Is God Useless?

Luke 20:27-40

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Youth Night March 28th

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Optional Intro: Useless Inventions

Have you ever thought you had the next great invention? Shows like Shark Tank make it look easy, but few of us go through the process to secure a patent and sell our product. And that may be a good thing – because often our ideas are downright useless.

In 2008, the Landfill Prize was created to “honor” the worst inventions of all time. These are the kinds of inventions that the investors on Shark Tank would consider nothing but chum. Among the candidates:         

Device for waking persons from sleep: If you’re such a heavy sleeper that a simple alarm clock doesn’t work for you, maybe you would want this product. It hangs a weight above your head and then drops these weights of increasing poundage on you until you wake up.

Sound muffler for covering the mouth: Do people make you so mad you want to scream? Now you can no matter where you are. You can scream into this device, which covers your mouth, and its soundproof construction muffles the sound so that you don’t freak out everyone around you. It’s perfect for all your screaming-in-public needs.

Alarm-equipped fork: Do you eat too fast? Then this fork is for you. The fork has a built-in timer and alarm that measures how long you need between bites to fully chew your food. So you take a bite and chew it until the light on your fork indicates that you’re ready to take another bite. No word on whether this fork is dishwasher-safe.

My buddy from elementary or middle. With the pockets. Gavin Holshouser

It’s absurd to think about some of these inventions because we can see pretty quickly that they’re useless for almost everything except for a good laugh. These Shark Tank rejects aren’t helpful, they don’t fix real problems, and mostly they seem like they would get in the way.

Have you ever felt this way about God? We feel like we have to go through life alone because God isn’t helpful when we need Him to be. We know that God’s there, but we don’t feel like He’s that important for us because He doesn’t seem to be useful for us. Is God useless? Does God fix our biggest problems, or does He just fix the small problems that we could really fix on our own? Does God meet our biggest needs, or does He work on the little needs we have while we continue to suffer under the burden of our biggest issues? While we might not ever say these questions out loud, they are questions that burden our minds and our hearts. 

This picture of uselessness is the next question about God with which we’re going to wrestle.

In this series, we’re asking four crucial questions about God’s character and personality. We’ve already examined whether God is ashamed and whether God is clueless, and today, we turn to this question of whether God is useless. As we’ve done in the first two sessions in this series, we’re going to dig into this question by examining an amazing statement of what God is not. So let’s discover what God is not to see how we answer our big question of the day.

 Background

Today’s passage comes from the final week of Jesus’ life. Just after the triumphal entry in which Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, He stepped up His criticism of the religious leaders of the day. He cleared the temple in Luke 20:1-8, which would have made the religious leaders who had instituted the money-changing and sale of animals in the temple furious.         

Throughout the rest of Luke 20, we find Jesus in discussions with some of the religious leaders of his day. They tried to trap Him with different hypothetical scenarios and trick questions, but time after time, Jesus thwarted their plans. In the middle of this series of encounters that some commentators call “controversies,” Jesus had this encounter with the Sadducees.

The Sadducees did not appear much in the gospels, but they were the primary religious rivals of the Pharisees during Jesus’ day. The Sadducees stuck very strictly to the Torah and refused to accept Jewish law that was not based on it. As a result, they didn’t believe in the afterlife – which indicates that their question here was an attempt to embarrass Jesus, not an honest question for which they wanted a rabbi’s response.

Explanation

[Read Luke 20:27-40]

Picture an old-west showdown or a courtroom face-off between lawyers and a witness, and you’ll get the feeling of what was happening here. The Sadducees – who were the most influential and powerful religious leaders of the day because of their strong ties to the Roman government – decided they wanted to embarrass Jesus. They wanted to trap Jesus to discredit him as a rabbi, and they decided to use a trick question to do it.

The idea behind this trick question was to show that life after death didn’t exist. This is what the Sadducees believed, and their belief had wide-ranging implications. Because there was no afterlife, the goal of life was to succeed in the here and now. And for the Sadducees, that meant finding ways to partner with Rome in exchange for religious autonomy, financial independence, and cultural importance. In many ways, the Sadducees had decided God was useless, and so they set about trying to help themselves.      

