To Seek the Lord. II Chronicles 14: 1-2; 15:1 12

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Evan Day
5 years ago
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1 To Seek the Lord II Chronicles 14: 1-2; 15:1 12 When I was in my previous church, I was called upon to officiate at a funeral for a young man whose wife and two daughters had recently been attending that congregation. His death, I should add, was tragic. He worked in construction, and as he was carrying a metal ladder on the job site, he accidentally hit a high tension wire and was electrocuted. I remember talking to his wife, offering her support and comfort. Then the conversation turned to his funeral. As this man had not been in church and I had not met him yet, I asked his wife about his relationship with God. I still remember her exact words: Well, he believed in God and let the girls go to Sunday School. That was the sum total of his spiritual life. Over the years, I have often been asked by funeral directors to provide what I guess I should call a generic Protestant funeral for someone who had no church affiliation. When I call a family member to get some information so that I can make the service personal, I always ask the same question: What was his/her relationship with God. And more often than not, I get a version of: well, he believed in God and he let the girls go to Sunday School. I still preach the Gospel at the service, since there are likely people in attendance who have never heard it. Situations like that always get me thinking: what is it about not just these individuals, but about humanity in general that somehow keeps us from embracing a deep and meaningful relationship with God? What is it that suggests to people that we can get along quite fine without Him? And let s be honest, we all know that even we good, go-to-church-every-sunday (well, nearly every Sunday) Christians have often found holes in the fabric of our spiritual life. None of us including the guy who is preaching to you right now can boldly profess that there is nothing missing from our relationship with God. What is it that seeps into the human soul and separates us from a God who loves us with a passion and a power that is simply mind-boggling? Probably many things probably a different one for each individual. But I think there are a few things in common. Let me tell you a story about a woman who was a member of the first church I served. A year or so before I came to that church, her young adult son died after a long battle with cancer. And she had not been back to church since. The senior pastor asked me to visit her, partly since I was, at the time, about the same age as her son had been at his death, and also because her younger son was attending the college I had graduated from just a few years before, and he thought I might make a connection with her. (I think he was also giving me an opportunity to learn something I have needed to know many times in my ministry.) Well, the conversation with this lady took place on her front step, through the screen door. It wasn t that she wouldn t let me into her house; she couldn t. I was a minister and I represented the God she was angry at. As I look back, I realize that she was still holding on to her pain because her pain was the only thing she had left, the only thing that made sense to her.

2 I ve known a lot of people like that. Maybe their pain isn t quite that intense; maybe their anger at God isn t that powerful. But there is a cold place in their soul that they can t allow God into. When all along, God is the only one who can thaw out a frozen soul. It s just that it takes too much trust, too much faith, too much courage to let Him in. It s easier to keep the wall of pain up. I m sure this lady believed in God. She just didn t want in her life the God she blamed for her broken soul. When the pain is the only thing that makes sense, God is the One who takes away the pain. That s a lesson for us in our own pain, and for us to carry out into the world with us, because every one of us knows someone who just can t let God in. And we can be the conduit through which He can get in. Not by explaining the why, just sharing the who. Which leads to another story about trust. Now, if you aren t interested in football, and if you are already tired of hearing about next week s Super Bowl, this example might not be for you. But listen anyway. I think most of us know that Eagle s quarterback Carson Wentz is a deeply devoted and dedicated Christian. He does not wear his faith on his sleeve he just lives it. But if you roll up his sleeve the right one you will see a tattoo on his bicep in the shape of a fish, with Prov. 3:5-6 written inside it. Proverbs 3: 5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths - some of the most important words in the Bible. That s how he plays; that s how he lives. As you know, Wentz was having an incredible year, well on his way to being the MVP of the NFL, and leading the Eagles to the Super Bowl, we all thought, when he went down in a game against the LA Rams and tore his ACL, needing season ending surgery. And he tweeted to his fans something to the effect of: Well, I don t understand it, but God s plans are perfect and I ll accept them. In other words, he trusts in the Lord and leans not on his own understanding. Oh, and if you didn t hear it, when the tv reporter spoke to back up quarterback Nick Foles after he led the Eagles to next week s Super Bowl, Foles gave the glory to God first. Now, I m not promising that God will guarantee a victory over the Patriots. But Carson Wentz, not to mention Nick Foles and from what I understand a bunch of the Eagles who meet for prayer and Bible study on a regular basis are trusting in the Lord. And not just on the gridiron, but in their lives. Which is a lot more important than what happens in Minneapolis next Sunday. And will sustain them after their playing days are over. And I wonder how many people would have faced the same situation as Carson Wentz and been able to accept that God s plan is better than their own? How many of us could just lean not on our own understanding and acknowledge Him and let Him direct our paths? Not easy to be sure! You see, I think that is one of the reasons a lot of people end up having a he believed in God and let the girls go to Sunday School spirituality. Because it takes trust in more than themselves; it takes courage in a God, that, truth to be told, doesn t always explain His ways; it takes a faith that supersedes all the uncertainty we have about the world around us. God is, after all, often best described as ineffable beyond our human understanding.

