Title: God Is Able

Date: 2007-06-24

Reference: John 14: 15-17

"Looking back at 30 years of ministry I have learned “life is an adventure directed by God.” Experience has taught me God is involved in every aspect of our daily lives. This assurance of God’s involvement can be the difference between a confident rewarding life or a timid fretful life. In short: God is Able. We are able to trust God as our constant guide and companion. I will not make a move without God.

I tried to remember the first sermon I ever shared. I think it was a sermon about how we should return the Panama Canal to Panama. Obviously my philosophy has changed a bit over the years. I remember how gracious those folks were. I was so full of myself at that moment. Experience has taught me I was sent to serve and not to be served.

Over the years my theology has become very simple. God is love. God loves us. God desires a personal relationship with each of us and God remains involved in our daily lives. I was raised to believe this about God. Somewhere along the line in seven years of college and seminary I began to doubt. I thought I needed a more sophisticated message to share. It didn’t take long for me to return to my first belief about God. He is Able. He has always been Able. He will always be Able.

God is indeed in everything. If anything at all is beyond God’s reach then God cannot be God. Experience has taught us all that pain and suffering are a natural part of life. In times of intense testing we learn of God’s undivided love and devotion toward us. Nothing in life happens by chance with God. God always has a purpose in mind.

No matter what we face daily God knows the extent of our sorrow. We place our trust completely in God and God will help us bear the weight of our adversity.

God is Able. God has a plan. This Summer I have been reading biographies of very faithful Godly people. One of the stories I read was the life of Thomas Bernardo whose dream was to be a missionary in China. He worked hard, saved his money and came to London for Missionary training. While he was there a ten year old child showed him the roof top where he and eleven other homeless children slept. Bernardo’s heart was deeply touched and he found lodging for the children. In the next weeks and months he discovered many other homeless children who needed his help. He decided China would have to wait as God had given him London. He began working among the orphan children of the city. He was often rejected and sustained physical injury. On one occasion he was attacked by the very children he wanted to help and he suffered two broken ribs. When a cholera epidemic hit London in 1866 he worked tirelessly among the ill. Thomas Bernardo opened a home for destitute boys and a village for girls. Over the next forty years he build numerous homes and villages and his ministry cared for over 60k abandoned children. He never made it to China. But God didn’t allow his dream to die. Thomas Bernardo lived to see dozens of his children enter the ministry and he saw 17 of them take the Gospel to China in his place.

God has a plan. Some times it takes a while for the plan to unfold. On July 10th we are welcoming the Watoto Children’s Choir to our church. This choir is made up entirely of Ugandan Children who have been orphaned by the Aids virus or war. The names of the children have been sent to me.

For now they are only names.Elizabeth, Lydia, Lavinia, Allen, Fiona, Annette, Gerald, Tony Levi, Erik, Alice, Enoch, Andrew, Francis, Ivan. A list of names. But they are more than just names to God. These names represent children with great potential. We have all been praying and hoping for World Peace. Perhaps the peacemakers are members of this choir and you will help them realize their God given potential. I do not believe it was coincidence that lead these children to us at this point in time. Pastor EunJoo and I have been praying about another mission activity and particularly a mission among orphan children in Africa. After two weeks of prayer we were approached by this ministry. God will use your hospitality to help these children support themselves. God will use the help you offer to minister to African Children who are in such great need. God has offered this ministry opportunity. The response is ours to make. God will use our faithful response to make the world a better place.

Romans 8:28 reminds us: “God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves Him.” There are times we don’t know God’s will. In those times we walk by faith and not by sight. We should never allow suffering and the trials of life to discourage us. God is Able. God is at work in the world. God has a perfect plan. God has two purposes in that plan.Our God and His Glory. God is for us. God has sent His Holy Spirit to us. We enter each and every day knowing God is for us. God desires only the best for us, even when we are going through the trials of life. If God is for us Who in the world can be against us?

Does God sometimes seem distant? Detached? Far away? Have you ever wondered where God is? That’s the wrong question. God is ready to come to us.

He has sent us The Holy Spirit. It is up to each of us to pray, to read God’s Word and to trust the guidance of the Spirit. God is Able. And God is available.

But God will never force Himself on anyone of us. The Spirit does anxiously desire a deep and meaningful personal relationship with each of us. But God won’t force the issue. It must be voluntary on our part. God, through the Spirit, makes Himself available. But we must respond to the invitation and take God at His word. We must open the door of our hearts to God.

One doesn’t have to go to seminary. Be ordained. Move to a monastery to know God better. We don’t have to learn Hebrew or Greek or memorize large portions of Scripture in order to know God. All we must do is accept the gracious invitation extended to us by a loving and graceful God.

Our God is Able and our God cares about the smallest details of His creation. In a remote Swiss valley is a church known as the Mountain Valley Cathedral. This church has a beautiful pipe organ. On one occasion something had gone wrong with the organ. Musicians and experts from around the world were called in to try and repair it. No one was successful. One day an older man appeared at the church door and convinced the sexton to let him try his hand at repairing the organ. On the 3rd day the organ was working and it’s glorious music again filled the mountain valley. When asked how he had restored the organ when so many others had not been successful.the man said.”It was an inside job. I built this organ years ago. I created it. And now I have restored it.” God created this universe of ours. And it is God who is in the process of restoring it. God often uses our efforts to restore this universe He has created.

Oswald Chambers once wrote: “God speaks in the language you know the best. Not through your ears but your circumstances.” We know life is not an accident. We are here for a reason and all we do matters to God.

Looking back at life we view moments, events, details. We see how far we’ve come. Many of the good things in life were not just luck. They were God’s blessings. Looking back at what God has done for us strengthens our faith in the future. When we have gone through the fire we know we were not alone. We know we would not have survived those difficult times without God. As we look ahead we should not make plans and ask for God’s approval. We should ask God to direct our planning.

Life is full of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. In life God will either protect us from hardship or give us strength to go through them. God has never promised life without difficulties. God has promised He will always be with us. Sometimes as we go through life’s dankest valleys we may wonder where God is. As we come through those valleys and look back we see He was right there with us. I have often felt closer to God in times of trail than in times of triumph. In difficult times I have been more aware of God’s presence. I know I would not have come this far in life’s journey were it not for God’s constant presence and friendship. Sometimes when things are going well we don’t give God a second thought. We should always be appreciative of what God has done and is doing in our lives.

Our Wed. Night Summer Bible Study has been studying Paul’s letter to the Ephsians. Like many of his communications, this epistle was written from a Roman jail cell.

People in the church were questioning God and asking for explanations beginning with Why is Paul in Jail? Why would God allow a good man like Paul to languish in jail when we need him here in our church?

Paul reminded the Ephesians God doesn’t offer explanations, God offers a relationship. Paul said his time in prison, while not enjoyable, was beneficial as it put him in contact with people he could share the Gospel with. These were people he would not have had access to otherwise. Prison became Paul’s place of ministry. Prison became Paul’s place of ministry. Where we find ourselves during the week is our place of ministry.

God is Able. As we read in the Bible.(2 Cor. 1:3) God is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. And God cares about you. God is waiting to hear from each of us today.



"