Have you ever heard the phrase life verse? It means that every person can have one
verse from the Bible that most deeply connects with their life and
personality. For example, what do you
think the life verse of Rick Warren is; the guy behind the bestseller, Purpose
Driven Life? It’s the first part of Acts 13:36. “For
David, after he had served the purpose of God in his generation, died.” That makes sense doesn’t it?
Years ago I realized I had picked up a life verse
too. We’re going to read it in a few
minutes. “God works all things together
for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose.” Lots of people love this verse. On one of the big Bible web sites, its No. 8
on the top ten verses searched this year.
Do you know what No. 1 was? It’s
similar. It comes from Jeremiah. “For I know the plans I have for you, plans
to prosper you, to give you hope and a future.”
Now I like that verse too, but do these verses make
any sense? It’s nice to think that God
is working everything together in your life for good, but how can God do that,
really do that? And if God has plans
for you, where do you fit in? Do you
have any choice about it at all? It’s
like that quote from the writer Isaac Singer.
“You must believe in free will; there is no choice.” How is
it possible for God, to both have plans for our lives, and still give us the
freedom to choose, even choose wrongly?
Well, not only can God do this. God does do it. In many of your lives, God is doing it right now. And
when you see that, truly see that, that there is nothing, not even your worst
choices, that will defeat God’s love working in you and around you; that will
give you a freedom, a confidence that nothing can shake. But
how does God do that? In these verses
God points the way. Let’s listen and
hear what God has to say.
In these words, God is telling you the one,
essential truth that when you get it gives you a freedom and security that can literally
withstand anything. And what is that truth? Nothing that you do or the world does to you
can ever, ever take away God’s love for you.
And even in even the worst things life throws at you, that love will ultimately
work them for good for you and for the world.
What does that look like? Maybe
this story a friend told me over lunch will help.
Once upon a time, a king had a servant, who helped
him whenever he went on a hunt. The
servant strung all his bows, sharpened all his knives, pretty much made sure
the king had everything he needed. But
one day, when the king pulled his bow back, the string snapped, and it cut off
the king’s thumb. Furious, the king
threw the servant deep into the dungeons.
He promised. He would keep him
there until he died. Later that year,
the king went on a hunt in a new land.
And in this land, cannibals captured them. Now the cannibals ate everyone except the
king. Him they let go. Why? They
believed eating a man without a thumb was bad luck. So when he got home, the king immediately
released the servant and said to him. “I’ve
gotta thank you. If the bow you strung
had not cut off my thumb, they would have eaten me.” Now what did the servant say? He said.
“No, I must thank you. If you hadn’t
put me in the dungeon, I would have been on the hunt, and they would have eaten
me.”
It’s a clever story, huh? But doesn’t it still beg the question? If God does this, how does God do it? More importantly, how does God do it, yet
still give us complete freedom to choose?
How can God be orchestrating everything to move towards good in our
lives, and at the same time, be giving us complete freedom to choose what we do? How can that be possible?
We wonder that because we have a false assumption
that things in the world have to be either/or.
It’s either God plans our lives and guides our future and we have no
choice. Or we can freely choose, and God
has no real control over the future at all.
But in reality, the world doesn’t
work like this at all. The world isn’t
either/or. It’s both/and
Hundreds of years ago, Isaac Newton, came up with these
rules for how matter works. And up until
recently, we assumed everything in the universe operated by those rules. They had to. Otherwise nothing would make
sense. But then we figured out how to see matter at the tiniest level ever. And guess what. At that level, Newton’s rules didn’t work at
all. Were Newton’s rules wrong? No. They
still worked perfectly everywhere but at this super small scale. Scientists realized, it couldn’t be
either/or. It had to be both/and.
Let’s take this table. As we see it, this table follows Newton’s
rules. Yet this same table at the
smallest level is operating by completely different rules. Both rules are working at the same time on
this same table. How can that be? It’s the way it is. We live in a both/and world.
And just because we can’t figure out how we can both
freely choose yet at the same time have a God who orders the direction of our
lives doesn’t mean it can’t be. It just
means how God does it is way above our pay grade. And whether we believe it or not, we live
our lives as if this both/and reality is actually true.
For example, if you believed that God was
determining the plan of your life, and you had no choice in the matter, why would
you do anything at all? Wouldn’t you
simply just sit around and do nothing?
But that would be ridiculous. But
on the other hand, if you believed, really believed that your choices
determined the future completely, it would paralyze you.
Ray Bradbury wrote a story called A Sound of Thunder.
It’s about an illegal time machine that took you back to the time of the
dinosaurs. But when anyone paid the
hefty price to ride in it, those who ran it had one rule. They had this metal anti-gravity path that
hovered six inches above the ground.
And you could not step off the path for any reason at all. Now when the leader named Travis explained
the rule, one of the passengers named Eckels, asked why.
And Travis said…. "All right,say we accidentally kill one mouse here.
That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed,
right?"
