12-12-10 Personal Pain, Personal God

Many of you who are here this morning

are here because you have found within yourselves

a hunger for your God

that cannot be silenced,

a hunger that is driven by the hope

that the God your spirit has already glimpsed

might really be as He has appeared to be-

full of kindness,

and compassion,

and a grace that has no end,

and He might...just might even remember your name.

Do you remember Adam in the Garden of Eden

in those few terrifying hours

following his sin?

Let me read it for us.

GEN 3:8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

GEN 3:9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"

GEN 3:10 He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself."

That is us, my friends.

We have heard the voice of our God,

a voice that seemed to be calling out to us.

It was a voice that

stirred within us a hope -

a deep, painful longing for our Father God,

and yet at the same time it stirred within us a fear,

a terror because we, just like Adam,

are filled with the shame of our own sinfulness.

We peak out at Him from our hiding places,

wondering, hoping that it really was our name we heard Him call,

and yet terrified at the thought

of exposing ourselves to Him,

knowing that when He sees us as we really are,

the expression on His face

may suddenly turn to a scowl,

followed by His demand that we explain why we have done what we have done.

Do you remember what Adam and Eve did

in their attempt to hide from God

the reality of their sinfulness?

GEN 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

That is our natural response to our God

when we hear Him call our name,

and we look at ourselves from our hiding place

and see the evidences of our sin.

We try to put together

a little something that will cover our nakedness,

a little something that will dress us up,

a little something that will hopefully distract the Lord from our unworthiness.

We call it religion -

our own little garment of good deeds,

religious works,

devotional faithfulness,

acts of kindness or generosity

stitched together with twigs,

that we hope will hide our shame.

It’s not much,

and it doesn’t fit us at all well,

but it’s the best we can do on our own.

And what we don’t realize at the time

is that what He seeks

is not some tense, awkward interview

between us and Him

in which we keep hoping that He won’t notice,

or that He won’t say anything about our sin,

but what He seeks

is our discovery that He has known all along,

He has known about everything -

about the sin,

and about the fears they have produced within us,

and about that horrible sense of shame

that caused us to hide from Him in the first place,

and the reason He has been calling our name from the very beginning

is because under His arm

He carries with Him a robe just our size,

with His Name and our name sewn together in the lining,

a robe woven from His own righteousness,

a robe that, when we let Him slip it over our shoulders,

cleanses us from all our sin,

and removes our shame from us forever.

If you have heard His voice calling to you,

and if your pilgrimage turns out to be anything like mine,

let me tell you what to expect.

It is hard, at first, for us to hear His voice.

It comes like the few notes of a song

we thought we might have heard,

but then lose almost instantly.

But then, there it is again,

and then again,

until eventually we accept the truth -

He is there,

our God really is there.

And then, as we continue to listen,

the sound of His voice moves closer,

and we come to understand and accept

that He is not just there,

but He is here, in this room with us.

And His presence in the room is a good thing.

But the room is full of people,

lots of other people,

and for a very long while

it seems as though

they are far more interesting to Him than we ever could be.

Occasionally it seems as if He glances in our direction,

even making eye contact with us briefly,

but then we think perhaps we were mistaken,

and we are content to just be there, in the same room with Him,

in His general vicinity.

It isn’t that we don’t feel our spirit drawn to Him,

or even that we don’t love Him deeply.

It’s just that we are not at all sure

how He loves us.

At this point in the pilgrimage

we assume it is a love-for-the-world type of thing,

a Divine-love-for-humanity

which, of course, includes us as well.

And that’s good.

That’s very good.

It helps us to reshape our concept

of what this God of ours is really like.

His intentions toward us are good.

He is not out to get us,

He loves His creation,

He may even like us,

and it helps to disarm our fears.

We will see His hand involved

in some of the bigger events in our life,

and we will find ourselves calling out to Him,

in a selective sort of way,

for guidance,

and wisdom,

and assistance with those things

that we think are sufficiently significant

to justify His involvement and intervention.

But if this pilgrimage continues as our God intends,

we will become aware of Him

moving closer and closer to us in the room.

And then, above all the chatter and the confusion surrounding us,

we will hear something that at first we find very hard to believe -

we will hear Him calling our name -

only our name,

and no one else’s.

And if we don’t bolt and run away,

if we just stand,

and keep listening,

and wait for His arrival,

He will continue moving our direction

until He is standing right next to us,

and then we will hear Him speaking our name clearly,

and speaking it in a way that tells us

He knows us more intimately

than we know ourselves.

He knows where all of the fears are hidden,

and why they’re there,

and how to lead us through to the healing and the freedom that only His grace

and His love can bring into our life.

And when He finally has our full attention,

and when we know He is speaking

not to the world,

or to all those other people around us,

but that what He is speaking

is between us and Him alone,

He will tell us what we have longed to hear,

but never really believed we would -

it is not just THE WORLD that He loves,

it is not even just THE CHURCH.

It is us, one tiny speck in the great expanse of time and creation,

one tiny speck who, even in our own estimation,

has no great value in the eternal scheme of things,

and yet to Him is worthy of His own death.

I have found it relatively easy

to see my God as infinite,

and all-powerful,

and even kind and compassionate to those who come to Him.

But facing the staggering truth

of our God’s intimate involvement

in the life of each one of us

is far more difficult for me to grasp.

