Sunday March 10, 2019
Good morning, by the way, it's good being here at the weather is wonderful. I'm glad for that and glad to be here worshipping Jesus with you. And I know that you are the people who are proficient at spring ahead. Right skin spring ahead is challenging and for many reasons physically as well as of the various devices in your home. And if anyone has a blinking VCR clock I feel bad for you. I have no idea what had to help you with that.
This morning scripture is taken from the Gospel of John and we're going to do the first two verses people will hear me fine. Thank you. And if you can't hear me in the back just do this and I'll project versus will be looking at will be the second and third verses in John's gospel chapter 9. As Jesus went along. He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him. Rabbi who said this man or his parents that he was born blind. Neither this man or his parents in said Jesus. But this happened that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
Will you pray with me?
God that seem like a very short piece of scripture, but so much was just said And we understand that scripture is this it's a power. We don't fully understand how it works. But it lights our way it reveals. That's the condition of our heart it lets us know within the you're with us. It does so many things and so we want your word to spread and we ask for that it spreads in us so they can spread through us. So will you will come to us this morning through your word Lord Jesus. Amen?
No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear. I am not afraid but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach the same restlessness the yawning I keep on swallowing. And other times it feels like being mildly drunk or concussed. There is sort of an invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says? Or perhaps hard to want to take it in. Everything is so uninteresting yet. I want other people to be around me. I dread the moment when the house is empty. If Only They would just talk to one another and not talk at all to me There are moments most unexpectedly when something inside of me tries to assure me that I don't really mind so much so very much after all. Love is not the whole of a man's life. I was happy long before I ever met my wife. I've got plenty of what they call resources people get over these things, I won't do that badly. What is a shame to listen to this voice? But it seems for a little while like it's making out a good case. And then comes a sudden job of red-hot memory and all of this coming sense vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace. Show begins CS Lewis's novel a grief observed, which is a gritty first-person account of Cs Lewis's own experience of the loss of his wife go Davidson to cancer. And He is wanting to write for the first person about what his experience is like losing his wife 1960 at the end of his long career. Somebody who knew god well, And yeah, I was just overcome by the grief of losing his wife Joy. I read CS Lewis's writing about grief the first time in 2001 my wife Melanie and I have just experienced our second miscarriage and this was a particularly difficult one. It was the second trimester wine and it was traumatic for both of us and really different ways and I was just looking for something someone who could have the experience of losing something someone it was so new to me. I didn't know how to feel about what happened in anyway, what's typical is you people in your life, you go to your community than friends or church people like that and you think will surely people understand this but what I found out is that grief is something that we have a hard time bringing together collectively when we come loss is that we experience in the pain associated with those losses and something that's just we just don't know how to be with each other very well in Lost. People would say the kindest things to us when we would those numbers of miscarriage is over the course of seven eight years, but I know they meant it but it often did not really connect with us. You just weren't meant to have that child. Some people would say, thank you. You're probably right but that does not connect with experience that I'm experiencing. Have you looked at this particular therapy? Have you looked at this particular drug? Have you studied this? Yes, we have done so much were exhausted from doing it. And at the same time thank you for the suggestion one person even went to say what were you thinking? Thank you. Thank you. We won't do that again. But at the same time people mean well, they want to find a way to be with you in your suffering either don't know how until Novation coming out of that about 20 years ago was people and an even Christ's people in the life of the church. We just don't know what to do when we're faced with suffering of our own or other people's now. I have a feeling I'm far from the only person who's experienced that we want so much to go into the important to us. I will say 20 years ago in the season of miscarriages. That was a season probably where I am more than any other time in my life experiences doubt about the goodness of God and I wasn't sure what to do with that. That's not something that people feel very comfortable with talking about with other people especially because I was on a path to become go to Ministry. If I'm in Ministry, I better feel like God is a good person could be but I'm struggling with this and I'm trying to figure out what does it mean to Grapple with the goodness of God. How do I do it in community? Do I need to discuss that to myself cuz I don't want anyone else to know it.
