What is a living sacrifice?
In the epistle reading for today, the Apostle Paul encourages us to be living sacrifices. What does that mean?
A living sacrifice is living. It breathes, it moves . . . it feels. It can make choices, it can communicate, it walks, it talks. Money doesn’t breathe, a check in the offering plate can’t walk. Though—I am quite sure that money speaks. It always seems that my money, at least, speaks to me, and that if I hold it up right next to my ear I can hear it say, “Spend me! Spend me!”
A living sacrifice is a sacrifice. It is something that has been completely and utterly turned over to God, it has a cost associated with it. It expresses the reality of a relationship between God and the giver, a reality that acknowledges God as the source of all that is good in the giver and the giver’s life, a reality that acknowledges that we have nothing to give to God except what He first gave to us.
A living sacrifice, then, is a living, active thing that has been completely committed over to God. It has surrendered its own will, thoughts, and desires to become the tool of God Almighty. No longer content to be the captain of its own destiny, the King over its own life, the living sacrifice gladly surrenders each and every aspect of its being to the control and Divine say-so of God Himself. This is what Paul is urging us to be.
The Problem With Living Sacrifices
Now, what could be the problem with that? I mean, that sounds pretty good, right? Just think, every single day we could wake up and do the will of the Lord. Not bad at all, huh? Why not start today? Today we are living sacrifices, fully committed to knowing and doing the will of God in every aspect of our lives! And here we are, on the altar, a living sacrifice!
But what about those days when we’re not fully committed to God? What about those days?
You see, that’s the problem with living sacrifices . . . they keep trying to crawl off the altar! We want to do what’s right, to be fully committed to God, but it can get so hard to know what He wants us to do, and when we do find out, we usually don’t like it very much. We figure that being a living sacrifice demands too much from us.
It’s seems like it’s kind of a curse, being a living sacrifice. Oh, if we could pick our best moment and freeze it in time we’d look pretty good . . . but it wouldn’t be a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice isn’t all that pretty. If we could freeze that one moment in time we’d be able to believe that our faith was strong, that we lived lives of complete devotion to God. But since we’re living sacrifices we tend to mess up, we’re human. We fall short and we fail. We need help to become a true living sacrifice.
How do I get help becoming a living sacrifice?
We’ll get to who helps us in a minute, but for right now the question I want you to ask yourself is this: “How do I get to be a living sacrifice? What is the process that I can follow to make me into a living sacrifice?”
In our reading for today, the Apostle Paul gives us the answer for that question. In Romans chapter 12 verse two he says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
First, “do not be conformed.” The first step in being a living sacrifice to God is to stop allowing the world set the pattern for our lives, to turn away from the way of life that the world offers. “Do not be conformed” means "do not be shaped by the world", "do not live in the manner of the world.” The world’s pattern of life is characterized by greed, selfishness. It is a pattern that looks exactly . . . like . . . you, because it is a pattern that has one word at the center in big, bold lights: “ME!”
The pattern of this world seems right, and there are many, many times when we can rationalize it away, believing that we are doing the right thing. But keep in mind that Proverbs 16:25 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” That’s what the way of the world is . . . a path to death. If you are allowing yourself to be conformed to the pattern of the world, you are on a path that leads to death.
But we have two commands here, don’t we? In order to be a true and living sacrifice, we must not only turn away from the ways of the world, but we must also be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Let’s break that down a bit. The word that Paul has chosen for “Be transformed” is the Greek word metamorfou/sqe, and it means to be changed in form, to have a fundamental shift in our very being. We would get our word “metamorphosis” from it. In other words, the word we use to describe the change from a creepy-crawly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly is, in effect, the word Paul chooses to describe what should be happening to us through the renewing of our minds.
This process of transformation, of being changed in our very being, this doesn’t come from within ourselves, it comes only from God. Paul says it this way to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
That’s what it is to be transformed, to have God take us from our broken, worldly image and shape us into the likeness of His heavenly one. But transformation is the end result. Paul says the process of transformation takes place by the renewing of our minds.
Now what in the heck does that mean? How do we get our minds renewed?
Titus 3:4-7 says this: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
Did you catch that? God not only accomplishes the transformation in us, but also makes the renewal happen, as well! Out of His divine grace, God takes poor, miserable sinner—that’s you and me, in case you didn’t get that point just yet—God takes me, a poor, miserable sinner, someone who deserves nothing but punishment, someone who is filthy dirty with sin and shame, and washes me clean in Jesus Christ. And that washing—which is here mentioned as being nothing other than baptism—that washing is the agent of renewal in our lives. You see what that means? When you were baptized, God renewed your mind, He reoriented you from the pattern of the world into His Divine image.
See, there’s nothing else that you or I could do that compares to that! Paul hasn’t told us to get our act straight, to shape up and fly right, but He has told us that God is already at work in our lives, that Jesus Christ has already made it possible for us to be His own, that the Holy Spirit has washed and regenerated and renewed us through Holy Baptism, and that each and every thing we do now as people who are nothing other than Children of God should reflect the reality of redemption that we already have in Christ Jesus! You want to be transformed? In Christ you already are! You want to be renewed? The Holy Spirit has already accomplished that! And no matter what else happens, whether you or I fail, whether we fall down, whether we crawl off the altar, we cannot change the fact of our transformed reality in Jesus Christ!
What does a living sacrifice do?
God indeed has transformed us from children of darkness to children of His glorious light. We know that we are not to be conformed to our old ways, to our sinful and worldly ways, to the pattern of the world, but what does our new, transformed pattern look like? What does a living sacrifice do?
Paul gives us that answer, too. In verses 6-8 he says, “6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”
See now, there is a pattern to this new life we have in Christ. God has not transformed us from something into nothing, but has transformed us from purposeless, lost creatures into redeemed Children of God who have a part in His plan! In this new, transformed life of being a living sacrifice, He gives us tasks to do. NOT tasks that lead us to salvation, but express the salvation we already have. Paul’s list of things that living sacrifices do are, in fact, gifts that come with our transformation.
So, as believers in Jesus Christ, God has transformed each of us. In order to guide us in this new pattern of life, He has also given each of us gifts. The gifts are all different, but the have only one purpose in mind: They are gifts to serve one another. These gifts are to help build up one another in the faith. There are no small gifts, no unimportant ones. Each gift is important, is vital, is critical in living out our lives as living sacrifices.
Anyone wondering what Paul’s list—this list of prophets, teachers, encouragers, givers, leaders, and showers of mercy—anyone wondering what that list might look like for you? For you, as a member of Our Saviour?
. . . I’m so glad you asked. If you’ll check out your September newsletter—it’s available now—you’ll find a list of choices where you could use the gifts that God has given you, a list of areas where you could be a living sacrifice.
September Choices:
Worship
· Now forming a Worship Dreaming Team! The purpose of this group is to dream up ideas to help develop more meaningful expressions of worship. Music experience not a requirement, and in fact we need a good mix of musical and non-musical people. Meets once a month for four months and then transitions into an action team.
Discipleship
· Adult Sunday school: We are currently discovering how prayer and praise fits into our modern lives through a study of the Psalms: Prayer and Praise. Join us as we draw insight and application from God’s Word! Meets every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.
· High School Sunday morning class: Come ready for an interactive thirteen week Bible study covering topics on choices, culture, acceptance, faith, and hope. Meets ever Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.
· Doorway to Discipleship is the name for our class for new members, inquirers, and seasoned Christians wanting a refresher in the basics of the faith. Classes start Wednesday, September 14th, and meets for 1 hour every week for 10 weeks.
· Youth Group: Youth from ages 10-20 will meet on Saturday, September 17th from 1-3 p.m. to plan the year together and have a little fun, too!
Ministry
· Small group ministry: Have you ever been a part of a close band of friends that got together on a regular basis for talk and mutual support? That’s the idea behind a small group. We are now looking for solid, caring Christians to develop as small group leaders. Meets 1 hour every week for 6 weeks.
· Teaching Sunday school. Love kids? Want to lead them to Jesus? But no experience? No worries! If you love kids enough to want to lead them into a deeper relationship with God, we’ll help you by giving you the tools you need. Sunday School teachers teach for one hour every Sunday morning at 9:00 and gather together once a month for a training session.
· Ladies’ Guild. The Ladies of Our Saviour begin their year with a potluck dinner on Thursday, September1st at 6:30 p.m.
