Sunday Sermon

 

The Ways of the Lord

Isaiah 55:8

The Lord says, “My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways.

The science of motors fascinates me. There is a reason that it took till the nineteenth century to replace animal power with mechanical power on a regular basis and another hundred years to develop the internal combustion engine. Even the ancient engineers knew about steam power but to make a steam engine is another thing entirely. It is not the complexity of a motor that is the problem but the level of precision that is required. Motors only work in a very narrow band of engineering. If you miss that band by very much a motor will not work. We all know this because we have all been in a car when the motor has failed to work for one reason or another. For a motor to work the air and fuel have to mix at a very specific rate. Combustion only happens when there is either a spark or enough heat and pressure is applied and that all has to happen with exact timing. If any of those things is off just a little, the motor will not work well or at all. When I think about motors and how they work it makes me think about our faith and how it works. The fact is that our faith only works in a very narrow band and when we move away from that band our faith begins to not work like God meant it to. Jesus tells us this when He speaks about the road being narrow or when He talks about the narrow gate. People complain that faith is exclusive and the fact is they are right. God makes it clear that there is a path that leads us to a relationship with God and not all paths go there. The whole point of the Bible is that God explains what faith takes and what faith means and to ignore that is just silly. What amazes me is we know this to be true in our lives because we see the effects of when we get outside the operational space of faith. The further we get away from what God teaches us the worse our lives and our culture get. And just like working with motors if we push too far out of line with how the motor works it will explode or burn up and the same thing happens when we get out of line with what God teaches, our lives burn down or worse yet we let sin and evil rule us instead of God. I want us to understand that just as the science and engineering of motors dictates how they work the science and engineering of faith deals with the same kinds of things. Our faith is not about how we feel about God but it is about learning to be the people God calls us to be by living by God’s teachings. We have a living God who calls to us and invites us to come and find life in Him but we have to understand that part of the life God gives is the addressing of our sin and the need to learn a new way of living. When we do not live as God teaches our lives don’t work and God hates that so He gives us for free all the parameters that will make our lives work. At the center of all of that is that we need God in our lives. Learning to trust God and build lives based on what God tells us is all about knowing who our God is and loving Him enough to live as He tell us.

Building things from a set of instructions seems like a simple enough task but I have learned that it often is not that easy. I will not even get started on building shelves or other furniture let’s just go with something that seems easier like Lego style building. When you get a building set they come with substantially detailed instructions that include illustrations and parts list. Each step should be an uncomplicated task of assembling the given parts in the right fashion. But the reality is that at some point a piece is going to be incorrectly assembled and the failure will not be revealed until another five steps further along when parts don’t fit like they should. Now the only solution is to dismantle all that has been done and redo the part that was put together wrongly. This failure is not a fault of the maker of the set or the illustrator of the instruction book but it is a failure of the person doing the building. I was thinking about this the last time I built a Lego set and suffered this exact issue and it got me thinking about my faith and how faith works. As we build our trust in God and learn from Him about how to live our lives sometimes we misunderstand something or we don’t fully grasp what God is teaching us. This is such a common problem for people of faith as we struggle to become the people God wants us to be. Being people of faith is hard and it takes real effort. God often lets us struggle with questions because in that battle we develop an understanding about God and our faith. But that also means that we will have to be humble enough to admit that we have to at some point go back and reconsider parts of our faith. It might even mean we have to disassemble parts of our faith and rebuild with the new understanding of our God. Faith is not a static thing and if we think we have got things figured out we are most likely wrong on some part of what we believe. That is why we need to build a strong relationship with the Holy Spirit and learning to listen to what God is teaching us each day.

One of the hardest parts of ministry is helping people develop a concept of God that is outside of themselves. Everyone comes to faith in God centered on themselves and each of us have to start moving away from that self centered thinking about God and the universe if our faith is ever going to mean anything. This is not a condemnation of anyone because it is a normal thing to think about yourself and what you want. That is why God gives us grace and mercy so we have the time and space to move from the evil that is ourselves and build faith and trust in God. God knows that when we center our lives on ourselves we will never have the hope and joy we are looking for and that is why God speaks as He does in our verse. God wants us to know that He is different from us and that should help us develop a new way of living that is based on trusting in God and not ourselves. Our verse makes this so clear and challenges us to know that what we are getting into is not an exchange of one selfish system for another but a whole new system of thinking and understanding of the world. God tells us that our thinking lacks the strength and value that will build a real life and calls to us to rethink all that we have known. Best of all is that God then offers to teach us how He thinks. Nothing is held back by God when it comes to helping us become the people of faith God wants us to become. The hard part is being willing to change as God shows us new ways of thinking and to consider how our old ways just do not match up to how God thinks. When we strive to learn from God how to think it will humble us and force us to tear down old systems and to build new ones that God directs. And yes this statement from God means that we are the ones who are wrong about everything and we are going to have to have the courage to over come our fear of letting our thinking go and learning new ways of thinking from God. For me I learned a long time ago that my thinking was wrong and God continues to teach me new ways of thinking and living that fill my life with hope, joy and peace.

A professor in one of my Biblical studies classes spoke about paying attention to when God says things more then once in a given text. When that happens, God wants us to pay attention and notice what is being said. In our verse today we have that kind of thing going on. God repeats Himself in this verse because God wants us to know who He is and the importance of that information. Also there is a subtle change that expands what God is saying and closes any loopholes we might want to consider. Not only is God’s thoughts different then our thoughts but God’s actions are different. Now this does make sense because we know God is righteous and so everything God does is always right but God is also making a point that we are not what we should be. It needs to be clear God is always right that means we are going to be wrong very often. It is at this moment we can either see God condemning us or we can see that God is offering and alterative way of thinking that is better. The more I study God’s ways the more I like His ways and I find that my ways seem to be missing something. Think about this, God is righteous but even more He is creator of all things. That means God knows how the world should work and God wants to tell us about it. God could have to said nothing to us and just left us to our wrong ways but that is not what the God who loves us does. The whole concept of the Ten Commandments is God wants us to know what is right and wrong because we will be better for it. We have a God who is inviting us to come and know we are not what we should be but God is then offering to teach us how we should live. Jesus came to save us from our evil ways and to teach us how to live in new and righteous ways. We are not left by God to figure out things but God spends so much time teaching us about how to live and how to be the righteous and loving people God wants us to be. We will have to learn to trust God and seek Him but what God is offering in this verse is so revolutionary that we need to think on it carefully. Being people of faith is not easy and this verse speaks to that but God says it is worth the effort.

This verse is such a wonderful description of God. In these few words God tells us who He is and condemns with no questions asked how we are living but it also is a clear invitation to a different and better life. Our faith is not based on our thoughts but on the thoughts of God and God does not hide His thoughts but offers to us a new way of thinking. Because of who God is God then acts in certain ways and our faith is all about that too. Because we trust in the living God we will act in new ways. Our faith is not about what we do but because of our faith we will do things the way God does. This statement about God is a great way to consider how we are living and what drives that. God loves us so much that He will not let us live by the false and evil ideas that we hold but forces us to learn to think and live in a different way. This gives us such hope and it is all because of the God who loves us and wants us to know a new and better way.