God the master communicator

As I sat down to write this I started to think about communication. I don’t normally write my sermons out in full, I use a spider diagram (see picture),

 so for me this is a very different way to communicate (or at least a different way to plan my communication). We communicate in different ways for different people and different situations. Sometimes this is appropriate; if we are speaking to a child we say things in a different language, using deferent images, different stories etc. Sometimes, however, this is not appropriate; I get very up-tight if I am out with my daughter Emma, who is a wheelchair user, and people insist on speaking to her through me! ‘Does Emma want a cup of tea?’ Almost as if her wheelchair has affected her hearing!

Throughout the Old Testament God tries different ways to communicate with his people. First he chooses a man - Abraham, then he chooses a family (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and then he chooses a whole race of people – the Jews. Somehow his will does not get through! He provides his commands on stone, he chooses individuals (prophets) to bring his messages, and he provides messages in the form of miracles as well as providing the natural world, which speaks so clearly of his beauty. Yet we humans seem to be pretty good at missing the point completely. In reading the Bible, it seems that sometimes, we go out of our way to miss the point! Whatever God wants from us we ‘try’ to do the opposite! If God says don’t eat from the tree of life – we eat from it! If God says don’t save the Manna until tomorrow – we save it until tomorrow. If God says, ‘let my people go’ – we don’t! This of course is what we call sin! Doing the opposite of what God tells us to do! As we all know this gets God extremely frustrated (if God can be frustrated!!). In the end the only way that God could communicate with us was to do something very radical! He sends his Son!

We are told, aren’t we, Jesus came, to show us God, to communicate God. Jesus says when talking to Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9). Jesus is the master communicator and he has been sent here to communicate the world’s most important message – EVER! The message that God loves his creation and that there is a place in eternity waiting for everyone who desires it! All any of us have to do is accept the master communicator as our Lord and Savour. Easy?

Jesus uses all sorts of ways of getting the message across. He uses stories, he uses miracles, he uses life, he uses humour, he uses his disciples. Through all of this though, some say yes and some say no thank you very much! Why? Is the gift too costly? Too costly for the prize of eternity?  However, do you know what the most important technique God uses to communicate to this world is? He uses you and me! Jesus says that greater things will be done by you and me than he could ever have done while he was here on earth. And to top it all he gives us the resources to succeed in the form of the Holy Spirit!!

So the challenge is with us now, as Jesus says ‘do as I do’ (John 13:15). So we are now responsible for communicating the message of hope that Jesus brings into the communities and neighbourhoods where we belong. To do this we have to find new and exciting, and culturally relevant ways to bring this message. Surely then if we don’t, if we hear the message but do nothing with it we are no different (and possibly even worse) than those in the Old Testament who didn’t listen to God?

… so lets have fun bringing God’s message of a glorious future to the people who live in and around our lives!