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Intersectministries |
GETTING OUT
OF THE BOX Acts 17:16-31 |
“God, who made the world and everything in it…He
is Lord of heaven and earth, [He] does not dwell in temples made with
hands. Nor is He worshiped with
men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life,
breath, and all things. …for in Him we live and move and have our
being…”
Most of
our attempts at describing the Eternal are narrow and limiting. Someone identified this as putting God in a box. There are two obvious problems within
such an idea.
·
First,
the idea of limiting God is as ridiculous as trying to place our solar system
in a thimble.
·
Second,
the person in the box is not God, but us.
God is
knowable, but not even the best of His friends know Him completely. Paul says that God is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think. If that is true about His works, then
surely it’s true about Him.
He is transcendent. He is
beyond the here and now, and the limitations of time and space; beyond the
boundaries that our finite minds would put on Him. There’s no way to wrap
your mind around GOD.
Trying to
place God in our boxes is like trying to place a size 22 woman in a size 6
dress. Something’s gonna to
break.
Do you
want to know God? Then seek Him and
He will reveal Himself to you. But
know this, what you come to know of God is only a small portion of who He is
and what He is like. Job said, “God stretches out heaven over empty space, and hangs
the earth upon nothing. …He sets a boundary for the ocean, yes, and a
boundary for the day and for the night.
…The heavens are made beautiful by His Spirit….Lo, these are
some of the minor things He does, merely a whisper of His power?”
(Job 26:14).
God is
eternal in His existence. The Psalmist noted this when he declared, “From everlasting to everlasting, You are God!”
Psalm 90:2. God is also
inexhaustible in His person, so coming to know Him is an eternal quest.
People say
they know God, but they don’t even know their spouse or themselves.
Have you
ever had someone describe you in ways that limited you to their superficial
knowledge of you? They trivialized
you and downsized you by assuming they knew everything about you after being
around you for a week or a month or a year.
Recently,
someone from our fellowship was approached by people that described God as a King James only Baptist. They were for unity, as long as the
united were in total agreement with them.
God is not in the box they’ve constructed, they are. They haven’t limited God;
they’ve set limitations on themselves.
Boxes are dark, confining and
exclusive. They do the exact opposite of what God
does.
·
They hold things together within
humanly constructed parameters, but God is without beginning or end, so how do you put
that in a box? God is sovereign, so
how do you predict what He will do next?
God does unpredictable things like spitting in the dirt and placing the
resulting mud in a blind man’s eyes and then He has the audacity to tell
that man to go and wash in a pool.
God is a mystery that is beyond finite definition.
·
Boxes are barriers, separating those who
“belong” from those who do not. They keep people from one another and
prevent relationships. But God is
in the business of breaking down walls and barriers, and bringing people
together.
·
They are closed off and taped shut. They are filled with stale air and void
of sunlight. God wants us to
experience the fresh breezes of His Spirit and the light of fresh revelation.
·
Boxes contain old things; they are filled with
history. God is in the business of
making all things new; He is in the business of making history.
Perhaps it
would help if we identified a few of the boxes commonly found in Christian
circles. There are…
·
Religious boxes, which limit a
person’s view of God to that of their parents or denomination.
·
Ethnic boxes, which assume God prefers
certain races over others.
·
Cultural boxes, which take for granted that
God conforms to certain cultural biases.
Ex: God is a white middle-class Republican.
·
Academic boxes, whcih treat God like
He’s an impersonal equation.
·
Experiential boxes, which discard the use of
reason in favor of experience, as if feeling God were the only way to know Him.
·
Sentimental boxes, which associate God with
one’s childhood memories of Church or with certain styles of music.
·
Nationalistic boxes, which make God a wealthy
ultra-conservative Libertarian.
·
Mystical boxes, which assume that God is
present only when weird things are happening.
·
Naturalistic boxes, which presume that all
those so-called weird things have a perfectly rational explanation.
·
Cessationist boxes, which suppose that God no
longer heals or works miracles and that the gifts have all ceased.