Missions
· Now forming an Evangelism Dreaming Team! Like the worship team, the purpose of this group is to dream up ideas to help build effective and relevant bridges into our community. Creative and out-of-the-box thinkers with a heart for seeking and saving the lost of Hillsdale and Lenawee counties will meet once a month for four months and then transition into an action team.
Fellowship
· Bowling! Now forming a Hudson-area church bowling league at Ten Pin Bowling Alley. Meets every other week beginning Saturday, September 17th.
You are a living sacrifice. Transformed by God to a new, regenerated, renewed pattern of life, your gifts of service tell of the marvelous God who redeemed you from the way that leads to death. Don’t crawl off the altar, now . . . but live as a sacrifice to Jesus Christ.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Sunday, August 21, 2005
The God You Cannot Know
God is keeping secrets from you. There is a whole side to God that we’ll never know; there are aspects of His personality that we are never going to be able to fathom, to understand.
Now, if this were something like a premarital counseling session and I were to say that a person’s potential mate was keeping secrets from you, then I’d think it would be pretty safe to say that we’d all be concerned. You can’t have a relationship with a fellow human being who is hiding something from you. But we’re not speaking about a relationship with another human being; we’re speaking about a relationship with God. Should it disturb us that there are things we can’t know about God?
This is not a new thought; theologians have been talking about what we call the “hidden God” for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Even before that, however, the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 45:15, “Truly, you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior.”
Have you ever felt as though God was hiding Himself from you? What did you think about that? Did you wonder where God was . . . did you wonder why God was allowing this to happen? And you cried and cried and prayed and prayed but still . . . God hid Himself? This God—the God who hides Himself from you, the God who cannot be understood, the God who does strange things . . . this is the God you cannot know.
The God You Cannot Know
The God you cannot know is mysterious. He is the God the Apostle Paul is speaking about in the epistle lesson from today when he says in Romans 11:33-34, “33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"” This hidden God, this unknowable God has great power . . . the word awesome is too small of word to properly describe Him. This hidden God’s ways are beyond our ability to follow, to understand. He does things for which we can’t grasp any reason or rhyme.
No matter how hard you look, you will not be able to see the God you cannot know. Moses, the first and greatest leader of God’s people in the Old Testament, the man whom the Bible says talked with God face to face as a man would talk with his friend, even he could not see God’s face! Oh, he asked once . . . in Exodus chapter thirty three Moses said to God, “Now show me your glory.” And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
The God you cannot know is too overwhelming for you to look upon. There is something so majestic about Him that if, in your present state, you were allowed to look fully upon Him, would instantly fry your circuits. You’d drop dead. Part of the reason for that is because of His nature, and part of the reason is because of your nature.
We—you and I—have limitations. I was born on this earth and will live on this earth until one day when I die. My life has a beginning and an end. My physical body occupies one single place in both space and time. For instance, I can’t be in both my office working and at home playing video games at the same time, no matter how hard I try! (I tried to combine the two by playing video games in my office . . . but I realized I couldn’t get much done that way!) I can’t be in two places at once any more than I can be in today and next week at the same time. Like you, I need rest . . . I need food . . . I need chocolate. (and because of the chocolate I need exercise!) That’s just part of being human—we are limited, finite creatures.
But God is no creature, but the creator. In I Timothy chapter one verse seventeen Paul describes God in this word of praise. He says, “17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Now how is a limited, finite creature such as myself supposed to understand and know a God who is like that? A God upon whom there are no limits of time or space, a God with—try to wrap your mind around this one—a God with no beginning and no end? It just can’t be done!
The God you cannot know has thoughts you’ll never be able to search out. Only the Spirit of God Himself can know the thoughts of God. In 1 Corinthians chapter two Paul tells us, “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” You see, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are above our thoughts, His wisdom is beyond our own, and His power exceeds all our imagination!
The God you cannot know: you can’t plumb His depths, you can’t measure His height, you can’t gauge His breadth, you cannot even begin to wrap your mind around Him . . . and yet the one thing that we want more than anything when trouble hits, when we are confronted by this horrible, mysterious reality of the God we cannot know, the one thing we want this God to do is explain Himself to us. We want to confront the God we cannot know and hold Him accountable.
Why do we want to delve into the hidden God? Why do we probe into the depths of the God we cannot know? What reason would it serve? What do we expect to gain?
I think I can answer that whole question in one word: comfort. We expect to gain comfort. Think about it; how many times have you been in the midst of a severe crises, you’re in the middle of a terrible trial, your faith is being pushed to the limits, and in desperation you cry out, “Oh, God! If I could only understand why this is happening . . . then I’d be okay. Then I could make it through.”
But that’s the thing about the hidden God . . . He doesn’t answer the question “Why?” In my reading of the Scriptures I can’t recall a single time when it was recorded that the Lord ever answered the question “Why?” The closest thing that I can think of would be in the story of Job. Job cried out to God, wailing over the loss of his family, his home, his wealth . . . wanting the God he could not know to give him the answer to “Why?” God came to him, all right . . . but it wasn’t something that Job enjoyed. Instead of giving Job an answer, God came to him and said, “Stand up like a man! I’ve got some questions for you, and you’re going to answer me!” What followed was probably hours upon hours of God peppering Job with questions for which Job had no answer, questions that clearly demonstrated to Job as well as to you and I who is God . . . and who is not. “Job! Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'? 12 "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?”
Do you have answers for those questions? Do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like his? Job 11:7-8 "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? 8 They are higher than the heavens-- what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave--what can you know?
The God Who Has Made Himself Known
We can’t! We can’t know the hidden God! Pursuing the God we cannot know goes down a path that leads to despair. Following that path could cause us to lose our faith, because we cannot understand. We cannot know the hidden God . . . but we can know a God who reveals Himself to us. The God we cannot know is full of mystery, He is as strange to us as light is to darkness. But what about the God who reveals Himself to us?
Look again at the Gospel lesson. Matthew 16:13-20 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”
We can’t know the hidden God, but in Christ God reveals Himself to us! You see what this means? God knows that we can’t grasp His fullness, that we can’t look upon Him and live, and so He reveals Himself to us in a way that we can understand! We don’t need to probe into the hidden God, we don’t need to know why, we only need to know WHO, and the who we need to know is the revealed God, the God made man Jesus Christ.
Speaking of Jesus Christ, Paul says, in Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God—the hidden God, if you will--, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,”
The very thing that forces God to hide Himself from us—his fullness—that is the same thing that God reveals to us in Jesus Christ! All His fullness, all His power, his eternal, immortal, nature—that’s revealed to us in a way that we can understand in Jesus Christ! The One who laid the earth’s foundation, who marked off its dimensions—we know who He is! The One who stretched a measuring line across the gulf between Heaven and earth, winning your eternal victory while all the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy, He is the revealed God in whom we find the answer to any question that needs asking. It’s the revealed God, the God we can know in Jesus Christ that is the foundation, the cornerstone of our hope! Amen!
We put our hope, our faith, in nothing other than the revealed God—Jesus Christ. Martin Luther put it this way, “You must kill the other thoughts and the ways of reason or of the flesh, for God detests them. The only thing you have to do is to receive the Son, so that Christ is welcome in your heart in His birth, miracles, and cross. For here is the book of life in which you have been written. And this is the only and the most efficacious remedy for that horrible disease because of which human beings in their investigation of God want to proceed in a speculative manner and eventually rush into despair or contempt. If you want to escape despair, hatred, and blasphemy of God, give up your speculation about the hidden God, and cease to strive in vain to see the face of God. Otherwise you will have to remain perpetually in unbelief and damnation, and you will have to perish; for he who doubts does not believe, and he who does not believe is condemned.”
The God Who Knows You
The hidden God is the God we cannot know. The revealed God—Jesus Christ—is the God who makes Himself known to us. But the final factor in all this, in the end, is the God who knows you.
There was once a farmer, and on one strange night an early snowstorm hit. As the icy wind howled against his window and the snow piled up against his door, he happened to glance up from the Bible he was reading and looked outside. He saw a flock of sparrows, trapped in his yard by the freak storm.
With the temperature dropping and the weather getting only worse, the farmer’s heart was filled with compassion for these poor little birds who were certainly going to freeze to death without some form of shelter. So the man donned his hat and coat and headed out into the night.
He opened his barn door, hoping that the sparrows would fly in, but the poor creatures just sat in the snow, shivering. He lit a lantern and placed it inside the barn, hoping the light would draw the birds to its warmth and the safety of the barn . . . but still they sat out in the cold.
