God Can't Want Your Worst Series

5 Things God Can’t Do – 2) God Can’t Want your Worst. Luke 15:15-24

Gladstone Baptist Church – 9/1/05 pm

(Adapted from “Things that are impossible for God, Part 1 – It’s impossible for God to Want your Worst” by Doug Fields)

Last week we started this series on 5 things God Can’t Do. Last week we spoke about the fact that God can’t lie because it is against his nature. God is Truth. Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life. God can’t lie because if He did, he wouldn’t be the truth. He wouldn’t be God and God can’t not be God.

The fact that God can’t lie had some major implications for us. It meant that we could Hold onto God’s promises. We could believe them – all of them, because God doesn’t say something and then not follow through on it. We can also trust God’s motives – His motives are good. And third, we can Rest in the Truth that is God.

So God Can’t lie. That’s the first thing God can’t do. The second thing that God can’t do is to want your worst. God can’t want your worst. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, God can’t want your worst. Instead he wants the best for you.

That is so very different from us isn’t it!!! When someone does something bad to us, we want the worst to happen to them. We want them to suffer some pain. If someone cuts you off on the road when you are driving or overtakes you at a speed that is at least 140km/hr. Do you wave nicely and blow them a kiss. No you want something bad to happen to them. Hopefully you don’t make any obscene gestures, but you might beep your horn or flash your lights to show your disapproval, all the while hoping that a speed trap is up the road waiting just for them. When someone does something bad to us, we want something even worse to happen to them. Even if we don’t do anything we think it don’t we!!!

What is this called – one little word beginning with R - We want REVENGE. Revenge – it rolls off the tongue so easily doesn’t it. Revenge is so sweet. A Bit like this picture!!! This year at SUPAWAC (Beach Mission for all you uninitiated), there were a few practical jokes happening. One day, Dave Kammolz found his tent had sought shelter inside someone else’s tent. One afternoon one of the girls dome tents had mysteriously found its way onto the end of a piece of rope and was attached to the ceiling of the shed at the Baptist Church. Dangling approximately 4m off the floor, it was relatively useless to the owners. Another morning most of the hair brushes belonging to the fairer sex had gone missing, though were soon discovered frozen in a block of ice in the freezer. Now as you can imagine, those that were on the receiving end of these pranks, did some investigating and found out who some of the key instigators were and proceeded to buy chocolates for them, pamper them with love and wait on them with hand and foot at every meal – NOT. They wanted revenge!!! They didn’t want the best for the pranksters, they wanted the worst and as a result a few other practical jokes were played on our director – John Spranklin. His tent was padlocked shut and all windows zipped shut (while he was in it) and he was left for a time to sweat in the sauna like tent. His UP’s (Underpants) were also confiscated and became gladwrapped to some of the support poles holding up the shed for all to admire – not a pretty sight. These malicious acts were perpetrated not for John’s best – but for his worst.

You see, as humans, we seek revenge. We seek to make others pay dearly for their mistakes. But God isn’t like that. God can’t want your worst. He wants your VERY BEST.

The best way I can illustrate this to you is to read you a story that Jesus told. He was trying to explain about how great God is. It’s a story of a father and of a son. Some of you who may have grown up in the church, know this story that Jesus told. Instead of dozing off to sleep because you’ve heard it like 100 times, listen to it today with fresh ears and see if God speaks to you about his love.

Jesus was describing God’s love and He tells this story. Luke 15:15, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate’.’” Imagine going to your dad and saying, “There’s just two of us. You’re going to die and when you do, I get half and my brother gets half. I want my half now.” What a major slap in the face. The message he’s saying to his dad is “You might as well be DEAD because what you have is more important to me than who you are.” Imagine you had 2 kids and one of them said this to you. How do you think you would feel? What do you think your reaction would be? Would you want the best or the worst for your selfish son?