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Is God Really Hidden Today? · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what
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  we bring to your table today might add some spice
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  to your life welcome to
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  another episode of relish i am here with don patterson
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  i'm rowan miller Don what you what you
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  laughing at just yeah just
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  things coming along really fast it's summertime and yeah
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  it's just amazing how you know we think during the school year there's so much
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  going on and and we're so busy and then oh well we're so glad to have summer
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  come yeah and then summer comes and we're just as busy as we were the rest of
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  the year and I mean even for us to take time to record.
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  Gets squished because of my schedule and your schedule.
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  And yeah. Just glad we have some time.
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  I enjoy being with you. I enjoy being with you.
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  School year wrapping up, grad parties, sports wrapping up. Yes.
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  Don finished his class. I finished my class and I actually graduated and I passed.
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  That's the main thing. Yeah, even at my age, folks, You can take courses and
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  invest in new knowledge and new understandings, and that's all right.
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  Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
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  Add it to our bucket list. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah.
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  All right. We'll jump right in here. Just so we don't fall. Yeah.
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  You're going to stump me this time, maybe. Maybe, but I think this first question,
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  you might end up correcting the question. Oh, dear. Yeah.
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  Why does God remain so hidden today Compared to Bible times Oh he isn't Yeah,
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  You knew I'd do that Yeah he's not hidden I,
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  And I had a guy when I was in seminary, he was a college kid,
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  asked me that same question.
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  He said, boy, it would be so much easier for me to believe in God if all of
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  a sudden he'd split the college campus pond. Yeah.
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  If God would reveal himself in some magnificent, wonderful miracle,
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  or if we could rely on miracles today like they could rely on them in the Old
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  Testament. Light a bush on fire next to me. Yes, right. Yeah.
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  And I guess I haven't, I've experienced God in more miracles than not.
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  I praise the Lord. I see Him in a more daily basis.
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  But then the subtlety might be that I'm looking for Him.
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  And so in my times of worship, my personal times of worship,
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  my corporate times in our church, those times of worship, I'm actually looking
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  for and expecting God to show up.
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  And so as he moves, I notice where he's at.
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  So he's at work today. We also need to take in consideration that when we read
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  the Old Testament and all those miracles and things that God did in the Old
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  Testament, that's also over, what, 2,300 years?
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  Yeah, a lot more than we've been around. Yeah, a lot more years than we've been around.
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  And so what God's doing in my 60 years, 60 plus years, I think it's marvelous
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  what God's doing today and the way he's moving among people today.
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  So my response to the question is, well, I'm sorry, open your eyes because he's
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  doing it. It's happening.
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  God's alive and well today. And what's neat is when we open our hearts to him, he's changing things.
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  First of all, by changing us. Yeah. And that's probably the most important change
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  we need is for him to change us.
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  Yeah. It's good. Did I even hit that question? Yeah. Okay. You did.
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  More just like threw it out the window, but you answered it.
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  If you ask that question, I'm sorry.
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  I don't mean to be rude, but that's sort of where we headed up on that one.
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  It, uh, yeah. That was good.
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  All right. There's kind of two here that would go together, but why did God
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  choose Mary of all women to birth Jesus?
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  And then there's the next one that would kind of probably flow right into it,
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  but why did God's plan have to involve Jesus dying on the cross?
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  Yeah. I think I want to do them separately. Okay. Yeah.
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  What's interesting is what we know about Mary actually comes from the angel.
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  The angel basically says she was fitted for this.
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  So in Luke 1, verses 26 following, God sent the angel Gabriel.
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  Isn't that interesting? The angel is actually named, and we know that personality
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  of that angel from Scripture.
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  She was a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph.
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  He was a descendant of David.
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  Her name was Mary. And what is interesting is the angel says,
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  Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you.
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  We don't know what she did to get that moniker, but we know that God was watching
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  her and had, and she had found favor with God.
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  So it's sort of like what we were talking about in, in another,
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  was it the series before, before this, the condition of our heart for God.
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  He sees our heart. He, you know, maybe she didn't go to the temple enough times,
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  but maybe God knew her heart and he knew that, that her heart was right before him.
