Back To God Hour Messages

CELEBRATING 71 YEARS OF THE BACK TO GOD HOUR

2010-04-11T00:00:00-06:00

Scripture Reading: Romans 10:14-15
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

This is the Back to God Hour, looking at life in light of the Bible and exploring God's answers to our questions. I'm Steven Koster, and today we have a very special program. This program, the Back to God Hour, has been on the air for over 70 years. And this episode today is the last program that we will be recording under the name The Back to God Hour.

Does that mean this is the end? Such a transition raises a host of questions: Will there be a new program to replace The Back to God Hour? Will we find new ways to reach out in North America? Will we continue internationally? What has been the impact of this program over 70 years?

All these questions need answering, and we'll be wrestling with them over the next half-hour, with some guest appearances along the way. We'll see what God has done through the seeds of this program, both at home and abroad, and glimpse at what the future holds.

THE BEGINNING AND HISTORY OF THE BACK TO GOD HOUR

70 years is a long time, especially in broadcasting. Already in the Roaring 20s, when young men were still telling stories of the Great War in Europe, church fathers in the Chicago area had a passion for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ through an exciting new technology known as radio. It was the Internet of its day, a new and yet unformed medium and industry. But it wasn't until 1939 that the first Back to God Hour program hit the airwaves. Delayed by the Great Depression, that first program aired on December 6, 1939, in Chicago.

The speaker was Professor Henry Schultze, soon to be president of Calvin College. After thanking God for the opportunity to broadcast His Word, Professor Schultze continued an introductory prayer in lofty King James English. He said:

We beseech Thee, O Spirit divine,
that Thou wilt accompany us as we work through the season now begun
so that the messages brought today and on the Sundays that follow
may cheer and comfort those in sorrow,
may sustain and guide those in affliction,
may strengthen and encourage those that are weakly stumbling along life's pathway,
may fill the hearts of the faithful with joy and peace,
and may move men everywhere to a renewed consciousness of the great glory of our God...

And that has remained our prayer for all of these seven decades.

Peter Eldersveld

In those first years that followed, there were a variety of speakers on the Back to God Hour, much like we've had in recent years. But in 1943, Peter Eldersveld joined the preaching team, and in 1946 he became the first full-time radio preacher.

It was a new era for The Back to God Hour. Letters from listeners continued to double regularly throughout that first decade. Dr. Eldersveld had to pioneer a new course as a broadcast minister, being neither a parish pastor nor an itinerant evangelist. His duty as a radio minister was more than evangelizing the masses; he also felt a responsibility for the care and nurture of Christians who were already established but maybe alienated from churches. Many of these Christians had attended church but were not well grounded in the historic Christian faith. Throughout The Back to God Hour's history, its broadcast ministers have been sensitive to the needs of both groups: the lost sheep as well as the sheep in the fold.

The program then was formatted very much like a worship service, complete with Choir. For many years, to provide music on air, the choir at Calvin College was wired in on telephone lines from Michigan to the WGN studios in Chicago, providing live performances to complement the sermons.

Joel Nederhood

After almost 20 years as the sole radio pastor, Dr. Eldersveld was joined by a young minister named Joel Nederhood in 1960. Dr. Nederhood served as an associate broadcast minister, specializing in following up with listeners, producing Bible study material, and working with congregations in local outreach. But only five years later, in October 1965, Dr. Eldersveld died suddenly. Joel Nederhood was soon asked to fill the shoes of the radio pioneer. They were large shoes to fill.

But soon, Dr. Nederhood not only took over the Back to God Hour program, but also developed new radio programs, pioneered television broadcasts, expanded the international work, oversaw the construction of new broadcast studios, and developed a fundraising network to sustain the organization. At one point in the 1980s, Dr. Nederhood appeared on television early every morning with the Faith20 program. He offered a word of encouragement as stations resumed their broadcast day. Remarkably, thanks to the miracle of cable television, these messages were carried across North America, in New York, to Toronto, to Chicago, to Los Angeles.

In all, Dr. Nederhood led The Back to God organization for over 35 years, bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to millions.

David Feddes

As Dr. Nederhood moved more into television and other endeavors, another young pastor stepped behind the microphone on the Back to God Hour.

David Feddes began preaching on the program in 1991. Pastor Feddes emphasized what he termed "worldview evangelism," showing how the gospel story shapes every area of life, from ethics and relationships, to business and politics, to art and culture. He also oversaw the expansion of the broadcast in western Africa, cultivating a series of congregations across southern Nigeria.

Recent History: Last 4 Years

When David Feddes moved on from Back to God to pursue a Doctoral degree, we resumed the idea of a rotating team of pastors, each taking on several weeks at a time for a sermon series.

But now the time has come for something new altogether, maybe something more interactive and conversational. Clearly the seeds planted in 1939 grew into a flowering tree, but what will follow The Back to God Hour? We'll explore that question in more detail in a few minutes.

ORGANIZATION HISTORY & INTERNATIONAL GROWTH

But first, we need to see how that flowering tree, that one program that started in Chicago, has borne fruit, seeding hundreds of programs around the world.

The first International broadcast

In 1953, Back to God received a phone call from an anonymous caller who first played a short recording of a past Back to God program over the phone. The caller said "I took the liberty of sending a Back to God Hour recording down to the new 30,000-watt radio station, HCJB, in Ecuador. Last Sunday, they broadcast that message on their short-wave signal, and it traveled all over the world. What you just heard was a recording I made from my short-wave receiver almost 2,000 miles from the source of the broadcast."

Soon, The Back to God Hour began broadcasting regularly out of Ecuador, and letters came in from around the world. 23 countries were represented the first year, including Japan, Germany, England, Australia, Philippines, Iraq, Africa, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela. This was the beginning of International broadcasting for Back to God, but it was in English, repurposing content intended for a North American audience. How could we reach an international audience with programming that was more relevant to their culture?

In 1958, Bassam Madany, born in Syria, was appointed to open a new media missions field: Arabic-language programming. His role was to preach the gospel in Arabic for an Arabic culture, speaking in a way that both the ears and the hearts of Arabic listeners could hear God's call.

Letters came slowly at first, then in hundreds, then in the thousands. This was the first International language ministry for Back to God, in, of, and for the culture.

A few years later, in 1965, Juan Boonstra became the Spanish language minister, opening yet another part of the world to media missions in a native language and culture. Soon, other languages followed, French, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and Hindi.

Interview with Bob Heerspink

Joining me now is Pastor Bob Heerspink, one of the pastors on The Back to God Hour and the Director of Back to God Ministries International itself.

Bob, we've heard about how The Back to God Hour grew from a shoot to a tree to seeding other media ministries around the world. What does that look like today? What's going on internationally at Back to God Ministries?

Steven, I think the essence of where we've come to is found in the name change we underwent a few years ago, from the Back to God Hour to Back to God Ministries International. We truly are a multi-media ministry now that's involved in work around the world. It's an international ministry that is involved in ten major languages; we have forty discipleship offices around the world. We're involved in all levels of media - not just radio and television, but more and more, the internet.

Well, we have ministry centers all around the world, in Brazil, in Hong Kong, in Tokyo, in Russia. Bob, what's the common bond between all of these ministries?

We have common strategy and that's to work with the global church in building the church through media. We have indigenous teams in places around the globe, and it's those indigenous teams that are producing the programs and driving the ministry. We want to speak the gospel in the language of the people who hear. We also have partnerships with churches and denominations, because we truly believe it's not just getting the word out through the airwaves or even on the internet, but it's connecting those who listen to our programs, those who read our devotionals - connecting them to the church and building them into the community of faith right there in the local places where they live and work.

Interview with Rev. Jimmy Lin

Also with us in the studio is Pastor Jimmy Lin, director of the Chinese language ministry of Back to God Ministries International. He's been leading and developing our media ministry in China for nearly 20 years. Welcome Jimmy.

Thank you

Jimmy, China is a fascinating place, very different from North America. Could you give a brief overview of your ministry there?

Sure. The first thing that is special about China is that it is still a Communist country; so we have to reach our audience from outside the country. In the past we used short-wave and strong AM stations. Now days, because it's more free in China now, we use internet, we use text messages, we send in CDs and DVDs - just different channels to reach the people.

The second thing is because the audience is so big, 1.4 billion people, we have to do the programs in very different formats. For example, a lot of people in China want to learn English, so a bi-lingual program is a strong part of our ministry. We also want to reach out to the children, so we have children's programs. And then, because churches are not so developed, there are a lot of false teachings, so teaching programs are important too.

Tell me a little bit about the cultural context of China being different from North America?

Because China has been a Communist country for over 50 years, a lot of people under age fifty don't have any idea about Christianity. That's positive and it's also been negative. It's positive because they don't have the baggage of a lot of jargons or a lot of misunderstandings or misconceptions about Christianity. But the negative part is that it's almost a blank sheet. So in our programs, we can't assume that they know much about what we have been talking about in the West. So we have to give them a lot of details, use symbols and ideas. That's the first thing.

The second thing is the Chinese culture is less open, more reserved than the Western culture. So, a lot of people will be listening, but they may not want to write to us or email us, but those that actually write or email will pour out their hearts to us. So there's a positive side and a negative side.

So what would be a typical kind of response you would get from a listener?

Well, I'm just looking at a few of them. The first one, I'll just read because it's in English, this one is actually written to Mark, one of our producers of the bi-lingual programs. This listener said, "This is my first time listening to your program, I really enjoy it a lot and I want to ask for a copy of the TODAY devotional that you are talking about in the program." So they usually say they like the program or ask for something.

Another example is this lady who is asking about - she's actually pastoring a church and there are a lot of false teachings that are coming in from Korea, into this place so she's asking us for a lot of materials - CDs, DVDs, and booklists - that deal with different ideas or essential Christian doctrines. So, usually its reflections or asking questions or asking for materials or help.

Thank you so much Jimmy. What's amazing to me is how all this-multiple international ministries, all produced by local indigenous staff, headquartered in all the major centers of the world, all of this grew out of this one little program, The Back to God Hour. It's truly a tree that seeded a worldwide orchard, bearing fruit a thousand times over.

And our next question then back to North America. The International forest has grown so much, but what is going on in North America? If this is the last Back to God Hour, is it the end of our media ministry at home? We'll wrestle with this question right after this break. Stay tuned!"

REFRAME AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE MINISTRY

This is The Back to God Hour, and in fact it's the last Back to God Hour. We've been celebrating the 70-year history of the program, and we've seen how The Back to God Hour seeded multiple international ministries around the world, but what about North America?

Well, just as we've grown internationally, a whole new crop of gospel resources is blossoming in English.

The English-language ministry that presents The Back to God Hour is now known as ReFrame Media, and ReFrame Media offers a whole range of radio and Internet-based programs.

The goal of ReFrame Media is to help you see how God is already at work in your life, whoever or wherever you are. We believe that when you see God's story unfolding around you, your perspective will be re-framed. You will come to see things as God sees them, and everything about you will be transformed.

And since we speak differently to children than we do adults, for example, ReFrame Media offers a range of programs that target different audiences. And increasingly, we use a range of media technologies, not only radio, but also Internet websites, podcasts, and social media. We use many tools to reach you and yours with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Yet we have one unanswered question: If this is the last Back to God Hour, does that mean ReFrame Media will no longer offer any program that looks at life in light of the Bible? This is the question we've been dancing around the whole time-what replaces The Back to God Hour?

Groundwork

The good news is that ReFrame Media is indeed offering a new program that stands squarely in the voice and tradition of The Back to God Hour. The new program is called GROUNDWORK, where we dig deeply in the soil of scripture as a foundation for our lives.

Like The Back to God Hour, Groundwork explores God's Word in depth but it does so in conversation.

With me again is Bob Heerspink, and also David Bast, together they are the co-hosts of Groundwork. Welcome Gentlemen.

B: Thank you
D: Thank you, great to be here.

Tell me a little bit about these changes, why this name-change? Why this format?

B: Both of us at Back to God Ministries International and Words of Hope have had long-standing Bible teaching programs. They've been a blessing to people for many, many years, decades actually. But now we‘re bringing the two programs together into something new, Groundwork, which is a new program for a new audience.

D: It was a little hard to combine the names of our two different programs. You don't want to have "Back to Hope," maybe "Words of God," would have been good. But this is really a joint effort of two ministries, of two denominations we're affiliated with and we think it's a wonderful model of cooperation; the real ecumenicalism is on the front lines of doing ministry. We're aiming this program at a new generation. It's a new century, you need to change and freshen things once in awhile, and that's the point.

B: And that's why we've changed the format as well. Before, both of our programs we're monologues, now we're engaging in dialogue and the hope is that when people listen into this new program, that they'll feel drawn into the conversation, that they'll feel more part of it.

D: Yeah, just like now, we're going back and forth, not reading a script. Bob and I are trying to use this approach to teaching the Bible, where we draw people into a conversation, and they're like listening in around the table with us.

B: And that's where social networking really becomes a powerful tool for what we're doing. Because we're not only airing a program on radio, we're doing work online. There's a website where people can come and comment about programs, they can engage in dialogue with us, and they can leave suggestions and comments for upcoming programs.

So what do you hope Groundwork will accomplish?

D: Well, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is I hope we will continue in the footsteps of our predecessors in these ministries. For 65 and 70 years, respectively, our two organizations have been known for solid biblical teaching and really, we intend to continue that to the best of our ability. We want to dig into the scriptures-that's the Groundwork part-and share that word in a way that applies to our lives.

B: We have a very deep commitment to the power of God's word, both of our organizations. And we're continuing that in making this a program that really focuses on unfolding specific passages of scripture and what they mean for our lives. But there's a new component too and that's the new media side of things-pulling in the internet, encouraging people to communicate with us in ways they have never done before. We're excited about that fact that through this approach we're going to create a whole new audience for Groundwork.

Thank You Gentlemen, we look forward to hearing Groundwork next week.

PARTING WORDS

Friends, God has been good to The Back to God Hour. This program has grown into so much more than a single broadcast. Yet this is not our story, but God's story. We pray that this ministry continues to bless you our listeners, and the many listeners of many programs worldwide. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make his face to shine upon you.

