Why Me?                                                                                                                                                                      Rev. Colin S. Marshall

14^th February 2010                                                                                                                   St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Mt. Roskill

Readings: Psalm 40, 1 Samuel 3:1-21, Galatians 1:11-24, Philippians 3:12-21

 Over the last few weeks we have looked at a number of ‘Why?’ questions – why believe, why Jesus .. through to last week’s ‘Why the church?’  This week we consider the question: why me?  If you listened to or read my sermon last week then you would have quickly identified that the church is God’s plan for the world and that the church is made up of people; solely of people.  Which brings us to the question every person wonders at some stage or other: why me?  Why does God care about me?

In the gospel of John we have the most famous and concise answer: because God so loved the world.  God loves you and me.  He created us and He loves us with a depth of understanding and insight that we cannot fathom.  Having someone love you can be a scary thing.  As a school teacher I often observed young boys getting keen on young girls or visa-versa.  Actually, I’ve observed it happen at a number of ages, strangely enough it seems to keep happening.  It’s beautiful when true love is reciprocated. 

When love isn’t responded to it is painful.  Most of us have experienced this at some stage in life.  Sometimes it happens in families, sometimes between siblings, sometimes between people in the classroom or at work or in sports clubs.  This is life.  We look to give our care and compassion, to share our joys, excitement and happiness with others.  We also search for those who will recognize us, acknowledge us as worthy and significant and those who will encourage us in what we do. This is normal. When we find real friends, people we can trust and share with, they are better than gold and to be treasured.  The quality of a person’s relationships are a vital part of supporting an individual’s stability through life.  It is only when life attacks us, when circumstances, often beyond our control, interfere in what should be good and beautiful that things begin to go wrong.  We become defensive and put up walls fearing being hurt.  Sadly, many people become hardened to life thinking defensive walls are the only way to cope.  In fact it isn’t.  Yes, experience should make us wiser and less gullible, but it shouldn’t harden our hearts.

The epistle to the Romans tells us that God’s plan is even revealed in the natural order.  If you think of the tsunamis recently you may have realized that so many of those strong, staunch structures in fact weren’t that strong at all. Concrete and stone, houses and hotels, shops and stores were washed away like so much flotsam.  Yet in contrast many seemingly weak and frail trees and palms were able to bend and sway and absorb the pressure and then stand upright when the pressure was over.  A hardened heart is not strong, it is weak.  So often what appears as strength is actually an over-compensation for weakness and fear.  If our hearts are not hardened, not stone-like, then we will learn how to absorb, deflect and sway with pressure and be able to stand when it has passed, ready to be effective in our roles.  An important lesson here: God does not take us out of the world but Jesus prayed for our protection in it.  When we learn that God has a plan for our lives that strengthens us with true resilience that can cope with anything we immediately begin to get stronger because we realize we are not at the centre of the picture – God is.

Fortunately, because of His love for us, God has a good desire for our lives, for each and every one of us, with an awesome reward at the end.  It is helpful then to get a handle on how God sees us and our destiny.

Number one: God loves us.  Love characterizes how He wants to deal with us. Not wishy-washy love but love that has real effect in the world.  He created us in the beginning and He did this so that we could love Him and He could have a relationship with us.  The Bible also reveals to us that God is specific in His call upon our lives.  Time after time in the Bible we read of the call of God being made on people’s lives and at a wide range of ages.

Number two: God calls us to fulfill our destiny.  In this morning’s Old Testament lesson we heard how the Lord called Samuel to be a faithful prophet in a time when many people were not listening to God.   If we recall the account we remember that Samuel was a young boy ministering before the Lord with Eli the old priest in the temple in Jerusalem. The text tells us that it was a time when the Word of God was rarely heard.  It wasn’t heard because no one was listening.  Because no one was listening God didn’t speak.  If we read through the preceding chapters of the text we find that Eli and his sons were disobedient and careless, even abusive, in the exercise of their spiritual roles.  They took the things of God for granted and took advantage of their situation.  God will not be mocked and He withdrew His presence.  But God will also not sit by forever ignoring what is going on.  Sin has its consequence and Eli and his sons had lost their place in God’s plan, they had taken themselves out of the picture.  But God’s plans are unstoppable.  If Eli and company were not obedient then God would find someone who would be.  And there in the midst of the evil that was going on was a person God could rely on; a young boy who had yet to even hear God’s voice for the first time.  This is a consistent witness of the Scriptures.  God looks around for those who are available and willing to serve Him and He lifts them up from their situation, no matter low lowly or unimportant they might seem to be to the rest of the world, so that they can serve His mission in the world.  God wants us to fulfill His good plan for us but if we rebel He will find someone else to take over.

Now, as I said, young Samuel had not heard the Word of God before.  When God called to him Samuel thought it was Eli calling him.  In fact three times God spoke to Samuel and each time he went and woke Eli up asking what he had wanted.  When Eli finally realized what was going on he wisely told Samuel to say, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”  Sadly, Eli didn’t realize the significance for himself and his family with quite the same wisdom. 

If we are available and willing God will speak to us. At first we may not recognize His voice because we are not used to hearing Him.  He can speak to us audibly, through the Scriptures, through another person, even through circumstances.  Often God will give us the same message multiple ways because the occasional person is slow to listen. Wonder who that might be? At first we might be hesitant about responding.  At first Samuel responded and spoke to Eli, not because he was wise but because he thought it was Eli.  We too might be confused about what God is saying to us, or even recognizing it is God, so talking with someone who knows the Lord is a wise idea.  They can encourage us how to listen better.

Notice also that God didn’t speak and keep speaking even though Samuel wasn’t listening – unlike some conversations I’ve seen.  God waited and repeated His call until Samuel was aware, still and ready to listen properly.  (I was tempted to do a husband and wife skit at this stage but that’s too much of a sidetrack!)  I wonder how often God has had to wait for us?  How often has God spoken to you and you have ignored His call?  How often has He placed something on your heart, or you suspected He was telling you something, but you’ve allowed yourself to be distracted, or if you’re more honest, you’ve deliberately ignored God?  We can all do it.  Eli had got into the habit of doing it and he was supposed to be a man of God and it cost him his place and eventually his life.  We’re all susceptible to ignoring God because we are all too easily led astray by our own desires. 

There’s a Denis the Menace carton that has Denis coming into the house and speaking to Mr. Wilson who is reading the paper.   Three times he calls out “Hello Mr. Wilson” with increasing volume.  Each time he gets no response.  Finally he leaves saying, “Goodbye Mr. Wilson.”  To which Mr. Wilson replies, “Goodbye Denis.”  Denis goes out muttering … “It’s not his hearing that’s faulty it’s his listening.”  We can be like Mr. Wilson.  Do we hear God but ignore His voice.  If we haven’t hardened our hearts we should be able to hear Him but are we willing to listen? 

If we have a heart for God, a heart that we haven’t given over to the hardening of the distractions and diversions of this world, if we make time and take time for the Lord, He will speak to us.  When we are ready, when we are quiet and listening, then God will speak.

Now some of you might think that you are not good enough for God or that God couldn’t use you for His purposes because you are not good enough.  Well you’re right.  Compared with the Lord, standing beside Jesus, we can see all our own faults as bright as day.  Our sin is, as the psalmist puts it, “always before me”.  But that’s one of the great joys of our faith.  In Jesus God has dealt with, deals with and will deal with our sin.  He takes it from us as we repent of it, as we turn from it, as we give it to Jesus, and sets us free to serve Him as we should be.  We might not be good enough.  In fact I’d go further than that to say that of ourselves we cannot be good enough.  None of us.  But in Christ we are made good enough.  God enough to serve Him.

Most of you are probably familiar with the story of the apostle Paul when he was called to ministry so dramatically on the Damascus Rd.  Luke tells this story in Acts 9.  You may not have been aware, until we heard it this morning, that Paul gives us his own account of this transformative event in his life in Galatians 1.  You see Paul sought to serve God zealously but sadly the people he had learnt from were off track. The Jewish church culture he was part of supported and encouraged things that were wrong to the extent that Paul became part of a group actively persecuting, torturing and even killing Christians.  The leadership had become corrupt.  Yet at the same time Paul falsely believed he was serving God and even pleasing God.  His heart’s intent was right but he had been led seriously astray. How many people are fooling themselves that they are serving God when in fact they are doing the very opposite?  Paul may have kept on this path for years except that God saw his underlying integrity.  He broke into Paul’s life so dramatically that Paul had to undergo a complete rethink of where he was heading in life.  But Paul recognized, as Galatians reveals, that he understood God had a plan for his life right from the time he was conceived in his mother’s womb. Even when he had gone off track for a time God brought him back because his heart was primarily focused on serving God.  When God broke in Paul tells us that he needed to take time out.  Time to reflect and pray and sort out his relationship with God so that he could serve the way he was supposed to.  Why me, why you? Because God sees our hearts and knows our longing for righteousness.

And finally why me?  Why you?  Because God has a glorious destiny for you.  We are told in Philippians that we have a destiny, a citizenship, in heaven.  Every time I take a funeral, as I did yesterday, and I see and hear the wonderful accounts of a person’s life, I am reminded that God does not waste all that we learn and experience in this world.  We do not want to miss out on the joyous place heaven is.  We certainly don’t want to go to hell, which Jesus warned is so real.  Rather I long for the day when each person is revealed in all their glory.  Can you imagine a place where we are all fit, healthy, and there is no war or fighting, no scheming or corruption where we can all enjoy being with each other and with the Lord?

This morning James has been baptized.  We have celebrated a new life born afresh spiritually to take up this new walk.  Why me?  Because God calls and speaks to each one of us individually. Individually we have to respond.  No one can respond for me.  Why me? Why you?  Because God loves you more than you can ever imagine and there is a whole community out here waiting to see you revealed in all your glory serving the Lord.

Let us pray:  Father we thank You that You love us with a never-ending love.  We thank You that You call us to yourself and that You are patient with us.  Forgive our stubborn hearts and help us walk into the destiny that Jesus has provided for us so that we can bring You glory and joy.  We pray this in Jesus Name.  Amen.