You know folks, I've said before that I consider myself like Thomas, a doubter by life and personality. And, when I was treated as I was by the West Virginia University, I lost one of my most important responses. I began not to Trust, one of the most important word for me and, perhaps, for many of you. So it was natural that, once I had responded to God to share my Testimony yesterday, I immediately began to be nervous. Did I say everything that I should have said... Should I have included my present fears from the republican party... Well, he sent to messages. One from the book that I had just started--the individual excerpt provided today was my answer...
I was crying as I fell to sleep last night, just as I am crying right now as I write... Not in sadness, but once again being thankful in all the confirmations of life where I KNOW that God is Alive and watching... Listening... Working through His children as their talents allows... Read this sermon from the book written by Valerie M. Bodden/
“Children of God.” Dad’s voice came through the phone, and Judah swallowed. It had been a long time since he had heard his father preach, but those words were so familiar that they brought a strange ache to his throat. “You all might not know this about me,” Dad said, “but I don’t mind making a fool of myself.” A ripple of laughter came through the speaker, and Judah snorted. “Or maybe you do know that,” Dad quipped, and the laughter got louder. Faith joined in.
“I forgot how much I love your dad’s sermons,” she said. “The pastor at the church in Nashville was good, but he was so stuffy. Almost made you feel like laughing in church was a sin.” Judah nodded. He couldn’t deny that his dad was a good preacher, even if Judah hadn’t believed the things he preached about in a long time.
“My kids always loved that, growing up,” Dad continued. “Having a dad who wasn’t afraid to embarrass himself—and them in the process. When they were little, we would take them to the zoo, and I would start singing the Wizard of Oz song. You know, the ‘follow the yellow brick road’ one. And I’d do the whole scarecrow walk too, like this.” He broke into song, and Faith’s laugh filled the car.
“Is he doing the walk?” Judah demanded, not taking his eyes off the road. “Sort of. As much as he can in the pulpit.” Faith giggled. “Did he really used to do that?” “Oh yeah.” Judah groaned, but it turned into a smile at the memory. “The younger kids would always join him, and the rest of us would try to pretend we didn’t know any of them.”
“Or there was the time,” Dad continued, “that I made the whole family enter a lip sync contest. We had a choreographed dance and everything.” “You did not.” Faith turned to Judah with a disbelieving laugh. “We did,” Judah said grimly. “How did I never hear about this?” “It was before we moved to River Falls. My siblings and I swore each other to secrecy.” Faith was still chuckling as Dad said, “So when I say that I’m not afraid to be called a fool, you know I mean it. And that’s a good thing, because, well, I’ve been called a fool more than once in my life. And not only for the silly things I do. For what I believe.” Dad’s voice sobered. “For the God I serve. For the faith I have.”
Judah’s hands tightened involuntarily on the wheel, and he winced as pain shot through the injured area. But it was foolishness, what Dad believed, the God he served. Sure, Judah had believed it too, a long time ago. But that was only because he hadn’t known better. Once he’d gotten to college, seen more of the world, he’d realized that none of it made sense. A higher power. Miracles. Eternal life. All of that was just silly, wishful thinking. Silly, wishful thinking that made him look like a fool when he brought it up. That drew snickers and eye rolls from his professors and classmates. And unlike Dad, he did have a problem with being called a fool.
“I can’t blame people, really,” Dad continued. “After all, what we believe as Christians does sound a little bit foolish. We believe that God spoke the whole world—the whole universe—into existence, out of nothing. We believe that he is triune—three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in one God. We believe that Jesus is both true God and true man. We believe that he came into the world as a baby, born of a virgin, to live a perfect life in our place. We believe he died on the cross—carrying the weight of our sins with him—and then rose from the dead three days later. And we believe that because of that, we will live eternally with him in heaven, even though we die. I mean—” Dad whistled quietly. “None of it seems to make much sense, when you think about it. No wonder people think it’s foolish.”
That was exactly the conclusion Judah had come to. But he knew Dad well enough to know he wasn’t going to leave things there. “Here’s the thing,” Dad continued. “These are all things I can’t adequately explain. They’re things I can’t prove with scientific evidence. They’re things, some of them, that I don’t even fully understand myself. And we don’t like things we can’t understand, do we?”
Judah accidentally made a sound of assent. He felt Faith’s eyes come to him, but she didn’t say anything. “And so people dismiss the truth as foolishness,” Dad went on. “They tell us it can’t possibly be real. It’s not reasonable to believe. Well, let me tell you something. Faith isn’t reasonable.”
Judah’s eyes flicked to the phone in Faith’s hand for a moment. Had he heard right?
“That’s why it’s called faith,” Dad continued. “We can’t reason it out. We can’t reason ourselves into believing. In fact, too often, our human reason gets in the way of our faith. Not because our human reason is bad. When it comes to paying the bills and growing crops and building cars and performing surgeries”—Judah wondered if that last one was for his benefit—“human reason is wonderful. It’s a gift from God. But when we put our trust in that reason, above faith—that’s when we get into trouble.”
Dad paused, and Judah’s gaze skipped to Faith, who was nodding along.
“I know this feels like a new problem,” Dad said. “But Paul was already warning about this only twenty or so years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. He writes in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1: ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. . . . Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.’” There was a pause, and Judah could imagine Dad gazing at the people in the pews, making sure the words sank in. “That sounds complicated and deep,” Dad finally said. “But really, it’s pretty simple. When it comes to salvation, the wisdom of this world is nothing. The foolishness of God—of believing in a Savior who came into this world to take away our sins—that’s everything.”