There are
people who fit boxes together. For
instance, the cessationist, King James Only, middle-class white Republican who
is certain that Gabriel will be playing Southern Gospel music at the marriage
supper as Jesus serves us fried chicken, mashed taters and gravy. Every real Christian knows that Gabriel
will be playing a mix of Motown and Zydeco and that the menu will feature
seafood gumbo.
Such
presumptions are ridiculous and blinding.
In 1Kings
19, after…
·
calling
down fire from heaven,
·
slaying
the prophets of Baal,
·
out
running Ahab’s chariot and
·
witnessing
the end to a long drought,
…instead of being rewarded Elijah is threatened with
death by Jezebel. After a forty day
journey he takes up refuge in a cave in Horeb, the mountain of God; also known
as Sinai. When he wakes up in the
morning He is greeted by a word from the Lord asking him what he is doing
there. In reply to Elijah’s
pitiful response—I’m the only one left--God instructs him to go and
stand outside of the cave. As the
presence of the Lord passes by a tornado, an earthquake and fire went before
the Lord and tore up the mountain, but the Lord was not in any of those violent
events. Then, on the heels of the
fire came a delicate whispering voice.
When Elijah draws near to listen to what this voice is saying, he hears
the very same question God had asked him earlier, “What
are you doing here, Elijah?”
What an arresting question.
Elijah’s purpose for being there was different than God’s
purpose. Elijah was seeking asylum,
but God was creating a classroom. Elijah
was disappointed that the drought and all the events that happened on
There are times when God’s work is
·
quiet,
·
gentle
and
·
imperceptible,
so we should never define God’s activity or ability
based on our inability to perceive what He’s up to. Most of us are blind to God’s
workings and deaf to His voice.
We’re looking for God in the shaking and quaking of some mighty
revival meeting. We’re sure
to show up to hear the fiery preacher with the gravelly voice who has a word
for everyone. Unfortunately, we
fail to hear the delicate whispering voice that calls to us from its dusty
place on the bookshelf at home. We’re so enamored with the noise of
religion, even Pentecostal religion, that we cannot hear the still small voice
that whispers to us from deep within our heart and asks, “What are you doing here? Has your purpose blinded you to My
purpose?”
Perhaps you’re disappointed with God, because your
expectations have blinded you to God’s purpose and God’s
activity. We should never conclude that God is doing nothing just because He is
not doing what we expected.
In 2Kings 5, we are told the story of Naaman, the
leper. When he arrived at
Elisha’s house, Elisha didn’t even go out to met him. Instead, he sent a messenger to him with
these instructions, “…Go wash in the
How many of us have forfeited God’s provision, because
we could not accept God’s way of doing things.
God doesn’t always work according to our agenda or
our opinion. He does not always
operate in the realm of the spectacular.
He doesn’t always do things the way we assume He will, so most of
the time we miss God.
Glenn Wagner tells of
friends who took a trip to
Instead of
trying to view God from our boxes, may I suggest that we flatten and discard
them?
·
Let’s
see Him for who He is, even when we don’t understand what we see.
·
Let’s
look for God everywhere we go and just let God be God.
·
Let’s
tear the walls down, leave the decimal point out and admit there is more to God
than we could ever come to know in a thousand lifetimes!
Admit what
you do know, but don’t limit God to what you know.
I’m not suggesting that we
abandon the revelation that God has given us of himself in Scripture. What I am suggesting is that we allow
Him to be all that He has revealed himself to be.
I’m demanding that we throw back, NO, eliminate the
curtains that are veiling the glory, awesomeness and allness of God.
·
Denominational curtains that confine God to the past.
·
Curtains of doubt and unbelief that set limitations on our
faith. Curtains that keep us
chained to words like “God can’t” or “God doesn’t
do that anymore.”
·
Curtains of presumption that predetermine how God will do
what we’ve asked.
·
Curtains of ignorance that deny what cannot be seen.
·
Curtains of insecurity and fear. It may be hard to believe, but there are
people who would rather have a small controllable God, than to unleash the
mysterious God of the Bible.
·
Traditional curtains that define God by what He did 50
or 100 years ago.
·
Traditional curtains that make God out to be a King
James Only Baptist.