About the Pastor

Steven Koster

THE AGONY, THEN THE ECSTASY

2010-04-04T00:00:00-06:00

Scripture Reading: John 16:16-24

In his book, Where is God When It Hurt?, Philip Yancy tells the story of a conversation he had one time with Robin Graham. Graham is the youngest person in history to ever sail all the way around the world alone. Graham decided to try this incredible feat when he was only 16. Little did he know all he was getting into.

In the three years that his voyage took, he was smashed broadside by ocean storms; one time his mast was snapped in two by a wave; another time he was almost totally destroyed by a waterspout. His worst experience, he said, was near the equator, in the doldrums, that windless, current-less part of the ocean. He became so discouraged that he completely gave up. He covered his boat with kerosene and set it on fire right out in the middle of the ocean. He quickly changed his mind, jumped back on board, and had to put out the fire with his bare hands.

After three years, Robin Graham sailed into a Los Angeles harbor as the youngest person to ever sail around the world alone. He was greeted by boats and banners, crowds and news reporters. Cars honked and steam boats blasted their whistles as he came sailing through the channel. The joy, the ecstasy of that moment was unlike any he had ever known. No return from another sailing trip had been as glorious. But no other sailing trip had been so agonizing. The investment and the pain and the agony of this round-the-world trip were essential ingredients in the ecstasy of this dramatic homecoming.

One of the great truths of Scripture that I have come to appreciate anew through my work on this series is that deep joy, real fulfillment, true maturity, almost by definition, involve pain, investment, disappointment, even agony, along the way.

Paul says in Romans 5 that

"suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."

And James 1:2-4 (that we have looked at more than once in this series) says that

the trials and agony of life are the indispensable building blocks of human character, the essential road to be traveled if we are to be (in the words of James) "mature and complete."

In the scripture we read today, Jesus talks about this in terms of child-bearing. He says,

"A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come."

You mothers know this.

". . . but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world."

I've managed to see many mothers of new-born babies in the hospital. And when I have gone in and asked how they are doing, no mother has ever replied,

"What a bummer this is. You know how painful it is to have a baby!"

No, as Jesus says,

"she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world."

Her anguish and her waiting actually heighten and intensify her joy when that baby is born.

Now, Jesus is using this metaphor in John to describe heaven, and how our suffering in this life will be transformed into joy when we see Christ again. And we'll talk about that transformation in a little while. But the principle, the transformation of our agony into joy, also applies to life already here and now.

Many of you are parents of college students. Many of you have been college students yourselves or are college students now. You know how you have to work your way through all kinds of obstacles before you finally get your degree. You go through the sophomore slumps where you just want to quit and get a job. You change majors. You drop courses. You take the wrong courses and they won't give you your money back.

You lose your girl friend (and the $100 you spent on a Christmas present for her the week before). The obstacles are many.

But on that hot day in May when you finally stand in line to go up on the platform and get your diploma, even though it's not "cool" to be sentimental, your stomach leaps inside and cries, for you have finally made it. But at that moment, the challenges and setbacks of four years (or five or six) are indispensable parts of our joy. Our richest experiences are born of agonizing investments.

And there really are no shortcuts to that kind of fulfillment and joy, no easy, painless way. During our freshman year in college, my wife Jeannette and I used to quite often go to her home in Chicago for the weekend. Friday night was great. Saturday was great.

Sunday morning was great. Sunday dinner was great. But then we would sit down after dinner to watch the Chicago Bears football team get crushed by someone, and it would begin to sink in: We have to go back soon, away from that warm home, where love and joy permeated everything, to a dormitory that just wasn't quite home.

It was tough. Those were often long, quiet rides back to Grand Rapids where we went to college. It's painful to grow up. And Jeannette's dad had a saying that he would lay on us when he sensed we were discouraged.

"Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy." That is a deceptively simple saying. At the time I didn't think much about it. But I think there's something profound in that saying.

"Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy."

No, it's not true that our pain and agony are all and always bad. It can be an essential ingredient of our deepest joy and our most lasting fulfillment.

Philip Yancy compares life to a symphony. It's not just the bright, high notes that make a symphony beautiful. It's the dissonant chords, the deep, dark notes, and the long tiring passages that seem to have little movement that suddenly combine with everything else to make the total symphony beautiful. Our lives are like a symphony. Our pain and suffering are the early movement of a slow song, which God in his wisdom is weaving together into a beautiful symphony.

And it really is true (to go back to the words of Jesus again) that the mother

"forgets her anguish for her joy that a child is born into the world."

I realize it's a little dangerous, pastorally, to talk about forgetting our pain. I know that sometimes painful things happen to us at vulnerable stages of our life (like child abuse) where healing, not forgetting, is the appropriate term. Forgetting is never easy. And sometimes it's not possible.

But it is amazing to see how much people hurt and then how they can be happy and whole and, as it were, forget the pain.

Years ago, my wife Jeannette and I had a crisis with one of our children. As parents we were heart-broken.

It just happened to be that Jeannette's parents were in town the weekend that we had to go and stand with our child before a judge. Afterward Jeannette and I went out to lunch with Jeannette's folks. We talked about what we had been through. At one point I said,

"Well, you know what we're going through. You went through so much with Rudy."

Jeannette's mom soaked pillows at night with her tears for Jeannette's brother Rudy. But it was mom who said, that day in the restaurant, "No, I really don't remember." That did more for my broken heart than anything anyone could have said.

Oh, when we reminded her of the time Rudy and his friends blew up about 20 mailboxes with fireworks, and mom and dad had to drive to Wisconsin to get him out of jail, she remembered. But the pain, she had forgotten, in large measure, to go back to Jesus' words, because of her joy at what her son is now. It has smothered out the pain.

Yes, she forgets her anguish for her joy that a child is born into the world.

This movement from agony to ecstasy, from pain to joy, and the interrelationship between the two, is a reality here on earth, within this life. But that is only a faint shadow of another movement from agony to ecstasy that one day we who are in Christ Jesus will experience, the movement from this life to the next.

That actually is the specific reference of Jesus in John 16 verse 22:

"So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."

Our whole life here and our death are the birth pangs before we are born into the ecstasy of heaven, where there will be no pain, no hurt, no loneliness, no fear, no failure, no guilt, no hatred, no regrets.

It's important that we understand that our pain is temporary, not to minimize our pain, but to put fences around it. God pleads with us who ask, in our suffering,

"Where is God when it hurts?"

He pleads,

"Let history finish! Let the symphony scratch out its last mournful notes of discord before it bursts into song!"

Believe. Hope against hope, every day of your life, knowing that one day the victory of our God will be complete, and our pain, instead of being a problem, will be no more than a flickering memory.

It's possible, of course, to think about heaven too much in the Christian life. To make the entire focus of our faith and religion on what is to come. To only care about getting people on the path to heaven and not think enough about life now, the kingdom now, how Christ's rule changes things and affects things now.

But it's also possible to think about heaven too little. To become so focused upon this earth, this world, thinking we can fix and resolve all things now, that we lose sight of the hope and joy of heaven.

The poor, the pain-ridden, the oppressed often live with a more keen awareness of heaven because they know, they know that not so much is going to change in this life. Oh, we can work at bringing God's shalom, his peace, to earth. We must. And we will.

But what keeps the poor, the pain-ridden, the oppressed going is knowing that one day, all things will be set right, the banquet table will be set, violence and injustice and pain will be no more, every valley will be lifted up and every mountain and hill be brought low, and the rough places a plain.

One of the problems of affluence, and living in a culture bent on avoiding all pain and increasing pleasure, and being quite successful at it, is that our thirst for heaven diminishes. Heaven doesn't factor that much into how we deal with our pain now.

"We can't wait until heaven. We need relief now!"

But that's astonishing by any historical or global standard. At any other time in history, and in most places around the world today, heaven isn't an afterthought, it is a vital, day to day source of comfort and hope and joy, and a centerpiece of a Christian perspective on pain and suffering.

A lot of pain and loss and injustice and disability in this world just never goes away. But Paul's response to that reality in Romans 8 is not to deny life's pain, or anesthetize ourselves from life's pain, or try to prematurely fix life's pain, but to reframe it.

Paul says in verse 18,

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?
²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

And does this lead Paul to despair? No, this is the chapter where Paul goes on to say,

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen<
³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christians wait, but they wait patiently. They wait victoriously. We are more than conquerors, already now, because of Christ in us, the hope of glory.

God's word tells us today that the mother forgets her anguish at the sight of her new child. I close this message (and this series) with the words of our master:

"So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice."

Dear Lord, thank you for a hope and vision of life that transcends all human pain and suffering. Thank you that one day our anguish and the anguish of the whole world will be smothered with joy.

About the Pastor

Duane Kelderman

Rev. Duane Kelderman is the Vice President for Administration and an Associate Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. Before his current position he served as pastor in Christian Reformed congregations in Toledo, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Rev. Kelderman is married to Jeannette and has three children and two grandchildren. He was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa and attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary. He enjoys reading and carpentry.

PAIN - GOD’S MEGAPHONE

2010-03-28T00:00:00-06:00

Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:65-72

Years ago a parishioner in a church I was serving then was suffering severe pain because of kidney stones. The doctors monitored her situation for a week before they finally decided to go in and get those kidney stones. After her surgery, her husband called me and told me that his wife, about 50 at the time, had given birth to twins--Rocky and Sandy.

Now I have never had kidney stones. But I understand that the pain associated with kidney stones is some of the worst of physical pain. At first thought, it might seem great if there wasn't such a thing as kidney stones or if kidney stones just didn't hurt. But we don't have to think about it very long to realize that kidney stone pain is a constructive pain. Without the pain, we'd have no knowledge that something is wrong in our bodies and something has got to be done about that.

One of the functions of pain in our world can be as God's megaphone, God's way of shouting to us and getting our attention. C.S. Lewis speaks of pain as God's megaphone. The image is helpful for seeing how God can use something that is bad and the result of evil in our world to teach us things about our world and ourselves that probably we would learn in no other way.

The Psalmist says in verse 67,

"Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I obey your word.
You are good and what you do is good; teach me your decrees."

And then again in verse 71 he says,

"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."

He is saying his affliction was the megaphone of God what it took for God to get his attention so that he could

"obey the word" of God (v. 67) or
"learn your decrees" (v. 71).

In another place, C. S. Lewis says that pain is the "rumor of transcendence." It is the rumor in our world, amidst all the conflicting stories of how

"this is all there is" or "you only live once," . . . it is the rumor of transcendence, the rumor of God, the rumor that there must be more, and we must align ourselves with the laws of the universe and of the one who rules the universe.

I think it was C.S. Lewis who also said, "Pain plants the flag of truth within a rebel fortress." It shouts out, not all is well. We need to listen to that pain and seek to learn from it.

Now I hesitate to preach on this passage and this function of pain and suffering because it is so easily misunderstood.

On a regular basis people will come to me in a situation of pain and suffering and say, "I'm really trying to figure out what God is trying to teach me through this." I usually cringe a little bit at that point because I think there's a subtle but important difference between saying, for example,

"God can work through the pain (the evil, if you will)
of my kidney stones to teach me something
(like patience, dependence)." and saying
"God gave me kidney stones to teach me something."
I think we get kidney stones because we live in a broken world where things go haywire.

And a doctor can probably explain that in biological terms. Don't drag God into that, at least not at the question of cause. But it is fine to ask, "What can I learn about life from this?" (But notice then we're into that second category of "my response" that we talked about last time--forward looking, figuring out how to live creatively with our pain. In that sense we can ask what God is trying to teach us.)

You may say, what's the big difference here? Well, I think that second way of saying it more accurately leaves open the question of God's exact relationship to evil. And it certainly feels very different to the sufferer. It's one thing to say to someone who is in a bad marriage,

"You need to be open to how God can teach you even in and through this broken situation how to live with grace."

It's another thing to say, "God put you in this bad relationship to teach you some things." The latter probably isn't true; it certainly isn't helpful.

Having made that distinction (between what God actively causes and what God allows and can work through), I do want to go on to positively make the point that the Bible makes, that pain can be God's megaphone, his way to use evil things that come our way

(not that he necessarily zapped us with, but that are the natural unfolding of things in an evil world). . . his way to use evil things that come our way to teach us his word, his decrees, what is good and true and right, and to help us to live more creatively, more the way God made us to live.

Think about the financial collapse in our world right now. None of us like losing 40% of our assets between losses in the stock market and in real estate values. You have heard as many stories as I have about people who played by the rules, worked hard all their lives, saved all their lives, and now, as they anticipate retirement soon, have lost a substantial part of what they have worked so hard for. But think about what we have learned in the past two years, what God in his severe mercy has shouted to us:

1. We have learned the value of your life is not measured in your asset sheet-it wasn't before the market crash or after the market crash.

2. We have learned our security in life is not financial. Anyone who believes that hasn't been paying attention. God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.

3. We have learned that the biggest factor in people's happiness, people's well-being is the quality of their relationships, not the size of their bank accounts. A recent survey of retirees finds that retirees who are healthy, are in a nest of positive relationships, and have purpose in their lives (often found in some kind of work or service-whether paid or unpaid) are the happiest retirees there are.

4. In the last year some people-by no means everyone-have learned hard lessons about the trap of greed, the idolatry of trusting in money, and the prideful illusion that things were going so well because I was so smart.

In all these ways, and so many more, God shouts through the megaphone of a financial crisis: I am your refuge and strength. Put your trust in me. Don't labor and toil so hard for the bread that does not satisfy; come, buy wine and milk and bread without price (Is. 55). Come to me and be filled-forever.

God didn't "cause" the financial crisis of 2008. I think it's safe to say it was caused by a combination of greed, consumerism, incompetence, laziness, and genuine ignorance about how a global economy really works. But God can sovereignly, redemptively, creatively work through all of this as we now suffer, individually and collectively, and bring us to higher ground, to him.

At that point, pain is God's megaphone.

"Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I obey your word.
You are good and what you do is good; teach me your decrees."

The fact is we live in a culture that is so pain-fleeing, so anti-pain, that we (and Christians are part of this) . . . we refuse to acknowledge this constructive role of pain. We're always apologetic for pain. (Just look how much time I've spent today qualifying my statements!) Paul Brand says that in the west (the U.S., for example, as opposed to India), we just want to end the pain without ever considering what message it might be sending, like disconnecting a ringing fire alarm to avoid receiving bad news.

