Focus: God’s definitions. God is God and you are not. Function: We often make up our own definitions of what is important or necessary
I was in the airport recently. And overheard a conversation between a young daughter and her parents. She asked a very inquisitive question. Why do some people go to Church?
Parents were uncomfortable. Didn’t really have an answer. Ended up saying people go because they like to hang out with their friends.
In the west, we live in a post-Christendom world. We sometimes look back to the “ideal” when Christianity was just a given in society. A given that was present for Hundreds of years.
Yet there was a dark side to this Christian society that has led to fading from public view in society today. We forget that Germany was a Christian nation during the rise of Nazi Germany. The colonial empires were Christian countries. Even many of the missionary efforts into South America and Africa looked like forcing native people to wear European clothes and stop speaking their native languages.
On a certain level we within the Church agree that the Church is mostly a social club. We get comfortable with the people we know and the things we do. Especially, as we approach this Christmas season, our hearts and minds are full of the traditions of this season. Traditions that are beautiful and meaningful. All these good things. But they sometimes go from being good things to being distractions from who we really are.
We are not defined by the bible studies we attend, the turkeys we roast or the christmas decorations we so carefully curate. We aren’t even defined by how often we go to church or read our bibles. All these things are side concerns to the core of what it means to be Church.
We are church because Jesus makes us so. We are a people who stand before a Holy God.
One book that deeply shaped the way I understand God and my relationship to him. Is the Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. He walks through the deep implications of God’s holiness. God is not a pushover. He is the supreme power over the whole universe. Perfect, unapproachable, terrifying for sinful human creatures.
So often we domesticate God to fit our own way of life. We like to rely on what seems right to us at the moment or what is easiest or most expedient. Dr. Sproul makes this observation about our human attitude toward God: “When God’s justice falls, we are offended because we think God owes perpetual mercy. We must not take His grace for granted. We must never lose our capacity to be amazed by grace” ― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God
In order to get a small picture into the cosmic scope of God’s powerful Holiness I want to read a section from Isaiah we don’t usually read in Church. Through advent and Christmas we will read sections for Isaiah that give us warm and fuzzy feelings but this is not one of them. This is an image of God in his Justice, His power, and wrath. God is not a pushover God cannot be bent to human will. God is God and we are not.
Isaiah 13:4b-9 The Lord of hosts is mustering a host for battle. 5 They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come! 7 Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt. 8 They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.
9 Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.
The list of capital offences against a holy God includes each and every sin. From the smallest mistake to the biggest intentional crime. A perfect God demands perfection. Something so far outside of our human experience. We don’t understand this perfection because we can’t be this perfection. Rather the holiness of God is a constant threat to our very human existence. Our sinful human existence is completely opposed to God.
Because of this impossible standard. It is natural for us to start creating our own definition of right and wrong. A standard a little less stressful, a little more attainable. A standard I can reach the end of the day and think to myself. Hey, I’m a pretty good person. And as we go down our list of things we didn’t do or the things we did that made us feel good we let ourselves off the hook. Maybe I am a decent person after all. Maybe God’s impossible standard isn’t right after all. Maybe I’m right.
During my personal reading time I have been going through the book of Malachi. And Malachi points out the two conclusions we come to when we begin to let ourselves decide what is right and wrong. He says:
Malachi 2:17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
On one hand we can slip into acting like everything is good. It doesn’t really matter what anyone does. God will be happy with anyone. God is soft and squishy. A parent that just can’t bring themselves to say no
Or we see the darkness in the world and we decide that we are a better judge of how things should be than God. Where is God’s justice? Maybe the perfect Holy God has made some mistakes that I can see and evidently he can’t.
We get wrapped up in our own definitions. We have a list of things we care about that is shaped by how we were raised, or the groups we identify with.
What is on your list of things that matter to you? What business interests, groups of people, activities and social issues matter to you? Whose list are you following?
God has a list of things He cares about. God created a good world and he’s going to get it back one way or another. His list supersedes ours and should be the list we are following, not the one we make up on our own.
In Malachi there is one such list. God’s definition of what is good and bad: Malachi 3:5-6 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed
God has every right to destroy each and every one of us. We are a part of, and have contributed to, a society that has done everything on that list. We have messed up God’s good world. Even when Christians were in charge of things, we messed things up over and over and over.
And yet Jesus still left us here on earth to be his church. I will never understand why Jesus thought it was a good idea to let us be in charge of His church.
Maybe that’s the issue. This isn’t our church. None of us have a right over this Church. This is Christ’s church. We come here as broken human creatures without anything of our own to offer. Luther’s final words ring true for us all. During the last few moments of Luther’s life he proclaimed a foundational truth: “We are beggars, this is true.”
We come to this altar, we gather together as His people with nothing of our own to offer. The legacy of Christian rule has left a bitter taste in many people’s mouth. A legacy of self important Christians greedy to follow the American dream rather than the dream of God’s good creation.
We come here with empty hands before a God who has every reason to simply wipe us off the face of the earth. But we hear him speak those words from Malachi to each one of us: I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children, are not consumed
We receive mercy. An impossible, surprising mercy from the all powerful One. A mercy that transcends our own failures. A mercy that is nothing but a gift.
An interesting perspective to hear about how powerful Christ is at work in spite of our human incompetence comes from an African theologian named Lamin Sanneh. He was a prominent theologian in Ghana. And he witnessed the explosion of Christianity in Africa during the early modern era. And this is what he has to say to us here in the western world: “The West should get over its Christendom guilt complex about Christianity as colonialism by accepting that chrstinaity has survived its European political habits and is thriving today in its post-Western phase among non-Western populations, sometimes because of and often in spite of, Western missionaries.” (74)
The Church is so much more than a dying American institution. The Gospel of Christ finds homes in the hearts of God’s children often in spite of our mistakes and the apathy of our Christian living.
We should come before God with trembling as the only source of mercy. There is no other refuge from the great and just wrath of God than Jesus himself.
In our reading from Jude this morning we get a picture of what living in this holy humility should look like: Jude 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
We are called to have mercy on those around us. Because the stakes are high. The ax of God’s judgment will fall and when it does it will be too late. We are here with desperately important news. A gift that should be burning a hole through our pocket to share with others.
Show mercy in three ways:
Mercy on those who doubt. Walking with people patiently through the ups and downs of life.
Snatch from the fire. Some people need to hear the shocking news. See the danger this world brings.
Show mercy with fear. Others we show mercy too without falling into the trap of saying: “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.”
One of my favorite songs captures the urgency of our message: Wake up, Wake up. For the love of God please hear me screaming. I can see your eyes are open, but I know you’re asleep at the wheel and the road is ending. Wake up, wake up.
As a church we are beginning the process of starting Missional communities. Calling them Lift groups. Which stands for Life in fellowship together. Each of us are missionaries to our own neighborhoods. We are called to scream the call to wake up.
The gift is not just for us but for everyone. Especially the people who are not like us or who seem far from the normal Lutheran.
Vision of Christians gathering with indent focus on being a light to their neighborhood. God will be at work with or without us. But we have a unique opportunity to share this surprising radical mercy that we have received with our community in real tangible ways.
So be listening for news about Lift groups. We have purpose.
Pray that people will wake up. That we would wake up to proclaim the desperately important news about Jesus.