By this time he was fairly desperate, and he tried everything in his power to get the hapless creatures inside. But no matter how much he tried to draw them, lure them, or shoo them into the barn, all he accomplished was making them flutter away from him in fright.
Frustrated, the man hung his head in sadness, realizing that he could not save the poor birds. “If only,” he thought as he headed back towards his home, “If only I were a sparrow . . . then I could tell them how to be saved.” And with that thought he stopped dead in his tracks, because at last he realized why God had had to make Himself known in the person of Jesus Christ. He did it all so that He could tell us how to be saved.
Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” There is nothing that you do, nothing you need that escapes God’s attention. He knows we can’t understand the depths of His grace, and that is the very reason why He had to find a way to make Himself known to us. We can’t find peace in probing the depths of the hidden God . . . but in Jesus Christ—the God who made Himself known to us—in Him we find all the answers we need.
Amen.
Now, if this were something like a premarital counseling session and I were to say that a person’s potential mate was keeping secrets from you, then I’d think it would be pretty safe to say that we’d all be concerned. You can’t have a relationship with a fellow human being who is hiding something from you. But we’re not speaking about a relationship with another human being; we’re speaking about a relationship with God. Should it disturb us that there are things we can’t know about God?
This is not a new thought; theologians have been talking about what we call the “hidden God” for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Even before that, however, the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 45:15, “Truly, you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior.”
Have you ever felt as though God was hiding Himself from you? What did you think about that? Did you wonder where God was . . . did you wonder why God was allowing this to happen? And you cried and cried and prayed and prayed but still . . . God hid Himself? This God—the God who hides Himself from you, the God who cannot be understood, the God who does strange things . . . this is the God you cannot know.
The God You Cannot Know
The God you cannot know is mysterious. He is the God the Apostle Paul is speaking about in the epistle lesson from today when he says in Romans 11:33-34, “33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"” This hidden God, this unknowable God has great power . . . the word awesome is too small of word to properly describe Him. This hidden God’s ways are beyond our ability to follow, to understand. He does things for which we can’t grasp any reason or rhyme.
No matter how hard you look, you will not be able to see the God you cannot know. Moses, the first and greatest leader of God’s people in the Old Testament, the man whom the Bible says talked with God face to face as a man would talk with his friend, even he could not see God’s face! Oh, he asked once . . . in Exodus chapter thirty three Moses said to God, “Now show me your glory.” And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
The God you cannot know is too overwhelming for you to look upon. There is something so majestic about Him that if, in your present state, you were allowed to look fully upon Him, would instantly fry your circuits. You’d drop dead. Part of the reason for that is because of His nature, and part of the reason is because of your nature.
We—you and I—have limitations. I was born on this earth and will live on this earth until one day when I die. My life has a beginning and an end. My physical body occupies one single place in both space and time. For instance, I can’t be in both my office working and at home playing video games at the same time, no matter how hard I try! (I tried to combine the two by playing video games in my office . . . but I realized I couldn’t get much done that way!) I can’t be in two places at once any more than I can be in today and next week at the same time. Like you, I need rest . . . I need food . . . I need chocolate. (and because of the chocolate I need exercise!) That’s just part of being human—we are limited, finite creatures.
But God is no creature, but the creator. In I Timothy chapter one verse seventeen Paul describes God in this word of praise. He says, “17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Now how is a limited, finite creature such as myself supposed to understand and know a God who is like that? A God upon whom there are no limits of time or space, a God with—try to wrap your mind around this one—a God with no beginning and no end? It just can’t be done!
The God you cannot know has thoughts you’ll never be able to search out. Only the Spirit of God Himself can know the thoughts of God. In 1 Corinthians chapter two Paul tells us, “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” You see, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are above our thoughts, His wisdom is beyond our own, and His power exceeds all our imagination!
The God you cannot know: you can’t plumb His depths, you can’t measure His height, you can’t gauge His breadth, you cannot even begin to wrap your mind around Him . . . and yet the one thing that we want more than anything when trouble hits, when we are confronted by this horrible, mysterious reality of the God we cannot know, the one thing we want this God to do is explain Himself to us. We want to confront the God we cannot know and hold Him accountable.
Why do we want to delve into the hidden God? Why do we probe into the depths of the God we cannot know? What reason would it serve? What do we expect to gain?
I think I can answer that whole question in one word: comfort. We expect to gain comfort. Think about it; how many times have you been in the midst of a severe crises, you’re in the middle of a terrible trial, your faith is being pushed to the limits, and in desperation you cry out, “Oh, God! If I could only understand why this is happening . . . then I’d be okay. Then I could make it through.”
But that’s the thing about the hidden God . . . He doesn’t answer the question “Why?” In my reading of the Scriptures I can’t recall a single time when it was recorded that the Lord ever answered the question “Why?” The closest thing that I can think of would be in the story of Job. Job cried out to God, wailing over the loss of his family, his home, his wealth . . . wanting the God he could not know to give him the answer to “Why?” God came to him, all right . . . but it wasn’t something that Job enjoyed. Instead of giving Job an answer, God came to him and said, “Stand up like a man! I’ve got some questions for you, and you’re going to answer me!” What followed was probably hours upon hours of God peppering Job with questions for which Job had no answer, questions that clearly demonstrated to Job as well as to you and I who is God . . . and who is not. “Job! Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'? 12 "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?”
Do you have answers for those questions? Do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like his? Job 11:7-8 "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? 8 They are higher than the heavens-- what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave--what can you know?
The God Who Has Made Himself Known
We can’t! We can’t know the hidden God! Pursuing the God we cannot know goes down a path that leads to despair. Following that path could cause us to lose our faith, because we cannot understand. We cannot know the hidden God . . . but we can know a God who reveals Himself to us. The God we cannot know is full of mystery, He is as strange to us as light is to darkness. But what about the God who reveals Himself to us?
Look again at the Gospel lesson. Matthew 16:13-20 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”
We can’t know the hidden God, but in Christ God reveals Himself to us! You see what this means? God knows that we can’t grasp His fullness, that we can’t look upon Him and live, and so He reveals Himself to us in a way that we can understand! We don’t need to probe into the hidden God, we don’t need to know why, we only need to know WHO, and the who we need to know is the revealed God, the God made man Jesus Christ.
Speaking of Jesus Christ, Paul says, in Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God—the hidden God, if you will--, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,”
The very thing that forces God to hide Himself from us—his fullness—that is the same thing that God reveals to us in Jesus Christ! All His fullness, all His power, his eternal, immortal, nature—that’s revealed to us in a way that we can understand in Jesus Christ! The One who laid the earth’s foundation, who marked off its dimensions—we know who He is! The One who stretched a measuring line across the gulf between Heaven and earth, winning your eternal victory while all the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy, He is the revealed God in whom we find the answer to any question that needs asking. It’s the revealed God, the God we can know in Jesus Christ that is the foundation, the cornerstone of our hope! Amen!
We put our hope, our faith, in nothing other than the revealed God—Jesus Christ. Martin Luther put it this way, “You must kill the other thoughts and the ways of reason or of the flesh, for God detests them. The only thing you have to do is to receive the Son, so that Christ is welcome in your heart in His birth, miracles, and cross. For here is the book of life in which you have been written. And this is the only and the most efficacious remedy for that horrible disease because of which human beings in their investigation of God want to proceed in a speculative manner and eventually rush into despair or contempt. If you want to escape despair, hatred, and blasphemy of God, give up your speculation about the hidden God, and cease to strive in vain to see the face of God. Otherwise you will have to remain perpetually in unbelief and damnation, and you will have to perish; for he who doubts does not believe, and he who does not believe is condemned.”
The God Who Knows You
The hidden God is the God we cannot know. The revealed God—Jesus Christ—is the God who makes Himself known to us. But the final factor in all this, in the end, is the God who knows you.
There was once a farmer, and on one strange night an early snowstorm hit. As the icy wind howled against his window and the snow piled up against his door, he happened to glance up from the Bible he was reading and looked outside. He saw a flock of sparrows, trapped in his yard by the freak storm.
With the temperature dropping and the weather getting only worse, the farmer’s heart was filled with compassion for these poor little birds who were certainly going to freeze to death without some form of shelter. So the man donned his hat and coat and headed out into the night.
