Most people would agree, I think, that our society is becoming increasingly impersonal. More and more of the daily activities that used to involve contact with another human being are being automated. For instance, some of us are old enough to remember the days before telephone answering machines and voice mail. In those days, when you called someone on the phone, they either answered or they didn’t. And if they did, you would be talking with a real live person. No recordings, no computerized voice synthesizers. Another living creature. Sounds rather quaint, doesn’t it? Using a telephone to have a conversation, instead of just using it to leave messages? These days, if you call any business larger than the local pharmacy, you are almost certain to get voice mail, a recorded message with a list of various options and which buttons to push. But woe to the hard-of-hearing or inattentive person who doesn’t listen carefully, and who pushes the wrong button. You will descend in to the fourth circle of voice-mail hell, never to escape. They will find your lifeless body slouched over the receiver, while over and over the message plays, "Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line. Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line."
And it’s not just voice mail. It’s everywhere you go. You can literally go through the day without a significant encounter with another human being. When you stop for gas, not only is there no gas station attendant (you know, the guys who used to pump your gas), but you don’t even have to go inside to pay. You don’t have to talk to a cashier. You just slip your credit card in the pump and away you go. At the grocery store, they’ve replaced half the checkout lines with scanners that you operate yourself. The ATM has replaced the bank teller.
I grew up in a small town, and I know first-hand that there are benefits and drawbacks to living in a small town, just like anywhere else. But one of the benefits of small town life is that it is personal. More personal than some people would like, in fact, but nevertheless, it’s definitely personal. Your doctor knows who you are. You’re not just another name on a list of HMO subscribers. Your mailman is a deacon at your church. The people on the school board are your neighbors. The mayor is your daughter’s high school math teacher. The chief of police is a guy you went to school with. No, it’s not Mayberry-RFD. Small towns have their problems, too. But one problem they don’t usually have is being too cold and impersonal. And that’s one reason why a lot of people are moving out of the cities and suburbs and back into the small towns. An article in the Dec. 8, 1997 issue of TIME magazine stated that since 1990, two million more Americans moved from cities to rural areas than moved in the other direction. In other words, we’re in the midst of a net migration out of metropolitan areas and into small towns. Now, I’m sure there are several reasons for this trend, including crime rates, cost of living, the desire for a slower pace of life, but I believe part of the appeal is that on a deep level, we all want and need contact with other people. It’s what made the TV show "Cheers" so appealing: people want to go where everybody knows their name, where they can walk into a PTA meeting or a school board meeting or a town council meeting, and they don’t need any introductions because they already know everybody there. People are rebelling against the depersonalization of modern life, and they’re seeking a sense of connection; a sense of community, in small towns.
That’s the background. But my sermon this morning isn’t about urban and rural population trends. Nor is it about the depersonalizing effects of modern technology. It’s about that need, that yearning we all have, to be connected. To be known. To have someone acknowledge our existence as an individual. What we all want so desperately is to be understood on a deep, fundamental level, and not only understood, but accepted.
In the past, you may remember, I’ve argued in sermons that the church is the ideal place for this kind of connection and this kind of community to happen. For one thing, we believe in the dignity and worth of every person, because we know that every person is created by God in His image. Not only that, but we have an understanding of life that tends to break down the barriers between people. We know that each of us is deeply flawed and ruined by sin, that all of us are in constant need of God’s grace and forgiveness, that our only hope for salvation is in the perfect life and substitutionary death of another person, Jesus Christ. And because of that, none of us has any reason to boast, none of us has any reason to think of ourselves as being somehow better than others. There’s nothing in us to commend us to God; nothing we can do to earn his acceptance or favor. In the final analysis, when it comes to God, we are all beggars and debtors. But because God has accepted us in Christ, we can rejoice together. We can accept one another, with all of our flaws, just as God has accepted us.
And that’s all still true. So if anyone here this morning is thinking of themselves as somehow superior to others, as somehow less in need of God’s grace and forgiveness than the person sitting next to you, then I urge you to repent and humble yourself before God. Because if you don’t humble yourself, then God, in love, will eventually do it for you.
But my topic this morning isn’t the church either. It’s God. Specifically, it’s the love of God. More specifically, it’s the fact that God’s love, unlike so many things in our world today, is personal. What I want you to understand, and receive, is that God is the answer to the deepest needs of the human heart. God knows us better than we know ourselves. Every harsh word, every hidden evil. And yet, God loves us more passionately and more powerfully than we can possibly imagine. He remembers our history, he’s aware of our flaws, he grieves over our sins, and yet he loves us with an eternal, unchanging, unbounded love. There’s nothing like it in the universe. His love for us is absolute. And his love for us is personal.
When I say that God’s love for his people is "personal," here’s what I mean. I mean that God sets his love on individuals. People, with names, and histories, and futures. God doesn’t just love generalities, like "mankind". I’ve met some people who love "children" - so innocent, and cute, and carefree. They just don’t care for the boys and girls that they’ve actually come into contact with. Those kids - noisy, dirty, inconvenient - those particular kids, they can do without. What they really love is the idea of childhood. But God isn’t like that. God doesn’t love abstractions. He loves individuals. Real people.
