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Sunday 2/08/26
Title: Hope in God through what He’s made
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Hope in God through what He’s made
Obviously the question of Who God truly is goes far beyond any of our earthly experience, but like Adam and Eve or Moses or the children of Israel during the Exodus – we have experienced enough of Him to at very least have a decent sketch of His character.
Regardless of what first caught our attention, be it:
- the splendor of the Creation itself
- A word from one of God’s children
- a passage from the Bible
- the inner awareness we are all born with that there is more going on behind the scene of life than we can figure out with our minds
- by a direct inward work of the Holy Spirit
…whatever we saw, bid us to come, and come we did!
As I told you over the course of the last two weeks, there are 3 basic sources of Hope in relation to God.
- God’s inspired, written word
- The inward witness, leading, counsel and teaching of the Holy Spirit
- What we have come to experience of God ourselves
The 2nd and 3rd in this list NEVER going beyond what the written word has already revealed!
But the most powerful of all is our experience!
If you have never experienced snow, all the books, stories, pictures and christmas movies in the world will never impact you like your first experience!
The first time I experienced snow flakes falling from the sky and actually watching it collect on the ground until it was inches deep, was almost like a dream. Walking in it, collecting it for snowballs, snowmen and even snow ice cream told me more about the nature of snow than any media ever could.
Reading and coming to love a great book, and then many years later finally meeting its author in person can redefine both book and author in very tangible ways!
THAT is what I am talking about!
Looking back
I think sometimes in order to go forward we need to glance back – not longingly like Lot’s wife at the life we once had before God, but a love’s first blush in the heart.
I want you to ask ourselves,
“What did I first see or consider about God, that started this life long journey of the heart?
I’ll give you a moment to reflect on that before we move on this morning because it may very well help you on your next leg of the journey into hope and faith.
Everyone who has ever come to Christ must first have had the Holy Spirit reveal Him to them. So you have already interacted with God in your personal experience. You remember the first time you felt an inward pull away from something you used to do without thinking about it, but now somehow you not only knew it was wrong – it actually FELT wrong! You remember the first time you came to God in repentance and knew the warmth of a Father’s forgiveness. These experiences go beyond written testimony and leave an indelible mark!
That is what I am attempting to lead you to this morning. NOT by emotional ploys or drummed up hype, but things scripture itself points us to which we can do to solidify faith and cause hope to grow intentionally!
Knowing Him… relationally
As we’ve learned in our most recent lessons, faith is the solid foundation underneath our hope. It is that by which we can weather all that would shake and call into question what we’ve come to know of God.
When the external threats against our faith rage and roar, presenting our souls with the questions which sound so very much like our own inner voice,
“How do you know that God can really be trusted with your heart?”
And make no mistake, that is the real question behind all the others!
We might very well endure questions regarding God’s intentions with our life, our work, our family, our ministry… but the real question behind them all, is can I trust You with my heart?
How can faith and hope be as relational as the scriptures reveal them to be and this NOT be the truth?
I’ll never forget the first time I saw… I mean REALLY saw what was going on in the boat that night with the disciples on the turbulent Sea of Galilee. These men were seasoned and hardened fishermen.
You know, in my youth I was privileged to have a friend of the family who I called Uncle Earl. He was a big and burly man by just about anyone’s standards. His hands were thick, rough and almost like stone from years of countless hours on the water with his own fishing business from which he supplied much of the retail for his own fish market.
He was a kind man, but one you did not want to be cross with you. His voice alone, if raised, could make you forget your name.
At any rate, his face and person has set the mental framework for the image my mind conjures when I think of the likes of Peter, Andrew, James and John – who were the fishermen of Jesus’ entourage.
So years ago, when I took the time to actually read the passage of that storm on the Sea of Galilee, it really penetrated my heart.
These big, burly men KNEW this sea, its temperament and that “ship sinking” storms with waves reaching 10 feet can arise in mere minutes and THIS WAS ONE OF THEM!
Men like this do not quickly panic, and panicking they were!
But the revealing thing was not the storm, not their fear, nor even Jesus’ being in a deep sleep as it was happening.
Let’s be clear, these men were completely convinced that death was the only outcome. So when they awoke Jesus, what they asked Him told me more about what the heart of man truly desires of God – then nearly anything else in scripture ever has.
We know that even with all the miracles these men had already witnessed from this enigmatic man, the idea that He could command the storm and the waves was not even a consideration.