I have come to know the goodness of God in ways that are so deep so personal and so rich that I honestly guard my mind and I guard my heart for thinking anything bad about God and yet I still had those experiences and I wouldn't have been the person I am today had I not had those experiences your 20 some years ago. So I know I'm not the only one on a journey of coming to thinking that God has been well by and everything. I think that's a very common experience. I think it's one of the core reasons why a lot of people are not a part of any life of congregational life is because they've come to the conclusion that God has not done well by them and I am somebody on that journey and I can relate to people on that journey and I deeply want Oak Hills Christian Church as much as I have any say about it to be a place where it's safe to believe your beliefs and I doubt your doubts about God because when you can do both knowledge gross knowledge, I want this to be a safe place where if you're experiencing disappointment with God you are welcome here. You're welcome your disappointments. You're welcome. I hope your disappointments aren't the last word about how you experience God but I completely understand that. They may be a primary where that you're experiencing currently about. So what I want to do in this series and the title of the series is the most important thing about you and this is taken from a quote of aw Tozer. I got one of your favorite people in Mike and aw Tozer The Pursuit Of God, he said the most important thing remind me think about God it is so true. It's one of the very most important things there is because we have people we have enormous amount of freedom to choose what occupies our minds. We don't have complete freedom, but we have an enormous amount. It is easier to change your mind than it is to change your body. It takes far more work to change your body that does your mind takes concerted effort, but I can think very differently about one thing or another if I choose to change my mind, but I want to invite you into this journey with me for the Lenten season. We will try to understand a little bit about how we come to have a different mind about what matters most in life cuz we can choose what we think of what we take in even within circumstances that may be have been hard in our lives to understand got so I want to look at this passage in John's gospel with you and as is my custom want to sync with you about three things that are here in the passes, but I think help us understand who got is the first of them is bees every single one of us have false ideas about God every single one of us within the structure of our own thinking have their present. What do we know it or not false ideas about who God is and we picked this up in John's gospel verse to wear Jesus's disciples and if you know your bill, History, you know that the Disciples of Jesus were those who were with him. They were by him all the time. They were learning how to become more like him and because of that process they were slowly becoming to resemble him in their own lives and they're thinking but not completely the disciples are a great comfort to me because they struggle but their ideas about God thank goodness. Me too. And so we're in a situation here with a man that Jesus comes across who is born blind from birth. And we aren't going to have time to think about his experience. But wow, what would that be like to be blind from birth? That sounds very difficult. Tell the disciples don't start with that thought the disciple start with another fight and they say to Jesus Rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born. 10 interesting leading question, isn't it? This man has hardship in his life. What is the thinking of the disciples? What is the idea that they have about reality about God that's false. In this case. It is basically the idea that we get what we deserve that negative circumstances in our lives come from some form of divine punishment that they did something wrong and I got his got them for that and that happens. This is a thinking that many of us having many different times in our lives. The blindness is thought of as a punishment for sin.
So let me ask you if that were true. What would that say about who God is?
Nothing good right. Is somebody who basically number of months ago? I mentioned the concept of Karma to you because you hear about it constantly. There's no such thing as karma but for some reason we talked about all the time will say what the universe has a way of sorting out the good from the bad. Wow. That's what the disciples basically believing. He was it a past life. They're actually rabbis in that time. Who taught that little babies in the womb could send what would it be? I mean, it's just a little nuts the imagine so they're thinking all this is what's going on. And this is why this is happened instead of Jesus. He doesn't give them any room to hold on to this idea. Now. I hope it comfort you that Jesus's disciples. This way then Been Around Jesus for a while forming accurate ideas about God is not easy. Even for the people closest to Jesus you and I would struggle with it too when circumstances happened that put us Desperate places are out of our control. It's stressful and in the stress some of the deeper ideas that are in a zwilling merge. I don't know if you recall the housing crisis that occurred in 2007 2008/2009. I sure did I had a house on the market during that time was really difficult and terrifying at the time CNN has an article that people around the country who are trying to sell their homes underwater, you know, the value of your home was decreasing. It was a scary time and people are getting so desperate that they started taking this ancient advice. They said we buried a statue of St. Joseph in our yard. Because if I bury a statue of st. Joseph in my yard says tradition and history and everyone who came before me.
