Sunday Sermon

 

Bow Down

Isaiah 49:23

Kings will teach your children, and daughters of kings will take care of them. They will bow down before you and kiss the dirt at your feet. Then you will know I am the Lord. Anyone who trusts in me will not be disappointed.”

A benefit of spending time in the Bible is that we learn about who God is and what God is all about. In short God explains Himself to us and makes His case for us to trust in Him. This always intrigues me because our God is the creator of the universe and does not have to explain anything to us. God could, if He wanted to, just demand we come and worship and serve Him but that is not the righteous and loving God that we have. This God we trust in wants us to know Him and to understand who He is. Instead of demanding we obey Him He explains Himself and then tells us what He offers. A central point that I have come to embrace is the place where God makes the covenant with the Israelites. There is no demand that the Israelites follow God and obey what He says. What God does is explain what He offers and what rejecting God looks like. A list of blessings flow if people choose God and a list of curses flow if they reject God and the Israelites get to choose. We need to understand that list of curses and blessings is not God trying to control people but God is just teaching us about how the universe works. The God we worship is the maker of life and so to follow Him is to find blessing and life. There is nothing God wants more then to fill our lives with blessing and so God instructs us how to make that happen. It is also true that God will let us choose not to follow Him but He wants us to know the cost of that so He list the curses that happen. Those curses are not God being mean but God showing us the natural result of rejecting the one who gives life. No one has to guess about who God is or what God is all about because we have a God who wants us to know Him. God rightly understands that when we get to know Him we will choose Him because God’s very nature is loving and righteous and when we learn what scripture has to say we see that. Think about the idea that God loves us enough to tell us the truth about our sin not to destroy us but to save us. The all powerful God does not have to do that but the loving God does. And I find it wonderful that we have a God who always does the right thing. A righteous God is one who I want to worship and serve. Best of all is that God tells us how to be righteous and to do the right thing so that we will find the blessing that God longs to give every human. Being people of faith does not mean we ignorantly obey some rules but it means we learn about our God and as we live by the ideas and concepts God teaches us we learn to trust in this God who explains Himself to us. Real faith is not about obeying it is about trusting God and knowing what God tells us is for our own good and to make us into what God wants us to be.

A powerful thing about our God that we talk around a lot but don’t often directly speak of is the fact that we have an intervening God. This means we have a God who gets involved and that is a strong point of our faith in God. If God wanted to He could just sit on His throne and let us deal with the sin that destroys us and God would be perfectly justified in doing so. But that is not the God we have. We need a God who steps in and makes things happen and wow that is the God we have. This is one of the things that makes our faith and trust in God such a amazing thing. Just think about the Bible. God does not have to give us all the answers to the issues of life that He does that we find in the Bible but instead of us suffering and struggling God hands us all the information we need to know about to get through life. No one has to guess what is right or wrong because our God wants us to know this information. God does not have to teach us and explain things to us but He does because it is His nature to do so. Or think about the prophets and all that God does to redirect the Israelites in their sin. Over and over God sends people to speak about the sin that is wrecking the Israelite people and God does that because He cares and does not want them to suffer. Then we come to Jesus and it is the most powerful intervention that God does. The reality is it is our sin and we should be punished but God once again steps in and gets involved to change things. Jesus dies on the cross because sin needs death and God wants to offer to us life so Jesus dies for our sin. This is the God who we worship and serve. There is nothing like our God and we should be glad that our God is who He is and does what He does. Faith and trust in this God brings us so much hope and joy that we should seek out how to be more of what God calls us to be.

My faith is based on two fundamentals that direct me to trust in God. First is the idea that God is truth and life. Everything else about God flows from these two concepts and they cannot be separated. Next is the idea of evil. Only God gives us a satisfactory answer to what is evil and how to deal with it. Each human has evil in their heart and only God can change our hearts. From these two concepts we develop a range of things that make up our faith but the succeeding step into faith is found in our verse. The fundamental point of this verse is that God is in control and that we are not. At some point we have to decide that we trust that God is in control no matter what is going on and we will shape our lives based on that idea. If we do not trust that God is in control then at some point we are going to have to face the fact that we do not really trust God and thus we cannot count on God. The good news is that God does everything He can to help us trust in Him. God tells us what is true and what is right because He wants to know that we can trust Him. That God tells us the truth even if we don’t like it means we have a God who wants us to know who He is. Best of all is that God knows we have issues with trusting God. How do we trust that a God we cannot see and we have no control over is really in control. Often it seems like God is not there and that evil has more power then God. Learning to trust God is going to take work. A starting point is to be in God’s word because that is where God reveals Himself. The whole idea of teaching us is not just to teach us the rules but to teach us about who God is and how He works. Knowing God will help us understand how God sees things and will build the trust we need to be people of real faith in God. A part of this verse I like the most is the idea that we can watch God and see what He is doing and learn to trust that He is at work when we are uncertain about God. I use the idea of planting flags in my life. When I know that God has clearly worked I plant a flag to remind me about God working so that when I have questions I can go back and see God is still there. That is what this verse is getting at. We can know God is there both when we see Him at work and when we don’t. This trusting that God is at work at all times is critical to our faith and understanding what our faith is all about. Look to God and trust in Him because He is the one who saves us from our sin.

This verse also points us to another factor that is a big part of our faith and that is the idea of bowing down. What happens when we bow down is we submit to the authority of God which then bings about the trust in God we need. God is truth and God is always right but to take hold of those and to really have them work in our lives we must accept the authority of God. The great thing about God is that He does not ask us to accept His authority without knowing who He is. All of the teachings and the prophets tell us who God is and that submitting to God’s power and authority actually makes our lives better. Because we trust God’s authority and we bow down to Him our lives are better and we find real blessing that comes from God. We do have to admit that there is a downside to bowing down and letting God be King of our lives and that is that we don’t get to do what we want. But the idea is that doing what we want has not worked out for us so trusting in God instead of our own wisdom might be a better choice. Even Jesus was obedient to God and did as God wanted and from that comes uncounted blessings. Living by God’s ideas are a good thing. Our verse tells us that those who trust in God will not be disappointed and that is a wonderful thing. Seeking to be what God wants us to be is such a powerful thing and it will give us the things we want most. We will have to bow down and live by what God teaches us and we will have to trust that God is the one who saves us from our sins but if we accept the authority of God in our lives we will find such hope. The question is do we have the strength and are we willing to come under God’s power and to let God be the one who directs our lives for His glory.

Trusting that God is in control is not an easy thing. When the Israelites were in Egypt I know people had to wonder where God was and why He did not do anything. But God says He was there in the middle of that pain and He was working. We have all read the book of Job and called out to God like Job does to ask what God is doing. In the book of Habakkuk we find the writer asking what God is going to do about the evil he sees and when he gets God’s answer he questions God. There are going to be moments in our lives when we question what God is doing and that is okay but we can never let our pain and questions cause us to give up on the God. Our verse is referring to a time that will come in the future and God is trying to remind people that he is in control and if we will trust Him we will find the hope and peace we need. Bow down and trust in the God who gives life and saves us from our sin because He loves us that much.