Is God Angry?

Is God Angry?

Note: For Holy Week, I will be posting selected repeats from a couple of years ago.  We will begin a new series next week after Easter Sunday.  

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”
                                                                                                John 3:16-18, The Message
 
Today, we begin a discussion about confession.   Confession doesn’t enjoy a lot of attention in Methodist circles.  The reality is that it often makes us nervous.  To talk about confession, we have to talk about sin and we would rather talk about forgiveness and love.  I say we, but I really mean me.  But I’m guessing I’m not the only one.
 
I don’t like talking about sin because it makes me uncomfortable on so many levels.  I’m all too aware that I’m not who God wants me to be.  I’m not even who I want to be and my standards are so much lower than God’s.  I know I let God down. I know I let other people down.  I let myself down all the time.  I am a sinner, but I don’t like to say it.  It seems so depressing because I can’t seem to do anything about it.  So I’d rather not talk about it. 
 
Coupled with this aversion to talk about my imperfection is a notion that I gained from my earliest Christian education.  I heard over and over that God also knew about my sin and was angry about it.  I, and so many of you, were taught that God’s anger was why Jesus had to come and do what he did.  Jesus was taking the punishment for us.  Jesus was absorbing God’s anger so God would no longer be angry with me.  In fact, with all of that anger taken care of by Jesus, God is now able to love me.  That’s the basic gist that I was taught.   Confession, in this way of thinking, is simply a matter of accepting what Jesus did for me.  I simply own my own guilt and swap it for God’s love, an exchange made possible by Jesus dying on the cross.   A simple once and for all transaction.
 
Over time, through the disciplines, I came to know God in a different way.  I realized that God didn’t need a cosmic scapegoat named Jesus in order for Him to love me.  He loved me from the beginning. He has never not loved me.  Read these words form John 3 again:
 
“God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”
 
God sees my sin (and your sin) and is not angry but is filled with compassion and a desire to help me.  God knows that my sin is hurting myself, hurting others, and keeping me from relating to Him.  Most parents understand this divine impulse. You see your children making mistakes and how it robs them of what could be and you want to help them.  God feels that same impulse for each of us, but a million times more than we could ever understand.  Jesus came to help, not by simply taking a beating for us, but to help us understand the depths of God’s love.  To begin to understand this love is to see that this love has the power to save us from ourselves.  I can’t do anything about my sin, but God’s love can heal it.  Confession, in this way of thinking, is a whole new ball game.  But we’ll talk more about that tomorrow. 
 
For now, spend whatever time you can give today meditating on the fact that God is not and has not ever been angry with you.  God’s posture towards you since you were formed in your mother’s womb has been love, love, and more love.  Dwell on that today and we’ll talk some more tomorrow. 
 
Prayer:  God, thank you for your love.  Help me understand it better so that is can heal my brokenness and the brokenness of the world. Amen.
 
Prayer focus:  Spend some time thanking God for the good things that are happening right now in the world in the midst of the obvious chaos.
 
Song:  To Make You Feel My Love (Cover by Garth Brooks)  This is not a Christian song, but I’m inviting you to reimagine it.  As you hear the words, imagine that God is singing them to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FlSP0wsF5U

Matthew 7:7-11 - The Problem w/ "Name it and Claim it"

 

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric September 13, 2021

The Problem w/ “Name It and Claim it.”

 

Matthew 7:7-11, NLT - “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.  “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?  Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not!  So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

 

A quick take on this teaching from our Lord is that if we want something from God, just keep asking. If we want to find something, just keep looking and we will find it and if we just keep banging on the door, eventually God will open it.  There are at least a couple of problems with this simplistic view though, so let’s take a better look.  The first problem is that this view suggests that we can control God by mere persistence.  God will give us whatever we want if we “name it and claim it.”  If that were actually true and carried to it’s logical conclusion, it would mean that the real “God” in this equation is us.  If God has to give us what we ask, then God is not actually God.  I assure you…that is NOT what Jesus is suggesting here. 

The second problem that I will mention is the things for which we ask.  As a teenager who was really angry, I once prayed for an enemy to die.  On another occasion, feeling especially desperate, I suggested to God that it wouldn’t be the worst thing for me to die.  I’m really glad God didn’t answer that literal death wish.  Even now, I  find myself asking God for things that later, I realize are foolish requests.  I am really thankful that God is actually God and I am definitely not.  I now trust God to ignore foolish requests AND to shed more light on the requests that I make that aren’t so foolish.

This is why Jesus adds the bit about being decent parents.  Most parents realize that you shouldn’t give kids everything they ask for and most parents also want to give good things to their children.  My Dad used to say to me as a kid something to the effect, “you watch, Eric; as you get older, I will get smarter.”  I now realize that he didn’t actually think he would get smarter (although I think that he has).  He knew that I would begin to see the intelligence of his actions towards me as I got older and wiser.  He was right.  I’m glad about some of the decisions he made that, at the time, I thought made no sense.  Maturity allows us to see wisdom is former “foolishness.”

A mature relationship with God gains the same kind of wisdom.  We keep on asking God for what we want.  However, at the same time, we trust God to help us see the foolishness of some requests and the wisdom of NOT getting what we want in the moment.  We trust in God’s nature in the same way a child children can trust parents to want good things for them. 

 

Question:  Are there some prayers that you have prayed in the past that you are now glad God did not do what you desired?

Prayer:  God, we trust you to give us what is good even though we don’t always recognize it as such.  Thank you for not only enduring, but encouraging our sometimes ill-conceived prayers, for in praying them, we learn over time of your wisdom and goodness.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for teachers today.

 

Song:  Unanswered Prayers - Garth Brooks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzdm1cz1XU