How Can We Know who our God really Is?

Series: Growing Together in God's Grace 

December 2, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

I know for a fact that not one of us here today ever had the pleasure of meeting George Washington.  Though it was only a little more than 200 years ago when George Washington lived, we have been completely separated from ever having the pleasure of knowing him personally by those 200 years.  And yet, even though none of us has ever met him, we do know quite a lot about him because of all of the things that have been revealed to us through books, encyclopedias, magazines, television shows, movies, and yes through all the information posted today on the internet.  Even though we have never met him personally we can still know who he was and what he was like.  Well, the same thing can be said about the Lord our God.  Even though we have never met the Lord face to face, like we meet each other every day, we can still know exactly who the Lord our God really is.  We can know exactly who the Lord our God really is from the ways in which he has revealed himself to us.  For example, in the Bible, in Psalm 19 we learn, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." (Psalm 19:1–4a, NIV84)

Now this is truly an amazing thing!  The Lord our God reveals himself to us as the master creator by revealing himself through the very things he created!  For in the same way that we can look at things like: the Pyramids in Egypt, Skyscrapers throughout the world, even the International Space Station, and know that these things had to be conceived, planned, and built by someone, so also, when we look at the beauties of our God’s creation, we come to realize that there must have been someone who made all that we see around us.  There must have been someone who had great power and might to create such a beautiful place for us to live.  In fact, as we scan the pages of God’s book of creation, we begin to recognize that this great and powerful someone who created all these things must, at the very least be filled with divine powers, because there is no human being on earth who could make anything like the world we see around us.  This divine being must be at the very least, long lived, if not eternal, because in order for him to create the universe and everything in it, he would have had to have been around long before creation took place.  In fact, in the book of Romans, Paul reminds us, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Romans 1:20, NIV)

In such a simple way, Paul reminds us of our Lord’s amazing wisdom in revealing himself as he does!  For in the same way the wisdom of the builders is clear from the ways they built the Pyramids, Skyscrapers and the International Space Station, so also our God reveals his wisdom, his strength, his eternal power and his divine nature through the very things he has created for us!

Yet, these are not the only things that the Lord has revealed about himself, nor is this the only way the Lord our God reveals himself to us so that we can know him.  For the truth is, the Lord has also revealed himself by writing his will, his law upon our very hearts, which is something that Paul also reminds us of in chapter two of his letter to the Romans.  “There is no favoritism with God. 12 All those who sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all those who sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous. 14 So, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts will either accuse or excuse them 16 on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus." (Romans 2:11–16, HCSB)

In short, Paul is telling us what we already know.  It doesn’t matter if we’ve been taught the Law of God or not.  The Lord our God has revealed himself to each and every person, by writing, branding if you will, his Law upon our hearts.  He has given each and every one of us a conscience—a conscience, which gives us a moral compass; a moral compass that helps us to know the difference between right and wrong.  For in the same way that the gauges in the cockpit of an airplane monitor the status of the flight and alert the pilot of something has gone wrong, so also our conscience monitors or watches over our conduct and alerts us when something is wrong.  It’s that little voice inside of us that condemns us for our sinful actions.  It’s that little voice that accuses us of doing wrong when we do not follow or live up to God’s commands.  It’s that feeling of shame that floods over us when we know we haven’t acted honorably.  It is that knowledge that just as our parents punished us when we were naughty, so also our righteous God will punish us for breaking his Law.

