“What God Wants”
Micah 6:1-8
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
What God wants is a rather presumptuous sermon title isn’t it? Can we really know what God wants? Can we really be so bold to believe that we
have the wisdom and knowledge to peer into the mind of the divine and know
God’s inner most thoughts, know God’s deepest desire for you and me, know God’s
will for our life here and now? Do we
dare be so presumptuous as to believe that we are able to scale the mountain of
the divine wisdom of the one whom the Scots Confession calls eternal, infinite,
immeasurable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, and invisible?
From the beginning, humanity has
sought knowledge and wisdom especially about the divine. My whole adult life has been a quest to gain
wisdom and knowledge about God. From the
moment I was asked about what I believed and could not give a satisfactory
answer even for myself, I set out on a quest to learn, to gain knowledge about
the faith in which I was baptized, so that I would be able to give an answer to
everyone who asks me to give the reason for the hope that I have.
For me, this quest for wisdom and
knowledge was for all practical purposes a quest for God. Sunday school served as the basis of my
theological learning, but as I grew older too many questions remained. I needed more answers, more discoveries, more
insight into this God who loved me as the Bible had told me so. I needed to learn more about the God who I
worshipped, the God who first loved me, the God who
had sent his Son Jesus to die for me. So
I surrounded myself with people who knew more than I did, who had the
theological wisdom that I wanted. I also
surrounded myself with books, with authors who were further along in their
quest for theological knowledge than I was and who were able to articulate the
faith in ways I had not yet thought about.
This quest
for knowledge and wisdom was more than a personal mission for me, I considered
it the responsibility of faithfulness, and I still do. To not be able to speak about what I believe
about God and God’s work the world, is to do a disservice to the gospel of
Jesus Christ. The more I learned the
more I wanted to learn and understand.
The Spirit was moving within me, pushing me and pulling me up the
mountain of divine wisdom. With each
step along the way I gained a new perspective and insight and understanding of
who God is and what God did, is doing, and will do. But I also gained a new perspective and
insight and understanding about the world around me. My beliefs, convictions, and even my
worldview evolved over time. Words like
truth, justice, mercy, forgiveness, salvation, faith, religion, church all
began to be redefined, or should I say, reformed.
This quest for wisdom and
knowledge has helped me to understand that theology matters. How we think about God is as important as how
we feel about God. Theology is the
mental safeguard for the times of fleeting emotions. Theology is the crutch upon which we stand
when questions and doubts arise.
Theology is the catalyst for building confidence and assurance and
integrity in our life of faith.
Theology, how we think about God and what we believe about God, is the
great reminder that all of what we believe is interconnected.
Our theological doctrines are not
just a grocery list of separate and unrelated items which can be picked over to
be believed or not believed. They are an
interconnected network, a web of beliefs and convictions which supports and
lifts up other beliefs and convictions.
One theological belief is connected to another and to another and to
another. You can’t take one away and not
affect all the other things we believe.
You can’t have a theology of God’s love and dismiss a theology of God’s
justice. You can’t have a theology of
God’s mercy and not have a theology of God’s judgment. You can’t have a theology of God’s providence
and not have a theology of the problem of evil.
You can’t have a theology of God’s grace and not have a theology of
human sin. Just like you can’t have a
theology of the resurrection and not have a theology of the cross. Theology matters. Wisdom and understanding
and knowledge of God matters.
But I am
constantly reminded on this quest of just how special and amazing and wonderful
God really is. For all of my theological
education, I am still awed at the surpassing glory and grace of God at work in
my life that reminds me not to make everything harder than it is. Theology matters but relationship matters
more. Theology is an important part of
growing in faith and learning about God, but just being in relationship with
God matters more. At every turn God’s
grace continues to bring me back to what is so vitally important. Just when we think we have reached the summit
and believe we know everything there is to know about God, God does something
beyond our comprehension, beyond what we believe to be the reasonable and
logical thing to do, and all we can do is just stand in the awesome presence
and power of God.
Just when we believe we have
finally arrived and have grasped what God wants, God turns everything on its
head. For all of my theological
education and study, for all of my theological reasoning it is still does not
seem reasonable and logical to you that Christ should die on the cross? Where is the power in a crucifixion? There is no power in the crucifixion, only
the powerless die on the cross. But that
is exactly what the cross of Jesus Christ is – the power and wisdom of God. Saying human beings can know what God wants
is about as outlandish as saying we can prove the existence of God using the
scientific method. God’s ways are not
our ways. Even Paul reminds us that
God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger
than human strength. It is just not
possible for human beings to know what God wants on our own. It is not possible for the finite to enter
the infinite. But it is possible for the
infinite to enter the finite. We can
know what God wants because God himself has told us in the person of Jesus
Christ. He is the wisdom from God, our
source of life, and he alone became for us our righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption.
So what does
God want? Is that question easier for us
to answer since we belong to Christ, since we are God’s people and have been given
the mystery of the divine will for human life in Jesus Christ? Can we now boast in the Lord as Paul says and
answer this question and know exactly what God wants from us? Before you answer, remember the Jewish
people, God’s covenant people, thought they knew, too.
In a scene
reminiscent of court tv, the
prophet Micah tells of a trial between God and
Finally, the voice of the prophet
speaks, and as Paul says the wisdom of the world is made foolish. God turns us on our head. God surprises us at every turn. In all of
God wants us to do justice – to
work on behalf of the least, the lost, and the left out, so that they too can
live and be God’s unique gift to the world, just as God has done for us. God wants us to love kindness – to live in
loving and loyal relationship with others, to do good
toward them, to be benevolent, and considerate, and helpful, and gracious, and
human toward others never giving up on them just as God has done with us. God wants us to walk humbly – to remember
that we do not walk on the journey of faith alone, but with others by our side,
to remember to be servants of others, followers of our Lord, dependent upon God
for our daily living, and instruments of God’s mercy, love and justice in the
world.
What does God want? God wants us to be God’s people. God wants us to be in a just, loving, and
walking companion of God and of others on this journey of faith we call
discipleship. God wants us to be God’s people
in and for the world sharing the light of Christ in our doing, loving, and
walking as Christ’s loving servants and faithful
witnesses, nothing more and nothing less.
Amen.