Ferdinand Magellan was the Spanish explorer who led the first expedition to sail around the world. As he approached the tip of Argentina, in the year 1520, he came to the region he named Tierra del Fuego (land of fire), because there were natives on the shore tending several large fires. But as the great ships passed by the natives, who had surely never seen nor heard of sailing vessels in their lives, they completely ignored the ships as though they did not exist. When Magellan and his crew landed he learned that they had considered the ships unreal, an apparition, because they were so unlike anything they had seen before.
Magellan’s experience with the natives of Argentina is a metaphor of modern civilization. We see sights around us every day that point to God’s presence and we dismiss them as unreliable, because they are beyond our experience in the world as we know it. We have kept ourselves from seeing and understanding the spiritual and supernatural world around us because of a fixed mindset that is unwilling to accept the concept of God. Jacques Monod expresses the current worldview of those like him who refuse to see what is right before them: “Man must learn to live in an alien world that is deaf to his music and is as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his sufferings or his crimes. . . . Man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance.”
How sad it is that the people of earth are trying to discover their place on the planet and find where they fit in the universe, while avoiding the obvious, and refusing to put God in the equation. God is sailing by and they consider it a fantasy. They turn their heads away as they tend to the fires of their own existence. The problem with this is that our civilization is left with an empty and vacuous world void of meaning and purpose. When we avoid God, we miss the reason for our existence. We also miss all that he wants to do for us. We miss the warmth of his love, the completeness of his forgiveness, and thrill of his embrace.
The scripture today tells us that God is searching for us. The author of the book of Acts tells us that the whole reason the world was created is that we might know God and have a relationship with him. Hear it again as he says, “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:27-28).
The unfortunate thing is that the religious folk of our culture are often as oblivious as the people of the world when it comes to understanding what it means to have a relationship with God. They come to church and fulfill their religious obligation and think that is all there is to it. They assume that it is all about keeping rules and going through the motions of religious observance, and thereby miss the whole point of what God has in mind.
This morning I want to talk about three things that are necessary in order to enjoy a relationship with God. The first is: We must realize that God is for us. God is not the angry avenger who is peering at earth looking for wayward sinners that he can condemn. He is not looking for the wrong we do. He is looking at us in compassionate love. It is hard to get it through our skulls that God is crazy about us. He is passionate for us. He is longing for us. He is wanting us. He desires us. He is calling us to himself that we might have a relationship with him. Here is what the atheist misses — living with the realization that they are loved by the Creator of the universe. They do not understand that at the heart of the universe is a heart that is throbbing for them. And so, for that matter, do those believers whose idea of Christianity is a list of obligations which we owe to God. There are many who have been poisoned by a toxic religion that has led them to believe that God is hard to please and impossible to satisfy. They see him as looking for faults and marking down their sins. He loads them with guilt and delights in their shame. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Jesus says to us what he said to the woman with a shameful life: “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11). Jesus says to us what he said to greedy Zacchaeus: “Come down. I want to stay at your house tonight” (Luke 19:5). Jesus says to us what he said to the sinful woman who washed his feet: “Your many sins have been forgiven” (Luke 7:47). God is the father of the sinful son who runs out to welcome him home, and not only throws his arms around him, but throws a party as well (Luke 15:20). In the Old Testament book of the Song of Solomon, the relationship between God and us is compared to two breathless lovers who are full of passion for one another. In the New Testament he calls us his bride. He speaks with tender words calling us his beloved. In no other religion of the world do you find a God who is breathlessly in love with the people of the world. Not in Hinduism, Islam, or Buddhism. The amazing thing about Jesus is the intimate vocabulary he uses when addressing us. He calls us his little children. He said things like, “I no longer call you servants. . . . Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15).
This week I heard Brennan Manning speak at the University, and he told a story that happened while he was speaking at a retreat for singles. As he began to speak, he read from the Gospel of John: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever . . . . he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:17-18). At that a young man who was Cambodian let out a screech and ran out of the room. Manning asked someone to get him and bring him back so they could pray with him. When he came back, and got himself under control, he explained that when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia, his father took him to the ocean and tied him to a small raft so that he might escape what was coming. (During Pol Pot’s reign of terror, 1.7 million Cambodians, or more than one-fifth of the country’s population, lost their lives.) He floated for several days before a Japanese fishing ship rescued him. When he reached a certain age, he made his way to the States. He got a degree from Harvard and went on for further education. After a few years he returned to Cambodia in an attempt to locate his family, but there was no trace of them. The truth he feared had become reality: he was an orphan. He was successful, but lonely, and hoped to find a friend at the weekend retreat. But when Manning read the words: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” he said, “I am not a Christian, but when you read those words, your Jesus was staring me directly in the face saying those words. At that moment he came into my life and without question he is living in me right now, for I am on fire with his presence.”
That young man would have never been attracted to dry religious observance, but he was changed by the possibility of a relationship with Christ who would not leave him an orphan. That is what happens when we understand that God is for us. He is on our side. He wants us to experience his heart.
The second thing that is important to understand if we are to have a meaningful relationship with God is: You have to want it. God meets people who are passionate for him. He does not meet perfect people, because there are none. I have known very good people who have broken almost none of the rules, but they have no passion for God. Their obedience is almost a matter of personal pride. On the other hand, I have known people who really messed up, but they have a heart for God that will not quit. They love God and seek him. They fall, but they get back up and seek the God who has redeemed them and loved them with a love they have never known before. They learn from their mistakes and grow. They may stumble, but they keep walking toward him. They never stop believing in God’s love for them.
