What God Has Prepared

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on May 28, 2023.  The Bible verses used are 1 Corinthians 2:1-16.

I’ve spent almost my whole life in small towns.  I grew up in one, went to school in one, and have worked in a few.  And as I think you know, Wanda and I both love small towns.  The only time we did not live in a small town is the three years we spent in the Sioux City area.  And don’t get me wrong, the people there treated us very well.  We still here from them, and we still consider some of them friends.  

But even so, we were very happy when we got the chance to come here and come back to small-town living again.  We love the things that go on in small towns.  We love the people who live in small towns.  We love the way you can get involved in things in a small town.  That’s not necessarily good or bad--it’s just who we are and what we like.

But the thing is, there sometimes is a mindset that we get into in small towns.  And it’s understandable, and sometimes I do it, too, but it’s important that we recognize it.  It’s a mindset that allows us to be defined by our limitations.  We start thinking about all the things we cannot do, rather than all the things we can do.

It happens in the community.  We think, “Well, we’re just a small town.  We don’t have very many people or very much money.  We cannot do a whole lot.”  It happens in the church.  We think, “Well, we’re just a small church.  We don’t have much money.  We really cannot do a whole lot.”  It happens in our personal lives, too.  We think, “Well, I’m only one person.  I don’t have much money or much power.  I really cannot do a whole lot.”

I don’t mean to sound critical, because it’s perfectly understandable why this happens.  But when we start to think this way, we need to remember our Bible reading for today.  We especially need to remember the ninth verse:  “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived--those things God has prepared for those who love him.”

That’s a really profound verse.  It’s the antidote to being defined by our limitations.  Because our God, the God we worship, the God we love, the God we are trying to be faithful to, has no limitations.  God’s power is unlimited, just like God’s love is unlimited.  And that means there’s no limit to what you can and I can do when we rely on God’s power and on God’s love.

Do we need to be realistic about that?  Well, yes, to an extent.  But only to an extent.  Because God’s view of what’s realistic could be a lot different from ours.  When Wanda and I decided that I would leave the law practice at age forty-seven and go to seminary with the idea of becoming a pastor, we talked to a lot of people who thought that was not realistic.  Some of them were in my own family.  Some people thought I was going through a mid-life crisis or something.  Now, don’t get me wrong--it’s not that they did not love us or that they did not care about us or anything like that.  Once we showed we were determined to head down this path, some of those people became our biggest supporters.  It’s just that they did not think what we were planning to do was realistic.  And in human terms, maybe it was not.  But it was what God was calling us to do, and so we trusted that it even if it did not seem realistic in human terms, it was realistic in God’s eyes.

Now, there are still are certain realities we have to deal with, of course.  But the thing is that God understands that.  God is not going to ask us to do things unless God has equipped us to do them.  God is not going to ask me to be an auto mechanic, or a basketball player, or any of a thousand other things that God has not given me the talent to do.  God knows--better than we do, really--the talents and abilities God has given us.  God is not going to ask us to do things that we clearly are unable to do.

But at the same time, because God knows our talents and abilities, God knows that each of us has talents and abilities we’ve never used.  Maybe we’ve never had the self-confidence.  Maybe we’ve never had the chance.  Maybe it just never occurred to us that we might have that talent or that ability.  

Or, maybe we’ve tried to develop that talent or ability on our own, rather than asking for God’s help.  Because remember who this God we love is.  This is the God who created the universe out of nothing.  This is the God who made it rain for forty days and forty nights.  This is the God who produced food for the Israelites when they were starving in the desert.  This is the God for whom the impossible is possible.  In fact, this is the God for whom the impossible is not even hard.

              And that’s where our bible verse comes into it.  God has prepared things for us that are beyond our ability to understand.  God has prepared things for us that no eye has ever seen.  God has prepared things for us that no ear has ever heard.  God has prepared things for us that no human mind has ever conceived of.