We make many of the same decisions. We decide that God is useless – that God can’t fix our problems or that God spends His time on things that don’t really matter to us. So we structure our lives around what we can control. We seek popularity or academic success or street cred in our neighborhood or maybe even respect from our leaders at church. We act as if God is useless, whether we would ever put that word on it or not, and then we seek to help ourselves.  

But that’s not how Jesus answered the trick question. Instead of responding as if God were useless, Jesus responded to this trick-question technicality with an imaginative response. Instead of getting involved in the Sadducees’ world view, Jesus broke the mold. Instead of talking only about marriage, Jesus talked about how God is the God of resurrection. Instead of talking only about the law, Jesus talked about how God made the dead rise. Jesus didn’t bite on the trick question; instead, He changed the playing field with an answer that challenged everything the Sadducees believed. And Jesus concluded His response with the imaginative, powerful statement that “(God) is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all to Him are alive” (v. 38).

This response resonated immediately. Those who disagreed with the Sadducees praised the teaching. The Sadducees (and anyone else who had a trick question in his bag) backed down and gave up. Jesus took the opportunity to dismantle false teaching and remind everyone present that God isn’t useless in any realm.

 Optional Illustration: Gotcha!

[Tip: If possible, find a recent clip or image of a current celebrity gaffe and show it to students.]

One of the favorite things for bloggers and cable news shows to do is to play a game of “gotcha.” This isn’t an official game with rules written down, but the game is on whenever a celebrity or a politician makes a mistake. When this happens, the media takes the mistake, shows it repeatedly, makes fun of it, and generally drives the idea into the ground. In the process, the media turns the celebrity or politician into a caricature. As Time’s Michael Kinsley wrote, “The Outraged Reaction machine chews up gaffers and spits them out.”

In this chapter of Luke’s gospel, religious leaders of all sorts were trying to trick Jesus into a misstep so that they could turn him into a caricature. If Jesus had fallen into one of their traps, they would have been able to characterize Him as a Roman sympathizer or some other half-true inaccuracy. They would have been able to paint Him with a broad brush of their choosing. But Jesus avoided these traps and technicalities, and in the process, He gave a strong statement of who God is not.

  Application

Jesus had a great imagination, and He showed it in this passage. The Sadducees asked a question that implied that God was useless, and Jesus responded with an answer that revealed that God is not a God of the dead but a God who is active and involved. God isn’t useless, and He isn’t a relic of days gone by.

This is great news because we need a God who is alive. We need a God who is active in the biggest problems in our world and the biggest problems of our lives because we can’t solve these problems on our own. We need a God who isn’t just waiting for the afterlife but is fully involved in life here and now. We also need a God who reigns over this earth and time and space. With God the Father, thankfully, we get it all!

We don’t have to live like Sadducees, thinking life is all up to us. We don’t have to rely on popularity or power as if there’s nothing more. After all, these things will perish. But we have a God who specializes in living things, not dead things. God is not a God of the dead; He is alive and making moves in the world right now.

But Jesus’ God Is Not statement here is even more significant. Remember the setting for the passage? This exchange happened in the final week of Jesus’ life, at a time when He knew that He was facing the cross. The same Jesus who proclaimed here that God is not a God of the dead chose to die just days later. God is not a God of the dead, but Jesus died. And He did it for us. He is not useless, because He has impacted our lives in the greatest of ways. When He died, He took our sin and opened the door of forgiveness to us. The God who is not a God of the dead died so that we could enjoy eternal life with Him.

Optional Illustration: Reap What You Sow

It seems as though almost every day, news pops up on the internet and on social-media networks that a celebrity is dead. And while this news is usually true, occasionally some hoaxes spread false rumors of a celebrity’s death. Probably the most famous incident of this type was in 2001, during something called The CNN Incident. A treasure trove of famous people’s obituaries was accidentally released on     CNN’s website, using a template created from the Queen Mother’s obituary. When someone viewed CNN.com, they were treated to a highly entertaining false obituary of Dick Cheney, former Vice President, that called him “the UK’s favorite grandmother” and detailed “her life as Queen Consort.”

[Tip: If possible or desired, find a recent example of a celebrity false death report and share with your students.]

