GOD FOR PRESIDENT

I.                   What if God were running for President?

A.    Positives

1.                  Name Recognition

a.       prayer

b.      exclamations

c.       free advertising on currency

 

2.                  Omnipotence

a.       Unlimited campaign funds

b.      A network that could put any other to shame

c.       Could sway a close election

1.                  With a brush of the hand could cut loose dangling, hanging and any other kind of chad

2.                  Could leak information to which only God is privy

3.                  As a last resort, could smite any opponent

 

B.     Negatives

1.                  Probably couldn’t count on the atheist vote

2.                  Platform of filling the hungry with good things, lifting up the lowly and setting prisoners free would be a tough sell, especially among likely voters—the mighty cast down from their thrones, the rich sent away empty and prison industry investors.

3.                  Most of all though, God’s divine wishy washiness, unwillingness to “stay the course” no matter what

a.       Take the whole Golden Calf incident for example.  (Talk about the story)

b.      How would a sophisticated, savvy electorate respond to a tough talking candidate who didn’t follow through, who when all was said and done went soft, who let someone else talk him into changing his mind?

 

What kind of God is this?

 

II.                It wasn’t an election, that precipitated God’s ire, but a timeless story of human fickleness, of how quickly God’s people turn away from God’s commands

A.    Talk about ingratitude!  After all that God had done for them, here they are carrying on up with another God, and one of their own making no less!!

1.                  Bringing them up out of slavery in the land of Egypt

2.                  Feeding them in the wilderness with the gift of manna & quail

3.                  Giving them springs of water in the parched wilderness

4.                  After all that, they had the gall to offer their worship and sacrifice to a dead idol and not the living God!

 

B.     But then, isn’t that the way it is with human beings.

1.                  When life doesn’t happen according to our expectations, we grow impatient

a.       for results

b.      for leadership

c.       for direction and vision

2.                  Whether in the corporate, business world or religious world we turn to just about anyone, anything who promises to deliver.

3.                  Likewise, we’re quick to fashion God a God who fits our bill.

a.       One that best suits our needs

b.      One that best fulfills our political agendas

c.       One that will help us achieve our financial desires

d.      in short, a god who gives us what we want!

 

III.             But the God human beings want isn’t the God human beings get

A.    Not so for the children of Israel.

1.                  No quick fix

2.                  No charismatic leader come to save the day

3.                  No easy life just around the corner

4.                  Rather a God whose “wrath burns hot against them”, that would “consume them” and wills to start all over again.

B.     Not so for us either.  The God we want isn’t the God we get

1.                  No quick fix

2.                  No charismatic leader come to save the day – if there is, we’d better watch out!

3.                  No promise of an easy life just around the corner

 

IV.             And yet, what about the God we get…

A.    An impassioned God.  “I am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of their parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.”  (Exodus 20)

B.     A God who longs for relationship

1.                  Loving

2.                  Personal

3.                  Possessive refuses to let anything come in the way, will stop at nothing to make it happen—leaving the 99 to find the one lost

C.     A God who is moved, moved even to “repent.”

1.                  A foreign, even unsettling notion to us.  (How often to politicians and religious leaders repent?)  Repentance is something “we” do, not God, right?

2.                  And yet, God’s change of heart “reveals something of the mystery of our salvation” (Kosuke Koyama, The Christian Century, August 30-September 6, 1989 pg. 779.)

3.                  God’s “repentance” means that God’s final word is never one of condemnation and judgment, but one of grace, hope and life for us and for all of creation.     

4.                  A sign of God making God’s self vulnerable out of God’s deep and abiding love, because finally there’s nothing more to be said than “God IS love.”

5.                  And it is not some abstract idea or theological construct, but a real, flesh and blood experience, no more clearly evident to us than Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. 

 

V.                 And the God we get, is the God we give.

A.    Can’t hold on to or try to contain God – The minute we think we have a hold on him, God is gone.

B.     Our culture teaches us to look strong, capable, to keep a stiff upper lip and hold our cards close to the vest.

C.     But as we make ourselves vulnerable, as we open ourselves up to the

messiness, the brokenness, to life not as some kind of wish projection, but as life really is, then and only then do we catch sight of God

D.    In turn, this becomes the picture we are called to project into the world, not of a God who makes all our dreams come true, but who is there in the dark valley, in the shadow, when our bones are broken and hope is lost. 

                                    

Pastor Brian Peterson