The Good and the Not Good
Two weeks ago, Diana, the Princess of Wales, was tragically killed in a high-speed car accident in Paris.
Just over a week ago, millions from around the world watched her funeral, one of the most emotional and memorable spectacles of this century.
There are many things that could be said about Diana’s life, and the many tributes to her life, and about the amazing exhibition of grief that accompanied her death.
But one of the things I want to focus on this morning, is the vivid contrast many felt during the week between her death and her funeral, a contrast between Diana herself and the royal House of Windsor.
Many people saw Diana’s warm, caring, giving image as the antithesis of the stodgy, reserved Queen Elizabeth and her heir, Prince Charles. Some said Diana represented a “new royalty,” one that smiled,
and hugged,
and cried,
and cared. . . .
And when Buckingham Palace failed to respond to her death with a public statement or appearance for five days after her death, well, that was seen as an illustration of the
aloof,
cold,
uncaring family the poor princess had married into, an image that has made the monarchy seem
unnecessary and irrelevant to many.
I mention all that simply to say this:
That image of the House of Windsor:
aloof, cold, uncaring, unnecessary, irrelevant,
is the impression many people have
of you and me,
of Christians,
of the church.
They see us as an unnecessary,
uncaring,
outdated,
irrelevant
institution that is totally out of touch with them,
their lives,
and their needs.
It may even be your impression of the church.
I believe that impression in the hearts and minds of many people is a direct result of the fact that we have misread,
misunderstood, and
misapplied God’s Word.
That’s something I hope we can correct this morning.
Would you pray with me, please?
Father,
I pray that in these next few moments,
both my speaking
and our hearing
will be the work of Your Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Would you turn in your Bibles, please, and follow along in Genesis, chapters one and two, as I read aloud from the inspired Word of God.
Genesis, chapter one:
It’s in the Old Testament, the first book in the Bible. . . .
I want to ask you, first, to notice what happens in the account of creation in chapter one.
In verses 1-10:
God created the heavens and earth,
separated the light from the darkness,
separated earth and sky, land and sea,
and then in verse 10, it says, “God saw that it was good.”
Are you with me?
Next, notice that in verses 11 & 12:
God created all kinds of vegetation,
plants and trees,
and then at the end of verse 12, it says, “God saw that it was good.”
Are you still with me?
In verses 14-18:
He created the sun, moon, and stars,
and in verse 18, we read again, “God saw that it was good.”
Again in verse 21, after He created sea creatures and flying creatures,
And yet again in verse 25, after creating land animals of every shape and variety,
we read that “God saw that it was good.”
Throughout chapter one,
God repeatedly looks at His creation,
like an artist stepping back to judge his canvas,
and with each new act of creation, He says,
“It’s good,”
“It’s good,”
“It’s good,”
“It’s good,”
“It’s good.”
BUT I want you to notice that, in the account of creation that is found in chapter two, a retelling of sorts to make a different point,
we read, beginning in chapter 2, verse 15,
Genesis 2:15:
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good....”
NOTICE: God said, “It is not good.”
Throughout the 6 days of Creation to this point, God has pronounced everything good, yet here, in Genesis 2:18 he says, “It is not good. . . .”
Now, when you or I say something’s “not good,” it’s not such a big deal. BUT WHEN GOD SHOWS UP ON THE SCENE AND SAYS, “NOT GOOD,” IT’S A VERY BIG DEAL, IT’S A CRISIS!
So what was the crisis? What could possibly be “not good” about the Garden of Eden?
After all, Adam lived in a perfect world.
There was no death,
no disease,
no poverty,
no pain,
no conflict,
no crime,
no crying,
no hunger,
no hatred,
no pollution,
no politicians,
no traffic jams,
no exams . . . .
It was paradise!
He had everything he could need or want.
He was in a perfect world and owned it all.
Most importantly, even above all the physical, material blessings and benefits he enjoyed,
Adam enjoyed an intimate relationship with God.
They walked and talked in unbroken fellowship.
They communed together face-to-face.
You and I might talk about having a “quiet time” with God; Adam could boast of literally being with God, living, talking, walking with Him.
Yet, in such an ideal setting, something was still “not good.”
Well, you know, “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey would put it. . . .
Look again at Genesis 2:18:
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
What was the “trouble in paradise?” What was the “not good” that followed the “good?”
It was this: Adam was still missing a vital ingredient to human wholeness. . . . relationship!
But this scene in the Garden reminds us
that God created human beings with needs.
•He made us with physical needs:
We know that God created us to need oxygen -- can’t go very long without it.