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  And somehow or another, she did what we all need to do, she opened herself to him.
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  And have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. You are the potter, I'm the clay.
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  It's that yielded spirit to God that says, okay, you know, I believe in your kingdom.
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  I want your kingdom to come. I want your glory.
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  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven how do we want
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  to glorify God and we glorify God most by giving them giving him us our very being,
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  and I think that's where Mary is she's,
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  All right. The end of that, for I am your servant.
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  I am the Lord's servant. Verse 38, Mary answered, let it be to me as you have
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  said. And the angel left her.
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  That to me reveals it is Mary's yielded heart to God, no matter what would happen.
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  And you have to realize that even with this declaration by the angel,
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  she would have been weighing out in her mind, oh, wait a minute,
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  I'm going to end up being pregnant without really being married to Joseph.
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  This is not going to be fun. This is not going to really look good to everybody
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  around me, but I'm willing to do it because God's asked me.
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  And I'm, yeah. So I am the Lord's servant.
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  That, her willingness to be part of God's plan, I think, sets the stage for what we see in Jesus.
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  Because if you read the gospel of John through, so many times he will say,
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  I am doing what I see the Father doing before me.
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  So he realizes that his ministry on earth in human form would be to reveal to
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  us how we're to walk with God.
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  That would be one of the reasons he came in the flesh so that we would understand
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  God wants us to walk before him yielded to his will.
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  So that if he asks us to carry the gospel to Tim Buchan too,
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  we will for his sake because he asked us to do so.
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  And it may not be fun, but we've yielded to it. And that's how we do that.
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  So when he goes to the cross, than I guess I was studying this last week,
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  that time in Gethsemane where he is, I think it was Matthew is where I was going with that.
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  And his struggle in Bethany, no, Gethsemane, excuse me, must be John's gospel
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  talks about him sweating drops of blood because of the anguish.
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  He was sorrowful. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
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  Stay here and keep watch. And he went a little farther and he fell on his face
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  to the ground. And he said, my father, if it's possible, may this cup be taken
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  from me yet not as I will, but as you will.
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  And he does that three times in Matthew's gospel.
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  And I think it's John's gospel. He is sweating drops of blood.
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  You can see the anguish that he has because of that night, what he was going to go through.
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  Well, it's not John. I'm trying to think here.
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  What I'm trying to get at is the fact that even Jesus, it was not always easy
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  for Jesus to do what God was asking to be done.
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  We see this here, and then we see the kinds of things that go on.
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  He reveals Himself and the resurrection,
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  and how much He wants to see His disciples and spread that joy.
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  So that in Hebrews 12, verse 2, it would say that He endured the cross.
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  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
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  who for the joy set before Him.
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  Now, what would that joy be?
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  Well, that joy is seeing us embrace the gift he gave us on the cross.
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  We wouldn't have that salvation without his time on the cross.
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  And so, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
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  who for the joy set before us endured the cross, scorning its shame,
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  and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
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  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not
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  grow weary and lose heart.
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  So, what Jesus realized was the cross had to happen.
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  In other words, there had to be a price paid for the sin that we commit.
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  And Jesus was willing to pay that price so that the sacrifice would not have
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  to continually be offered. You can go back to Hebrews 9 and 10,
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  and you see that played out in Hebrews 9 and 10.
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  Jesus' offering was once for all. The trick is, we must accept it.
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  And so you can ask somebody, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and
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  Savior? Well, you have to accept it.
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  It's not something that, well, it just covers up, you know, takes care of it,
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  don't worry about it. Jesus loves everybody, which is absolutely right.
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  Yeah. Jesus loves everybody. It's absolutely right. But not everybody loves Jesus.
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  And the difference is, are you going to accept that gift that he gave for you?
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  Was in our graduation ceremony this last week, Don Whitestone made a point that
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  we are all loved by Jesus.
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  But do we love Jesus?
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  And then do we realize, and this was another author this last week,
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  that we're created for a very specific purpose?
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  I mean, think about it. I'm going to nudge you just a little bit.
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  We didn't need to be created.
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  Okay. So Rowan, you're almost related to the family.
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  Close. And there are many, many generations through which God worked to create you as you are.
