This past Sunday was our Fifth Sunday pulpit swap and below is the message Pastor Debbie shared with you. I pray you were blessed, felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, and experienced God as Pastor Debbie lead you in worship!
_________________________
Introduction
Blondin was a 19th century acrobat, famous for his tightrope act 160 feet above Niagra Falls on a rope which was over a thousand feet long. In 1860 a Royal party from Britain saw Blondin cross the tightrope on stilts, and again blindfolded. After that he stopped halfway and cooked and ate an omelette. Next he wheeled a wheelbarrow from one side to the other, and returned with a sack of potatoes in it. Then Blondin approached the Royal party. He asked the Duke of Newcastle, "do you believe I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow?" "Yes, I do" , said the Duke. "Hop in, then" , replied Blondin. Well, the Duke declined Blondin's challenge. He might have believed Blondin could do it, but he wasn't about to trust him with his life.
The call on the Christian is to have the sort of trust that makes us prepared to get in the wheelbarrow – to put our entire lives into God's hands. That’s the theme I want to explore with you today. Simply believing in God is no good. We are to have faith, and trust is the practical outworking of faith. For it is when we trust God that we show that our faith in Him is real. So how can we make sure that our trust is in the right place, in the God who created us and loves us? Our first Scripture lesson from the morning tells us. There are three commands here followed by a promise and we’re going to go briefly through each of them this morning.
Trust In the Lord With All Your Heart
The first command is "Trust in the LORD with all you heart." What does it mean to trust in the Lord? At the root of the Hebrew word for trust is the idea of lying helplessly on the ground. We see animals doing that sometime – small dogs especially will often lay down in the face of bigger aggressive dogs that approach them.
We are to put our trust in the LORD. The God who is our Creator, who holds the whole world in his hands, who loves us through his son Jesus Christ. He’s never given us a reason not to trust him. This God has never given us a reason not to trust Him. He has never let us down. He has never disappointed us. He is unlike every other god. When we compare them to God we quickly realize none of them are worthy of trust:
-For only God sent his only son to die for me and stamped “pardon” on my soul to save me from hell
-For only God gives me a peace that passes all understanding.
-For only God provides my every need and gives meaning and direction to my life.
-For only God brings healing and restores health.
Search the Scriptures – God has proven time and time again that He can be trusted.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart." Heart here does not mean the organ inside Sally's chest that needed a valve replacement. It means the inner person. It means the center of our intellect and emotion and will and conscience and personality. It means that everything in us and about us is to trust in God. Total trust – not holding back any area of our mind, will or feeling. Can’t be piecemeal. We are not to pick and choose - OK, Lord, I will trust you with my marriage, but not with my career—, we are to trust him with our whole hearts and put our whole lives in his hands. The Christian, who has put his or her faith in God has to get into that wheelbarrow when God challenges us. We are to trust in the Lord with every fibre of our being.
Do you trust in the LORD with all your heart? Have you thrown yourself at His feet? Are you helpless before Him? Do you depend on His mercy and His love?
Lean Not On Your Own Understanding
The second command is "lean not on your own understanding." We see the Hebrew word for "lean" when blind Samson leaned against the huge pillars supporting the Philistine temple (Judges 16:26). We see it again when King Saul leaned upon his spear for support (2 Sam 1:16). It represents the idea of resting one's weight upon something.
"Lean not on your own understanding." We cannot rest our weight upon what we think or feel or dream or imagine. We need to admit we don't know everything, we don't understand everything, and too often we are just plain wrong.
Our second Scripture lesson from Jeremiah reminds us that the trouble starts in our own heart - “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." (Jer. 17:9-10).
We see this with Sarah. God told the elderly Sarah she would have a child and become the mother of many nations. What an incredible, beautiful promise! But Sarah's human understanding quickly rose up and said, "Me, a mother at 90? Why, my womb is dead. My husband is an old man. It is impossible!" She laughed at the thought! A lot of what God says to us in His Word is simply too wonderful, unbelievable and incredible for us to believe. So our human understanding begins to ask, "How can this be? It is impossible!" Suddenly, our human understanding builds a hedge against God!
But Jeremiah also reminds us of what happens when we learn to follow God and not lean on our own understanding: But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." (Jer. 17:7-8).
"Lean not on your own understanding." Have you learned to do that? Do you take God at His Word? Do you listen to what He says in His Word? Do you spend much time with Him in secret?
In All Your Ways Acknowledge Him
The third command is "in all your ways acknowledge him." The Hebrew word translated "acknowledge" literally means "to know." We are to demonstrate that we know God in all our ways. We do this by keeping His commandments, by doing things His way. So in everything you do, in everywhere you go, in everything you think, in everything you plan, at all times keep on confessing and recognizing God as the Lord of your life. Surrender yourself to Him so His plans becomes your plans, His will your will, and His desires your desires. He wants to rule supreme in your life.
"In all your ways acknowledge him." Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego acknowledged Him and were thrown into the furnace. Daniel acknowledged Him and was thrown into the lions' den. Paul and Silas acknowledged Him and were stripped and beaten and whipped and thrown into prison with stocks on their feet. Stephen acknowledged Him and was stoned to death. Joseph acknowledged Him and spent 2 miserable years in an Egyptian jail.
"In all your ways acknowledge him." Do you acknowledge Him? Have you surrendered to Him completely? Regardless of the cost? Regardless of what people say or think? Regardless of what you yourself might want?
And He Will Make Your Paths Straight
What is the promise that we find in our text? Verse 6 states the promise: "he will make your paths straight." The Hebrew term means "to make smooth, straight, right." Obstacles that are in the way are removed. Roads that curve back and forth are straightened out. Valleys are filled. Mountains are made low.
"He will make your paths straight." I think of Israel at the time of the Exodus. The Egyptians are behind them. The Red Sea is in front of them. And the Lord God divided the waters so the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground. That happened again at the Jordan River as the children of Israel entered the Promised Land.
In the Book of Daniel we read about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They refused to bow before the golden image made by King Nebuchadnezzar. So they were thrown into a blazing hot furnace. But when the king looked, he saw four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out without a burn mark on them, and they didn't even smell of smoke.
We can think of the time Paul and Silas are in jail. They have been stripped and beaten and flogged. They are in an inner cell and their feet are fastened in stocks. But instead of feeling sorry for themselves they are praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners are listening to them. And God sent such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison are shaken and all the prison doors fly open and everybody's chains fall off.
If we do things our own way, we are responsible for the outcome. But when we do things God’s way, He takes responsibility for the outcome. The result is that “...He will make your paths straight.” Do you see what God does? He opens a path through the sea and across the river, He stands with His children in a fiery furnace, He breaks the chains of bondage and opens the doors of captivity.
Conclusion
Every time you handle a piece of money, the inscription reads “In God We Trust.” Do we really? Faith is believing without seeing. Trust is putting our faith into action. More than anything else, trust is the true reflection of our relationship with God. It’s not automatic – it needs to be nurtured and grow over time.
And the promise of God to you is this – that if you follow his commands to trust, lean and acknowledge you will end up with straight paths. The choice is ours. Either we can trust in ourselves or in others and be cursed, or we can put our full trust in God and be blessed in spite of the circumstances around us, or the obstacles in our path. Which way will you choose?
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Bible Challenge 1/30 - 2/5
Greetings All!I hope all is well and that you are enjoying reading through Acts. This week has a little more pace to it as we finish up Acts, move through Romans, and get into 1 Corinthians. Without any further adeiu...here is the schedule.
