The Unwilling God

Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Lamentations 3:22-33
(July 20, 2003 Sermon Transcript)

Click here to listen to sermon audio recording

        Misconceptions, dear friends, seem to abound about God. To some, it seems, He is the "Big Man Upstairs", conveniently removed from daily life, and aloof from life’s turmoils. To others, of course, He’s, well, the stern and scowling judge, intent on denying to His creatures every possible pleasure.

        And yet, to others He is, well, sort of like everything they ever wanted in a God and absolutely none of what they didn’t want. In other words, a sort of "custom-designed" God.

        In fact, we have this conclusion in twenty-first century America that God must be pretty much anything we think Him to be. And so if we conceive of God in a certain way, then therefore that is the way He is, for me. Of course, He may be something diametrically opposed to that for someone else. And so therefore, any idea that God can be, well, "one single and whole truth" is sort of tossed out the window in post-modern America.

        May I suggest to you that this text from the book of Lamentations speaks volumes to us regarding the fact that God does not allow Himself to be designed by His creatures, but rather is precisely who He says He is. And thank God for that! For what He has revealed Himself to be is vastly superior to anything we could conjure up about God.

        Listen to the words about God in this text. It says, very clearly, that His love is unfailing. His compassions every morning are anew. He is faithful. He is good. And then, strangely, at the same time we find this written about God’s people. It is good to bear the yoke and to sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him, buried his face in the dust. Offer your cheek to the one who would smite him. Be filled with disgrace.

        And we might look at that passage and figuratively scratch our heads and say, "So, which God should we believe in? Is there a contradiction here? Is this God of love also one who likes to see His children suffer?"

        The answer, thankfully, to the question is that there is no contradiction. And there is no schizophrenic God, who on the one hand we fear, and on the other hand we are given to love.

        Listen carefully. And especially listen carefully to the words about God’s unwillingness. About bringing suffering on men.

        Does suffering happen to God’s people? Yes, it does. Does it happen sometimes even on a grand scale, either nationally or personally? Yes, it does.

        Why does it happen? To answer that question we must go back to the very dawn of human history. For God, it seems, from the very beginning, was unwilling to give us what we deserve. For in the beginning, originally human will was different than it was now. In the beginning, human will really could choose the good or the evil.

        But sadly, in the garden of Eden, our first parents, Adam and Eve, failed to do the good and chose instead the evil. And not only was sin, then, kindled in the heart of man, but became its dominant factor.

        In fact, we had our free human will destroyed, in a certain sense. For no longer could we choose the good, nor desire to, but rather we only and always chose the evil.

        Listen to the words of Martin Luther as he writes in the book, "The Bondage of the Will". He writes, "A man who does not have the Spirit of God, does not, to be sure, do evil unwillingly by compulsion as if grabbed by the neck and forced to do it as a thief or a highwayman is dragged away to punishment against his will. He does evil spontaneously and with a ready will. He is unable to stop, check, or change his readiness or willingness to do evil. Rather, he goes unwillingly and craves evil. And even if he should be compelled by force to do anything that is outwardly different, yet the will within remains adverse to it, and rears up in indignation against the power that compels and constrains it."

        That’s an awful picture.

        The book and its title, by Luther, the "Bondage of the Will:, is an apt description of the fallen estate of humanity in which we all live. All of us, in the end, desire to sin. Fight against it though we might, we do it.

        That is why, brothers and sisters, we began this worship service with the confession of our sins. To acknowledge our lawlessness before God. To acknowledge that, in fact, we have thought and said and done things that are completely averse to the will of God. And so we need confess them.

        But God, in His graciousness, was unwilling to let His creatures perish because of our sin. Indeed the very essence of the Christian gospel is rooted in the amazing compassion of God to which this passage speaks so greatly. It says, Because of God’s great love we are not consumed. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

        His compassion was not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. Instead of giving us what we deserved, He grants us eternal life, through the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of His one and only son. That son came, not to assist us, not to demonstrate to us how we ought to live to please God. But rather, He came to us in compassion and grace, so that He would live as we should live. And that He would die so that we need not.

        God graciously grants to us compassion and grace we did not deserve.

        And what’s more, there is an end result in regard to our fallen estate and our bondage to sin. The scriptures speak of it quite plainly. They say, The wages of sin (you can fill in the blank yourself) is death.

        We’ve come face to face with death in our families, in all of its ugliness. People speak of a dignified death. I have yet to see one. Death is not dignified. It’s ugly. And death, when it comes, is a stark reality check for everyone. And we stand before an open casket and gaze at the lifeless body within, that of a loved one, and we realize, that it is a space we ourselves will occupy. And there is no escaping it save the Lord Jesus Christ returns before we die.

