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An ancient Chinese story about a
farmer who had a horse that helped him plow the fields and one day the
horse ran away. His friends came over and commiserated with him about
the bad luck he had and the farmer replied “Bad luck, good luck, who
knows?” Well a few days later the horse returned but he brought with
him ten other horses that had been wild in the mountains and just
brought them home. Well the friends came over again, this time
congratulating the farmer on his good luck. The farmer said “Good luck,
bad luck, who knows?” Well a few days later the farmer’s son was trying
to break one of the wild horses and fell off and broke his leg. The
friends show up again; they knew the drill, commiserating with his bad
luck. And the farmer said “Bad luck, good luck, who knows?” Well a few
days later the Army showed up and conscripted all the young men in the
village. When they came to the farmer’s son and saw that he had a
broken leg, they let him go. Good luck, bad luck, who knows?
I’ve come to believe that luck is the
faith of the age. Many people believe in God but they put their trust
in luck. I think we can see that in the growth of the lottery and the
poker shows and that. I’m not saying it’s wrong to watch poker or even
play it; but it’s got such a huge thing. People trust their luck more
than they do the Lord. It’s not without reason that the word “luck”
doesn’t appear in the bible; because the bible, Christians, don’t
believe in luck. We believe in providence. Providence is that power of
God which orders things which takes care of His children. It is in the
context of providence that I’m continuing my series of sermons on
“Discovering God’s Will”; because in His providence, God provides things
which help us find His will. You know, it seems to be almost like
street wisdom out there, that God’s will is so mysterious we can’t find
it. We’re kind of on our own that it can’t be known. But I’m here to
tell you that God has provided many things to help us discover His
will. That’s what I want to talk about today.
In preparation for the sermon, I’ve
chosen some scripture to read, one of which we did read as our
responsive reading. The other is from Proverbs 3 verses 5 and 6. I’ve
shared with you in the past that this is my life verse, or one of them.
And it goes like this:
Trust in the Lord with all your
heart. Don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.
This is the word of the Lord. Would
you pray with me?
Father in heaven I give you this
time. May you help us discover your will for us. May you encourage us
in the fact that you are our God and that you lead us and guide us. You
have not left us in the dark. Lord, prepare our hearts for the service
of communion. Prepare us for your presence and the blessing that is
that time. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
As I said, the bible doesn’t believe
in luck and yet I think even Christians believe in luck too much. I
read a story about John Wesley, who was the founder of Methodism, who
was going to be married to a woman. In order to discover whether he
should do that or not, he took his bible and threw it down on the table
and read what was there, by luck, if you will. Well, no one really
knows what it said but he didn’t marry that women. I have to believe
that it was something like this: A quarrelsome wife is like a constant
dripping on a rainy day. Or maybe it was like a gold ring in a pig’s
snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion…oh well. You know I
usually pick on the men, so….I’m not really trying to pick on anyone.
Even John Wesley, but I think that must have been before he really came
into a powerful relationship with God. God has provided many things in
which to tell us how we discover His will. I have arranged these things
through the letter “P” and in some cases they might be a little bit of a
stretch but I’ll tell you what they are.
The first is providence, not
the first blank, but it really is providence that provides direction.
The first thing in His providence that God has given us is what we might
call a prescription, or the bible itself. You know, many
Christians don’t even read the bible. Many people don’t take it very
seriously and maybe that’s because we have been raised in this modern
era which is so scientific, in which is so intellectual it looks down
upon things of faith. We tend to look at the bible and say “Oh it’s
just this conglomeration of stuff” and that kind of thing. It is not.
The bible itself says that it is “inspired or God breathed.” We don’t
know exactly the process; but God, over hundreds of years, inspired
people to tell the same story, in different ways. If you don’t know the
scripture or you’re not reading the scripture you’re kind of like a
person lost in the woods without a compass or a flashlight. You know,
in the Army, one of the things they really do to us is they stick us out
in the woods with a compass and a flashlight and say “Make it home”.
“Make it back to camp.” “Here are the coordinates.” Have you ever been
in the woods, just deep in the woods, without a frame of reference? I
have. And you could get lost in a heartbeat. Even with a compass, it’s
difficult. But if you’re not reading the scriptures you are kind of
like that. If you don’t have a compass and you don’t a light, you can
be sure that you’re going to go in the wrong direction and get lost.
Other people say “Why did this happen to me? What’s wrong?” Well if
you read the word, and you obeyed it…
Within the scripture there are three
things God gives us. One is precepts or laws and commands. You know
we’ve all heard of the Big Ten, and it’s not the restaurant in Hopkins.
It is of course the Ten Commandments. Many people have said that the
Ten Commandments are not suggestions; they’re commands, and rightly so.
But the bible is full of commands, hundreds of them, and they’re not
suggestions. You know, I’ve said many times that God is not a cosmic
killjoy. He doesn’t sit around going “You shouldn’t do this and you
shouldn’t do that” “Don’t have fun.” “Don’t do this, don’t do that.”
God gives us the way the world works through His commands and says “If
you do this, you’ll live; you’ll be O.K.” in most cases. And so there
are commands all through the bible. Start with the basic ones, like
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul.” That’s
not a suggestion. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Not a suggestion.
“Go therefore and make disciples.” Not a suggestion. And yet hundreds
of churches of all denominations are out there dying because they’re not
following that command. Over the last few weeks I’ve talked about
marriage and sexuality. It says in the bible, “Don’t have sex before
your marriage.” That’s not a suggestion and yet people do it. There
are perils sometimes and there is heartache, for sure. “Don’t lust.”