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  And God did that intentionally. Yeah. Can you understand that you were intentionally
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  created by Almighty God through generations and generations and generations?
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  Not right now, but if I thought about it. In other words, you are not a hiccup.
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  Yeah. You are not something that just happened.
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  Because there are other parts of those lines that don't exist to this day.
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  There were stillborn children that didn't have children.
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  But you are part of a line that God created you as you are. Do you know how special that is?
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  It's as if you have the thumbprint of Almighty God on you.
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  How do you respond to that kind of love?
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  I don't know if we can. It's hard, isn't it? Yeah.
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  And then you add to it that because of his love, even in that followed state,
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  fallen state of that entire line, there's sin all down the line.
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  He's given you a chance to say, I am yours. Lord, I am yours.
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  I accept the gift that you gave upon the cross in the form of your son,
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  Jesus Christ, as a means to bring me closer to you, to cleanse all my sin out
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  of me and bring me closer to you.
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  Well, you see how special you are? Mm-hmm.
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  I've never thought about that. And that's amazing. When we start thinking about,
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  out of all creation, we would not be on this earth if there wasn't a godly intention behind it.
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  And here you just thought you were a special athlete, right?
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  We don't understand that God has a plan for each and every one of us,
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  and it's unique, and it's His.
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  But the best is when we give ourselves to Him, that yielded state of our spirit.
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  Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. to think that God loved you and me enough to send
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  his son to take our sin away. Yeah.
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  Did I get all that question down or did I go off on a Don tangent there?
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  Because once in a while, we get off on a Don tangent sometimes.
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  Tangents are always worth it. I forget where I'm at. Sorry. Yeah.
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  I imagine that'll only get worse this time.
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  No, that's good. I found the Luke 22.
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  Oh, it was Luke. Being in anguish, he prayed more fervently,
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  and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. Yes.
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  Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Rowan. How?
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  Do we know roughly the age of Mary? Was she like 15, 16, 17,
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  somewhere in there? We know she was older than 13.
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  That's about all we can establish. Okay. But probably quite young.
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  Yeah. We don't know Joseph's age at all. But usually in that society,
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  he would have been older.
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  Yeah. If not considerably older.
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  Okay. I was just thinking like, I mean, I don't talk to teenage girls about this. You don't?
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  I'm sure they wouldn't. You could, you're a teenager. I could.
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  Yeah. I'm sure they don't want to be having a kid in like. In our society. Yeah.
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  I mean, everything that would come with that and Mary accepted it.
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  So. Mary accepted it. Very willing. And that, that is a moniker of her yieldedness before God. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Because the cultural norm, that would buck the cultural norm of that time. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Taboo. Well, even to the point, and I think we brought it out in John
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  8, had she been proven by Joseph unfaithful, she could have been stoned.
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  Oh, wow. Yeah. So she was opening herself up to that possibility as well.
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  If Joseph had not consented to marry her, and that's why in Matthew's gospel
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  it says he would dismiss her quietly. Yeah.
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  If he had, she may have gotten by without being stoned, but if he'd have made
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  a major thing of it, she would have been stoned.
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  Yeah. It's even worse than today. Yeah. Yeah, that would be worse than today. Yeah.
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  All right. Yeah. Well, thank you, Don. That was quite an exercise.
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  Yeah. Yeah. I got the pipe blowing.
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  I did. Yeah. I almost shed some tears. Oh, well, yeah. That was all very good.
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  Saturday mornings with Rowan. Yeah.
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  There's been a lot of them. Keep them coming.
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  Yes. There you go. All right. Hey, and he's come up with a good idea that I really like.
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  And the coming week, I think the next episode, we may flesh out and do something
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  a little different by giving me the topic ahead of time and then fleshing it
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  out during the episode. So we'll see how that goes.
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  See how that goes. Yeah. So make sure you tune in for next week and there'll
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  be plenty more than just one.
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  So yeah, I keep coming back, but yeah. Lord willing.
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  Lord willing, we'll get through that. It'll be good. It'll be good. I like the idea.
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  Yeah, I think it'll be great. Thank you guys for joining. We will see you next time. Lord willing.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
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  ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and is calling to us in our daily lives. Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.