With: Living Under God

Intro to Series

This spring, many of our staff read the book With together. Written by Skye Jethani, whom some of you may know from his role as a host on the Holy Post Podcast or from his With God Daily devotionals, the book identifies four ways people can relate to God that leave us wanting more. We can live under God, over God, from God or for God. Each tries to address our fears and anxieties of a world outside of our control by trying to control God or get out from under his control.

But, we were made to live with God. As Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening and shared their life with him. As the Israelites spent 40 years in the desert with the cloud of God guiding them. As the glory of God came to settle over the temple when it was dedicated by Solomon. As the disciples walked the hills of Galilee and slept under the stars with Jesus, sharing meals with him. We were made to live with God.

Not only were we made to live with God, but God simply longs to be with us. In fact, as we remember each Christmas, God so longed to be with you, that he set aside all the glory and power of heaven to become a helpless baby, unable to feed or burp himself or even change his own diapers, completely dependent on his parents for survival. Even setting aside the ability to speak until Jesus learned as we all did in those early years be imitating his parents.

As John puts it, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. All of scripture testifies to the deep desire of God to have a relationship with you and me. Over the next 4 weeks of Advent, we will be thinking about how we relate to God and reminding each other that our true abundant life is found not in living over, over, from or for God, but by simply being with God.

Some of you might be wondering, could I just read the book and skip church during Advent. You could, I suppose. And, the book is really good so I think you would benefit from reading it. But, this series is only inspired by the book. We will be looking at different characters from the Christmas story and looking at how we can see God in their story as the God who longs to be with us.

You will notice each week that we are stealing some cute drawings fro Skye to illustrate some points, but the ideas are our own as we interact with scripture and think about how we can best help each of us find the joy of being with God this Christmas season.

This morning, we will be looking to the story of Joseph as someone who could have been living a life Under God, but who experienced both the joy and challenge of living with God. Before we dive into scripture, let us pray.

Creator God, you remind us that the darkness of ignorance and doubt cannot overcome your life-giving Word. May your Holy Spirit, who first inspired these words of Scripture, shine your light and once again awaken us to the hearing and living of this radiant truth. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Text

Matthew 1:18–25 NIV

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

L: This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

P: Praise to you, O Christ!

Life Under God

Jospeh is a good man. He only wants to obey the Torah or Law of God. he not only wants to obey the Torah, but when he find out about Mary his first instinct is one of compassion for her. He is a really good guy. He has no desire to marry a woman who has cheated on him, but he also does not want to shame her or cause her any more pain than she is already experiencing. He decides to divorce her quietly.

Many of us have been taught either on purpose or by accident hat when we obey God, when we live as good people, God will bless us. We see this in phrases like God helps those who help themselves, which to be clear is not in the Bible. And, actually contradicts the gospel which says that while we were still slaves to sin and could not help ourselves Jesus came and rescued us and set us free to both love God and our neighbor.

But we also see this idea that God will give us good things if we do good things when pastors tell us if we go to church, if we serve, if we join a small group, if we tithe, then God will bless us with a good marriage and obedient kids and a successful career. But life doesn’t always work out that way.

We can even communicate this to our kids that if they go to youth group, avoid the party scene, and keep all their body parts to themselves then when they are a married audlt they will have a great physically and emotionally satisfying marriage, This was even the explicit message in many youth programs in the late 90s and early 2000s as we reminded kids that true love waits. Life is not often that simple as many found out.

Now don’t hear me saying what I am not saying today. I am all for people taking responsibility for our lives and our behavior. I want people to have healthy marriages and great relationships with their kids and I want people to avoid the pain that often follows when people don’t obey the commands of God by making unhealthy choices.

And, all of these ideas carry with them a common and low view of God. We turn God into some kind of angry deity we need to appease in order for God to be nice to us. As if God’s kindness is dependent on our goodness. They assume God wants to punish us, but is willing to give us good gifts if we do enough good deeds in our lives. Then God will owe us somehow. They assume a life lived under God. Carrying the weight of having to be good enough for God to be good to us.

Trying to Control God

At its heart, this way of relating to God is actually very close to the ancient pagan sacrificial systems. They would offer a goat or cow to their god for rain and if he blessed them they would do the same next year. If not, give the god more goats or cows and if you got really desperate even a child.if we give the gods enough they will give us what we want the thinking went.