So again, I ask you what is the thinking behind that? What is the idea here? Well, we've got to somehow I peas this Almighty thing that we don't understand if we this bizarre statue things will go well for us and then ideas get traffic in our world and it's a dangerous. It's not anywhere. We really close to the truth of what's going on. But you see when we are desperate when we have recurrent miscarriages when jobs fall through for us went marriage falls apart when we're struggling financially relationally when we're dealing with pain from our past and its control and we began in those times to greech to grasp for something we want control. Now there are a number of ways number of false ideas about God that kind of get out in The Ether and here's an example of several of those taken from a book called God views by Gary Moon and Jeremy and helps us understand that as we develop is human beings. There are number of different misunderstandings that come up about God and it's very normal and natural as we slowly try to understand who got to be something we can control that is really normal. So one of the first places we typically go in our development is whoever got is he is a lot like our parents and if you were here last week, you heard me tell story about my dad. What did the offing B bus driver and of course that's this was for me an image for me of God is a young person and I could start and worst places, but obviously that is not how God will handle that situation, but we often Studies have shown psychologist have had children sit in a room. They say draw pictures of your parents and then later they said drop pictures of God and they did it. Similar tell me it is very normal for young children to think that God has something like their parents and it helps us underscore the importance reality of the responsibility. We had this talk will start by thinking that they're our parents. And of course that idea will get moved. My children are at the point where I have significant fly out read good for them. But then that's one of the things that we tend to sort of fix a lot of problems because we would never say it that way. So what we say is that God would like a cosmic Sheriff. He's up there watching every rule making sure that everything is done according to Hoyle. He's like a state board of health inspector something like that. He comes into your life. He says these eggs are about 40 degrees you are in trouble, right?
Butterfly so much of the occupier mind every desire we have and so what we worship is what we want for Christmas in many ways and we go through Seasons like that and we don't do it just as children. We do it as adults as well. We come to think it's some point in our lives God is a lot like George Burns and oh God the movie that appeared in the 70s that God is in heaven. Mildly not very interested in doing his own thing up. There may be playing shuffleboard or something like that. And if God is like that guys we got work to do.
Some of us are more in the mode of God is a party host and when we come to church church to feel like a party and got you make us feel good and we get upset when we don't feel good when we're with his presence because we worship our feelings and if we feel good thumbs up and hence the social media in the world of the thumbs-up, right or if you like me you worship your accomplishments. You think to yourself God loves the people who do good help themselves bring dead to the world and we worship the thing is we do our Legacy are accomplished a performance or lack thereof or whatever the case the last Leaf Tea in various religious circles is God worshipped our Doctrine or that we worship we think God is our Doctrine. It's our understanding of God Is Right. Our practices are right, and these are the things that get in the way of us understanding the character in the heart of God. It's completely understandable and if that's me and if that's you I hope you can be kind to yourself in the midst of it because very simply We are people who will do this as we're on this journey of letting go of control of understanding. God God is other What I mean by that is I cannot control in any. And letting go of control is a huge huge activity in A discipleship process. It's scary to let go of control but we have false ideas about God Jesus in the story doesn't have any false ideas about God if you want to know what God is like look at Jesus. Not only looking his actual actions, but look at how he understands and knows about God Jesus knows God is good. It isn't Jesus doesn't say God is good because it's the right thing to do when I get into this in a moment. Jesus says God is good. Cuz Jesus knows deeply the God is good. And that is why he can answer his students in John 9:3 with such Clarity cuz they said look at must have been there either he or the parents did something bad and Jesus said no.
