Sermons
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Sermons |
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Sermon preached by John Cooper at Christ Church on 30/6/02. It was on the topic of shattered dreams and was given at the morning service. The Bible reading relating to the talk is found in chapter 1 of the book of Ruth reading from verse 1 to verse 22. |
Reading: Main
themes: A little boy went to the optician's [1]. He was very frightened. He, like me, did not like it when the optician goes 'puff' into your eye. Anyway the optician told him to cover his left eye and use his right to read the board. In his fear the lad forgot his right and left and the situation was rapidly deteriorating. Finally the optician said he had an idea and went away. He came back with an empty cornflakes box. He cut a little hole in it and stuck it on the child's head. He could see through the hole which was in front of his right eye. The optician said 'So what do you think of that?' The lad answered 'Well I suppose it is OK but I was rather hoping for a pair of metal-framed spectacles like my brother's'. Unfortunately what we want we often do not get. How do we explain it? Dating can be a very harrowing period in our lives [2]. Many years ago now I was heart-broken when a girl I adored decided that she did not want to carry on seeing me. I was devastated. Various men told me that girls were like buses - another one would come along in a few moments. I thought they were missing the obvious fact that girls, unlike buses, are all different! Perhaps as a means of escape I went to visit my mentor friends Geoff and Josephine in Kidsgrove. I never got much sympathy from them but at least it was a change of scenery! I ended up spending my Saturday night on one of those progressive meals so beloved of churches. You know you have different courses in different homes. One of the hosts was a single lady in her sixties. She immediately started to bewail to me, a complete stranger, that she had been dumped by her fiancé forty years previously. I thought how sad! [3] Forty years of bitterness, self pity and meaninglessness. Correctly I suspected that I would get over my own heart ache. Perhaps I could understand that God's hand was in it but of course I still had the very genuine pain to deal with (and those stupid friends back in London were not helping). Tim wants us to use the book Shattered Dreams [4] as the basis for these sermons on the Book of Ruth. The author, Larry Crabb, a Christian psychologist, says that we frequently miss what God wants for us [5] because we have our own goal in life. But at no time does something happen that completely frustrates His plans. Take for example the Book of Ruth. In the story Naomi goes to the land of Moab with her husband and two sons. The two sons marry Moabite girls. But disaster strikes. Naomi's husband and two sons die. She, along with her daughter-in-laws, Orpah and Ruth, are widowed and destitute. Now where was God in this [6]? Why could He have not saved these men? Does God not want to heal us when we are ill? To be a widow in the ancient world was very tough. You needed the support of your family so Naomi sets out to return to her homeland of Israel. Her daughters-in-law say they will go with her but Naomi tells them to seriously consider what they are doing. Israel was not their homeland. Orpah decides to go back to her home but Ruth carries on with her mother-in-law. She gives a very moving speech: 'Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me' (1:16-7). When they get back to her hometown of Bethlehem Naomi tells her relatives 'Don't call me Naomi [meaning 'pleasant']...call me Mara [meaning 'bitter'], because the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me'. (1:20-1). It is a picture of unrelieved gloom. However Ruth subsequently marries Boaz, a relative of Naomi's. They have a son called Obed and he becomes the ancestor of King David and later Jesus Himself. God was working [7] in this situation to bring about salvation for us all. Naomi's story ends happily because Naomi is worshipping God, holding her grandson on her lap, aware that through her life, both the good times and bad, God is telling His story. I like to observe people on the tube. I saw one girl in her twenties reading a book. Now this in itself is getting a relatively uncommon sight but what made this particularly memorable was that she was trying to read whilst standing up and without holding on. She was swaying about with the movement of the tube. Then I noticed the title of the book she was reading. It was something like 'One Hundred Ways to Discover True Happiness' [8]. Judging by the expression on her face she had not read very far into the book! Mind you not many people expect to find happiness on the Northern Line! Naturally we want to pursue happiness as our goal in life. But is our concept of happiness the right one? The Devil (just like the advertisers) wants us to believe subconsciously that money, a glamorous spouse, exotic holidays and an expensive car will make us happy. The TV reminds us that we have to invest wisely but rather strangely the advert does it by having a chap flying on the back of a swan. They must be aiming at our subconscious. He does have a nice voice however! So we pursue our own dreams [9] and usually forget that God might have quite a different agenda for us. Thus we end up wanting something or someone more than God. What we actually require is a close and personal encounter with Him, but we do not know the best way to go about it. One way He works is to allow our dreams to shatter [10]. He uses the pain to help us discover our need of God. Ultimately the cause of all suffering is separation from God. And the way to handle suffering [11] is to rediscover our desire for Him. Worship and prayer then become our favourite occupations and our means of discovering His real plan for our lives. So when the worst problems befall you do not lose hope. A plan [12] is unfolding that you cannot clearly see. Just like when Naomi was widowed God had a plan for her to be the ancestor of the Saviour of the world. Shattered dreams [13] are necessary for spiritual growth. We emerge from the experience changed people. When our dreams shatter, God has better ones for us to pursue.
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Web page last updated 24 Oct 2006 |