            So while we need to be realistic about our limitations, we should not place those same limitations on God.  We serve a God who is not limited by anything except God’s own decisions about what’s right and what’s wrong.  The only limitations God has are the ones God creates.  God can, literally, do anything God chooses to do.  We should not place limitations on God.

            And we also should not place limitations on what we can do with God’s help.  Because that’s simply another way of placing limitations on God, the same God we just said had no limitations other than the ones God creates.  Our verse says that God has things beyond our imagination planned for those who love God.  If you love God, that means you.  And, it means me.

            If you doubt this, look back at your life.  Can you think of a time you did something you did not think you could do?  I suspect you can.  If you really think about it, you can think of a time where you were faced with a situation, and you were not sure what to do, but you knew you had to do something.  And so you did, and you discovered you could do figure out the right thing to do, and that you could do it.  Almost all of us have times like that.

            We can think of times like that in our churches, too.  Look at the things our churches have accomplished.  We have active church school programs in Onida and Gettysburg.  Who’d have thought a little church like this could do that?  The Gettysburg church built an addition to the church that cost around three quarters of a million dollars and paid for it in four years.  Who’d have thought a little church could do that?  We have active United Methodist Women’s groups that serve funerals and raise money for missions and do all kinds of important work.  Who’d have thought a little church could do that?  And that’s just scratching the surface.  We could go on and on and on with things that all of our churches have done, things that most people would not have thought a little church could do.

            And in fact, if we had tried to do them by ourselves, we could not have done them.  But we did not do them by ourselves.  We did them with the power of God.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I know there are a lot of people who have worked very hard to make all of those things happen.  But there have also been a lot of people who have prayed very hard to make those things happen.  A lot of them, of course, were the same people.  We went past the limitations that a lot of people would’ve seen, and instead decided to rely on God’s unlimited power.

            So, what else could we do?  What else could God have planned for us?  Because I believe that God is just getting started around here.  I think there are all kinds of things God has planned for us.  Things that no eye has seen, that no ear has heard.  Things that our human minds have not yet conceived.  God has those things prepared and planned for each of the churches of the Wheatland Parish.

            I don’t know what those things are.  I don’t know when those things are going to happen.  But I’m convinced that they are.  And I really believe they’re going to start happening fairly soon.  Some of you may remember that several years ago, I said that I believed God was going to do something special here in the churches of the Wheatland Parish.  After I said that, our churches went through some struggles.  But I remain convinced that God is going to do something special here in the churches of the Wheatland Parish.  I think, through those struggles, God was laying the groundwork for what God is going to do.  

Some would say that the things I mentioned earlier are special things, and they are.  But I think there’s more to come.  In fact, I think there’s a lot more to come.  Again, I think God is just getting started here.  Again, I’m not putting a timeline on when it’s going to happen.  But I do believe that, at some point in the future, we’re going to look back on where we were and where we are and be amazed at all the things God has done.

Again, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived--those things God has prepared for those who love him.”  I know that the people of the Wheatland Parish love God.  So let’s open ourselves up to what God wants to do here.  When we have an idea, or when a thought strikes us, or when we see something start to happen, let’s be open to it.  When God stirs something in us, let’s try it and see where it goes.  Let’s not put limitations on ourselves.  Let’s not put limitations on God, either.  Let’s free ourselves to imagine.  Let’s free ourselves to dream.  And let’s free ourselves trust God.  

            God is not restricted by artificial limitations.  God is not restricted by what we think is realistic, either.  So let’s stay open.  Let’s keep our minds open.  Most of all, let’s keep our hearts open.  God gives each one of us all kinds of chances to serve God.  God gives our churches all kinds of chances to serve God.  Sometimes, those ways to serve are things we never dreamed of.  But if we stay open, we can notice them.  And if we trust God, we can follow through on them.  We can stop putting limitations on ourselves.  Instead, we can trust the leading of God.  God has all kinds of things prepared, things we’ve never dreamed of.  And nothing is impossible for God.