Sermon Response: In the Wilderness

By Nick DeanPastor Jim began The Good King series that focuses on the Gospel of Mark on Sunday.There’s no better analogy for the call from God than to paint it as a call to the wilderness. A cord in my soul was struck when Pastor Jim said the resounding truth that God has always met His people in the wilderness. He’s never been absent in their need.  Why do I often assume He’ll leave or forget me?Life is a wilderness. Crashed dreams and huge fears trip us while the winding roads of false gods and temptations lead us astray, lined with worldly fruits like money and power.God asks us to sacrifice and to walk a tough path. The Way causes us to thirst and hunger for safety and trust holding fast to the confession of our faith. (Hebrews 10:23)The trail toward Him is thorny. We can waste our life trying to pad the harsh reality that comfort isn’t promised.“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth,” C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity.For too long I had sought a life that was comfortable under the illusion that God’s will was always drenched in the aroma of comfort.Another Lewis quote, from his Chronicles of Narnia series, that Pastor Jim referenced: “Is God safe? No. But He is good.”Peter did not walk out on the water from the boat because it was comfortable. Paul was not imprisoned for comfort. Hosea didn’t obey God and pursue Gomer because he was comfortable with the plan. Job is a book filled with the uncomfortable.Why do we think comfort is what comes with God? The only thing we are promised is everlasting life. Why live as if we need to be given more than that?To deserve death but be given life is already an unfair trade. That’s the glorious thing about grace: it’s unfair. Our greed has crept in and added comfort to the equation.This is not to say God’s will is always the uncomfortable choice. Comfort, however, is not always found in the wilderness - God is. If we are to respond to the call from God to be His people, we must throw the notion that comfort is a basic need out of the window.God is the only thing we are assured to find along the wild road.“Exploring the wilderness of God is scary, but you find Him. He is there,” Pastor Jim said.The first step into God’s wilderness is the scariest.There is nothing more comfortable than the security that embraces a life lived by His will and for His glory. Listen to his call and run into His wilderness. It won’t be easy, but it will be for good.Nick Dean is a partner at The Paradox and a member of The Commons City Group. He blogs at bynickdean.comFind study guides to work through during The Good King series here.Listen to the sermon "The Good News of God" online here, by downloading our iPhone/Android app here, or on iTunes here.