We know God created us to need food -- some of us can’t go more than a few minutes without it (AND IT SHOWS!).
•God also created Adam with spiritual needs, a need for relationship with God. As Augustine said,
“Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”
We all have an inborn need to know and relate to the God who created us.
•But God also created each one of us with needs that could be met only in relationship with other human beings.
That was apparent almost from the first moment of your life. Even when your diaper was dry, your tummy was full, and you had just awakened from restful, refreshing sleep, you sometimes cried until your mom or dad picked you up and held you and talked to you.
Those relational needs don’t evaporate when you become a teenager or an adult, any more than your need for air goes away.
Neither do your relational needs disappear when you become a Christian, any more than your need for food goes away.
The creation accounts of Genesis 1 & 2 make it clear that:
Adam was created with physical needs;
God met those needs in advance,
and it was good.
Adam was created with spiritual needs;
God met those needs in advance,
and it was good.
Adam was created with relational needs,
but he was alone in the Garden;
and God said, “It is not Good,”
a situation which Dr. David Ferguson, director of Intimate Life Ministries, describes as “the first human crisis”:
Adam, needy for human relationship
by God’s design,
was alone.
“But hold on a minute,” you may say. “Adam wasn’t alone. God was there. Didn’t God meet Adam’s relational needs?”
This is precisely where I believe we have
misread,
misunderstood, and
misapplied God’s Word.
Ferguson says,
“Correctly believing that God is the ultimate source for meeting all our needs, we incorrectly declare, ‘God is all we need.’ We understand both biblically and experientially the need for God. Nothing else can fill the vacuum:
not possessions,
not position,
not success,
not another person.
God and God alone can bring peace and order to the human heart. We know it,
we feel it,
we live it,
we preach it.
Stated simply, people need God. But we have misunderstood how God in his sovereignty has chosen to meet human relational needs.”
Think for a moment how God meets our physical needs. . . .
He could have arranged for our physical needs to be met directly by Him,
by a sort of spiritual IV,
a kind of divine osmosis whereby He could
give us oxygen and nourishment straight from His throne . . . .
BUT HE DIDN’T.
Instead, He displayed His sovereignty and His sufficiency by providing the means for those needs to be met;
He gave the earth a wrapping of air for Adam to breathe,
and He planted fruits and vegetables in the Garden for Adam to eat.
By the same token, God could have declared to all humanity,
“I am all you need. An intimate, personal relationship with me will make all other relationships unnecessary and superfluous.”
BUT HE DIDN’T.
In His sovereign power, love, and wisdom,
God has chosen to meet some of our relational needs through other people, just as He meets our physical needs through intermediate means.
God is still our Provider---
He has simply chosen to involve humans as His agents in meeting your and my relational needs.
SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
I’m so glad you asked.
First, it means none of us can say,
“All I ever need is God.”
There are no “Lone Rangers” here (and, besides, even the Lone Ranger needed Tonto!).
If anyone had grounds to think his relationship with God was all he needed, Adam did.
“You and me, God,” he could have said.
“You’re all I need from now on.
You’re da Creator, I’m da man!”
But God disagreed:
"It is not good for the man to be alone[,” He said. “]I will make a helper suitable for him."
Second, all this means that none of us can say,
“All you ever need is God.”
“Oh,” you might say, “I wouldn’t say that to anyone.”
Oh, but we do. We communicate to people that, “if you still have needs, you don’t have enough of Christ.”
We make them think, “if you really had faith, you wouldn’t be feeling this way.”
We might even say, “You shouldn’t be lonely, because Christ is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
Yet that’s the equivalent of saying to a starving beggar:
"Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed" (Ja. 2:16),
without doing anything about his physical needs.
Would we have said such things to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when, agonizing under the lonely weight of his impending crucifixion, he asked Peter, James, and John:
"My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me" (Matthew 26:38).
Didn’t Jesus have God? Of course, He did. But at that moment, the despised, rejected Man of Sorrows needed to feel the human support and comfort of His friends.
If the sinless Son of God needed Divine and human relationships, how much more do we--and all those around us--need human support,
human relationship,
human understanding,
human comfort,
affection,
acceptance,
and encouragement?
That’s one reason why, for this fall semester, we’re going to feature a weekly sermon series called, “A Relevant Faith to Meet Real Needs,” based on an upcoming book by David Ferguson, that will expound on the most common, most critical, and--often--most lacking relational needs people have.
