Illustration – This past week…Dodger Baseball game with my two older sons and a
friend of theirs. My oldest, Travis, wants to take his glove… to catch a ball. I try to
reset the expectations in reality. As the game ends.. the players leave the field… he
goes down to the lowest railing near the dugout. I beginning to press that it’s time to
go. Out walks a figure in uniform… holding a g
Baseball… a game ball. Those left in the stand begin waving to get his attention. He’s
panning the small crowd remaining… and then gives it a throw… right into Travis’
glove.
> Reminded me of how God finds us… how he wants to toss each one of us a ball.
But I was also struck by the fact that he had his glove on… and it was open.
> There is a call to every life that seeks to break us out of our isolation and
independence. Apart from God we are like actors without a story…and this series
is about rediscovering the story that defines our lives.
Last week… significance of knowing our purpose… and finding confidence in God’s
intent.
We were created to be loved by God and live with Him forever.
This morning… I invite us to consider how the Call of God engages us.
The story begins in a poetic fashion…
The Creation story given to us in the very first chapters of Genesis in the Old
Testament… has never ceased to speak deeply to the questions of life. There is a
poetic quality and brevity that I believe rightfully allows for various interpretations in
terms of the details… but however we interpret the details, the Genesis record is
clear…. God is the Creator and he breathed His Spirit into that which was uniquely
created to reflect His image… but creatures who possess the freedom that is inherent
to a relationship of love.
The essence of creation is good… life is given the security of belonging to God…and
the significance of our role in His Creation.
But we accept and choose an alternative… that of trying to be like God… they choose
to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…
Genesis 3:7-10
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so
they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in
the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of
the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so
I hid."
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Having lost their innocence, our first ancestors become ashamed of their
nakedness. They hide from each other behind fig leaves… and they hide from God
behind bushes.
God’s presence comes with the first question…
So what God did say…‘Where are you?’
> not referring to coordinates but condition. God isn’t asking for an
evaluation of our coordinates… but an evaluation of our condition.
“Where are you?”
That question, so simple and direct, had and continues to have enormous implications.
It may be the first question God asks anyone when He gets his or her attention.
We were intended to live within the only realm that such finite created beings
could live in… the innocence of a world that was only good. God was good and all
that God had created was good. Only God in His infinite nature could understand that
good can be negated by creatures of free will and thus allow something evil. Such was
the tree that humans were never to eat of…the tree that represented such an
experience … knowledge… of good and evil.
Such knowledge would construe the very image true goodness…and would
place human existence outside our natural realm.
Apart from the God as the Writer-Director…we have become actors without a
story and without a director. Apart from God we have been trying to write our
own story ever since… or are drawn into many false stories.
• When the top intelligence agencies want to subvert the power and plans of
an enemy, they feed them info that appears credible… but will cause them to
frame their plans wrong.
Our true condition is that of living out both a false pursuit to be gods (pride)
…and that of painfully knowing we are tragically flawed (shame.)
The answer given says it all…
“I was afraid… so I hid.”
We are still sowing fig leaves to deal with our loss of innocence. We
can develop many forms of defending ourselves… and our defenses
become our distance…
1. Hide behind our blame of others… even God. -“It’s not my fault…it’s beyond
my choice.”
2. Hide behind the norm. Dismiss it as common. - “Everybody’s doing it.”
3. Hide behind comparison. - “I’m not so bad…certainly better than most.”
4. Hide behind a false futility. Convinced we’re beyond hope.
5. Hide behind a passion for justice but which refuses the mercy also need.
6. Hide behind our unanswered questions to God.
7. Hide behind activity… staying preoccupied.
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Another way we might consider the issue is to consider where your mind wanders.
Let’s say you’re sitting church and find yourself a little bored…. Where does your mind
go to relieve the boredom? What do you find yourself thinking about? What is it that
you can’t wait to get to or begin to do?
> That may well be your hiding place. (Not the bathroom!)
“God can deal with our guilt, but our self-justification keeps Him at
arms length… and the arm is ours.” (Bruce Larson)
Brennen Manning
“… as soon as we lose our nerve about ourselves, we take cover. Adam
and Eve hid, and we all, in one way or another, have used them as role models.
Why? Because we do not like what we see. It is uncomfortable intolerable-to
confront our true selves.
We hide behind pretty faces which we put an for the benefit of our public. And in
time we may even come to forget that we are hiding and think that our assumed
pretty face is what we really look like.”
So perhaps the most important thing for us to recognize and hear… is
that it’s we who moved away from God. God never withdrew… rather
we left the story.
1. God calls us to LOCATE OUR CONDITION.
Illustration – Those big board signs at a shopping mall that show the whole
picture… and then have that one target that says “You are here.” I don’t always like
those… but I realize that I have to locate where I am in order to find my way.
