Try God                                                                                              5/5/46

 

Scripture:  Acts 15: 1-11

 

Text:  Acts 15: 10a;  “Now therefore why tempt ye God?”

             or (modern)  “Now therefore, why make ye trial of God?”

 

In the tenth verse of the 15th chapter of the Book of Acts are these words: “Now therefore why tempt ye God?”  Another translation of the verse in is these words:  “Now therefore, why make ye trial of God?”

 

William G. Gehri, to whom I am indebted for much of today’s thought, calls attention to the familiar observation that we have to grow in order to keep spiritually and mentally alive.  When we cease to grow, when the creative urge within us disappears, we begin to stagnate.  This latter happens without most people intending it.  They simply refuse to learn anything new.  They have perhaps become adult, and as adults, they are sure their growing days are over.  They forget that, although they may have attained their full height in physical stature, their very bodies still have to grow, that living tissues replace themselves completely every so often; that there are certain changes of physique that continue with life clear into old age, among all those who attain advanced years.

 

As for their minds - well, they went to school; they finished school; they learned a business, a trade or the elementary duties of a profession.  And they refuse to learn anything new.  They may seem sure that their growing days are over.

 

Yet educators assure us, after the testing of actual experiments, that one reason why some adults do not learn after 24 or 25 years of age is that they lack curiosity and desire.

 

I think that lack of growth is nowhere more serious than in religion.  It is imperative for mature Christians that they continue to grow in the understanding and experience of their faith!  One all too frequently sees in adult life the marks of one who went to Sunday School until a certain age in childhood; was perhaps trained and confirmed in the membership of his church; and then has lived and spoken and acted as though he takes it for granted that he learned all that there is to know, or all he needed to know, about his religion in childhood or early youth.  It just isn’t so!  Whenever you find a grown person who speaks and acts as though his religion was a sort of childish thing, good enough for the kids as a sort of discipline and control, but not relevant to the demands of adult living, you may put down the lively suspicion that he or she quit growing in religious understanding or experience long ago and has gone stagnant!

 

You and I have continually to revise and build our understandings of religious truth.  There is never a time to stop.

 

We may not even safely assume that the faith was “once delivered to the saints” intact and unchangeable.  It is as important that we understand the “faith of our fathers” as it is for us to know some history.  A lot of those fathers were spiritual giants beyond anything that we remotely approach, and we are a sorry lot, indeed, if we can’t learn from them.  But, as James Russell Lowell says:

 

            New occasions teach new duties,

                        Time makes ancient good uncouth.

            They must upward still and onward

                        Who would keep abreast of truth.

 

Frequently there is conflict between the too-traditional way of meeting life’s situations, and the necessity of reexamination and flexibility.  This was tragically demonstrated in the life of Our Lord, and His coming to a people whose soul had stagnated in the minute details of long-accepted religious practice.  The liberal, constructive teaching and practice of Jesus was regarded by many influential people as somehow dangerously radical.  Rather than change, or grow in any way themselves, they plotted His death.

 

The conflict appeared again very early among those who had become followers of the Christ.  Paul and Barnabas early came to realize, in presenting the gospel to Gentiles, that the old accepted Jewish requirements of circumcision and ceremonial law were unnecessary and confusing.  Others evidently felt that all believers must abide by all the practices of Jewish discipline, for had not Jesus refused to change, even by the dotting of an “I” or the crossing of a “t”, the essential law of the Hebrews?  Hence were not all Jewish ceremonials and customs binding also upon non-Jews who accepted the faith of Christ?  The question became sufficiently acute so that the first Christian council was called in Jerusalem.

 

At the meeting, Simon Peter defended the liberal position.  He pointed to the readiness of some Gentiles to accept the gospel stripped of some of its irrelevancies.  He remarked that some serious-minded Gentiles had obviously been quickened by the Holy Spirit.  He argued that there were indications of the practical operation of God’s will.  He implied that those minds which insisted on confining the Christian religion within the forbidding walls of Jewish ceremonial laws were failing to understand the flexibility and the creative character of the ;new religion.  Were they not refusing to draw logical conclusions from the facts?  “Now therefore,” asks Peter, “why make ye trial of God?”

 

What are some of our modern reasons for acting against God’s will? ---- Failing to draw the natural conclusions from intelligently understood religion?

 

(1)  One reason is ignorance.  You have read in the Scriptures that “fear is the beginning of wisdom.”  Now “fear” is not used here in the sense of apprehension or dread.  Here the word fear means “reverence, in which humility and teachableness prevail.”

 

When we prefer to worship our own ideas as final standards of action; or when we insist on the patterns of yesterday as being so sacred as to be inviolable without critical scrutiny today, then we are worshipping false gods - idols of prejudice and complacency.  “The beginning of wisdom” is to fear God - to be reverent, and capable of learning of God.

 

Sometimes we get into this unwholesome state quite unconsciously.  How often do we think of the implications of the phrase “Thy kingdom come.”  We use the phrase weekly, or daily, or sometimes oftener, as we repeat the Lord’s prayer.

 

We are certain that we want no part of the ideologies of fascism, communism, nazism.  We are alarmed and rebellious over any claims that people must live for the state.  Our insight tells us that the way and the spirit of Jesus is urgently needed in the confusion of our day.  But do we realize what we might mean when we say “Thy kingdom come?”

