The Sacred Echo
07/04/2010 - I Love You
This morning we continue the series that we began last week calledThe Sacred Echo: Exploring the Mystery of Prayer. It's a series on prayer for sure, but as I said last week it's more than a series on prayer. It's a series on how God leads and guides and shepherds our lives if we invite him to.
We started with a premise and the premise is that there is a God who knows us, and who loves us, and who cares enough about us to be actively involved in our lives. We began all the way back in Genesis 1 to demonstrate that premise. God didn't create human beings like you and me and then just check out. From the very beginning God has interacted with his people.
God is a person, not a force, and he desires to have a personal relationship with those he's created. He wants to have a living, vital, dynamic, ongoing, lifelong, personal relationship with you and with me.
This week I visited with a woman who is battling cancer. The cancer in her throat came on fast and furious and now she's in the midst of chemotherapy treatments and she's determined with God's help to beat it. I have to admire her courage and her attitude.
And before I left I wanted her know that she wasn't alone in her struggle. So I read Psalm 139 just to remind her that God knows her and that God loves her and that God is actively involved in her life even in the midst of this terrible storm that's threatening to swamp her boat.
Psalm 139:1-6 goes like this, O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.4Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 5You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
It blows David's mind to think that God knows him that intimately, but he does. And he knows you and me that well too. He knows every day of our life before we've even lived one of them.
Psalm 139:16 says, All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
That's the God we have. God knows us and loves us and wants to have a relationship with us and prayer is a big part of that relationship.
Prayer is how we communicate with God. It's the way we talk to him and express the joys and the sorrows, the pains and the problems that are in our lives. It's a privilege as God's children to be able to jump up into the Father's lap anytime, anywhere, and talk to him about anything. But prayer is more than just talking to God, more than just giving him our "to do" list. Prayer is also the way we listen to God. It's the way we discern his leadings and promptings and the movement of his Spirit in our lives as well.
It's what Margaret Feinberg calls sacred echoes in the book that prompted this series. It's been her experience and mine as well that when God wants to get our attention the same theme, idea, impression, or lesson keeps repeating itself again and again in surprising and unexpected ways.
But how do we know when those promptings are from God? How do we know when it's his voice we're hearing and not our own? Let me give you three simple tests that have helped me over the years discern if it's the Spirit's voice that I'm hearing or my own. I'm sure there are other tests, but these have helped me out.
First, does the prompting I sense square with Scripture and with the character of God? I don't believe that the Spirit of God is going to lead me to cheat on my income taxes or to cheat on my wife and have an extra-marital affair. There are certain aspects of God's will that are clear in Scripture that to me set the foul lines within which the Spirit of God works.
Yet that's not to say that there aren't gray areas and issues of conscience that differ for each one of us. For instance, in the New Testament eating certain foods was a huge issue. Christ followers out of a Jewish background typically ate kosher observing the dietary laws of the Jewish Law, while Gentile believers ate anything and everything on the menu, even meat sacrificed to idols. And the Apostle Paul says in Romans 14 and again in 1 Corinthians 8 don't judge each other over what food you eat or don't eat. Respect one another's differences in that area.
Food and drink are still issues of conscience in the Church today. People have different convictions when it comes to eating meat or drinking alcohol. And what the Spirit of God leads you to do in those areas may be totally different from what the Spirit leads me to do. And we need to respect that. That's okay.
But the Scriptures are clear that when it comes to food and drink moderation and self-control need to rule the day. Gluttony, drunkenness and excess are clearly outside the foul lines. So does the prompting I sense square with Scripture and with the character of God? That's the first test.
Second, does the prompting I sense involve sacrifice and servanthood? Does it mean sacrificing time, or money, or energy? Does it means sacrificing pride which is often what needs to die to make a relationship right? We follow a Savior whose life was defined by sacrifice and servanthood. And often I recognize the Spirit's voice because he's prompting me to do something selfless that puts someone else's needs above my own. And as difficult as that can be sometimes, I'm always glad I did it.
I think that was the experience many of us shared a few weeks ago during the Beautiful Day event. There are a lot of other things we could have done on a gorgeous Saturday and we knew all the jobs and chores and errands waiting for us back home. But we sacrificed a little bit of time and energy to serve others that day and came away feeling great about it. So does the prompting I sense involve sacrifice and servanthood?
And third, does the prompting I sense lead me to love? Jesus said the whole law is summed up in one commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself."
I believe that every sacred echo is going to lead me to love God more or to love others more or both. It's the prompting of the Spirit of God that leads us to make relationships right and to confess our sins and to humble ourselves and to ask for and to grant forgiveness and to work through differences and even to love our enemies. That's a God thing. If our actions are blanketed with love it's hard to go wrong.
So if the prompting that I sense squares with Scripture and the character of God, involves sacrifice and servanthood, and leads me to love that's a pretty good indication that it's a sacred echo coming from the Spirit of God.
And when we follow those echoes we experience a sense of peace in our heart. Peace is a gift God wants to give us and a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Margaret Feinberg calls peace God's guardrail in our lives, affirming us when we've obeyed God's voice and warning us when we've gone off the path.
But what's the most important sacred echo that we all need to hear? An echo that never gets old. An echo that's so crucial to our lives that we probably need to hear it every single day. And if we don't hear it, it could cost us our lives.
Take a look at this video clip of Susan's life and see if you can discover what that echo might be.
4:05 minute video clip of Susan's story
"God has shown me his love by grabbing my hand when I was in the depths and pulling me out," she says. "God has shown me his love by giving me a beautiful, healthy daughter who's an amazing creation. God has shown me his love by prompting my husband to encourage me to seek out what God's Word has to say about being healed and about forgiveness and about grace and mercy." God loves me. That's what she's saying and I've seen it and I've felt it over and over and over again.
Remember the premise of this series. God knows us. God loves us and God cares enough about us to be actively involved in our lives. I think the most important sacred echo that any of us can hear from God is the echo, "I love you. I love you. I love you."
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, John 3:16.
That's why we sing so much about God's love on Sunday mornings so at least we'll hear it weekly because it can so easily get buried under the noise and stress and confusion of the week. The very first line of the first song that we sang this morning was "Wonderful so wonderful is Your unfailing love. Your cross has spoken mercy over me."
That's why in a few minutes we'll be coming to this table, the Lord's Table, the table of love where we're reminded that Jesus loved us enough to die for us, to take the penalty of death that we deserve for our sin on himself on the cross. That's amazing love. "How can it be that thou my God shouldst die for me?" the hymn writer says.
That's why the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:17-19,And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Pray for yourself. Pray for each other that we'll be able to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love Jesus has for us and for the whole world, a love that surpasses knowledge.
This week while I was walking in the woods and hiking along the creek I was reveling in the fact that God loves me in spite of all my shortcomings and failures and mistakes and sin and imperfection. And that above everything else I am his child. That's my fundamental identity before being a husband or a dad or a brother or a son or a friend or a pastor, I am God's beloved child. And that's you're primary identity too. And we need to be reminded of that often or we can take ourselves way too seriously.
A number of years ago I read an article by Henri Nouwen that changed the way I spent time with God. It was called "Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry." The article talked about the spiritual discipline of solitude and why it's so important to make space in our lives for God.
In the article Nouwen writes, "Solitude is being with God and God alone. Is there any space for that in your life? Why is it so important? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you 'my beloved daughter,' 'my beloved son,' 'my beloved child.' To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being.
"There are many other voices speaking - loudly, 'Prove that are the beloved.' 'Prove that you're worth something.' 'Prove that you have some contribution to make.' 'Do something relevant.' 'Make a name for yourself.' 'At least have some power - then people will love you. Then people will say you're wonderful, you're great.'
"These voices are so strong in this world. These were the voices Jesus heard in the wilderness when he was tempted by Satan right after his baptism when he had heard God say, 'You are my beloved Son.' If you keep that in mind, you can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without losing your identity, because your identity is that you are the beloved."
Church we need to hear that sacred echo often. We need to slow down long enough and get quiet enough often enough to hear it because "I love you" is the most powerful echo there is. And if we don't listen to that echo we're bound to cave in to the condemning voices of this world.
I told Jennifer I loved her the day I married her almost twenty-five years ago. But if that was the only time I told her that we probably wouldn't be married today. I need to express my love to her often in all kinds of ways and she needs to remind me of her love as well. That's what keeps a relationship strong and healthy. Once is not enough. And so it is with our relationship with God.
We need to hear often how much he loves us because God's love for us is what fuels our love for others. We love because he first loved us. His love is what keeps our love alive.
All these wonderful things that we're a part of as a Valley View community ... blood drives and baby kits, Forteniter's dinners and Beautiful Day projects, clothing collections and food distribution and eyeglasses for people in Malawi doesn't add up to a hill of beans unless it's fueled by love.
At least that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship, that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Then he goes on to describe what love looks like and concludes with these words in verse 13, And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
In her chapter called "I Love You" Margaret Feinberg writes these words, "When God echoes I love you, it's not a slice of information but a feast of transformation. I am invited to experience the fullness of God's love in my life, heart, and spirit. The holy metamorphosis is designed to ring so genuine and true that others can't help but notice. When I loveyou is alive in my heart, I become freer to love others. When I love you is alive in my mind, I become better at expressing that love. When I love you is alive in my life, I become a smidgen closer to being who God has called and created me to be. I love you is just the beginning of an awakening."