He opened his barn door, hoping that the sparrows would fly in, but the poor creatures just sat in the snow, shivering. He lit a lantern and placed it inside the barn, hoping the light would draw the birds to its warmth and the safety of the barn . . . but still they sat out in the cold.
By this time he was fairly desperate, and he tried everything in his power to get the hapless creatures inside. But no matter how much he tried to draw them, lure them, or shoo them into the barn, all he accomplished was making them flutter away from him in fright.
Frustrated, the man hung his head in sadness, realizing that he could not save the poor birds. “If only,” he thought as he headed back towards his home, “If only I were a sparrow . . . then I could tell them how to be saved.” And with that thought he stopped dead in his tracks, because at last he realized why God had had to make Himself known in the person of Jesus Christ. He did it all so that He could tell us how to be saved.
Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” There is nothing that you do, nothing you need that escapes God’s attention. He knows we can’t understand the depths of His grace, and that is the very reason why He had to find a way to make Himself known to us. We can’t find peace in probing the depths of the hidden God . . . but in Jesus Christ—the God who made Himself known to us—in Him we find all the answers we need.
Amen.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Sheep, Dogs, and Saving Faith
Introduction:
In the sermon text for today—the Gospel reading from Matthew chapter fifteen—we see Jesus doing what He does best; challenging the system. In a few verses of profound importance, Jesus expertly demonstrates who is truly in the Kingdom of God . . . and who is not. Exactly how He does that is something we’ll explore together.
Exposition:
Verse twenty-one says, “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.”
Right off the bat we see there’s a need to fill in some context to this story, to get a little of the background. In preparing for this sermon, I read a lot of Leon Morris’ commentary on Matthew for this section, and I got some great insight from it. I’d like to share some of that with you. If we go backwards in chapter fifteen, we see a fairly common happening: A group of religious teachers called Pharisees have gathered around Jesus and are pestering him with questions. In this case, they are demanding to know why the disciples of Jesus didn’t follow something called “the tradition of the elders” and wash their hands before eating.
Now, the issue behind the handwashing is not cleanliness, but of following an accepted ritualistic practice. The “tradition of the elders” was not God’s Law, but an interpretation of God’s Law . . . an enlargement of the Law, even perhaps an exaggeration. In this case, the tradition demanded that a person’s hands must be ceremonially—again, not sanitarily, but ceremonially—clean before eating. The feeling was that the hands came in contact with numerous things throughout the day that could make them unclean, which simply means tainted by a sort of symbolic sinfulness. To have “unclean hands” meant that you were a sinner who had violated God’s law in some fashion.
The Pharisees were the group who were known for their exorbitant measures for the keeping of the Law. They were so intent upon keeping God’s Law that they had built up an elaborate system of religious traditions, and failure to follow those traditions to the very letter would result in sin. Therefore, the Pharisees considered it something like blasphemy to eat with unclean hands . . . there reasoning was that if the hands were unclean, the food they touched would become ceremonially unclean, and then when the food was eaten it would make the whole body unclean.
You could not be a good Jew and go around unclean! Being unclean would prohibit you from entering the Temple and offering sacrifices. Being unclean meant that you were cut off from the rest of the people; being unclean meant you were not a good Jew. Riff-raff were unclean. Pagans were unclean. Gentiles were unclean. But for the Pharisees, the defining element in being a Jew was keeping the Law and the Traditions. Without keeping the law, without being clean, they felt that you could not be a Jew, one of God’s chosen people. The Pharisees trusted in the traditions to keep them clean.
Jesus, however, recognizes that what people need is not more religious traditions . . . following tradition is not the same thing as having faith. And so in verse seventeen we see Jesus boldly asserting to His disciples that it is not what goes in the mouth that makes a person unclean, but what comes out of it! The Pharisees insisted that eating unclean food made a person unclean, but Jesus says—in a rather earthy way!—that what goes into the mouth does nothing but eventually go back out of the body, understand? But by contrast, what comes out of a person’s mouth has it’s beginnings in the heart. If a person’s mouth is spewing out nasty things, it’s because their heart is overflowing with evil thoughts. The Pharisees looked to their Jewish identity and traditions to make them right before God. But Jesus insists that it is the heart, and not keeping a Jewish tradition, that determines if a person is “clean” in the sight of God or not.
That is the background for the reading.
In verse twenty-two we read, “A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
The woman that approaches Jesus is, as Matthew says, a Canaanite and not a Jew, which isn’t surprising, because Jesus has traveled outside of Jewish territory. He’s north of Judea, north of Samaria, north of Galilee, even, and into the region of Syria. He’s a Jewish teacher heading into Gentile lands, and so He happens across a Gentile woman. That’s no big deal, it’s kind of what we’d expect.
But the fascinating thing is that this woman—this Gentile woman—knows of Jesus, and what’s more, calls Him by a Jewish title! She comes to find Jesus and calls out to Him, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Son of David” is what we might call a Messianic Title, a title that the scholar Leon Morris says indicates that this Gentile woman believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior. You’d think that would be something of a surprise to Jesus, or at the very least to the Disciples. I personally would expect about anything to happen next except for the thing that actually does . . .
Verse twenty three: “Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."”
This is so odd . . . Jesus doesn’t say a thing! The Greek suggests that the woman is literally “continually crying out,” she’s asking and asking and not letting up, and still Jesus doesn’t even answer her? Is that unusual? Not if you remember from last week the reasons why God may not answer a prayer—but this woman meets the first three reasons: she has faith, she is asking, she is broken and humble . . . and yet Jesus Himself is apparently ignoring her. Why? Because He is already at work in her life, drawing her confession of faith out of her, answering her prayer. She just can’t see it yet.
Verse 24: He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25 The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
Jesus’ reply is not to the woman, but to the disciples, who had asked him to do something, anything to get rid of the woman. But Jesus’ answer is not to get rid of the woman . . . but to test her.
Yes, it is true that Jesus was sent to Israel, that the Good Shepherd’s earthly ministry was to seek out His lost sheep and bring them back to the fold; The sheep—Israel—are the main focus of His earthly mission, and He says so out loud. But that doesn’t stop the woman. Whether she heard Jesus or not, I don’t know, but in any case she finally comes right up to Him and begs for help. I think she’s onto something: she knows enough to see that Jesus is the Messiah, and I believe she recognizes that, even though Jesus’ earthly ministry is for the sheep—for Israel—that He traveled all the way up into Gentile country for a reason. Despite what the fact that her eyes and ears tell her that Jesus is ignoring her, it is her faith that is pushing her forward.
26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
OUCH! The first thing Jesus says to her, and He puts her on the same level as a dog sitting underneath the dining room table. He says that it would be wrong to take the good things that God has prepared for the children—in other words, for Israel, for the sheep—and give them away to dogs; Gentile dogs that don’t have the Law, they don’t know the traditions . . . and therefore they are the people whom the Pharisees from earlier in the chapter would say God isn’t interested in. They’d say dogs—Gentiles—just don’t belong among God’s people.
But see what Jesus is doing: He’s not pushing her away, but drawing her closer in. Jesus has already made it clear earlier in the chapter that it’s not outward actions, that it’s not rituals or Jewish traditions that make a person part of God’s family . . . but it’s what’s in the heart that matters. So He challenges her, saying, “I’m here for the lost sheep of Israel” . . . and still she comes in a bit closer. And then He says, “I can’t help you, it would be like giving the children’s food to the dogs” . . and still she comes in a bit closer. Knowing she doesn’t deserve anything from Jesus, knowing that she can’t claim a Jewish ancestry, knowing that she has to rely utterly and totally upon His mercy, but still knowing that Jesus has come to her . . . what’s in her heart pushes her closer to Jesus, she makes the final step and, in faith, she risks it all, saying in verse twenty-seven, "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
WOW! She doesn’t even bat an eye, but she says to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, you have your work to do among the sheep, the children of Israel, I know that . . . but I also know that that work will spill over, it will overflow and bless us Gentiles as well . . .even if we are just dogs in the eyes of some. Now Lord, in your mercy, please help me.”
And THAT’S what Jesus was waiting for. There, in front of His disciples, a Gentile has professed her faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. She knows what He is about, she knows whom He came to serve, and the faith in her heart has poured out of her mouth. Jesus has made His point, and so He answers,
Verse twenty-eight: “Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
I’d like to draw your attention to what Jesus didn’t say. He didn’t say, “Woman, you are really persistent!” He didn’t say, “Woman, you have tremendous humility!” There’s only one thing that He chooses to praise in this Gentile woman, and that is her faith. He has tested her, He has seen that she believes in Him, that she trusts in Him despite what her eyes and ears tell her is going on, and He grants her request, healing her daughter immediately.