Now Brand talks about this primarily in terms of physical pain. We live in a culture where there is a pill for everything. Americans, he points out, represent 5% of the world's population but consume 50% of the world's manufactured drugs. But I think the point applies to pain in general. We must look for ways to listen to our pain, to leverage our pain, to make even our pain something that can teach us more about living life in God's world with grace and wonder.

It's interesting. As Brand has travelled around the world he has observed that the more a society comes up with ways to limit suffering (from aspirin to air-conditioning to accutane), the more it loses its ability to cope with what suffering remains. He points out that it's the philosophers, theologians and writers of the affluent West, not the Third World, who worry obsessively about "the problem of pain and suffering," and either too quickly point an accusing finger at God or too quickly try to take God off the hook. He says, "I see more pain, but less fear of pain and suffering, in India than I have seen in the West."

Pain can have a constructive role in our lives. It can be God's megaphone. Fortunately for us who know God through Jesus Christ, the good news today is that we need not live with just "random shouts" or "unconfirmed rumors." We have God's Word as the full statement of truth to which God calls us, and we have Jesus Christ as the truth come in the flesh.

God, through the megaphone of pain, calls us not just to the truth, but to himself. God doesn't just want our attention; he wants us. In Romans 5, Paul talks about this great peace with God we have through our Lord Jesus Christ. And we rejoice because of the hope that peace gives us-our hope of the glory of God. But then he goes on,

"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Last year I had an experience in a course I teach that I will never forget and that underscores Paul's point that our suffering has the potential to deepen our hope and our experience of union with Christ. For years I have co-taught a course at the seminary where I work entitled "Sustaining Pastoral Excellence." Just one of the great things about this course is the mix of seminary students and experienced pastors in the course. It's wonderful to watch seminarians listen to pastors-faithful, often battle-worn, but usually grateful, hope-filled pastors-bear witness to what sustains them in ministry.

Last year Pastor Walt was part of our course. Walt had been a pastor for several years, but had just taken a two year leave of absence. The challenges of ministry and life had overwhelmed him to a point where he had to take a time-out.

You can imagine, actually, you can't imagine, how painful this chapter was in Walt's life, not to mention in Walt's wife's and children's lives. There is no "failure" more public than having to step down from ministry. He was taking this course at the end of a two year leave from ministry and was on the verge of going back into a congregation. Throughout the course, when Walt spoke, students, and all of us, listened. In the words of Isaiah 43, Walt had been through the deep waters, and they had nearly overwhelmed him. He had been through the fire, and it had nearly consumed him. He had had to learn deep things about himself, about God's grace, about life. But here he was now, on the verge of going back for more.

Why? Why would anyone in their right mind go back for more of the stress and suffering he had endured in his career as a minister?

On the last day of the course, Walt shared with us, in his quiet, steady voice, hat one of verses that had meant the most to him in these last years was Philippians 3:10, where Paul cries out, "I want to know Christ!"

But Walt quickly pointed out how that verse continues:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

He went on to explain that he had never really understood what it meant to "share in Christ's suffering" or "be united with Christ in his death" . . . until these last two years. He explained how the last two years had given him an experience of union with Christ in his suffering and in his resurrection that changed his life. He spoke of a new-found peace, a purpose, a freedom, a joy, a depth of compassion for others, and above all, a sense of mystical union with Christ that simply could not be gotten in any other way. He stunned everyone in the room, and especially the seminary students, with his last words to us,

"If I could choose whether to go through the pain of the past two years again, and receive what I have received, or to avoid the pain of the last two years, I would have to say it's been worth it. I would do it again."

The psalmist says,

"It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your decrees."

May all of life be God's megaphone, God's teacher. May God salvage even our deepest pain to make us, in the words of James, mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

About the Pastor

Duane Kelderman

HOW WILL YOU RESPOND?"

2010-03-21T00:00:00-06:00

Scripture Reading: John 9:1-7 & James 1:2-4

Over the past few weeks we have been considering the age old question of the sufferer: Why? Why do we suffer? We concluded that we'll never fully know why things happen the way they do, but that we can still live by faith, with hope, and joy, and confidence.

The why question is a backward looking question. It's concerned about the cause, the source of our pain and suffering. Today I want to suggest a whole different way of looking at pain and suffering, a different orientation, a different focus. Today we look not at the question of CAUSE, but of MY RESPONSE. Rather than looking back, today I want to look forward and ask, "Now how will I respond to what has happened to me?"

In our text today, Jesus very clearly teaches us the difference between these two approaches. The disciples come to Jesus with this blind man. And they want to know what caused this man's blindness. "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" It was the impulse to understand, to figure out the cause, that fuels the question. But Jesus says, in verse 3 "It was not that this man sinned or his parents." Jesus says, I don't want to focus upon cause,

Well, now Jesus goes on, and how we translate this verse is important for the meaning we derive from it. The New International Version says,

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus,
"but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."

He goes on, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me."

In that translation, Jesus seems to be saying that the cause or purpose of this man's blindness was to display the work of God in his life. Some would argue, though, and with good grammatical backing, that the punctuation is a little misleading in this translation, and Jesus is actually saying something a little different. (It's good to remind ourselves that the early Greek manuscripts had little or no spacing between words or sentences. Punctuation was scarce in these early documents.) In a fascinating article on these verses, Rev. Harvey Kiekover, a pastor in the Christian Reformed Church who has seen a lot of suffering in his many years of ministry, sets the words of this text out on the page the way they might have looked in that early Greek manuscript. And he goes on to argue, with the backing of respected New Testament scholars, that a possible translation would be:

Jesus answered: "Neither this man sinned nor his parents. (period. You asking the wrong question, the question of cause, the "why" question.) But in order that the works of God might be manifest in him, it is necessary for us to work the works of the one sending me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work."

In that translation, it's all the clearer (though it's not totally absent in the other translation) that Jesus wants to shift the question of the disciples away from the question of cause to the question of how will I respond?

Jesus is saying, Forget the question of "why." It will get you nowhere. Ask "Now what? What am I going to do now? And look at what time it is. Night is coming. There is work to do. We have a mission, a kingdom coming. Get out of yourself. And as you do the work of God, people will see the glory of God in you and in this blind man. "I think this translation fits better with what I believe to be a broader call of Scripture, namely, the call to focus, not on the cause of suffering, but on how I will respond to suffering, how God can use even suffering to make me more mature in Christ.

I recently reread an interview with Dr. Paul Brand. Dr. Paul Brand may be the closest thing Protestants have to a Mother Teresa. (Years ago Dr. Brand wrote a fascinating book entitled PAIN which is the story of his life's work primarily in India.) Brand gave his life to working with people with Hansen's disease, or leprosy, that cruel disease in which people lose sensation in their hands and feet. And so, with no pain, they have no warning system to stop them from letting their toes get run over by something or letting their fingers get caught in a door. These people's extremities get mutilated. The physical problems for these people are immense. But that's not as bad as the social stigma that has always gone with leprosy, since we used to think that leprosy was contagious.

In this interview, Brand was asked, among other things, whether these people's suffering, generally speaking, had the effect of turning them toward God or away from God. Brand said there was no common reaction. Some, he said, grew closer to God, and others bitterly drifted away from God.

Which way they went, Brand went on to say, depended upon which way they looked. Those who kept looking back, asking "Why did this happen? This isn't fair! Who's to blame for this?" were the ones who usually not only turned away from God but shriveled up in their own world of pain and were consumed by it.

But the sufferers who grew close to God in their suffering and who transcended their disabilities in profound ways were those who could put the question of cause behind them and could focus upon their response. They were the ones who could say to themselves, "OK, this suffering is terrible, and it hurts, and it isn't fair, there's no justice. OK!! But now I face a challenge: Can I go on? What are the works of God I can do now? How can I be a display of God even now in my life? That's what Jesus is saying today. The question is not who did what. The question is what will you do, while it is still day?

This is one of those messages where it's not enough, for me anyway, to think about suffering, to reflect upon suffering. I have to listen to sufferers, to learn from sufferers, to remember conversations with sufferers who have moved me in how they have made this turn.

I remember like it was yesterday a conversation I had many years ago with my friend Nancy Van Tuinen Kalinowski. She's given me permission to tell you her story today.

Thirty-six years ago, in a weird accident, Nancy suffered severe carbon monoxide poisoning that left her in a deep coma, near death. For days, weeks, months, Nancy lay listless in the hospital. No response. And then one day, Art Van Tuinen, her father, walked in the room, and Nancy out of the clear blue, mouthed the words, "Hi Dad." Art fell over onto the bed overwhelmed with joy. Art ran out and got about 5 relatives to see if she knew them, and she knew everyone of them. Maybe there wouldn't be as much brain damage as they feared.

But that was only the beginning of her recovery. Three months had already passed on that day. She would be in the hospital for another ten months, learning to talk and walk and just be alive again. And then an outpatient for another year, and then in private physical therapy for another year. It was three years before Nancy realized that she had gotten back what she was going to get back. She was able to walk with canes, as she still does to this day.

All of this happened over 30 years ago. Today Nancy is a social worker who works in a rehabilitation center. She's also been an alcohol rehabilitation counselor. She is married to Wencel. Already before she got married a year ago, she lived independently, something no one would have ever thought possible 30 years ago.

When I had this conversation with Nancy, I probed her on the point that Jesus is making in our text today. I said, Nancy, can you identify with that? Was there some point in your journey when you made that shift from looking back to looking ahead.

"Oh yes," she said, "I still remember the day.
I was with Mary Lou, my twin sister.
It was about four years after the accident.
I had reached my plateau in terms of rehabilitation.
But I was still obsessed with
why? why me? the unfairness of life,
pitying myself, blaming, pining about "if only."

And one day when I was on that track, Mary Lou gently, firmly said, 'Nancy, you must decide whether you want to keep on with all of that rot, and rot to death, or whether you are going to turn and say, "OK God, now what. Where do we go from here?"' Nancy said, that was the moment. Soon after that she made some key educational decisions, and gradually this new orientation took hold. Forward-looking, forgetting about why, asking what now.

Now it's important to realize a couple of things. First, this happened four years after Nancy's accident. Those of you in the middle of your suffering right now, be patient with yourself; be patient. This turn can take time. Also, it wasn't just Mary Lou's words that day. Obviously, a whole bunch of things finally came together to make Nancy see that she faced a choice as awesome as life and death. In our conversation, Nancy repeated again and again, how important the love of her family and her church was to her being able to make that turn. In all those things, the Spirit of God was at work.

What I am saying today doesn't just apply to people who've suffered like Nancy has suffered. It applies to almost any situation of suffering. I think of people who have suffered prejudice of whatever kind. Victims of prejudice face that awesome choice of whether to be victimized a second time, this time by themselves, by hanging on to the causes of their plight, to blame, to accusing; or whether to declare themselves free from the prison of victimhood and go on, and work harder if that's what it takes and run faster if that is what it takes, but not to be victimized a second time.

For all kinds of people, there is pain and suffering. Life is full of injustice and unfairness. There's no question about that. The question is: am I going to rot in that prison of focusing upon that, for the rest of my life? Or do I believe that God is at work in the world, and that if I look forward and seek his kingdom, I will find that there's a place, a work for me in his kingdom that is good and glorious and urgent (the night is coming)?

This is the crucial question every sufferer faces. Will I look back or look forward? Will I focus upon the cause, or will I focus upon how I will respond? I think it would be helpful and inspiring for every person listening to this broadcast today to think about one person in your life whom you really admire because that person has overcome tremendous obstacles. Everyone of you knows someone like Nancy who inspires you because of the way they didn't let life's pain and suffering cripple them. It may be your mother, or your father. Who is that person in your life? Whoever it is, reflect for a moment on how they were able to transcend their pain. I dare say that two things are true of that person: first, they had a crisis moment, at some point, where they decided to turn from looking back to looking forward, to turn from focusing upon the cause of their suffering, to focusing upon how they would respond. Second, I dare say that if they are capable of reflecting on this, they would probably testify that this turn, this transformation from looking back to looking forward, was first of all not so much something they decided as it was something that happened to them. As Christians, we would say, this capacity to make this turn was itself a gift of God to them. I'm convinced that this turn is such a huge thing that it really is a gift of God's grace that we can only live into.

We all have different ways of assessing who the beautiful people of the world are. To me, the beautiful people of the world are the people who have every right, if rights is what you're into, to pine forevermore about how bad life is, but who have decided, by God's grace within them, No, I don't want to focus on that anymore; I don't even want to focus on me anymore. I want to focus on something bigger, something more grand, more beautiful, on the work that God is doing in the world, and yes, in my life.

For some of you this today, your wounds are too fresh to just make this turn. Be patient with yourself. Trust in God to lead you and guide you. For others of you, you have rotted long enough. The question is, What will you do now?

Come. There's work to do. There's a kingdom to build. "Night is coming when no one can work." Persevere in the forward looking fight. And God will finish his work in you and you will be "mature and complete, not lacking anything."

About the Pastor

Duane Kelderman

HOW STRONG IS GOD?

2010-03-14T00:00:00-07:00

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1:18-21

Why do bad things happen in a world ruled by a good God? We've already considered that question in this series of sermons and concluded, on the basis of Scripture, that we'll never fully know why things happen the way they do.And we have already explored what it means to live by faith, not sight.

But that doesn't stop us from trying to come up with answers, even if they're wrong answers, to explain why bad things happen in our world.

Last time we were together, we considered one such wrong answer: namely, suffering as a punishment for specific sins you've committed. We saw last time that the Bible teaches that that's not true. And we talked about the wonder of grace!

Today I want to look at another wrong answer. And as with the last wrong answer, we only give time and attention to these "wrong answers" because they are so compelling, so tempting. They're so easy to fall for. The wrong answer today is, "Suffering happens because God can't help it. He's simply not strong enough to stop it."

In the early 80's Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a moving book entitled, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. Rabbi Kushner wrote the book out of his own personal suffering. He lost a son at the age of 14 to a disease called "progeria," rapid aging. The book is a moving account of the feelings and questions we often have when we suffer.

