Editorial

What Does God Want? by Ken Ryland

A few days ago a young woman that I know was talking to me about her journey as a Christian and how some of her ideas had changed over the years. She related how she thought she had progressed in some areas and failed in others. Overall, however, her report card showed improvement. During our conversation one thing that struck me was her sense of guilt regarding her inability to make some of the changes that she really wanted to see in herself. I suppose some of her guilt was due to her young age and impatience, but most of it was due to her tendency to evaluate her worth as a Christian based on a set of external standards. Of course, this type of thinking, which is very typical with Christians, leads to serious doubts about our self worth and even doubts about whether God really loves us.

Rules, Rules, Rules

When you think of your own personal growth in Christ, what do you base it on? In my nearly 40 years as a Christian I have seen many people fall by the wayside because of their inability to "live up to the standards" of Christian life—however those standards might be defined. This type of thinking is, unfortunately, pervasive in Sabbath-keeping churches. Nonetheless, Sunday-keeping churches have also been smitten by this sometimes fatal disease. Even though the Sabbath is not an issue for them (i.e., a ruler by which to measure ourselves and others), Sunday-keeping churches have a penchant for coming up with arbitrary sets of rules that constitute "Christian behavior." This often depends on the denomination and the character of the local congregation. What I am saying is that there seems to be plenty of blame and guilt to go around, whether you keep the Sabbath or Sunday.

The issue for Sabbath keepers is a little different since we tend to scour the entire Bible for any hint of a rule that might be imposed on twenty-first-century Christian behavior. We generally start with Mount Sinai and work our way down to how to divide the mint and cumin. Sin, to us, is very black and white: "Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). The problem, of course, comes in deciding how much of Old Testament law applies to the Christian. That is why we often cannot get along with other Sabbath keepers and why there are so many Sabbath-keeping subgroups. Some say that those laws that display moral and spiritual values are all that need to be ported over from the Old Testament, where others contend (often contentiously) that we need to apply as many of the Old Testament laws as we possibly can because the more we obey, the closer to God we will be.

Does this strike anyone else as chaotic and dysfunctional as I think it is? Every bit of this leads to the belief that your worth as a Christian and your value to God are based on your ability to keep all of these Bible-based rules. It also leads to the belief that we will never be good enough to "do it all." We will continue to fail and never live up to "the biblical standard." No wonder people quit!

I want no one to misunderstand me. Obedience is essential for the Christian, but please understand this also: you will drive yourself and everyone around you crazy if you look at Christianity as just another (albeit superior) set of rules. Is this really what Jesus came and died for? Did he really pay the price for your sins so that you could continue to trudge through life burdened down by the weight of even more elaborate rules that you cannot possibly keep? What of Jesus' statement: "Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden light." Is the "easy" yoke of Christ what you have experienced as a Christian? If the burden of your Christian life is not "light," you need to figure out why.

God's Desire

Before we decide what our relationship with the Father and His Son should be (that is, what makes us "good" Christians), it would be good to look at what God wants our relationship with Him to look like. If we are driven to seek fulfillment in our relationship with God in any way other than the way He wants, we are wasting our time.

In speaking to the prophet Jeremiah, God lamented the punishment being inflicted on Judah and Jerusalem. It truly grieved His heart. This is what the Lord said to the prophet: "Thus says the LORD: 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,' says the LORD" (Jeremiah 9:23-24). Notice that what God really wants is for His people to know Him and understand Him. He is almost like a father who has to kick one of his children out of the house. In human terms He is saying, "I have treated you well, provided you a good home, taken care of you when you were sick, and all I have gotten in return is rebellion, contempt, and disrespect. Now get out of my house until you can come back without contempt in your soul."

In the Lord's heart there is love, forgiveness, and redemption. That is His true nature and character. Here is what He says about those in Judah who were driven out of the land: "Then the word of the LORD came to me: 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: "Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart"'" (Jeremiah 24:5-7).

God's first thought is always to show kindness and offer redemption, even after punishment and exile. God's wrath does not last forever, but His love does. This may be a fine distinction, but the problem is not really one of obedience to the law, but our inability to think of God as both Father and friend. That is why He tells Jeremiah that he will give them a different kind of heart—one that is capable of knowing that He is the Lord.

Dr. Henry Blackaby, who wrote the great devotional study called Experiencing God, put it in this manner: "The way God prepares you is to deal with your heart, not your skills and activity. The key to serving God is not your knowledge of everything; it is your knowledge of Him. He can transcend anything, anywhere, at any time, as long as He has your heart. Because you obey Him, He will bring forth fruit. If you abide in the vine, which is Christ, you will produce much fruit" (see John 15:5, excerpted from the article "A Friend of God").

It is interesting to me that in our relationships with people we reject the idea that our worth is determined by performance. We are horrified when we see parents who dole out love to their children based on their ability to meet certain performance standards set by the parents. The children grow up with the idea that they are never quite good enough, and as adults they tend to accept the same performance-based "love" that they were taught as children. We know that this leads to psychological problems and difficulty in forming stable bonds with future spouses. Yet, we don't hesitate to ascribe to God the same qualities that we reject in humans.