Interpretation:
There are three major players in this episode, can you guess who they are? Jesus, the Canaanite woman . . . and the context. Matthew has set up this whole chapter very carefully, he’s trying to tell us something very important about Jesus, about what He came to do . . . about who He came here for.
You see what’s happened in this chapter? Matthew has made a very pointed argument that salvation was never intended for the Jews alone . . . but that it was part of God’s plan all along to include the Gentiles in His Kingdom, as well. In recording Jesus’ words and actions, Matthew emphasizes that the offer of salvation is not found in observing tradition, it is not found in ancestry, it is not found in having an external Jewish identity, but through an internal cleanness that comes from having a heart full of faith. Therefore, the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ is open to any and all who would believe in Him. It doesn’t matter if they are Jew or Gentile, and it doesn’t matter what the Pharisees think. If a person believes in Jesus Christ, if they look to Him for their life and salvation, then they have all that they need.
Application
We’ve talked about quite a bit this morning. What are you going to take home with you? What truth from God’s Word are you going to apply to your life this week?
As for me; I realized two things this week as I worked on this sermon. There are two truths I want to apply to my life. The first truth is that I don’t want to be a Pharisee. Like many of you, I’ve grown up in the church; I’ve lived my entire life learning the church’s rituals, adhering to the church’s traditions. I became a church person, and most of my friends have been church people. There’s a blessing in that, because I realize there’s never been a time in my life when I didn’t have God working in my life through His church.
But there’s also a danger. The danger is that I could become a Pharisee; I could become a person who believes that church people are the only people God is interested in. I could become a Pharisee, and say that if you don’t know the rituals, if you don’t know the traditions—if you don’t dress like a church person, or talk like a church person . . . or act like a church person . . . then God isn’t interested in you. See, if I start to see myself as one of God’s sheep and all the non-church people as being just dogs, then I’m going to shut myself off from them, I’m going to believe that I am superior to them. When those dogs come to church, I’d turn up my nose and scoff. I’d mock them with my fellow Pharisees . . . “Did you see how they dressed? Don’t they know that this is the house of the Lord? Don’t they know how WE do things here? If they’re not going to be like one of us, then they shouldn’t even be here.” That’s what I’d say if I was a Pharisee.
I don’t ever want to become that, I don’t ever want to become a person who’d rather see people die and go to Hell rather than see them come into church and change the way I’m accustomed to church looking. And the reason I don’t want to become that is because I’d lose hold of the second great truth that I need to apply to my life from today’s lesson. I’d lose hold of the truth that I am just a Gentile dog. I don’t deserve even table scraps from God . . . and still He gives me His good gifts, pouring His Spirit upon me, planting faith into my heart so that I can come before Him knowing I don’t deserve anything from Jesus, knowing that I can’t claim a Jewish ancestry, knowing that I have to rely utterly and totally upon His mercy, but still knowing that Jesus has come to me; that, for some reason, God has chosen me—a dog—to be one of His children.
That’s the difference between the two; the difference between becoming a Pharisee and being a dog. As a Pharisee I’d still have my pride, but everyone else around me would be going to Hell because of it. But a Pharisee just wouldn’t care. I’d have my pride . . . but I would have lost my God.
But as a dog? As a dog I might not have pride . . . it’s kind of hard to have pride when you realize that you must beg for mercy . . . but I’d have something better: I’d have grace. . That’s the funny thing—you don’t care much about your pride anymore when grace has gotten a hold of you. I’d have faith—true faith—in Christ. I’d have a real relationship with God. And as a dog, I’d realize that I wouldn’t have anything to lose when some other dogs came into church. They couldn’t mess up the place any worse than I have . . . and God would have a place for them, too, just like He did for me . . . and just like He does for you.
In the sermon text for today—the Gospel reading from Matthew chapter fifteen—we see Jesus doing what He does best; challenging the system. In a few verses of profound importance, Jesus expertly demonstrates who is truly in the Kingdom of God . . . and who is not. Exactly how He does that is something we’ll explore together.
Exposition:
Verse twenty-one says, “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.”
Right off the bat we see there’s a need to fill in some context to this story, to get a little of the background. In preparing for this sermon, I read a lot of Leon Morris’ commentary on Matthew for this section, and I got some great insight from it. I’d like to share some of that with you. If we go backwards in chapter fifteen, we see a fairly common happening: A group of religious teachers called Pharisees have gathered around Jesus and are pestering him with questions. In this case, they are demanding to know why the disciples of Jesus didn’t follow something called “the tradition of the elders” and wash their hands before eating.
Now, the issue behind the handwashing is not cleanliness, but of following an accepted ritualistic practice. The “tradition of the elders” was not God’s Law, but an interpretation of God’s Law . . . an enlargement of the Law, even perhaps an exaggeration. In this case, the tradition demanded that a person’s hands must be ceremonially—again, not sanitarily, but ceremonially—clean before eating. The feeling was that the hands came in contact with numerous things throughout the day that could make them unclean, which simply means tainted by a sort of symbolic sinfulness. To have “unclean hands” meant that you were a sinner who had violated God’s law in some fashion.
The Pharisees were the group who were known for their exorbitant measures for the keeping of the Law. They were so intent upon keeping God’s Law that they had built up an elaborate system of religious traditions, and failure to follow those traditions to the very letter would result in sin. Therefore, the Pharisees considered it something like blasphemy to eat with unclean hands . . . there reasoning was that if the hands were unclean, the food they touched would become ceremonially unclean, and then when the food was eaten it would make the whole body unclean.
You could not be a good Jew and go around unclean! Being unclean would prohibit you from entering the Temple and offering sacrifices. Being unclean meant that you were cut off from the rest of the people; being unclean meant you were not a good Jew. Riff-raff were unclean. Pagans were unclean. Gentiles were unclean. But for the Pharisees, the defining element in being a Jew was keeping the Law and the Traditions. Without keeping the law, without being clean, they felt that you could not be a Jew, one of God’s chosen people. The Pharisees trusted in the traditions to keep them clean.
Jesus, however, recognizes that what people need is not more religious traditions . . . following tradition is not the same thing as having faith. And so in verse seventeen we see Jesus boldly asserting to His disciples that it is not what goes in the mouth that makes a person unclean, but what comes out of it! The Pharisees insisted that eating unclean food made a person unclean, but Jesus says—in a rather earthy way!—that what goes into the mouth does nothing but eventually go back out of the body, understand? But by contrast, what comes out of a person’s mouth has it’s beginnings in the heart. If a person’s mouth is spewing out nasty things, it’s because their heart is overflowing with evil thoughts. The Pharisees looked to their Jewish identity and traditions to make them right before God. But Jesus insists that it is the heart, and not keeping a Jewish tradition, that determines if a person is “clean” in the sight of God or not.
That is the background for the reading.
In verse twenty-two we read, “A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
The woman that approaches Jesus is, as Matthew says, a Canaanite and not a Jew, which isn’t surprising, because Jesus has traveled outside of Jewish territory. He’s north of Judea, north of Samaria, north of Galilee, even, and into the region of Syria. He’s a Jewish teacher heading into Gentile lands, and so He happens across a Gentile woman. That’s no big deal, it’s kind of what we’d expect.
But the fascinating thing is that this woman—this Gentile woman—knows of Jesus, and what’s more, calls Him by a Jewish title! She comes to find Jesus and calls out to Him, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Son of David” is what we might call a Messianic Title, a title that the scholar Leon Morris says indicates that this Gentile woman believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior. You’d think that would be something of a surprise to Jesus, or at the very least to the Disciples. I personally would expect about anything to happen next except for the thing that actually does . . .
Verse twenty three: “Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."”
This is so odd . . . Jesus doesn’t say a thing! The Greek suggests that the woman is literally “continually crying out,” she’s asking and asking and not letting up, and still Jesus doesn’t even answer her? Is that unusual? Not if you remember from last week the reasons why God may not answer a prayer—but this woman meets the first three reasons: she has faith, she is asking, she is broken and humble . . . and yet Jesus Himself is apparently ignoring her. Why? Because He is already at work in her life, drawing her confession of faith out of her, answering her prayer. She just can’t see it yet.
