Arkeology Devotional
Okay, first I have to confess what’s probably obvious: I’m not a preacher. I’m a guitar player. I usually try to let my music do the talking, but Sue asked if I’d give a short devotional during the program tonight. She’s a sly one, that Sue Kelley. She probably saw the gears turning as I desperately tried to come up with a plausible sounding excuse to
escape this adventure in public speaking. She said “what’s the matter – out of your comfort zone?” Oh ho! That’s like calling me chicken. “Chicken? Who’re you calling chicken? I ain’t no chicken!” So here I am, you lucky people…!
All kidding aside though, I really am tickled to be asked to speak to you here tonight. In true preacher form, let me start out by saying that I have a three point sermon, three rhetorical questions to answer. Was that a groan? Did somebody just groan? I heard that… Don’t worry – UNLIKE a lot of preachers, my three points are concise. I’ll be brief, less than an hour, I promise you.
Arkeology – of course it’s all about Noah and the animals and the ark, and on a deeper level, it’s all about faith. Hebrews 11:6 tells us “Without faith it’s impossible to please God.” As believers, we definitely want to please God, right? I think kids understand that concept better than adults a lot of the time. A kid’s lot in life is all about keeping mom and dad happy. As we get older we get a little too self assured. We get to thinking we have only ourselves to answer to. But in a spiritual sense, God is our parent, and we need to be about pleasing Him.
So, question one – does it really matter in who (or what) we have faith? I hear it said a lot that it doesn’t really matter what you have faith in, as long as you have faith in something. That sounds all warm and fuzzy, but can it be true? I don’t think so. It’s the object of our faith that makes all the difference. If I have faith that I can fly and jump out of a plane with no parachute, will my faith be enough to save me? Maybe my faith and a lot of luck to land in a very soft haystack somewhere. You can argue that faith in some other god, some other system of belief is just as good as faith in my God – that argument is beyond the scope of my little chat this evening – but I don’t think you can logically assert that it doesn’t matter what you have faith in, as long as you have faith.
Question two: from where do we get this faith that’s so necessary to please God? For the follower of Christ, it’s all about God. We trust our own wisdom too much. I know I do, even when I can plainly see my miserable track record and the wreckage left behind in the wake of my bad choices. Our faith must be, above all else, in Him, His wisdom, His power and His sovereignty. That’s a place where we’re really at a disadvantage here in the west – we don’t understand sovereignty. Who is our ultimate authority? Obama? Not really. If enough of us decide we don’t like the job he’s doing, we can get together and have him removed from office. But a sovereign authority is above “we the people”. And God is the ultimate sovereign. Even if all 6 plus billion of us on this rock got together and voted against Him, He would still be God. We’d lose. That’s soveriegn authority to the max. Therefore, shouldn’t we strive in all things to please Him first, to do it His way? That’s a faith that’s pleasing to God. The Scriptures tell us in I Samuel 15:22: “to obey is better than sacrifice.” At some point in every believer’s life, we’ll get to one of those moments where it’s a clear choice – our way or His way – “God, this is what looks good to me, but you’re saying something different. I’m going to have faith in You – faith that You know better than me. I’m going to do it your way.”
Some time ago, I saw one of these kids make just that kind of a decision – I know it was very hard for her – I saw the tears. But she made that hard decision and it was a beautiful thing, let me tell you – a sweet sacrifice, both to her mom and to her Lord. That’s the kind of faith that pleases God. Not easy. Was it easy for Noah? No-ah! And it’s not often easy for us either.
So where do we get this faith? Romans 10:17 tells us “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” You notice I keep quoting Scripture – that’s the secret. God has chosen to speak to us not in an audible voice, but through the words of this book. But it’s not an ordinary book. This isn’t “the Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. This book has a special, spiritual component, a living component. When you read it, the words are “digested”, so to speak, in a spiritual sense, and they become nourishment for your spirit, just like physical food becomes physical nourishment for your body. You can’t gobble down one huge meal a week and expect to function well. What kind of shape would you be in if you just ate a big dinner on Sunday afternoon, then didn’t eat again until the next Sunday? It wouldn’t take very long before you’d be hurtin’ for certain, right? You need regular and frequent meals. In the same way, you need to be taking in regular portions of God’s Word. It doesn’t have to be 10 chapters a day – that’s not the point. The point is to recognize the primacy of His Word and be obedient to make time for it, to treat it as though it’s important. Because it is!
And when God shows you something in His Word that challenges who you are, how you think and how you act – remember to be like Noah, and like the animals who cooperated with him to get God’s job done. Noah didn’t argue “God, this is a desert. We just don’t get that kind of rain around here. My neighbors are going to call me a fanatic, and they’ll be right. Is that what you want here?” And the animals… well, animals don’t tend to be so argumentative as people usually, do they? Did the chickens have second thoughts about getting onboard this barge with the foxes? Did the gazelle express reservations about bunking in close quarters on a cruise ship populated with lions? Apparently not. Neither
should we argue with God. Again, in Isaiah 55:9, God says “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 both tell us”there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end, it leads to death.” When it comes down to doing it my way, or doing it God’s way, which way should I go?
Okay, finally, question three. Well, there is no question three. I deliberately deceived you. But as I said at the start, I’m a musician. I write, record and sing songs, and, other than this evening, usually prefer to let my music do the talking.
Some years ago, I wrote a silly little song about Noah, Abraham and faith, and I wanted to close my talk by singing it for you here tonight. It’s got a simple chorus and I’d love it if you’d try to pick it up and sing it along with me. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” My paraphrase: “faith is the essence of things hoped for, of things unseen.” Thank you for coming tonight and for your kind attention to my very first sermon. I hope you enjoy the rest of the evening. This song is called “Eyes of Faith”.