Among other things, Kushner proposes a new understanding of God and his relationship to suffering. Kushner proposes that God cannot be both all-powerful and good. Either God is all powerful, but not good (for why would an all-powerful God who was good let bad things happen to people), or God is good, but is not all-powerful. God just can't help all the bad things that happen. Kushner's solution was to say that God is not all-powerful. God just can't help a lot of the bad things that happen to people. This book was a best seller.

All of this raises the question, "How strong is God?" Philosophers have long toyed with this question. Is there anything God cannot do? Can God make a stone that's heavier than he can lift? Out of these kinds of conundrums, we conclude that God is self-limiting. He cannot contradict himself. And he is constant and so is self-limited by the commitments he makes to doing certain things in certain ways.

But never in Christian thinking has there been a serious question raised about the almightiness of God, that is, the power of God over all his creation. That is not to say that God does not allow certain things to take their course even though God doesn't like the course they take.

I don't think it's God's will (his positive desire) that anyone has cancer. But that is a different question than the question, What does the Bible teach about the power of God? What can God do? How strong is God?

I would like to argue today, from the Scriptures, that God not only is good (which, curiously, is not challenged in this therapeutic age of ours) but is all-powerful. At least three things in the Scripture establish the all-powerfulness of God.

1. First, he is the creator. Genesis 1. He calls the world into being. The Christian understanding of creation, as old as the Bible, is that God, as the creator, is over, above the creature, the creation. That's what we mean by God. He is "greater than." Everything is "under" him.

Let's just take a quick look at two psalms in this regard.

First, Psalm 104, a psalm of praise to God the creator. In the first 26 verses, the psalmist looks at God's handiwork--the heavens, the earth, the sea, the many forms of life.

Then he says in v. 27,
These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things
When you hide your face, they are terrified;
when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

God is the creator and absolute sustainer of the universe.

Then, Psalm 46. In Psalm 46, we see God's relationship to the world as it "becomes uncreated" because of evil. Vs. 1-2

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth give way and
the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam and
the mountains quake with their surging.

The basic divisions of creation --water and earth--fall apart.

But even when the creation is "falling apart at the seams," we do not fear.

Why? Because there are still a few things God can do? NO! Because God is over all:

Verse 6 "Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice the earth melts."

Verse 10, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

He concludes both stanzas (vs. 7 and 11),

"The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress."

God is the creator. He is always over the creation. He rules it. He is God.

2. Second, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God put all things under the power of Christ.

In Ephesians 1:18-21. Paul is praying for the Ephesians. He says,

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

Now, that's a pretty exhaustive listing of the things that contend for power in the universe. And Paul says that Jesus Christ is stronger than all of them. When we believe in the resurrection, we believe in the absolute victory and power of Jesus Christ over all the powers of darkness; we believe that victory is an accomplished fact.

3. Third, we see that power of the kingdom already in Jesus earthly ministry. Jesus Christ came bringing the kingdom of God. And one of the clearest manifestations of that kingdom was his healing people with life-long diseases, his casting out demons, his raising people from the dead. Already in his earthly ministry, time and time again, even before his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ established the unbounded power of the kingdom of God over against the kingdom of darkness.

Now, again, let me be as clear as I can. The only question I am raising and seeking to answer today is: how strong is God? The only thing I am arguing from the Scriptures is this: God is all-powerful.

In saying that God is all-powerful, I am not saying that therefore that God wills our suffering. There are many things God allows to take place in spite of the fact that he has the raw power to stop them. But that is different than saying he can't help it.

Neither am I presuming to answer the question that then still remains, Why does an all-powerful and good God allow such bad things to happen. We've already looked at that "Why" question earlier in this series. My only point today is: God is almighty. God is all-powerful. God is God.

In one sense, it may seem sort of silly to many of you to "waste" a whole message making such a basic point about God, a point which I dare say all of us, when it comes down to it, believe. But I think it is not "wasted" for two reasons. First, it's important for us to see just how tempting it is, especially in the clutches of suffering, to come up with some explanation, any explanation of suffering, even one which revises the Scripture's most basic picture of God; And in our modern age, it's important to see how tempting it is to shrink God to our size, to think of God as just a big human being, and then to reason from that to "Well, he has to be either this or that. . . " It is so easy in a world that has banished God, to forget the geometry of the universe--he is great, we are small; to really think that God is on trial, subject to our questions; rather than we are on trial, subject to God's questions. It's good for us to realize how easy it is for us to play God.

The second reason it's worth our while to get this straight today is for the sake of the sufferer herself. We recently had a seminary student's wife lose a baby she was carrying late in the pregnancy. What a strange comfort it would be to say to this heartbroken almost mother, "Well, God just can't stop this kind of thing. But he is nice. And he'll do what he can." What good is a good, nice God who is impotent?

To "explain away" suffering by saying that God can't help it is to rob Christian sufferers of one of their deepest convictions throughout the ages that they hang onto through the darkest night-- that God rules, and that, while we may not understand why things happen to us, we believe that God rules this world and that he is with us always and that nothing has the power to separate us from the love of God.

Years ago, I visited an elderly saint of the church I was serving then named Irene. Irene was sick and near death. I prayed with her in her bedroom and then went out to the living room and sat with one of Irene's daughters, Rosemary. Rosemary and I had a wonderful talk, and in the course of our conversation, Rosemary told me the story of their son's death, 5 years before, to cancer. She talked about how painful it was, but also, how real to her and her family was the grace of God. I left there moved again at the power of healing grace, moved that, indeed, the worst of sufferers can and do believe that God is both almighty and good; and moved, most of all, that, yes, there is joy in the morning. Joy does come again.

A little later, just the day before Irene died, I visited Irene again. And Linda, another daughter, was at Irene's with Rosemary. Linda and Rosemary and I talked about Irene and about funeral plans. When I left, Linda and I went down to the office to copy some things for the funeral service. And then Linda walked me to the lobby and the front door. As I was leaving I said, "You know, you have a beautiful family. Your mother has such a beautiful faith. And Rosemary--she told me her story about her son dying 5 years ago." I told her the things that so moved me about her testimony.

And then, Linda said, "Yes, we've been through a lot as a family. My husband and I lost a son ten years ago, you know." And she proceeded to tell me the story of her ten year old son, falling to his death from condominium balcony. I stood there in stunned silence as she told the story of her journey of suffering. But what moved me most was the healing grace of God, as now, ten years later, pure joy and deep love for God radiated from this captain of suffering.

Think about it: Aside from the question of whether it's true, what comfort would it have been to say to Rosemary 5 years before or to Linda 10 years before, when they cried out in horror, "How could God let this happen?" "Well, God just can't help it."

No, among this family's favorite verses are verses like

Isaiah 41:10
Fear not, for I am with you.
Be not dismayed for I am your God.
I will help you, I will strengthen you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
And Isaiah 43:1-3
But now, this is what the Lord says-
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, (I'll do what I can? NO) I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;
For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior.

As a pastor I know that we ask why. You do. I do. I know that we crave for understanding in our suffering. But as a Christian pastor who is also charged by the church to keep before you the Word of God,

I declare today:

Jesus Christ has risen from the dead
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion
and every title that can be given
in this age and the age to come.
He rules.

All of our questions have their ebb and flow under that reality. Nothing changes that reality. Our God reigns. Our God reigns. We will believe that, through our tears, through our questions, and even with broken hearts,

Our God Reigns.

About the Pastor

Duane Kelderman

Why Isn�t God Answering?

2010-03-07T00:00:00-07:00

Scripture Reading: Psalms 10 and 13

You know... this question that we're talking about today is an unusually painful one. It's a very hard thing to think that God might not be answering me. This question comes up when some hard things are going on in our lives that make us look to God for help. So we do. We ask him for help. But he is not answering like we think he should be.

The struggle usually goes something like this. You've probably experienced this at one time or another. We have a problem of some sort and it concerns us because it's too big for us to solve. So we pray to God and ask for his help. We know we should do that, and others encourage us to do that. But...nothing happens. The problem just goes on. So we keep on praying, and the problem still goes on with nothing changing at all. First we get weary, weary of dealing with our problem, weary of continually praying about it, and (even more) weary of seemingly getting no response from God. And then after we've been weary for awhile, we begin to have a problem with prayer. We find ourselves wondering if it really does any good, if it's worth it to keep on praying. But a little later we slip into another struggle. We begin to doubt ourselves. What's the matter with me? Don't I pray right? Aren't my prayers good ones? Is there something wrong with my faith? Is it too small? And after a while it gets even more painful. Soon we are not only weary, and doubting prayer, and doubting ourselves, but we begin to have a problem with God. Where is he? Is he out there? Does he listen? Does he care? And when you get there, it's not a very large step to becoming cynical or angry. Have you experienced this? Can you identify with what I'm talking about?

Now, some folks are not comfortable with the term "unanswered prayer". They somehow want to believe that God answers every prayer in one way or another and so they try to explain away the whole idea of "unanswered prayers". They feel they have to paint it over. But the fact of the matter is that in actuality, when we are struggling with the fact that nothing seems to be happening, it does feel to us like it is unanswered prayer. If I am praying for some change, and no change seems to happen, then to me it's an unanswered prayer. And that can have a great impact on our personal relationship with God. What it really comes down to is that there is an apparent conflict between what the Bible says about prayer and what is happening in our own experience. And we struggle with how to reconcile the two.

You see, the Bible says prayer is good, it's powerful, and it makes a difference. So we find many prayers in the Bible, prayers that obviously made a difference. We hear Jesus say in Matthew, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find" and then he went on, "For everyone who asks receives...." (Matt.7:7, 8) And we remember that in John's gospel he said, "The Father will give you whatever you ask in my name". (John 15:16 and 16:23) And the apostle James said, "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16) and then he substantiates that claim with the story of Elijah who prayed first that it would not rain and it did not for three and a half years, and then he prayed that it would rain and it did rain! So with things like that in the Bible, I would expect that when I pray it's going to make a difference, and things are going to change. Wouldn't you? But then there are our own experiences which do not match that. We have this problem that must be resolved, so we pray about it, but nothing happens; there is no resolution. We pray for healing from the disease for our loved one; and she still dies. We pray that our business will thrive, but it doesn't. We pray that our marriage will survive, and it falls apart. We pray for our children and their course of life, but they still get into trouble after trouble. You could add many more to the list. So what do we do? Our experience at times just seems so contradictory to what the Bible says!

And when that happens we are right at home with some other folks in the Bible. Folks like David, who prayed a lot, and yet was not immune to the kind of contradiction we are struggling with. There are two somewhat similar Psalms that we should think about. You heard one of them read a few moments ago. Psalm 13 is clearly identified as a Psalm of David. But there's another very similar one. It's Psalm 10, and it may well be one of David's Psalms too. I'm going to assume it is. These two Psalms are not what you would expect to hear in the Bible. They are blunt, earthy, complaints from a man who is struggling with the silence of God. Listen to the cry that goes up to God in both of these:

"Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" (Psalm 10:1)
"How long, O Lord?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me? (Psalm 13:1)

Very frank complaints to God, don't you think? If you read the remainder of these prayers you will see that these words come out of a feeling of helplessness. Enemies are threatening him; the wicked are oppressing him. It may be the Philistines, or Saul, or something else. But he is feeling very vulnerable. That's one problem. The other problem is that his prayer life doesn't seem to be making any difference. He's feeling let down. God doesn't seem to be doing anything. True, he's trying hard to hold on to his confidence in God's ability and God's willingness to act and change things, but he is finding that very difficult. He sounds like a man who has picked up the phone to call for help, only to find there is no one on the other end to answer. Surely you know what that's like - you know you have the right number, and you are sure someone is supposed to be home, but nobody answers. Surely we all know about that!

Well, what do we do? And what can we say about this? Or better yet, what does the Bible have to say about experiences like these? I think you'll find it encouraging to know that the Bible doesn't leave us alone out there with our struggles. On these pages you will find a good deal of encouragement and help.

On the one hand, I find it very freeing to hear complaints like these we've read from these two Psalms. The Bible is a very realistic book that meets us right in our practical experiences. It's a book that understands what we have to deal with from time to time. And, as a matter of fact, the presence of these complaint-prayers on the pages of the Bible, actually gives us freedom...freedom to be that honest with God. Yes, we can admit to him how hard a struggle we're having. We don't have to hide it, paint it over, or pretend that everything is OK. Yes, it's OK to be honest with God. He can handle that. He can handle every struggle we blurt out at him. What he can't handle is when we are dishonest with him, or pretend that he isn't there. So, go ahead, express your complaint to God if that's what you are feeling. But then the Bible also tells the stories of a number of others who have dealt with the same struggle and through their stories we find help and insight.

One element of that insight is that we must be aware that God's ways are often different than our ways. It may be possible that God is deliberately delaying his answer, and delaying it for some good reason which we may not be able to understand. We see this in the story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus as it's told in John 11. They were very close friends of Jesus. They spent a good bit of time together. Well, Lazarus became very sick, and Jesus happened to be out of town. So Mary and Martha sent an urgent message to Jesus, "your friend is sick, very sick!" And the implication was...so please come as quickly as you can! But Jesus didn't. He deliberately delayed. John 11:6 we're told that when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, "he stayed where he was two more days." I'm sure Mary and Martha just could not understand the delay. They must have been terribly disappointed. After Jesus did get there, only to find that Lazarus had died, Martha even said, Lord, this would not have happened if you have gotten here in time! But Jesus knew that in God's good timing more glory would be given to God through Lazarus resurrection. So he delayed....Or it might be that God is wisely denying what we are asking for. And denying it not because he doesn't care, or doesn't love us, but because in his wisdom he understands things we don't. You see that in the prayers of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. At one point in his ministry, Elijah became very exhausted and discouraged. The story is in I Kings 19. Elijah wanted to quit, not only to quit, but also to die. He was so depressed that he left town, went out in the desert, sat down under a broom tree and he prayed. But you know what he prayed? "I have had enough, Lord, take my life". (I Kings 19:4) That was his prayer. Take my life! But God denied his request. Instead of taking his life, God fed his body, sent angels to care for him, encouraged his heart, and gave him new assignments in ministry. It was obviously a very wise denial on God's part.

