Kids, have you ever passed notes to your friends during class? I never did that of course because I was a very serious student, but my friends would do that and every now and then one of those notes would be intercepted by the teacher. How do you suppose the author of the note felt about that? Well no one likes it when others read notes not meant for them. You would complain if Mom or Dad should stand over your shoulder reading your texts as you punch them into your phone. Companies and governments pay big money to keep their emails from being hacked and read by outsiders.
As we continue our sermon series on the Lutheran/Biblical mind, we’re going to learn that God feels the same way about information he has not shared with us. He doesn’t want us prying into his hidden will. Instead he wants us to seek and to be content with his revealed will. Listen to our text from Isaiah 45.
As you’ll remember from our Bible study on Isaiah, that prophet lived about 700 years before the time of Christ. He had been sent to warn the Israelites of coming judgment. Because of their impenitence, God was going to send the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and its temple. This was meant to shake the superstitious confidence of the Israelites who thought that as long as they had the temple, nothing really bad could ever happen to them. But that would be like supposing that because we are baptized, God will bail us out of any trouble we get ourselves into. The Israelites found out, however, that there are consequences for sin. They ended up as captives in Babylon for 70 years, while we might end up losing friends or our health because we insist on living on our sinful terms rather than God’s.
Although God would send his people into exile far from their home for 70 years, he would bring them back, and he would use a Persian king named Cyrus to do it. But this puzzled the Israelites. If God was going to work a new exodus, why use a heathen foreigner instead of another Jewish “Moses”? God addressed that questioning attitude when he said in our text: “Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’… 11 This is what the LORD says—the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: ‘Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? 12 It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts. 13 I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward,’ says the LORD Almighty” (Isaiah 45:9, 11-13).
Why did God use the Persian king Cyrus instead of raising up an Israelites like a descendent of King David to lead the Israelites back? I don’t know. God never gives a reason. Oh, we might guess. Perhaps it’s because he wanted to humble the Israelites to make it clear that their return wouldn’t be accomplished by their cunning. Or perhaps in this way God was reaching out to King Cyrus and calling him to faith. Those are plausible reasons, but we can’t say for certain one way or another.
Similarly we might question what God is doing in our lives. We might wonder: “Why did God lead me to choose the spouse that I did?” “Why did he give me the parents I have?” Or we might wonder about our future. “Where does God want me to go to school?” “What career path should I pursue?” “Should we buy a house or should we rent?” How can we find out what God’s will is in these matters? Many Christians would say by praying and then doing what God “puts in your heart.” But God has never promised to speak to us that way. That gut feeling you have urging you to buy that new car might really just be the previous night’s perogies. Listen to what our text states: “Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and Savior of Israel… [Then the Lord said:] ‘19 I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right’” (Isaiah 45:15, 19).
On one hand the prophet Isaiah describes God as one who hides himself. When it came to why he was going to use Cyrus to restore the Jews to their homeland, God’s will remained hidden, and it was none of the Israelites’ business to try to figure it out. On the other hand, God himself declared that he is not a God whose ways are unintelligible because what he wants us to know he has spoken clearly in his Word. The Lutheran/Biblical mind therefore seeks God’s revealed will and does not concern itself with God’s hidden will. Moses emphasized the same truth in this farewell speech: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law… 11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it” (Deuteronomy 29:29; 30:11-14).
God hasn’t said that he will point out the person you are to marry. From our perspective, you are free to marry anyone you choose. But when you do commit to someone in marriage God’s will is that you love each other until he himself ends the marriage by taking one of you to his side. You go against God’s clear will if you should say, “But, I’m just not happy in this relationship. I feel that God is urging me to move on for everyone’s benefit and peace of mind.” That feeling to move on isn’t coming from God, but from the sinful nature.
Likewise God hasn’t told you where you should live, or what kind of house to buy. But he has warned us about making decisions that will stunt our spiritual health. So while it would not be a sin to move to a city or province that doesn’t have a true-teaching church, you should ask how you would feed your faith in such a place because from God’s revealed will you know that faith comes from hearing the Word.
The great blessing about knowing the difference between God’s hidden and revealed will is that you can make decisions out of faith rather than fear. Take my decision to accept the call to serve in Antigua. It was the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make. Was it the “right” decision? That’s not the question a Lutheran/Biblical mind asks because it implies that there was a wrong choice, a sinful choice in the matter. What I had were two good choices. Serving in either place (St. Albert or Antigua) was something I could do to God’s glory. So God didn’t ask me to try to climb into his mind to figure out what his hidden will in the matter was. Instead he wanted me to use his revealed will to guide my decision. So if I was tempted to take the call simply to avoid winter, or if I was tempted to decline the call because I didn’t want the bother of moving, God’s revealed will would challenge me to check my motivation. Would either decision bring glory to God, or simply satisfy my lazy sinful nature?
I don’t know how moving to Antigua will turn out for my family, nor do I know how a vacancy will affect this congregation. That’s in the domain of God’s hidden will. But I do know that God will be with both of us—that’s what he has promised in his revealed will. Therefore this next chapter is not one that either of us have to undergo with trepidation. When Isaiah stated that God hides himself, we shouldn’t understand this to mean that he avoids us—as if we’re playing a cosmic shell game with him, and that we can only enjoy his blessings if we make the “right” choices in matters where you have two good options. While God may hide his will from us, he does not hide himself from us. Consider the words God gave to Aaron, the first high priest. He was to say to God’s people: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26). No, God doesn’t avoid us. He has promised to turn his face to us and shine on us with his love.
We are certain of this because when one of Jesus’ disciples asked him to reveal the Father to them, Jesus said that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9). And we have seen Jesus. We meet him in his Word and in the Sacrament where he wraps his loving arms around us and takes our burdens to carry. He quietly points to his nail-marked hands as proof of payment for our sins the way someone at the Servus Place leisure centre will show an attendant the color bracelet he was given to prove that he or someone else paid his admission.
So dear friends, continue to seek God’s revealed will. If you do, you’ll realize how it doesn’t matter that you don’t know his hidden will. It’s like being on a cruise. You may not know how the captain steers that giant ship, or how the chefs prepare all that food, but you’re confident it will be done so that you’ll make it to your destination and enjoy great food along the way! In the same way through God’s revealed will you are assured that your savior Jesus is captaining your life. Does this mean that you can just sit back and relax then and “float” through life? Well no, because you are a crewmember on this voyage and not just a passenger. Although you won’t contribute to your arrival in heaven (that’s all God’s doing), you will have ample opportunity to make decisions that will chart the path you take to get there (like will I serve him in St. Albert or in Antigua!). Keep making those decisions out of faith rather than fear as you keep seeking God’s revealed will rather than his hidden will. Amen.
