Thank God For Who He Is

Last night at "Shelter" (Crossroads' college/young adult ministry) Ken Ruggles talked to us about our misconceptions of who God is. We looked at Jesus' experience coming back to his hometown of Nazareth out of Luke 4.

Jesus has been gaining notoriety in the surrounding country, and people had been coming from miles and miles around to hear him teach. He could not enter a town without being mobbed.

It's in this season of fresh popularity that he returns to Nazareth. He read a prophetic passage from Isaiah 61 in the Synagogue ("as was his custom, he went to the synangogue on the the Sabbath day"), and proceeded to tell the congregation that the prophecy had been fulfilled that day in their hearing!

At Shelter, we talked about the various reactions that must have taken place at this declaration. They had heard of the amazing miracles he had done, and were aware of his celebrity status among the surrounding areas, but they also remembered him growing up in their midst, the son of a carpenter, the illegitimate son even!

Jesus responds to them before they even ask:

Doubtless you will quote me this proverb, "Physician, heal yourself." What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.

Jesus responds by giving them two Old Testament examples.

1) 1 Kings 17:8-16
Elijah was sent up to the Gentiles in the north, to minister to a widow and her son there. He asked her to make him some food, to which she replied that she was just going to use the last of her meal to make food for her and her son, and then they were going to die because they had nothing left. Elijah instructs her to make him food anyway, and that God would take care of it. In obedience, she did as she was told, and God provided miraculously for her and her son. She heard, and obeyed without asking for a sign.

2) 2 Kings 5:1-14
Naaman the Syrian went into Israel (with whom Syria was not on the best of terms) at the suggestion of an Israelite slave girl because he had leprosy, and the slave girl had said he should go and see the prophet (Elisha) in Israel so he could be healed. Elisha tells him to go and wash seven times in the Jordan river, and he goes and is cured of his leprosy. Jesus notes that "there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." He received instruction, and obeyed without asking for a sign.

Jesus accused the Jews of having misconceptions about who they wanted him to be, and not believing who he actually said he was. They had demanded that he give them a sign, and then they would talk about his being the Messiah. They couldn't get past the idea of youngster Jesus growing up in the town, and workin' for his dad, etc. They also couldn't accept the idea of a Messiah who was not going to come and accomplish all these military/political changes that the Jews were expecting from their Messiah. They basically had created their own idea about who they wanted Messiah to be, and when the actual Messiah came, they rejected him because he wasn't what they wanted.

Sometimes we do the same thing to God.

We create ideas about who we want him to be that are not consistent with who he has revealed himself to be through scripture. We hold God responsible for giving us a good job, or good financial situation, or physical health, or stress-free relationships (sound familiar Joel Osteen?). We box him in to all these things that we think we need/deserve, and forget that he is most concerned with his own glory, and not with our salary/health/etc.

Let's take this Thanksgiving season to be thankful for who God IS, and NOT who we necessarily want him to be for each of us, but who he is, who he has been from eternity past, and who he will be for the rest of eternity to come.

"I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you" - Malachi 3:6-7a