Another possibility is that God has an alternate plan in mind. Maybe he will be answering our prayer but in a different way with a different plan, yet aiming to accomplish the same goal. The apostle Paul was a godly missionary who would stop at nothing to preach the gospel everywhere. But he had a personal problem which he referred to as a "thorn in the flesh". We're not sure what it was but it was obviously some physical problem that was a frustration to him. So he prayed about it; three times; "God remove this, please." But God didn't remove it. The thorn stayed. But God did do something. He explained to Paul that he had an alternate plan. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness," (II Corinthians 12:9). So Paul's direct request was never granted. The thorn remained. But God did answer his bigger concern and provided grace to live powerfully even in the face of this weakness. I can see that many of my prayers have been answered with an alternate plan on God's part. Can you? And therefore there is another one we must think about. It's our perspective on things. Often we are too shortsighted. Answers are coming, but we are not able to see them because we are shortsighted; we see only the small picture. The story of the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk illustrates this. There is a small book by his name near the end of the Old Testament. It's a digest of a dialog between himself and God. And, frankly, as a prophet he's struggling with the same question we are - why isn't God answering? You see, Habakkuk was praying to God for some deliverance and help. He was perplexed. Wickedness and oppression were widespread in Judah; Habakkuk was praying for revival; and nothing seemed to happen. So the book begins, "How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?" (Habakkuk 1:2) Now doesn't that sound familiar! But God's answer to him is very interesting and can be of great help to us. God tells him that, though it may seem like he is inactive and silent, that is not true. God is at work strengthening a neighboring enemy nation, who will attack them, and eventually stir Judah to turn back to God. You see, God was answering but he was busy working behind the scenes, where Habakkuk could not see it. The answer was coming, but the prophet was looking in the wrong direction.

But I must tell you there is one other possibility the Bible tells us about. This is kind of a hard one, one that we don't really like to hear. The Bible tells us that there is such a thing as "hindered" or "obstructed prayer", in others words, prayers that God hears but chooses not to answer because of some hindrance within us. In Psalm 66 verse 18 the Psalmist admits "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened." The prophet Isaiah speaks for God in his first chapter and says (1:15) "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. For your hands are full of blood..." And the Apostle James tells his readers that when they ask they do not receive because they are asking (Praying) with wrong motives. (James 4:3) In all of these instances, the love of sin and sinfulness, has hindered or obstructed prayers that could otherwise be answered.

So all of those circumstances are factors for us to consider. But in all of it, there are two considerations that are not possibilities. It is not possible that God is uninterested in us, for everywhere the Bible tells us that he is merciful and gracious to us. And it is not possible that our prayers fail just because we don't have enough faith, for we are told that faith even as small as a mustard seed is sufficient.

"So, what shall I do?", you ask. "How can I make some headway in resolving this awful struggle I have with thinking that God is doing nothing, that he is being so silent?"

I'm glad that you are willing to ask some of these hard questions. Often we can't get beyond the questions until we begin identifying the questions we have. So, be willing to ask yourself about some of the things I have just mentioned. Is it possible that God is delaying for some reason; or that he is wisely denying a request that would not be good; or that perhaps he has a better alternate plan; or that if you could see the big picture you would see that he is indeed at work answering; or is it possible there is some love of sinfulness in your life that is hindering your prayers? Do not be afraid of probing questions like that.

But I would also caution you to be careful about how much you feel you can demand of God. It's true we may tell God all of our needs, and we may ask help with all of them. But sometimes, I'm afraid, we also think we can tell God exactly how he ought to answer and exactly what he should do. And then if he doesn't do it in exactly our way, we think he's being silent. We call for help, but we must leave it to him to decide how and in what way he will help.

And there's another caution too. Don't assume that just because God is silent it means he is inactive. It's easy to jump to that conclusion, I know. But not all silence is inactivity. Let me say that again - not all silence is inactivity . Sometimes while he seems silent he is busy working out of view, in the background, getting everything ready for just the right time, like we see with the prophet Habakkuk.

But I also want to say the same thing I said when we discussed the question, "Why do good people suffer?" We must learn to trustingly live with mystery. There are and always will be things that we can't understand. There will always be some of God's ways that we can't fit into our finite minds. The ways of God are sometimes beyond our comprehension. And so, though we cannot understand why he doesn't seem to be answering, we affirm that he is God, he loves us, he is merciful, trustworthy; he is the source of all good, and we can trust him....no matter what! The Psalmist does that in these two Psalms we've read. "But...." He says (and that's a big one) "But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand." (Psalm 10:14) Yes, he does. Even if I can't see it! I trust him.

Oh, and one other thing. Keep on praying. Don't give up...even when you are tempted to doubt its value. There is a very stirring parable that Jesus told in Luke 18. A widow was calling on a judge for some justice; and the judge paid no attention to her. Day in and day out she kept coming to him, but he wouldn't listen. Finally, after many such attempts he helped her. The point, Jesus said, is not that God is like that Judge who doesn't care, but that we should always pray and not give up. So, I say to you today, no matter how deeply you doubt, or how hard you struggle, don't quit praying.

So, all of our praying comes down to trusting God. It comes down to a deep sense of trust. And how can we do that? How can we know he's worth trusting? Well, my dear friends, just think of what he has done. Think of all the ways in which he has reached into your life in times past, times you may be tempted to forget about now in your struggles. And think about all the ways in which he has reached into the lives of others near you, and of others down through the halls of history. Think of how he has loved, cared, supported, rescued, carried and pardoned.

Even to the point of sending his son Jesus Christ to this world to be the payment for our salvation. Imagine that! He sent his son to live here and love sinful people; to die here and pay for our sins; to rise from the dead to accomplish victory over death for us. Think of all of that. Surely he listens and answers. I love the way the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans 8 (verse 32) "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

Keep praying, and keep trusting God, even when you can't see what he's doing!

Prayer:
Gracious Lord, you have told us that you will listen to our prayers. And we believe you. And so we have prayed about many things. We have told you our thanks, our praise, our adoration. We have also told you about our own needs, the needs of those close to us, and of others in our world. But it is very hard for us when we don't seem to see any changes. Sometimes we call, we even cry, but nothing seems to happen. Even for a long time. And that's hard for us, Lord.

And so today we pray for something else. We pray for the kind of help that will make it possible for us to be patient, to trust you, to wait for you, and to be willing to let you do things your way in your time. So, most of all, Lord, we ask for the grace to trust you, and to remain faithful to you.

For the sake of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

About the Pastor

Howard Vanderwell

Howard Vanderwell was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in 1962. He received his M.Div. and Th.M. degree from Calvin Theological Seminary and his D.Min. at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. He has served as pastor to four congregations over 40 years in Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. After leaving the pastorate in 2002 he began a new ministry at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary.

He is currently a staff member at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and Adjunct Professor of Worship at Calvin Theological Seminary. He consults with local congregations, provides worship materials, leads conferences and workshops, and teaches courses on worship at Calvin Seminary. Howard's interests include planning, leading and evaluating worship, preaching, and worship renewal throughout the evangelical church.

"My life-long prayer, from my days as a child, was that I might be honored to serve as a Christian Reformed pastor preaching the Word of God to encourage and challenge his people. I consider the forty years of my pastoral ministry to have been the most valuable way in which I could have invested those years! When I consult with pastors, teach and mentor students, hold conferences for worship leaders, or write worship planning materials, my aim is to equip and inspire others to serve their Lord and Savior by making a whole-hearted investment in his church and his people. Such ministry is certainly not without its stresses and discouragements, and those of us who have found such joy in a life-time of ministry are uniquely fitted to encourage others."

Howard lives in Hudsonville, MI with his wife Eleanor. They have three married sons and ten grandchildren ages 5 through 19. His hobbies are yard-gardening, walking, photography and model railroading.

Why Do Good People Suffer?

2010-02-28T00:00:00-07:00

Scripture Reading: Job 1 and 2

You know it's so important to remember that Job really was a good man. And, yes, like so many of us, Job knew about suffering first hand.

Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon. And he has written a book for young doctors in which he addresses our experience of suffering. He says that all of us seem to be protected for a time by some kind of imaginary membrane that shields us from horror. It's much like our immune system which protects us from unseen but very harmful bacteria. So we are shielded from horror for awhile. But as the years roll on for most of us, this membrane of protection tears away and horror of one kind or another sweeps in. Dreams are dashed. Pain becomes intense. And that's when this crisis develops.

Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff , a father and a philosophy professor, experienced the awful horror of learning that his 25 year old son, Eric, was tragically killed in a mountain-climbing accident. In his small book, Lament for a Son, he passionately writes some of his reflections on getting that awful news. "Suffering," he writes, " is the shout of NO by ones whole existence to that over which one suffers - the shout of NO by nerves and gut and gland and heart to pain, to death, to injustice, to depression, to hunger, to humiliation, to bondage, to abandonment." (Lament for a Son, p.96)

But perhaps, before we go further, we should acknowledge that there are different kinds of suffering.

There is, of course, physical suffering. Perhaps you think first of that one - when things happen in your physical body that make your whole nervous system cry out; when some disease reduces you to just about zero - an infection, a diseased organ, a greedy tumor, or an accident.
And there is emotional suffering. Perhaps anxiety, or anger, or panic, or depression, or some other disorder brings out internal cries of pain, the kind you feel when you learn your son has been killed in a mountain-climbing accident.
Or it may be social suffering. So many in our world are locked in poverty, oppression, injustice, and prejudice, not because of anything they have done, but because social structures, and evil people, are holding them hostage.
But there is also what we may call relational suffering. Have you ever been hurt by having someone you trust turn against you? Some folks talk about a relationship that is living torment. Others live with the constant pain of knowing that someone who they once loved has turned on them or abandoned them. Maybe you know of folks who live very near each other, but refuse to even speak.
We may also talk about religious suffering. The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy about those who are living a godly life in Christ Jesus and are persecuted for it. The Apostle Peter writes about those who suffer for doing what is right. Many today are being persecuted for their faith.
And, finally, I think we should include environmental suffering on our list. Have you see the fish float belly-up in a stream polluted with mercury? Or towns devastated by a wild tornado? Or homes washed away by a raging flood? Or perhaps in flying into some of our cities you notice the canopy of brown haze that covers the city where once the air was crystal clear.

Yes, suffering takes many different forms. And all of these wring out of our hearts the big "NO! It should not be this way!" And then we ask, "So how can we ever reconcile all these different kinds of suffering with what we know of a good and loving God?" There is the heart of our struggle!

Well, let's go back to the book of Job in the Bible from which we read a little while ago. It's really a very old book, perhaps from as early as the days of Abraham. It will help us with our question, not only by making us aware that sufferings are just about as old as world history, but also because it will welcome us into the struggle of Job and others as they try to resolve this dilemma of it all, of wondering how we can ever square it with the goodness of God.

I told you that within a very short period of time Job lost his flocks, his herds, his sons, daughters, health, and even his wife's support. But when we read the opening words of the book, what do we hear about first? We hear about genuineness of his good character! So that should eliminate the possibility that Job is suffering so much because he's such an evil person. His friends, of course, try to press that accusation against him. You are suffering because of your sin, they will say. A lot of folks slip into that fear today too. Maybe you also are tempted, to fear that things are going hard for you because God is punishing you for your sin.

So the big question behind this book is the one we began with today. Why do people as good as Job suffer? That's the big question! Why do people as good as Job suffer? The book of Job is a rather long book in the Bible - 42 chapters. It's a dramatic narrative account of how Job and his friends wrestle together with this big question of the faith. It's rather dangerous to take just one section of the book in isolation from the big picture. So let me explain to you that there are three very intense conversations that take place in this book. The first one is between God and Satan; the second between Job and his friends; and the third one is between Job and God.

The first conversation, the one between God and Satan, is found in chapters 1 and 2. It's really a conversation that takes place behind the scenes. The only way we know about it is that God has chosen to reveal it. Both God and Satan are observing Job, this "blameless and upright man, who shunned evil," as they describe him. It goes like this:

God says to Satan, "have you seen Job; there is no one like him; blameless, upright, he shuns evil all the time."
Satan responds, "Sure, but why wouldn't he serve you? You have blessed him, protected him, prospered him. But if you take some of that away, my guess is that he will curse you to your face."
God to Satan - "I will allow you to try that. You may test him. Just don't touch him personally, or his health. And you will see how faithful he is."

So the first series of calamities take place. Job loses his servants, flocks, herds and children. And Job remained faithful to God. Then the conversation between God and Satan continues.

God to Satan: well, I see you've made it hard for Job. And have you seen how faithful he still is to me?
Satan to God: Sure, but you wouldn't let me touch his health. If I can do that, if he loses his health, he will turn on you in an instant!
God: OK, you may try that too and you will see again how firm his faith is.

And again it says, "In all this Job did not sin"; he did not turn from God. So that's the first conversation. Job's faith and faithfulness dealt a stunning blow to the hopes of Satan.

And then follows the second conversation - a long one. As a matter of fact, it's all the way from chapter 3 through chapter 37 of this book. This conversation, perhaps we should call it a debate, is between Job and several of his friends. In several cycles of speeches they argue their points, and Job replies. Job cries out in his pain and frustration; he pleads for some support and understanding. But in long philosophical lectures his friends try to convince him that since God is just, and since Job is suffering, there must be some connection between his suffering and some sin in his life. He would be well advised, they claim, to admit his sinfulness, repent and ask for God's pardon before he can expect the suffering to end. The problem, they claim, is Job. And Job argues back, maintaining his innocence, pleading for vindication from God. In the end, there is no resolution in this debate. Job calls them "miserable comforters". Job, and his friends for that matter, who were so convinced they should be able to understand God in all his ways, were so convinced they could call God to account, and were convinced God should only do things in ways that they could understand, had to learn that God is sovereign, just, and holy. He does things his way, and all his ways are right, though not always so understandable.

I wonder if you, like a lot of folks, sometimes get stuck in this viewpoint that thinks God ought to only do things that we are able to understand. Yes, I've been there too. But Job's story tells us that just isn't possible.

