…I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.  I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.  I would like to buy $3 worth of God please.

  In determining how big of a distance you might need to travel in order to meet up with the Lord, you will have to decide that you want more than just $3 worth of God, that you want more than just a little of this and a little of that in your relationship with the Lord, but that you desire much more.

The Christmas hymn I have been highlighting is, “O Come, All Ye FAITHFUL.  Covering the distance for a relationship with the Lord, will also challenge you to determine what it means to be “faithful.”  Are you being faithful if you hear the “come” but then don’t come?  There is an investment you will be making just in starting out on this journey of faith.  And there is a much higher level of involvement than what you may have been willing to give before.

What’s important is that there is movement.  Movement means involvement.  In AA they talk not about perfection but progress.  When you are called into this journey of faith to walk with the Lord, when we are drawn in by God, when we move in God’s direction in a dedicated way, we are demonstrating the investment of ourselves to go out and meet God—to make progress with God.

The South African Missionary Society once wrote to the famous missionary, David Livingstone.  In that letter they wrote:  “Have you found a good road to where you are?  We want to know how to send men to join you.”
Livingstone wrote back, “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them.  I want men who will come even if there is no road.”

When you’re following a star, like the Wise Men, there is generally no road, but there is always a destination.  The question is, are you making progress towards that destination, no matter what?

There is a scene in the movie, “Chariots of Fire,” when the young missionary and Olympic athlete, Eric Liddell, is explaining to his sister why he must race.  He says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.”

When you see the star in the sky, or hear the angel’s song, or whatever it might be, and you don’t come, you end up missing the most amazing things.  But mostly, you will feel the absence of being a part of God’s pleasure.  Because God’s pleasure is felt most by those who involve themselves fully in His story.