Get Microsoft Word Viewer 2003
 Concord Trinity Podcast Feed (Podcast Instructions)

Holding Hands with God

Holding Hands with God

August 19, 2007

Text: 1 Corinthians 4:8-14 
 
 

1 Cor 4:8-14 

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. 10 We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, 12 and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.  

14 I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

NRSV 

When will it happen?

I don’t know.

Sometimes it happens when you’re in your mid-teens, sometimes in your early teens.

It might be this year for my son Cameron—he’s started Washington Middle School.

Sometimes it happens even when you’re as young as six.

A little boy that age once told his father, “I want you to call me ‘Dave,’ not ‘Davie.’” He went on to say that from now on he would call him, “Dad,” not “Daddy.” 

Remember that feeling? That time when you want to separate yourself from your parents. You don’t want to hang around them as much any more. You don’t want your mom or dad to eat lunch with you at school. You turn the cell phone off when you’re out, because you don’t want to take a call from your parents when you’re with your friends. You don’t want to be seen walking too close to your parents down the sidewalk—and heaven help you if you’re seen holding hands with your parents!  

That’s just not “cool.” You don’t look “mature,” “wise,” “with it” if you go around holding hands with your parents. 

I think it’s easy for us Christians to be concerned about how we appear to others, too.  

We like to look “grown up” in our faith, don’t we? Look at our church. We have a pretty building that’s well maintained. We have a nice, orderly worship service. We have programs and a committee structure that have the United Methodist seal of approval. We have budgets, long-range planning groups, evaluation forms, and surveys. We are “adult”, mature Christians.  

And this is fine. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But sometimes in being grown up like this, we can forget what got us here in the first place. It was being a CHILD of God. It was being dependent upon, trusting, loving God—just as a child depends upon, trusts, and loves a parent. What got us here was the sloppiness of childish love—the type of love that drives a child to jump into a mom’s or dad’s arms without any hint of self-consciousness.  

What got us here was holding hands with God, without shame.

I’m reminded of a story that pastor Richard Lischer once told. One of the pillars of his congregation stopped by his office just before services and told him he’d been ‘born again.’ 

"You've been what?" the pastor asked.

"Yes," he said, "last week I visited my brother-in-law's church, the Running River of Life Tabernacle, and I don't know what it was, but something happened and I'm born again." 

"You can't be born again," pastor Richard said, "you're a Lutheran. You are the Chairman of the Board of Trustees."  

Richard concludes, “[This man] was brimming with joy, but I was sulking. Why? Because spiritual renewal is wonderful as long as it occurs within acceptable, usually mainline, channels…”

--Richard Lischer, "Acknowledgment," Xn Century, 3/3/99, 245. 

It is dangerous for our souls if we drop hands with God in hopes of looking more respectable, more “grown up,” in the eyes of the world.

That’s what Paul is talking about today.

He was writing to Christians who were very concerned about how they appeared to the world around them. These Corinthian Christians so wanted to fit in with the sophisticated culture of their day. 

Paul says, 

“Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! ((You’ve met your budget, paid your apportionments, set up an endowment fund.)) …You have become [like] kings! ((You have a pristine palace of bricks and mortar!))”  

He then describes himself and his colleagues: 

“God has exhibited us apostles as last of all…We have become a spectacle to the world…We are fools for the sake of Christ.”

Paul could have said, “We are as children in an adult world, for the sake of Christ.”

As far as I can tell, Paul’s saying that there’s one huge difference between the “sophisticated,” mature Corinthian Christians and himself. 

Paul is STILL HOLDING HANDS with the “Father” as he walks down the sidewalk. He’s never said, “I’m going to call you ‘Dad,’ not ‘Daddy,’ from now on.” He’s never said, “Dad, umm, why don’t you walk a few feet ahead of me?” Instead, Paul is still holding hands with Daddy—still going where Daddy wants to go; still listening to Daddy, instead of telling Daddy how things are; still trusting Daddy. That makes Paul look a little foolish. A grown man, acting like a child when it comes to God.  

So…when was the last time you acted like a child when it came to your relationship with God? As I reflect on it, I think there are three questions a Christian should always ask her/himself, just to be sure he/she is still holding hands with God. How you answer these questions reflects if your desire to look “grown up” is getting in the way of your faith. 

The first question a Christian should ask: 

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I LOOKED SILLY BECAUSE OF MY FAITH? 

Children have no problem whatsoever in looking silly. Have you tuned to the Nickelodeon channel on cable recently? You know what I mean. Children have no problem with how they appear to others. 

Neither do Christians.

A devotional writer once said,

“Perhaps [looking silly] means not giving into the cautiousness, carefulness, and fear of our times. We know what was said about the people of the early church. Time and time again, many of them went outside the bounds of what was considered acceptable behavior. For it, they were ridiculed, jailed, and stoned to death. And the most outrageous thing that they did in the eyes of man y people was to talk boldly about Jesus.” --Diana Nishita Cheifetz, Weavings, May-June, 2007, p. 4.] 