And then follows the third and final conversation of the book. This one is between God and Job. Well, it isn't really a conversation. Instead of a dialog, God is speaking and Job is listening, at least for the most part. It's a very dramatic confrontation of Job by God. God steps forward and overwhelms Job with a sense of his sovereignty. Listen to these words as God begins,

Who is this that darkens my counsel
With words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
And you will answer me.
Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand. (38:2-4)

And so God goes on and on,

Have you ever given orders to the morning,
Or shown the dawn its place,
That it might take the earth by the edges
And shake the wicked out of it? (38:12, 13)
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God‘s dominion over the earth? (38:33)

And what happens? Where does this come out? It comes out at the point of Job's utter humility as he stands before the sovereignty of God. Listen to Job, "I am unworthy - how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer - twice, but I will say no more." (40:4, 5) God has given him a picture of a big huge world all under God's control. It's not that Job may not cry out, but he may not demand that God do things only in his way. Job does not find a human answer. He simply cannot fit the whole thing into his mind.

And so his experience teaches us that it is not so much for us to understand; it is for us to trust! ...to trust We do not force God to fit our experiences, or what we think he ought to be like; it is for us to fit our experiences into his promises.

So Job has learned a deep life-long lesson. God is lovingly and trustingly sovereign. It is for us to trust him, to put our hand over our mouth and be silent rather than shout out our objections to him, to trust that we are safe in him and may rest in him.

So what does all of that mean for how we handle this tough question about the suffering of good people? It teaches us that there may not be many satisfying human answers to all of it, but there are some very important things here that we can learn from the experiences of Job.

It is obvious that this book makes it clear, as life itself does, that we can expect suffering and ought not to be surprised by it. Yes, it does, and it will, happen, and to good people, too. It's that kind of a world - no longer the perfect world that God had in mind. There are forces unleashed here in this world that bring suffering to all. Even the goodness of our character or the strength of our faith will not make us immune to it.

And we may be honest about that. We don't have to hide it, deny it, or paint it over. Job is very candid and honest in his cries. It's OK to struggle without answers, to cry out when we don't understand. Just listen to him:

"I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul." (10:1)
"Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?" (3:11)
"If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! I would surely have outweighed the sands of the seas...." (6:2, 3)
"I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me." (30:20)

And many of the Psalmists utter similar earthy cries from their pain and suffering. Listen:

"Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" (Psalm 10:1)
"How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?" (Psalm 13:1)
"O Lord, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you...my soul is full of trouble...." (Psalm 88:1, 3)

With such honest and candid cries from the pages of Scripture we are indeed given freedom to be that open and honest with God. He can handle our cries of pain.

At the same time, I think we ought to use some of our pain to combat the causes of suffering in our world. Every suffering we experience is a reminder that this world is not the kind of world it should be. And we ought not to resign ourselves to it, but turn our pain into positive energy to combat the causes of suffering - the poverty, the abuse, the injustice, the diseases, and the like. Many who had seen the pain of oppressed slaves fought for the abolition of slavery and prejudice. Many who sense the violence done to infants in abortion have become the defenders of life. Those who have lost loved ones to drunk drivers have used their pain to lead the fight against drunk driving. Those who have seen loved ones suffer from major diseases often lead the fight against those very diseases. Pain can become a powerful force that motivates us for good.

But in the final analysis, it all comes down to this. When we suffer, particularly when we suffer without answers or explanations, we are called to trust God. Yes, we are called to trust God. I know, sometimes that's very hard. Sometimes it seems impossible.

I know. A good many years ago, when I was a young father, I was stricken with cancer. It involved surgery and treatment. But it also involved a lot of anxiety and fright...and huge questions. Then twelve years later I was stricken again. More surgery, more treatments, more questions! And six years later, for a third time, it was cancer! And the whole cycle repeated itself both in my body and my soul. Now it's a good many years later and I am grateful for the good cancer-free health that I have. But I still don't have answers to the questions I raised at the time. I don't know why. I can't figure it all out. I have no idea why it should be me, and why three times. Oh, I can see so very many good things God has brought from that. I love life more than ever; and I love health more than ever; and I give thanks to God for every day. But do I have all my questions answered? No, I don't. Do I trust God? I most certainly do. I don't need answers to my questions before I can trust him. I trust him because of who he is. He is holy, and true and loving and fair and merciful. He has said all of that in his word. He has illustrated that in my life and the lives of those near me over and over. He has given me so many promises that I hold on to. And he has even given his son for salvation. And so, even when I cannot find answers to my questions and cannot resolve my mysteries, I live with the mysteries and go on trusting God. You see, when I read the Bible and learn about God, then he gives me this big huge picture of the universe and of himself. At times like that my mind and heart go back to a classic Christian Hymn, "Immortal, Invisible, God only wise...the Ancient of days...your great name we praise." And when I see that big picture, then I don't have to force things to fit my own experiences, but I interpret my experiences in terms of this big God who rules this big world and does so in holiness and truth.

So in my trusting God I do two things.

First, I understand that God feels my pain. He knows when I hurt, when I am frightened, when life seems scary, when good people suffer. He knows and feels all of that. When I had cancer, I knew that God was on my side of the line, and had never become my adversary. He promises his care in the Bible and he proved it by sending his son to be our Savior on the cross at Calvary.

And second, I let God do his work of running the world the way he wants to. After all he has a holy and perfect mind; so who am I to think he has to do things only in a way that I can fit into my little finite mind? It is not for me to second-guess him. Yes, I can live with mystery. When things happen that I can't figure out, I can rest in the fact that God can figure it all out and has it all under control...and loves me deeply.

That's really where Job came out in this struggle. In the third conversation in this book, the one between God and Job, Job finally responds with trust. He very humbly says, I put my hand over my mouth; I don't talk back; I let God be God...and I trust him.

Oh, I know that's hard sometimes. But Christians down through the ages have trusted him in that way and have found great strength. For instance, during the sixteenth century, Christians in Europe were subjected to terrible persecution. They were oppressed cruelly. In order to prove to their oppressors that they were not rebels but law-abiding citizens they wrote a document confessing their faith. They even said they would "offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to the fire", rather than deny the truth of their faith. As a matter of fact, the pastor who wrote the words of their confession died as a martyr a few years later. Guide De Bres was his name. The confession is called the Belgic Confession of Faith. Listen to what they said...

"We believe that this good God, after he had created all things,
Did not abandon them to chance or fortune
But leads and governs them according to his holy will,
In such a way that nothing happens in this world
Without his orderly arrangement.

This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort
Since it teaches us
That nothing can happen to us by chance
But only by the arrangement of our gracious heavenly Father." (From art.13)

I find that trust like that gives hope. I can hope because this God is good and loving and wise and faithful. And I can hope because this good God sent his son Jesus Christ to be the Savior, to bring salvation from sin and the promise of eternal life. This good God holds me in his hand and will do so forever.

There is a lot in life I don't like; and there is a lot I don't understand; and there are a lot of questions to which I can't find answers...but I can know that God loves me, has his arm around me, and will always be faithful to me. I can know that because his son Jesus Christ has fully paid for all my sins and made me a child of God.

Because of this, you and I are not stuck in our suffering forever. It's all only temporary. I know it still hurts a lot. But I assure you that our saving God has a new perfect day in a new perfect world waiting for us. You can trust him!

Prayer:
Dear Father, some of us are having a hard time of it today. We experience the pain of suffering in our body, our spirits, and our minds. We watch our loved ones suffer. We see your creation suffer. We hear about fellow Christians who are oppressed. O God, so many in our world hurt so much.

And we search for answers. We wonder why you don't stop it all. We cry out in our pain. But we learn that often there are no answers for us. You are God and you see so much more than our minds can begin to fathom. But we trust you, God. We know you are our Father because of Jesus Christ your Son. We know that your promises never change. We know that you deliver. And we hear of the new perfect world that you have in store for us.

O Lord, we do believe. Help our unbelief. Give grace and the gift of faith to those of us who are finding it hard to believe... hard to trust you. Hold us firmly in your grip, even when we have lost our grip on you.

All for the sake of Jesus Christ, Amen.

About the Pastor

Howard Vanderwell

Can I Know the Will of God?

2010-02-21T00:00:00-07:00

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:15-21

Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 5 v.15-21...it's a paragraph in which virtually every statement and clause warrants close consideration. Here are some of the things he says:

Be very careful how you live and make sure it is done wisely.
Make the most of every opportunity you have for the days are evil.
Don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
When you come together, give encouragement to each other through your singing.
Always give thanks for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And did you notice that right in the middle of all those big principles, he puts this huge statement. "Do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." What a big sentence! It captures what you and I need to know!

As you think about that sentence, let me point out to you that there are some big things embedded in it. Paul has a habit of writing that way-of packing a sentence with big and profound thoughts. And we understand him best when we take time to recognize all that is in it. If you look carefully at this sentence, for instance, I think you'll discover there are at least four assumptions behind it. And I think we'll do better in our conversation today about the will of God if we take time to identify those four things first.

First, God is a personal God. Paul is talking here about a God who is just as much a personal being as you and I are. He's not some impersonal force out there in the galaxies. He's not some cold and impersonal being we can't relate to. He's not some celestial sovereign computer who spits out programs. No, he is a person. He thinks, he feels, he acts, he rejoices, he is sad, and he thrives on entering relationships with us.

Second, this personal God has a will. Yes, he does. "The Lord's will" is Paul's phrase. He has desires; he has plans; he participates in charting out the course of the cosmos, of world history, and of our lives. He's not a God who would say "whatever!". He has a will, a plan.

Thirdly, he makes his will known, at least in large part. He does share it with us. Notice how Paul talks about "understanding" the Lord's will. He would not say that if it were not true that God has a will, he makes it known to us, and we are able to get it into our minds.

And then there is a fourth consideration here. It's the whole idea of foolishness. The opposite of understanding the Lord's will is foolishness, Paul says. He puts it this way, "Do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." It's one of two ways: either searching for God's will, or being foolish. That goes two ways - it is foolish not to be interested in understanding the Lord's will; and, at the same time, if we don't understand the Lord's will we are likely to do some very foolish things.

But now as we continue this conversation together about searching for God's will, let's be aware that there are a number of levels or dimensions of God's will that we should distinguish. It's like that with us too. In your life, you likely have plans for a number of areas - what you want your work or career to involve; you have some financial plans; you have plans for the kind marriage or family you want yours to be; there is a value or moral system that you will live by; and you have an idea of how you will maintain meaningful relationships with others. They are not all on the same level. It's that way with God too. We could make some mistakes in trying to follow God if we don't remember these different levels or areas in which he leads us.

First, there is God's cosmic or sovereign will. He created this world according to his plan and he has a plan for ruling the entire cosmos and all of history. Paul in his speech in Athens had described God as the one "who made the world and everything in it" and "is the Lord of heaven and earth". (Acts 17:24)

Then there is another level that we call his salvation will. He is a God who wants to save people. Yes, he wants you to believe in Jesus Christ so that you can be saved from your sinfulness. Paul wrote to fellow-pastor Timothy one day (I Timothy 2:3) that God "wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."

The third level is what we ought to call the moral and ethical will of God. He has established unchanging moral and ethical standards according to which people should live for the sake of a just and stable society. You find these moral and ethical principles in the law of God in the Old Testament, and throughout the whole Bible. For instance, you find a lot of them expressed right here in this letter to the Ephesians.

And then, finally, there is the personal and individual will of God. That involves the details and plans of our lives - where we are born, where we go to school, what career we enter, who we marry, and all kinds of those thousands of things that confront us every day. Yet, somehow, we have the freedom to make decisions on all these matters, all the while believing that God has a plan for us too.

So try to keep those four in mind - his sovereign will, his salvation will, his moral and ethical will, and his personal or individual will.

Now, while you think about that, I feel that I should tell you a little more about the person of God, because I suppose it could sound, so far, that God is one master planner who spits out a massive computerized plan for everybody , a plan that could sound as cold as the paper it's printed on. And that's surely not the case at all.

One day, early in my ministry, I went to visit a fellow who had long since discontinued going to church and would have nothing to do with God. I wondered how that could happen, and what he was thinking. So I went to talk with him about it. What I heard from him seemed to be a lot more cut and dried than I was prepared for. We were standing in his yard for our conversation. When I asked him the big question about what he thought about God, he seemed very ready for me. "Well, pastor," he snapped back at me, "As I see it, it's this way. See that fence? Let's just suppose there are so many bottles lined up along the top of that fence. And then God comes along... and he takes the bottles he wants..., and he knocks off the bottles he doesn't want! As simple as that! If he wants me, I'm taken. If he doesn't want me, I'm off the fence!" And he seemed to clinch it in his own mind with a little gesture of his fingers that said "flick" (another bottle gone)!

I drove away that day, saddened, thinking about how the cold mechanical almost computer-like God he was thinking of, is so unlike the God of the Bible!

And then I remembered a story that an evangelist named Paul Little had written in one of his books a number of years ago. Little wanted to describe God's relationship with us as that of a parent with his or her children. It's a relationship of love. If my daughter comes up to me tonight, Little said, and says "Daddy, I love you!" I never in a million years will ever say, "OK, now that you've said you love me, I'm going to lock you in a closet, take your food away, and make you as miserable as I possibly can." Of course not. When she tells me of her love, my love for her just spills over and I surely want the best for her.

Well, God is that way too.

You see, the God of the Bible that we're talking about here is a loving and relational God. This is a God with a warm heart, a soul filled with grace, who comes to be personally related to us, never to treat us as bottles he might want to flick off a wall. This God is a personal God who loves and cares and thinks and feels and sorrows and rejoices. And so the will of this God is a will that is loving and seeks to set out the best for us. It's the will of a God who went all the way to give his only begotten son to pay for our sins and provide our salvation. So his will is going to be a loving will, a good plan, one that wants the best for us, one that will give us a rich and satisfying life. And because he is a loving God in relationship with us, you can expect that he reveals his will to those who are loving him, who are seeking him and seeking what he wants.

But I think there are two other things we must remember.

First, He does unfold his will to us gradually, not all at once. You know, I've got the bad habit of wanting to page ahead in a book before I begin to read it. I'll read the opening, the table of contents, and then I'll go to the end of it. I want to know where it goes, how it ends up, where it comes out, even before I begin. Well, that doesn't work with God's will. We can't normally page ahead to the end. It's more like one of those scrolls that they used for their writings in the ancient world. All you can see is what is right in front of you, no paging ahead to check the outcome. We follow his will according to what is in front of us today, and we trust that he will unroll it at the appropriate time for us to see the rest.

