Pastor Pat Edwards 9/23/2007
Grace Baptist Church in Bountiful, Utah

After my absence I'm sure you're all breathlessly waiting to hear what I did on what I'll call my summer vacation. I took many naps - often with a cat on my chest, I read a bunch of books, some for fun, some for growing. I tore up and replaced three floors, two of which I vowed I would never do. I made two trips to Colorado, one to Arizona and one to the monastery in Huntsville. I helped Wizzy and Brandon and Patrick pack their apartment and move to Bountiful. I fell down and cracked a rib. Chris and I spent 6 days, sometimes as long as 12 hours a day, with her mom in the hospital. I read through Psalms and Proverbs once each month. And I spent lots of time playing with my new grandson. About four of the things on this list I actually planned to do.

The last thing I did was learn and relearn some godly lessons about life. I want to share one of them with you today. I relearned "Life with God is a mystery to be experienced, not a problem to be solved." That's an approximate quote I took from a Eugene Peterson book. Let me repeat it, "Life with God is a mystery to be experienced, not a problem to be solved." That's because life with God is a personal relationship with all the complexities that relationships involve whether friends, parent and child, husband and wife or employee and employer. And these relationships are not puzzles where all the pieces fit together. If they are puzzles there are always missing pieces or patterns and colors you swear don't match anything else.

But our problem solving focus makes that easy to forget or never learn. A relationship like marriage is more than "7 Keys to communication" or learning the "five love languages." The problem is that these kinds of sermon series get us thinking the answer to life's problems is to discover 7 keys or take 5 baby steps or establish 7 habits. We forget we are dealing with people, the crown of God's creation and the most complex entities in the universe. Unfortunately it's probably that very complexity that causes us to look for shortcuts, simple solutions and guaranteed programs.

Listen to the following two Psalms.

Psalm 18:1-19
1 I love you, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. 4 The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. 5 The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. 6 In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. 7 The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. 8 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. 9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. 10 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him-the dark rain clouds of the sky. 12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. 13 The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. 14 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them. 15 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of breath from your nostrils. 16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. 17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. 19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Psalm 44:8-26
8 In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever. 9But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies. 10 You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us. 11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations. 12 You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale. 13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, the scorn and derision of those around us. 14 You have made us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us. 15 My disgrace is before me all day long, and my face is covered with shame 16 at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge. 17 All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. 18 Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. 19 But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness. 20 If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, 21 would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? 22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. 23 Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. 24 Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? 25 We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. 26 Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love. God's response is a mystery. Why does he rescue in Psalm 18 and not respond to the pleas of the righteous in Psalm 44? What does God know, what does he intend with these people that we don't know or understand? But more to the point, I don't understand many of the things God is accomplishing in my life - his ways are a mystery to me and the sooner I understand and accept that fact the sooner I can get on with living life. Isaiah 55.8-9 teaches us, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." At some point I need to stop demanding to know all the answers and how to solve all the problems and instead trust in the relationship I have with God.

I am able to do that because of what we read in Genesis 1.26-27. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. I can have a relationship with him because he has made me in his image. I am not God and I do not have all his qualities and attributes but he has given me enough of them so that I can relate to him person to person and he did it because he wanted a creature that could enter into a loving relationship with him. But sometimes it may not feel that way. Listen to excerpts from the Scheer's most recent prayer letter. "Exactly one month after landing in Kigali we hopped on a plane to head back to the States. We went to be with the family as Gary's mother fights a hard battle against cancer. It was really important to the family that we be with them during this time, even though we can't stay on. On Sunday, the 23rd, we hop on the plane to head back to Rwanda -- again! We arrive in Rwanda on Tuesday morning, the 25th. So again, the transition has to be made back to Rwanda.

It's raining in Rwanda -- 18 people are reported dead from flooding in northwest Rwanda. It's raining in New Creation Ministries in Rwanda -- NCM is being hit with a number of serious situations: You already know about the 19-year prison sentence of Laurent Katabirora.

The wife of the vice-president of our board has been jailed. The head of the organization she worked for is accusing her of embezzlement. But it looks like this man is casting the blame on her to cover his own tracks. The government has called for the re-registering of all non-profit organizations in Rwanda. Every time we go into the office to submit the requested papers, they hit us with another paper we need, and another, and another. Each time he threatens to shut the organization down if the papers aren't presented. The man receiving these papers is trying to wear us down so we pay a bribe in fear and frustration to get it done. One of our NCM board members (who was our first NCM board president) just found out that a teacher at the boarding school where his daughter goes to high school has violated her and she is now pregnant.

A man who was the prime candidate (only candidate for that matter!) for our next Rwandese staff member (replacing Laurent) has just taken a job with another organization. So it's back to square one. Another board member (who also graduated from NCM's Lay Training Institute), his wife just died. She was poisoned by a woman follower of the traditional spirits of the Rwandese, who is boasting that her power is greater than that of God. Our devastated board member is saying that he wants nothing to do with God anymore. How do you feel after reading about this rain? That's how we feel as we head back. Enough said -- pray!"

Why is it raining on this Rwandan ministry? Why do the Scheer's face these kinds of trials after 28 years of faithful effort? Have they done something wrong? Did they miss crossing a t or dotting an i on God's list of requirements? Is there an easy solution to these problems they've overlooked? The answer to all these questions is that they are involved in relationships with people, a government official greedy for a bribe, a lustful teacher who preys on his students, a woman filled with hatred and demonic power, an embezzler fearful of getting caught. But God intervenes in very few cases. Which one of us wants to be the one to tell God to act in this case but not in this one? Of course we often find ourselves doing that in our personal trials; we become like the board member who wants nothing to do with God because his wife has been poisoned. We don't understand why God won't solve our problem if he loves us since he's all powerful.

But for a moment I want us to think of the wedding vows we're all so familiar with. "Do you take the woman you now hold by the hand to be your lawful and wedded wife? Do you promise to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and forsaking all others keep thee only unto her so long as you both shall live?" Do you hear the assumption in these questions? That the marriage relationship will include times of sickness and poverty and maybe worse? The relationship is not based on remaining problem free or even solving most problems but loving and cherishing one another and maintaining the special bond for life that is being established at this moment.

That's what I was reminded of this summer. My relationship with my Lord Jesus is not about finding answers to my problems or my family's problems or the church's problems. My relationship with Jesus is about living with him in the midst of problems and blessings, joys and sorrows, victories and defeats. Sometimes I will understand, sometimes I will discover answers and solutions but sometimes I will need to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil because he is with me, his rod and his staff comforting me.

Some of you may be here today but want nothing to do with God. You don't know why you came. Some of you may be looking for quick fixes, thinking if God loves you he should solve your problems and show you the way out of your mess. But most of you are probably here because you want to be closer to God, you want to know the reality of his presence in your life, you want to experience the fruit of the Spirit. Regardless of the reason you're here remember God made you in his image to share in his love through all the circumstances of life. Seek intimacy with God rather than God as a solution to life's problems. This must be the cornerstone of all that motivates us, seeking him and him alone. Once we're willing to do that we can develop the intimacy with our Lord we long for. Next week I want to remind us of how intimacy is maintained and strengthened.