Verse 24: He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25 The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
Jesus’ reply is not to the woman, but to the disciples, who had asked him to do something, anything to get rid of the woman. But Jesus’ answer is not to get rid of the woman . . . but to test her.
Yes, it is true that Jesus was sent to Israel, that the Good Shepherd’s earthly ministry was to seek out His lost sheep and bring them back to the fold; The sheep—Israel—are the main focus of His earthly mission, and He says so out loud. But that doesn’t stop the woman. Whether she heard Jesus or not, I don’t know, but in any case she finally comes right up to Him and begs for help. I think she’s onto something: she knows enough to see that Jesus is the Messiah, and I believe she recognizes that, even though Jesus’ earthly ministry is for the sheep—for Israel—that He traveled all the way up into Gentile country for a reason. Despite what the fact that her eyes and ears tell her that Jesus is ignoring her, it is her faith that is pushing her forward.
26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
OUCH! The first thing Jesus says to her, and He puts her on the same level as a dog sitting underneath the dining room table. He says that it would be wrong to take the good things that God has prepared for the children—in other words, for Israel, for the sheep—and give them away to dogs; Gentile dogs that don’t have the Law, they don’t know the traditions . . . and therefore they are the people whom the Pharisees from earlier in the chapter would say God isn’t interested in. They’d say dogs—Gentiles—just don’t belong among God’s people.
But see what Jesus is doing: He’s not pushing her away, but drawing her closer in. Jesus has already made it clear earlier in the chapter that it’s not outward actions, that it’s not rituals or Jewish traditions that make a person part of God’s family . . . but it’s what’s in the heart that matters. So He challenges her, saying, “I’m here for the lost sheep of Israel” . . . and still she comes in a bit closer. And then He says, “I can’t help you, it would be like giving the children’s food to the dogs” . . and still she comes in a bit closer. Knowing she doesn’t deserve anything from Jesus, knowing that she can’t claim a Jewish ancestry, knowing that she has to rely utterly and totally upon His mercy, but still knowing that Jesus has come to her . . . what’s in her heart pushes her closer to Jesus, she makes the final step and, in faith, she risks it all, saying in verse twenty-seven, "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
WOW! She doesn’t even bat an eye, but she says to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, you have your work to do among the sheep, the children of Israel, I know that . . . but I also know that that work will spill over, it will overflow and bless us Gentiles as well . . .even if we are just dogs in the eyes of some. Now Lord, in your mercy, please help me.”
And THAT’S what Jesus was waiting for. There, in front of His disciples, a Gentile has professed her faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. She knows what He is about, she knows whom He came to serve, and the faith in her heart has poured out of her mouth. Jesus has made His point, and so He answers,
Verse twenty-eight: “Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
I’d like to draw your attention to what Jesus didn’t say. He didn’t say, “Woman, you are really persistent!” He didn’t say, “Woman, you have tremendous humility!” There’s only one thing that He chooses to praise in this Gentile woman, and that is her faith. He has tested her, He has seen that she believes in Him, that she trusts in Him despite what her eyes and ears tell her is going on, and He grants her request, healing her daughter immediately.
Interpretation:
There are three major players in this episode, can you guess who they are? Jesus, the Canaanite woman . . . and the context. Matthew has set up this whole chapter very carefully, he’s trying to tell us something very important about Jesus, about what He came to do . . . about who He came here for.
You see what’s happened in this chapter? Matthew has made a very pointed argument that salvation was never intended for the Jews alone . . . but that it was part of God’s plan all along to include the Gentiles in His Kingdom, as well. In recording Jesus’ words and actions, Matthew emphasizes that the offer of salvation is not found in observing tradition, it is not found in ancestry, it is not found in having an external Jewish identity, but through an internal cleanness that comes from having a heart full of faith. Therefore, the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ is open to any and all who would believe in Him. It doesn’t matter if they are Jew or Gentile, and it doesn’t matter what the Pharisees think. If a person believes in Jesus Christ, if they look to Him for their life and salvation, then they have all that they need.
Application
We’ve talked about quite a bit this morning. What are you going to take home with you? What truth from God’s Word are you going to apply to your life this week?
As for me; I realized two things this week as I worked on this sermon. There are two truths I want to apply to my life. The first truth is that I don’t want to be a Pharisee. Like many of you, I’ve grown up in the church; I’ve lived my entire life learning the church’s rituals, adhering to the church’s traditions. I became a church person, and most of my friends have been church people. There’s a blessing in that, because I realize there’s never been a time in my life when I didn’t have God working in my life through His church.
But there’s also a danger. The danger is that I could become a Pharisee; I could become a person who believes that church people are the only people God is interested in. I could become a Pharisee, and say that if you don’t know the rituals, if you don’t know the traditions—if you don’t dress like a church person, or talk like a church person . . . or act like a church person . . . then God isn’t interested in you. See, if I start to see myself as one of God’s sheep and all the non-church people as being just dogs, then I’m going to shut myself off from them, I’m going to believe that I am superior to them. When those dogs come to church, I’d turn up my nose and scoff. I’d mock them with my fellow Pharisees . . . “Did you see how they dressed? Don’t they know that this is the house of the Lord? Don’t they know how WE do things here? If they’re not going to be like one of us, then they shouldn’t even be here.” That’s what I’d say if I was a Pharisee.
I don’t ever want to become that, I don’t ever want to become a person who’d rather see people die and go to Hell rather than see them come into church and change the way I’m accustomed to church looking. And the reason I don’t want to become that is because I’d lose hold of the second great truth that I need to apply to my life from today’s lesson. I’d lose hold of the truth that I am just a Gentile dog. I don’t deserve even table scraps from God . . . and still He gives me His good gifts, pouring His Spirit upon me, planting faith into my heart so that I can come before Him knowing I don’t deserve anything from Jesus, knowing that I can’t claim a Jewish ancestry, knowing that I have to rely utterly and totally upon His mercy, but still knowing that Jesus has come to me; that, for some reason, God has chosen me—a dog—to be one of His children.
That’s the difference between the two; the difference between becoming a Pharisee and being a dog. As a Pharisee I’d still have my pride, but everyone else around me would be going to Hell because of it. But a Pharisee just wouldn’t care. I’d have my pride . . . but I would have lost my God.
But as a dog? As a dog I might not have pride . . . it’s kind of hard to have pride when you realize that you must beg for mercy . . . but I’d have something better: I’d have grace. . That’s the funny thing—you don’t care much about your pride anymore when grace has gotten a hold of you. I’d have faith—true faith—in Christ. I’d have a real relationship with God. And as a dog, I’d realize that I wouldn’t have anything to lose when some other dogs came into church. They couldn’t mess up the place any worse than I have . . . and God would have a place for them, too, just like He did for me . . . and just like He does for you.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
But the Lord was not there
He is a man of God, and he is running for his life.
Just three years before, the man of God had told the King, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives-- the God whom I worship and serve-- there will be no dew or rain during the next few years unless I give the word!” And he spoke true . . . no rain fell from heaven, no dew moistened the dry, cracked earth. The land, parched and aching for rain, lay under the hot sun for three years with nothing to quench its horrible, neverending thirst . . . until the man of God prayed, and at his word the rains came again to water the scorched earth. The man of God was given great power by the God whom he served . . . and yet he is running for his life.
Just months before, the man of God had a divine showdown with the prophets of the god Baal. Prophet against prophet, God against god, the contest was to prove once and for all who was God and who was not. The prophets of Baal cried aloud, dancing themselves into a blood-mad frenzy, howling and writhing as wild animals, but there was no answer to their increasingly strident cries . . . until the man of God prayed to his God, and at his word the fire came, falling as from Heaven itself, its greedy and holy flames consuming the offering, the wood, even the very stones the man of God had used to build the altar. The prayers of the man of God were mighty and effective . . . and yet he is running for his life.
He runs day and night, neither heat nor heart slowing the relentless, never ending cadence that his sandals beat upon the sandy earth. But he does not run on the strength of his fear, but on the very food of God. Just days before an angel of the Lord had visited the man of God, offering him life-giving bread and a cup of cool water, and it is on the strength of that food that the man of God runs for forty days and forty nights until he comes to a cave into which he can crawl. He has come face to face with a Divine Messenger, he has eaten the food of God himself, His God is with Him at every turn . . . and yet he is hiding for his life.
