Sunday Sermon

 

Leader

Isaiah 48:17

This is what the Lord, who saves you, the Holy One of Israel, says: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to do what is good, who leads you in the way you should go.

Over the forty years of ministry I have found that the biggest issue for people growing in their faith is the Bible itself. When you think about it there is this problem of this big thick book that is not easy to read or often interesting that we need to know it well if our faith is to be what it should be. On top of all those things there is the time it takes to really know what the Bible says so we can understand the God we worship. It is a daunting task to spend the time in the Bible that we need to know. And yet the information that is in that big book is so essential to getting to know our God and understanding who God is because it is the only way to developing the faith we need in God. As I have thought about this question over the years, I have come down to the idea that we are often dealing with information overload. On every page and in very sentence there is so much material about who God is and how God acts that we need to know that it is often overwhelming to us. There is so much God wants us to know and so much that we need to learn about who we are and our relationship with God that to take it all in at once is just not possible. But the nice thing is that we don’t have to learn it all at once. The people who I have met with the greatest faith are people who have made it a practice to be reading at little bit of the Bible every day. Soaking up a little of the Bible at a time will not seem that hard but over the course of a life time it will have a profound impact on us and how we live our faith in God. Someone suggested that I start reading just two chapters a day many years ago and now I find that my faith is so different then when I first began. There are still days where it is hard to get through those two chapters but most of the time I find that I need to read what God puts in front of me and I find joy in that. Most of all I want to know this God who I worship and serve and I find that being in the Bible every day is one of the most helpful things I can do to build my faith and trust in Him. Spending time in scripture will radically change how we see God and what we believe God is all about. God tells us all about Himself and teaches us how to be the people He longs for us to be. There is so much information in the Bible that one life time is not enough to know all the God reveals. If we want to be people of deep and abiding faith we need to know who God is and the only real way to do that is to read what He has to say about Himself and about us. We also have to be careful that we do not worship the information but we worship the God who that information tells us about. Knowing God is not the same as knowing what God has written to us. We live by the ideas that God gives us not because they are written by God but because they teach us about God. Let us be people who want to know God.

My wife has been reading in the book of Second Kings and she remembered why she hates that book. A friend of mine hates the book of Jeremiah. I get why my wife hates Second Kings and most people that read through it hate it because it is full of killing and evil people doing evil things. For the book of Jeremiah it is about the pain that Jeremiah suffers when everyone else rejects the word of God presented to them. Neither of these two books are easy reads and will trouble the heart of their reader every time but they are very necessary books and we learn a lot about God in the dark pages of those books. Second Kings has two big concepts that are really critical to grasp as people of faith. In Second Kings we find the price of sin shown for what it is and it is ugly and terrible just as sin is. This is information we need to know and it tells us about the human condition that has not changed in the thousands of years from then to now. But then there is great thread that runs through Second Kings in that God never gives up on people and always tells them the price of the sin because God wants them to stop and change from evil to righteous. As I read through Second Kings I see this God who hates sin and hates the evil it produces but still wants to redeem people. Anyone who reads Jeremiah and does not feel for the suffering of Jeremiah is crazy. Here is Jeremiah just speaking God’s word and people hate him for it and punish him. Even in the end Jeremiah does not get to find the peace he longs for. Again there is important information about God here and about what it means to be people of faith. If we want to be people who are informed about our God we need to spend time in these books because they tell us a lot about sin and God that can only be found in this way. Information is central to our faith and God pours it out for us to take in.

Of all the blessings in my life, and there have been many, one of the best is I have been able to interact with some truly great teachers. Dr. North who supervised my masters degree pushed me and made me better as a historian. When my kids were in school, Mrs. Call who was their second grade teacher helped both of my kids move to find the process of education a wonderful process. But I have to say the greatest teacher I have ever had is not a person but what people call a learning disability. Being diagnosed as having dyslexia explained many things about I learn and when I knew what my problem was it became a great power to me. But I now have to replace that statement about dyslexia being my greatest teacher because I now understand that my God is my greatest teacher and I am glad of it. In our verse God says He is the one who teaches us and I really have to say I like that and the truth of it just overwhelms me. An important part of scripture is to teach us things and to train us in the realities of how the universe works and God does this so well. Look at the Ten Commandments and consider how they in a very short format teach about the universe truths of the morality that the universe works on. Things like the Beatitudes that Jesus speaks tell us how to build a relationship with God step by step. Our God wants to teach us and He has given us all we need to learn how to be people who trust in the living God. But it is not just scripture that teaches us because we are told that the Holy Spirit is given to us to teach us how to be people of faith. Learning to listen to the Holy Spirit is so essential to building the faith we need but so many people avoid learning to hear the spirit. On top of that we need to know what scripture says because the Holy Spirit will never violate what God has written down. We have a God who wants to teach us how to be the people we were meant to be and this is a reason to trust in God and to listen to Him. It is also vital that we not just have the information God gives but we then use it in our daily lives. If we don’t use what God teaches then what use is learning from God. Developing a trust in God starts by seeing that what God has to teach us is good and right and helps us be the people we should be. Learning from God will fill our lives with hope and joy.

If the first part of this verse tells us about a God who wants us to know how to live in the best way possible then the second half gets even better. Our God is not just a God who teaches but a God who leads us and that tells us so much about God and what He is all about. My wife runs companies and the thing that makes her stand out is not how smart she is or how good she is at doing the things that are required to make a company work but that she knows how to lead people and people are willing to follow her because they know she leads the company in the right way. It is the same with our faith in God. We follow the leadership of God not because God demands that we do what He says. No one is ever forced by God to do as He tells us. Our God leads us and we follow because we have learned that where God leads is to a good place. God wants to lead us in the way we should go because that is the place the is the most positive. Now, we need to be clear, God does not promise that His leadership will take us to places that are easy or fun. To make my point clear, God leads the people of Israel into the desert and they end up there for forty years. Ask the apostle Paul if God’s leadership was easy. God tells us that His leadership is worth the price and that is what we have to hang on to. Like a shepard God takes care of us and leads us through life not without trouble but with knowledge that where we are going is where we need to be. The question to us has to be about how willing we are to trust that God knows what He is doing and we are willing to follow where God leads. We can now turn to the start of the verse where God says He saves us. Being a follower of the living God will save us and will bring us into a right relationship with God. This is why we seek to know God and we can trust in the Jesus that came to save us.

The central part of this verse is all about God teaching us what is good and I like that. God stands and states His authority and then the only thing God wants to do is to teach us what is good and how to be good. Our God calls us to Him because He wants us to know good and to be good and this makes Jesus the most powerful of all events in the universe because Jesus is the ultimate good. Trusting in the living God should be easy because we see what a good God does. I worship God and trust in Him because He teaches me how to be good and I need that more then anything else. Being informed about the living God who teaches us and leads us will build the faith and will make us into the people God longs for us to be. Take God at His word and let us feel free to seek God because that is what is going to show us what is real and what counts in this world. Follow a God who likes teaching us and wants us to know all the things that will make us into great humans.