Only, we don’t sacrifice cows or goats anymore, we obey God’s commands and try to do enough good things so God will do what we want. Then God will owe us. In this view of God, God is a marriennette we control by our good works.

Steve Johnson, a WR for the Buffalo Bills in 2010 had a terrible game. 5 dropped passes including the game winner in the endzone in overtime. After the game, as people do these days, he hopped on Twitter and said this:

I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS IS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS????? HOW???!!! I’LL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!! THX THO…

Johnson praises God so God should bless him and not let him drop a touchdown pass. He obeys God in order to avoid punishment and to get blessings from God and God has dropped the ball. God failed to live up to his end of the bargain. Johnson is mad at God because God is not a marrianette to be controlled by our good deeds.

Have you ever been mad at God? Have you ever felt like God let you down after you had been so faithful? You did everything right and God didn’t keep his end of the bargain? Maybe it was when you didn’t get into the school of your choice or lost your dream job? or when a marriage fell apart. Or, a spouse was lost to Alzheimer’s, to a stroke, or cancer and it was just too soon. Or, maybe it was a child estranged from the family or who has left the faith. And it felt like you had done your part and God had dropped the ball. He failed to do what you wanted. I have had those moments, too.

God Cannot Be Controlled

I suspect Joseph felt that way, too. But here’s the thing: God cannot be controlled like a marrianette. God doesn’t promise to give us what we want if we obey, God promises to love us even when we fail to obey.

Sometimes following God is really painful and hard. Joseph lived all of his adult life with the pubic scandal of a baby born before marriage. everyone assuming he had sinned. Then, he was ripped from his community when he had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod who wanted to kill Jesus and any hint of a newborn Jewish king. For Joseph, saying yes to God meant saying yes to suffering, isolation, and shame. Sometimes following God is hard because God has his own plans and they are not always comfortable for us. God seems less concerned with our comfort than we are.

God doesn’t promise to give us all we want or to make us comfortable. In Jesus, God promises to be with us.

God’s desire to be with us is captured well by two Hebrew words that pop up over and over in the Old Testament and together in Micah 6:8 which tells us to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. the two words translated as “love mercy” are Avahot and Chesed. Ahavot shows up in Jeremiah 31:3 which says:

Jeremiah 31:3 NIV

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

God loves us with an everlasting love. it forms to basis for the Avahot prayed at the beginning and end of each sabbath before the Shema when jews proclaim again their belief in the one God of Israel. Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann describes Ahava love this way:

“Big love. Deep love. Abundant, overwhelming, sweep you off your feet, knock you over with love love.” It is an intimate all around you, everywhere you look sort of love. It is the overwhelming romantic love among people that God feels for his people.

The other word, Chesed, also refers to love but it is a different sort of love that is often translated simply as kindness, but was translated several hundred years ago by Miles Coverdale as loving-kindness. This word is displayed best in the story of Ruth. Ruth, you may recall is the grandmother of David and the great-great-great-many times great Grandmother of Jesus. She was not a Jew, but a Moabite. her husbands family had fled Israel during a famine, got married and settled down in Moab. Eventually, all the men in the family die and Ruth is left with her mother-in-law. They decide to go back to Israel. Her mother-in-law tries to get Ruth to go home. There is no life for her in Israel. She will spend her days caring for her aging mother-in-law and then be left a widowed woman in a foreign land with no one to protect her or provide for her. This is a path that will only lead to her despair. But Ruth persists. She has chesed for her mother-in-law. She has a covenant faithful sort of love that won’t leave her side even when it will cost Ruth everything. This is a faithful no matter the cost sort of love. An unearned grace or mercy or commitment from Ruth to her mother-in-law.

This is the kind of love, this ahava chesed, this over the top intimate love combined with a absolutely committed to the other through thick and thin love, that God has for you.

You do not need to do anything to earn it. You do not need to convince God to love you. You do not need to worry if God has your best interests at heart. He really does. he loves with what Sally Lloyd-Jones calls in her Jesus Story Book Bible the unbreaking, always, and forever love of God.

At Christmas, we remember again what God wants most from us is simply to be with us and for us to be with him.

May you believe this gospel and go forth to live in its peace. Amen.