CMLC 2025-11-09 Sermon

Howdy. You know we've been starting to have more

of the sermon slides for about two years now

and when I first started putting them up one

of the times we did it I was showing a math example

up there on the screen and a few teachers were

like oh hey that's awesome and everybody else

said please don't teach us math. I think I scarred

a few people. It was a rough day. But just in

case I'm not bothersome enough already with that,

I also taught physics. So one of the hardest

things for the students to grasp whenever we

were learning physics was the nature of light.

See, the thing is that light, it gives us energy

in these little packets. They call them photons.

Pew, pew, pew, pew. and one bit at a time, pew

pew. It's not this smooth, continuous flow, and

that's what light sounds like too, pew pew pew

pew. But you have to realize is that light, though,

it's not just a little particle. It also behaves

like a wave. Because if it were just a particle,

you would never be able to see it around a corner.

It would never be able to reach all these other

places where you turn on the light and it somehow

Manages to creep into every dark corner You see

that's when their faces got a look just like

about half of yours right now Okay, that mix

of confusion and just a little bit of quiet rebellion,

you know It's it's as if to say that doesn't

make any sense. Just tell me what to put on the

test And they were right in a way It doesn't

make sense, not by the categories that we're

used to, but it's still true. It works. Light

just works. It's a particle and a wave, not one

or the other, somehow both. But I remember realizing

something at that moment. When something doesn't

make sense, many people don't say, if it's true,

I'll try to understand it. Instead, they say,

if I don't understand it, then maybe it's not

true. I saw this again whenever I gave them an

assignment on Einstein's theory of relativity,

which apparently was in the actual curriculum,

and the idea that time and space change depending

on how fast you're going and the weight of gravity.

And I told them, well, this has been proven to

be true, What do you think? And most of them,

even though they knew it had been proven to be

true, said, well, I just don't believe it. Not

because there wasn't evidence, but because it

didn't make sense to them. And I think it's something

that we never quite outgrow. We're more comfortable

deciding whether something feels right than asking

whether it is right. When something about God

doesn't make sense to us, when he doesn't act

the way that we expect, or when his plan doesn't

fit our categories, our first instinct is not

always to trust him. It's often to question whether

God's grace and his love and his very presence

are even real. how often things are not going

the way we're expecting, and we wonder if that

means that God has somehow forgotten us. But

God, even more so than light, doesn't fit inside

the boxes that we make for him. He's not controlled

or contained by our understanding. He just is.

He acts. He moves. He reveals himself. And just

because we can't fully explain him doesn't mean

he isn't there. It just means he's greater than

what our minds can hold. And that's the tension

that Moses encounters in Exodus 3. And he's not

searching for a miracle right now. He's just

living life. He's just doing his job. He's tending

sheep. He's living his life. He's raising a family.

The 401k is doing well. The pension has already

been achieved. He's doing great with the deductible

on his insurance. And fortunately, the kids,

the college fund, it's pretty well settled. Things

are good. The excitement of Egypt is long behind

him. Whatever dreams he once had of making a

difference, they're buried under the routines

of survival the day to day. And that's when God

decides to speak to him. Out of nowhere in the

middle of an ordinary day, the divine breaks

in. Somewhere between the Wheaties of the morning

and reading the daily paper, God decides. to

show himself to Moses. And it's important to

remember, though, that Moses never really fit

in anywhere. He didn't fit in in Egypt because

he was a Hebrew, the ones who were oppressed.

But he also didn't fit in among the Hebrews because

he grew up in Pharaoh's palace, privileged, taken

care of. But after all of that, though, after

he killed the Egyptian who was abusing the Hebrews,

He didn't fit in anywhere at all, because now

he had a criminal record, a man living with his

regrets and feeling that there was no place for

him in society. Yet that is the man God calls.

Not when Moses has his life together, but when

he's simply tending someone else's flock in the

wilderness. So when Moses hears God's voice,

he's understandably hesitant. He wants to know

how this could possibly work. Why would anyone

listen to him? What if they don't believe me?

What if they ask who sent me? He's not just asking

for a name. He's asking for reassurance, for

something solid to stand on. And what God gives

him isn't a formula or a strategy. or one of

those really quick phrases that you can come

up with and just chant well. It's his name. He

gives him his name. I am who I am. It's a name

that means both presence and promise. It's as

if God is saying, I will be who I will be. I

will do what I will do. My being is not dependent

on your understanding or your comfort. For a

man who had never quite belonged, that's an invitation

into something that's larger than just belonging.

