Sunday Sermon

Serving God

Isaiah 60:12
The nation or kingdom that doesn’t serve you will be destroyed; it will be completely ruined.

An interesting idea that most of us don’t think about is that we live at the bottom of an ocean of air. This fact effects everything we do from how cooking food works to the way cars run. Most of us just take these things as normal and don’t really appreciate how remarkable this ocean of air is and how it influences our lives but it has a real effect on how we live. This idea also has some merit when it comes to how the world works and our relationship with the living God. Very few humans really grasp the concept of grace that God gives us. The fact is that we live every day in the ocean of grace that God gives us and we should develop an understanding of what that means. When we hear the word grace, we often don’t know what it really means but it is so essential to whom God is and How God works that we should at least have a basic knowledge of it’s meaning and how it works in our lives. In simple terms grace is defined as unmerited favor. The expanded concept here is that we don’t get what we deserve but we get what we need. Developing this idea more, we learn it means that God does not punish us for our sin the moment we sin. God is giving us space to rethink how we are operating as people. When we choose sin we separate ourselves from God and the only result that can happen from that is that we are destroyed. God is the source of life and when we reject God we reject life and we choose death. For God this is the most tragic of things and so God holds back the death and destruction we have chosen because God wants us to choose Him and life instead. So because God loves us and wants to give us time to think about how we are living we avoid the immediate cost of sin. For me this is what makes God so good. There is also a down side of grace that I struggle with. Since we as humans do not suffer the results of our sin at the moment we sin we think we have gotten away with our sin. Our enemy wants us to believe this lie but it is not true and at some point we will feel the effects of our sin in our lives. This is why God spends so much time speaking to us about sin and why God tells us how dangerous sin is to us and to our culture. Just because we have a God who loves us and pours out grace like air does not mean that sin will not have a cost. Those who trust in the name of Jesus understand this with real clarity because Jesus came to suffer and die to pay for our sins. Living in an ocean of grace is a wonderful expression of God’s love for us but we cannot use grace as an excuse to ignore our sin and pretend that there is no cost for our sin in our lives. There will be a reckoning for sin at some point. God has done all He can to have us avoid the cost of sin but we have to choose God and learn to live as God calls us to live or we will be destroyed by our sin. Seek God and the grace He pours out and find hope, peace and joy like we have never known before.
My wife and I have been married for forty years and it has been a great time. I know the exact date that I met Debbie on because that date changed by life. The process of finding a mate and solemnizing the relationship in marriage takes time. What is most essential to the whole process is the idea that we choose each other? In that choice we decided to love and care for one another which has been a wonderful thing. I think that God uses the marriage relationship to help us understand how we relate to God. Our God does not force us to obey Him. Yes, God does tell us what happens if we do not obey Him but He lets us choose if we want Him and the life He gives or something else. A core tenant of our faith in God is that God does not force obedience but invites us to learn to live how we were meant to live. From the very beginning God gives us a choice between Himself and not him. God puts a tree in the middle of the garden not because God is evil but because God always wants to give us a chance to decide for ourselves if we want God or not. One of events in the Old Testament that has caught my thinking is when God offers a covenant with the Israelite people. As a part of the process God speaks to the people and outlines what God offers as blessing and then explains what happens if they don’t choose God. It is not God threatening the people listening but God explaining the difference between choosing God and not choosing God. Once God explains what is going on God lets the Israelite people choose. The point of God giving the Ten Commandments is not to force people to do as God says but to explain the underlaying laws of the universe. We as people can then make a wise choice of what to do but we need to know that there are consequences to our choices. Even in the end God will honor our choice. If we decide that we don’t want God in our lives then God will remove Himself but be aware that God is light and life and so without God we have nothing. I choose a loving God who invites me to come and find healing.
We have an enemy that is a liar in all things and I think the biggest lie that the enemy tells is that we can be the kings of our lives. What is worst is the lie plays partly on the truth of things which is how the enemy works. Scripture makes it clear that humans are special and different both in nature and spiritually. God refers to us as His children and Jesus teaches about us being lower then the angels for a short time. But here is the truth about all of this, we were made to be servants of the living God. Just like all other spiritually eternal beings we were made to serve not to rule. The verse we are looking at helps us learn this so we are not misinformed. In our verse God is speaking to the Israelite people and how when they return from captivity they will be the center of God’s plan. Notice what the plan is. We were made by God to serve Him and that is a wonderful thing. People often think that serving is some how a bad thing but Jesus tells us that serving is how we become what God longs for us to be. Serving God alines us with our purpose and it is a joy to be what God calls us to be. To serve does mean that we must submit to the authority of God and that can sometimes be a struggle but God promises that serving Him is worth the cost. What is really great is that Jesus says the best way to be the best person we are to be is to be a servant of God. The battle with being a servant is the we feel less then others but that is where we find the love of God. We are loved by God not because we are good servants but because we are God’s creation. Being a servant is a response to the love God has for us. Learning to serve God is all about learning to obey what God teaches. We do not obey or serve because we want too win our salvation we obey because we have a God who saves us and we want to learn how to be the people God wants us to be. Bowing before God does not lower us but it connects us to God and so by serving God we become the children of the king that God want us to be. Serving God and learning to live by God’s ideas and principles is not easy but when we do our lives are changes and the world is changed. Following and serving God with all of who we are is the fastest route to the hope, peace and joy we want in our lives.
In this verse we find God teaching us the truth about how the universe works and we need to pay attention to what is said here. Some people take the words here as a threat but that is not how God works and we need to see it another way. God is simply telling us the truth about the human condition. We are loved by God and so God does not want us destroyed and the words we read here are God helping us know how the universe works. Again we have to remember God never forces us to serve Him so God is just telling us what happens when we choose not serve Him. The whole point of making this statement is because God wants to save us from the destruction that comes from rejecting God. Having this knowledge is a way of God helping to teach us about how the universe works. We are going to serve something so why not serve the God who loves us and who dies to save us from our sin. This verse is another step in knowing the love God has for us. It is not incumbent on God to tell us about the moral under pinnings of the universe but God does it because He cares about us and wants us to have the right information so we can make good choices. If God did not tell us the truth about how the world works we could rightly say God is not righteous. But God is not a liar and does not keep the truth from us. That the truth God tells us makes us uncomfortable is not God’s fault. Learning the truth is not easy but it helps to set us free from the lies the enslave us. God never says that serving Him will be easy or simple but He does say there is blessing in learning to serve God and rejecting the idea that we are kings of our lives. Let the real King of Kings, Jesus, enter our lives and see how wonderful the world becomes. There is real hope in a God who tells us the truth and teaches us how to be the people we were made to be.
Our faith is based on the idea the God desperately wants us to choose Him because He knows the price of not choosing Him. Part of what happens with Jesus is to help us know the price of sin. God cares about us and wants us to know how the world works so we will find blessing and not curses. Serving God is not a problem but a blessing and God wants us to know the hope we have in Him. Our verse speaks of a destruction God want us to avoid and so God tells us the truth about how things work. Stepping into the light of the truth about what is real and true will not be easy because we will have to submit ourselves to the authority of God but being our own kings has not gotten us the things our hearts really long for. Seek to serve a God who loves us and who teaches what is real and true.