0422 GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY

GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY

Paul is at the temple in Jerusalem, giving his testimony to an angry Jewish mob, presenting his background as a Pharisee and a persecutor of those who followed Jesus the Nazarene. They listen intently as he describes his zeal to destroy followers of Jesus, thinking maybe he was a good guy after all. They silently listen to the amazing vision, the conversation, the call from Ananias, his baptism and more. And then Paul turns a corner and includes this detail: ““But the Lord said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles!’””

Suddenly the crowd is offended again and they clamor to tear him apart for claiming that God would send anyone to the Gentiles. The Jewish people were the called-out nation, after all, and they had been persecuted and overrun by Gentiles for generations. They were a people bound together by a common experience, sharing a common enemy of anyone who was not Jewish. If anything, God would send a sincere Jew to go oppose Gentiles, not to reach out to them. This is how they know Paul is an evil man, worthy of death at their hands.

It is a brief moment, but it gives me pause as I reflect on the unexpected ways of God. Why would the God of Israel send ANY Jew to go talk to Gentiles, much less send A PHARISEE, of all people? That just can’t be right!

William Cowper captured the phrase in a hymn that said “God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.” In the hymn, he makes the point that God’s will sometimes seems severe, but he is actually loving and is supportive of us through it all. “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning Providence he hides a smiling face.” It’s hard to fathom the mysteries of His ways, to be sure. We are far too trapped in time and space to understand the eternal.

In this case, I want to point out that it is not always easy to predict how God will guide a person’s ministry. The case in point today is that God called Paul to go to the Gentiles, while he used people like Peter and Matthew to reach the Jews. Did the Father not know that Paul was a Pharisee, fully educated in the Scriptures and in the nuances of Jewish faith and practice? Who would be better at knowing how to reach his fellow Jews? Hde certainly had the credentials. Wouldn’t the role of going to Gentiles be better suited to Peter or Matthew? Peter, the one who had denied Jesus before members of the high priest’s house. Peter, who had been harvesting grain in his hands as they passed a field on the Sabbath. Or Matthew, who had already compromised himself with his fellow Jews by being a tax collector, partnering with the pagan Romans and betraying his own people. Why not send those guys to the Gentiles, and leave the Pharisee to reach the Jews?

It sure seems like God would do it the other way around. But God knew from long before Paul shook the dust from his shoes as a sign against the Corinthians, saying, “Your blood is upon your own heads—I am innocent. From now on I will go preach to the Gentiles.” That was not just a spontaneous reaction from Paul, but the deliberate will and calling of God on his life.

Isaiah wrote this truth in chapter 55: For my ways are not your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We might think we know where God is headed in a certain area. But we are stuck in a singular time and place, and we don’t see what God sees. So we are wise to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” For everything is subject to the will of God, whether it makes sense or not.

And so we find the Pharisee reaching Gentiles, and a publican proving to be very effective in reaching his fellow Jews. Who knew, huh? And we find the likes of you and me going places we never dreamed, and doing things we never would have done, if not for the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

If you find yourself called to something that causes you to say, “Why me? Why there? Why that?” Know that you are in good company. God moves in a mysterious way, indeed. Amen.