Our prayer is that this series will not only help you understand the missing ingredient in your own life and faith, perhaps the reason why you are sometimes lonely or unfulfilled or insecure,
but also help you start to fill those relational needs by hearing and responding to God’s Word and by initiating or strengthening relationships that help you grow in faith, in wholeness, and in maturity.
And it may be, God willing, that this series may also help you better relate
to your parents or partner,
to your brothers or sisters,
to your roommate or teammate,
to your best friend or prayer partner,
to the nonChristian down the street or down the hall.
Third, all this means that everyone in this room shares at least one thing in common: we all have relational needs that can only be fully met through relationships with each other.
Of course, it helps us to know what those needs might be, and especially those needs we feel most keenly, those that are yet unmet. . . .
Let me explain what I mean with an illustration:
Twenty years ago last June, my wife and I were married. We set off on a very low-budget honeymoon to--KENTUCKY!
One day, as we were driving our snazzy little ‘74 Pinto on those Kentucky roads, Robin starting crying. Being a responsive, attentive husband, I noticed she was crying, and said,
“What are you crying for?”
At first she said, “I don’t know,” but finally she admitted that she was crying because she had realized that all her life she had been under her father’s roof, under his protective care, and she no longer had him to protect her and keep her safe and warm and well-fed.
Well, being a sensitive, caring husband, I said, “Well, that’s just GREAT! Don’t you think I can take care of you? Don’t you think I can protect you? Don’t you trust me?”
Which I have since learned wasn’t the point. You see, Robin wasn’t saying that she didn’t trust me. At that point in our young married life, she was aware--though she didn’t know what it was or what to call it--of a keen, unmet need for security. And all she needed was for her husband to communicate to her something like, “Don’t worry. I will take care of you and protect you and keep you safe and warm and well-fed, no matter what.”
I’m convinced that, if I could have said that, her tears would have disappeared. . . And we would have avoided the first fight of our married life! And--who knows--I might have healed a wound, instead of opening one.
Now, you may not have an unmet need for security this morning. . . .
You may instead be feeling the need for comfort in your soul and in your heart; you may need someone to cry with you, to share your hurt, your worry, your burden.
Or you may need encouragement this morning. You may be discouraged. You may feel like giving up, and you need someone to come alongside you and say, “You can do it,” or “way to go!”
You may feel keenly the need to be accepted for who you are, or the need for approval from others.
You may need to be supported in something you’re doing or in the wake of a failure or disappointment.
You may crave affection, or attention, or appreciation.
It may be that, as I’ve been speaking this morning,
you have felt a stirring in your heart as you’ve listened,
a dawning realization that you’re not wrong or weird,
a growing understanding that you have unmet relational needs, and you wish for someone --maybe a group of someones--to gather around you and communicate to you the
comfort,
or acceptance,
or appreciation,
or support,
or -- you fill in the blank--
that you need.
Or, it may be that you’ve been getting a little fidgety in your seat for the last few moments, because God has brought someone to your mind, perhaps someone in this sanctuary, who may be in need of
comfort,
or acceptance,
or appreciation,
or support,
or whatever,
and you feel the Spirit’s prompting to be involved in God’s work of meeting human needs through human relationships.
I’m going to suggest to you three ways to respond to this morning’s message and to God’s moving in your heart and mind:
1. First, if God has spoken to you about unmet relational needs in your own life, I challenge you, before this service is over, to prayerfully consider those needs and seek wisdom about how to fill those empty places in your life through relationships with the people God has placed around you;
2. Second, if God has spoken to you about unmet relational needs in the life of someone around you, I urge you, before this day is over, to reach out to that person and offer--without criticism or instruction--comfort, encouragement, support, or whatever it is God has placed in your heart for that person;
3. Third, I exhort you, before this fall semester is over, to begin or become involved in a small group in this church (if you are not involved already) that will enable you to develop close, transparent, vulnerable, mutually accountable relationships with other Christians.
Whatever God may be saying to you, I know
it may require a new degree of vulnerability on your part,
it may be a little scary,
but it may also be a first step toward helping you move from the “not good” to the “good,”
from brokenness to wholeness,
from emptiness to fulfillment.
I ask you to bow your heads in a few moments of silent meditation, listening to God, and responding to His word,
and even in these moments, I urge you to apply His word in whatever He leads you,
whether that means getting up from your seat to minister comfort or appreciation or encouragement to someone,
whether it means turning to a friend beside you or behind you to confide your own need,
or simply sitting in silence and submitting to God’s moving in your heart,
you respond, willingly,
and obediently,
as the Holy Spirit leads you. . . .
