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09.28.08

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

SERMON SERIES: QUESTIONS FOR GOD

SERIES 1: THE NATURE OF GOD

PART 4: WHAT CAN’T GOD DO?

1 CHRONICLES 29:10-13; HEBREWS 6:13-20

Life In The Sandbox

A Child’s Dilemma

A little boy was playing in his sandbox with his cars and trucks, his plastic pail and shovel

In the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sandbox
The boy dug around the rock, managing to dislodge it
With a great amount of effort, he pushed and nudged the rock across the sandbox by using his feet, for he was a small boy and the rock was large

When the boy got the rock to the edge of the sandbox, he discovered that he couldn’t roll it up and over the little wall

Determined, the little boy shoved, pushed and pried, but every time he thought he had made some progress, the rock tipped and fell back into the sandbox
The little boy struggled, pushed, shoved—but his only reward was to have the rock roll back, smashing his fingers
Finally he burst into tears of frustration

All this time the boy’s father watched from the window as the drama unfolded

At the moment the tears fell, a large shadow fell across the boy and the sandbox
It was the boy’s father
Gently he said, “Son, why didn’t you use all the strength that you had available?”
Defeated, the boy sobbed, “But I did, Daddy. I used all the strength I had!”
“No, son,” corrected the father kindly. “You didn’t use all the strength you had. You didn’t ask me.”
With that the father reached down, picked up the rock, and removed it from the sandbox

Our Dilemma

We are so very much like the child in the sandbox

In fact, this world is our sandbox, a place God created for us to play in and enjoy the wonderful gift of life
Sandbox play is carefree and it’s fun, and that’s the way God intended life to be
All the while we are in this sandbox, God is watching over us, ready to step in and help at any time

The problem, certainly, is that we don’t like to ask for help

We don’t like to admit that we need help from God, and some of us are very uncomfortable with the thought that God is watching over us all the time
We claim that we’d be much happier if God would just leave us alone
This belief that we don’t need God comes directly from our belief that we are able to make it on our own, that we have the power to do anything and everything if we set our minds to it and work hard enough
But the truth is we can’t, and we hate to admit that we have limitations, that there are some things we just can’t do
Like the little boy in the sandbox who believed he used all the strength he had, we would rather fail in our efforts than turn to a Power greater than ourselves for help

It seems that some people are afraid to believe in God because of the attributes we believe God has

God is all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere at the same time, and unchanging
Quite frankly, it scares people to think of a God who can do anything, who knows everything, and who can be anywhere God wants to be at any time
We’re not comfortable with that

Though we don’t like to admit we have limitations, in a lot of ways we’re comfortable with the fact that there are certain things we can’t do

Oftentimes, we lift up our limitations to justify the fact that we didn’t do something we should have done
Many people find it difficult to believe in God because God is so unlike us
Perhaps it would be easier to believe in God if God were a bit more human, if there were limitations to what God could do
But if Go was like us—limited to the realm of time and space—then God would not be God

Three Things God Can’t Do

God Cannot Die

Our question to reflect upon today is “Is there anything God can’t do?”

Having said all that I just said about God and about our understanding of God, one might assume that the answer to this question is “No, there’s nothing God can’t do.”
That answer, however is incorrect
God cannot do anything that would violate the nature of who God is
To do anything contrary to God’s nature would make God less than God
So I propose to you, based upon my understanding of the Scriptures, that there at least three things God can’t do

The first thing God absolutely can’t do is die

Death is part of the human reality and God is not human, God is Spirit
Death is part of the world of finite creation and God is neither finite nor created; God is the eternal Creator who gives life to all living things
Eternal means without beginning and without end, and that’s certainly one of the things that differentiates God from us
We have a definite beginning and a definite ending for life in this world
Physical life for us begins at the time of our conception and birth, and it ends at the moment of our death
But God isn’t a physical being, God is a spiritual being, and, therefore, God can never die

This is the quality of God that David celebrates in the opening words of his prayer from our text in 1 Chronicles

This is what he means when he uses the words “from everlasting to everlasting,” and these words are echoed in a variety of different ways throughout the Scriptures
In these brief verses, David expresses much of the character of God and leads the people of Israel to give thanks and praise to God for who God is
This is what David says: God is everlasting or eternal, great, powerful, majestic, head over all, giver of all wealth and honor, and giver of strength to all
Without a doubt, this is an awesome God we serve!

These words indicate how heavily invested in creation God is and how much creation depends upon God

If God were able to die, creation would cease to be
But it is impossible for God to die, so we can be absolutely sure of God’s promises, God’s love, God’s grace continuing with us now and always

God Cannot Lie

Another thing God absolutely cannot do is lie

God is perfect and holy and completely free from sin
God not only tells the truth, God is truth; there’s nothing false in God
For God to lie would violate the truth that’s part of God’s nature; to lie is to sin and sin would bring God down to the same status as us
For God to sin would strip God of all God’s power, goodness, love and grace, and without these, God could not love us as God does, nor could God save us from our sins

Lying is a violation of trust

We find it difficult to trust others when they lie to us because lying shatters our faith and confidence in them
God wants, more than anything else, that we love and trust God, so God is unwilling and unable to do anything to violate that love and trust
And God demonstrates God’s truthfulness by being faithful to all the promises God makes

This is the point the writer of Hebrews is making

Using God’s promise to Abraham as an example, the writer of Hebrews declares that God will always be faithful to all of God’s promises and he demonstrates that with a specific example
From the time God first called Abraham, God made many promises to him, but there was only one promise that God ever sealed with an oath
That promise is recorded in Genesis 22:16-18
After Abraham demonstrated his faithfulness to God through his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, who was the fulfillment of one of God’s promises, God swore an oath that Abraham would be blessed with many descendants, and that through Abraham’s offspring all nations in earth would be blessed

From there, the writer of Hebrews moves on to demonstrate how God was faithful to keep that promise God swore on oath to Abraham

The fulfillment of that promise is Jesus
Jesus is the offspring of Abraham through whom all the peoples of the earth are blessed because Jesus is the Savior of all
It’s Jesus who knows the heart of God, and he’s the one who intercedes with God for any and all who believe
Because God was faithful in keeping this promise, we can be absolutely convinced that God will keep every promise God makes

Now, the fulfillment of God’s promises may not come at the time we want or in the way we want, but we can be certain that God will be true to God’s word

Abraham had to wait twenty-five years before the birth of the son God promised came to pass, and centuries passed before the entire world was blessed with the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, but the promises did ultimately come true; God did not lie
Despite the long wait, Abraham continued to hope and to trust because he knew that the One who made those promises would be faithful to complete them
We would do well to do the same

God Cannot Stop Loving Us

The third thing that God absolutely cannot do is this: God cannot stop loving us

We talked about this rather extensively last week
God loves us because God created us and God created us because God loves us
God loves us because God knows that love has the power to change us from what we are into what we can become
Even when we sin, God continues to love us and is always willing to forgive and welcome us home
To do anything other than love us would violate God character
The writer of the first letter of John makes this point very clear: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (4:16)

So we have looked rather extensively at the nature of God over the past several weeks

We’ve wrestled with the questions of who God is, what God looks like, why God loves us, and what God can and cannot do
My goal has been to help us to have a deeper, more personal relationship with God, and that’s really the only way we can know God
Our understanding of God is limited only by how much we are willing to continue to nurture our relationship with God
Perhaps Moses said it best when he said to the Israelites, “If you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 4:29)