{"id":27577,"date":"2025-03-03T12:54:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T12:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?post_type=ctc_sermon&p=27577"},"modified":"2025-03-03T12:55:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T12:55:23","slug":"his-power-is-in-love","status":"publish","type":"ctc_sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?ctc_sermon=his-power-is-in-love","title":{"rendered":"His power is in love"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a week! We meet for worship this morning as European leaders are meeting in London to address the existential crisis of our time.  There is reason to be afraid. Yet against the blizzard of news reports that we have witnessed this week it is reassuring to recall Andrea\u2019s sermon last Sunday reminding us that God is on the throne, vividly portrayed for us in the images in the book of Revelation and the Gospel story of the stilling of the storm. We were reassured that God is in control.<\/p>\n

Yet the message left me with a question. One that has grown in intensity as the week has unfolded. If God is in control why doesn\u2019t He do something? Does He not care about the suffering, the injustice, the hubris? If God can still a storm that threatened the lives of his followers, why doesn\u2019t God hold back a tsunami, or calm the winds that spread wild fires, or restrain rivers that break their banks and cause devastating flooding? And, while God is preventing natural disaster, why doesn\u2019t He also stop the aggressor, and bring peace between nations?<\/p>\n

We want God to act with force, slaying our enemies and standing up to tyrants. But that isn\u2019t how God shows up. Throughout history the question has been asked: \u201cWhen terrible things happen, where is God?\u201d In the 7th century BC the prophet Habakkuk asked: \u201cO LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Why [are you] silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?\u201d (1:2, 13).
\nThis is a question that Christian faith must ask. Our faith has no credibility if we don\u2019t.
\nHave you noticed the paradox in a hymn we often sing:<\/p>\n

Immortal, invisible God only wise
\nIn light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
\nMost gracious, most glorious, the ancient of days,
\nAlmighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.<\/p>\n

God lives \u201cin light inaccessible\u201d and yet is \u201cmost gracious, most glorious, the ancient of days, almighty, victorious\u201d. How can we square that circle?
\nGod dwells in inaccessible light \u2013 we cannot look directly at it. It is hid from our eyes. It is uncreated light that emanates from God\u2019s very being. When Moses came down from the mountain his face reflected God\u2019s light so brightly that he had to wear a veil over it so as not to blind the people (Exod. 34:29\u201335).<\/p>\n

And when a few of Jesus\u2019s followers were allowed to join him on the Mount of Transfiguration they saw something they thought impossible. He was talking to Moses and Elijah, the great figures of Jewish history, long since dead. Caught up in the moment they wanted to perpetuate it by building places where they could stay. But their plans were interrupted by a cloud that descended on them making them terrified, for while it hid the presence of God, they heard His voice.<\/p>\n

For a brief moment the veil was lifted. It made them aware that there is another reality behind what they experienced in their daily lives \u2013 a presence that most of the time, they, and we, are completely unaware of. It compresses time into an eternal present, it hides within a cloud so we cannot see it. And if we do catch a glimpse of it there is so much more to it that we could have imagined.<\/p>\n

The prophet Isaiah tells us: \u201cTruly you are a God who hides himself \u201d (Isa. 45:15). God has His reasons for hiding himself. If that were not so, God would not be God; God would be nothing more than a projection of our own imagination and desires. God hides himself from us because he is God, and God reveals himself to us because God is love (1 John 4:8).<\/p>\n

Toward the end of World War II, during the liberation of Europe, Allied troops found a crudely written inscription on the walls of a basement in Cologne, Germany, by someone who was hiding from the Nazi Gestapo. This is what it said:
\nI believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
\nI believe in love even when I do not feel it.
\nI believe in God even when God is silent.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s presence never leaves us. God is by our side at all times, even in our darkest moments. But his power is not in marshalling an army of celestial beings to squash rebellion, but in love. Yes, you heard me right. God\u2019s power is love. God will do nothing that betrays His love. Love does not coerce, it does not humiliate, it does not use force.  Why doesn\u2019t God do something? Well He does. He loves with an everlasting love. A love that will not let us go. Love is a verb not a noun. God\u2019s love is an active love. God goes on loving however far we stray into foolish ways.<\/p>\n

Lent is a challenging time for us on our journey through the Christian Year. We are reminded that we are dust and to dust we will return. It is a time of introspection, of giving up things. It is a period of self discipline. Some writers on Lent suggest that the most important thing we should give up in Lent is not chocolate or coffee, but some of our entrenched ideas about God in order that we may see Him more clearly.<\/p>\n

Maybe Lent will be the season when the veil, the scales, will be removed from our eyes and we will see, as if for the first time, the God who loves his creation with an everlasting love, who will never force his love upon us but invites us in every moment of our lives to open ourselves to His love and love Him in return. Only then will we truly know that the power of love is the only way to bring peace, to heal the wounds, and reconcile families and societies.<\/p>\n

It is one thing to believe this, it is another to live it. Immediately after we read \u201cGod is love\u201d in John\u2019s epistle, we are told: \u201csince God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.\u201d  Mother Teresa said: \u201cChrist has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but
\nyours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. \u2026 you are his body.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of my research students recently told me that before signing The Treaty of Paris in 1951, the French Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer (Finance Minister for Germany) and Alcide De Gasper (Finance Minister for Italy) retreated to a Benedictine Abbey for a week of prayer and meditation. The Paris Treaty would ask that France and Germany collectivize their coal and steel industries \u2013 the primary cause of conflict between them. In so doing, \u201cany war between France and Germany (was) not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.\u201d This was the inspired first step out from the hellish legacy of war, mass murder, genocide and ethnic cleansing. Schuman\u2019s prayer that \u201cEurope could become a community of peoples deeply rooted in Christian values\u201d was the implicit drive which led to a period of unprecedented peace in Europe. The impulse for European union had its origins in that week of prayer and meditation by the leaders of France, Germany and Italy. Evidence of the power of love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But we forget, so quickly, that it is love that keeps the peace, turning instead to the weapons of war and loosing touch with the source of love.<\/p>\n

Is God in control? What we learn, from a careful reading of Scripture and history, is that nothing, absolutely nothing can undermine God\u2019s love. He loves with an everlasting love
\nand he longs for us to love in return. Only love can keep the peace.
\nDave Adams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a week! We meet for worship this morning as European leaders are meeting in London to address the existential crisis of our time.  There is reason to be afraid. Yet against the blizzard of news reports that we have witnessed this week it is reassuring to recall Andrea\u2019s sermon last Sunday reminding us that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"ctc_sermon_topic":[],"ctc_sermon_book":[333],"ctc_sermon_series":[397,361],"ctc_sermon_speaker":[339],"ctc_sermon_tag":[],"class_list":["post-27577","ctc_sermon","type-ctc_sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ctc_sermon_book-luke","ctc_sermon_series-ordinary-time","ctc_sermon_series-sunday-morning","ctc_sermon_speaker-dave-adams-llm","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/27577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/ctc_sermon"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/27577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27578,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/27577\/revisions\/27578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_topic&post=27577"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_book&post=27577"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_series&post=27577"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_speaker&post=27577"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fctc_sermon_tag&post=27577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}