This is the
end of our sermon series “Who is this God person, anyway?” We’ve looked at a lot of aspects of who God
is. We’ve talked about how God is
eternal. We’ve talked about how God is
all-knowing and everywhere. We’ve
talked about how God is all-powerful.
We’ve talked about how God is holy and righteous. We’ve talked about how God is love.
We said when we started this sermon
series that we would not be able to talk about every aspect of who God is, and
that’s true. As we bring the sermon
series to an end, though, we’re going to talk about one more aspect of God. God is good.
Do we believe that? Do we always believe it? I’m not sure. We don’t have to look very hard to find a lot of things happening
in the world that are not good. All
spring we’ve heard about terrible storms that hit various parts of the country,
some of them not all that far from us.
We can hardly turn on the local news without hearing about a violent
crime that took place somewhere. If we
look on the national level, we hear about unemployment and a slow economy. If we look on the world level, we hear about
terrorism. There are an awful lot of
things going on that are not good at all.
It’s one thing to talk in general
about things in the world that are not good.
It’s another thing entirely when they happen to us personally. When we or a loved one of ours has a serious
health problem, when we have unexpected expenses and we don’t know where the
money’s going to come from to pay for them, when a family relationship breaks
down, when any of a number of things happens that are bad or even devastating
to us personally, our feelings go to a whole different level.
When things like that happen, we
wonder what in the world’s going on. We
think, this does not make sense. I’ve
tried to play by the rules. I’ve tried
to follow God. I’m not perfect, and I
know that, but I’m doing as well as I know how to do. Where’s it getting me?
Everything seems to be going wrong. If God’s so good, why is God doing this to me? Or even if God’s not doing it to me, why is
God not doing something about it? Why
is God just leaving me in this situation to suffer?
Those are completely understandable
questions. I’d guess a lot of us have
asked them at some point in our lives.
If we’ve not asked them yet, there’s a good chance we will
sometime. When it seems like things are
going wrong through no fault of our own, or maybe through some fault of our own
but not totally, and when it seems like we’ve been praying and praying and
nothing seems to be helping, it’s completely understandable that we’d start to
wonder where God is and why God does not seem to be doing anything to help us.
Job certainly would’ve understood
it. Remember the story of Job? Job was the most righteous person on
earth. God had blessed him with all
sorts of wonderful things. Then God
makes a deal with Satan and allows Satan to do anything to Job except kill
him. So Satan takes everything away
from Job: he loses all his property, he
loses his house, all his children are killed, and Job himself is struck with a
terrible disease.
Job cannot understand it. He feels just like we feel sometimes: like he played by the rules, like he did
everything he was supposed to do, and instead of having God bless him for it,
it seems like God has cursed him instead.
He feels like if he could just go to God and argue his case, God would
see that things are not going the way they should go and God would do something
about it. But, as he says, it seems
like he cannot find God. No matter
where he goes, no matter what direction he looks, God is not there. It feels like God has abandoned him.
Have you ever felt like that? Like you’ve been abandoned by God? We know God has to be somewhere, and we keep
trying to find God, but we cannot do it.
Some people say that what hell really is, is the place where we are
totally cut off from God. I’m not saying
that’s all hell is, but I think there might be something to that. If you’ve ever had that feeling of being
abandoned by God, of not being able to find God or feel God’s presence no
matter what you do, you know it’s the loneliest feeling in the world.
Well, if you’ve read the book of
Job, you know that God eventually gives Job an answer. It’s certainly not the answer Job wanted,
though. God shows up, and basically
says, “Who are you to question me? I
created all this. I’m in control of
it. Who are you to try to argue with
me?”
Job accepts that answer. It’s not that easy for us to accept,
though. At least, it’s not that easy
for me. The first time I read the book
of Job, I was really disappointed in it.
I mean, Job goes on for verse after verse, chapter after chapter, page
after page, wanting to know why all these bad things have happened to him when
he’s done nothing to deserve them. It’s
a question I’ve always wanted to know the answer to. I’d guess most of us have.
Then, when God finally comes into the story, God not only does not
answer the question, God says we have no right to ask.
Well, what’s up with that? What do you mean, we have no right to
ask? Why not? It seems like a reasonable question to me. After all, God is supposed to be fair. God’s supposed to be good. So, when bad things happen to good people,
it seems like we should have every right to ask God what’s going on here. It seems like the most natural thing in the
word to ask, “God, how is this fair?
How is this good? Just what in
the world are you up to, anyway?”
Well, in thinking about this, I
once again went back to my favorite TV show, Doctor Who. There’s an episode in which the Doctor and
his friend Amy are in trouble, and the Doctor says to Amy, “You need to trust
me.” Amy responds, “But you don’t tell
me all of the truth.” And the Doctor
responds, “If I told you all of the truth, you wouldn’t need to trust me.”
I think that’s how it works with
God. When things happen, and we cannot
understand how a good God could allow them to happen, God says to us, “You need
to trust me.” We respond, “But God, you
don’t tell us all of the truth.” And
God responds, “If I told you all of the truth, you wouldn’t need to trust me.”
So, why does God not tell us all of
the truth? Well, think of it this
way. Would it be possible to explain
calculus to a three-year-old? No. Why not?
Is it because calculus does not make sense? No, calculus makes perfect sense—if your mind has developed
enough and has had enough training and experience to understand it. The reason it’s not possible to explain
calculus to a three-year-old is not because calculus does not make sense. The reason it’s not possible is because a
three-year-old’s mind is not developed enough and has not had enough training
and experience to grasp it, no matter how much someone might try to explain it
to them.
Think about all the qualities of
God we’ve talked about in this sermon series.
God is eternal. God is
all-knowing. God is all-powerful. God is holy and righteous. God is all-loving.
Do you and I share any of those
qualities? No. We are on earth for a limited and relatively
short time. There are all kinds of
things we don’t know and never will know.
We like to think we’re pretty powerful, but compared to God, we’re
pretty weak. It’s pretty obvious where
we fall on the holiness and righteousness scale. And while we may strive to be all-loving, we fail time after time
after time.
I think the reason God does not
tell us all of the truth is because we’d never understand it. We’re too limited. The problem is not that God’s truth does not make sense. The problem is that our minds are not
capable of grasping God’s truth, no matter how much God might try to explain it
to us.
We don’t always like that. We wish we could know all the truth, but we
cannot. Not because God does not want
to tell it to us, but because we cannot understand it. So, we’re left with a choice. We can believe that, because things don’t
always make sense to us, it must mean that either God does not exist or God is
not good. Or, we can believe that God
is good, and that somehow, in some way, things do make sense, even if we cannot
understand how. In other words, we can
choose to trust God, or we can choose not to trust God. It’s our choice.
The choice each of us makes will
determine our answer to the question we’ve been asking for six weeks. Who is this God person, anyway?
No comments:
Post a Comment