“Hiding from God: Not Likely”
- Hebrews
4:12-13 -
Genesis 3:8: They
heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the
evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves…
Mark 10:21: Jesus,
looking at [the rich young ruler], loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go,
sell what you own, and give the money to the poor…”
Hebrews 4:13a: And
before [God] no creature is hidden…
In
the introduction to his commentary on Hebrews, Dr. Foy Valentine wrote: The writer of Hebrews used this letter to
call [its original] readers to understand the deep meaning of their faith and
to accept the full responsibility of their Christian experience of grace. [They were] especially challenged to be
faithful, obedient, disciplined, principled, and unfailingly committed to
living the Christian life… the very heart of the letter is the recurring call
to practice the Christian faith in daily life.
We
modern readers of Hebrews are no less challenged to be faithful, obedient,
disciplined, principled, and unfailingly committed to living the Christian
life. We, too, are called to practice
the Christian faith in our daily lives.
We are called to engage ourselves in the classic Christian spiritual
disciplines of regularly attending worship services, praying with and for one
another on a daily basis, being prayerfully serious students of Scripture,
being ethical in our daily dealings with others, and practicing good
stewardship over every facet of our lives: our work, our finances, our
politics, our family life, our time, our talents, our energy, and our
health.
That,
in a nutshell, is the general message of Hebrews. The more immediate and specific message of
today’s text is that we cannot fool God, or ultimately ourselves, into
believing that we’re living as faithful Christians when, in fact, we’re not. The original congregation addressed by
Hebrews was just sort of drifting along, more or less playing at being the
church rather than actually what they had answered a call to be. Its members were bored. Their spiritual lives were stagnant. God knew it, and deep down, they knew it.
Today’s
text was a reminder that God’s Word, in this case the Gospel message, is alive
and active - in the world and in our lives.
This Word – this Gospel - is powerful.
Part of its power is found in the role it plays in God’s work of
diagnosing the condition of the human heart.
In today’s Gospel text Jesus, the Word made flesh, knew exactly what
that rich young ruler needed to do. He
knew precisely what was standing between that man and God: his dependence on
his wealth. That’s why Jesus instructed
him to let it go.
This
young man, this outwardly pious person, couldn’t fool God. Nor can we.
That has been a reality since the dawn of creation. We cannot fool God. Adam and Eve discovered that the hard way. They tried to hide, but the Lord God found them. They tried to rationalize away their disobedience,
but God was not fooled. Their sins did
indeed find them out.
We
cannot hide from God. Nor can we fool
him. We cannot avoid God or the reality
of his Word. Before God we are laid
bare. His Word has the power to cut
through all our defenses and denials, and to discern our thoughts, intentions,
and attitudes. There is no avoiding God
or his judgment. Measured by our
faithfulness to his Word, we each stand before his throne of gracious
judgment. He knows us better than we
know ourselves. God is fully aware of
all that we do and say and think. God
knows what we really believe. Not what
we say we believe. Not what the world
may think we believe. What we believe.
As
we receive and obey the Gospel message by faith, so it is that we receive God’s
blessings. As we disregard the Gospel
message, so it is that we bring God’s judgment upon ourselves. The Gospel is God’s gift to us. It is also God’s demand of us. Adam, Eve, and the rich young ruler were more
than willing to accept God’s grace. What
they weren’t willing to do was accept the responsibilities that came with it.
Our
modern mainline American churches have been described as disillusioned and
suffering from a lack of morale. They are also accused, and often rightly so,
of just complacently drifting along, of just playing at being the church. The church’s critics, and even its friends,
see too much of its energy and resources being directed toward preserving its
institutional forms, maintaining traditions, and worshipping the past rather
than being the church our Lord Jesus is calling it to be.
The
truth is that many modern American Christians are bored. For too many of us, too often, our faith is
stagnant. By and large we’ve become
spiritually lazy and undisciplined. Our
lives and the lives of our churches often no longer reflect the Good News of
Jesus. Worship attendance is
spotty. Prayer lives are cursory. Scripture study is hit-or-miss. Stewardship is something we don’t even want
to hear about much less practice. The
prospect of sharing the Good News about Jesus with those around us paralyzes
us.
This is not to say that all is lost, that there is no hope for the
modern mainline American church. Through
individual and corporate acts of faithfulness the hungry are fed, the ravages
of poverty are lessened, children are educated, and those who are sick, lost,
and lonely receive shelter, care, and healing.
All kinds of mission and service are being done in the name of Jesus
Christ. Some of us do evangelize. Many of us pray. There is a hunger for biblical knowledge. Those of us who attend worship truly do
experience the living presence of the risen Christ as well as a sense of
connection to the whole Communion of Saints.
We’re not dead yet!
This
is especially true of Grace Church at this moment in time. There is life here. There is faithfulness. We’re not perfect, but at least we’re
improving.
God
knows this. God knows of our faithfulness as well as our unfaithfulness, our
spiritual and ecclesiastical successes as well as our failures in those
areas. God reads our hearts and
minds. God examines the very depth of who
and what we are. Sometimes we fail the
examination. The result is judgment.
This
judgment is evident throughout the mainline denominations of present-day Western
Europe and
We
cannot deny these signs of spiritual malaise.
They are all too evident. Signs
of God’s judgment are visible and real.
But so, too, are signs of God’s grace.
God’s Word - the Gospel message – the Good News about Jesus is at heart
a message of mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
What we are isn’t what we have to be.
What we’ve done can be undone.
What we’ve neglected can be reemphasized. While none of us will ever be perfect
Christians, and there can never be, this side of heaven, a perfect church, by
the wonder of God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, each of us and
every one of our churches can reclaim our spiritual heritage.
It’s
never too late for us to be seriously engaged in the spiritual disciplines, and
our engagement in them does not have to be perfect or total. It just has to be honest. God knows when we’re seeking to grow in
faithfulness. God also knows when we’re
faking it.
Please
listen as I read today’s text again, only this time as it is paraphrased in The
Message: “God means what he
says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s
scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open
to listen and obey. Nothing and no one
is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t
get away from it – no matter what.”
We cannot run away from the Gospel’s claims on our lives. So why even try? It’s so much better to turn around and face
God’s judgment, for in the honest facing of his judgment we are also brought
face-to-face with his grace. Do we
really want to run away from that?
Amen.