No. Know Jesus is the first one in the moment to say that's ridiculous. Know this man is not blind because God is out to get him. Why would Jesus been going to heal this man? If this was some sort of cosmic Karma moment. He heals him because you loved him. You see he wants things to go. Well for him. He knows Deep lyrics God is good. He's not answering that because well, you know, I'm a Christian and I have to think God's good. So yes, God is good. That was a young person by the way long before we went there are miscarriages and I had to begin my own searching about the goodness of God as a young person when I was in college, I was involved in campus Outreach in with the group Navigators. I love this group of people and they were deeply formative in my own walk with God on my freshman year, they worked it out. So we would live with older students who we would learn from I was a freshman in my dorm buddy was a senior by the name of Todd and Todd was an amazing guy. He was huge who is muscular dude. Carry me around and drove me nuts, but he was showing off.
Girlfriend Sherry was killed tragically in a car accident. Somebody was trying to avoid a pothole. That's it. And Sherry lost her life and time is deeply confronted with just oceans of grief trying to deal with the loss of Sherry. And me as a young Christian and not really aware of God's goodness in the way that I am now began to judge Todd. That was my response on the inside. I think about this book the title of the book was disappointment with God by Philip Yancey. I saw that book instead of being supportive to Todd. I started in my mind thinking we need to be concerned about Todd. Is Tides disappointed with the hot and we're not supposed to be disappointed with God because it's right to think that God is good and it is wrong to think that God is not good. Do you hear sort of Juvenile net my theology at that point? I'm trying to be right, but I don't deeply know it. And that's so different than Jesus In This Moment Jesus In This Moment is of course God is not here to punish this course. He's not very different. You see there's a difference between defending God's goodness. And knowing god goodness. I didn't know it yet. You know, the expression God is good. What do you supposed to say back? and all the time I would have said that at that time but it's possible to say it without knowing. That's what I'm talking about. When I say that Jesus knew it he knew it deeply he had lived through circumstances that had had him come to that. He knew his father's heart. So well snooze the God is good and lastly goodness as it turns out is gooder than Justice.
I did I couldn't resist I didn't put in parentheses. Goodness is better than Justice. That's okay. And I've got to come to another part of the Bible to explain that and that's James chapter 2 verses 12 and 13 for James soon is a characteristic that your style says speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom because Freedom Mercy will be shown Mercy fourth member last part of Mercy triumphs over judgement that God is so good. That he is okay with us doubting his existence.
We want Justice. Justice is something that we talked a lot about in our world these days you'll hear a lot of people speak about what their perception is on the social level, but there's not a lot fight anymore on the cosmic level of what Justice would look like a theologian friend of my parents on would often say when we were growing up don't ask for just this you just might get it and he was being quiet when he said it but he was right Justice on the global scale on the cosmic scale is a frightening thing that I wouldn't want but no matter what I still think really differently about that because I had things done to me that were wrong. And I know that every single one of you have had things done to you that were wrong and many of them like vento wonderfully describe for us bear scars from physical some even deeper. And you're telling me to not want Justice? No, I'm not telling you. It's not want Justice. I'm telling you to prefer goodness. Justice will come Jesus Christ will have his turn at the plate for history is done and things will be cared for in his way. But before that happens our desires to want goodness into prefer goodness, cuz goodness is gooder than Justice. Let me know straight to mentors of mind. We're in a car went. I'm having a conversation when his name is James. He's talking to the other man. And James was somebody who goes and he speaks at and you had a chapel service number of years ago and at the service after he was done speaking a young person came up to him with a very forward request. He said his money and I'm out of money and could you loan me five hundred bucks? This is interesting. Right? But James is a really good soul, and maybe the student picked up on that and so $1 what a wonderful gift for the kindness, right and dances like I do this college chapel speaking circuit. I'll be back. I can pick it up from you. Glad to help. Well, he's a monster in happen couple months past three six months game sings. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got it. Smith going to get that back to you. I promise.
You never did. Isn't it easy this moment Swordigo millennials? Organize Millennials what's single them out?
So James is driving with his mentor Dallas in the car one time and James says the. I got a situation. Can I just talk to you about it? And he tells him about this whole situation. He says he never paid me back.