“Talk boldly about Jesus.” That’s a silly thing to do in the eyes of the sophisticated world, isn’t it? When was the last time you did that? 

Going to church on Sunday morning is a silly thing in the eyes of the world. Or joining a Bible study group. Or teaching Sunday School. Or being a youth group counselor.

It’s silly giving up a week of vacation and going on a VIM trip.

It’s silly risking yourself in a prison ministry or a homeless ministry.

It’s silly giving money away because you’ve found Someone more important.

I remember a time when I was especially silly. 

Each fall I go to the Mercy Retreat Center in Kirkwood for my sermon retreat. They have a labyrinth there—looks something like this.  

It’s a spiritual exercise, where you walk around and around centering yourself. I’ve seen people doing it and I’ve thought to myself, “They look rather silly.” But I started doing it—being part of the people who walk around in circles. I experienced the power of this spiritual exercise. And maybe part of the power lay in intentionally doing something that appeared silly to the world. 

One sign of holding hands with God is doing something silly with God. 

Here’s another question to ask yourself: 

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I LEARNED FROM MY HEAVENLY “PARENT?” 

Children grow up thinking their parents know everything. They ask an assortment of uncensored questions as they try to understand the world around them. 

Somewhere along the line they stop asking parents, and start asking teachers or other kids. 

Do you keep asking questions of your “Daddy”—or your “Mommy”—who art in heaven? 

In post-World War II, a group of tourists were visiting a picturesque village in France. They happened to pass by an old man sitting beside a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked, “Were any great men born in this village?”  

The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.”  

Great people are formed, not by birth, but by what they learn from life’s experiences.  

Great Christians are formed by what they learn from the Parent whose hand they’re holding. When crises happen in your world. When you go through transitions in life. Do you seek God’s wisdom? Do you ask, “Daddy [Mommy], what would you have me learn from this?” Do you really study the Bible and pray? Do you seek counsel from other people who are also holding hands with God? What does it say about where you are spiritually if you seek psychologists and self-help books before you seek God? 

Finally, when you wonder if you’re holding hands with God, ask,  

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I LIVED FOR THE FUN OF IT? 

This might come as a shock, but children do not have to be told, “Go have fun.”  

Our vacation was spent exploring the beaches along the eastern coastline of Lake Michigan.  

Whenever we’d feel the sand under our feet, do you think we had to say to our children, “Cameron, stop reading Tolstoi’s War and Peace. Emma, put down the Wall Street Journal. We want you kids to play.” 

Think we needed to say that? Of course not. Our kids saw the beach, they were gone. They ran to the shoreline and squished their toes into the wet sand. They let the waves lap their shins. And for literally hours on end they built sand castles and forts for the sheer fun of it—all the while knowing that those castles and forts wouldn’t last. 

One of the fingerprints of God on our souls is the ability to “play.” To feel so passionate about something that you lose yourself in it, like kids building sand things on the beach. 

You can’t “play” like this, feel passionate about something, if you’re uptight and worried. If you’re concerned about appearances, about what people think. You can only play if you’re holding hands with God, trusting God with the big questions and concerns in life, while you go out and enjoy the squishy, squeaky sand. 

So…what gets your passion going? A sunrise? A walk in the woods? A conversation over coffee? A smile of a child?  

What gets your passion going? An injustice that you see? A problem that needs addressing?  

What gets your passion going? An interest you haven’t pursued? A question you haven’t sought an answer to?  

What can you get lost in, for the sheer fun of it, and let your Parent deal with the tough, “adult” questions? 

Marshall Goldsmith, a business expert, told a time when he was with a fellow consultant two days before he died. Marshall said, 

“As I watched [Richard] answer a series of phone calls, I found him… continuing to help other people. I was amazed at the excitement and enthusiasm he was able to convey. He was working with people in the same caring and effective way he always had…

“[Richard] was still smiling, still able to laugh, still filled with passion. He knew that he wasn't going to be around to collect the consulting fees for his final assignments. It didn't really matter… in that instant, I made a decision. I decided that I wanted to be like him when I grew up.”

-- Fast Company, 1/04, p. 95 

Maybe we best grow up when we’re able to keep that child-like passion burning within us. And that comes from intentionally holding hands with God. 

That’s not easy to do.  

We want to grow up, get our driver’s license, and be on our own.

We only fool ourselves. Like the prodigal son, we best experience life when we realize who and Whose we really are, and go home.

Remember the boy who didn’t want to be called “Davie?”

When he was in his 20’s, he became seriously ill.

On what turned out to be his last night, he and his father had a long talk. As his father was leaving, he turned to his son naturally and said, “Goodnight, Davie.” 

And the last words the young man said to his father were, “Goodnight, Daddy.”