"Married to God" (Sermon 1.20.13)

Today's sermon fed a lot off the comments that I left on last week's sermon.  I give credit to God and to this blog for allowing me to voice those thoughts that led me to writing this week's sermon.  In short, I let my pride get in the way of God's message and that was the lesson that I learned throughout the week.  I want to take a moment to say thank you to those of you who take the time to read this each week and my hope is that it is helping you grow in your faith.

Today's scripture comes from the Old Testament book of Isaiah chapter 62:1-5: 
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
    for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,
till her vindication shines out like the dawn,
    her salvation like a blazing torch.
² The nations will see your vindication,
    and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
    that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.
³ You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,
    a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
⁴ No longer will they call you Deserted,
    or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah,
    and your land Beulah;
for the Lord will take delight in you,
    and your land will be married.
⁵ As a young man marries a young woman,
    so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
    so will your God rejoice over you.

If you were here last week, you may recall me apologizing for the sermon during the benediction, but for those of you who weren’t here I can give you a summary: I felt like I had delivered the sermon poorly, I felt like I hadn’t let God work through me; instead, I let pride and self-justification seep through my words.  I was doing the very thing that I was preaching against in that moment.  I came home and told Cheyanne how terrible it was, how I felt that I had let you all down.  After having a week to think about it, I cannot believe just how wrong I was.  First, I should have never apologized, to you.  However, I should have asked for forgiveness from God.  The reason I say this is for two reasons: 1) in apologizing, I was telling you that God’s message could not be heard through me.  Who am I to judge whether or not God is speaking to you? Who am I to put a limit on the power of God? I am in no way able to make those kind of judgments; and 2) instead of apologizing to all of you I should have asked for forgiveness from God for allowing my pride to get the best of me.  I allowed my pride to tell me that it was bad, I was thinking about myself instead of this congregation and more importantly, instead of being focused on God and his message.  Thankfully God has given me another chance and I need to leave my pride behind.  I want to do the very best job that I can for all of you, and I needed to realize that my success is not based how well I think I do.  The success of my faith is based on my faithfulness to God, it is based on how well I listen to God’s will, and it is based on how well I follow the example of Christ. It has absolutely nothing to do with my personal pride.  

But I am sure we have all faced an issue similar to this in our lives.  I am sure we have allowed our pride to tell us that we failed or that we did not live up to our potential. The point is that God gives us two options when something like this happens, we can either dwell on it and believe that we have failed; or we can learn from it and make ourselves better.  In the course of our faith, getting better is something that very rarely crosses our mind.  But we seem to make it a priority in other aspects of our lives, we strive to be better parents, better teachers, better nurses, better employees but do we take the time to get better at our faith.  Our faith seems to play a secondary role most of the time, we have a tendency to only pick it up when we need it or when it suits us.  How often do we carry our cross during the week? How often do we rely fully on God and trust Him with every ounce of our being? Most likely, the answer to those questions is when it suits us, when it fits into our schedule. Today’s scripture compares our relationship to God like a marriage.  When we get married, our spouse becomes apart of us.  We do our best to make that person happy, to be there for that person during rough times, and to love that person more than ourselves.  God keeps His end of this marriage agreement but we must ask ourselves if we are keeping our ours.  On an everyday basis, do we do everything in our power to please God and do we love Him more than we love ourselves?  Today’s scripture tells us that God will take delight in us, that He will rejoice over us but do we do the same?  God’s love for us is stronger, more powerful than we can imagine but does our love emulate a marriage.  Or does our love for God look like a marriage that is on the outs.  If you were to look at your relationship with God and compare it to a marriage, would you think that God is getting the short end of the stick?  The truth is that we can all feel this way at times, but God is understanding, loving, caring and nurturing.  He understands our shortcomings, yet He loves us unconditionally regardless.  This is true love.  If you have a relationship with God, you know that His love is the purest, strongest, most loyal love you will ever experience.  The lesson here today is that we must condition ourselves to reciprocate this love to God and to others.   

Today’s scripture from Isaiah was written in the time after the First Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed and before the Second Temple had been built.  There was a time period of about 50 years where the Jewish people did not have a Temple to worship in.  The Temple was the absolute center piece to the Jewish faith because this is where the sacrifices took place, it was the only place where such integral parts of the faith could be performed.  Isaiah wants us to know that he will not stop, he will not be quiet until Jerusalem’s vindication shines out like the dawn.  Isaiah is telling us that God’s faith in us is not shaken.  I have said before that Jesus transformed the Temple, he took the Temple and placed it in our hearts.  Therefore, this scripture still holds true for us today.  We may go through times in our lives where the Temple has been destroyed, we may feel that our faith has nothing left.  During this time period, the Jewish people had two options, they could either abandon the Temple which would mean abandon their faith; or they could rebuild.  When are faith is shaken to its very core, we too have the same options.  Just to show you how much God loves each and every single one of us, He has given us the choice of these two options.  He allows us to step away from our faith or we can choose to rebuild, to get better.

Ultimately, this choice leads in one direction and that one direction is hope.  No matter our circumstance, no matter our previous experience, there is still hope.  Even though I let pride enter into my way of thinking last week, there was still hope.  Hope in the fact that I could learn from that situation.  Hope in the fact that someone heard God speaking to them. The point is this: we all for short in the glory of God but it is our response to those shortcomings that defines who we are as a person, who we are as a Christian and who we are as a church and a community.  God’s glory is not defined by our best moments, it is defined by how we respond to those moments of weakness.  God’s glory is not defined by our evaluation of self-worth, it is defined by our trust in God.  If we can take the time to get better in our faith, to strive to be more Christ-like then you will find that trusting God gets easier and easier.  Placing our trust in something we cannot see can be difficult, especially if you have ever felt that God has let you down.  But maybe He was giving you an opportunity to place more trust into God and perhaps, you did not seize that opportunity.  If that is the case, I can promise you this: there is still hope.  God loves you as much as He ever has but the choice is yours in deciding what to do with that love.  You can either abandon it or you can choose to start rebuilding that trust.  It is in this choice where we can define God’s glory, mercy, hope and love.

In closing, I am taking back my apology for last week’s sermon and I am replacing it with this one: I am sorry for allowing my pride to get the best of me.  I am sorry if it somehow affected your faith in a negative way. And most importantly, God I am sorry for being foolish enough to underestimate Your power.  Do not make the same mistake I did, do not allow your pride to tell that you are not good enough.  If you have made mistakes, learn from them do not them define you.  Allow God to show the world His glory through your weaknesses.  God’s glory shines in you and it is your duty to allow that light to shine out into the world.  If you came here today seeking God’s glory, mercy, power, grace, hope and love I encourage you to ask Him into your heart.  Tell God that you are now ready to be a light unto the world and tell Him that you are ready to place your trust in Him.  Maybe you came here today in the search of a church family, if that is the case it is my duty to let you know that you are always welcome here and that you will always have a chair here at this table. Amen.

God Bless,

Clinton Wallace (link to my FB page)

Fairview Christian Church (link to Fairview's FB page)