1/30, Sunday: Acts 28 - Romans 3
1/31, Monday: Romans 4-7
2/1, Tuesday: Romans 8-11
2/2, Wednesday: Romans 12-15
2/3, Thursday: Romans 16 - 1 Corinthians 3
2/4, Friday: 1 Corinthians 4-7
2/5, Saturday: 1 Corinthians 8-11
Be Blessed!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sunshine Herald February 2011
Read it before you can pick it up!! Here is February's Edition of the church newsletter. Enjoy!
FebNwsLtr11
FebNwsLtr11
Sunday, January 23, 2011
God's Will For My Life - Colossians 1:9-10 and Romans 12:1-2
Introduction
Doug Batchelor, in his book: Determining the Will of God, tells the story about a Farmer who was trying desperately to know God’s Will. Everyday he would go out in his fields and as he was working the fields he would pray, “God, what is your will for my life? What do you want me to do with my life? Please, show me your will?” One day, while he was praying, he looked up and he saw an interesting cloud formation, moving over the horizon towards where he was. He looked up just as it drifted overhead, it began to morph into what looked like the letters “P” and “C”. And he said, “PC … Is that a sign from God? What does that mean? God, what is it you are trying to tell me?” And all of the sudden it struck him, “Preach Christ! It was like an energy went through him. “God wants me to leave farming and preach Christ!” So he sold his farm equipment and he gave up the land and he went out to preach Christ. He sent letters to all the surrounding churches telling them “If you need somebody to preach, I'm you man. Please, God has called me to preach Christ.” So he went out and started preaching, with no training whatsoever. He just knew that God had called him to preach Christ. He preached his very first sermon and it was horrible. It was so bad and he was so embarrassed. So he started to read about how to preach and he tried to learn from others. Then he went to the second church that called him and it was even worse than the first time. This continued to happen each week. He would go out and give it the best shot he had and each week it was dreadful. Until finally, after several months, people stopped calling him to preach. Finally, he realized that he couldn’t survive this way. So, he went back to farming. He bought all of his old equipment back and took over the ground again and began planting. That Spring, some of his old farming buddies came by and they asked him, “What happened? We thought you quit farming and were going out to preach Christ.” He said, “Well, I finally realized what PC stood for. It stood for “plant corn.”
Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out God’s will for our lives. You know, we look for the signs, try and read the signs, but even then we are not really sure how specific God's will is for our lives. So those are the kinds of questions that we are going to be wrestling with today. Over the last three weeks, we’ve been pondering some really important faith questions. We started with the question of God and suffering by asking if suffering is God's will. And I begged you to rethink what we naturally tend to say when we see something terrible happen, that it must be God's plan or God's will. I tried to teach you through Scripture that there are a whole lot of things that happen that are not God's will and that we have to be careful about what we attribute to God. Last week, we talked about unanswered prayer, about how we pray and pray for something and when it doesn't come through we get disappointed with God and how part of that is because maybe we don't have clear expectations of how God works in the world or how prayer works. Today, we want to really focus on how can we know the will of God, how specific is the will of God, and what does it mean to act upon the will of God?
How Specific is God's Will?
Let’s begin by recognizing that there are typically three answers given by Christians when it comes to how specific God’s will is. The first one, sometimes associated with hyper-Calvinism, is called Determinism. In this case the believers answer that God predetermined everything that is going to happen in your life before it came to be because God is in control and we only have the illusion of free choice. Now, on one hand, this seems to make sense, and there are Scriptures that seem to support this idea. But on the other hand, it’s a paradox. I mean, is this how life really is? Under this scenario, God has pre-written the script for your life, every detail scripted out, Daryl Allen's Life Story – Scripted by God. Now, you probably know that most United Methodists do not subscribe to this idea of God’s sovereignty and control over the world, but some people do.
Another view, would say that God does have a perfect plan for your life and that God does have a will for everyday and every action of your life, but God gives you free will. God still has a script for your life, but God allows you to enter in the manuscript and say, via God's permissive will, “you know what? I don't like that part. I don't like that paragraph either.” When this happens we are straying from the path that God wants us to take, but in God’s grace and mercy, God adjusts the rest of the script. If we change this page, then God has to change all the rest of the pages. The problem is that tomorrow we change something else and God has to re-write the rest of the script again. And the day after that, the same thing happens. So every day, God is adjusting the script due to our free will.
Now, this makes more sense to me than the first idea of God predetermining everything, but here’s another idea to consider. If we are using this metaphor of God writing a script or a plan for our lives, I wonder if would make more sense to look at it more like a journal, where all the pages are blank. I wonder if God hasn’t said to us, “I've given you life. I've given you a genetic make-up with certain gifts and abilities. I've given you a family of origin that has shaped your life and values. I am going to come along side you and My Holy Spirit is going to work with you. You have the Scriptures to teach you how I want you to live. And together we're going to write the novel that is your life story.” God gives us the freedom to write it by ourselves if we choose to, but God gives us no guarantees that it will be any good. On the other hand, if we allow God to be a part of writing of the story of our lives, it will be a story of faith and courage in the face of doubt and danger. It will be a story of grace and mercy. It will be a story of perseverance that ends with hope and triumph. God says, “That‟s the story I want to write with your life, if you will let me write it with you.” Together, we write a story of great faith, hope, courage, and love.
To me, this seems to make the most sense, especially when I think about some of the Biblical characters like Abraham. It doesn’t appear that Abraham was given a predetermined plan by God at the beginning of his life. The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about Abraham until he’s 75 years old. Presumably, he lived his life trying to walk with God. The ordinary stuff of life happened. He married. He had a career raising livestock. He moved to different places. It was just an ordinary life of walking with God and finally, at the age of 75, God says, “Now, here's the climatic ending.” God invites Abraham to join Him in an event that would change history forever. He said, “Abraham, I have blessed you all of your life, so that you might be a blessing to others. I'm going to ask you and Sara to leave your comfortable home in retirement and to travel to a land you've never been to before. I'm even going to give you a child in your old age. I'm going to bless you with descendants as numerous as the stars in the skies. And all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.” Abraham had a choice. Abraham could have said, “Okay God, I'm on board. Let's go for the adventure!” Or he could have said, “I'm sorry, Lord, but I'm just too old for that. My knees ache and my back hurts. I'm just too tired for that.” But Abraham said yes and God started a new chapter in Abraham’s life. Part of what I love about this story, is that God didn’t begin his greatest work in Abraham until he was 75 years old. How cool is that! Moses was 80 years old when God called him to go to Pharaoh and set his people free! What this says to us, is that God is not finished with this book of the story of your life, until you breathe your last. C.S. Lewis says that everything that is written in your entire life is just the preface to the great adventure that God has for us after this life is over.
So, maybe God’s will is a process of God’s Holy Spirit working in our lives with each of us taking seriously what the Scriptures tell us about God's will, and we are writing the story with God each day. However it works, it is helpful for us to ponder about what God’s will typically looks like. No matter which answer you give to that question of “how specific God’s will is.” What we recognize is that most of the time, we’re not going to know the big, amazing plans that God has for us. We’re not going to know what’s going to happen in the future, so that we can prepare for it. What we have to do is to get up every day and try to live out God’s will for our lives in so far as we know it.
How Do We Know?