God’s love is personal because He is a personal being. He is not the impersonal "Force" of Star Wars. He is not Karma. He is not just Ultimate Reality, or the "ground of all being". He is not merely the force behind an endless cycle of birth, death, and renewal. God is personal. And He relates to us in a personal way; not merely as a part of Creation, not just as members of a group, but as individuals. For example, the Psalmist writes in Psalm 139,
1O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. . .7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
Could anyone read that and continue to think of God as some impersonal force, some vague divine power unconnected with me and my life? What the Psalmist is saying is that God’s knowledge of us is absolutely comprehensive, in every conceivable way. He always knows where we are, and knows exactly what we’re doing. There is literally nowhere that we can go, in heaven or on earth, where He will be unable to observe us. He knows how we think: it says that he "perceives our thoughts from afar," and that "Before a word is on my tongue, He knows it completely." In other words, he knows what we’re going to say before we say it. One of the reasons he knows us so well is that He is the one who made us, who formed us. Listen as we continue in Psalm 139:
13For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
God did not suddenly "discover" us when we turned eighteen, or when we got married, or when we were baptized. It wasn’t even at our birth that he first took notice of us. It was before then, before our mother and father even knew we existed. From the very beginning, God has been intimately involved in each one of our lives. Because He’s the one who knit us together in our mother’s wombs. You can’t get much more personal than that. In fact, it’s not even accurate to say that God first came to know us at conception. Because the truth is that He knew us before we were ever conceived. He knew us as his precious children even before the world came into existence:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will" - Ephesians 1:3-5
Is this a good thing, the fact that God knows us personally, and intimately, and completely? Not if you’re trying to avoid God. Not if you’re trying to hide your sin. But if you’re a Christian, the answer is Yes. If you’re a Christian, then you can know and rejoice that God has chosen you and predestined you to be one of His children; not only before you were born, but before the world was born. You have been in his mind and heart since before Adam and Eve walked in the garden of Eden.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." - Romans 8:28-30
Paul is talking about specific people here; specific people whom God foreknew, and predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified. Now, why is Paul talking about predestination? Why is he making the point that God knew us personally before we were ever born? Is it so that we can have interesting philosophical discussions about God’s sovereignty and man’s free will? No. Paul’s purpose was to assure us of God’s unchanging love toward us. His point is this: God has loved you - you, Linda; you, Bill; you, Charlene; you, Gary - from eternity past, from before time began. And God will love you into eternity future. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, then there is nothing that can separate you from God’s love. You are his; He knows you. He has always known you. Listen as we continue in Romans 8:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:35-39
I’d like to look at one more passage to show you that God’s love is personal and individual. Listen to the words of Christ in John 10:
"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice." - John 10:1-5
I want you to notice something here. How does the shepherd call the sheep out of the sheep-pen and out to pasture? He calls his own sheep "by name". Individually. Personally. He doesn’t just stand there and call, "Here, sheepy-sheepy-sheep. C’mon, sheep. Let’s go, sheep." No. He calls them by name. To him, they are not just an undifferentiated mass of wool and mutton. They are individuals whom he cares for individually. A shepherd in these days spent virtually all of this time with his animals. By day, he watched over them. By night, he would sleep in the sheep-pen with them, to protect them from predators or thieves. He grew to know each one’s personality and idiosyncrasies. So in his mind, he was not out there in the pasture just watching over a "herd". He was protecting and providing for each individual animal. In the same way, our shepherd is Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, the shepherd beyond compare. And his love for us is personal and individual. Therefore, our relationship with God is secure. No one can ever separate us from God’s love.
Again, Jesus says, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand." - John 10:27-29
So. What difference does all this make? What difference does it make to us that God is a personal being who relates to us personally, as individuals.
Well, let me ask you a question. Imagine that you were not a Christian. Imagine that you were a Buddhist, or a Hindu, or a New Ager, or a practitioner of any other religion which does not believe in a personal God. How would your religious practice be any different? A Buddhist could attend a religious service, or listen to a religious lecture, or sing, as we do here. A Confucian might read a "holy" book and try to live by its precepts. So what would be missing? Prayer. Prayer is an act of communion with a personal God. You can’t pray to Karma, or universal consciousness, or enlightenment. You can only pray to a personal being. What does that mean? It means that if you are not praying, then your religion is practically indistinguishable from those religions which have no concept of a personal God. Because you are saying by your actions (or inaction), that such a God does not exist. Or if he does exist, that you have no interest in having a relationship with Him. What’s the good of having a personal God if you won’t do the main thing that is necessary in order for you to experience Him as such? You might as well be a Buddhist. The main consequence of God’s love being personal is that we can have a personal relationship with him. But if you’re not going to cultivate that relationship through prayer, then what’s the difference between someone who claims to follow Christ and one who follows Confucius? Not much.
Let me give you a few more implications of this truth, that God’s love is personal. First, it means that there is no reason to hide from God, no need to conceal ourselves from him. There is nothing we can reveal which will change his attitude toward us. He already knows! And He still loves us! We cannot surprise him. His love for us is passionate, perfect, and unchanging, no matter what we do. So we are free with Him, as we are with no other person, to be completely open, to express our thoughts and feelings fully in prayer, without fear of condemnation or rejection. With God, we can be completely honest and unguarded. Isn’t that great? What freedom!
Second, it means that our circumstances are an expression of God’s love for us. God loves us completely, all the time. It is impossible for him to relate to us in any other way but in love. His wrath and anger were poured out on Christ in our place, so he never acts toward us in anger, only in love. But since his lover for us is personal and individual, that means that everything he brings into our lives, even suffering or disappointment, must be an expression of his love for us. God’s love is personal and individual; therefore, our individual circumstances are always an expression of His love for us.
Third and finally, it means that our love must be personal. God calls us to imitate Him. His love is the model for our love. And so it’s not enough to love people in the abstract. It’s not enough to love groups or categories of people. God calls us to love individuals; specifically, he calls us to love one another. The people we meet as we go through the day. The people in this room. We can’t just love people in theory; we have to love the people God has actually put in our lives.Are you doing that? Are you loving as God loves, toward these people. If not, then start now. Find a need and meet it. Encourage someone. Pray with someone. Watch someone’s kids for an afternoon. Share some of your resources. Use your imagination. Take some initiative. But love them the way that God loves us.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