When Jesus stood up and rebuked the storm, the passage tells us that these men marveled as asked in hushed tones among themselves “What manner of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey Him?” Really? They were NOT expecting that – meaning they had ZERO HOPE for their faith to support.
So asking Jesus for physical safety out of the storm was not even a request they would have brought to Him. No they awoke Him, just to ask Him – if in their dying He cared for them.
That seems almost unimaginable! Men who could probably stare the bark off a tree, in their dying moments wanted to know if this man Who knew God so well, cared about them!
So as I said, we might very well endure questions regarding God’s intentions with our life, our work, our family, our ministry… but the real question behind them all, is can I trust You with my heart?
Coming to know the answer to this IN EXPERIENCE (everyone say ‘in experience’) is of vital importance to both faith & hope.
There are many things in prayer that can be brought before God in confidence for which you cannot necessarily find a scripture but about which your heart can be confident – Rejoicing and resting in genuine assurance and favorable expectation because you’ve settled the core questions of your in relation to God your Father!
You look, but do you see?
Being a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan, I remember a phrase from Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” where Sherlock had, upon first meeting a client, deciphered things about him that baffled his friend and companion Watson. To illustrate his method he asked Watson, “How many times have you climbed the stairs leading to my apartment over the years Watson?” To which he said it had no doubt been many hundred. Then Sherlock asked him if he knew how many steps the stairs had. Watson, of course didn’t know.
Sherlock told him that therein lay the difference between them both.
“You see,” he said, “but you do not observe!“
THAT describes most of us. Or to borrow as I often do from the music of Michael Card, “we see with and not through the eye”. Actually Michael got the inspiration to write the song, “Through the eye” from that same phrase written by William Blake who wrote in his poem “Auguries of Innocence“
“This life’s dim windows of the soul / Distorts the heavens from pole to pole / And leads you to believe a lie / When you see with, not through, the eye.”
What am I saying by this? I am not attempting to be clever or cryptic, I am simply using the words of brighter men to point you to something profound which will help you be intentional in your faith!
We complain when we have a bad day, but one of the reasons why we recognize it as bad is because it is worse than most of our “normal” days. Which means, we rarely appreciate the sun when it is shining, but only complain when it is absent – because we see with and not through the eye.
Our days are more marked by love, beauty, mystery, mercy and goodness than evil – but we do not see that!
We look, but we do not see!
Beauty, provision, food, rest, amazingly intricate and designed bodies and minds, relationships.
The capacity to know, to feel, to love, to empathize, to imagine, to reason and discover, to know intrigue which spurs us on towards pursuit and the capacity to appreciate all of these things.
Sounds, colors, textures, fragrances, tastes, variety of every kind, the ability to express ourselves through language, music, facial expressions, articulate limbs which if trained can accomplish more than any man made machine ever could with dexterity and precision that boggles the mind.
Who is the Creator of all these things and what does it tell us about Him that He has so freely and lavishly poured these things into us?
Like is said in Hamlet,
“What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, the model of excellence and perfection above the animals.”
But recognizing all these things, have you ever considered them as a lens through which to observe and learn of God. A window to press your face against that you might discover that presence behind the veil that we can know and with Whom we can become truly intimate?
So here are 3 simple things – they aren’t even clever or unique. They are the stairs on the stairwell you have traversed countless times, and yet cannot even recall their number.
Are you ready?
Acknowledge Him in everything
Romans 1 in creation
- Acknowledge Him in the details
- In all that, in Creation, draws you close to Christ.
- In repentance – Knowing He is the One drawing on you to change your mind and come near to Him. Think about that! Acknowledge that truth and its implications!
- When you feel happiness and joy. Even in things not immediately focused on him. Pay attention to what makes you exuberant and light of heart then turn your face to gaze at him and discover by the spirit’s help and instruction how these other things are mere and temporal samples of the Delights we have in our Maker.
- When you feel sad – same. What he’s you feel sad is in some way (though distorted by selfishness) a window into the heart of God and what grieves His heart. Even this sadness can draw you close. Sometimes even closer than the good feelings. Like that line from ‘I like the sound of that’ by Rascal Flats
“I like the sound of the thunder rolling, it makes you move a little closer to me.”
- In the details which most people look at but don’t see –
- The texture of the skin of an orange
- How it sprays oils in the air as you peel it, making your mouth water with the smell
- How each bite is served in individual little packets, filled with hundreds of smaller containers of juice.