Not a suggestion. All kinds of commands, precepts, laws.
Another thing God gives us within the
bible is principles. Now principles I would describe as things
you can read in the bible and infer how to live. You can read a story,
you can read a certain passage, and say “This is what we ought to do.”
Now they’re a kind of step down from laws, if you will, not quite as
direct; and you have to be a little careful with them, but they are also
very real. An example would be if you remember the story of the young
man, the young rich man, who came to Jesus and said “What is the
greatest commandment?” And Jesus said “Well you tell me?” The man said
“Well to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul.”
Jesus said “That’s right, but one thing you lack. Sell everything you
have and come follow me.” Now some people have through history inferred
the principle that we ought to sell everything we have. I don’t think
that’s what it means. There is a principle there; but it’s actually
much deeper. The principle is unless the Lord is the Lord of everything
including your wallet, he’s not the Lord. I have found, at least in my
own life and many other lives, that the last thing we really want to
give up is our wallet. That’s why that story is there. Next week I’ll
conclude my series of sermons on just a list of principles to live by.
The third thing that God gives us in
the bible subset of prescription is examples or pictures, if you
will. Paul says that these things have been written or these things
happen to them, those people in the bible, for us. So if you read the
bible, you get pictures of how people lived and what they did and the
choices that they had to face. They had to discover God’s will as
well. How did they do it? Did they do it correctly? And there are a
lot of negative events in the bible as well as positive. I said before
that it has always amused me how in the older Sunday school material you
would always see “Live like David.” “Be like Samson.” Well, yes, and
no. Be like Sampson, the last hour of his life. The rest you could
forget, except in a negative way. Because he just messed up time after
time after time; but that in itself teaches us. Or David. I can’t wait
to meet David. But yet there are things about David you don’t want to
be like. Those people were just like us, human beings, sinners, facing
hard choices, doing well in some cases and doing not so well in others.
Pictures, if you will.
And speaking of people, that’s
the second thing God gives us. We have prescriptions and now we have
people. I’m not simply talking about any kind of people. God leads us
to Godly people or our people of the church. The bible again and again
and again says you know there are no such things as lone ranger
Christians. You’ve got to be part of a group. You’ve got to be part of
the church family in order to live your Christian life well, because we
help one another. We help one another. You can get so wrapped around
the actual if you try to figure it all out yourself. There are other
people out there with other perspectives of how it goes on; and, you
know, if nothing else, when you are facing some kind of problem to go to
a friend and say “Just listen. Let me talk it out with you.” Again you
have to be kind of careful. People aren’t always right and you want to
get several opinions, maybe, about something. You have to make the
decision in the end but it really helps. God gives us people and leads
us through them. I remember so clearly in my church in West Virginia
that as it came time for me to feel that I was supposed to leave, and I
was feeling that, and yet I was really resisting it. About five months
I struggled with it, struggled with this idea; am I supposed to leave or
to go? I really didn’t want to for a lot of reasons. But finally, the
day before I had to make the decision I called a friend up and said
“What do you think?” And he said “Chris, you know, this is an
opportunity you’ll never have again. You need to go.” And I knew he
was right. A friend, a godly friend, telling me the truth in the
moment. That’s what happens.
A third thing God gives us is
prayer. Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord always in everything with
prayers and petitions. Present your request to God. Prayer is as much
requesting things of God as it is listening to God. I find in my own
life, you know, a lot of times you don’t have time to sit down and pray
so I pray in the car or whenever it is; but I really do need to sit down
and find a quiet spot in order to listen. I can talk while I’m in the
car; I can’t really listen very well. So I have to really just make the
time and go sit out on the porch or find some place and say “O.K. Lord,
it’s you and me; what do we do here?” Then you have to be even more
careful, I think; because if God does lead you through prayers but
sometimes the way you feel or the answer you get maybe the pizza you had
last night. So you have to be careful. So you have to go talk to
friends and you still have to go to the word. If it goes against the
word you shouldn’t do it. But prayer is very real. I would really
encourage you, I’ve said many times, if you keep a list of your prayers
and look back six month later you’ll find that a lot of those things you
have talked about to God will have resolved itself. Not every one of
them; but many will. It really builds your faith to see that. So keep
a list. Pray to the Lord.
Last, but not least, I said that God
gives us people but he also gives us a person, and that person is
none other than Himself. The purpose of the Christian life is to get to
know God and His character and His will. That’s it! That’s why we’re
here. You know, I mentioned “luck”. Luck is really kind of a pagan way
of looking at life because you don’t really believe there is anything in
control. Another way the ancients looked at life was that it was
circular. Everything went in a big circle and came round and round.
Certainly there are things that are cyclical, but it’s almost as though
they believed that life was going around in circles. But in the
biblical perspective, it’s not that. The best image of life in the
bible is that it is a pilgrimage. It is a path. It is a direction. It
is a purpose in which we walk. If the philosophy of going around in
circles, if that is what life is, you might as well just eat, drink and
be merry. You might as well get what enjoyment you can and hold on
because that’s all there is. But if life has a purpose, and it does,
you have a direction and you have a God who provides. God in his
providence leads you.
Where is your trust? Is it in luck?
Is it in yourself? Or is it in the Lord? Trust in the Lord with all
your heart. Don’t just trust in this, your own understanding. In all
your ways acknowledge Him. He will direct your path. He will let you
know what you’re supposed to do. That’s been my experience and the
experience of millions of other Christians. God will direct your path.
It’s not always easy; sometimes it’s just a step at a time. Matter of
fact I think that’s really what it is most of the time. It’s just a
step at a time. But He will direct your path. In the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
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