So the best way to know God's will is to read it in Scripture. Look for the basic principles outlined in it. Look for the truth this is applicable to our lives and through that allow God to speak to us. Now once we know the basic principles outlined in the Scriptures, when we come up against a situation where we want to know what God’s will is, we can say, “Well, the Scriptures say that I am to keep the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” So, we take care of ourselves and don’t take a job that has us working 7 days a week. Or when we are being tempted to say things about another person that paints them in an unkind light, we remember the commandment: Do not bear false witness. You get the idea. But Jesus says that if you can’t remember all the commandments in the Bible … just remember two. These two will guide you in almost every situation and guide you to do God's will. They are: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.”
We look at the passage that we have before us today, from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and we hear how we are to live in God’s will. Listen to these words again: “We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God‟s will. What is God's will? He continues, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.”
Sometimes, we think that God has this big, dramatic plan for our lives that we need to figure out. But, it’s important that you realize that most of the time, God’s plan for your life is not something big and dramatic. Often, it’s simply showing up and paying attention. Doing those things that are according to Scripture, those things we are prompted to do by the Holy Spirit, those things that God reveals to us in Scripture. You live this way 365 days a year for 80 or more years, you will be accomplishing something great with your life for God.
Two years ago Debbie and I were in the Holy Land. One day we stopped to see an oasis. We were quickly met by a group of Bedouin children. These children were very poor and you could look at them and tell they did not eat often. We had just finished lunch and Debbie and I did not eat our dessert or our fruit. We were saving it for later. We went back on the bus, got that food, and gave it to the kids. One little girl, through her tears said shoo-kran, thank you. You know sometimes doing the will of God is giving somebody else your bananna or your twinkie. I think that is what the will of God looks like.
We Need to Discern
Now, sometimes we have important decisions to make and we want to know God’s will in those situations. We want to know which college to attend, who we should marry, what career to take. How do we know God’s will then? Well, we pray about those things and we should pray. But it may be that God doesn’t really have a clear choice for us in those matters. I mean God may not care if you go to the University of Florida...God might even let you go to Florida State and maybe that would be okay. But the thing to remember is that whatever college you go to remember that God says, you know what? I'm okay with whatever choice you make. As long as when you go to college, you remember who you are and you love other people. You pray about what career or job you should take and God says, I don‟t really care which job you choose as long as you seek to bless others and love me. Sometimes, this is what God’s will looks like. But when we pray, there are ways that we can begin to discern God’s will and some of these are very simple.
How do we do that?
One way is to read and pray through the Scriptures. Sometimes, we discern God’s will through our conscience. God’s Holy Spirit nudges us through our conscience and we have to learn to listen for that. Sometimes, it’s being with other Christians in small groups or friendships and God speaks through them as we pray and share together. Coming to church is an important part of discerning God’s will for our lives. Every week, we pray that God will speak to you through some part of the worship service. So, God makes His will known to us in these ways and others. But the problem for most of us, is not that we don’t know God’s will. We just don’t want to do it. We pray and read the Scriptures, and we’re hearing the same thing over and over again, but we’re hoping that the next time we pray, God’s going to change His mind.
We need to recognize that part of where we come from when we’re trying to discern God’s will. We need to see that cultural value is often in conflict with God’s will. In our culture, what we’re supposed to strive for in life is ease, comfort, convenience, and safety. These have become our primary values in life. But when you read the Bible, you find that this is really not what God is after in His will for your life. Many times, God’s will is going to lead you to sacrifice; to discomfort; it’s going to stretch you and to challenge you and will make you risk certain things.
Jesus said it this way in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “There are two roads in life. There is one that is broad and wide and it's downhill, easy, comfortable, and convenient. But it leads to destruction.” And then, “there‟s a narrow road that is hard and difficult, and it‟s uphill, but it leads to life.”
In the script that you are writing with God about your life’s story, there are things that God is inviting you to do. You hear this idea at church or from somewhere else and you feel that nudge from God to do this. But the moment you hear it, you say, oh, I don‟t want to do that. I mean imagine Abraham when God said, “I want you to go to the Promised Land.” Can you imagine all the excuses Abraham could have come up with? He’s 75 years old and being asked to uproot everything and go somewhere he’s never been to before. Or Joseph, Abraham's great-grandson, who ended up as a slave in Egypt and then in prison … do you think he wanted that? And yet, God was at work in the middle of all that. Or you think about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will, but Thy will be done.” And, as he’s praying for God’s will to be done, he knows he’s praying to be nailed to a Cross.
When you go back and read the story of your life and you look at those places where you actually said yes instead of no even though you felt like saying no, you find that the best moments of your life were in those moments when you said yes to God, even though you didn’t want to do it at first. If you never say yes to those things that stretch you, that are hard, and challenging, and uncomfortable, you’re going to find that when you get to the end of the book you really missed out. God’s will is sometimes going to be the difficult, hard, challenging, and narrow way in life.
So, what we have to do is to learn to surrender our plans to God’s plans. It’s not that God has every detail of your life planned out, but God’s plan for your life looks something like this. Jesus said it at the end of Matthew 6: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things that you worry about will be taken care of. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. So, we invite God to lay out the narrative for every day. Here I am again, God. Let's write today's page. God has a way of nudging, guiding, and leading us when we put ourselves in the center of God’s will. Then when you find yourself at the end of the novel, it was a great adventure after all.
Now we are all going to have chapters of pain, grief, uncertainty, and desolation. But the one thing we have learned in this series is that God doesn’t cause the bad things to happen to us. But when we entrust our lives to Him, God can redeem those moments and do great things through us. And today, what I hope you’ve heard is God saying to you that, if you trust me and don't let go, your darkest moments are an opportunity. They are an opportunity for My light to shine though you. An opportunity for things to happen in you you can't see. If you will trust me this chapter may have a few more pages before we are done with it. But it is not the end of the story for you. That is the promise of God, your story is not finished yet! Trust me and I will see you through.
Conclusion – The Preferred Ending
Now, I do believe that God has a preferred ending to the story of your life. Over the course of your life, there will be interesting twists and turns that God will work through with us, but I think that when we get to the end of the story, God has already written the last paragraph. And He’s hoping that you will allow this to stand.
It goes like this: She sought to live life worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him. He bore fruit in every good work and throughout his life, he was growing deeper in his knowledge of God. And when she breathed her last, she heard God say, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest.
And that I think is God's will for your life.
Prayer:
Lord I offer my life to you
Lead me and guide me
Help me to do your will
To love you with all my heart
To love my neighbor
When I am scared Lord, help me to trust you
I invite you to write the story of my life with me
And when I come to the end,
I hope to meet You face to face
and hear You say...Well done. Amen.
Doug Batchelor, in his book: Determining the Will of God, tells the story about a Farmer who was trying desperately to know God’s Will. Everyday he would go out in his fields and as he was working the fields he would pray, “God, what is your will for my life? What do you want me to do with my life? Please, show me your will?” One day, while he was praying, he looked up and he saw an interesting cloud formation, moving over the horizon towards where he was. He looked up just as it drifted overhead, it began to morph into what looked like the letters “P” and “C”. And he said, “PC … Is that a sign from God? What does that mean? God, what is it you are trying to tell me?” And all of the sudden it struck him, “Preach Christ! It was like an energy went through him. “God wants me to leave farming and preach Christ!” So he sold his farm equipment and he gave up the land and he went out to preach Christ. He sent letters to all the surrounding churches telling them “If you need somebody to preach, I'm you man. Please, God has called me to preach Christ.” So he went out and started preaching, with no training whatsoever. He just knew that God had called him to preach Christ. He preached his very first sermon and it was horrible. It was so bad and he was so embarrassed. So he started to read about how to preach and he tried to learn from others. Then he went to the second church that called him and it was even worse than the first time. This continued to happen each week. He would go out and give it the best shot he had and each week it was dreadful. Until finally, after several months, people stopped calling him to preach. Finally, he realized that he couldn’t survive this way. So, he went back to farming. He bought all of his old equipment back and took over the ground again and began planting. That Spring, some of his old farming buddies came by and they asked him, “What happened? We thought you quit farming and were going out to preach Christ.” He said, “Well, I finally realized what PC stood for. It stood for “plant corn.”
Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out God’s will for our lives. You know, we look for the signs, try and read the signs, but even then we are not really sure how specific God's will is for our lives. So those are the kinds of questions that we are going to be wrestling with today. Over the last three weeks, we’ve been pondering some really important faith questions. We started with the question of God and suffering by asking if suffering is God's will. And I begged you to rethink what we naturally tend to say when we see something terrible happen, that it must be God's plan or God's will. I tried to teach you through Scripture that there are a whole lot of things that happen that are not God's will and that we have to be careful about what we attribute to God. Last week, we talked about unanswered prayer, about how we pray and pray for something and when it doesn't come through we get disappointed with God and how part of that is because maybe we don't have clear expectations of how God works in the world or how prayer works. Today, we want to really focus on how can we know the will of God, how specific is the will of God, and what does it mean to act upon the will of God?
How Specific is God's Will?
Let’s begin by recognizing that there are typically three answers given by Christians when it comes to how specific God’s will is. The first one, sometimes associated with hyper-Calvinism, is called Determinism. In this case the believers answer that God predetermined everything that is going to happen in your life before it came to be because God is in control and we only have the illusion of free choice. Now, on one hand, this seems to make sense, and there are Scriptures that seem to support this idea. But on the other hand, it’s a paradox. I mean, is this how life really is? Under this scenario, God has pre-written the script for your life, every detail scripted out, Daryl Allen's Life Story – Scripted by God. Now, you probably know that most United Methodists do not subscribe to this idea of God’s sovereignty and control over the world, but some people do.
Another view, would say that God does have a perfect plan for your life and that God does have a will for everyday and every action of your life, but God gives you free will. God still has a script for your life, but God allows you to enter in the manuscript and say, via God's permissive will, “you know what? I don't like that part. I don't like that paragraph either.” When this happens we are straying from the path that God wants us to take, but in God’s grace and mercy, God adjusts the rest of the script. If we change this page, then God has to change all the rest of the pages. The problem is that tomorrow we change something else and God has to re-write the rest of the script again. And the day after that, the same thing happens. So every day, God is adjusting the script due to our free will.
Now, this makes more sense to me than the first idea of God predetermining everything, but here’s another idea to consider. If we are using this metaphor of God writing a script or a plan for our lives, I wonder if would make more sense to look at it more like a journal, where all the pages are blank. I wonder if God hasn’t said to us, “I've given you life. I've given you a genetic make-up with certain gifts and abilities. I've given you a family of origin that has shaped your life and values. I am going to come along side you and My Holy Spirit is going to work with you. You have the Scriptures to teach you how I want you to live. And together we're going to write the novel that is your life story.” God gives us the freedom to write it by ourselves if we choose to, but God gives us no guarantees that it will be any good. On the other hand, if we allow God to be a part of writing of the story of our lives, it will be a story of faith and courage in the face of doubt and danger. It will be a story of grace and mercy. It will be a story of perseverance that ends with hope and triumph. God says, “That‟s the story I want to write with your life, if you will let me write it with you.” Together, we write a story of great faith, hope, courage, and love.
To me, this seems to make the most sense, especially when I think about some of the Biblical characters like Abraham. It doesn’t appear that Abraham was given a predetermined plan by God at the beginning of his life. The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about Abraham until he’s 75 years old. Presumably, he lived his life trying to walk with God. The ordinary stuff of life happened. He married. He had a career raising livestock. He moved to different places. It was just an ordinary life of walking with God and finally, at the age of 75, God says, “Now, here's the climatic ending.” God invites Abraham to join Him in an event that would change history forever. He said, “Abraham, I have blessed you all of your life, so that you might be a blessing to others. I'm going to ask you and Sara to leave your comfortable home in retirement and to travel to a land you've never been to before. I'm even going to give you a child in your old age. I'm going to bless you with descendants as numerous as the stars in the skies. And all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.” Abraham had a choice. Abraham could have said, “Okay God, I'm on board. Let's go for the adventure!” Or he could have said, “I'm sorry, Lord, but I'm just too old for that. My knees ache and my back hurts. I'm just too tired for that.” But Abraham said yes and God started a new chapter in Abraham’s life. Part of what I love about this story, is that God didn’t begin his greatest work in Abraham until he was 75 years old. How cool is that! Moses was 80 years old when God called him to go to Pharaoh and set his people free! What this says to us, is that God is not finished with this book of the story of your life, until you breathe your last. C.S. Lewis says that everything that is written in your entire life is just the preface to the great adventure that God has for us after this life is over.
So, maybe God’s will is a process of God’s Holy Spirit working in our lives with each of us taking seriously what the Scriptures tell us about God's will, and we are writing the story with God each day. However it works, it is helpful for us to ponder about what God’s will typically looks like. No matter which answer you give to that question of “how specific God’s will is.” What we recognize is that most of the time, we’re not going to know the big, amazing plans that God has for us. We’re not going to know what’s going to happen in the future, so that we can prepare for it. What we have to do is to get up every day and try to live out God’s will for our lives in so far as we know it.
How Do We Know?
So the best way to know God's will is to read it in Scripture. Look for the basic principles outlined in it. Look for the truth this is applicable to our lives and through that allow God to speak to us. Now once we know the basic principles outlined in the Scriptures, when we come up against a situation where we want to know what God’s will is, we can say, “Well, the Scriptures say that I am to keep the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” So, we take care of ourselves and don’t take a job that has us working 7 days a week. Or when we are being tempted to say things about another person that paints them in an unkind light, we remember the commandment: Do not bear false witness. You get the idea. But Jesus says that if you can’t remember all the commandments in the Bible … just remember two. These two will guide you in almost every situation and guide you to do God's will. They are: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.”
We look at the passage that we have before us today, from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and we hear how we are to live in God’s will. Listen to these words again: “We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God‟s will. What is God's will? He continues, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.”
Sometimes, we think that God has this big, dramatic plan for our lives that we need to figure out. But, it’s important that you realize that most of the time, God’s plan for your life is not something big and dramatic. Often, it’s simply showing up and paying attention. Doing those things that are according to Scripture, those things we are prompted to do by the Holy Spirit, those things that God reveals to us in Scripture. You live this way 365 days a year for 80 or more years, you will be accomplishing something great with your life for God.
Two years ago Debbie and I were in the Holy Land. One day we stopped to see an oasis. We were quickly met by a group of Bedouin children. These children were very poor and you could look at them and tell they did not eat often. We had just finished lunch and Debbie and I did not eat our dessert or our fruit. We were saving it for later. We went back on the bus, got that food, and gave it to the kids. One little girl, through her tears said shoo-kran, thank you. You know sometimes doing the will of God is giving somebody else your bananna or your twinkie. I think that is what the will of God looks like.
We Need to Discern
Now, sometimes we have important decisions to make and we want to know God’s will in those situations. We want to know which college to attend, who we should marry, what career to take. How do we know God’s will then? Well, we pray about those things and we should pray. But it may be that God doesn’t really have a clear choice for us in those matters. I mean God may not care if you go to the University of Florida...God might even let you go to Florida State and maybe that would be okay. But the thing to remember is that whatever college you go to remember that God says, you know what? I'm okay with whatever choice you make. As long as when you go to college, you remember who you are and you love other people. You pray about what career or job you should take and God says, I don‟t really care which job you choose as long as you seek to bless others and love me. Sometimes, this is what God’s will looks like. But when we pray, there are ways that we can begin to discern God’s will and some of these are very simple.