It's about participating in the living purpose

of God Himself. But you've got to remember, Moses,

he probably didn't know the traditions or the

stories, Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, the way that

the other Hebrews did, because they had spent

all that time listening and learning. from the

elders. So when God tells him, I am the God of

your fathers, he's not just giving Moses words

that he's going to say, he's actually giving

him a connection to a history that he never truly

felt part of. He's being drawn back into the

story of his own people through the revelation

of God. But here's the turning point. Even after

seeing the burning bush, even after hearing the

voice, even after realizing he's not actually

crazy with either one of them, he still has to

decide whether or not to trust it. The people

are going to have to do the same as well. Just

like those students who had to decide whether

to believe once what I taught them went beyond

what made sense, Moses had to decide whether

to trust God beyond what felt comfortable to

him. Because in the end, faith is not just about

what we can actually explain because we learned

it in confirmation class. It's about who we trust

when the truth is bigger than what we grasp.

But that same theme continues in Luke 20, when

the Sadducees come to Jesus not with an honest

question, but with a test. Whenever somebody

comes up to me, and says, hey, I want to ask

you a question. I'm not going to lie. I'm always

nervous when I hear that. You know those times

whenever somebody says that they're trying to

just ask you an honest question, or have an open

debate, or let's just kind of put everything

on the table, and you always wonder, yeah, but

I think you're trying to trick me. Because how

often is it that people want to get into difficult

questions when they don't already have it in

the back of their mind about how to make you

look stupid? But you see, the sadducees, the

reason why they were sad, you see, is because

they didn't believe in the resurrection. They

come up with an example that's meant to sound

absurd, okay? Instead of telling the story of

seven brides for seven brothers, they have the

one bride for seven brothers. They tell a story

about a woman who marries seven brothers one

after another because each of them dies without

leaving a child For the kids it was a movie seven

brides for seven brothers. It's it's somewhere

on streaming go find it. It'll be great But Jesus

they ask in the resurrection whose wife will

she be? And I got to make sure I point out to

you, it's important to realize their question

is not actually about marriage. That's not the

reason they came to talk to him. It's about control.

They're trying to control the conversation to

expose what they think is ridiculous about the

resurrection. The details about marriage and

inheritance, those are just props for an argument

that they're starting. And Jesus says that in

the resurrection, people neither marry nor are

given in marriage. We need to be careful. This

is not about Jesus dismissing marriage or saying

that relationships won't matter. If you're kind

of thinking, hey, I kind of like my spouse. I

think it would be nice to spend time with them

in heaven. It's okay. You can do that. He's not

talking about that. That was not the point. He's

talking about how the systems of this world,

the legal, the social, even the religious ones,

they don't carry the same meaning in the age

that is to come. Marrying, which in this context

was talking about the man's initiative, and then

being given in marriage, which at that time was

a woman's legal status, These were both parts

of a world that were defined by property, inheritance,

death. What happens to what you have whenever

you pass away? It was asking questions about

the legal ramifications. But in the resurrection,

the old structures, they just don't apply. Because

death itself no longer defines what's even possible.

But what's fascinating, though, is that even

within the story of the Sadducees, Their logic

fell apart. I mean, even before going into it,

anyone who knew that, I mean, technically, the

first one was her husband, because all the other

ones, when they married her, were giving her

children, or supposed to, to pass on the first

husband's inheritance. But notice, Jesus is intelligent,

but He doesn't bother untangling the details.

He doesn't care. He moves straight to the heart

of the matter that they actually were focused

on. He is not the God of the dead. He is the

God of the living. Jesus doesn't just say it

though. He proves it. His own resurrection doesn't

just blow a hole in the Sadducees logic. It blows

open the limits of what we even thought was possible.

The resurrection is not just rebutting somebody's

theological argument. It's the evidence that

God is not bound by death. He's not bound by

time. He's not bound by our categories of what

makes sense. The Sadducees wanted to keep faith

neatly divided. This life or the next. What we

can see or what we can't. Human power or divine

promise. And we should just focus on the here

and now and stop bothering us with this crazy

resurrection talk. But in Jesus, the false boundaries,

they collapse. The resurrection reveals God is

not setting up a choice between caring for this

world or caring for the next. It's about redeeming

both. Life now and life eternal. They don't compete.

It's one continuous story held together by a

living God and a God of the living. When Jesus

rose from the grave, He didn't just conquer death.

He connected heaven and earth. He showed that

God's power, it's not waiting until the end of

time. It begins now in every act of trust, every

step of faith, every moment that we dare to believe

that what's possible for us is still possible

with Him. The issue here is not marriage, it's

mindset. The Sadducees cannot imagine a world

that operates beyond their categories of life

and death, marriage and inheritance, control

and power. So if they can't control it, they

mock it. And they ridicule what they don't understand.

They reject what they cannot explain. And we

do the same thing all the time. We create our

own little Sadducee scenarios. We come up with

extreme examples. that we put out there as straw

people and ridiculous comparisons to try to make

our point and to show we're comfortable, we're

justified in it, and anybody else trying to push

us, don't bother me, you're ridiculous. I can't

talk about this with my spouse because if I do,

it'll be the end of the world. I can't tell my

child no or put rules on them because they're

going to think I don't love them and throw a

fit. I can't welcome these type of people into

my life because someone might think I approve

of everything they've done. We frame our choices

in these little false dichotomies of either this

or this. All or nothing, right or ruin. But when

we do that, we're doing exactly what the Sadducees

did. We're trying to trap truth inside these

boundaries of our own comfort. Because the resurrection

like the burning bush, it's It's God's declaration

that we cannot be trapped. God will be who He

will be. He's going to work in His own way and

in His own time. And our part is not to try to

reduce the mystery into something safe or sensible.

We're just supposed to trust God with whatever

the next faithful step is. Even when we don't

yet see the whole picture. Because when we do,

If we're following God in faith when we don't

see the whole picture, then we discover that

God's reality is larger, richer, more alive than

anything we could have imagined. Because if we

could imagine it, then it's not nearly as good

as it could be. What do we do with all this though?

Because honestly, we're not that different from

Moses or the Sadducees. We feel inadequate, uncertain.

sometimes even unqualified for what God calls

us to do, like Moses. We look around and we think,

who am I? Who am I to speak? Who am I to lead?

Who am I to believe that God could use me? And

God is looking and saying, I will be who I will

be. It's not whether you're going to be enough.

It's that I will be. And God's promise is that

it's not that you have it all figured out. It's

that He'll be with you even when you don't. So

like the Sadducees, we often, we let our discomfort

masquerade as logic. When something doesn't fit

our ideas, we call it unrealistic and unreasonable.

And when God's ways don't fit our expectations,

we treat them as if they cannot be true. But

faith isn't about explaining mystery. It's about

walking within it. You see, when we stop chasing

the comfort of tidy answers, when we stop saying,

it's got to be this because I don't think the

other things make sense to me, something begins

to shift in us. We start to notice that how much

of our decision -making, how much of it's been

shaped by what felt convenient instead of what

felt faithful. Instead of saying, This is what's

in front of me. When do we start saying I'm gonna

wait for God to show me what he wants? You see

we begin to see how easily that we've been settling

for what other people told us was reasonable

Instead of asking for what God was actually saying

Sometimes waiting on God means stepping back

from the quick fixes or the easy answers The

ready -made plans that promise certainty but

drain our faith It might mean refusing to rush

into the next opportunity just because it looks

secure. It might mean pausing before you send

that message, before you sign that paper, before

you take that job, and instead asking, God, where

are you in this? And if you're not, show me not

to do it. Waiting on God doesn't mean doing nothing.

It means doing the slow, deliberate work of listening.

The kind of listening that makes room for God's

timing instead of forcing our own. It means listening

to sit in the tension between promise and fulfillment

without trying to fill the silence ourselves.

And often that's where God begins to move. He's

in the waiting. He reshapes what we desire. He

changes us. He teaches us to trust Him. not only

for the outcomes that we want, but for the direction

He leads. He exposes where we've been relying

on approval, control, comparison, and He replaces

those things with something far stronger, His

presence. Because when you stop taking what the

world offers as good enough, you make space for

what is truly good, the presence of the I Am.

who does not need your timeline or your plan

to keep his promises. And in that stillness,

when you stop trying to force God into your categories

and instead wait on him to reveal himself, you

begin to see glimpses of his nature. Mysterious,

steady, radiant, like light itself. And think

about light. It's not a wave, it's not a particle.

But the moment you try to force it into a box,

you miss out on what it really is. If we can

stop forcing God into what makes sense to us,

then maybe we can see who He really is. So God

is not what we may find easy. But God doesn't

need to be simple in order to be good. He doesn't

need to fit into our plans in order to be faithful.

He simply is. So the invitation is this, trust

the I AM more than your I understand. Let go

of the need to have it all make sense before

you say yes. Let God reveal in His own way and

time what you cannot yet see. Because when you

do, you'll start to notice something. The bush

still burns today. The voice still calls today.

And the resurrection still happens when each

and every person believes in Christ Jesus. And

when it does, that is when life, real life begins

again. Thanks be to God.