Does God get What God Wants? by Rev Steven R Mitchell -29-2012

Does God get What God Wants?

Based on Love Wins Series

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 7/29/2012

Revelations 21:1-5

As we read through the Hebrew and Christian Scripture, we come away with at least one solid understanding that God is God and in that, God has an ultimate goal of reconciling creation with God’s will! Not only does God have a plan, but God has the power to achieve this. This makes things pretty comforting. That is until someone goes into a dark theater and opens fire on an unsuspecting audience, forcing a whole community to come face to face with evil and its destructive powers. All of a sudden we can start to wonder, even doubt God’s power. Maybe God isn’t really in control. Is there a God of “good” and a separate god of “bad?” Do these two god’s battle one another for dominates, and if so, whose winning?

Most churches have websites that introduce themselves to potential visitors. Within these websites you will find information about what that particular group of people believe regarding God. You will also find what these people believe will happen to those people who do not believe the way that they believe. Statements that read something like these: “The unsaved will be separated forever from God in hell.” “Those who don’t believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal punishment in hell.” The general understanding is “If you don’t have Jesus, you will get to spend eternity in torment and suffering.”

So what about those twelve people who lost their lives a week ago Friday at the Century 16 Cinema Complex? We know from news interviews that several of the victims were Christians. But what about those who had no church connections, will they be spending eternity in eternal punishment? Or what about those churches who view scripture differently than those who talk about the dangers of eternal damned nation?

This past Monday our church received a phone call from an individual from Illinois, a chosen prophet by God, telling us that because we do not teach the “word of God” in this church, not only are the theater murders on our hands, we too will be spending eternity bathing in the flames of hell.

On the websites I was just speaking about, you can also find affirmations of the goodness and greatness of God speaking about a God who is: mighty, powerful, loving, unchanging, sovereign, full of grace and mercy, all-knowing. So if God is all knowing and in control, how do we address the events of last weekend? Does God get what God wants? If so, does this mean that God wants a large portion of people, to suffer and be condemned to an eternity of suffering? Is God a loving God or is God a fickle vindictive God? Choosing without rhyme or reason those who will live in eternal bliss and creating many more souls who will live in eternal suffering? As it was pointed out at the Sacred Grounds discussion group this past Tuesday, in the book of Revelations we find that only 144,000 people will be saved and all the rest of the world will end up in hell. This paints a very poor picture of God in my estimation.

How great is God? Great enough to save all people, or a medium powerful God who can save some but not all? Will all people be saved or will God not get what God wants? Psalms 24 say, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” The prophet Malachi asks, “Do we not all have one Parent? Did not one God create us?” What scripture tells us from the first sentence to the last sentence of the bible is that God is not helpless, God is not powerless, and God is not impotent.

Rob Bell makes a point in his book when he says: God has a purpose. A desire. A goal. And God never stops pursuing it. Jesus tells a series of parables in Luke 15 about a woman who loses a coin, a shepherd who loses a sheep, and a father who loses a son. The stories aren’t ultimately about things and people being lost; the stories are about things and people being found. The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn’t give up until everything that was lost is found. This God simply doesn’t give up. Ever. Love Wins pg 101

What an amazing comfort this is. God simply never gives up! This is the Good News that we here at Mountain View wish to tell the world. This is the Good News that the “appointed prophet of God from Illinois” needs to understand, God isn’t satisfied with having one person lost and God will not allow that to happen!

Last week I asked: “Is there a “hell?” Of course there is, we each will have to live through some variation of it because “evil” exits in this life, but does that mean that those who do not self-identify as a Christian are lost forever? Not if we understand God’s love. Here is a point that needs to be made clear about the basic virtue about “love.” God’s nature is love. Humanity is made in the image of God, which means that we too have the nature of love. We tend to identify love as coming from the heart. It is a feeling that we all have, but that we cannot require of others.

In last Saturday evening’s family movie night, we watched the Wizard of Oz. The Tin man’s greatest desire was to have a heart, so he might be human. As the wizard gave the Tin man this mechanical clock in the shape of a heart, he gave the Tin man a piece of great wisdom. “Remember Tin man, the measure of a person’s heart is not found in how much you love, but rather by the number of people who love you.” Love cannot happen by force, nor can love survive or thrive in captivity. For love to flourish, one has to be willing to let love go, to risk it’s leaving, for it to be truly love.

This same truth exists within God’s love. God provides love, but as an individual we have the option to accept it or reject it. If God over-rides this option, then God is robbing us of our freedom to choose, and God has then violated the fundamental essence of what love is.

A question that flows out of this understanding of love, then, is quite simple. Lots of people in our world right now choose to be violent and abusive and mean and evil, so why won’t they continue to choose this path after they die? That question leads to another idea, one rooted in the dynamic of nature of life. We aren’t fixed, static beings-we change and morph as life unfolds. Love Wins pg 104 If we believe in life existing beyond this physical plane, then the idea in the dynamic of nature of life would continue to exist as well. If we believe that God has total control over what God wishes and if that wish is that none should be lost, could it not be possible that a person who in this life has chosen to reject God’s love, given enough time (eternity) could ultimately change enough to choose to embrace God’s love?

The argument being: If we are made in God’s image and choose to live a path that separates us from God, as time continues we become less human, meaning we become less in the image of God, could eventually become non-human, there by not being the image of God. I think the movies that used the man “Hannibal” explores this best. In last week’s scripture example of Lazarus wishing for relief, do you think the story might have been different had Lazarus asked for forgiveness? Would God have said to Lazarus, “Sorry, it’s too late”? If the answer is yes, this implies that God doesn’t get what God wants, which is everyone of us.

In the Book of Revelations, we read all this imagery of how Jesus comes back to mop up a badly messed up world, but in the end it states that all comes together and is in union with God’s will. Again Rob Bell points out: We read in these last chapters of revelation that the gates of that city (Jerusalem) in that new world will ‘never shut.’ That’s a small detail, and it’s important we don’t get too hung up on details and specific images because it’s possible to treat something so literally that it becomes less true in the process. But gates, gates are for keeping people in and keeping people out. If the gates are never shut, then people are free to come and go.

Can God bring proper, lasting justice, banishing certain actions-and the people who do them-from the new creation while at the same time allowing and waiting and hoping for the possibility of the reconciliation of those very same people? Keeping the gates, in essence, open? These are questions that we live in tension with and are not able to answer because of our finite perspective of life, and this is okay. Love Wins pg 115

When we think of God as creator, we have to acknowledge that God is full of possibilities and unlimited imagination. Does God get what God wants? In chapter 21 of the book of Revelations, John says, “3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” I don’t know how much clearer scripture can be on this topic! Amen