“I Don’t Mess With God”

Next Saturday and Sunday, I’m presenting a four lesson Bible series at the Northside Church in Pompano Beach.

To advertise the series, several brethren met last Saturday morning to pass out announcements in the neighborhood surrounding their meeting place. One of the brethren, Percy, shared an unusual and interesting reaction from one individual.

When they approach him and handed him the flyer, he said. “Church?” Then confidently proclaimed. “I have an agreement with God. I don’t mess with God. And He doesn’t mess with me.”

While I wasn’t there to hear the man’s tone, see his body language, or interpret the seriousness of his claim, that’s an incredibly bold assertion.

I understand his retort to mean, “I don’t go to church. I don’t involve myself in religious activities. I don’t interact with God. And He leaves me alone.”

Really?

One may not “mess with God,” by not praying, not reading His Word, not going to church, or not thinking about Him, but He “messes” with people everyday.

Life is a gift from God. He created us. He set the laws of procreation into motion (Gen. 1:28). The fruitfulness of the womb that gave birth to every living person is an expression of God’s creative power and incomprehensible wisdom (Ps 127:3).

Furthermore, life is maintained and sustained by God’s grace and goodness. In his sermon to the Athenian philosophers, Paul offered this insight about the presence of God in our lives. “…For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’” (Ax 17:28).

Every breath we take, every move we make, and every morning we awake, it’s because God is there. He’s real. Alive. Active in our lives. Yes, He’s “messing” with us daily, whether or not we believe it or acknowledge it.

In fact, God in His goodness, blesses both the believer and unbeliever. Jesus said God “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Barclay calls this action God’s “unconquerable benevolence.” Even people who’ve rejected God, broken His heart, or choose not to “mess” with Him, are recipients of His goodwill, generosity, and kindheartedness.

God’s grace and great love, of course, are ultimately expressed in sending His Son to die for sins. In speaking of God’s gift and our ability to receive justification, Paul put it this way. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

God, in His sovereignty and providence, is involved in His creation and in the lives of His creatures, whether or not we understand it, accept it, or even believe it’s possible. God knows what’s happening in the world. He sees. He hears. And He responds. Indeed, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him” (Ps. 115:3).

God, however, is not obviously visible to those who not seeking Him. In the words of Lewis, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact to come awake. Still more to remain awake. Where is God found in our world today? Are we awake enough to notice?”

One day, we will each meet our appointment with death, followed by God’s judgment. “For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14).

Finally, I would hope and pray the gentleman would rethink Percy’s invitation to hear the Gospel. His quip may have been light hearted, but God doesn’t “mess around.”

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life” (Gal. 6:7-8).

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman