Rev. Ron Sumners
It was his first. day on the job . He was working in the produce section of a super market. A lady came up and asked to buy a half of a head of lettuce. He tried to reason with her and talk her out of her request but she persisted . So, finally he said, "I'll have to go back and talk to the manager. He went to the rear of the store to talk to the manager, not realizing that the woman was walking right behind him. When he got to the manager's office he said, "There's some stupid, old bag out in produce who wants to buy half a head of lettuce, what should I tell her?" He saw the horrified look on the manager's face and turned to see the woman standing right behind him . He immediately added, "and this nice lady would like the other half." Later the manager congratulated the young man on his quick thinking. He asked the boy, "Where are you from?" The young man replied, "I'm from Toronto, the home of beautiful hockey players and ugly women." The manager said, "My wife is from Toronto." And the boy replied, "Oh, what hockey team does she play for?"
I think we all wish we could think as quickly as that boy . I know that many times I will think of something later that I wish I had said earlier. What I want to talk about with you today is not the quickest response or the one that falls most easily from the tongue. I want to talk with you about that reply that we use most often; that response which we use in matters that are profound and have deep meaning for us. It is the oldest, strangest and strongest response we ever offer. It is the single word ... BECAUSE.
Would you prefer tea or coffee? Tea. Why did you choose tea instead of coffee?... BECAUSE. Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Why?... BECAUSE. We never think that vanilla melts faster than chocolate or that cocoa beans might be addictive, we simple say..."BECAUSE". Why did you marry the man that you married? Let's be honest ladies, he's not the most handsome man in the world; he's not the strongest; he's not the most gentle; he's not the most intelligent: he's not the most profoundly Christian . So, let's lay aside all that exaggeration and let me ask you again, "Why did you marry the man?" Well...BECAUSE. Why do like one color rather than another... BECAUSE. Why did you pick that tie when another tie would have matched the suit just as well ...BECAUSE.
Pascal, the French Theologian, said, "The heart has reasons that the reason knows not of." And many times, we make decisions and we determine preferences and choose courses of action just...BECAUSE. I submit to you that we do this more often than we realize.
There is a story of a cowboy who is riding the plains and he comes across an Indian lying with his ear to the ground. The Indian said, "Wagon...two miles off...drawn by two horses ...one black the other gray four people on board ...man wearing a red shirt with wife and two kids." The cowboy was very impressed. He said, "It's amazing how you can tell all that for just listening to the earth." The Indian replied, "No, they ran over me thirty minutes ago!"
The cowboy thought that what the Indian was doing was very profound. It fact, it was a simple case of hit-and-run. What I am suggesting is that often we come to decisions that we think are very profound, but, if fact, we have only decided ...BECAUSE. And then having made our decision on that basis our mind moves quickly to add reasons to justify what our heart has led us to do.
You may remember Lenny Skutnik. There was a terrible airplane crash in Washington, D.C. some years ago. The plane crashed into the icy Potomac River. Lenny Skutnik was driving in his car and saw the plane plunge into the river. He stopped and swam out into the bone-chilling water. He swam back and forth and saved many people . Later when they asked him why he did it, he said..."BECAUSE". He didn't stand there on the edge of the river tabulating how many he might save, or assessing which course of action would be the best or choosing which direction he should go.
He simply followed his heart ...BECAUSE. Now, if you asked him today he might have a whole series of good, logical explanations for his action, but at the moment, he did what he did...BECAUSE!
I will be candid and say to you, and it may be upsetting to any Theological rationalists in the congregation, that as I become older my faith becomes stronger and stronger. But it is not so much built, any more, upon Theological arguments as it is the conviction of my heart! There was a time when for all the positions I held I could marshal all kinds of proof texts and philosophical arguments and theological rational to support my conclusions . My conclusions and my faith are stronger than ever, but I feel them much more in my heart than I do in my head . Don't accuse me of being anti-intellectual. You don't know me if you think that. There is nothing particularly spiritual about ignorance! You know that I believe that we are to love the Lord with all of our minds. We are to read and "study to show ourselves approved unto God". We are to work out the reasons for our faith. I am saying that in addition to that there is a fundamental conviction of the heart. And many times, the conviction of the heart comes before anything else. We do what we do and we believe what we believe ...BECAUSE.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, has a scene where Uncle Tom, the slave, is talking to his master, Augustine St Clair. Augustine St Clair says to Uncle Tom, "Tom, how do you even know there is a Jesus Christ?" And Tom replies, "Master, I know Him in my heart and I know he loves me." "But Tom", said St Clair, "How do you know that?" "My soul knows it master", Tom replies. St Clair says, "But Tom, you know that I know a great deal more than you do. What would you say if I told you I don't believe much that is in the Bible. Would that shake your faith?" Tom replies, "Not a grain master, not a grain." What Tom is saying is, "I believe ...BECAUSE."
I know that we are taught in Scripture by no less than Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us. And I believe that with all my heart. But, I believe that it is the heart that feels God and not reason. We arrive at the deepest soul searching decisions of our lives on the basis of what goes on in our heart. Then after we have arrived at our conclusions, we tack on very valid and worthwhile arguments as a kind of concession to our rational nature.
A missionary was asked if he believed in eternal life. He said that he did and was asked why he believed . He replied, "I believe it because I believe it and I am sure of it because I am sure of it!" If we were asked, "Do you believe in Heaven?" I feel sure that most of us would say, "Yes". And if I say to you, "Why?", isn't it true that beyond the avalanche of reasons that you might give me, good and valid arguments, isn't the reason that you believe just...BECAUSE? Eternity has been written in our hearts. And, as it is with us, so it is with our Father, God.
Our text is one of my favorites from the Old Testament. Moses is speaking to the Children of Israel, explaining to them why God loves them. This is what he says, " For you are a holy people, dedicated to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on the face of the earth to be His own chosen ones. He didn't choose you and pour out His love because you were a larger nation than any other, for you were the smallest of all! It was just because He loves you, and because He kept His promises to your ancestors ..." What is Moses saying? He is saying that the Lord loves us because He loves us...BECAUSE! Just as a wife or husband cannot set down in a hundred volumes 'the precise reasons that they love their spouse as they do, even so, God almighty loves us, not because of reasons, but because it is of His heart. There is a kind of divine illogic a glorious unreasonableness about it. This same God who set the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night, who started the creative process that continues with each newborn cry and each blade of grass emerging in the early Spring warmth, loves me and He loves you ...BECAUSE, just, ...BECAUSE .
Occasionally I encounter people who simply can't believe that God loves them . They have such a profound sense of their own sin that they cannot believe that God could possible love them through their sin. And it is a good thing to have a sense of your own sin. Most of us need more recognition of it than we have. God loves you because His love is not based upon reasons . He loves you in spite of all your sin and rebellion . He loves you ...BECAUSE .
I read the testimony of an iron-smith. He said that he worked in iron because iron was so hard to bend into something beautiful. He said he wanted to mold iron into poetry. We are like that in our sin. We are hard and we are rigid and we do not bend easily. We are stiffed-necked and stubborn and we return again and again to our same old sins. But, God loves us! Not because of anything within ourselves because there is no reason why He should love us. He loves us, as Moses says,... BECAUSE. He loves us so that His brow was tom on the crucible of Calvary and His hands and side were pierced by the "ironness" of our sin. God made poetry from the horror of the cross!
Look at the ones that God loved: Moses, the murderer; David, an adulterer and a murderer; Peter, a blaspheming traitor; TI1e woman of Sychar, a prostitute; Paul, a religious bigot and one who stood by and assisted in the murder of Stephen. They were sinners like us; liars, deceitful, gossiping, full of pride, prejudiced, not the stewards that we ought to be. There is not a single reason why God should love us except for the oldest, strongest, and strangest of them all, just... BECAUSE!
There are Christians who are led by God to minister in very difficult places. They go willingly. TI1ere are people who minister in unloving congregations. There are people who serve Christ in wretched ghettos. There are people who pour out their lives in remote mission outposts. If you ask them why they do what they do, and press for an answer, you will hear their reply...BECAUSE .
There was a young man who felt called to the mission field in India. He had a very difficult time. His fiancée did not share his calling and she broke off the engagement. He left for India with a broken heart. After he had been in India for only a few months he contracted hepatitis, which almost took his life. He labored in an area where the local authorities were hostile to Christianity and they did everything they could to frustrate his efforts. Yet he stayed and worked for the Lord and won many to salvation. While home on his first furlough he was asked the question, "Why are you so possessed with a love for the Indian people? Why did you give up the girl you loved and your health and all the opportunities of living in the United States?" Do you know what he said? He said the same thing that God said when asked why He loved mankind; he said the same thing Christ said when He would not come down from the cross; he said what Livingston said when he poured himself out in Africa; he said what William Carey said when he offered himself in India; he said what Lottie Moon said when she spent her life laboring for God in China; he said what Jim Elliott said as he went to minister to the natives in South America and was martyred for his faith; he said what Father Damian said as he went to establish a mission to the leper colony on Molokai, Hawaii; he and they and we love...BECAUSE...BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US!
Whenever you see a man or a woman spending themselves in some difficult service, not receiving the financial reward or the fame they might receive in some other field; whenever you find a young soldier dying in a ditch for the sake of an ungrateful nation; whenever you find a child who continues to serve a bitter and ungrateful parent; whenever you find a woman who remains faithfully by the side of a man who is tyrant and a dictator and a demon; whenever you find a parent who loves and loves and loves when their child continually wounds them and wounds them and wounds them; press home for the reason, and there is no reason! It's just...BECAUSE.
In Genesis, Adam goes astray and God goes looking for him ...BECAUSE. In the prophets God pleads with mankind, "Come let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they be red as crimson they shall be as white as snow."
In the Gospels, Jesus picks up the theme and says, " Come unto Me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of me and you will find rest unto your soul." And in the last statement found in our Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come'. And whosoever heareth may come. And he whosoever is athirst, let him come. Let whosoever will, come and drink the water of life." Why has God sought us out all through time? Why does He desire fellowship with us? Why does He love us?.... BECAUSE!
The greatest joy of my life is to stand in this pulpit tell you of the love of God. My certainty about it; my confidence in it grows ever day of my life. And if you ask me why, my reply will be..., "BECAUSE".
What I'm telling you today is a love story, and love stories are not arguable. "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." Why?... BECAUSE.
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