Yet, even as our conscience reveals our God to be a righteous God who punishes sins, it also assures us and comforts us when we do the right thing.  It is also that little voice of congratulations when we follow the will of our God.  It is that feeling of pride when we know we did the right thing.  The problem, however, is that even our conscience can become clouded and confused.  They can be taught to believe that innocent things like card playing and dancing are absolutely sinful.  (How many of your parents or even grand-parents were conscience bound by ideas like this?)  Not only that, but our consciences can even come to terms with sinful actions, accepting them as good things, and even going so far as to approve of and encourage those who practice the same things, if we continue to ignore our conscience or fill them with the idea that what we’re doing isn’t all that bad anyway.  This is exactly what Paul is talking about when he writes in another place in his letter to the Romans, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." (Romans 1:32, NIV84)

These are but two of the ways that the Lord our God has revealed himself to us so that we might know who he is.  But if truth be told, if these two ways, through nature and through our conscience, if these two revelations had been all that we knew about the Lord our God, then we would be very miserable indeed!  Even though we would know about his eternal power, his divine nature, and his glorious wisdom from the very things he had created; from the Law that the Lord had written on our hearts, we would also know that we did not measure up to his standards.  Even though we might be able to cloud our consciences and sooth them into believing that our sinful actions were actually God pleasing, deep down we would still know that we deserved nothing but God’s punishment.  We would never be able to know if we had done enough to please him or if he even loved us, or if he even remotely cared about us.  If all we knew about our God came to us from his creation and our consciences, then the guilt we felt over all the things we had done wrong would continue to fester and bubble in our hearts until it finally boiled over and filled our hearts and our lives with despair.  Despair from which there could be no escape except for us to completely turn away from the Lord and seek salvation from ourselves and from the world around us.  For in the same way that a dashboard light can only tell you that something is wrong with your car and not how to fix it, so also our conscience can only tell us that something is wrong with us.  Neither our knowledge of creation nor the pangs of our conscience can ever tell us how we can fix it.

But thanks be to God that he has not only revealed himself through the dashboard lights of creation and conscience, but he has also revealed himself to us through the instruction manual of his Word.  For in the same way that instruction manuals help mechanics find and fix the problem when a dashboard light comes on, so also it is through the instruction manual of his Word that our God has reveals himself to us and shows us exactly how he fixes our problems with sin.  Just as we sang this morning, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:31, NIV84)

Though we can truly learn a great deal about our God from the things he reveals to us through his creation and our conscience, neither of these can ever teach us about Jesus Christ our Savior.  For it is only through the work the Holy Spirit accomplishes in our hearts Holy Scriptures, that we come to faith in Jesus.  It is only through the Holy Scriptures, which many of us have known since we were infants that we have been made wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior! (see 2 Timothy 3:15)  It is only through the Holy Scriptures that we know how the Lord our God revealed his plan to save the human race already back in creation when he promised Adam and Eve, “And I will put enmity (hostility) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15, NIV84)  It is only through the Scriptures that God revealed how and where the Savior would be born when he promised, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14, NIV84)  and “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” (Micah 5:2, NIV84)

It is only in the pages of the Scriptures that we have the account of Jesus’ birth, announced in Luke 1 and completely revealed in Luke 2.  It is only in the pages of the Scriptures where we have the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John telling us all about Jesus, how he was born and how he lived a perfect and holy life, how he preached and taught the message of salvation wherever he went, and how he willingly gave up his life in our place and rose again from the dead, just as the Prophets of old that foretold.  It is in the Bible where we have the records of the Apostles going out and preaching and teaching the saving truth of salvation to all people.  We have the records of those who taught the word to assure us that when Jesus went to his death he went in our place.  When Jesus went to the cross he took every one of our sins with him and paid the price that God demanded.  Now, because of what the Lord our God has revealed to us in the pages of the Holy Scriptures, we have the assurance that through faith in Jesus all our sins and wrongdoings have been forgiven.  We have the assurance that eternal life is waiting for us in heaven.  In short, it is through the Bible that the Lord our God completely reveals himself to us through his Son, our Savior, in whom we believe because the Holy Spirit has worked through that word and created faith in our hearts; faith which knows exactly who the Lord our God truly is.