The man of God is Elijah, one of the most powerful figures in all of the Old Testament, and he is running and hiding for his life because he believes God is no longer hearing his prayers. He doesn’t understand where God is or what He has been doing, Elijah’s life is in shambles, and he can’t see God doing a single thing that he felt should be happening. And so it is when God comes to him and says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”, Elijah doesn’t even give Him an answer, but launches into a tirade against God. “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. But The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
Yeah! Elijah figures he’s got something to tell God, he figures that God hasn’t been there for him, he figures that God hasn’t been listening, and he figures God hasn’t been answering. So when Elijah gets his chance, he gives it to God with both barrels, just tells Him off. You can just see Elijah’s face fuming, you can see him sitting back and waiting for God to give him an answer.
But does God give him one? God just kind of blows Elijah off . . . instead of answering Elijah in his anger or, better yet, blasting Elijah off the face of earth, what’s He say? “Go out and stand on the mountain.” Now what is up with that? In talking directly with God, in this prayer Elijah no doubt figured he deserved an answer from God . . . but he didn’t even get a reply.
Now maybe sometimes you feel like that, that God just isn’t even listening to you. You pray and pray and pray and your prayers just seem to bounce back off the ceiling . . . it seems like the Lord is not there.
If God isn’t answering your prayers, it’s possible that your prayer priorities are not in order. To help keep them in order, there’s a list of three things I’d like for you to consider:
If God isn’t answering your prayers, it’s possible you’re not asking with faith. James 1:5-8 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
If the problem in your prayers is a lack of faith, the solution is having faith. You need to be able to trust that God can far above and beyond anything you may ask. But mesaying “have faith!” when you don’t have faith is just plain pointless. So instead, if your lack of faith is hindering your prayers, be like the father in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, who brought his son to Jesus to be healed. He said to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” And Jesus says, “If?” “If? Everything is possible for him who believes.” And what did the father say” The father instantly replied, “I do believe, but help me not to doubt!” If the problem in your prayers is a lack of faith, then you first need to pray for a lack of doubt.”
But say that’s not your problem. Say you believe that God can do anything you might ask . . . your faith is a rock. Strong. Hard. And still you don’t have the things you need. What’s the problem?
Well, this one is pretty obvious, but if God isn’t answering your prayers, it might be because you haven’t asked. James 4:2 says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” Maybe you haven’t asked because you think it’s too small of a thing to bother God with, or maybe you haven’t asked because you’re not sure even what you need . . . but you still haven’t asked!
If the problem in your prayers is that you haven’t asked, the solution is . . . Ask! Ask! Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Matthew 7:7-8 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” If the problem in your prayers is that you don’t have, then your first prayer is to ask.
But say you have faith, say that you have asked . . . and still God is not answering your prayers. What could be the problem then? It’s possible that you have unconfessed sin in your life. It’s possible you’ve been trying to hide something from God . . . it’s possible you’ve even been trying to hide something from yourself. 1 Peter 3:12 says, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
If the problem in your prayers is unconfessed sin, then the solution is to see it in yourself and then to say it before God and before the one against whom you have sinned. This can be a tricky one, because in order to get past this problem we often have to do quite a bit of soul-searching, of taking stock in our lives, of looking deep inside and realizing that there is some pretty ugly stuff in there that we didn’t even want to deal with. But once you see it, once your heart is broken over it, confess it to God like King David does in Psalm 86:1 where he says, “Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.” When you approach God and you know that you are a mighty sinner and you’re broken up inside over it, God will hear you. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” If the problem in your prayers is unconfessed sin, then your first prayer to approach God, repentant and broken.
In the book of James, chapter five verses sixteen through eighteen, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”
Hey . . . there’s Elijah again. Remember where we left him? Elijah had just told God off to His face . . . Elijah is in distress—they—that would be King Ahab and Queen Jezebel—they have killed off all of God’s prophets and now Elijah's running for his life, too Why is he getting treated this way, he wants to know. He's been more than faithful to God (and what an example of faithfulness he is!), and yet THIS is the way his life is turning out??
Elijah wants to see things get shaken up, he wants to see God in a mighty way, he wants to see a demonstration of God’s power. The trouble is, what he needs to see he can’t, and what he can’t see he needs to.
Elijah gets his powerful demonstration--a wind so strong that the Hebrew literally reads, “tearing the mountain to pieces.” Just imagine you are Elijah, standing out on the side of the mountain, and you hear a faint rushing in the distance, growing louder and louder into a deafening roar. As the wind tears over the mountaintop behind you you feel the pull of it and are almost lifted off your feet before it roars past you like a lion after it's prey, and you watch in utter disbelief and horror as the mountains around you crash down as this wind hungrily tears into them. Tons upon tons of rock and earth split from the mountainside and are hurtled down below, ravaged by that savage wind. But the Lord was not there. And after the wind the ground trembles from an earthquake, the mountains skipping like lambs and the earth moving beneath your very feet . . . But the Lord is not there.
Where is God? Looking for God to give a visible demonstration of a mighty act, Elijah can see the power of God, but still misses the presence of God.
And so now Elijah steps out. He has no doubt of God’s power now . . . he has seen that God can indeed do anything. He’s learned that he can’t tell God, but that he needs to ask, and I’m sure that after seeing the awesome power of God Elijah is approaching him humbly, with a broken and contrite heart.
And again God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And this time Elijah answers quietly, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. But The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” Even though he says the exact same words, Elijah’s prayer priorities are now in order.
But still . . . God doesn’t exactly answer him, does he? The first time, when Elijah had chewed God out, God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain.” Now that Elijah has his prayer priorities in order, God says, “Go back the way you came.” It has to be very confusing for Elijah, which brings us to the fourth reason why it may seem that God isn’t answering your prayers.
In verse sixteen God—the God whom Elijah had thought wasn’t paying attention—this same God instructs Elijah to Elijah to anoint three men. Through this anointing, through this process of God choosing a man and Elijah literally pouring oil over the man as a sign that God had chosen him, God will make two men into a king and one man into a prophet.
The first king is Hazael, the king who’s armies would later kill the wicked King Ahab (I Kings 22:31, 37). The second king is Jehu, the king who’s descendants would replace the line of Ahab as king over Israel (2 Kings 9:2). And the third man is the prophet whom God would choose to replace Elijah. (1 Kings 19:21)
Do you understand what just happened? The wicked king Ahab, who was solely responsible for the spiritual destruction of Israel, the king who was after Elijah’s very life, the king who was the cause of all of Elijah’s frantic prayers . . . that king was being taken down by God Himself. Not only that, but God had already chosen the next great prophet who would counsel the future kings of Israel and help them to walk in the ways of the Lord. When Elijah had thought God was no longer listening to him, when it seemed that God was not there, God was working His plan the whole time. God was lining all this up, unbeknownst to Elijah, who simply sat there and acted like God wasn’t doing anything . God had a plan and He was working it, even though Elijah couldn’t see.
That’s the fourth reason why it may seem that your prayers are not being answered . . . they are, but you can’t see it! You may never see it! But all the while God is there, working behind the scenes.
This, then, is the reason why we call it “faith” and not “sight” Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” We trust in the promises of God, He helps us to keep our prayer priorities straight, and we don’t have to be bothered anymore by what we don’t see.
In a conversation at the garage sale yesterday, I told a man that I could talk about the Bible and faith all day . . . but that if I never got around to the main thing, if I never got around to talking about Jesus Christ . . . then it wasn’t a sermon.
That kind of tripped me up as I finished this sermon, because I had gotten to the end of what I had to say and realized I hadn’t yet pointed out where Jesus fits into all of this! So, where does Jesus fit in?
1 Peter 1:1-9 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Just three years before, the man of God had told the King, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives-- the God whom I worship and serve-- there will be no dew or rain during the next few years unless I give the word!” And he spoke true . . . no rain fell from heaven, no dew moistened the dry, cracked earth. The land, parched and aching for rain, lay under the hot sun for three years with nothing to quench its horrible, neverending thirst . . . until the man of God prayed, and at his word the rains came again to water the scorched earth. The man of God was given great power by the God whom he served . . . and yet he is running for his life.
Just months before, the man of God had a divine showdown with the prophets of the god Baal. Prophet against prophet, God against god, the contest was to prove once and for all who was God and who was not. The prophets of Baal cried aloud, dancing themselves into a blood-mad frenzy, howling and writhing as wild animals, but there was no answer to their increasingly strident cries . . . until the man of God prayed to his God, and at his word the fire came, falling as from Heaven itself, its greedy and holy flames consuming the offering, the wood, even the very stones the man of God had used to build the altar. The prayers of the man of God were mighty and effective . . . and yet he is running for his life.
