Who Can It Be Now?

Introduction

I have entitled the message today “Who can it be now?” No, not because of the 1981 song by the group “Men At Work” although the same kind of confusion is evident in the song: “Who can it be knocking at my door?” Today, people wonder Who or what influences our life choices! It seems to be an elusive question! If you want to get me really riled up, just give the credit to what is working in your life to the “UNIVERSE”! Have you noticed that in the last couple of years what normally in the past has been attributed to God, the spirit world or “The Force”,(at least something living), is now the UNIVERSE! That’s crazy! beyond reason! The Universe is not alive and has no way to communicate with us or do anything for us! Like Romans chapter 1, people are worshipping the creation rather than the creator and it is ridiculous! Movies, and TV are devoid of anything truly spiritual these days. You can’t even count on Hallmark(New movies) anymore to mention God or what our country was founded on or even stand up for traditional family values.

Who can it be then? Who do we give credit to for guiding and shaping our lives? If not the Universe, it must be me! I am the master of my own destiny. I make things happen in my own life. That’s just as dumb! We all know it’s only a matter of time before we reach the end of our abilities and what we can do! Where do you go then, when your limitationscome into play? It feels good when we can control some things, but don’t give yourself too much credit, cause have you every noticed how hard it is to pat yourself on the back? My experience is that many, many things are out of my control.

Well, this would be a fun one if it weren’t so sad! maybe I have my ancestors guiding me! Why are things going well? Where do we get the comfort we need during times of decision or trials we go through? Confusioussay “It’s our ancestors”. The Christian way of saying this is MOM and DAD, or GRANDMA and GRANDPA who have passed on into the great beyond, are right here beside me! No!! While it makes us feel good to think about them; and it’s not bad to have fond memories that encourage and inspire us, nowhere in the Bible does it say that after they’ve passed on they will come back here to comfort us! This is not Touched by an Angel or Highway to Heaven where humans come back as angels! That’s bad Theology. Disney is feeding our children and grandchildren GARBAGE!

Who can it be now, is an elusive question these days. There is such confusion today as to Who or what makes the world go round, and guides our decisions, except for two little words found in the Bible; “BUT GOD”. We’ll look at those two words together in a few minutes but first let’s see what difference just the word “but” makes.Speaker Anton Bosch, in an article he wrote, “But God”, gives an example that I like: When we want to be tactful with other people in presenting something negative, we generally are told to start with a positive statement. “I love you” then we get to the real concern, “but,I don’t like your attitude”. Thus the word “but” cancels out anything that was said before. Ex. “I’m going to put my love for you aside right now because that’s not important here, I want to focus on your attitude!

Call it splitting hairs,but I think it makes a difference to people what order they hear things. If we change the sentence around, we bring a slightly different message to that person; “Your attitude stinks, BUT I love you”. Not that we won’t do anything about it, but now, we are saying that “it does not matter as much about the attitude as the fact that I’m bringing this to your attention because I love you”. It gets a similar message across, but makes the important emphasis heard in a more constructive way. Jumping off into your rant from love is much better than jumping off from the last thing they heard; your bad attitude. So, get this in your head. In the Bible, these “But God” statements put the Bad news first (which gets cancelled out), followed by the GOOD NEWS! The very last thing we want people to hear from us is the GOOD NEWS.

So now as we look at those “BUT GOD” statements in the Bible, we get a whole new appreciation of what God did for us in Jesus Christ, which is what our praise and worship should be all about. It’s not a complaining or whining, “but God”, Why? … This “but God” is a confidencethat it is God that is working for your good and His glory. Roughly 40 times in Scripture God connects these simple three letter words. I want to highlight a few of these scriptures and help you see the glory and wonder of your Life, Worship and Salvation that is derived from them.

1. Noah (account of)

A. Bad News: Genesis 6:17

(NASB77) 17 (NASB77) "And behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish… Bad news for all humanity! The whole world was evil, God was going to wipe everyone off the face of the earth and start over. The water was on the earth 150 days (7:24). Nobody can tread water that long! It could have killed everybody...

B. Good News: Genesis 8:1

(NASB77) 1 (NASB77) But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. For Noah and his family, this bad news situation was cancelled out by the GOOD NEWS!

Appl. It seems like the world is going to hell in a hand basket, it seems to be getting more evil and depraved all the time, and maybe that’s true, BUT GOD has something to say about it. He has promised to make all things new and preserve His righteous ones in Christ!