How do we do that?
One way is to read and pray through the Scriptures. Sometimes, we discern God’s will through our conscience. God’s Holy Spirit nudges us through our conscience and we have to learn to listen for that. Sometimes, it’s being with other Christians in small groups or friendships and God speaks through them as we pray and share together. Coming to church is an important part of discerning God’s will for our lives. Every week, we pray that God will speak to you through some part of the worship service. So, God makes His will known to us in these ways and others. But the problem for most of us, is not that we don’t know God’s will. We just don’t want to do it. We pray and read the Scriptures, and we’re hearing the same thing over and over again, but we’re hoping that the next time we pray, God’s going to change His mind.
We need to recognize that part of where we come from when we’re trying to discern God’s will. We need to see that cultural value is often in conflict with God’s will. In our culture, what we’re supposed to strive for in life is ease, comfort, convenience, and safety. These have become our primary values in life. But when you read the Bible, you find that this is really not what God is after in His will for your life. Many times, God’s will is going to lead you to sacrifice; to discomfort; it’s going to stretch you and to challenge you and will make you risk certain things.
Jesus said it this way in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “There are two roads in life. There is one that is broad and wide and it's downhill, easy, comfortable, and convenient. But it leads to destruction.” And then, “there‟s a narrow road that is hard and difficult, and it‟s uphill, but it leads to life.”
In the script that you are writing with God about your life’s story, there are things that God is inviting you to do. You hear this idea at church or from somewhere else and you feel that nudge from God to do this. But the moment you hear it, you say, oh, I don‟t want to do that. I mean imagine Abraham when God said, “I want you to go to the Promised Land.” Can you imagine all the excuses Abraham could have come up with? He’s 75 years old and being asked to uproot everything and go somewhere he’s never been to before. Or Joseph, Abraham's great-grandson, who ended up as a slave in Egypt and then in prison … do you think he wanted that? And yet, God was at work in the middle of all that. Or you think about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will, but Thy will be done.” And, as he’s praying for God’s will to be done, he knows he’s praying to be nailed to a Cross.
When you go back and read the story of your life and you look at those places where you actually said yes instead of no even though you felt like saying no, you find that the best moments of your life were in those moments when you said yes to God, even though you didn’t want to do it at first. If you never say yes to those things that stretch you, that are hard, and challenging, and uncomfortable, you’re going to find that when you get to the end of the book you really missed out. God’s will is sometimes going to be the difficult, hard, challenging, and narrow way in life.
So, what we have to do is to learn to surrender our plans to God’s plans. It’s not that God has every detail of your life planned out, but God’s plan for your life looks something like this. Jesus said it at the end of Matthew 6: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things that you worry about will be taken care of. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. So, we invite God to lay out the narrative for every day. Here I am again, God. Let's write today's page. God has a way of nudging, guiding, and leading us when we put ourselves in the center of God’s will. Then when you find yourself at the end of the novel, it was a great adventure after all.
Now we are all going to have chapters of pain, grief, uncertainty, and desolation. But the one thing we have learned in this series is that God doesn’t cause the bad things to happen to us. But when we entrust our lives to Him, God can redeem those moments and do great things through us. And today, what I hope you’ve heard is God saying to you that, if you trust me and don't let go, your darkest moments are an opportunity. They are an opportunity for My light to shine though you. An opportunity for things to happen in you you can't see. If you will trust me this chapter may have a few more pages before we are done with it. But it is not the end of the story for you. That is the promise of God, your story is not finished yet! Trust me and I will see you through.
Conclusion – The Preferred Ending
Now, I do believe that God has a preferred ending to the story of your life. Over the course of your life, there will be interesting twists and turns that God will work through with us, but I think that when we get to the end of the story, God has already written the last paragraph. And He’s hoping that you will allow this to stand.
It goes like this: She sought to live life worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him. He bore fruit in every good work and throughout his life, he was growing deeper in his knowledge of God. And when she breathed her last, she heard God say, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest.
And that I think is God's will for your life.
Prayer:
Lord I offer my life to you
Lead me and guide me
Help me to do your will
To love you with all my heart
To love my neighbor
When I am scared Lord, help me to trust you
I invite you to write the story of my life with me
And when I come to the end,
I hope to meet You face to face
and hear You say...Well done. Amen.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Bible Challenge 1/23 - 1/29
Good Morning Fellow Bible Challenge Readers!
I hope you have enjoyed your time this year enveloped in God's Word. I love to go through the Gospels and read of the miracles Christ performed and the wisdom contained in His teachings. I also love to see how each of those authors see the same event. It is truly remarkable to see what each person thought was the most important and how they chose to record and mark these wonderful events, reactions, and witnesses.
This week we finish up John and move into the beginnings of the early church, Acts. I urge you to look at the early church and see what we here at Druid Hills might be able to adopt to help us emulate the passion of these early believers and take our worship and ministry to the next level!
Here is the schedule for this week:
1/23, Sunday: John 21 - Acts 3
1/24, Monday: Acts 4-7
1/25, Tuesday: Acts 8-11
1/26, Wednesday: Acts 12-15
1/27, Thursday: Acts 16-19
1/28, Friday: Acts 20-23
1/29, Saturday: Acts 24-27
Be Blessed!
I hope you have enjoyed your time this year enveloped in God's Word. I love to go through the Gospels and read of the miracles Christ performed and the wisdom contained in His teachings. I also love to see how each of those authors see the same event. It is truly remarkable to see what each person thought was the most important and how they chose to record and mark these wonderful events, reactions, and witnesses. This week we finish up John and move into the beginnings of the early church, Acts. I urge you to look at the early church and see what we here at Druid Hills might be able to adopt to help us emulate the passion of these early believers and take our worship and ministry to the next level!
Here is the schedule for this week:
1/23, Sunday: John 21 - Acts 3
1/24, Monday: Acts 4-7
1/25, Tuesday: Acts 8-11
1/26, Wednesday: Acts 12-15
1/27, Thursday: Acts 16-19
1/28, Friday: Acts 20-23
1/29, Saturday: Acts 24-27
Be Blessed!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Friday Fives
1. Preaching Series - This Sunday we will conclude our sermon series focusing on answering those difficult questions concerning God's role in the evil and suffering of this world, why some of our prayers go unanswered, and how we can best make sense of God's will for our life. This week we will look at discerning God's Will for our lives; specifically, how to know the will of God, how specific is the will of God, and what does it mean to act upon the will of God. Invite a friend and I hope to see all of you there!
2. Pulpit Swap - Next week, January 30th, Pastor Debbie and I will be swapping pulpits as part of our efforts to to engage with each others church. That means Pastor Debbie will here to lead worship. I encourage you to bring a friend and come and hear Pastor Debbie as she brings you her warmth and passion for God's Word that I know will bless you.
3. Bible Study – Next week we will continue our Bible Study called, When Christians Get It Wrong, by Adam Hamilton.
Have you ever wondered why people do not go or have stopped going to church? Have you ever considered that it may be because of the people inside? Please join me in this study as we examine those attitudes and beliefs that drive people away.