- The fact that your fingers still remind you of the orange an hour or more after you ate it due to the pleasant smell the resins left on your fingers.
- Did you realize what went into creating that experience?
- The intense, lasting orange scent on your fingers after peeling an orange comes from a natural chemical called limonene, which is concentrated in tiny, volatile oil sacs in the outer, colored layer of the rind. When you peel or twist the orange, these oil sacs burst, releasing the fragrant oil onto your skin. Being a volatile oil, it is not easily removed with water so the scent lingers on your skin.
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- Who would have thought of all that?!
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Search for Him in the not so obvious places in His word
- In the stories He had chosen to share with us in His word.
- Why did He choose this story?
- Pay attention to the otherwise ordinariness of the people and lives within the story. That helps you realize in such sobering ways that there isn’t a life that is outside of his interest or knowledge.
- Recognize that there isn’t a single heart that His hands haven’t touched to shape and mold through His influence towards the direction of intimacy with Him.
- In the “good” He does so is often untrumpeted, not called attention to but nevertheless there – it is clear evidence that we are on His mind.
In His most intimate and clear self-revelation… the incarnation of Jesus
- Was there anybody truly invisible to Jesus?
- Did anybody slip through the cracks?
- Was there anyone He wasn’t willing to save, heal, speaking into their world with relevance and interest?
- Was there anyone who, apart from their evil choices, He would not have sought out and wanted to know?
- Why did He single out certain people, approaching them, while others He baited them call on Him? Knowing that in reality neither one were outside of His loving concern?
- What questions did He ignore? To whom was He willfully silent?
- Remember that one mother He saw in a funeral procession following closely by the body of her son who had died? Jesus was exiting the city on His way somewhere else and yet He saw her and was moved with compassion! Without a request even being made… did He not reach up and raise the boy out of compassion for the grieving mother?
- Which of these were not a clear representation of the Father in the flesh?
I suggest to you that if we do not know Him, it cannot be laid at His door for He has revealed Himself through all He’s made, through all He has done, and through the sending of His son.
The proper cry of the heart is for God to open the eyes of our hearts which BEGINS with being purposeful and intentional in seeing Him in ways already available to us.
Now are all of these things just fanciful notions of mine devoid of scriptural support? Of course not, I’ve already referenced several places in scripture but to close out with something you can sink your teeth into consider the passage I mentioned earlier in Romans 1:16-25,
“(16) For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (17) For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (19) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. (20) For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (21) For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (22) Claiming to be wise, they became fools, (23) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (24) Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, (25) because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
Even the blind sinners of the world, lost in their sins are held as being without an excuse because they refuse to acknowledge God in what He has created… so that’s a great place to start!
Where did Paul get this idea, was it not already suggested in the Old Testament scriptures? Yes it was!
Remember just this past Wednesday when we covered Proverbs chapter 30? What did Agur the prophet point to for wisdom from God, but creation itself – the work of God’s hands.
Did not David tell us that it was when he “consider the heavens the work of God’s hands, the sun and the moon which He ordained” that his thoughts landed him squarely back upon himself in relation to God? He said, “when I consider these things I have to ask, “What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you visit him? You have made him a little lower than the angels and yet have crowned him with glory and honor! Giving him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have places all things under his feet.”
So you think such thoughts influenced David to believe in God’s good heart, to trust His intentions with us as humans and to place his unwavering faith and hope in God? Of course it did and it was this looking that gave way to seeing that was one of the things which made David a man after God’s Own heart!
And what about Job, that noble man who loved God and was attacked due to his loyalty to Him. He was buffeted to the point of complaint against God, but never departed from Him! So when God wanted to restore all the enemy had taken, God needed first to ransom Job’s heart against pride and bring him back to a place of humility in relation to Himself. And how did God do this? Example after example of His works in Creation which pointed back to His person, integrity, goodness and power.
More importantly, what was the result???? Job tells us,
“(3) You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. (4) Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ (5) “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. (6) Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” – Job 42:3-6
So this brought Job from knowing about to knowing, from hearing about to seeing. From seeing to observing and it changed everything!
Remember what I encouraged you to remember of your early days in Christ? To remember your first times of repentance. How gentle God moved on your heart to change your mind. That it was the very person of the Holy Spirit, Who influenced you to come and be restored?! What is that but proof positive that He loves and longs for you!
Blessings!
Tri
