Extraordinary Ordinary - Part 8
July 17, 2022Today's message was given by Pastor Patrick. A video of the message is here. "God makes the ordinary extraordinary." Today's focus was Jesus' reply to John the Baptist, "blessed are those who are not offended with me" (Matthew 11:6). Click here for the Conversation Starter for the week that TimberCreek Church provided.
Patrick's bottomline was clear... We can't be offended by God not acting in accord with what we think He should do, e.g. not protecting or healing us from something.
One of Prager's favorite lines is, "God is not a celestial butler or policeman." Life would be absurd if even the righteous were spared of natural problems. God created nature and its laws (the way nature works) and rarely intervenes. Intervening with the laws of nature is basically the definition of a miracle, causing something to happen that could not happen naturally.
The question really becomes, "does God intervene in our lives?" And there is no way to know the answer to that for sure. It's entirely your choice as to how you see it. There is no "proof" either way. You can witness a birth and think a miracle of God, or you can witness a birth and think how cool it is that the material (nature) did this all by itself. By the way, it seems to me this ambiguity was set up on purpose. Without the ambiguity, you would not really have free will to choose, would you.
In the Torah, I think it is fairly clear that God intervenes when it is His purpose that is at stake. He frees the Hebrews from Egypt, for instance, not just to free the people for their sakes, but to give them a mission to the world on His behalf. And He provides miracle after miracle during the Exodus in order to begin teaching the Hebrews and the Egyptians who He is.
And when God doesn't do as we expect, what sets in? Doubt. In Genesis 28:15, God promises to protect Jacob. But only a few chapters later, Jacob is pleading with God for protection from Esau (Genesis 32:12). Jacob has doubts. All the patriarchs had doubt at one time or another. The system is rigged in favor of doubting! This should comfort us to some extent, that even the patriarchs experienced doubt. It also should show us that direct intervention by God, as He did with the patriarchs, doesn't prevent doubt. It's a bit of a "what have you done for me lately" problem. We, too soon, expect more.
If God's primary role is to do something for us, what happens when He doesn't? This expectation can lead to a crisis of faith.
There are numerous examples of people in the Torah not relying on God for miracles. They understood they needed to do as much for themselves and others as they could. As Augustine put it (not certain it was he who said it), "Pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you." Take Joseph, who directly asked his cellmate to remember him to Pharoah (Genesis 40:14).
It is fair to say that God seems to have intervened more "back then" than He does today. Back then, He was introducing, revealing Himself to a world that had no idea what ethical monotheism was about. It makes sense that He had to be "more impressive" then than now. In a way, you could say that the revelation is complete, what more do you need. God has told us who He is, what He wants, etc., what more do you need.
So, don't be offended if God doesn't behave as you'd like.
Bonus
There's much we missed when we enjoyed Bible stories in Sunday School. Unfortunately, without further study on into adulthood, we may never pick up on what we missed. For example, how many of you think the blood smeared on the doorway during Passover was so the "Destroyer" would "pass over" that house and not kill the firstborns inside? Yeah, me, too. But that's not entirely accurate. God does not need signs in order to do what's right. So why the blood over the door? It says it right there, "a sign FOR YOU" (Exodus 12:13). This is a sign to you and your neighbors that you are rejecting the Egyptian gods. The lamb/goat that was slaughtered for the Passover meal and whose blood was smeared on the door was worshipped by the Egyptians. Imagine if you burnt statues of Stalin in the USSR! It was a test of faith as much as anything. Are you, Hebrew slave, willing to announce to Egypt that you believe in the one true God, or not? Now, to be fair, it does say later that the Lord will see the blood on the doorposts and pass over (Exodus 12:23), so that was part of it, too, it would seem.