As followers of Christ our impact can be so much stronger when we get it right. To this point we have looked at when Christians get it wrong and how to speak about science and politics. Next week we will look at ways to talk about other religions. Please join me in learning how we can be advocates and rather than stumbling blocks in bring people to Christ.
This study meets every Thursday through February 17th. We will meet in the Fellowship Hall at 11AM and if that does not fit your schedule I will offer it again at 7PM as well. I hope you will come and join us in what is always a great time of learning and fun!
4. Salty Service - A few months back I asked everyone to consider joining up together in groups to venture out and visit some of the residents in the many assisted living and rehab facilities around our church. There are many people there that get no visitors, and we are so good with fellowship, I see a need and a spiritual gift that can easily be paired up. I wanted to give everyone an update on how this budding ministry is progressing. We have three members that have reached out and began weekly visits to three different facilities. We also have a group of people that have formed to begin visits with a fifth facility. We have several contacts at area facilities, all we need is volunteers. Many people make light work. If you are willing to spend just a few hours a month visiting with people and sharing the love of Christ please contact the office and we can help you get connected. Please consider reaching out to the people in our area and let them know we care and in the name of Jesus Christ that they are loved.
5. Wanna Help? – Have you been looking for a way to volunteer here at Druid Hills? Are you just not sure where to start or who to ask? This February we will host a Ministry Fair here at the church. We will open up all the volunteer ministries of the church and give all of you a chance to sign up and get connected. Watch this space for more information and details!
Have an incredible weekend and see you Sunday!
2. Pulpit Swap - Next week, January 30th, Pastor Debbie and I will be swapping pulpits as part of our efforts to to engage with each others church. That means Pastor Debbie will here to lead worship. I encourage you to bring a friend and come and hear Pastor Debbie as she brings you her warmth and passion for God's Word that I know will bless you.
3. Bible Study – Next week we will continue our Bible Study called, When Christians Get It Wrong, by Adam Hamilton.
Have you ever wondered why people do not go or have stopped going to church? Have you ever considered that it may be because of the people inside? Please join me in this study as we examine those attitudes and beliefs that drive people away.As followers of Christ our impact can be so much stronger when we get it right. To this point we have looked at when Christians get it wrong and how to speak about science and politics. Next week we will look at ways to talk about other religions. Please join me in learning how we can be advocates and rather than stumbling blocks in bring people to Christ.
This study meets every Thursday through February 17th. We will meet in the Fellowship Hall at 11AM and if that does not fit your schedule I will offer it again at 7PM as well. I hope you will come and join us in what is always a great time of learning and fun!
4. Salty Service - A few months back I asked everyone to consider joining up together in groups to venture out and visit some of the residents in the many assisted living and rehab facilities around our church. There are many people there that get no visitors, and we are so good with fellowship, I see a need and a spiritual gift that can easily be paired up. I wanted to give everyone an update on how this budding ministry is progressing. We have three members that have reached out and began weekly visits to three different facilities. We also have a group of people that have formed to begin visits with a fifth facility. We have several contacts at area facilities, all we need is volunteers. Many people make light work. If you are willing to spend just a few hours a month visiting with people and sharing the love of Christ please contact the office and we can help you get connected. Please consider reaching out to the people in our area and let them know we care and in the name of Jesus Christ that they are loved.
5. Wanna Help? – Have you been looking for a way to volunteer here at Druid Hills? Are you just not sure where to start or who to ask? This February we will host a Ministry Fair here at the church. We will open up all the volunteer ministries of the church and give all of you a chance to sign up and get connected. Watch this space for more information and details!
Have an incredible weekend and see you Sunday!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
When Prayers Go Unanswered – Psalm 22:2 and Luke 22:42
Introduction
Today we are going to continue our series aimed at how God's will can be at work in a world with suffering, evil, and unanswered prayers, and where can we find God in all of this. Today we are going to concentrate on the aspect of unanswered prayer. Specifically why this happens, what it means, and what our response should be.
Unanswered Prayer Can Be Devastating
There was woman that wrote her pastor because she was struggling with the question of unanswered prayer. She and her husband had been trying to have a baby for a long time. For years they had both been praying and praying that God would bless them with a baby. They went through fertility treatments and kept trying and kept praying and finally they were pregnant. It was wonderful! God had finally blessed them with a baby. But almost from the start of the pregnancy she was very sick. This lasted for several months and finally by the fifth month she was so deathly sick the doctors said you have two choices. You can either continue to carry this baby and both you and the baby will die or you can end the pregnancy now. But you cannot continue in the hope that both you and your baby are gonna live. She prayed about this and thought about this and her response was that she would rather die than end the pregnancy. Her family, her father, her mother, and her husband, talked about this and decided that they were not going to let her die. That was not going to happen. The pregnancy was terminated. The mother spent the next two weeks in intensive care in the hospital and it was touch a go at times for the mother whether she would survive. Finally after three months of bed rest at home she was able to go back to work and to begin resuming an ordinary life. But it was not an ordinary life. She said for the first time in her life she really began to struggle with her faith. She had always been raised in the church and always been a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. She wrote in her email, “I had never wrestled with the will of God. Now my life and faith depended upon it. I had always thought God could and would do anything if enough people prayed. But people had and God didn't. Who was God? What good is God?” These were the questions that she asked. She finally found herself so troubled by what had happened that she turned away from God and stopped believing in God. Now that may lead you to be a bit surprised when you find out that this woman had been to seminary and was the senior pastor at a church when this happened. She stopped believing in God because she could not understand how this could happen when all these people had been praying and yet her baby still died.
This is a serious question, the question of unanswered prayer. Especially when we see others experiencing no problems at all and we are stuck in the mire. Especially when we have no job, can't pay the bills, and see no end to this misery. We do the best we can to understand why. We even go straight to Christ, straight to the red words of the New Testament for answers. Now, I don't know about you but I sometimes struggle and get confused by Christ's words. For example, take Matthew 21:21-22, “Jesus replied, truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt...you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Really, move a mountain? Have you tried that lately? Did it work? Do you see the struggle that people have with this?
How many of you have experienced unanswered prayer? I sure have! So in my research I did what I sometimes do when I have a question, I Goodsearched it, you know that alternative to Google that we use here to help fund our ministries, and I came up with 823,000 results. And the kicker was that most of them tried to tell me that it was my fault. One website listed 11 reasons why prayers are not answered and here are a few of them. You are not seeking to praise the Lord. You have unconfessed sin in your life. You pray with improper motives. You lack faith. Why do we take someone that is walking through hell on earth and try to blame them for their hell on earth and for God's silence.
I think back to Mark chapter 9. For those of you participating in my Bible Challenge, you read this passage this past Monday. A father brings his son to Jesus. A son that is possessed by evil spirits that cause this young man to convulse violently and at times has even tried to harm the boy. The father asks Jesus, “if you can do anything to help.” Jesus replied, “if I can?” Everything is possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:21b-23). Do you remember the father's response? “I believe; help my unbelief.” That is my prayer each and every day. God help my unbelief. None of us have perfect faith. Jesus did not ask for perfect faith. Just faith the size of a mustard seed. To blame someone for the tragedy in their life and say they did not have enough faith is obscene. But then what do we make of this? Jesus said to ask for whatever you want and if you have faith and do not doubt, it will be done for you.
There are two ways to look at this. One is that Jesus was speaking to a specific group of people at a specific period of time about a specific type of issue. The other is to say that Jesus spoke in what we call prophetic hyperbole. Prophetic means that you say something bold without worrying about how it will hold up in all situations. The point is to shock people into listening. Hyperbole means to exaggerate to make a point. Jesus almost always speaks in this way. If you do not understand that then Jesus' words can often be confusing.