God does not describe Himself the same way we often see Him. To Him, His eternal, unchangeable qualities are love, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and goodness. We all know the passage from Malachi: "For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob" (Malachi 3:6). What does this tell us about God? It tells us that His mercy will never change. His anger lasts only for a while, but His love for us is eternal and unalterable. He has no desire to destroy us. As King David wrote in Psalm 30:5, "For his anger is but for a moment; His favor is for a life-time: Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy cometh in the morning."

God's Unchangeable Qualities

Many Christians make the mistake of assuming that one of God's unchangeable qualities is that He is always a little edgy and somewhat irritable—that He never tires of looking to punish the smallest violation of His law. For these people, the only way to avoid God's wrath and ensure salvation is to find every possible violation of the law that might anger God, and make sure they are obedient to all the minutiae of regulations that the law demands. To be honest, these people believe that you may have been saved from your sins at baptism, but if you step out of line after that, God will fry you in the lake of fire. All I can say is that these people do not understand God or what He wants.

Think about that depiction of our Heavenly Father in contrast to what Hebrews and James say about Abraham, father of the faithful, and his relationship with God: "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8). And, "Abraham believed and he is called God's friend" (James 2:23).

It has often been said that the Bible is not shy about showing the sins and flaws of its heroes. We have read about the sins of Abraham, Moses, King David, and others. Were they forgiven for their sins, or did God cast them out of His presence? James states that Abraham was God's friend. If we by faith are the children of Abraham, can we not also count ourselves as God's friends? We also see Moses referred to as God's friend: "And the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11).

How many times in the New Testament do we see the term "Abba" used to refer to our Heavenly Father? Jesus uses it; Paul uses it. Abba is a term of endearment in the Aramaic language, like the word "Dad" in English.

What Should We Seek?

Many Christians worry a great deal about the law, as if it were an end in itself. The law is necessary, but it is not the end we seek. The end we seek is Christ, "to know him and the power of his resurrection" (Philippians 3:10). The purpose of the law is to bring us into a personal relation with Christ. The law by itself does not determine our salvation; Christ does. It is Him we seek, not some set of regulations that will somehow make us more acceptable to God. The law is a framework for our relationship with Christ and the Father. We do not seek to be in love with the framework. We seek to love Christ and the Father.

What's more, Christ and the Father seek us. They sought us long before we knew how to seek them. Their desire has always been to bring into being a loving family around them. God's laws are merely the household rules that enable our relationship with Christ and the Father to flourish. There is no other way to explain the message of John 3:16 than to say that God's first order is to extend to us His love—His most enduring eternal quality. When the external application of the law failed because of the flaw of mankind's inherent selfish nature, God began to write His laws into our hearts and into our minds by His Spirit so that we would not fail in our effort to know Him and fellowship with Him (ref. Hebrews 8:6-10).

The Message of John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17).

How many times have we recited these verses by memory? In many cases they were the first Bible verses we ever memorized, and with good reason. Let's look at a few things this passage says and does not say.

First, Jesus came into the world to save you, whether you were commandment-keeping, church-going believer or the worst sinner imaginable. He came to save you. Your commandment keeping did not save you; God's Son did. Without Christ we would all live out our time on this earth and simply die—both the righteous and the wicked. The same death would come to both. It was the love of Christ and the Father that saved you, not anything you did previously.

Second, it was love, not some legal demand, that saved you. God's unchangeable love sought you out and brought you to His Son, who is the only way to eternal life. God's first thought has always been to redeem, not to destroy. He is not looking for excuses to condemn you; He is looking for ways to save you so that He can enjoy your company throughout eternity. That is how much you are worth to Him. Each life is different, and He relishes the thought of spending eternity with you so much that He was willing to put His own Son in your place at the crucifixion so that you might live. That is why our worth to God is not calculated by our ability to keep any code of laws. Our worth comes through Him who kept His Father's commandments and brought us back from a sure death sentence.

You see, it is a matter of where we put the emphasis. If we seek to attain favor with God through the keeping of the law, we will always fail, and we will always feel like failures. Jesus' yoke will be burdensome, not light as he promised. Our worth as Christians is in our relationship with Christ and the Father; it is not in the law or any set of regulations. We seek to obey Christ and the Father because we love them and because we are grateful for Their immeasurable love toward us. It is because of the Father's love for us that He has given us the Spirit of His obedient Son so that we might walk obediently in His ways and be saved. Through the very presence of the life of God in us we no longer live to avoid failure and punishment at the hands of an angry God. That heavy yoke has been lifted from our shoulders and been replaced with the light and freeing yoke of Christ our Savior.

Conclusion

My desire is that this article will give every Christian renewed hope in his future and in his relationship with God. Never forget the words that Jesus spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper: "No one has greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you" (John 15:13-15).

It is clear from the Scriptures: Obedience that is pleasing to God is that which is generated in our hearts out of a love for Christ and the Father. Perfect love casts out fear. As the apostle John says in 1 John 3:17-19, "In this is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, that as He is, so also we are in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who fears has not been perfected in love. We love Him because He first loved us." If we obey God out of fear, we are on the wrong track. Our Heavenly Father desires most of all to enjoy an open, loving fellowship with you. He invites you to take hold of faith, to put away your fears, and enjoy His presence here and now. If we do that, eternity will take care of itself.

TSS

July / August 2005 The Sabbath Sentinel