Now, because of this, we know who our God truly is.  We know that he is the all powerful Lord who created all that exists by his eternal power and divine nature.  We know that he is our glorious Savior because “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14, NIV84) We know that we are in a right relationship with him because through faith in his Son our Savior, we now know the Lord who “blots out our transgressions for his own sake and remembers our sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25, NIV84) 

We know all these things about the Lord our God, and even more than that, because these are the things that the Lord our God has revealed about himself in the pages of the Scriptures.  He has revealed them to us so that we might know him, even as he knows us and loves us.  Though we have not yet met the Lord our God face to face, we know him just as well as we know each other, if not better than that, because through faith in Jesus—faith created in our hearts by the Holy Spirit—we have a personal relationship with the Lord our God.  We have a personal relationship with the Lord our God, and we know exactly who our God is because he has completely revealed himself to us so that we can know him.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

Remember God's grace in troubled times (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

July 22, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

Memory is a funny thing!  It never seems to be nearly as reliable as we think it should be.  For example, two hours from now, what I remember about what happened in church may be completely different than what you remember.  In fact, if you and your husband, or your wife, or your children should decide to discuss the sermon as you are eating lunch today, I guarantee that each and every one of you would remember the sermon differently.  You would remember it differently because each one of you would remember the things that specifically spoke to you, or moved you in one way or another.  You may even find that while you remember a specific sentence, your husband, your wife, or even your children may not remember that sentence, but will remember the sentence spoken immediately before it or after it, while you, yourself will have no memory of either of those sentences!  What is it about our memory that makes it so easy for us to remember some things and not others?  What is it about our memory that allows us to forget almost all of the bad things that happened in our lives when we are enjoying good times, but at the same time does not allow us to remember many of the good times when we are living in troubled times?   Though I could easily spend a whole sermon simply trying to answer those questions, you have not come here to learn about your memory!  Rather, you have gathered here today to be reminded of God’s grace and how he lavishes it on you, especially in troubled times.

Now, if there was one person who was intimately familiar with God’s grace, it was the Apostle Paul.  After all, through the pages of the Scriptures, we have been privileged to see exactly how the hand of the Lord was at work in Paul’s life.  Though we met him as Saul, the man who stood watching over the cloaks of the men who were murdering Stephen, and giving approval to their actions, not much later, we saw the Lord Jesus at work in Saul’s life, granting him grace, calling him to faith, and sending him out into the world to preach the Gospel to all nations.  Though there were many times and many ways that Paul saw the Lord at work revealing his grace even in times of trouble, Paul relates a very unexpected way in which he was reminded of the Lord’s grace as the Lord’s hand was at work in Paul’s life.  Paul writes, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7–10, NIV84)

To keep Paul from becoming conceited because of the incredible visions the Lord had given him, the Lord’s hand was at work in Paul’s life, sending Paul a messenger of satan to torment him.  Though Paul prayed to the Lord and pleaded with the Lord that the Lord would remove this thorn from his side, the Lord’s answer was simple, “My grace is sufficient for you.”  Though it may seem strange that the Lord our God would work in this manner, by giving this thorn, the Lord was causing Paul to continue looking to the Lord for help so that the Lord might continue to remind Paul of the grace he lavishes on his people, especially in times of trouble like we are facing today!

After all, what hardships aren’t we facing today?  Well, we are living in a world where sin has become the accepted norm.  Christian values have been set aside as old fashioned and out dated, just like Amos faced when no one wanted to hear the message of God’s judgment upon Israel.  Sadly, like it was in the days of Amos the prophet, God’s Word has become an inconvenient truth that must be changed into a message of soft platitudes that will serve as salve to many an itching ear.  Not only that, but it is becoming acceptable and even expected that children as young as fourth and fifth grade will begin to explore their own sexuality, and begin to discover if their attractions lie with the similar or the opposite sex.  It has become expected that teens and college students will have multiple partners until they finally settle down by moving in with someone, bring children into the relationship, and then maybe after a long, drawn out trial period, they might finally decide that they should get married.  Even though, in many cases they, have taught that this is not pleasing to the Lord.