This is our Josh. What should I do about it? Dallas ask someone question. It ends the conversation. He says James. Did you miss the money?
And that took him in a whole different direction in his thinking. Is James dead?
Actually, no. We were fine. We experienced no loss. Dan's not get his $500 back. It wasn't just We got something better. Goodness and mercy, he was cared for God saw to it that things would go well for James and it turned out that life was fine, even though he experienced lot now my friends that's a challenging Paradigm Shift, right? Because if you're like me you had things done to you or you've done things that you feel like you need to be paid for or against or something needs to happen. We're inviting you to a different way of thinking about God about life. So important st. Augustine tells us we from the 4th century when we come to Judgment Day not only with a judgments Pastor seem to be most just but all the judgments of God from the beginning. Will be likewise seem clearly Fair. There will come a time in human history and I believe that is my God prolongs it is because he want goodness to win. He wants to say I surrender my life to you. I let go of being Justice and all the things I've held against myself and other people and I just take your business cuz I trust that if I receive your that's what I lost. I'm not saying that every circumstance that you and I are in our as easy as the $500 loss because some of us have lost far more and far deeper and far more precious than just $500. So I'm not saying that but what I'm asking is where you grapple with this idea that God's goodness. It's better than God's justice in any way we can look at that. We say this phrase God is good all the time and all the time. God is good. And again, I want to ask you we say it but do we know it? This is difficult because when people hear I say it who are struggling with it, and they don't know that we know a deeply is confusing for them. They begin to think we're what you call phidias philosophically that we don't really deep examiner and beliefs. So examine deeply have you deeply pressed into the idea that God is so good. I know it. He never ever do that blind man. What you guys are suggesting he's done to them. I've tasted this deeply Until I live with these mixed emotions about my experiences because if you had gone through something like me 20 years ago and you were feeling as angry at God as I was I would have encouraged do I still would encourage you to give voice to it to express it? That's what the Psalms are expressions of your past that particular wasp and I have seen the goodness of God come to me in such ways. I have really mixed emotions about what I did back then not because it was wrong. But because we're glad I know that I don't ever want to think anything bad of him cuz I love him just like I love my children. I don't want to think anything bad of them or anything inaccurate of my wife. I want to think with accurate of God and yet if someone were going through that and they were struggling I would say give voice to it you need to give voice to it. So what we're simply have to come to is what I call the problem of good. God is so good that he is willing to let us heard him over and over again in order for us to come to no goodies.
Is it hurts God? Now we're in Lenten season. So we are all pointing and heading towards the cross of Jesus Christ. We are trying to understand the cross in this season in the unique way that we don't understand it any other time and if you are in a season of life where you're finding it difficult to appreciate the goodness of God, may I suggest dwelling upon the cross because Jesus's death on the cross as I hope we will come to understand over these next several weeks not only is the most beautiful true and good act in human history, but it is also the same time the most vile disgusting violent wrong done just act in human history. It is both an Advocate Christ. Jesus shows to us how much he loves us that he is willing to be hated despised and pop poorly of so we could come to different people. Is goodness on the cross over comes the justice of me getting what I deserve if you think that's good news with me. I want you to just say a big loud. Amen. Thank you. Let spray.
Got such a topic that we need to Grapple with this morning and perhaps we didn't roll out of bed thinking we be getting into that today.
Things have happened in our lives. We've been both victim and perpetrator. And some of them had been deeply evil things. What to do with it or we see that happening in our world to people we see evil. We see like it's winning. We're wondering where you are.
God thank you that your heart can bear every question every Angry wear that I've ever given you. Thank you. They can bear infinitely more than that. And thank you that you love us so much that you will let us think wrong things about you so long as we stay in the struggle of coming to understand that you have done so well by everyone of us. Thank you for the slab how best to receive it. Help us to become more mindful of where we don't understand you well and help us to exercise the great Freedom that we have in this world to think the thoughts of you that are true that are Noble at a praiseworthy cuz when we do it, it lightens up a satellite is our world. We pray all these things in Jesus name.