Faith shifted in her seat, her arm brushing against Judah’s as she leaned on the console. Judah told his arm to move out of the way, but it didn’t listen, and they sat with their arms pressed together.
“Speaking of the foolishness of God—” Dad’s voice was slightly louder with Faith holding the phone closer. “Let’s talk about that. Because when you think about it, God’s love for us is rather foolish, isn’t it? After all, we have nothing to offer him. We can’t pay him back. In fact, rather than paying him back, we too often spit in his face. We sin against him. We ignore him. We deny him and turn away from him. If anyone treated us that way, we would walk away from them. But God’s love isn’t contingent on our love for him. He doesn’t love us because of who we are. He loves us because of who he is. He loves us because he is love. He loves us with a love that never holds back. He lavishes us with his love, as 1 John 3:1 says: ‘See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!’”
Faith sighed, and Judah glanced over to see her blinking back tears. “What’s wrong?” He was instantly on alert. She laughed a little. “Nothing. Sorry. It’s just— Sometimes I forget how much God loves us.” Judah didn’t say anything, but his heart twitched. Or, it didn’t—he knew without a doubt that hearts didn’t do that. And yet, there was no other way to describe it. He almost wished for a moment that he could believe what Faith did. That he could go back to a time when he did believe. But now that he knew better, how could he?
“And not only is God’s love for us foolish,” Dad was saying, “but the way he chose to save us seems pretty foolish too. I mean, if it were up to us to come up with a means of salvation, I’m pretty sure we would say, ‘Well, of course you’ll have to do something to earn it. There’s no free lunch. You have to be a good person. Follow all the rules. Keep every commandment.’ But God knew we couldn’t do that. He knew that not a single one of us was good enough or could do enough to earn our way to heaven. So he didn’t say, ‘Well, do the best you can, and maybe if it’s good enough, I’ll let you in.’ No, he said, ‘I’ll do it all for you. I’ll send my one and only Son to live in your place. To be perfect in your place. To die in your place. You don’t have to do anything. Only believe.’ We hear it in Ephesians 2:8-9, ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.’” Judah let out a breath that he hoped Faith didn’t hear. Even if he wanted to, how could he believe something so unbelievable?
“People want proof of that, they want evidence, they want to see it with their own eyes. Well, it’s all right here. And beyond that, it’s right here.” Judah’s eyes flicked to the screen in Faith’s hand. “The Bible,” she said, as if realizing what he was trying to figure out. “And our hearts.” Judah nodded but pressed his lips together. This was where he had a problem. He couldn’t base his whole life on feelings. “I’m not talking about feelings,” Dad said, as if he had read Judah’s thoughts from forty miles away. “I’m talking about faith. There is a difference. Feelings depend on our circumstances. Faith depends on our Savior. It relies on what he tells us in his Word. It holds to his promises, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense to do so. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, ‘Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.’” Dad paused, as if letting that sink in, then continued, “But how? How can we possibly have confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see?”
Judah nodded. Exactly. It was silly to expect someone to believe in what there was no evidence of.
“Fortunately—” There was a smile in Dad’s voice. “That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. He is the one who works on our hearts, the one who gives us a heart transplant. ‘I will give you a new heart,’ the Lord says in Ezekiel, ‘and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’” Judah caught his breath. There was no way Dad knew that verse had been playing through his head ever since Amina had said it to him—he didn’t even know Amina had existed. And he couldn’t know that more than once over the past few weeks, in the privacy of his own room, Judah had reread Mama’s note alongside those verses in her Bible. So was it only a coincidence that he had brought it up?
Or . . . Had God led him to— No. Obviously not. Judah dismissed the possibility. But he couldn’t dismiss Dad’s voice as he continued, “The Holy Spirit takes our hearts that are by nature dead in sin, and he replaces them with living hearts, overflowing with faith and love in him. Hearts that have ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.’ Hearts that are willing to ‘become “fools” so that you may become wise.’ Hearts that have an answer that is stronger than any physical proof, any scientific evidence, any seeing with our own eyes. And that answer is Jesus. Amen.”
“Amen,” Faith whispered. Judah kept his eyes on the road and his lips pressed tight as Dad led the congregation in a prayer. If anything, the sermon had only made the ache in his throat sharper, but he didn’t know why. Saying Jesus was the answer to everything sounded nice. But in real life, it didn’t work that way. He’d seen too many children pray for a parent’s recovery, only to have to bury that parent a few days later. Too many spouses with unanswered prayers. Too many parents weeping over the bed of a child they’d been sure God would save. You can’t save me, Dr. Judah, God already has. Amina’s words slipped into Judah’s thoughts. He saved you too, did you know that? Judah had believed it once, but believing it again now felt too . . . futile. Besides, he had turned his back on God for years. There was no reason for God to take him back, even if he wanted to go back.
“’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take him at his Word.” The words of the hymn seemed to fill the car, and it took Judah a moment to realize that was because Faith was singing along with the hymn. Her voice was low and sweet, and her face shone with a smile that said she trusted completely the truth of the words she sang. Judah’s heart gave another weak twitch, but he tried to ignore it and turned his eyes back to the road.
!!!!
God Bless
Gabby
This is why I enjoy this retired pastor...
We must all consider to choose between God and This World
Only then will Peace be Achieved...
Peace is created or lost by all of us...
Right now, it's the worst time of hate and violence I've seen...
I DO Want Peace. Do YOU?
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