Aaron was 13; Mariah was 9, and I remember sitting down with them and what I wanted to tell them was that old cliché—the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will. Have you ever heard that? The safest place to be is in the center of the will of God. It's so beautiful. The problem is that it is also unbiblical. (and he’s right. Sometimes the most dangerous place to be is in the center of God’s will, I mean think about those who followed God. Some of them were placed in the most dangerous and difficult situations – think about Daniel, he faithfully followed God and ended up in the lion’s den or Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who had to walk into a fiery furnace, or for that matter Jesus who followed God’s will all the way to the cross.)
Erwin said, I wanted to tell my children, "Look, we're Christians. We're followers of Jesus Christ, so this would never happen to us. And besides, we're on the other side of the country. Those events took place really, really far away and if you'll just walk with Christ, you don't have anything to worry about." What I wanted to tell them was that good, old, Christian lie, but I knew I had to tell them the truth. So I sat down that morning and told my children that what we learned yesterday was that we have no control over when we die, or even how we die, but what we have control over is how we live.
And that is still the truth we need to hear today. 11 years later, the lesson we learned on September 11th is still relevant. We have no control over when or how we will die, but what we have control over is how we live. So today can we make the decision to once again embrace the values and behaviors that became so important to us in the days after September 11th?
While many things emerged as being important in those days, I want us to think about just three:
#1. we learned that we needed to reach out and ask God for help. Communities came together to pray and ask God for strength and courage and healing and hope to get us through. We weren’t afraid to turn to God and boldly ask God for help and hope and answers.
#2. we learned that we need to say those things that were important while we still had time because we might not get another chance to say them. We learned how important it was to say, I forgive you and I love you.
#3. we learned that we all need to offer outrageous grace even if it means breaking the rules or sacrificing our own well being. September 11th was filled with stories – some we will never know – of people who offered outrageous grace and sacrificial help to those in need; like the man who held the door open at one of the entrances to the World Trade Towers to help get people out of the building. He was still standing there holding the door when the building came down.
Reaching out to God for help, speaking the truth and saying what needs to be said and offering outrageous grace and sacrificial help are not just lessons we learned on that day, they are choices we can make today and every day and they can be part of the foundation on which we build our lives. In fact, I think the story we heard from Mark 7 shows us that this is exactly how we need to live our lives.
Let’s go back and look at this story from Mark 7. This meeting between Jesus and a Syrophoenician (or a gentile) woman is often troubling for us because it sounds like Jesus just doesn’t want to help her. What we need to know is that there was a lot of animosity and anger between the Jews and Gentiles and for the most part gentiles didn’t turn to the Jewish people for help or support. So when this woman reaches out to Jesus and boldly asks for his help, there were those who questioned her motives and sincerity. So Jesus pushes back a little and in verse 27 when he says, first let the children eat all they want, Jesus is saying that God’s grace has come for God’s people first. It wasn’t that God’s grace wasn’t going to be for everyone, it was, remember John 3:16 says for God so loved the world that he sent Jesus, but God’s grace came first to his chosen people with God’s desire and plan being that once they received that grace they would then share God’s love with those around them. This truth formed the foundation of Jesus life and ministry.
Jesus came as a Jewish rabbi for the Jewish people. He travelled almost exclusively among Jewish communities and taught in Jewish gatherings and came to offer the Jewish people the grace and love of their God. God’s desire and plan was that once they accepted and received God’s grace and mercy for themselves they could then turn and share that grace with the rest of the world. So that is why Jesus said that the children should eat first, and with that comment it looked like Jesus closed the door to this woman, but then look at her response. Her need was so great and her desire for God’s presence and power was so strong that she asked Jesus for help a second time.
What I love about this story this that the woman reached out to God even though it looked impossible and everything was working against her. She was a woman and women didn’t initiate conversations with men. She was a gentile and gentiles didn’t speak to Jews. Jesus had already said no and you didn’t argue with or challenge a rabbi. On so many levels her situation looked hopeless even impossible – but she reached out to God anyway and this is how we need to live our lives. We need to reach out to God and ask God for help even when the situation looks impossible.
Today you may feel like you are in this impossible situation and can’t turn to God for help, you may feel that you have wandered too far from God for too long in order for him to help you, you may feel like you are too filled with questions, too filled with doubts, too filled with sin for God to help you, you may be looking at your own life and thinking, it’s just impossible for me to reach out to God for help – but you can. No matter who we are we can ask God for help and no matter what impossible situation we may find ourselves in when we turn to God – God will be there. King David found himself in some pretty impossible situations and when things looked completely hopeless he cried out to God for help and God was there. Look at Psalm 18:4-6. David felt like his life was over, he was surrounded and being pursued by his enemy and there was no way out, but when he out cried to God – God was there and God delivered him. Psalm 18:16-19. When David felt like his own sin was a hopeless situation, he cried out to God and found God there: Psalm 51:3-4, 7-12
Time and time again David found himself in hopeless situations and yet in those moments he turned and asked God for help and this shows us that we can do the same thing but we have to make that choice. The gentile woman chose to turn to Jesus. She chose to enter the room and ask Jesus for help. She chose to ask again even though he first said no. She had made a decision to live her life a certain way and she didn’t back down and we need to do the same. The only control we have in life are the choices we make and one of those choices needs to be turning to God for help – even when it seems impossible and yes even when it seems hopeless and we feel unworthy – we need to boldly ask God for help and believe that he will not only hear us but come to help us.