Today we still speak in hyperbole. Parker is beginning to dream about what he wants to be when he grows up. So I tell him, just as my parents did for me, son, you can be anything you want to be. Am I lying to Parker when I tell him that he can be anything he wants to be, knowing some things will be out of his reach or ability? No! I am trying to say to him don't settle. Don't have small dreams. You have such potential and I am so proud of you. You can be anything! Not literally...but yes. This is hyperbole. It is not lying; it is trying to make a point. Jesus does this all the time. So if your hand causes you to sin, Jesus says to cut it off. If your eye causes you sin, Jesus says to gouge it out. Now does Jesus want us to really cut off our hands and gouge out our eyes? No, Jesus wants us to recognize that sin is serious business.
Even Jesus Had Unanswered Prayer
I want us to consider one important example in the New Testament of unanswered prayer. Did you know Jesus had unanswered prayer? It is the night before Jesus is to be crucified. Hours before He is to arrested he goes to His favorite prayer place, the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. He takes a few of the disciples with him and begins to pray. I love the power of this passage in Luke. Jesus prays, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” What is this cup? It is the cup of suffering. It is being arrested. It is being tried by the Sanhedrin. It is being spit upon and beaten. It is His back being ripped apart by the whips of the Roman guards. It is being tortured and crucified for six hours, hanging their naked and dying in pain. Father, please take this from me. I know there is redemptive power and purpose in this but please do not make me do this. But Jesus also prays, “...yet not my will, but thy will be done”. It is important for us to recognize that unanswered prayer is not always bad. Unanswered prayer can be redemptive, as it was with Jesus. It can draw us closer to God, to each other, and transform us so that we can be more God-like.
What is Prayer?
So that leaves us with the question, if some prayers go unanswered then what do we pray for and how does this whole thing work if God is not always going to give us what we want, when we want, and when we ask for it. Based upon my experience and the experience of other people I have spoken with I want to pass along a few ideas.
One, God typically works within the ordinary things rather than working a miracle. God created this world and the physical laws within it so God works within them. God created humanity to govern this Earth so God works within us. Which means that in all likelihood you are daily called to be the answer to someone elses prayer! When God is going to answer the prayer of someone God is going to send a doctor or a nurse or a caring soul to be their companion. When people are hungry God is going to call on churches to help supply that food like we do with Interfaith and picking at Joe's.
One day I was walking Wesley to school I noticed one of the teachers that worked there outside the building crying. I took Wesley in and then when over to see if I could help her. She began to explain to me that her divorce had just been finalized a month ago and her ex-husband was not keeping up his end of the financial agreement. She was $300 behind on a utility bill that he never paid but it was in her name. Her power was going to be turned off at 5pm and her and her two children were going to be without heat. She had been to several churches and agencies over the last two weeks and no one could help. She asked for an advance at work and was told it was not possible. She was lost and hopeless. Her prayers had gone unanswered. I was able to help her from our benevolence fund. I do not know if it was coincidence or a God-incidence that I saw her and walked over. But we got it worked out and she was able to keep her power on. I have heard stories from a lot of you how you have filled that same role for another. We have to be willing to show up and pay attention and God will use us to answer prayer.
Another thing I have learned is that God will not suspend the free will of another to answer my prayers. I have one prayer for my boys. That they will grow up and have a vibrant active relationship with Jesus Christ. After all you would think with both parents being preachers that would be a given right? I pray for that, Debbie and I encourage that, but I understand that no matter what I do God will not force either of them into that relationship. God will beckon to them, God will woo them, God will seek them out and put people in their path to talk them about their faith But ultimately it is their decision.
Finally, God doesn't usually remove us from the evil but will walk through it with us. When the economy goes under and unemployment goes up or when we are faced with death and uncertainty, God generally does not pull us out of it, but walks through it with us as our constant companion. This is what we find promised in Isaiah when God says, when you walk through the flood waters I will be with you. When you pass through the flames I will be with you. The Psalmist got it right when they said, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. For you are with me.” We have never been promised a perfect life, just a connected one.
Now this is not to say that God does not work miracles. I have witnessed them, I pray for them, many of you have seen them too. It is just that they do not happen all of the time. But what does happen all of the time is that God walks with us, sustains us, and carries us.
Conclusion
Remember the young mother and pastor we talked about earlier that lost her baby? There was more to her email. She wrote, “I went through a very dark place. I was in this pit where I turned away from God and I had no hope. And in the midst of the darkness I realized that only hope I had was God. The bottom held in the midst of that pit and my friends came along side me and they carried me and they encouraged me and they allowed me room and space to ask questions and to be angry with God and they still loved me. And I began to realize that was God's love. I stopped asking the question 'why' and I began to ask the question 'what now'. God sustained me and healed me and strengthened me. Some time when by and she received word that there were two little girls in Russia who where praying for a mommy. And out of her pain she traveled to Russia and answered their prayers. Unanswered prayer can and always will be tough. But when we recognize that it happens, that it can be a opportunity to be transformed, and that God is with us through it, there is hope. When we realize that we can be the answer to another's prayer, there is God. On the front of your bulletin today is a poem entitled “Unanswered Prayers”. It reads “I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed.”
I think that is how prayer works...so let's pray.
Prayer:
God, thank you for loving me.
Hold me tight and don't let me go.
Lord, take the painful things of the past and bring good from them.
Lead me and guide me each day and help me remember you walk with me.
Open my eyes to see how I can be the answer to someone else's prayer
Hold me Lord, do not let me go.
Amen.
Today we are going to continue our series aimed at how God's will can be at work in a world with suffering, evil, and unanswered prayers, and where can we find God in all of this. Today we are going to concentrate on the aspect of unanswered prayer. Specifically why this happens, what it means, and what our response should be.
Unanswered Prayer Can Be Devastating
There was woman that wrote her pastor because she was struggling with the question of unanswered prayer. She and her husband had been trying to have a baby for a long time. For years they had both been praying and praying that God would bless them with a baby. They went through fertility treatments and kept trying and kept praying and finally they were pregnant. It was wonderful! God had finally blessed them with a baby. But almost from the start of the pregnancy she was very sick. This lasted for several months and finally by the fifth month she was so deathly sick the doctors said you have two choices. You can either continue to carry this baby and both you and the baby will die or you can end the pregnancy now. But you cannot continue in the hope that both you and your baby are gonna live. She prayed about this and thought about this and her response was that she would rather die than end the pregnancy. Her family, her father, her mother, and her husband, talked about this and decided that they were not going to let her die. That was not going to happen. The pregnancy was terminated. The mother spent the next two weeks in intensive care in the hospital and it was touch a go at times for the mother whether she would survive. Finally after three months of bed rest at home she was able to go back to work and to begin resuming an ordinary life. But it was not an ordinary life. She said for the first time in her life she really began to struggle with her faith. She had always been raised in the church and always been a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. She wrote in her email, “I had never wrestled with the will of God. Now my life and faith depended upon it. I had always thought God could and would do anything if enough people prayed. But people had and God didn't. Who was God? What good is God?” These were the questions that she asked. She finally found herself so troubled by what had happened that she turned away from God and stopped believing in God. Now that may lead you to be a bit surprised when you find out that this woman had been to seminary and was the senior pastor at a church when this happened. She stopped believing in God because she could not understand how this could happen when all these people had been praying and yet her baby still died.