        God has come to destroy the results of sin. That every casket, on the day of His returning, shall be empty. And that which was laid to rest in them shall stand, and shall praise God for those whose faith is in Christ Jesus, and whose trust was not in our efforts but in His own.

        God is also unwilling to let us remain weak in our faith. If you read this passage and place it in its context, you will come to see that life is anything but easy. For Jeremiah writes this book of Lamentations during the siege and fall of Jerusalem. The armies of Nebuchadnessar surrounding and besieging the city. People starving and being reduced to the point of cannibalism. Indeed, within the walls, anything which the Nazi’s could have perpetrated against the Jews seems to pale by comparison. The only thing Nebuchadnessar wanted was surrender or death. Period.

        And so, we see that this is not written to people who are enjoying the easy life. Listen to the words. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust-- there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace.

        Well, what in the world can God possibly teach us through that?

        And remember to whom He is writing! To the suffering of Judah. The abject pain of the disgrace of total defeat, and now slavery.

        God does not willingly, the text says, bring affliction or grief to the children of men. Rather, He is unwilling, and yet, despite His unwillingness, permits it. Not because He delights in seeing our suffering, but rather, it in on the anvil of life’s trials and traumas through which faith is forged and tempered.

        Examine your own lives! Examine, each of you, the worst possible moments of those lives in your own minds and hearts and remember them and the pain which was there. And then remember this. It was precisely at those difficult times that God strengthened you. It was precisely at those terrible, awful days, that God gave you exactly what you needed, perhaps barely enough, but enough to make it through one day, and then the next, and then the next.

        And it is true regardless of what trial or trauma comes our way! Whether it be a great or national tragedy which is being described in this book, or whether it be a diagnosis of cancer, or the death of a loved one. God will be there. And God will strengthen.

        And having passed through the worst of it, we will come out, by God’s grace, stronger for it. For faith, you see, is never a static thing. It is not like a badge that we pin on to our chest and say, "There is my faith!" But rather, it is alive! It grows or it withers. And it grows or it withers precisely in relationship and in correlation to the exposure that we have to the means of grace which God gives us through which our faith is honed and sharpened. And that is through His word and by His sacraments.

        Some of us, I’m certain, have seen those who came against the hard days of life. Seemingly they turn their back away from God and say, "I don’t want a God who’d permit such a thing as this!"

        May I suggest to you that almost always and invariably that happens precisely because people are not connected to the means of grace. They do not listen to what God wishes to say, and they do not come to receive the gifts that God graciously strengthens us with through the Lord’s Supper.

        But for those who are the opposite. To those who have come and have drunk deeply from the well of God’s wisdom in His word, and the strength which is ours there through the power of the Holy Spirit, acting through that word, and who have come and have graciously received the gifts which God provides of the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith and the grace to serve Him with a God-pleasing life which He promises to those who faithfully receive the Lord’s Supper. In the midst of it all they will stand fast.

        And they will be immovable. And they, even through the suffering, will be strengthened. And their faith will grow stronger.

        Dear friends, I am reminded that I believe it is in two short weeks training camp will begin for the Broncos. Thank God football is back! Baseball is so dull! Unless you’re playing it.

        Dear friends, think of the folly it would be for a football player in the National Football League to pretend to be prepared to go out and to play in the contest without engaging in strenuous weight-lifting, and running, and exercise, in order that the body is prepared for the punishment which is to come and the performance which need be given.

        In the same way, Christians who withdraw themselves from the word of God’s grace, and from the sacraments of God’s grace, are withdrawing themselves from the very things that will hold them up in the middle of the most difficult moments of life!

        It would be as foolish to do so as to be an NFL football player who says, "I’ll show up for the game on Sunday, but don’t expect anything else!"

        If we expect to navigate sufficiently through life, we must have God’s strength. We must know His compassion. We must continually hear His word of grace and forgiveness. We must know of the love of His son, so great and precious that the cross was not too great a price for Him to pay so that we might know Him better! So that we might know Him forever!

        Here is your strength. And here is where God displays His faithfulness. Feeding, nourishing, and growing the faith He has given to us, and called us to.

        Let us thank God today. Let us thank God that He is unwilling. That He is unwilling to give us what we deserve. That He is unwilling to provide for us a static faith, but insists that we grow in that faith, through every circumstance that we encounter in life!

        Let us thank Him also that He is willing. That He is willing not to stand far off and be the "Big Man Upstairs", but rather to be graciously involved in our lives, personally involved with us in the midst of our struggle. In the middle of our turmoil. In the midst of our joy. So much so that He would send His only begotten son to His death that we would know Him and call Him Father. Let us thank god for His means of grace, and for His willingness to provide it to us through His word, and through His sacraments.

        Great is thy faithfulness, O God our Father. In Jesus’ name, Amen.