"Right"
"And all the
families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of
your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million,
a billion possible mice!"
"So they're
dead," said Eckels. "So what?"
"So what?"
Travis snorted quietly. "Well, what about the foxes that'll need those
mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion
starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions
of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils
down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the
entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you,
friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one
single mouse. So the caveman starves. …And from his loins would have sprung ten
sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization.
Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of
life….. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are
throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills….. Step on a
mouse and you crush the Pyramids…. Queen Elizabeth might never be born,
Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States
at all. So be careful. Stay on the path. Never step off!"
Now what happens? Eckels steps off the path, and accidentally
kills a butterfly. And when they return
everything has changed. And Travis, the
leader, shoots Eckels dead. What
Bradbury was saying is right.
Everything is connected. Our
decisions, even our most minor ones, affect countless other things, in ways we
will likely know. No way do we have
enough knowledge or insight to evaluate the choices we make in light of that
reality. And if you tried too, you
would be terrified to even get out of bed in the morning.
But you don’t have to be
terrified, because, if you are resting in God’s love, then God is working with
your choices in ways that you could not foresee or even imagine. Most of the time, you won’t see that, but
every now and then you get a glimpse. I
got such a glimpse a few years ago when a man named Harold Phares died.
You see, forty years or
so ago, a young teenager named Greg Jordan started attending youth group here. Why? He heard we had the prettiest girls. But once he came, God’s love grabbed hold of
him. The pastor, Roy Connor, began
mentoring him. He talked to him about
going to seminary, about becoming a pastor.
And Greg Jordan did go to seminary, but he didn’t become a pastor. Instead, he got his Ph.D and he became an Old
Testament professor at King College in Bristol, TN. And soon
after he arrived, I attend that college. And he taught me, and become one of
the folks who influenced me to go to seminary, where I did become a pastor.
I learned all that because
when Harold Phares died, I met his son-in-law, John Connor, Roy’s son. John lived in Bristol, TN, and his wife,
Harold’s daughter, whom he met here, worked at the college. So I mentioned my connection to Greg Jordan,
and John told me the whole story. So
because First Presbyterian had cute girls in their youth group, Greg Jordan
came to know the gospel, and twenty years later, he mentored the student who became
the pastor at that very church that nurtured him; quite a coincidence, one that
reminds me that a coincidence is just God’s way of remaining anonymous. And if
I had a few minutes more, I could tell you more glimpses I’ve seen.
But these glimpses don’t
even touch a millionth of all that God is doing in your life and mine, working
through our choices, in ways we could not begin to comprehend. You can
know, no matter what happens, God is working in your life for good. Why?
Because God loves you, and nothing can ever change that.
But that won’t really
impact your life, unless you make it personal.
Lots of people go through life saying God loves them. But it isn’t changing their lives. It’s all too abstract. It’s not real. It’s not personal. And,
until it is, knowing it doesn’t change anything. You have
to apply it to you.
Do you have a
relationship with God, a real, living, breathing relationship? To understand what this means, think of a
relationship with God like walking through a door. As you walk up to the door, you see these words
above it from Matthew 10. Everyone
therefore who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my
Father in heaven. In other words, as
you approach a relationship with God, it doesn’t just happen. You’ve got to make a decision. You have a choice to make. But if you make that choice, if you walk
through that door, then the moment you do, you look back and over the top of
that door you see written this from John 15.
You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Everyone who has walked through that door has
discovered that reality. They know that
their connection with God doesn’t have anything to do with them being more
spiritual or accomplished. It has
everything to do with a God who relentlessly pursued them even though at the
time they couldn’t see it. As Paul puts
it elsewhere, For by grace you have been saved, and this is not your own doing,
it is the gift of God. What makes me a
Christian is not that I came to God, but God came to me. And that means, God loves me period, not for
anything I will do or not do, but simply because I am. The preacher Bill Coffin put it well: God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because you have value that you are
loved. It’s because you are loved that
you have value. It is a gift. It’s not
an achievement. It doesn’t depend on
you, but only on God’s unshakable love for you.
And if you ever doubt how unshakable that love
is, look at Jesus. When Jesus prayed in
the garden before his death, he faced the reality that all evil was preparing
to come down on him: that he would experience infinite suffering. And right then Jesus could have punted. He could have walked away. He could have walked away from us. All hell was tempting him to do just
that. But he didn’t. He went to that cross, and he stayed. He held on to us when all hell was trying to
get him to let us go. Do you really
think if he did that, that if you have a bad week, or even a bad year, he is
going to walk away from you? Are you
serious? That’s how you know. No matter
what bad stuff is happening inside of you or bad things happening around you,
you can know. Jesus has not abandoned
you. Because if he didn’t abandon you on
that cross, then nothing in all of creation will cause him to let you go. And that
love that will not let you go, it will work.
It will work in even the hardest things in your life for good. And this is the love you have been looking
for all your life. This is the love
that enables you to withstand anything.
And all you need to do is say yes to it. Have you?
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