We are living in a nation where over 38 million unborn children were legally murdered in our country between 1973 and 2005 , not to mention the millions that were legally murdered in countries all around the world.  Add to that the children whose lives are being terminated because pre-natal screening has determined that there is a good chance that they will be born with Down’s syndrome or some other birth defect.  Not only is that, but assisted suicide, which has been accepted in many other nations around the world, beginning to be accepted here in America, as both Washington State and Oregon have laws allowing assisted suicide.  From this it is easy to wonder how long it will be until assisted suicide becomes mandatory for those with certain injuries, diseases, defects, or even for those who have reached a certain age.  All the while God’s Word goes unheeded and those who speak out against these things are simply disregarded.

Not only that, but we are facing a global recession that some say is shortly coming to an end, others say has a way to go before it is over, and still others are predicting will become a world wide depression in the next year or two.  We are living in a country that is no longer united like it used to be, but is divided over so many issues—the war, the economy, governmental spending, political ideology, even religion and sexuality—as God and same sex rights have been the subject of many court battles.  Add to that the politically charged topic of same sex marriage, which is on the ballot this November, and all the advertisement seeking to make Christians feel that they cannot and should not stand up for the truth of God’s Word.

Yet, besides all this, what other thorn do you have poking in your side?  Do you have a difficult time controlling your temper?  Do you struggle to control your alcohol intake?  Do you suffer from depression?  Are you dealing with a medical condition?  Do you feel alienated from all your friends or your family?  Are you unemployed?  Are you struggling financially?  Are you experiencing a major change in your life right now?  Are you enduring something else, something unusual, something unexpected, something out of the ordinary?  Then listen again to what Paul has to tell you, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7–10, NIV84)

Though dealing with a thorn in the flesh is never a fun experience, it is something which the Lord places in our lives to remind us of his all sufficient grace.  It is something that the Lord does to force us to take our eyes off ourselves, point them heaven ward, fall to our knees and open our mouths in prayer.  It is in this way that the Lord seeks to draw us closer to himself even as he reminds us of the grace that he has lavished upon us.  For the grace our Lord has lavished upon us is the full measure of grace in Christ Jesus our Savior!  It is the grace that has been made perfect even in our weaknesses!  For, before we were even weak, when we were nothing more than road kill on the highway to hell, it was our Savior who found us and enlivened us with his love.  It was our Savior who healed us with his grace.  It was our Savior who restored us with the salve of his forgiveness and then led us of the highway of destruction to the path of eternal life.  It was our Savior who continues to remind us of his grace and his love for us as he walks beside us on the path to heaven.  It is our Savior who even assures us that no matter what we face in this life, though we may feel weak, though we may even be weak, his power is made perfect in our weakness, because his grace is sufficient for us!

So, even though we are living in a world that has accepted sin as normal, disregarded Christian values, seeks to ignore God’s Word, and simply refuses to listen to those who proclaim the truth, we will continue to live in the grace of Christ our Savior.  Though we are living in a world where we seem weak when our children and others fail to heed parental and pastoral admonition against sexual sins and living together before marriage, our strength to continue proclaiming God’s truth comes to us from the grace he bestows upon us by faith.  Though very few people heed what we have to say make known what the Lord has to say about abortion, and suicide, God’s strength is made complete in our weakness as we follow his will and speak his judgment against those who refuse to listen and his forgiveness to those who turn to him in repentance.  Though there are many who are trying as hard as they can to eliminate God from every aspect of our lives and even seeking to do away with those who clearly speak God’s Word, we are still strong.  We are strong in the grace that our Savior has lavished upon us, the grace of the forgiveness of sins; the grace, which assures us that our Savior will never leave us nor forsake us; the grace that assures us that no matter what we face, we belong to the Lord our God.

What greater reminder could the Lord give us today than the reminder of his grace and his love for us!  Though our memories might be selective at times and our personal memories may not always agree with our husband’s memory, our wife’s memory, or even our children’s, today we have been reminded and assured of the Lord’s grace.  For it is through his grace that we are strong through faith in our Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN