Sermon Tone Analysis

Picturing God

Hungering to Know and Be Known

2022-10-16

Scripture Reading:

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Introduction

When I entered high school, one of my teachers was Mr. Crabbe.

In my opinion, he lived up to his name.

I didn’t enjoy his class at all.

He was sarcastic and I dreaded being made to look like a fool in front of everyone else in my class.

As I progressed through school, I didn’t have him all that often but every time I did, I didn’t like it.

Until Grade 12.

By then I had matured a lot and I finally figured him out.

I realized that what Mr. Crabb really wanted was for his students to give it right back to him.

When he made a snide comment to me, I would give one right back and a sly grin would come over his face.

After that, I began to really enjoy his teaching.

What changed?

Not him.

It was me that changed.

My maturity and confidence grew, and my understanding of my teacher grew.

Once I understood him correctly, I enjoyed my interaction with him.

My image of him began to change and as it did, my relationship with him grew.

The same has been true many times my life.

The other day I was talking with a friend about two brothers we both knew but at different times.

I mentioned that they had a certain swagger to them, but not a negative swagger.

Once I explained it, he completely agreed.

The two brothers we were talking about have always been confident people and so can come across as arrogant.

After getting to know them, I have come to the conclusion that they’re not arrogant, just confident in who they are.

If you think of them as arrogant, you’ll approach them differently than if you don’t.

How you see people affects everything about your interaction with them.

If you think of a person as stupid, often you’ll talk down to them.

This is a struggle that stutterers often have, people think they’re stupid and treat them that way.

If you see a certain person as influential, or rich, often you’ll try to curry favour with them.

If you see someone as loose lipped, you won’t share anything with them that you want kept a secret.

When people see someone as a pushover, they’ll take advantage of them.

If you think of someone as incompetent, you won’t trust them with an important task.

There’s no question, the image that we have about someone affects our relationship to them.

It affects how we interact with them.

The same is true of our relationship with God.

The image that you have of God will affect how you approach him, or even if you do.

Your image of God will affect how much you hunger to know God and be known by him.

A few weeks back I began a 5 Sunday look at prayer called the PAPA prayer, based on the book by Larry Crabb of the same name.

Here is a quick review of the four elements

“P: Present yourself to God without pretense.

A: Attend to how you’re thinking of God.

P: Purge yourself of anything blocking your relationship with God.

A: Approach God as the ‘first thing’ in your life, as your most valuable treasure, the Person you most want to know.

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P10, The Papa Prayer

Last Sunday we learned how to present ourselves to God without pretense, being completely honest about where we are at, not holding anything back.

By the way, how did you do this past week with being honest with God? How did it feel?

Did you sense less of a distance between you and God?

Does anyone want to share a little about their experience?

If you’re watching from home and you’d like to share, please text (204) 392-3530.

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Pause for people to share.

Today we’ll focus on the second part of the PAPA Prayer, A: Attend to how you’re thinking of God.. (blank)

Our Images of God

All of us have images of God.

They are formed by a myriad of things; the teaching we’ve received in the churches we’ve attended, the homes we grew up in, the prior experiences we’ve had with God, our particular culture’s images of God, etc.

We have them whether we want to or not, they’re part of our subconscious and we can have multiple images of God at the same time and flip between them.

Some of us would have a hard time identifying our image, some not so much.

If you pay attention while you are praying, and ask yourself what image comes to mind, you might be surprised at what you describe.

Listen as Larry Crabbe tells of his interaction with someone.

“I asked one person who she visualized God to be as she talked to Him, and she quickly replied, ‘A pygmy in a wheelchair.’

I hadn’t heard that one before, so I asked what that strange image symbolized.

‘I sometimes feel like I’m talking to an undersized person who’s too disabled, though He means well, to do much of anything.’”

Crabb has identified 11 common images that people have of God.

As I list them and talk about them, see if one or more of them describes the God you pray to.

Smiling Buddy – The God who just likes hanging out with you.

No demands, no rules, just a good time.

Prayer becomes simply you, asking for a favour from a chum.

Backroom Watchmaker – a lot of people see God this way.

This version of God is the creator God who sets everything up, winds it up like a clock and then sits back and watches everything unfold.

Now he has other things to do.

Whatever will be will be.

If this is your God, why pray at all?

This version of God never interferes in the events of this world anyway.

People with this image of God usually have a resigned attitude and try to accept everything happening as somehow good.

Or they don’t bother praying at all.

Preoccupied King – this one is kind of self-explanatory.

God is so high up and occupied with very important things to do that he pays no attention to the ‘little people’ like you and I. He’s absorbed with big things like cultural wars, evangelism of the world, deciding who will be in power next in which country, etc. He’s just to busy to bother with our cares and worries.

If you pray to him, you do it out of obligation with not much hope of him taking the time to hear and do anything.

Vending Machine – This version of God is simple; you tithe and do your acts of service so that God will give you good things.

A bit like the smiling buddy and Santa Claus, but with even less relationship.

Prayer to a God like this is actually all about what I want and figuring out the right words to say so that I can get it.

In some ways it’s more like magic.

Say the right incantation and presto, God grants you what you asked for.

Stern Patriarch – Many people who grew up in homes with fathers like this or in legalistic homes and churches have an image of God like this.

He’s the father that is always rapping your knuckles when you do wrong.

He never plays with you, but always expects good behaviour.

Prayer becomes stiff and rigid.

God has transcendence (God above us) but no immanence (God with us).

Kindly Grandfather – Here we have the smiling old man surrounded by his grandkids.

His job is to love them, but not discipline them.

He let’s them skip the vegetables but makes sure they always get the ice cream, no matter their behaviour.

A person with this image of God really struggles when they don’t get what they pray for.

“It’s not fair” they whine.

Impersonal Force – think Star Wars or gravity.

This is different than the Backroom Watchmaker and the Preoccupied King.

They are at least persons.