> In the same way…
We need to locate ourselves in relationship to God… the Source and Center of
life.
The simple truth is that God’s has never moved… we have. His desire for relationship
has never changed. No matter what humanity had done… we have done…
God still comes to pursue relationship…. still seeks to call us out.
Leads us ahead to the original call to Abraham…
Genesis 12:1-4 (NIV)
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father’s
household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I
will bless you; I will make your name great, and…and all peoples on earth will be
blessed through you." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him…”
Interesting that we discover in Acts 7:2 that a previous calling had come to Abraham’s
life… but now…. only following his father’s death…. he fully responds to that calling…
forever changing the trajectory of his life.
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So what’s the path… what’s the map he gives him?
> The path that I show you. It will unfold. The calling of God is more than a job… it’s an
adventure… the purpose is clear… the particular path it takes unfolds.
What does Abraham do… ? > “So Abraham left.”
Three of the most important words in
2. God calls us to respond in TRUST.
The fundamental choice which is reflected in the fall… was that of not trusting God. So it
shouldn’t surprise us that the fundamental choice that brings Abraham into God’s story… is a
choice to trust. The fundamental choice that brings each of us into the story… is the choice to
trust.
It helps us understand the heart of God in stating. “To obey is better than sacrifice…”
Illustration of getting dog. There’s certainly value in looking for a well bred dog.. in terms of
health and stature. But pedigree and papers are no substitute for what matters most…
RESPONSIVENESS.
Abraham represents the essential nature of responsive trust. Later Abraham would be
understood not merely as a biological father to this nation… but the father of faith…
trust. He was considered righteous… right by God… not becai=use of his perfection…
but his trust.
Finally… another critical part of entering the Call… of entering the story lies in
it’s essential nature of seeking to bless and restore all creation.
At the heart of the vision lies blessing… it is the defining identity and purpose.
… that of restoring the design and reign of God. To enter the story is to receive that
blessing of restoration … both within us… and through us.
Jesus… “I have come to seek and save that which was lost.”
Jesus is offering the CALL of life with God… and was extending it as it always was
meant to be….
John 10:10, 16 (MSG)
“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever
dreamed of. ….You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this
pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will
be one flock, one Shepherd.”
3. God calls us to join the BLESSING and RESTORATION of creation.
Eph. 1:11 (Msg)
“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for... part of the
overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.”
YANCEY/THIELICKE DESCRIBE GRACE-FILLED EYES
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A prostitute, a wealthy exploiter, a demon-possessed woman, a Roman soldier, a
Samaritan with running sores and another Samaritan with serial husbands - I marvel
that Jesus gained the reputation as being a "friend of sinners" like these. As
Helmut Thielicke wrote:
"Jesus gained the power to love harlots, bullies, and ruffians. . . he was able to
do this only because he saw through the filth and crust of degeneration,
because his eye caught the divine original which is hidden in every way - in
every man!. He saw him as God originally designed and meant him to be, and
therefore he saw through the surface layer of grime and dirt to the real man
underneath.” (Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p 175)
Conclusion: need to hear roar of the tiger once again
There is an ancient folk-tale about a tiger that was brought up with a herd of goats.
From the day his eyes opened, all he saw was a goat’s life so it became his style of life
too. The tiger munched grass with the rest, butted heads with the younger goats for
recreation, and learned to bleat in an odd sort of way a sound that resembled, so he
thought, the goat’s voice. Once in a while there was a nagging voice inside him that
said, "You don’t belong to this life!" But always he put it aside as a fantasy, some
disturbing intrusion from the world of dreams. If this didn’t satisfy him, he just marked
it off as the discontent that always hovers around the edges of any life style. So he, a
tiger, chose to stay with a goat’s way of life because he believed that was the way life
had to be. Then one day a tiger came into the clearing. He was all tiger, having
grown up knowing who he was. He looked into the clearing and spotted the goats. He
roared the earth-shaking roar of his species, bounded out and made his kill. The
goats fled in terror and so did the tiger who had grown up with them. At first he
wanted to stay. The roar from the edge of the forest had stirred some lost memory in
his soul. He flexed his great muscles in a kind of automatic reflex to the challenge
from the forest edge. Would he believe in the sound he heard, the challenge it
brought… the instincts that had lain dormant so long… or allow the familiar life of
goats to cause him to run away?
The tiger at the edge of the forest of your existence is Jesus, unique, winsome,
efficacious. He is all you should be. He is all you were destined to be. He is what
God intends. He is the Son as you can be sons and daughters. You cannot avoid
Him. Something deep within stirs.
> The tiger calls to the tiger in you. Will you hear the tiger’s roar?
