Don't Lose the Wonder!

Introduction

            This is a picture of our daughter when she was about a year and a half old. It was the first Christmas she would have been somewhat aware of what was happening. We put up the Christmas tree and you can see the wonder in her face as she looked at the Christmas lights. This was a magical moment for her and she was quite impressed.

            This is a picture of our granddaughter, Anemone, taken about two years ago. I had taken out my violin and was playing it, something I have not done since so don't get the idea that I play. Evidently she was quite impressed by what was happening and you can see the look of wonder on her face.

            When was the last time you had that kind of a look on your face about anything? When was the last time you had such a feeling of wonder in your heart?

I.     Don't Lose the Wonder

A.   Stale Faith

            Does it ever happen to you that you come to a worship service at church and when you leave you realize nothing significant has happened in your heart or your mind? No thought has impressed itself on you, no truth has stirred your emotions, nothing has caused you to wonder?

            Have you ever observed the Lord's supper and it has just been something to do? The thought of Christ dying on the cross has not caused you to feel something, the wonder of His forgiveness and the depth of his love have not stirred your heart to obedience and love?

            Have your devotions ever gotten to the place where you quickly read your Bible and mumble your prayers, but you have no sense of God's presence, no amazement at the truth of God's Word, no joy because of God's work?

            Have you ever felt an obligation to speak to someone about your faith and you have quickly mumbled some pious phrase, but without conviction or confidence?

            I suspect that all of us have experienced moments, perhaps even days or weeks like that. When our faith is stale and our hearts are cold, God seems absent. It is one thing if it happens once in a while, but if that is the perpetual state of our relationship with God, there is something wrong.

            Isaiah spoke about such stale faith in Isaiah 29:13 and Jesus quoted these verses in Matthew 15:8. Isaiah said, "… these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote…" Here he describes a faith that is formal, obedient, faithfully observed, but lacks heart, conviction abd wonder. Have you lost the wonder?

            It doesn't have to be that way. In Isaiah 29:14(NIV), "God says, Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder…" When our faith life is in a state of perpetual boredom, God wants to do something. God desires to show His wonders and to do wonderful things so that we won't lose the wonder. God will do things that only God can do and His people will be filled with wonder. Does God want to do the same in our lives today?

B.   What Brings Wonder?

            One of the times in history when God did an amazing thing was when He redeemed Israel out of Egypt. Over a period of time He did amazing things in Egypt which eventually resulted in the impossible happening. A slave nation was released from slavery all at once and allowed to leave the country. Then on top of that, while caught between the army of Egypt and the Red Sea, the whole nation watched as God allowed them to cross the Red Sea on dry land and so gain victory over their enemies and experience a marvelous deliverance. After this experience, they were filled with wonder and they declared the wonder of God in Exodus 15:11, "“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders?"

            There is so much that can bring us to wonder about God and what He has done.

            Look around at everything that God has created. Do what the Psalmist does in Psalm 8:3, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers." Psalm 19:1 tells us of the marvelous work of God in creation when it says, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork." There is no power in my words. I can't even get my cat to come to me. But God created everything by a word. The delicate wings of the butterfly and the roaring waterfalls at Niagara Falls came into being because He spoke. The tiniest insect and the largest mammal exist because God said, "be." These marvels of creation and so many more are cause for wonder. Do they cause us to be filled with wonder?

            One day when Jesus was teaching, a group of friends dug through a roof so that they could get their paralyzed friend close to Jesus. Jesus healed the man and also forgave his sins. In the context of the healing, Jesus said to them, "the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…" After the healed man left, we read in Luke 5:26, "Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen strange things today.”" It was an experience that brought wonder and it was not only the healing, but the words about sins forgiven which brought wonder.

