Sunday Sermon

 

A Name

Isaiah 49:16

See, I have written your name on my hand. Jerusalem, I always think about your walls.

In Luke chapter eight there are two stories told that captivate me. The stories are told also in Matthew but we get more information from Luke. One of the things that I find interesting is that in both books these two stories are intertwined. First we have the story of the leader of the synagogue. Here we find a man whose daughter is dying and his only hope is Jesus. The problems this man has is that he has been informed to have nothing to do with Jesus if he wants to keep his position as leader of the synagogue. So now he has to choose his dying daughter or his job and of course he chooses his daughter. While this is going on another person, who is in the middle of a calamity seeks Jesus. This woman does not even feel worthy to speak to Jesus but she believes that if she can just touch Jesus’ coat she will find the healing she cannot find anyplace else. When I come to these stories, I feel the pain and heart break in these people. Their only hope is Jesus and they are clearly afraid to ask but there is nothing left if Jesus is not the answer. The thing that brings me to these stories is how Jesus deals with each person and their pain. Over and over I see that Jesus connects to them and sees them as individuals and Jesus sees their suffering and He reacts to it. As you read through the Gospels there a lot of these interactions but these two seem to me to encapsulate the God we serve best. Our God cares about our pain and our God wants to deal with the pain we suffer with. God becomes human so that He can touch us and we can know with certainty we have a God who cares about who we are. It almost seems that God is most real in those moments of pain and struggle because that is when we see we are not strong enough. We need to know we have a God who knows what is going on in our lives and seeks to be involved with us. Faith in God has to be more then some vague belief that there is this God out there who is going to judge us one day. God wants to be part of our lives and if we don’t believe that then we need to look closer at our God. Jesus tells us He is sending the Holy Spirit into our lives to dwell with us. The idea is that the spirit of God is living with us as we go through our day to day activities and our God wants to be part of that. God longs to connect to us personally and to work in us each day. This is the God I serve and the one who I want other people to know. In our faith we are not called to obey some rules if we want to get to heaven. The creator God calls to us and invites us into a person relationship where we learn to trust in Him and we learn to love Him. Because of what God does we then live by the things God teaches us but that is a response to the God who cares for us it is not the center of what our faith is all about.

My wife was in the book of Deuteronomy the other day for her devotional time and she commented how hard to read it was. This is not an uncommon sentiment of those who spend time reading the Bible. Reading through the books of the law is not easy to do but they are such essential books if we want to understand our faith and ground it in the ideas that Jesus teaches. Some people think that the New Testament supercedes the Old Testament and so there is not much of a reason to spend much time reading things like the books of the law but that is so wrong. If we want to appreciate who our God is and develop a real understanding of what our faith means we have to spend time reading the books of the law. When Jesus tells us the two greatest commands He says that they cover “all the law and the writings of the prophets” and that is a big statement. It also means that we need to know something about the law and the writings of the prophets to deal with what Jesus is saying. Knowing the commands of God has important implications that we need to think about. First is the idea that God gives those things to us not because He is an authoritarian God who demands we obey or else but God gives those commands because He loves us and wants us to know how the universe works. What God does is explain Himself in these commands and to not know them is to not know the God who loves us. Just like we teach our children about how to get along in the world because we love them and want them to do well our God does the same. God explains to us the price of sin not to punish us but to help us not to be punished. God hates sin because it wrecks our lives and God knows that and weeps when we let sin into our lives. The commands of God are an expression of how much God loves us. And we need to know those commands if we want to then understand the love God has for us at the cross. On the cross all of the law is exposed for what it means and again we find this God who loves us like nothing else we can even imagine.

A curious thing that in intrigues me are head stones in graveyards. It was so important to people that they are that they had their name inscribed in solid stone and set over their grave. For our family this has caused quite a bit of discussion around the table at dinner time. Now as my wife and I are getting older we have thought about what we want when we die and to some degree how we want to be remembered. In our house we remember people not with headstones from far away places but with pictures on a wall we call the family wall. When the kids ask about those pictures we tell stories about those people so we pass down those names by saying them to the next generation. The verse we are considering tells us about that fact that God wants to remember us. It is so cool that God wants to remember and think about us that He writes our name on His hand. Think about how many times a day you look at your hand and understand that God thinks about us that many times and more. Best of all God does not need to write our names, He can remember whatever He wants. The writing of our name on His hand is to tell us how important we are to Him. It is like the idea that our names are written in the book of life. Why would the all knowing, all seeing and ever-present God need to write our names in some book? God writes our name because the process of writing names speaks about a God who is serious about knowing us and loving us. Those names on those grave stones are not there just because someone wanted their name remembered but because other people wanted that name written down most likely because they loved and cared about that person. Our God knows our name but He wants us to know that He is purposeful about knowing who we are. There is nothing more that God wants then to have all people know how much He cares about every human being and that God knows us and God knows what we are dealing with. The image of our name on God’s hand is such powerful point to tell us about a God who loves us enough to dies for us. God knows our name and calls us by it and invites us to come to know Him and to learn from Him. There is nothing more wonderful then our God who knows us and loves us.

This verse continues with an interesting backside that has some real meaning. God says He thinks about the walls of Jerusalem which seems a little weird but it has a cool meaning. Why would God spend any time thinking about such mundane things as walls when there seems to be much more important things for God to think about. Here is the answer and it is because God is thinking about us and what we need. The walls of Jerusalem were critical to the survival of the people in Jerusalem and God cares about the well being of His people. The idea that God thinks about us and about our needs helps build our faith in the living God. We have a God who thinks about us and what is going on in our lives. Not only does God think about us but He cares very much about what we need and what will help us. It is the very nature of God think about us and to work at helping us overcome the broken things in life. When we speak of God thinking about us it is not like God thinks of us as some big group but God thinks about us each individually. Over and over in the Bible we find God dealing with individuals. God speaks to Abraham about Abraham’s things and God speak to Moses in a different way. The God we worship thinks about us and knows what we need. If we need any proof that God thinks about each of us we have the coming of the Holy Spirit where God’s spirit comes and lives with each of us daily. God thinks about the mundane because it is often the mundane that has the biggest effect on us each day so that is where God is. Because God thinks about us we have the Bible. The word of God is not about God but aimed at meeting issues and problems we as people face. Our God knows what we need and so He has already provided information and training for us. Reading the Bible should revel to us a God who thinks about what is going on in our lives and so has prepared the answers we need. Seek a deeper faith and trust in a God who thinks about us and knows what is going on in our lives. Work at trusting the God who spends so much time thinking about you that He went to the cross and died for us.

It is an amazing thing that God wants us to know how much He thinks about us and that God longs to show us how important we are to Him. The first word in the verse is “see” as if God is show how much He cares. God knows our name and has written it down because He wants us to trust Him and to find in Him the hope we are looking for. Let us build a faith and trust in this kind of God. Learn what God has to say about our lives and about what it means to be people who serve God. There is nothing that is more powerful then the God who loves us and is willing to die for us and the proof is that God knows our name and has written it on His hand. Sing to the glory of God and bow down and worship this God because He is the God who gives life and in whom we find hope and peace. Speak to people about this God and tell them of a God knows who they are and thinks about them.