To know my God as infinite

brings with it my reasonable obligation

to worship Him,

and to honor Him,

and to submit to Him,

and to pay Him homage.

But to know my God as intimate,

to confront the truth

that He is not only consciously aware of every detail of my life

and every aspect of my being,

but that He is also daily, personally weaving all things that enter my life together for my greater good because He loves me at that level-

this changes the rules of life forever.

It means He knows what I feel,

He knows what I fear,

He knows where I hurt,

and all of those things matter to Him

because I matter to Him.

I have seen some things happen recently in my life,

things that would mean nothing to most of you even if I were to share them,

because you could not understand

what they meant to me,

but things that have deepened my awareness

of the personal care with which my God

manages the details of my life.

Simply put, I have seen Him working all things that enter my life together

not just for the greater good of humanity,

or for what is necessary to keep me in line,

but working them together

in the way that touches me where I hurt,

or where I fear,

or where I desperately long to hear the voice of His love,

speaking my name,

and telling me He really does know

what I am feeling inside,

and, wonder of wonders,

He not only knows, but He cares.

And He is doing exactly the same thing

in the lives of each of His children.

And every time I become aware of what He’s doing

and that He is the one doing it,

I come away overwhelmed with the value He places on each one of us.

There is no such thing as a distant God.

There is only our blindness,

our inability to see His constant presence with us,

His absolute, intimate, love for us,

and His eyes and His heart fixed eternally, directly upon us.

Some of you here this morning come with pain,

some with fear,

some with anxiety about the future.

And right now it may seem to you

as if your God is in the room,

but the room is very full of people,

and you are on the outer fringes of the crowd surrounding Him.

He knows you’re there,

but with all those other people around,

surely He is distracted,

surely He is focused elsewhere.

Why would your pain,

your fear,

your anxiety be important enough for Him to notice,

or to care.

If any of that lines up

with what you’ve been feeling recently,

please, let me tell you the truth.

There is no crowd of people between you and your Lord.

You are not in the fifth layer back,

catching only brief glimpses of the King through the crowd.

He is not searching His mind,

trying to recall your name.

The truth is,

the room is empty except for you and your King.

It is a warm, cozy, carpeted room,

with a fire crackling in the fireplace,

and two very comfortable chairs pulled up next to it.

You are in one of them,

He sits in the other.

He knows exactly what’s going on inside you,

and He knows why.

And when He speaks to you

He calls you by name,

and He tells you that He not only knows what you’re feeling,

but He also knows why,

and He can and He will break the power of those things that trouble you,

or cause your fear,

or create anxiety,

or bind you,

or cause you to ache with loneliness,

or emptiness,

or feelings of despair.

JER 29:11 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

I do not believe there is any truth

more difficult for the human mind to grasp

than the intimate/personal nature of the love of our God for us.

And I also do not believe

there is any truth that is more critical to our growth than that truth.

As long as our God remains distant from us in our minds

the words He has spoken to us

lose their ability to bring strength and healing into our lives.

And one of the many great works of the Spirit of God within us

is the way in which He takes

the universal truths about our God

and makes them personal in our lives.

Though it may not seem like it from what I have said this morning,

we are studying the 8^th chapter of the book of Romans.

We are moving into a section of that 8^th chapter

in which Paul shares with us

several strong words of encouragement

given to us in light of the fact

that our union with Jesus Christ

will at certain points

result in added suffering coming into our lives.

We spent most of our time last week

looking at 4 causes of that added suffering.

#1. The first one is the suffering that always accompanies our willingness

to allow God to rebuild our characters

into greater conformity with the image of Christ.

#2. And then there is the suffering that comes into our lives

when our Lord allows us to see

a little bit of our world through His eyes.

#3. There is also the suffering that comes as a direct result

of our choosing to live a moral life in an immoral world.

#4. And the final source of suffering we looked at

is the suffering that comes

from our being under the direct attack of Satan.

But I have invested so much of our time this morning

talking about the intimate nature of God’s love for each of us

because these words of encouragement

given to us by Paul in this next section of his letter

have power in our lives

only to the degree that we hear them

as God’s personal words to each of His children.

You see, churches do not suffer,

groups do not suffer,

only real, personal, individual people can suffer.

Pain is always personal.

And it is to us at that level

that these words are spoken.

We are not going to make it very far this morning

into these 5 anchors of encouragement

given to us by Paul

in Romans 8:18-30,

but let me just prepare you a little

for what we are going to see.

These 5 statements are designed to be taken as a whole.

Each one of them stands on its own,

but the real power of what is being offered to us here

comes from our grasping all 5 truths.

Nothing challenges our faith in our God more severely than does the pain that enters our lives.

How could He love us and allow us to hurt?

But I will tell you something else as well,

something that those of you who have experienced it will understand -

nothing has the power to deepen

our awareness of the love of our God for us

like going through times suffering

and finding Him with us,

and in us,

and more than adequate for us in the midst of that pain.

It is for this purpose

that Paul offers us these five truths.

The first three tell us some things we very much need to know about the future.

The last two

tell us some things we very much need to know about the present.

And with all of that as background

we’ll start looking at these 5 truths in two weeks.

Next week we’ll take our morning

to celebrate Christmas together

and to discover some truths from a story we’ve heard countless times

but, I think, never really heard at all.