2. Joseph (Account of)

A. Bad News: Joseph said to his brothers, Genesis 50:20a

(NASB77) 20 "And as for you (brothers…), you meant evil against me… Joseph was in favor with his father, but out of favor with his brothers; coat… thrown into a pit! He was in favor with Pharoah, and then out of favor and wrongly accused by Pharoah and thrown into jail. His life was full of ups and downs for many years!

B. Good News: Genesis 50:20b “but God” meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive”. All the hurt and pain of his life was reversedby two little words; “But God”

Appl. People are going to like you and not like you, even accuse you of things you haven’t done. You will experience hurt and pain. Who knows what you might have to endure in your life? “But God” trusting Him will give you the confidence in Him that will bring about His result, His agenda for your life’s journey.

3. Barns

A. Bad News: Luke 12:19 (review story…)

(NASB77) 19 (NASB77) 'And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' The pride of this man goes unchecked, giving the glory for what he has only to himself. Sounds like good news, but it is actually bad news because all that he’s worked so hard for gets cancelled out!

B. Good News:At least for us anyway, is to remember that God is vigilant in guarding His own glory. Luke 12:20

(NASB77) 20 (NASB77) "But God” said to him, ' You fool! This verynight your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'

Appl. You may think that in yourself you are wise, smart, good looking and accomplished, “You got it all”! Let me be clear, that is NOT a good thing! “BUT GOD” says “You Fool” God is opposed to the proud. Have you forgotten that it is I who gives you what you have. The GOOD NEWS is to recognize the foolishness of claiming credit for your accomplishments.

4. The Body (Church)

A. Bad News: 1 Corinthians 12:23-24

a (NASB77) 23 (NASB77) and those members of the body, which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our unseemly memberscome to have more abundant seemliness, 24 whereas our seemly membershave no need of it. The bad news is that some of us have to do the menial tasks of life, the church and ministry, that’s life in the body of Christ, it all needs to be done by someone! We don’t always like that.

B. Good News:The good News is that God makes everyone at least equally important and even shows us how important a “big toe” really is! 1 Corinthians 12:24b - 25

(NASB77) 24 … “But God” has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, 25 that there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.

Appl. God takes great joy in turning things around. (Ex. weak made strong…) You may feel like your no a big deal at church or that what you do doesn’t count much, “BUT GOD” says different. I’ve placed you there, and you are more important than you think. You make a dufference! One little O Ring brought down the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and killed seven astronauts. Scripture tells us not to despise the day of small things! (Zech.4:10). You count!

5. Our Salvation

Thus we come to our scripture passage this morning that shows us how amazing our Salvation is.

A. Bad News: Read Ephesians 2:1-3…

… Dead = Not a spark of life in you. Your boss was Satan, the prince of this secular world. No matter how bad or even how good you think you were, we were all clumped in with lustful, indulgent, evil people whether you did every big sin or just one little one… It is our human nature to sin, there was no hope for us! ILL. Ray Comfort “Are you a good person… Bad News first! Mankind is in rough shape with no way out! That’s what you need to help people see!

B. Good News:

Ephesians 2:4-5

(NASB77) 4 “But God”, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved). Scripture tells us that the 10 Commandments weren’t given to us so that we could obey them perfectly, because nobody can! It tells us that there purpose is show us we can’t do it and thus leads us to the only One who can save us Jesus Christ (

Gal.3:24). The Good News is “BUT GOD”demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom.5:8).

Appl. The Bad News is cancelled, Sin is done away with, not only covered temporarily, GONE! It does not matter how bad you are, or how much you have sinned. It does not matter if people have given up on you. It does not matter how many times you have failed. None of that matters in light of God’s rich mercy. He is able to bring life out of death, and He is able to change the outcome of your life. He can bring light into the darkness, hope into the despair, love into the loneliness and order into your chaos. So, no matter how you sum up your life and past, If you add “BUT GOD”at the end of the story, everything can be different. Jesus died on the cross to change your past, present and future, but it’s not automatic, everyone doesn’t get it. Salvation is there for the asking! ILL. Check for 1,000,000,000… You have to cash it in!… Trust in Him! This means you don’t have to earned it… “While we were yet Sinners… Don’t have to be perfect to come to Him… Talk to me or someone about trusting Jesus today!

Conclusion:Remembering these two little words clears up all the confusion and puts our trust in the only One Who can do anything about our human condition. Who Can It Be Now knocking at our door? Everybody! But nobody who can do anything for you “BUT GOD”.