He runs day and night, neither heat nor heart slowing the relentless, never ending cadence that his sandals beat upon the sandy earth. But he does not run on the strength of his fear, but on the very food of God. Just days before an angel of the Lord had visited the man of God, offering him life-giving bread and a cup of cool water, and it is on the strength of that food that the man of God runs for forty days and forty nights until he comes to a cave into which he can crawl. He has come face to face with a Divine Messenger, he has eaten the food of God himself, His God is with Him at every turn . . . and yet he is hiding for his life.
The man of God is Elijah, one of the most powerful figures in all of the Old Testament, and he is running and hiding for his life because he believes God is no longer hearing his prayers. He doesn’t understand where God is or what He has been doing, Elijah’s life is in shambles, and he can’t see God doing a single thing that he felt should be happening. And so it is when God comes to him and says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”, Elijah doesn’t even give Him an answer, but launches into a tirade against God. “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. But The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
Yeah! Elijah figures he’s got something to tell God, he figures that God hasn’t been there for him, he figures that God hasn’t been listening, and he figures God hasn’t been answering. So when Elijah gets his chance, he gives it to God with both barrels, just tells Him off. You can just see Elijah’s face fuming, you can see him sitting back and waiting for God to give him an answer.
But does God give him one? God just kind of blows Elijah off . . . instead of answering Elijah in his anger or, better yet, blasting Elijah off the face of earth, what’s He say? “Go out and stand on the mountain.” Now what is up with that? In talking directly with God, in this prayer Elijah no doubt figured he deserved an answer from God . . . but he didn’t even get a reply.
Now maybe sometimes you feel like that, that God just isn’t even listening to you. You pray and pray and pray and your prayers just seem to bounce back off the ceiling . . . it seems like the Lord is not there.
If God isn’t answering your prayers, it’s possible that your prayer priorities are not in order. To help keep them in order, there’s a list of three things I’d like for you to consider:
If God isn’t answering your prayers, it’s possible you’re not asking with faith. James 1:5-8 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
If the problem in your prayers is a lack of faith, the solution is having faith. You need to be able to trust that God can far above and beyond anything you may ask. But mesaying “have faith!” when you don’t have faith is just plain pointless. So instead, if your lack of faith is hindering your prayers, be like the father in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, who brought his son to Jesus to be healed. He said to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” And Jesus says, “If?” “If? Everything is possible for him who believes.” And what did the father say” The father instantly replied, “I do believe, but help me not to doubt!” If the problem in your prayers is a lack of faith, then you first need to pray for a lack of doubt.”
But say that’s not your problem. Say you believe that God can do anything you might ask . . . your faith is a rock. Strong. Hard. And still you don’t have the things you need. What’s the problem?
Well, this one is pretty obvious, but if God isn’t answering your prayers, it might be because you haven’t asked. James 4:2 says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” Maybe you haven’t asked because you think it’s too small of a thing to bother God with, or maybe you haven’t asked because you’re not sure even what you need . . . but you still haven’t asked!
If the problem in your prayers is that you haven’t asked, the solution is . . . Ask! Ask! Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Matthew 7:7-8 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” If the problem in your prayers is that you don’t have, then your first prayer is to ask.
But say you have faith, say that you have asked . . . and still God is not answering your prayers. What could be the problem then? It’s possible that you have unconfessed sin in your life. It’s possible you’ve been trying to hide something from God . . . it’s possible you’ve even been trying to hide something from yourself. 1 Peter 3:12 says, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
If the problem in your prayers is unconfessed sin, then the solution is to see it in yourself and then to say it before God and before the one against whom you have sinned. This can be a tricky one, because in order to get past this problem we often have to do quite a bit of soul-searching, of taking stock in our lives, of looking deep inside and realizing that there is some pretty ugly stuff in there that we didn’t even want to deal with. But once you see it, once your heart is broken over it, confess it to God like King David does in Psalm 86:1 where he says, “Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.” When you approach God and you know that you are a mighty sinner and you’re broken up inside over it, God will hear you. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” If the problem in your prayers is unconfessed sin, then your first prayer to approach God, repentant and broken.
In the book of James, chapter five verses sixteen through eighteen, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”
Hey . . . there’s Elijah again. Remember where we left him? Elijah had just told God off to His face . . . Elijah is in distress—they—that would be King Ahab and Queen Jezebel—they have killed off all of God’s prophets and now Elijah's running for his life, too Why is he getting treated this way, he wants to know. He's been more than faithful to God (and what an example of faithfulness he is!), and yet THIS is the way his life is turning out??
Elijah wants to see things get shaken up, he wants to see God in a mighty way, he wants to see a demonstration of God’s power. The trouble is, what he needs to see he can’t, and what he can’t see he needs to.
Elijah gets his powerful demonstration--a wind so strong that the Hebrew literally reads, “tearing the mountain to pieces.” Just imagine you are Elijah, standing out on the side of the mountain, and you hear a faint rushing in the distance, growing louder and louder into a deafening roar. As the wind tears over the mountaintop behind you you feel the pull of it and are almost lifted off your feet before it roars past you like a lion after it's prey, and you watch in utter disbelief and horror as the mountains around you crash down as this wind hungrily tears into them. Tons upon tons of rock and earth split from the mountainside and are hurtled down below, ravaged by that savage wind. But the Lord was not there. And after the wind the ground trembles from an earthquake, the mountains skipping like lambs and the earth moving beneath your very feet . . . But the Lord is not there.
Where is God? Looking for God to give a visible demonstration of a mighty act, Elijah can see the power of God, but still misses the presence of God.
And so now Elijah steps out. He has no doubt of God’s power now . . . he has seen that God can indeed do anything. He’s learned that he can’t tell God, but that he needs to ask, and I’m sure that after seeing the awesome power of God Elijah is approaching him humbly, with a broken and contrite heart.
And again God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And this time Elijah answers quietly, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. But The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” Even though he says the exact same words, Elijah’s prayer priorities are now in order.
But still . . . God doesn’t exactly answer him, does he? The first time, when Elijah had chewed God out, God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain.” Now that Elijah has his prayer priorities in order, God says, “Go back the way you came.” It has to be very confusing for Elijah, which brings us to the fourth reason why it may seem that God isn’t answering your prayers.
In verse sixteen God—the God whom Elijah had thought wasn’t paying attention—this same God instructs Elijah to Elijah to anoint three men. Through this anointing, through this process of God choosing a man and Elijah literally pouring oil over the man as a sign that God had chosen him, God will make two men into a king and one man into a prophet.
The first king is Hazael, the king who’s armies would later kill the wicked King Ahab (I Kings 22:31, 37). The second king is Jehu, the king who’s descendants would replace the line of Ahab as king over Israel (2 Kings 9:2). And the third man is the prophet whom God would choose to replace Elijah. (1 Kings 19:21)
Do you understand what just happened? The wicked king Ahab, who was solely responsible for the spiritual destruction of Israel, the king who was after Elijah’s very life, the king who was the cause of all of Elijah’s frantic prayers . . . that king was being taken down by God Himself. Not only that, but God had already chosen the next great prophet who would counsel the future kings of Israel and help them to walk in the ways of the Lord. When Elijah had thought God was no longer listening to him, when it seemed that God was not there, God was working His plan the whole time. God was lining all this up, unbeknownst to Elijah, who simply sat there and acted like God wasn’t doing anything . God had a plan and He was working it, even though Elijah couldn’t see.
That’s the fourth reason why it may seem that your prayers are not being answered . . . they are, but you can’t see it! You may never see it! But all the while God is there, working behind the scenes.
This, then, is the reason why we call it “faith” and not “sight” Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” We trust in the promises of God, He helps us to keep our prayer priorities straight, and we don’t have to be bothered anymore by what we don’t see.
In a conversation at the garage sale yesterday, I told a man that I could talk about the Bible and faith all day . . . but that if I never got around to the main thing, if I never got around to talking about Jesus Christ . . . then it wasn’t a sermon.
That kind of tripped me up as I finished this sermon, because I had gotten to the end of what I had to say and realized I hadn’t yet pointed out where Jesus fits into all of this! So, where does Jesus fit in?
1 Peter 1:1-9 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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