3 Ineffable. But loving, Caring. Providing. Providential. Wiser by far than we will ever be. And He will direct our paths, even when those paths, on first glance, make no sense at all. That s a lesson for us when God s ineffability leaves us hanging in mid-air. And for us to take out into the world to anyone we know whose struggles with an ineffable God leaves their relationship in a shambles. Which leads to another story. If you remember the whole Watergate mess, or studied it in history class (it was current events to me! Is it really history already?), you may remember Charles Colson. He was a special counsel to President Nixon, but known as his hatchet man. It was said that he would run over his own grandmother to get the president re-elected. He was a man who lived by his own rules, followed his own standards and guidelines, needed no help from anyone, especially not from God. He was his own man, and no one, not even the Lord above, was going to intervene in his life. I suppose he believed in God. But as far as any relationship with the Almighty, well, that was as distant as the furthest star. He could do it on his own! Until the whole tangled mess of Watergate came unraveled and the Nixon administration collapsed. And Colson ended up in jail actually charged with obstruction of justice for defaming Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers mess. In jail. And everything he had tried to do on his own came crashing down. Every time he had chosen to be his own person came to nothing. Every attempt he had made to live free of any restrictions, guidance, or direction from above ended up in a spiritual sewer. And in prison, he found God. The one he had held at arm s length for so long. The one who picked him up and restored the shattered pieces of his life. His books and his work with Prison Fellowship and Prison Fellowship International made him a living example of what happens when you let go and let God. My guess is that it wasn t easy. It couldn t have been. It wouldn t be easy for us either. But it s the only way out of any tangled mess we create in and of ourselves. And my guess is that a lot of these folks whose spirituality is: he believed in God and let the girls go to Sunday School live like Charles Colson lived before he met God. God and His ways are just not all that important. He s up there; He s nice to have around. But I m ok as I am. I m getting by. I really don t need His help. If I need Him, I ll ask. Don t we all live that way, at least once in a while? Kind of like being a spiritual selfie isn t it? But it doesn t work. And once we learn that, and relearn it (probably over and over), we need to bring it to the world outside this sanctuary! Which leads to one more thought. I look to Him first, it s a sign of weakness. And you know what? I have a feeling that this is one of the main reasons people just don t bother to have a deep and meaningful relationship with God. To be a Christian is to be weak. After all, the basis of our relationship with God is in Someone who allowed Himself to be nailed to a Cross the ultimate moment of humiliation. Where s the strength in that? Only Jesus chose to be nailed to the Cross. And if the soldiers hadn t swung the hammer, He would have. He had been raised as a carpenter, after all, so He knew something about hammers and

4 nails. I read something the other day by Christian writer Max Lucado. He said that since the Son was preexistent, and since through Him all that was made was made, He created the tree from which His cross was made. As Lucado states, the Cross wasn t a last ditch effort from a cosmological engineer; a slapdash creation from a deity who didn t know what else to do. It always was and always was the moment of incredible strength. And even as Jesus was wrestling with God in the garden the night before His date with the Cross, it wasn t a moment of weakness, but of great strength, as He prepared Himself for the climactic moment of His entire existence. Weak? Wimp? Hardly! Do we show strength when we are out there in the real world? Do we prove by our words and deeds that we do not worship a wimpy Savior? Do we allow the strength God offers us in Jesus Christ Philippians 4:13 I can do all ALL, not some things through Christ who strengthens me shine through our lives? Do we open our mouths and our souls and let the world know that there is a God who heals shattered lives; whose ineffability can be trusted; who picks us up when the brick wall of our own will crashes down on top of us; who is undeniably as unweak and unwimpy as anyone might ever be? No, to be honest we might not change anyone s minds. But we will never change anyone s mind, lift up anyone s spirit, restore anyone s damaged soul by doing nothing. Now, I m sure that this young man whose funeral I did so many years ago was a nice man. So have been most of those for whom I had done generic Protestant funerals. They weren t bad or evil. Just that they missed out on so much. There was so much they could have embraced; so much they could have experienced; so much they could have opened their minds and souls to. We do, too, some days. So, let s remember the lesson from King Asa, whose story was in our scripture lesson this morning. Asa came to the throne when most of his subjects were of the he believed in God and let the girls go to Sunday School mindset. They had drifted from God so badly that not only didn t they know Him; they didn t know much about Him. And King Asa changed all that. He destroyed the idols and pagan practices and put the nation on the right road again. As the Chronicler said: He pleased the Lord his God by doing what was right and good. May we make our relationship with God right and good. And may we go forward in strength to share that with others.

5 Worship January 28, 2018 Call: Responsive in Hymnal Assurance: Litany Children s Message: word: trust trust fall! Prayer: Lord God, when we walk away from You as we often do and get ourselves lost, show us the way back to You. When we hesitate to accept Your guidelines and standards, help us realize that Your way is the best way. When we reject Your plans outright and we often do help us to understand that Your will for our lives I perfect. And when we simply fail to trust You as we should, help us to realize that only by trusting You can we find the abundant life that really matters. Needs, etc. LORD S PRAYER

JESUS, NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES: I JESUS, OUR STRENGTH Karen F. Bunnell Elkton United Methodist Church March 10, Psalm 91:1-2, Luke 4:1-13

JESUS, NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES: I JESUS, OUR STRENGTH Karen F. Bunnell Elkton United Methodist Church March 10, 2019 1 st Sunday of Lent Psalm 91:1-2, 11-16 Luke 4:1-13 Back in the late 1960 s, our family