Sunday Sermon

 

God at Work

Isaiah 61:2

He has sent me to announce the time when the Lord will show his kindness and the time when our God will punish evil people.

My sister-in-law used to do makeup for the government. When government agencies would run disaster drills they would hire a group of people to come to make people look like they had suffered some kind of injury. From the pictures I have seen of these events they looked very real. Medical personal and doctors would have to come and assess what was wrong and then describe the process of dealing with the injury. Even though none of it was real, it did help people work through procedures and systems to prepare people for the real thing if it ever occurred. I like the idea that institutions understand that being prepared for bad things that can happen is a good idea. For people of faith this is something that we should know about because we have a God who is always at work helping us learn about and work through the problems and issues we as humans deal with. One of the great things about God is that He pours out wisdom like it is water because God knows we as people need that information. It is so great that God does not demand that we be perfect in all things but God instead spends our life times teaching us so we can face the trials that all humans have to deal with. God is patient with us and will keep working till we learn the things we need to know. Look at Abraham and how God worked through Abraham’s life time. There were some real failures but God just kept working with Abraham. The fears that Abraham has slowly worked through and Abraham becomes a man of real faith. Grappling with how to live as people is the hardest thing we as humans have to confront and we have a God who wants to prepare us and teach us how to live in all of those hard and difficult times of our lives. We do not have a God who leaves us alone to figure out life and what it is all about but we have a God who has spent an enormous of time and effort to prepare us for the things that can go wrong in our lives. God is always with us even when things are painful and that is where our faith has to find real footing. Our hope is not in the idea that God will be with us when everything is going well but that God is with us when things are a mess and we don’t know what to do. Fear and worry are part of the human condition which God put in us and God knows is there. That means that God also has a plan to help us get through hard times and even grow from those experiences. It is up to us to lean into God and to trust that God is with us even when we face death. We have a God who even has a plan for death which is such a wonderful and amazing thing to know. Faith in the living God is not some pie in the sky thing but it is a real system for understanding and working through the issues that we face in life. That is the God we worship and serve.

An idea that I have been considering lately is that I need to be more grateful to God when He confronts me about the sin in my life. No one likes it when God speaks to us about sin because it means we have not been what we should be. Accepting criticism is never easy in any situation so when God speaks to us about our sin it is not a comfortable affair. At the same time we need to know God is not speaking to us about our sin because He hates us and wants us to know what kind of screw up we are. We have a God who cares enough about us to take the death that sin causes on Himself so we can go free. When God speaks about sin to us it is because he is thinking about what is good for us. Sin is so destructive to our lives because it cuts us off from God who is the source of life and truth. Once we reject God we reject all life and we only have lies to live on. Learning how many lies and problems we are living with disturbs God more then we can imagine. Think about this Jesus comes and dies because God hates the power of sin in our lives. God longs to set us free so we can be what He made us to be. To be loved so much that God would do whatever it takes to change our reality is the most amazing concept I have ever encountered. I need to express my gratitude for the God who rules the universe in a much more powerful way. It is not enough for me to just do church or put some money in the offering plate or even try to be a better person. God is completely committed to loving me that is overwhelming and I need to start to think differently about the sin in my life. When God speaks to me about my sin I will sing and rejoice that God wants to work in my life and to make me the human God longs for me to be.

Years ago I had a conversation with a non-believer about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. That person made the argument that God was mean and cruel because God destroyed all those people. God blessed me and allowed me to make the point that God was being kind and I am glad that we have a God like that. The kindness of God comes from the fact that God starts with a question from Abraham about how many righteous people are needed to be in those cities for God to spare them. It came down to ten people. Think through this there were not ten righteous people in those cities that tells you how evil they were. Next we find out how evil the people were by the actions that are recorded. God is kind in punishing evil because it helps protect others. The evil that Sodom and Gomorrah was involved in was hurting innocent people and if that evil spread more people would be harmed. We have a kind God who always does the right thing to bring healing and promote the well-being of people. There is nothing that says God has to be kind to us because God is the maker of the universe and the king of all things. If God wanted to He could be very hateful and we would deserve it but that is not the God we have. On the other side people say God is not kind because He allows evil do exist. They see bad people doing bad things and wonder where God is and why God is not punishing people. Here is the kindness of God on another front. Notice that God did not act at Sodom and Gomorrah until not even ten righteous people could be found and God holds back His punishment because He wants people to choose to change instead of being punished. This is called grace and it means that God gives us space to choose Him and that is a kindness also. Our verse speaks of God’s kindness and I want us to grasp the level of God’s kindness in our lives. Jesus dies on the cross not to punish us but to save us from the punishment we deserve. We want the kindness of God in our lives and the fact is people count on God being kind or they would not live as they do. And yet humans have chosen to reject God because God’s ideas about how to live our lives is inconvenient. God is so kind that He gives us vast amounts of wisdom for free because He wants us to know how to live our lives. The power of God’s wisdom is so great that people don’t even have to acknowledge God but simply have to live by the ideas God gives and our lives are better. Our God is remarkable in His kindness and I bless God for that.

The idea that God speaks of kindness and punishment in some type of relationship to who God is and how God works asks of us to think deeply about our faith in God. In the past when I read this verse I saw the two thing God speaks about here as two separate parts that had no connection to each other but as I have learned who God is I see God’s kindness and God’s punishment as related to each other. We are called God’s children and I think that is a good way of thinking of what is going on in this verse. Just as my punishment of my children was not out of hate but arising from my love for them it is that same thing with God. My punishment of my children was because I was being kind to them in that I wanted to teach them lessons about life in a controlled manner instead of them learning those same lessons the hard way. Going back to the Sodom and Gomorrah story we have God being kind in two ways. First God is punishing evil people to protect innocent people from the evil those people were doing. Next God also used the punishment to warn people who were also doing evil about what happens to those kinds of people. By working through the idea that God is always right in everything He does we can begin to build a real idea about the God who loves us. When God loves us even His punishment is kindness which means we can learn to trust in God more and more. By linking kindness and punishment we learn about a God who is at work in all things to redeem a broken and sinful people. It does take a large degree of faith to trust in that God who helps us by punishing us. Knowing God punishes is scary but I once again want to go back to Sodom and Gomorrah because God is slow to punish. The conversation with Abraham teaches us how willing God is to avoid punishment unless that is the last resort. Let us step into a new and more powerful faith that can see that God’s kindness and God’s punishment are not different parts of God but are deeply connected to each other. Our God is not a simple God who thinks in simple terms but we have a great big wonderful God who is full of complex ideas that we should find real hope and peace in.

My faith is becoming more grounded in the idea that we have a God who does not hide who He is but explains Himself even though He does not have to. People do not have to guess about God because God gladly teaches us about Himself. We as humans have not changed from Adam and Eve. Those two decided to believe the lies of the enemy instead of believing the truth from God and that is what it takes to ignore the things God teaches us about. Getting to know God is a scary thing but it also will help us grow closer to Him because we will fall in love with this God who loves us. Overcome the lies of the enemy and listen to the words of God as He explains how the universe works. We need a God who tells us all of these things because we lack the wisdom we need to be the real people God made us to be. Thinking about a God who does not leave us alone in our sin but who works to save us from ourselves is a God who we should spend some time getting to know. As we get know this God we will love and obey Him because He has the answers to the issues we deal with everyday.