Isaiah 55:6-9 * September 14, 2008 * Pentecost 18 * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends in Christ,

Let’s meet a few imaginary people featured in a pretend book entitled, “Real Life Stories of Struggling Christians”…

Tom and Diane worked hard and willingly placed their lives on hold as they put their kids through school. They didn’t consider this a sacrifice, but they did look forward to that great future “someday” when things would be a bit more relaxed. Then, just when “someday” seemed to be around the corner, Tom got seriously ill, draining what remained of their time, energy and resources.

Ron and Cathy seemed to have it made and at a relatively young age surrounded themselves with all the trappings of success. Now they were ready to start their family. But it didn’t happen. And they learned it couldn’t happen – at least in the way they had envisioned it.

Next is Teri. She’s a devout, well educated, well adjusted Christian woman. She looked forward to being a wife and mother and prayed daily that the Lord bring someone into her life. But the right person never came along. So after a while she resigned herself to the fact that she may never have the companionship she desired.

Finally there is Margaret. She’s in her twilight years and lives in a care facility. More and more she is able to do less and less for herself. She often feels like she is a burden to her family and can’t understand why the Lord still has her here. Each day she prays that He take her to heaven, but the next day always comes.

None of these imaginary believers openly expressed frustration over their lot in life. But in their heart of hearts they often wondered “why?”

There are other chapters in this imaginary book. In fact there are as many chapters as there are individual Christians.

Today’s text was written for every Christian who has ever wondered why God did or didn’t do something. Or questioned His timing. Or maybe even His wisdom or fairness. Or didn’t understand how what was happening could possibly be a good thing. Or felt like their prayers went unheard or unanswered. Which, I would guess, at one time or another or in one form or another is just about all of us.

Well, here’s the bottom line answer we learn from God’s Word this morning:

GOD DOESN’T THINK LIKE US

1. When it comes to our eternal life – thank Him for this

2. When it comes to our present life – trust Him in this

The Word of God we have before us today has both a specific and a general meaning. And while the general meaning addresses the questions which we raised just a few minutes ago, the specific meaning is actually much more significant.

In the original context God is inviting His people to enter into a saving relationship with Him. He longs to have them live with Him forever in heaven. He has promised them a Savior from their sin, beautifully described in chapter 53 as the One who will live and die as the substitute for mankind, and in the verses immediately preceding He invites His people to freely come and enjoy these eternal blessings.

Our text is a continuation of this wonderful invitation: “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord [believe/trust/have faith], and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

This is an invitation of pure grace. There are no strings attached. God doesn’t say do this and this and that and then maybe I’ll consider pardoning you. God doesn’t say if you work real hard and die on one of My good days then maybe you’ve got a chance at heaven. No. He says “turn to Me.” In other words, trust in Me and the Savior I have promised, and I will freely give you salvation…

And we can almost hear the people say (because we hear people still say it today), “Is that it? Is this a trick question, God? You mean, all that is necessary for salvation is trusting in you? No works? No keeping so many commands? No living a good life? Have you forgotten, God, that there is no such thing as a free lunch? You’re just going to give us pardon and eternal life without asking anything from us?”

The implied answer from God is: Yes. And our text concludes with God telling them why this can be: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

In other words, God doesn’t think like us. Because the promise of salvation embodied in the Gospel message is the exact opposite of the standard operating procedure for every man-made religion, which is “salvation through performance” or “salvation through work.” Here God promises a “no-strings-attached” salvation through faith in the work of the Savior He himself would provide in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This is a divine arrangement. And if in a casual conversation on the topic of religion you’re ever looking for a reason to suggest why Christianity must be something special, you could do no better than to point out that man would never come up with such a system on his own. But thank God, He doesn’t think like us.

So what does this all mean for us? A lot. And everything that is truly important. First and foremost, it means complete spiritual liberation. Practically speaking…

It means that we know where we are going to go when we die: Heaven. Life here on earth may hold some surprises for us, and we may not even always understand why God allows some of the things to happen to us that He does, and we’ll talk more about this in just a second. But one thing there is no question about is where we’ll be the moment we close our eyes in death. Therefore we are not arrogant when we sing: “I’m But a Stranger Here, Heaven is My Home.” How can we be sure? Because our salvation doesn’t depend upon what we do for God, but on what God has done for us in Jesus.

Here is the essence of the matter: we have been liberated from the burden of a performance-based salvation. Which means we have also been liberated from a wrong understanding of God and how He relates to us now. This is the broader application of this text. Just like we thank God that He doesn’t think like us in the matter of eternal life, we trust Him when He doesn’t think like us in the matter of our present life.

“Deus Absconditus” is one of the many teachings associated with Martin Luther, and it might be useful to us here. In Latin it means “the hidden God.” Luther uses this phrase to talk about a number of things but one of the points he makes is that God simply doesn’t reveal to us the reason for everything He does; that on this side of heaven many of the answers we’d like to know are hidden from us. The Apostle Paul talked about the same thing when He told us as Christians we walk by faith, not by sight.

Yet there is much that God has revealed to us, so as Christian people this is our approach to life: we view what we don’t know or don’t understand in the light of what we do. And this is what we know: God loves us. Jesus showed it. The cross and the empty tomb proved it.

Moreover, as John tells in His first letter, God continues to love us because “God is love.” He continues to love us even when we can’t understand why or for what reason He is doing what He does in our lives. In those cases we simply trust that our loving God doesn’t think like us, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

So we find comfort in knowing that what may not make sense to us makes perfect sense to God. We must remember that we see our lives a as a linear progression, but God sees our lives from the perspective of eternity. And while we see our life unfolding in time, God sees it as a completed activity.

We must humbly understand that while we make choices and decisions on what we feel is best for us and then tend to become disappointed when they don’t turn out as we had planned or envisioned or abruptly get changed, God oversees our lives with our truly best eternal interests in mind. And He is smarter than us.

When we view life from this perspective the “why is God doing this” kind of questions become less pronounced and give way to the quiet confidence that the loving God who has brought or allowed events into our lives – even and especially those we would never have chosen for ourselves – will give us the strength and ability to go forward.

The questions of wonderment (and if we’re honest, even those unspoken indictments of unfairness we sometimes make against God in our weak moments) eventually dissipate under the proclamation of God in the Book of Romans: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

God does not ask us to understand, but only to trust. And that trust has been earned by that singular act of love that took place on a cross.

A final thought is this: we are certainly not the first Christians to wonder about these things. Approximately 1600 years ago a great Christian by the name of Augustine wrote these words in one of his many books:

“There are good men who suffer evils and evil men who enjoy good things, which seems unjust, and there are bad men who come to a bad end, and good men who arrive at a good one. Thus, the judgments of God are all the more inscrutable and His ways past finding out. We do not know, therefore, by what judgment God causes or allows these things to pass.”

But this much we do know and here our God and we His people are on the same page: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And that’s all that really matters.

And that is enough of an explanation and provides enough of a framework for all the unanswered questions in our present lives.

No, God doesn’t think like us. He thinks better than us. In the matter of our eternal life, we thank Him for this. In the matter of our present life, trust Him in this. Because “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” declares our Lord. Amen.