It’s
amazing how big God is when we take the curtains off the windows. In that instant He becomes visible from
any and every vantage point in life.
It’s incredible how small our problems become when we begin to
“live and move and have our being in Him” instead of in a box.
To say that
God no longer heals is to live within a box. On the other hand to say that God still
heals and then limit healing to the miraculous or the spectacular is also
descriptive of life in a box.
Those who
are willing to say, “Our God whom we serve is able,” but unwilling
to say, “But if not” are living in a box. For them, God is only God when He keeps
them out of the furnace. Unboxed
living declares God is God, no matter what happens!
God is so
complex that any attempt to completely define Him or predict His every move is
doomed to failure. He is a mystery
that we now know in part. Yes, He
allows us to know Him, but what we know of Him is incomplete. We may never come to know Him perfectly,
but we can know him authentically!
I’m
not leaving the definition of God up for grabs. What I am saying is that when we talk
about God, we should not define him in terms of our limited understanding of
who He is. He goes past our 180
degree view. He encompasses all 360
degrees--horizontally, vertically, diagonally and infinitely.
When He
revealed himself to Moses, He called himself the Great I Am, not the Great I Was. He is whatever you need Him to
be--yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever.
Far too
many of us interpret God, life and our circumstances through the slit in our
box. We have a little light and in
the dimness we describe
·
If
we stepped out of our cave and saw God as big as He really is?
·
If
we began to live and move and have our being in HIM?
I wonder
what would happen…
·
To
our faith,
·
To
our joy,
·
To
our prayer life,
·
To
our worship,
·
To
our witness and
·
To
our giving?
Are you
willing to give up the security of living in your box?
Are you
willing to step out of your cave?
Are you
willing to know what you know about God, but to simultaneously embrace the
mystery that remains?
Are you
willing to let God be all that He is?
PRAYER
Almighty God,
I come to acknowledge that with my mouth I have declared you to be All Mighty,
but the best my heart could do was whisper “mighty God!” Please, forgive me! I come acknowledging
that you are not just mighty, but that you are Almighty! I come declaring what I know about you
and I come accepting the mystery that is yet to be revealed. You alone are God. I declare that in You, I live and move
and have my being. You are a 360
degree God! Please forgive me for
defining you through the hole in my box.
You are too big to be confined to a definition. You are God Almighty, the Great I AM!
CLOSE
Have six
different people walk to the windows and individually remove each cover that is
blocking the sunlight. Each will
make a declaration and then remove the board on their window. The declarations are as follows:
1.
I declare that God is Jehovah Rophe, the Lord my Healer!
2.
I declare that God is the Lord my Righteousness!
3.
I declare that God is my deliverer and my fortress!
4.
I declare that my God shall supply all my needs according to His
riches in glory through Christ Jesus.
5.
I declare that God is the same yesterday, today and forever!
6.
I declare that God is with me and will never leave me!
Finally,
have everyone make the following statement and then have Earl turn on all the
lights.
·
I declare that God the Almighty God, the GREAT I AM!
Sing: Be Magnified
BE MAGNIFIED
I
have made you too small in my eyes.
O
Lord, forgive me;
And
I have believed in a lie
That
you were unable to help me.
But
now, O Lord, I see my wrong.
Heal
my heart and show yourself strong;
And
in my eyes and with my song,
O
Lord, be magnified, O Lord, be magnified.
Be
magnified, O Lord, you are highly exalted;
And
there is nothing you can’t do,
O
Lord, my eyes are on you.
Be
magnified, O Lord, be magnified.
I
have leaned on the wisdom of men.
O
Lord, forgive me;
And
I have responded to them
Instead
of your light and your mercy.
But
now, O Lord, I see my wrong.
Heal
my heart and show yourself strong;
And
in my eyes with my song,
O
Lord, be magnified, O Lord, be magnified.
Lynn
DeShazo
©
1991 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music (ASCAP) (Administered by Integrity Music,
Inc).
Used
By Permission.
Sources:
Jim Wilson, Future Church (Nashville, TN, Broadman) 2004.
Glenn WAgner, God: An Honest Conversation For The Undecided (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press) 2005.
©
2005