            The forgiveness of sins which Jesus provided by dying on the cross is another event which brings us to wonder. When we were in Israel we climbed Mount Sinai to watch the sun rise. As the sky began to lighten and the sun began to rise, every few minutes the light and shadows on the mountain gave a different kind of beauty. In a similar way, salvation can be looked at from so many different angles and each one brings us to wonder. One perspective that always brings me to wonder is to realize that the perfectly holy God who cannot be in the presence of sinners loved us enough to find a way to forgive our sins and yet remain just and holy. He demonstrated His love by dying for us. If you consider each facet of that grace, it certainly will lead to wonder. Ephesians 1:3-6 is a breathless passage which expresses the wonder of God's salvation. There we read, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved."

            There is so much more. Think about the descriptions of God in heaven which are recorded in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, 5. That is why asked that the "Revelation Song" be sung because it expresses the wonder of God and of salvation. Creation and scripture are full of the wonder of God, who He is and what He has done. Psalm 72:18 summarizes nicely when it says, "Blessed be the LORD…who alone does wondrous things."

            There is no reason to lose the wonder because there is so much that brings us to wonder.

II.  Living in Wonder

            And if we keep the wonder and live in wonder, what will life look like?

A.   We Will Be Transformed

            Dad says, "Son, please go wash the car." With a grumpy look on his face, the young fellow quickly goes and washes the big dirt off the car. When this same young man is old enough to drive and has earned enough money to buy his own car, something within him drives him to accomplish the same task of "washing the car" with a completely different attitude and a completely different result.

            If our relationship to God is cold and heartless, we may well obey God, but it will be out of a sense of duty. If we are filled with wonder, our lives will be transformed because we will want to become like Jesus from the deepest part of our being. This is part of the message of II Corinthians 3:18, "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit." The mention of wonder in this verse is that we have the blessing of "seeing the glory of the Lord." The result is that we "are being transformed."

            How has contemplation on the wonder of God changed your life?

B.   We Will Live In Hope

            On the Day of Pentecost people saw the wonder of God's presence. God made Himself known through His Spirit and various manifestations of His presence. As Peter explained what was happening he quoted Psalm 16. In that Psalm, as we have it recorded in Acts 2:25-28 we read, "For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’" David's perception of God's presence caused him to live in hope. The wonder was the presence of God and the resulting change in life was the hope with which he was able to live. Peter's use of this verse in Acts 2 has the same effect. They saw the glory of God and were filled with hope.

            Wonder will do the same thing for us. As we know God and what He has done and what He is doing and what He will do and we allow that knowledge to fill our hearts, we will not doubt or be cast down. We will know that we always have hope.

C.   We Will Express Joy

            Paul and Barnabas were preaching about Jesus in Antioch. They went first to the synagogue and preached to the Jews there, but after several weeks, the door closed and they could no longer speak there. Then they spoke to the Gentiles. In Acts 13:49 we read, "When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers. Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region." The Gentiles saw the wonder of God's salvation and embraced it. But they also saw something else. The Jewish leaders in the synagogue stirred things up and those who had brought the word of salvation were persecuted and sent out of the region. Yet in spite of knowing that persecution was possible for followers of Jesus, we read in Acts 13:52, "And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."

            The wonder of God's work of salvation caused them to be filled with joy. That is what wonder will do, it will allow us to live in joy. It will change our life's attitude into joy because the Spirit of God fills our hearts with rejoicing.

D.   We Will Act In Love

            We read about people who come from dysfunctional situations and have never experienced love and learn that they often find it very difficult to love. If they are shown love and finally come to believe that they are loved, then they are able to show love as well.

            I John 4:16 reminds us that we are loved by God when it says, "So we have known and believe the love that God has for us." The consequence of knowing the wonder of God's love is that we love, as we read in I John 4:7 where it says, " everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

            So the realization of the wonder of God's love leads us to also act in love.

E.   We Will Be Bold in Proclamation

            Furthermore, we will be much more bold about talking to people about Jesus. We know that we are quick to talk about whatever excites us. Did we get engaged? We tell everyone. Did we just have a grand-child? It won't be long before everyone knows. Did we win something? We can hardly wait to tell our friends.