This is a serious question, the question of unanswered prayer. Especially when we see others experiencing no problems at all and we are stuck in the mire. Especially when we have no job, can't pay the bills, and see no end to this misery. We do the best we can to understand why. We even go straight to Christ, straight to the red words of the New Testament for answers. Now, I don't know about you but I sometimes struggle and get confused by Christ's words. For example, take Matthew 21:21-22, “Jesus replied, truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt...you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Really, move a mountain? Have you tried that lately? Did it work? Do you see the struggle that people have with this?
How many of you have experienced unanswered prayer? I sure have! So in my research I did what I sometimes do when I have a question, I Goodsearched it, you know that alternative to Google that we use here to help fund our ministries, and I came up with 823,000 results. And the kicker was that most of them tried to tell me that it was my fault. One website listed 11 reasons why prayers are not answered and here are a few of them. You are not seeking to praise the Lord. You have unconfessed sin in your life. You pray with improper motives. You lack faith. Why do we take someone that is walking through hell on earth and try to blame them for their hell on earth and for God's silence.
I think back to Mark chapter 9. For those of you participating in my Bible Challenge, you read this passage this past Monday. A father brings his son to Jesus. A son that is possessed by evil spirits that cause this young man to convulse violently and at times has even tried to harm the boy. The father asks Jesus, “if you can do anything to help.” Jesus replied, “if I can?” Everything is possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:21b-23). Do you remember the father's response? “I believe; help my unbelief.” That is my prayer each and every day. God help my unbelief. None of us have perfect faith. Jesus did not ask for perfect faith. Just faith the size of a mustard seed. To blame someone for the tragedy in their life and say they did not have enough faith is obscene. But then what do we make of this? Jesus said to ask for whatever you want and if you have faith and do not doubt, it will be done for you.
There are two ways to look at this. One is that Jesus was speaking to a specific group of people at a specific period of time about a specific type of issue. The other is to say that Jesus spoke in what we call prophetic hyperbole. Prophetic means that you say something bold without worrying about how it will hold up in all situations. The point is to shock people into listening. Hyperbole means to exaggerate to make a point. Jesus almost always speaks in this way. If you do not understand that then Jesus' words can often be confusing.
Today we still speak in hyperbole. Parker is beginning to dream about what he wants to be when he grows up. So I tell him, just as my parents did for me, son, you can be anything you want to be. Am I lying to Parker when I tell him that he can be anything he wants to be, knowing some things will be out of his reach or ability? No! I am trying to say to him don't settle. Don't have small dreams. You have such potential and I am so proud of you. You can be anything! Not literally...but yes. This is hyperbole. It is not lying; it is trying to make a point. Jesus does this all the time. So if your hand causes you to sin, Jesus says to cut it off. If your eye causes you sin, Jesus says to gouge it out. Now does Jesus want us to really cut off our hands and gouge out our eyes? No, Jesus wants us to recognize that sin is serious business.
Even Jesus Had Unanswered Prayer
I want us to consider one important example in the New Testament of unanswered prayer. Did you know Jesus had unanswered prayer? It is the night before Jesus is to be crucified. Hours before He is to arrested he goes to His favorite prayer place, the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. He takes a few of the disciples with him and begins to pray. I love the power of this passage in Luke. Jesus prays, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” What is this cup? It is the cup of suffering. It is being arrested. It is being tried by the Sanhedrin. It is being spit upon and beaten. It is His back being ripped apart by the whips of the Roman guards. It is being tortured and crucified for six hours, hanging their naked and dying in pain. Father, please take this from me. I know there is redemptive power and purpose in this but please do not make me do this. But Jesus also prays, “...yet not my will, but thy will be done”. It is important for us to recognize that unanswered prayer is not always bad. Unanswered prayer can be redemptive, as it was with Jesus. It can draw us closer to God, to each other, and transform us so that we can be more God-like.
What is Prayer?
So that leaves us with the question, if some prayers go unanswered then what do we pray for and how does this whole thing work if God is not always going to give us what we want, when we want, and when we ask for it. Based upon my experience and the experience of other people I have spoken with I want to pass along a few ideas.
One, God typically works within the ordinary things rather than working a miracle. God created this world and the physical laws within it so God works within them. God created humanity to govern this Earth so God works within us. Which means that in all likelihood you are daily called to be the answer to someone elses prayer! When God is going to answer the prayer of someone God is going to send a doctor or a nurse or a caring soul to be their companion. When people are hungry God is going to call on churches to help supply that food like we do with Interfaith and picking at Joe's.
One day I was walking Wesley to school I noticed one of the teachers that worked there outside the building crying. I took Wesley in and then when over to see if I could help her. She began to explain to me that her divorce had just been finalized a month ago and her ex-husband was not keeping up his end of the financial agreement. She was $300 behind on a utility bill that he never paid but it was in her name. Her power was going to be turned off at 5pm and her and her two children were going to be without heat. She had been to several churches and agencies over the last two weeks and no one could help. She asked for an advance at work and was told it was not possible. She was lost and hopeless. Her prayers had gone unanswered. I was able to help her from our benevolence fund. I do not know if it was coincidence or a God-incidence that I saw her and walked over. But we got it worked out and she was able to keep her power on. I have heard stories from a lot of you how you have filled that same role for another. We have to be willing to show up and pay attention and God will use us to answer prayer.
Another thing I have learned is that God will not suspend the free will of another to answer my prayers. I have one prayer for my boys. That they will grow up and have a vibrant active relationship with Jesus Christ. After all you would think with both parents being preachers that would be a given right? I pray for that, Debbie and I encourage that, but I understand that no matter what I do God will not force either of them into that relationship. God will beckon to them, God will woo them, God will seek them out and put people in their path to talk them about their faith But ultimately it is their decision.
Finally, God doesn't usually remove us from the evil but will walk through it with us. When the economy goes under and unemployment goes up or when we are faced with death and uncertainty, God generally does not pull us out of it, but walks through it with us as our constant companion. This is what we find promised in Isaiah when God says, when you walk through the flood waters I will be with you. When you pass through the flames I will be with you. The Psalmist got it right when they said, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. For you are with me.” We have never been promised a perfect life, just a connected one.
Now this is not to say that God does not work miracles. I have witnessed them, I pray for them, many of you have seen them too. It is just that they do not happen all of the time. But what does happen all of the time is that God walks with us, sustains us, and carries us.
Conclusion
Remember the young mother and pastor we talked about earlier that lost her baby? There was more to her email. She wrote, “I went through a very dark place. I was in this pit where I turned away from God and I had no hope. And in the midst of the darkness I realized that only hope I had was God. The bottom held in the midst of that pit and my friends came along side me and they carried me and they encouraged me and they allowed me room and space to ask questions and to be angry with God and they still loved me. And I began to realize that was God's love. I stopped asking the question 'why' and I began to ask the question 'what now'. God sustained me and healed me and strengthened me. Some time when by and she received word that there were two little girls in Russia who where praying for a mommy. And out of her pain she traveled to Russia and answered their prayers. Unanswered prayer can and always will be tough. But when we recognize that it happens, that it can be a opportunity to be transformed, and that God is with us through it, there is hope. When we realize that we can be the answer to another's prayer, there is God. On the front of your bulletin today is a poem entitled “Unanswered Prayers”. It reads “I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed.”
I think that is how prayer works...so let's pray.
Prayer:
God, thank you for loving me.
Hold me tight and don't let me go.
Lord, take the painful things of the past and bring good from them.
Lead me and guide me each day and help me remember you walk with me.
Open my eyes to see how I can be the answer to someone else's prayer
Hold me Lord, do not let me go.
Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)