The foremost quality of people who passionately seek God is honesty. Without honesty we cannot admit that we have been wrong. Without honesty it is not possible to turn from our wrong. We cannot change. Honest people never try to hide. They have given up pretending. They do not make excuses for themselves or engage in justifying their behavior. But they passionately turn their heart toward God. This is what saved the sinful woman who sought Jesus with tears. I am impressed that in the Scriptures God profoundly met very imperfect people who were passionate for him. I read about King David whose sins were great, but who turned to God asking him to cleanse his heart. His passion for God is the fire that burns through the book of Psalms. He wrote: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1-2). I read about the woman who pushed through the crowd just so she might touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. I read about the blind men who cried out for Jesus, even when people told them to be quiet. These are the people who came into a relationship with Jesus and had their lives transformed, because they were passionate for God. They found that relationship to be redemptive because they were changed. Their brokenness turned to wholeness. Their weakness became strength. Their failure turned to faithfulness. They learned obedience, not by trying harder, but by loving more. Love came before obedience.
I feel badly for those who are threatened by a relationship with God. It all seems so unnatural. It seems invasive and threatening. It might mean that there will be profound change. It might mean that they will have to stop hiding behind religion and come into contact with God. Brennan Manning said, “Jesus Christ did not come to make us nicer people with better morals. He came to transform people into better lovers. He came to make brand new people alive with the fire of God.” He reminded us that none of us are as we should be, and we never will be as we should be, so to think that we have to be all that we should be before God loves us is a serious error. The good news is that you do not have to wait on God’s love, you can have it now.
The third thing that we need to understand if our relationship with God is going to be redemptive is: You have to enter into it completely. While the Dorman’s and we were in San Diego for the National Outreach Convention, we went for a walk on the beach by the ocean. None of us had ever been in the Pacific Ocean, so as a wave came in we walked up to it until it faded out at our feet. The wave became a thin sheet of water at the tip of our shoes, and we all quickly bent over and put our hands flat into the water just so we could say we had been in the Pacific Ocean. Now we were not really “in” the ocean in the truest sense. We just got the bottoms of our hands wet. Other people were out there swimming and surfing, but we were in our street clothes, not even wet enough to need a towel.
A lot of people treat a relationship with God like that. They put their hands in, or a toe, but they never really risk taking the plunge and fully entering in. They don’t want to get messy. But let me ask you something: Who was having more fun in the ocean? The Buchanans and Dormans, or those people who were out there swimming and surfing the waves? You are not going to enjoy a relationship with God unless you dive in the whole way. It is pleasant to be by the ocean, but you will never enjoy the ocean until you immerse yourself in it. You will always be watching others enjoy it, but never enjoying it yourself.
But sometimes we feel like hiding from God, because we think that if he really knew us, he would not want us. If he only knew the thoughts that go through my mind, he could not love me. If he knew all that is going on deep down inside of me, he would push me away. But that is precisely what he does know. He knows everything we have done. He knows every thought and imagination of our minds. He is aware of all the attitudes and intentions of our hearts, and still is passionately drawn to us. His knowledge of us pierces our souls, reveals our true self and loves us immeasurably. What a wonderful God we serve. This calls for a response on our behalf. We have been loved completely and we need to love completely in return. It is the only adequate response to a God like this. The Bible says, “You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God” (1 Peter 2:2, Msg). The Bible gives this invitation: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).
I just read a magazine that carried the following story: “A recent promotion by H & R Block offered walk-in customers a chance to win a drawing for $1 million. Glen and Gloria Sims of Sewell, New Jersey, won the drawing, but they refused to believe it when a Block representative phoned them with the good news. After several additional contacts by both mail and phone, the Simses still thought it was all just a scam, and usually hung up the phone or trashed the special notices. Some weeks later, H & R Block called one more time to let the Simses know the deadline for accepting their million-dollar prize was nearing and that the story of their refusal to accept the prize would appear soon on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. At that point, Glen Sims decided to investigate. A few days later he appeared on ‘Today’ to tell America that he and his wife had finally claimed their million dollars. Sims said, ‘From the time this has been going on, H & R Block explained to us they really wanted a happy ending to all this, and they were ecstatic that we finally accepted the prize.’
Every time someone decides to accept God’s free gift of a relationship with him that he has been trying to give away, it is the same. He is ecstatic when we accept the prize. God loves it when there is a happy ending.
Rodney J. Buchanan
October 12, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
www.MulberryUMC.org
Redemptive Relationships:
Our Relationship with God
Questions for October 12, 2003
1. Some people have trouble believing in the existence of God. What do you believe are the barriers? What do they miss?
2. What is the difference between having religion and having a relationship with God?
3. What is the most important part of your relationship with God?
4. What are some of the toxic ideas that religious/church folk have about what God wants from us?
5. What causes some people to think that God is out to get them?
6. Read John 15:15. What are the implications of what Jesus is saying here?
7. Why is it that some people want so little of God?
8. Read Psalm 42:1-2. How can we have the same passion as David, who wrote this Psalm, did?
9. What keeps us from giving in to God completely? Why do we want to hold back?
10. Read 1 Peter 2:2-3. How can we crave more of God?
