Why God's Will Prevails

2012-10-07 Why: Why God's Will Prevails

Lamentations 3:17-26
I've rejected peace; I've forgotten what is good.
I thought: My future is gone, as well as my hope from the LORD.
The memory of my suffering and homelessness is bitterness and poison.
I can't help but remember and am depressed.
I call all this to mind—therefore, I will wait.
Certainly the faithful love of the LORD hasn't ended;
certainly God's compassion isn't through!
They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
I think:
The LORD is my portion! Therefore, I'll wait for him.
The LORD is good to those who hope in him, to the person who seeks him.
It's good to wait in silence for the LORD's deliverance.

Romans 8:28, 35, 37-39
We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Who will separate us from Christ's love? Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
But in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. I'm convinced that nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.
...Nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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So we're doing this series of four sermons called, "Why?" Today is the final episode.

We're asking, "Why?" with the help of a really good book, called Why? Making Sense of God's Will. It's by Adam Hamilton. You can find it on Amazon and at www.AdamHamilton.org. I think they have copies at McKay's. And even if they don't, it's McKay's. Just go browse for a couple of hours. You'll feel better.

We've talked about some tough questions.

Why do the innocent suffer?
Why do my prayers go unanswered?
Why can't I see God's will for my life?

I wish I could say we've handed out recipe cards for the answers. I mean, it's been three Sundays. And yet, the innocent still suffer, prayers still go unanswered, and God's will still plays hide-and-go-seek. I kind of feel like Derek Dooley. Can't we get just one SEC win? Just one "Here's why" solution?

But these questions are no game. They're the things that keep you awake at 3am. They're the reason liquor stores rarely go out of business. They're why we come to church, figuring if we can't get answers, at least we can get company. At least we can see people whose minds have the same wrestling matches. See people who have lived through the same stuff and are still walking. Find people who will listen to us spill our guts and not run away screaming.

Some people think church is the place with all the answers. If I can brag a minute on you, I think you guys do really well to make this church a place where it's okay NOT to have all the answers. You should be congratulated on that. Thank you.

Car repair is about answers. Arithmetic is about answers. It's all very logical. Very mathematical. If this, then that. People are not logical. Sometimes they're predictable. That by no means makes them logical.

Faith isn't logical, either. Faith, by its nature, defies logic. But faith can be predictable. Faith, the Christian faith, is predictable because it gets its meaning from a story that we already know. We already know how the story ends. Does that mean we know all the answers? No. But it does mean we can predict where faith is going to lead us. As messed up, as stumbling in the dark as we might be, we know where faith is going to lead.

The final chapter in our discussion of "Why?" is called, "Why God's Will Prevails." See? Spoiled the ending. If suspense is what you want, go to a movie. Church is about the opposite of suspense. Church is about hope. Hope and the comfort, and sometimes the uncomfortable demands, hope places on us. God's will prevails because it's not logical, because it's not a solution. God's will prevails because God makes it prevail. Sometimes in spite of us. Sometimes through us. God's will prevails because God makes it prevail. So we can have faith. So there is hope.

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Did any of you see the movie or read the book, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"? I saw the movie last week and I can't stop thinking about it. It's about a 9 year-old boy with Asperger's Syndrome, which is related to autism. His dad was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. The little boy goes on a search through New York City to find clues to a message his father might have left him in the form of a key. What does the key fit? Is there a lock? Is it really a message from his dad? If you don't like to cry at movies, do not see this movie. Rent "The Avengers". Although I do know people who cried when Agent Coulson was killed by Loki, the adoptive brother and arch-enemy of Thor. There is suspense in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" but it's not Avengers kind of suspense. I won't tell you how it ends. But I will tell you that in this one boy's search for the love of his father who can't come back, in the aftermath of destruction, God's will prevails. But not in any way you would expect. God's will is like that. It never quite conforms to our expectations. But it does prevail.

And that's what the scriptures are talking about today.

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The book of Lamentations doesn't get a lot of reading in church. Because it's really sad. It's hard. The people of Israel are looking at a devastated Jerusalem. They're remembering people who disappeared in a terrible act of aggression. And they're searching for clues about people that can't come back. They're searching for God's will.

I've rejected peace; I've forgotten what is good.
I thought: My future is gone, as well as my hope from the LORD.
The memory of my suffering and homelessness is bitterness and poison.
I can't help but remember and am depressed.

See why it doesn't get read very much? We preachers operate out of the idea that people don't want to come to church to hear sad stories. We think people want to be cheered up and made happy. Fixed.

And we are wrong. We're wrong because the story of searching for clues to "Why?" is the life's blood of people of faith. It's part of our history. It's the Bible. The Bible's filled with people who are messed up, but standing.

I've rejected peace; I've forgotten what is good.
I thought: My future is gone, as well as my hope from the LORD.

It's the story of someone who's so messed up. He (or she) has had it up to here with the stupid answers of shallow preachers. He's sick and tired of asking "Why?" He's sick and tired of God. He says,

I can't help but remember and am depressed.
I call all this to mind—therefore, I will wait.

Did you know that the Bible, in its original languages of Hebrew and Greek, there's no punctuation? Commas, periods, question marks. None. I say that because without these cues, there's no way of knowing how long the break should be between, "therefore I will wait," and what comes next.

Maybe a long, long time.

I call all this to mind—therefore, I will wait.

Certainly the faithful love of the LORD hasn't ended;
certainly God's compassion isn't through!
They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
I think:
The LORD is my portion! Therefore, I'll wait for him.
The LORD is good to those who hope in him, to the person who seeks him.
It's good to wait in silence for the LORD's deliverance.

How long is that deliverance going to be? We aren't told.

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The Apostle Paul was on his way to the churches in Rome. Paul was not stupid. He would have known that marching into the political center of the civilized world to start a church who worshiped a crucified King was a bold and brazen act. As political as it was religious. That it would end badly for Paul was predictable.

And yet he wrote in a letter to the Roman church,

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

And you have to wonder, is that a statement of knowledge or a pledge of faith? Hope, where predictability fails. He says,

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, Paul knew what we know. He knew how the story ends. For Paul, the suspense was gone. He knew that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. A horrible, murderous act. Yet God's will forced the act of evil, bent the action of evil, transformed it, into something redemptive.

Christ was resurrected on Easter morning. God chose not to conform to human expectations. God's will prevailed.

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When you eat a small piece of bread, when you drink from that tiny cup, you are putting your faith in God's will. When you share the body and blood of Christ, you take on hope. It's a small thing. But even the tiniest hope is still hope. Even the weakest faith, is still faith.

That might not be the clear, direct, indisputable answer you came to hear. I understand. I agree. But that's not the way the story goes. We all suffer from low-grade, chronic suspense. We can't know when or how or how long it will be until God shows us the answers to our "Why's?" God doesn't do solutions. But God's will does prevail. Unpredictably. Mercifully. Lovingly.

God's will prevails because God makes it prevail. Sometimes in spite of us. Sometimes through us. God's will prevails because God makes it prevail. So we can have faith. So there is hope.

Hamilton ends his book, the story of his "Why's?" with these words.

Every year, I end my Easter sermon... the same way. After 20 years, the people anticipate it. I note that people ask me, "Do you really believe this story about resurrection? Do you really believe that Easter means the worst thing is never the last thing? Do you really believe that ultimately good will triumph over evil, and God's plans will ultimately prevail?"

And my answer is always the same, "I not only believe it, I am counting on it."

And he ends his book, and I end these sermons, inviting you to count on it, too.