 

We sometimes think carefully and critically of our representative government and of our economic and social policies in this country.  On the whole we like, very well indeed, our form of government and our ways of living.  But do you suppose that everyone in the world envies us a way of life under which men of both labor and management can sit stubbornly through week after week of negotiation, and refusal to negotiate, while the lack of their productivity swiftly strangles the American ability to produce the goods that may keep alive and restore human beings all over the world?  Machinery for producing, even food and clothing, still not coming through!  Transportation suffering slow paralysis in the face of need (some of it desperate) for goods everywhere that knows no visible limit!  Of course we think carefully and critically of our ways of living when such things can happen.  And those of other countries do too!

 

When we use the words, “Thy kingdom come,” we had as well understand some of the implications of that phrase.  Do we realize, for one thing, that we become co-workers with God to bring in that kingdom when we pray that way?  or are we so simple as to think, as certain persons do, that this is simply a prayer for God alone to bring in his reign, for which we have no responsibility?

 

There are some who profess to be Christian who use their religion as a retreat.  They advocate a “return to religion” rather than an advance in religion.  “Why not try God?” is their plea.  But the implications of trying God are seldom suggested or understood.

 

“Thy kingdom come” is not a prayer for one-God rule of one man, or even of one-God direction of lots of men.  It is based on the two essential commandments of God-given, man-tested experience.  “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul -- and heart -- and minds -- and strength ..... and thy neighbor as thyself.”  Now what about this “neighbor” whom I’m supposed to love, who is also supposed, as I am, to love God and who should also -- according to the commandment -- love me.  Is he an aboriginal American, an Oriental, a Negro; a German or Italian or Frenchman?  Is he a member of my religious faith and sect; is he Hebrew, Buddhist, agnostic, heathen or pagan?  Does he wear clothes like mine, speak so that I can understand him, think so that he can understand me?  Is he cultured or crude?  Does he have and use plenty of soap, or has this ration of soap where he lives run out?  And what about his food?

 

How can there be anything approaching a kingdom of God unless we notice those things and care about them?  Or is it possible that we are so self-centered and simple as to try to turn that prayer into:

 

            God bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife;

            Us four --- and who cares whether any more?

 

It takes some searching, teachable, growing intelligence to pray: “Thy kingdom come.”

 

(2)  Another reason for acting against God’s will is fear.  We fear public opinion; we are embarrassed at being different - in a minority.  We shy away from the suggestions of sacrifice and easily tire of service lest they hurt in some way.  We foolishly wait for one fear to be laid low by another fear.  Some fear the effects of warfare and wait for the greater fear of being conquered to drive the nation into it.

 

Do we fear to speak out about injustice, persecution, discrimination, evil prejudice?  A resident of Russia in dark days of “purging” commented, “First you hear of some injustice, and you do nothing about it; next you see some act of injustice committed before your eyes, and you do nothing about it; then you are obliged to share in some act of injustice, and it is too late.”

 

It was the Master speaking who said and experienced, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”  [Matthew 10: 28].

 

(3)  Still another reason for acting against God’s will is a feeling of helplessness.  What can I do in the face of the appalling poverty, homelessness, hunger of scores of millions?  What can one person do about an atomic bomb?  How can I have any influence over the hatreds, the evils, the resentment that loom so large?        Nothing, if my religion is a mere gesture of contentment.

 

But if we are seriously concerned we can do things that are effective.  If one person is intelligently articulate about his real convictions and influences the thinking of five other persons - and they five other persons, the area of awareness and stimulation is definitely enlarged.

 

If communism can carry on its plotting and indoctrination in little cells of a few people, can not people of sober, thoughtful, Christian conviction the more surely (because frankly) spread the influence of their belief?  Of course they can!

 

We can also realize that the Christian church, despite all its inefficiency and sectarian division, is the main organ of fellowship that cuts across national and racial and class boundaries.  The church needs further strengthening, chiefly by the active, expressed sincerity of its members, because it has far greater work yet to do.

 

Now if we are to try God, in growing and effective intelligence, how shall we know His will?

 

(1)  Perhaps first: we have our own conscience.  Of course even conscience must be scrutinized in the light of what goes into it.  An Arab may conscientiously believe that he must rise in “Holy War” should his Moslem leaders proclaim it.  A Christian conscience is dependable partly to the extent to which it has been trained and quickened in the knowledge of Christ’s teachings.

 

(2)  Second:  We have the heritage of the prophets, with their upsurging insights into the reality of God and what he demands of people and their society - men who were so awed by the spiritual glimpses of God’s will which they grasped that they cried out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips”  [Isaiah

6: 5] - men whose experience made them exclaim, “What doth the Lord require of thee? --- to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”  [Micah 6: 8].  This feeling of tension and power ought to fill the people of the Christian church!

 

(3)  Third, we have the teaching and the continuing spirit of Jesus Christ.  He tells us realistically of our sin; of falling short of our destiny as children and co-workers with God.

 

We sometimes hear sin defined as “missing the mark.”  It is worse than that; it is sometimes aiming at the wrong mark.

 

Jesus can help us to keep clear as tot he mark and can steady our aim in reaching it.  He would have us examine our goals.  Are they true, or false, to his conception of man and society?

 

There is wisdom in the wellworn question: “What would Jesus do?”  or “What would Jesus have me do?”  Not what does my business or professional interest, or my prestige or my privilege or prejudice demand now; but what does Jesus demand?

 

What does our Lord expect?

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 5, 1946.