Last week, in the first of our
sermon series on Noah, we talked about how to be able to trust someone we have
to have a relationship with them. The thing is, when it comes to having a
relationship with God, that’s not always as easy as it sounds. It’s not
that we don’t want to have a relationship with God. It’s just that,
sometimes, we have a hard time believing that God wants to have a relationship
with us.
It’s not that we think God does not
love us, at least not necessarily. It’s just that, well, God is so far
beyond us. God is so big, and so mighty, and so powerful. God is
omniscient and omnipresent and all these other ten-dollar words that say that
God is way beyond anything we can ever imagine. And so, we think, why
should a God that’s that big and that powerful want to have a relationship with
me?
And then, too, we think, I’m such a
small part of the world, really. I mean, there are over seven billion
people on earth. Even if God wants to, could God actually have a personal
relationship with over seven billion people? How’s that even possible?
And there’s certainly nothing special about me. With over seven
billion people in the world, why would God choose to have a relationship with
me?
Again, this is different from saying
God loves us. It’s possible to love a group of people without having a
personal relationship with them. I’ll give you a couple of examples.
A friend of mine has made several
mission trips to Haiti. When he talks about the people of Haiti, you can
hear and feel the love he has for them. But he only has a personal
relationship with a handful of them. That’s not a criticism of him, it’s
just the way it is and the way it has to be. He loves them all, but most
of them he does not and cannot have a relationship with.
Or take the storms we had this week.
First, there was the tornado that hit Pilger, Nebraska. My heart
went out to those people, because it’s easy for me to put myself in their
place. I care about those people. But I don’t have a personal
relationship with them. I don’t actually know any of those people.
But then, later in the week, I heard about the potential flooding in the
North Sioux City/McCook Lake/Dakota Dunes area where we lived before we came
here. And then we heard about the
tornado that destroyed much of Wessington Springs, where we lived for seventeen
years. And suddenly my love took on a
whole different dimension. Because I
know those people. I have a personal
relationship with them. I did not just
feel bad. I wanted to know everything
that was going on there. I wished there
was some way I could help right away.
Here’s the distinction, or at least
one of them. When we have a relationship with someone, we care about the
details. We don’t want to just know that they’re safe and well.
When we have a relationship with someone, we want to know everything
that’s going on with them. We want to
know all about their life. We want to know what they’re doing, how
they’re spending their time. We want to know if they’re happy or sad, and
what made them that way. When we have a relationship with someone, we
want to know about all the details of their life.
And that’s what we need to realize
about God. God is not just this big, mighty, powerful God who’s only
interested in the big picture. That’s part of who God is, but it’s not
all God is. God is interested in the big picture--in fact, God is in
charge of the big picture--but God is interested in all the little details, too.
God is interested in the details of your life, and God is interested in
the details of my life. Because God wants to have a relationship with us,
God is also a God of the details.
And that brings us to our reading
from Genesis. Some of this is what we read last week, but we also picked
up the parts we skipped. And the parts we skipped last week are the
details.
God told Noah to build an ark, a big
boat that will protect him and his family from the storm and will save all the
animals, too. But that’s not all God did not just tell Noah to build a
boat and leave it at that. God went into detail.
God told Noah the exact dimensions the ark was supposed to be.
God gave the exact length, the exact width, and the exact height the ark
was supposed to be. And don’t be thrown off by that word “cubit”, it’s
just a length of measurement. People back then knew what it meant.
It’s just like saying feet or yards or meters or something like that.
In fact, I don’t know what the Bible translators don’t translate that
into feet or yards or meters, other than just tradition. When God said
something should be so many cubits, Noah knew exactly the distance God was
talking about.
But God went into a lot more detail than just that. God told
Noah to put a roof on the ark. God told Noah to leave an opening below
the roof, and God told Noah exactly how big that opening was supposed to be.
God told Noah exactly how many decks to make the ark. God told Noah
where to put the door to the ark. Then God told Noah exactly how many
pairs of each animal he was supposed to take on the ark. And just to make
sure there were no slip-ups, God specifically said each pair was supposed to be
one male and one female. And then God told Noah exactly when it was going
to rain and God told Noah exactly how long it was going to rain.
Now, God would not have had to do all that. God could’ve
just said to Noah, “Make sure you build it big enough” and left Noah to figure
it out. But God did not do that. God went into detail because God is
not just the God of the big picture. God is also the God of the details.
And because God is the God of the details, God is interested in
the details of your life. And God is interested in the details of my
life. Those details of our lives are what make us who we are. The
details, the little things, the things we do every day, are the things that
make you you. And they’re the things that make me me.
Jesus told us that God is so interested in us that God knows the
number of hairs on each one of our heads. Now that’s a detail.
That’s a detail we don’t even know about ourselves. Do you know the
number of hairs on your head? I don’t even know how I’d go about trying
to count them. But God knows the number of hairs on each one of our
heads, because God is the God of the details.
The fact that God is interested in the details of our lives means
that we, you and I, can have a relationship with God. But it means more
than that. The fact that God is interested in the details of our lives
means that there is nothing we cannot talk to God about. It’s true that
nothing is too big for God, but it’s also true that nothing is too small for
God.
The things that are important to us are important to God, because
God has a personal relationship with us, and that’s how a relationship works.
When you have a relationship with someone, the things that are important
to them are important to you and vice versa. Think of the people you have
a close relationship with, and I’ll bet you find that’s true. For
example, It’s important to Wanda that I be able to watch ballgames.
That’s not because she cares about ballgames herself, but because we have
a close relationship, and so the things that are important to me are important
to her. It’s important to me that Wanda be able to do ceramics.
That’s not because I have any desire to ever do ceramics myself, but
because we have a close relationship, and so the things that are important her
are important to me.
That’s the kind of relationship God
wants to have with each one of us. What that means is that no matter
what’s on our minds or in our hearts, we can go to God with them. God
won’t laugh at us. God won’t think we’re a bother. God won’t think
we’re wasting God’s time. If it’s important to us, then it’s important to
God, because we have a close relationship with God.
In fact, in a way, going to God with
the small things shows how strong our faith in God really is. What I mean
is that everyone goes to God with the big things. Even people who are not
all that religious will often pray when there’s a serious problem, when death
is close or when there’s a serious illness or something like that. But
when we go to God with the small things, too, we’re showing that we want to be
in a relationship with God. Not only that, we’re showing that we believe
our relationship with God is close enough that God will care about the small
things, the details. We’re showing that we’re not worried that we’ll be
bothering God or wasting God’s time. We’re showing that we trust God to
care about us because of the relationship we have with God.
God is the God of the details.
God knew exactly how big the ark needed to be. God knows exactly
the number of hairs on each of our heads. And God knows and cares about
every last detail of our lives.
God is both the God of the big
picture and the God of the details. Because of that, we can go to God
with everything, big and small. God cares about it all, because God not
only loves us, God wants to have a close relationship with us.
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