Not only do we need to ask God for help, but we need to take the opportunity we have today to say all those things that need to be said – both to God and to one another. The gentile woman said to Jesus what needed to be said. She not only asks for help but she shares the depth of her heart and her understanding of God’s grace and love and then asks Jesus for help a second time. She didn’t waste the moment she was given, She didn’t say to herself, I’ll come back tomorrow – she took the moment and said all that needed to be said, and this is how we need to live our lives – saying all that needs to be said to God and to one another today because we may not have another day or another opportunity. We heard from Colossians last week that we need to make the most every opportunity and that means saying today what needs to be said and speaking the truth to one another – and I don’t mean saying all the negative and critical things we might want to say – those things we need to let go of, what we need to say to one another are the important words of grace and love that too often we put off.
If we need help, we need to ask for it today. If we want God working in our lives we need to ask for it today. If we want God to forgive us and offer us the gift of his mercy and grace and love then we need to ask for it today. If we want the assurance of salvation and the confidence to know that we are redeemed children of God, then we need to ask Jesus into our lives today. September 11th reminds us that we may not get another day to say what needs to be said. If the gentile woman didn’t ask Jesus for help that day, it would have been too late because Jesus soon left, look at Mark 7:31. He was only in this area for a very short period of time so she needed to ask him for help in that moment. We often think we will get another day, but we may not so if we need to ask God for help, if we need to accept God’s grace, we need to do it today.
And if we want someone to know that we are here for them and care for them and love them, then we need to tell them today. Too many times we don’t say the things we need to say or want to say to those we love and one of the things I am reminded of every September 11th is how important it is to let people know how much they mean to us today. In the days that followed September 11th there were so many stories of people who said things like “I never said I love you to my husband that morning” or “the last word I spoke to my wife had to do with an argument.” There were too many regrets that day, which is maybe why God tells us to not let the sun go down on our anger. We need to resolve issues with those we love today and make sure we say all that need to be said while we have the opportunity to say it.
And then in response to the woman reaching out for help – Jesus offers her what those around him would have said was outrageous grace. Jesus not only broke the rules by speaking to the woman, but he broke all the rules by offering her God’s grace and mercy and healing her daughter. Jesus gift of healing was not only outrageous grace, it was sacrificial help as well. If we go back and look at Mark 7:24 we see that Jesus was in this region to try and get a break, he didn’t want to be noticed so he may have entered a gentile area knowing that the gentiles wouldn’t reach out to him, but when this woman did, Jesus sacrificed his time and energy and helped her. Jesus made the choice in this moment to offer outrageous grace and sacrificial help and in doing this he shows us the kind of choices we need to make and the way we need to live our lives.
We control the choices we make in life and one of the choices we can make is to offer God’s grace to everyone even when it means we have to sacrifice our time, energy and resources. In so many ways that was the lesson we learned on September 11th. From the man who held the door open to the first responders of NYC who sacrificed everything to run into buildings as everyone else was running out, to ordinary people across the city who broke all the rules and gave away food and water and shelter and clothing to those in need, to the people all over the nation who choose to give graciously and sacrificially and who chose to come together despite all our political, social, religious and economic difference to pray and support one another, we made the choice in those days to offer God’s grace to others. This is a choice we still can and need to make today.
Think about the people God has brought into your life that need His radical grace and love? Who needs to experience the healing and power of Jesus? Who needs your friendship or forgiveness? Who needs your encouragement or help? God was constantly bringing people to Jesus and Jesus saw each and every person as an opportunity to offer outrageous grace. Whether it was gentile women or children or lepers or prostitutes or fisherman or religious leaders, every person who entered into Jesus life was an opportunity for Jesus to extend God’s outrageous and life giving grace and Jesus broke all the rules to do it. I believe God still works this way. God is bringing people into our lives and into the life of the church for us to love, the challenge is for us to see that opportunity and offer God’s grace in any and every way possible, but here’s the thing, it won’t just happen. We have to be intentional; we have to make it the focus of our lives. We have to make the choice to live a life of radical love.
So the lesson we learned on September 11th is that we can’t control how or when we will die but we can control how we will live. Things might seem impossible – but we can ask God for help and we need to ask Him today. And we need to speak words of truth and love to people and we need to say these things today. And we need to offer God’s outrageous grace and sacrificial love to those who need it and we need to offer it today. It’s our choice. How we live our lives is our choice, it is under our control, so let’s make it our choice to live this way, and to live this way today.
Next Steps – What we can control is how we live.
1. Take one specific step this week in asking God for help. This can include:
• prayer
• reading God’s word
• joining a small group
• asking a Christian friend for help
What makes this feel impossible for you? Write it down and offer this to God:
2. What do you need to say today to
God
Those you love
Those you have hurt
3. What act of outrageous grace and/or sacrificial giving can you offer to someone this week at home, at work, in the church, community or world?