A famous philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche, made a bold statement: “God is dead.” Many years after Nietzsche’s death, people continue to spread this rumor of God’s death: God can’t do anything that we can’t also do, and we’re too highly evolved to need something as rudimentary and silly as a God up in the sky. But we know that rumor isn’t true. God is not a God of the dead. He is alive and active and involved in our lives.

[Tip: You may want to close the lesson by affirming the ways that you see God alive and active and involved in the lives of some of your students. Give some examples of how you know that God is not useless because you see Him using your students in specific ways. Use this as a time of inspiration and encouragement that drives home the point of the lesson.]

 Closing

As humans, it can be easy to put God to the side: what can He do for us? We can’t physically see Him, we can’t physically hear Him, and He’s not making a big show of intervening in our problems. But God is not useless. God takes dead things and breathes actual life into them. We don’t have to push and pull and fight our way through life, only to end up at the finish line staring at the emptiness.

God is there. He is here. God is not useless.

He is alive and active and involved in our lives.

So we no longer have to live holding onto dead things as the Sadducees did. God is not a God of the dead. Thanks be to God.

Summary: In this passage, the Sadducees challenge Jesus about the resurrection by using a hypothetical scenario involving marriage and leverite law. Jesus uses their question to reveal the truth about life after death, showing that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Application: This sermon can help teenagers understand that God is deeply connected to their lives and gives them hope beyond earthly existence. In a world full of doubts and confusion, they can find assurance in the truth that God has a purpose for them that transcends life on earth.

Teaching: This sermon teaches that God is not useless or indifferent; rather, he is the source of life and hope. It encourages believers to trust in God's promises regarding eternal life and to dismiss doubts that challenge their faith.

How this passage could point to Christ: Jesus reveals himself as the key to understanding eternal life, affirming God's promises regarding the resurrection. He is the one who brings clarity to life beyond death, validating our faith in a living God.

Big Idea: God is not useless; He is the God of the living, giving us hope and purpose that transcends our earthly experiences.

Recommended Study: As you prepare this sermon, consider exploring Jewish eschatology and the specific beliefs of the Sadducees regarding resurrection. Logos can help you track down scholarly articles or commentaries that address the cultural context of the Sadducees' question and the implications of Jesus' response. Additionally, research how this passage has been interpreted throughout church history to bring depth to your message.

1. Challenging Questions and Doubts

Luke 20:27-33

You could start by explaining how the Sadducees presented a challenging scenario to Jesus about marriage in the resurrection, attempting to showcase their disbelief in life after death. Perhaps emphasize how, like the Sadducees, we often let skepticism and doubts hinder our understanding of God's promises. This point can remind teenagers that skepticism isn't new, yet God's truths remain constant even when challenged. Encourage them to trust God's eternal plan amidst worldly confusion.

2. Christ's Transformative Perspective

Luke 20:34-36

Perhaps highlight how Jesus redirects the conversation, explaining that earthly concerns, like marriage, won't have the same relevance in the resurrected life. This insight can suggest that God offers a perspective on life that is beyond human understanding, which is often limited by worldly concepts. Teens can be encouraged to anticipate a greater, divine reality, assuring them that their faith is anchored in a God who transcends our earthly challenges.

3. Conveying Life's Continuity

Luke 20:37-40

Jesus concludes by affirming God as the God of the living—an essential truth asserting that life continues beyond the grave. This declaration reassures us that believers are eternally alive to God. You could stress the significance of this revelation for a teenager's faith journey, emphasizing confidence in the promises of eternal life. It's an invitation to see God as active and alive, faithfully guiding their purpose today and forever.

Do you ever feel like God doesn’t impact or affect your life? What makes you feel this way? 

2.     What question did the Sadducees ask Jesus? What was at the heart of their question? What was the motivation behind their question?

3.     Did Jesus answer the Sadducees’ question directly? Why or why not?

4.     Why did Jesus say that God is not a God of the dead? How does this answer the question of whether God is useless?

5.     Why did Jesus die? How does this prove that God is not a God of the dead?

6.     Why is it significant to us that God is not a God of the dead? How does this impact our lives?