And I think I must warn you about another thing. It is possible to step outside the will of God. It is possible for us to go outside of his plan. We have a will that we must use and it's possible for us to use it wrong, to make wrong choices, to go the wrong way. That's what disobedience is; that's what sin is. And when that happens we lose our sense of joy and satisfaction in life. And then we need to catch ourselves, repent of it, and return to get back on course.

So remember that all of this is about being in relationship with a very personal God who has a loving will for our lives.

But maybe you want to say to me, "that all sounds OK", but my big question still remains. HOW can I know that will, that plan God must have in mind for me? And I agree with you...that's the bottom line question. So let me make a few suggestions that I think will help you.

First, make sure that you are a child of God, that you love God above all. Last week we spoke about how to be sure of your salvation in him. If our search for the will of God is to be seen as a genuine one, then it must come from a life that believes on Jesus Christ as the Savior and Lord, a life that wants to be lived for him. Remember that I told you earlier that God's will is that you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and commit your life to him. Perhaps, for you, that has to come first before you can really expect to know the rest of his will.

And then, secondly, I'd encourage you to search the Word of God. Yes, read the Bible carefully, faithfully, and read it with a prayer that God will show you what he wants. The Bible is filled with dynamic stories about people who found his will, it's filled with moral and ethical statements, and with principles that guide and direct us. You will find most of the will of God for daily living written right here in this Word of God that we call the Bible.

But be sure that you combine your Bible reading with what we often call "seeking prayer". Before you read, bow your head and ask God to open your mind to discover what he has to say to you here in what you are reading. You see, an open Bible must be met with an open mind to hear his voice.

And I think I should remind you that it's pretty easy to impose our wants and hopes on God's will. When we should be aiming to shape our wants and hopes according to what God wants, instead we are busy trying to reshape what God wants to fit what we want. So we must be careful to approach the Bible with what we often call a yielded spirit. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Sometimes we may discover that God's will goes in a direction that we aren't interested in. Then what shall we do? It is possible, you know, to be looking for his will, when all the time in our heart we're really saying "let me know it so I can see if I like it or not". And he just may not reveal much of his will to us then because he knows we'll reject it if it isn't just what we like. But if he knows we are willing to follow what he shows us, no matter what, he's far more likely to make it clear to us. So a yielded spirit is vitally important.

But I would also encourage you to consult with other mature and committed Christians whom you trust, especially in those big decisions in life where you really wrestle with it. Spend some time explaining your struggle and seek advice from other Christians you trust. But be sure you are consulting with the right people. Too many have gotten into big trouble because they have sought advice from the wrong people. Be sure those people are also engaged in wanting to know God's will, not merely in giving you their own personal opinions. Sometimes other mature and committed Christians can be the ones through whom God speaks to you.

But after all is said and done, I have to be honest with you and admit that there are times when you will have to be content to live with mystery. I mean there will be times in your life, like there are times in my life, when we just simply don't understand what God has in mind, and we cannot by any stretch of the imagination figure out why he has planned things the way he has. Yes, there are mysteries. I've got them! And there will always be some mysteries like that. We'll be talking about some of that in the next two weeks on this broadcast. We must be ready to admit that there are some parts of the will of God that are beyond us, we can't get them into our little minds. And then we have to exercise "deep trust". Lewis Smedes, a well known author, once wrote in one of his books that the deepest kind of trust there is happens when we trust God "against the grain", even when everything within us wants to cry, "No, it shouldn't be that way!

So let me encourage you and applaud you for being willing to engage in this big search for the will of God. It's a life-long endeavor for someone who wants to live a vital Christian life. It's a lot easier to be foolish and go our own way, thinking we know best. But it usually ends up in failure and disappointment.

Let me take you inside my life and tell you about my own personal view on this matter. I am just a sinful human being, who has been saved by the grace of God through the work of Jesus Christ. I have a whole new life because of Jesus' work for me. I'm thrilled to have that new life. It makes living so rich and so full. Now, why then, if I'm so thrilled at his work for me, why in the world would I ever think that I ought to just run things in my life the way I happen to prefer? Could I possibly still insist on running things my way, and in my own direction? Of course not! If I'm so thrilled at the privilege of being a child of God, then the deepest desire of my life should be doing what I can to find and understand the will of God on a daily basis.

After all, he's my Lord!

And, my friend, I hope the same is true for you!

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, we really do want our lives to count for you. We want to live them the way you want. We want your plans to be carried out. And we want our lives to carry out those plans.

But sometimes, Father, we are not sure. We wrestle with these big questions. We search and are not always so sure we've found what you want.

And so today we pray for a spirit that deeply loves what you love, that wants what you want, for plans that fit into your plans. Please, O Spirit of God, give us a mind and heart that will be able to discern your leading, a mind that will understand what you've said in your word, and will love you above all.

And if, Father, some of us have not given our hearts to you, we ask that you lead us today to come seeking your grace, and your forgiveness, and a whole new beginning. Live in us and lead us to living that makes a difference.

For Jesus' sake, Amen.

About the Pastor

Howard Vanderwell

Can I Really Be Sure of My Salvation?

2010-02-14T00:00:00-07:00

Scripture Reading: 2 Peter 1:1-11

When I hear those words, especially the words of v.11 in which Peter calls us to "be all the more eager to make our calling and election sure", I hear him calling us to be folks who are confident that God has chosen us. And then I think of a number of folks whom I've met during my pastoral ministry who have struggled with that confidence. One, in particular, stands out. She was a saint. There's no other way to put it. She was a devoted and sincere Christian lady all her life. A more loyal and faithful follower of Christ you would never find. All her life she had served him, been faithful in her church, and everyone who knew her also knew how important her faith was to her.

But now her years were nearing their end. She was in her 80's; her body was weak and broken; her husband had passed away about twenty years before; and now since she could not care for herself alone she was living in a Nursing Home. I went to see her regularly during that time and observed that her strength was gradually getting more shallow. Often our visits were very pleasant. But one day those visits took a turn. She was no longer the gentle soul who was resting in God's care; now she was a troubled soul who wondered whether she really was in God's care. The closer she got to her end, the less sure she was about her faith. She just did not feel she could be so sure anymore about her standing with God. Her sinfulness loomed up before her and seemed to be a terrible obstacle to being certain of her salvation. "How can God love someone like me...?" was her painful rhetorical question. Now, let me say that to my knowledge there was no big unresolved failure and scandal that resided in her past. No huge skeleton in her closet, at least that I was aware of. She was just a very typical child of God who, when nearing the end of her journey, lost her sense of certainty. I tried my best to comfort her and reassure her, but I hurt so much for someone who seemed to be living her closing days in doubt.

Now, I know there are some people who seem so incapable of any healthy doubt at all. They seem so presumptive, they jump to conclusions so easily, and are so quick to assume that they like everyone else are safe children of God, and do so without even a hint of asking some of the hard questions about our sin and our need for confession. I say some are so presumptive. But I hurt for those who live in doubt, Christian saints who, for one reason or another, lose their sense of certainty. Some experience such doubt during certain chapters in their life, some seem to live with it lifelong, and others close their days of life wondering if they are safe.

And I think if we are really candid with each other, a lot of us will have to admit that we do find this bird of doubt flying by and landing on the branches of our hearts from time to time.

So where do these doubts come from, do you think? What causes them? Why can we be so confident in our salvation one day and unsure the next? And why would it happen that a gentle Christian lady, who seems to have lived with assurance all her life, would lose it near the end of the journey? I think I can point to several things that may cause it, though we must admit none of us fully understand exactly why it happens.

We must admit that in certain chapters of life, there is a normalcy and a health to our doubts. It's a normal part of growing, or examining what we believe and how firmly we will believe it. We normally believe in something most deeply only after we've asked some hard and probing questions about it. So doubt is not necessarily all bad. It can be good, growth -producing. And so perhaps some of these times of doubting are the times in which our heart is saying, "Look, before we go ahead any further, before we reach the point of no return, let's ask the hard questions, let's really examine it all to see if it really is true, really is solid." It may be a fear of being careless. "Let's really be sure", we say to ourselves. And perhaps some of these experiences happen at the close of life's journey as an expression of our anxiety about the process of dying. We know it's so terribly final, so before we face the last step we sense that we must understand and probe it all one more time. Maybe there can be something very normal about it all.

Or maybe those doubts come because so many of us live in a day of such rampant skepticism. You know, we are told, "you just can't be too sure of anything anymore." Everything that we thought was so sure yesterday is up for grabs today. Anything nailed down in a previous generation, is torn lose today. So don't be so quick to make firm affirmations and bold professions. And so such skepticism gets hold of us too and chips away at our assurance.

Or, more likely, some of those times of doubting are the result of unsettling and disappointing experiences in life that knock us off balance. We'll talk more in the weeks ahead about those times when good people suffer, and our agony when God doesn't seem to be answering us. We meet those times so often. Things don't work out; crises come; things fall apart; just when everything seems to be going well, it all seems to lie in shambles at our feet. And then it's easy to doubt...am I really OK with God?

But sometimes it may be failures of the past that rise up and haunt us...personal failures that we have concealed from others, never really fully resolved within ourselves, and never really fully resolved with God. We think they are hidden and gone, but sooner or later they do come out of the closet, at least in our own mind and heart. And because we have not resolved them, and perhaps have not appropriated God's forgiveness, or have not been able to forgive ourselves, they erode any sense of security we once had.

So, maybe as you think about any of the doubts that you are having, try to reflect on what may be behind them, what may be causing them. Understanding that will go a long ways to knowing how to overcome them.

I say that it's important to face such doubts, and to look for help with them, because it is very clear that the Bible DOES hold out for us the right to have a clear certainty about our standing with God through Jesus Christ. I want to be clear about that. There are so many very beautiful professions of certainty in the Bible from which we can learn.

We heard one of those in the words of Peter that were read a few minutes ago. Now remember these were written to Christians who were not having an easy time of it in a society that was not very friendly to their faith. And I hope you sense the firmness with which he begins, addressing them as "those who through righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours...." And then he pronounces a blessing on them, "grace and peace be yours in abundance...." And he continues, "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness..." There is so much more in this passage. I encourage you to read through it again on your own.

But I want you to notice especially what he says in the tenth verse. "...Be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure." Now, that may sound like a strange statement, because our calling and election is God's work, isn't it? God chooses us, in his mercy and grace, before we were born, even before the foundation of the world. It's his sovereign choice, and we can't do anything to change that, can we? Now, that's true enough. But that's not what Peter intends to say here. He's talking about our personal certainty of the fact that we know God has called and elected us. He's referring to our personal experience of God's work of electing us, choosing us, and calling us. He's trying to get these early Christians past the habit of saying, "I hope so but I don't really know" to saying, "Yes, I know and I am sure." And the concern of Peter's heart is that Christians who are facing all the difficulties of life in this world need to be able to stand in a place of firm certainty about their relationship with God.

What Peter says here is very consistent with what he wrote these people in the first letter he sent to them. Hear these precious words and note how filled they are with certainty and assurance. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." He has said three things are absolutely certain - the finished work of Christ evidenced through his resurrection, the inheritance that is being kept for us, and we also are shielded by God's power until that day when we will receive our inheritance.

That's the same kind of certainty and assurance that Paul is speaking about very passionately in Romans 8 (A chapter I absolutely love!) Notice how certain he is as he writes to the Christians in Rome. "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" "Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ...." And this is the climax of that chapter, "...in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

You see, the Bible is a book filled with certainty and assurance for us. That's why David can say in Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing" and another Psalmist can say, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble."

There is a historic confession, shared by Christians, called the Heidelberg Catechism. It begins with just such a firm affirmation of certainty. It states:

My only comfort in life and death is
That I am not my own,
But belong - body and soul in life and death -
To my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
And has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way,
That not a hair can fall from my head
Without the will of my Father in heaven;
In fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

So I want you to sense that when you settle into these times of doubt, God doesn't want you to remain there. He wants you to rise up to a position of greater certainty, and to look to his word for the assurance your spirit is eagerly desiring.

But, I know, you may want to say to me, "that sounds easy, but how can I do that? How can I move from all these doubts to that firm certainty? How do I get there? What must I do?"I know it doesn't happen overnight. It's a journey. Please think of it as a journey of three steps.

First, you need to focus on the finished work of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the eternal son of God who came to earth for the express reason of paying the price for the sins of the world so that people like you and me can be forgiven. He spoke, taught, healed, and cared for people during his ministry here. But at the end of it, he suffered rejection and was crucified on the cross at Calvary as a payment for our sins. He paid the price completely. He suffered forsakenness by God on the cross there because he had become the guilty sinner in our place, though he had no sin of his own. And then he cried "It is finished"! He meant that it's all done. His work was done. The price for sin had been paid, totally, finally. There is nothing more that needs to be paid. Nothing more need be added. You and I do not have to pay for our sins. He already did. That work of Christ is all finished and he calls us to trust him for that, confess our sinfulness and received his gift of being declared forgiven. That's the first step - focus on this finished work of Christ for our sin.

Secondly, take God at his word when he says you are forgiven. Yes, his word is true, absolutely true. And yes, his word says that when you confess you are forgiven, completely forgiven. So the question is: do you believe him or not? Do you think he is telling the truth or telling a lie? Faith is the act of believing his word, trusting him to be telling the truth, and then trusting that he has in fact forgiven us completely. Suppose, for instance, that you are one of the paralyzed men who has been brought to Jesus to be healed, and then Jesus says to you, "you are healed, take up your cot and go home" and you say, "I can't, I'm paralyzed". And Jesus says again, "You are healed, take up your cot and go home". Again you say, "but I'm paralyzed". Finally Jesus says, "Believe me, trust me, you are healed, you can get up, now do it". Faith is receiving the forgiveness Christ is so eager to give. Oh, I know, so often our biggest problem is forgiving ourselves of our failures, but that's a different subject. If Christ can forgive us, we need to forgive ourselves too. If by faith we are obedient to accept the forgiveness of Christ, then we are able to work also at forgiving ourselves.