            In a similar way, when the wonder of God and His grace fills our hearts, it will naturally spill out. Acts 4:20 says, "for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Wonder is mentioned when it says, "what we have seen and heard." The result is, "we cannot keep from speaking."

            The inspiration for this message came from an article by Margaret Feinberg which I read in Leadership Journal. The title was Don't Lose the Wonder. She talks about her experience when she was filled with wonder. She writes, "I began noticing that I couldn't talk to a customer service agent, repairman, or call center without having a conversation about faith. Whenever I called to inquire about a bill or update our credit card information, the conversation shifted to God without effort. This wasn't just happening to me, but also to my husband, Leif. We were both left wonderstruck."

            So there are many reasons to be filled with wonder and when we are, it makes such a difference in our life. Since that is true, we need to know, "How do we keep the wonder?"

III.          Keeping the Wonder

            When we become Christians we are filled with wonder. When we see God do something unusual, it isn't hard to sense the wonder of His work. At camp or after a particularly meaningful worship service, wonder often stirs our hearts, but how do we keep the wonder?

A.   Seek God

            In order to be filled with wonder, there is something we can do and that is to live with our eyes wide open to God. Feinberg writes, "Wonder asks us to live with eyes wide open to God. Wonder invites us out of the shallows and into the hallows of the divine."

            Scripture invites us to have our eyes open. Psalm 34:8 invites us, "O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him." Isaiah 55:6 instructs, "Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;"

            When Carla did her first marathon, I was waiting at the finish line. I was standing in the sun and hadn't put any sun screen on and was afraid I was going to get sunburned. I didn't have my sun glasses with me and that was uncomfortable. There were other things which caused me some discomfort. I had all kinds of reasons to turn away and deal with some of these discomforts, but I knew that any moment she would come across the finish line and I was determined that I would not miss her, so I stayed and watched carefully, looking at each runner so I would not miss seeing her cross the line. Because I had my eyes opened, I did see her. God is active in this world. We have mentioned some of the things which God has done and is doing. There is reason to approach life with eyes opened to see Him and thus to see the wonder.

            How do we have eyes open to what God is doing? We do so through faith. If we believe in God and trust that He is God and is active in our world, then we will be able to live with eyes wide open. The more we are open to what God is doing, the more we will see what God is doing and that will allow us to be filled with wonder.

B.   Ask God

            Earlier we read in Isaiah 29:13 about the hearts of people who did not have eyes open to the wonder of God. In the next verse of that passage we read that God promised that He would do a wonderful thing. Such a truth invites us to ask God to show us His wonder. Scripture invites us to pray such a prayer for ourselves. Psalm 119:18 says, "Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." In Ephesians 1:17-19 Paul gives us a wonderful example of such a prayer for one another. He writes, "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power."

            Feinberg speaking about this in her article says, "I began praying for wonder. When I added the request to those I lay before God each morning, I never guessed that such a simple prayer could be so potent. In the appeal for wonder, I petitioned God to rouse me anew to the message of Jesus that shocked the ancient world. I asked God to draw me deeper into His holy presence to reveal divine unspeakables. I beseeched the Creator of all to renew the childlike sense of wonder that had long since faded under the responsibilities of becoming an adult." Because she did, she experienced a much greater sense of wonder. She writes, "…since I began praying for wonder something changed. I began encountering details and scenes I never noticed before…I'm praying for wonder and now I'm encountering these moments of spiritual awakening that make me want to know God more."

Conclusion

            Television gives us many opportunities to awaken desire. Cooking shows and food commercials certainly stir up in us a desire for food. My hope this morning has been to awaken in all of us a desire for wonder.

            No one lives on the mountain top all the time. Sometimes we are filled with wonder and at other times, God leads us through the darkest valleys. Yet in all of those times, we can continue to live with eyes open and we can continue to pray that God will show us the wonder. Whether we are on the mountain top or in the valley, the worst thing is a life of faith that has gone stale. So the invitation to all of us today is, "Don't lose the wonder!"