And then the third step I would point to is what we call the test for fruit. Look for evidence that indicates you are a new and different person, evidence that points to the presence of God and his work in your life. What can you see in your life that can be there only if God's there and at work? In the passage that we read earlier from Peter's letter, he encourages the first century Christians to develop qualities of Christian character - faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, he calls them. His point is this...the more of Christlikeness you see in your life, the more you will recognize Christ there, and the more certain you will be that you do indeed belong to him, you are a child of him. I suggest that you test yourself with some key probing questions.

Do my sins bother me, and am I sorry for them and have I confessed them to Christ? (No one does that without the work of the Holy Spirit in their heart.)

Do I recognize Christ as the son of God and the Savior of the World? (Paul says that no one can say that except if they have the Holy Spirit in their heart.)

Do I trust God's promises are true? (Only his children are able to do that.)

Do I see evidence of growth in my life, a love for others, fruit that shows I'm a different person than I used to be? (Those things come when Christ is at work within us.)

And when you sense God at work within you (sure, you're still not all you want to be, still have more growing to do, we all do) but when you sense that God is at work within you, then give thanks for the Spirit of God is speaking to your spirit reassuring you that you are a child of the Lord. You can stand certain of that!

And then, when you have some certainty like that to talk about, do so. Tell some others close to you. Affirm your faith while you worship in church. If you are part of a Bible believing church and they have the Lord's Supper, then go to the Lord's Table there and affirm that you are God's child. When you go through the valleys of life, affirm that God is with you. And even when you come to the end of your days, affirm over and over in your heart that you are safe and the Lord is your Shepherd.

Prayer:
Gracious Father, we sense deeply within us the need and desire to know where we stand with you. Our assurance in life and our hope in death are based on knowing we belong to you as your child. Some of us know that firmly and we give you thanks with all our heart for the work of your Son Jesus Christ for our salvation. Some of us go through these times of cloudy doubt that haunt us and we ask for your Holy Spirit to help us hold firmly to your promises of our newness in Jesus Christ. But some of us have never come to you for salvation, and so we ask for your Spirit to draw us to yourself now, that Jesus Christ alone can provide. Hold us close, Lord Jesus, and walk with us through all the ups and downs of our lives, until that day when you take us home. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

About the Pastor

Howard Vanderwell

Why Isn�t My Christian Life More Dynamic?

2010-02-07T00:00:00-07:00

Scripture Reading: I Corinthians 3:10-15

Opening
Let me begin by telling you about the time a fellow came to my office. We had set up an appointment to talk. When he entered I could see that he had a very frustrated look on his face and I knew something was bothering him. I had known him for a good many years, and I knew him as a very upbeat guy, a very committed Christian fellow, a very loyal church member.

It didn't take very long before he put his question on the table. "Pastor," he said, "I have to tell you I am very frustrated and very bothered. All my life I've considered myself to be a Christian. I've been faithful, loyal, and I think I've been a good member of the church. But...(he hesitated)...I just wonder... why isn't my Christian life more dynamic?" He had driven right down to the heart of what was bothering him. He went on and spoke of other people who always seem to be upbeat, filled with courage and joy, they walk close with God, they pray a lot, they witness a lot... "and I have this picture in my mind that that's what Christians ought to be like, but...(he hesitated again)...then there's me!"

I listened for awhile, and then I began to gently probe. I asked some leading questions that would help me to understand him before launching into saying the wrong thing. I was very satisfied that he was indeed built on the foundation of Jesus Christ that Paul speaks about in this passage we read. I was satisfied that his commitment was a genuine one. As a matter of fact this question arose in his heart precisely because his faith commitment was so genuine.

As he and I continued talking that afternoon, I began to realize that this fellow with this question may well be representative of many Christians, and as matter of fact, I had to admit that I've wrestled with that question from time to time too. I also have asked "why isn't my Christian life more dynamic?"

Have you? Do you feel like you were there in that conversation too? Perhaps you would have been raising the same subject.

Half-Healed People
Now as I continued to talk to the man, our conversation turned to what we called "half-healed people", people who were healed and therefore quite different from what they were before, but the process was so unfinished. "Half-healed", we called them. People, we said, who are not sick anymore, but they aren't really healthy yet, either. I was thinking of people who can walk, but who can't walk very well, because they are still crippled.

And then we talked about another story, one in John 11, the chapter we know as the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. It's a special chapter in the Bible for many Christians because Jesus makes this huge and bold claim, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies". And it's in this chapter that we learn Jesus stood outside Lazarus' tomb and called "Lazarus, come out!" and he did! It was a supernatural event. Lazarus came back to life! But there is a very poignant element in the story that most of us skip right over. After Jesus raised him, it says, "The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face." That, of course, was a reference to the normal burial process of wrapping the body with cloths and spices as an early embalming process. But just imagine the picture of this fellow standing there at the opening of his tomb. He's alive. Yes, he was dead for four days, but now he's alive. He really is. But...he's all wrapped up, hands, feet, face...so he can't see, can't move, can't walk, can't even speak. All the residue of his state of death is still wrapped around him. So Jesus gives the command, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." Finally he was all Jesus raised him to be!

And then we thought of another similar situation. This time it was a blind man whose story is told in the eighth chapter of Mark's Gospel. Jesus encountered a blind man just outside of Bethsaida who was just begging for Jesus to touch him that he might be healed of his blindness. Jesus did. He put some spit and his hands on the man's eyes and then asked him, "Do you see anything?" And the man looked up and said, "I see..." But that's not all he said. He said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around." Well, that's not very good, that's not good sight. So Jesus touched him again and it says, "Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly." So apparently, early on he was healed, he could see, but he was half-healed and could not see clearly. He wasn't yet all that Christ had healed him to be!

It's in that spirit that Paul speaks about the congregation of believers here in Corinth in the passage that we read a little while ago. They are believers; they have built their hope for heaven on the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ; he calls them brothers and sisters. If we continue with our terminology, they are healed people, so to speak. But there still is quite a difference among them. Listen to how he describes that. He says they all are building on that foundation that has been laid, but they are building so differently. Some are building with gold, silver and costly stones; but others are building with wood, hay and straw. That means that some of those building materials are of much more value than others. Some will last; some will not last. As a matter of fact some of those materials are combustible; some are non-combustible. And at the last day, the Judgment Day, when all the work of our lives is evaluated (Paul says "the fire will test the quality of each mans work") some of it will be burned up, and some will survive. That means that some Christians will be saved, because it's all of grace, yet will suffer loss of all they have worked for; others will be saved by grace, and also have the reward and evidence of a life lived well.

So when my friend came in to talk about why his Christian life isn't more dynamic, and when we began to think about what we called "half-healed people" we were dealing with a frustration among Christians that really is very important.

The Danger and Damage
But, why? Why is it so important? Maybe you feel like saying something like, "well, so what? So what if we aren't always up to what we ought to be in our Christian life?" Well, let me remind you of several reasons of why it's so critically important.

In the first place, this is exactly what Satan wants for Christians. If he cannot be successful in prohibiting us from becoming Christians (that's his first choice, of course), if he can't do that, then he'd much prefer that we be half-healed, weak, and unproductive.

Secondly, this condition produces very frustrated Christians. I can just imagine Lazarus standing there all wrapped up, unable to move, and saying, "So? What's so great about being raised? It's just not all it's cracked up to be!" And for the blind man mumbling about the fact that it's no good being healed, "I still can't read!" I wonder how many Christians around us are frustrated that way, feeling as though they are stuck in mediocrity.

And in addition, it stunts and stalls our growth. Christ wants his children to grow, to build well on the foundation with high quality building materials. He redeemed us, not only so we could be his children, but so that we can be his growing, fruit-bearing children. If there's no desire for more, we'll have no motivation for spiritual growth.

But it does other things too. This condition that we are calling "half-healed" also gives a very poor witness to the life of the church and the gospel of Christ. We all know, of course, that there are many people who will give the gospel of Christ and the message of the Christian Church a good hearing, or will quickly reject it, on the basis of what they see in those of us who are within the church. And who will possibly be attracted when the message seems to be that you can only be healed half-way here?

It also creates a weaker church. That's what Paul was so concerned about with the church in Corinth. Corinth was a strategic city, in which a powerful witness to the gospel was needed. But instead the church was worldly, immature, with all kinds of divisions among them.

And of course, the bottom line according to Paul is that this will produce embarrassment at the judgment day. Listen to his words, when the judgment day tests and reveals the quality of all our work, some of us will discover that what we have is all burned up. Oh, yes, we are saved by the grace of God, and we enter heaven only by that grace, or in Paul's words here, we "will be saved, but only as one passing through the flames." But the embarrassment will lie in the fact that all we have brought with us, all our living during the years God has given us, will be burned up and we will suffer loss. In other words, we have only ashes left. I think it would be so embarrassing for that to happen. Don't you?!

So this question of just how dynamic my Christian life is should not be quickly pushed aside. There's a lot riding on it.

Actions
So if you find this question whirling around from time to time, what should you do? Let me identify some helpful steps you can take.

And let me begin to answer that by repeating what I have said. It IS a dangerous problem, and it DOES need attention. You must be convinced of that. Being stuck in mediocrity is not what Christ had in mind for you when he went to the cross. Being half-healed does not represent the full extent of the riches in Christ Jesus that are rightfully yours. Go to the Bible again, over and over, and hear the voice of Christ calling you to grow in faith, to produce fruit, to become more productive in your living, your obedience, and your Christian service and witness.

So it will be necessary to identify what is holding you back. What is it that's getting in the way? Notice how, in John's description of Lazarus, he clearly identifies what it is that is holding him back from walking and talking and moving. John says very clearly that his hands and feet were wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth was around his face. And then it's very clear what has to be done, and what needs to be unwrapped. And when Paul wrote to these Corinthian Christians, he did the same thing. He clearly identified the problem that had to be rooted out. They were building their Christian lives with such poor materials, and he even identifies those in their community life - you quarrel, you have all kinds of divisions in your church, you align yourself with one leader over against another, you have all kinds of jealousy, you tolerate immorality, you take each other to court so easily. Yes, it's very clear what has to receive attention.

Well, how about you? What is holding you back that you have to get rid of? What sinful habits are stunting your growth? What bad attitudes are killing your joy? What broken relationships are destroying you? Is there un-confessed sin, or perhaps brewing anger? What unchristian values have gotten hold of you? Identify them, and aim to root them out.

Now let me suggest some personal practices that will help overcome those things that are holding you back. Be in prayer for the Holy Spirit of God to lead you. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, and he is the one who has been entrusted with your growth and maturity in the faith. He wants to make you more like Christ. He delights in it when you grow; and he grieves when you are only half-healed. And here is the good news - he is available to you for the asking. Listen to Jesus in Luke 11:13, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him." So, go ahead, ask him. He invited you to do so. Ask him to send the Spirit to give you better growth and healing.

And then also practice the disciplines of the Christian life. You see, there are certain practices in the Christian life that we call "disciplines" which, when we faithfully observe them, become the means by which God and his Spirit work in our hearts for good growth. I'm thinking of the regular confession of our sins to receive his pardon, the daily reading of the Scriptures to feed our heart, the meditation on his word so that his Spirit speaks with our spirit, times of prayer to express our love, adoration, explain our needs to him, and to seek his care for others. A growing life is built around these disciplines.

Also, vital worship should be a part of your life. I don't mean just going to church as an empty routine, but going to a good Bible-based church where you are able to encounter God, vibrantly praise him, engage in prayer, experience fellowship with others, and above all to learn from and be shaped by the faithful preaching of the Word of God. I hope you are part of a good Christian church that will help you in that, and that you are faithful in your attendance there.

It's also important that you learn to be a servant. That's right - learn to serve, to give yourself, unselfishly for other people and aim to make a difference in their lives. Our world teaches us to think about ourselves, to live for ourselves, to be concerned primarily about ourselves and what we need and want. Step over that tendency, learn to think of others. Find someone less fortunate than you are and go to help them. There are crowds of people who are eagerly awaiting help from others: they are poor, unemployed, lonely, sick, suffering from injustice, or AIDS. They are aged, or disabled, and in general forgotten by others. One famed counselor once said that the best thing many of us could do for our own internal health would be to turn the key in the door, walk across the tracks, locate someone in need and find a way to be of help to them in the name of Christ. It just could be that if we all do that for six months, this question that we began with could just go away!

And then let me round it all out by encouraging you to get a good mentor. Or perhaps you call her an accountability partner. It's someone who is committed to your personal growth in Christ, someone who will meet with you regularly to talk about life, someone who will encourage you in growth, someone who will ask about your practice of the Christian disciplines, who will inquire about your Christian service, (in short) someone who will hold before you the model and example of a life lived well and fully in the name of Christ. All of us have so many mentors and heroes today in our secular culture who really do us no good. We consider them heroes but they live for values that directly contradict what our Christian faith is all about. Turn away from them, and bring into your life mentors, friends, accountability partners who will set a healthy pattern for you and hold you to your commitments.

Conclusion
So the concern you raise is a good one. None of us should be willing to settle for a Christian life that is drab, uninspiring, and mediocre. Christ came to die for us so that our living would be dynamic, that is filled with the Spirit's power. The church will be the church it's called to be in this world when it's filled with people like that.

It's a good concern, one that comes right out of the heart of God. Set yourself today on a path of obedience and discipline that will show you are building your life with the best possible materials, with the gold, silver and costly stones of Christian obedience.

Seek out some friends who will help you. Find a church that will encourage you. Pray faithfully for the Spirit's power to aid you. And spend time daily in the inspired Word of God to feed you.

Prayer:
Gracious God, we give you thanks today for the gift of life. WE know it has come from you and we receive each day with a grateful heart. But we also know that you want these days to count, to be lived to the fullest, with deep satisfaction.

So, we ask that you forgive us for the times when we have wasted our days and frittered them away with frivolous and selfish living. We ask that you fill us and life us to a higher level of living- living that shows we love you with all our heart, our soul, and our mind; living that loves our neighbors as our self. Capture us, Lord, completely. Lead us, Lord, to valuable living in the power of your Holy Spirit. For Christ's sake, Amen.

About the Pastor

Howard Vanderwell