Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon August 10, 2008
This past week, I saw Wall-E with my girls. It carries a strong green message on taking care of earth. But, what really moved my heart was the way the characters were transformed by the new ‘directive’ to go back home to earth. This new directive shattered the life as people knew out in the space, not as the best life they could have but utterly substandard, nothing more than just a survival.
Out in the space far from earth in time and space is the world of Axiom, a giant spaceship or more like a space station. In Axiom a super-intelligent automated luxurious cruise spaceship are people living with one directive, “Live to please yourself while having to work as little as possible.” In the world of Axiom fully equipped with technological advancements, no one needs to walk or even lift an arm to do anything. Everything is done for you. All you have to do is sit on your automated floating recliner, open your eyes, stare at the virtual screen in front of your face and simply chat with others around you who are doing exactly the same thing. You don’t even have to turn your head or sit up to talk to a person next to you or in front of you. You don’t even need to chew food since it is provided in slush cups with straw. And, when you see an ad for a new clothing line, at a push of button, just like that your wardrobe instantaneously changes into the new line. Anything you want is instantly given to you. Axiom is a technological nirvana with nanosecond instant gratification with complete order and control. No need to sweat or feel any pain, no need to work at anything, or work out. Just chill out and enjoy; everything is done for you. In this fully automated world of instant gratification, after seven hundred years of leaving earth no one has any faintest idea what life on earth was like or even wants to go back to it. They all look like inflated balloon figures, blobs that can’t even walk now.
In the world of Axiom is the directive that promises, “You can have it all when you want it without having to work.” But, when Eva the probe brings a tiny shoot of green plant from earth back to Axiom things cannot be the same anymore. Now, the new directive is it is time to work; it is time to go back to earth and work hard to restore it.
In the movie there is a scene that involves the captain of Axiom and the chief-machine of the command center called Auto. The captain is convinced that people of Axiom must return to earth. But, Auto the artificial intelligent machine refuses to accept the new directive to go back to earth. Auto fights to keep human in Axiom out in the space.
To this Auto, the captain passionately makes his case to return to earth, “Out there is our home, home Auto. And, it’s in trouble. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. That’s all I ever done. That’s what anyone in this blasted ship has ever done. Nothing!”
Auto replies, “In the Axiom, you will survive.”
The Captain, frustrated, screams, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”
At this point of the movie, I knew I was on to something good. “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” The captain describes the life in Axiom, a fully automated robotic environment designed to grant instant gratification with minimal effort and work as merely surviving and doing nothing. The captain is convinced that forsaking this lifestyle is gain if it means going back home to earth to help it restored again. A drastic change to say the least, don’t you think? To label the life of ease once thought as that which couldn’t get any better as mere survival while going back home to the work of restoration as really living, you can say that the captain is converted.
The story of Wall-E illustrates how the gospel is the new spiritual directive from our Lord Jesus Christ that confronts the life as we know as mere survival, substandard reality. What we think of as rest is not truly rest. The new spiritual directive, the gospel points us to not just the surviving but true rest. So, we must ask. Can it be that life as we know is really just surviving, just making it through and that there is more to life than what we have now, the true rest? The new directive from Jesus Christ tells us, yes, there is more to life than what we have. True rest in God alone! This is what the gospel wants us to have.
In the Wall-E fashion, if someone were to ask, “What is your directive?” how would you answer? My prayer is that you would be convinced and griped by the new directive to make changes. “Find rest in God alone” is your new directive.
Find your rest in God alone by preaching to yourself the truth about God and by pouring your heart to him. This is your new directive you must pay attention to.
- Find rest in God alone
David begins his Psalm 62 with the statement that his soul finds rest in God alone. What does it mean to find rest in God alone? In Hebrew, it literally reads, “My soul waits in silence for God” (ESV).
Here is a picture of David tuning out the drowning noises of the world, silencing his restless mind, and waiting for God. This is a picture of David putting his confidence in God, a picture of David realizing truly God is his confidence, salvation, rock, fortress, confidence that will never be shaken. If someone were to ask David, “What is your directive?” in Wall-E fashion, this would be his reply, finding rest in God alone, finding confidence in God alone.
Can you and I make that statement? Can your directive be finding rest in God alone, being confident in God alone?
What gives you the sense of confidence in your life? Is it education, is it money in your name, or is it other people around you? What are the things that give you the sense of confidence in your life? And, whatever you think you could feel confident about, is it really enough to make you feel securely confident? Do you feel confident with what money, education, people relationships you have now? Or, do you think if you have little more of that you would feel more confident? When will money, education, people relationship or anything else make you feel confident enough in life? I have strong suspicion that none of these will ever make me feel completely confident, feel completely rested and secured. I have strong suspicion if we are really honest these may give us growing confidence, but never to the point of alleviating insecurity of our souls.
What God wants to do is to convince us that he truly alone can be our confidence without failing instead of what we can achieve or what we can have, things or people.
In Exodus 3:13-15 God revealed his name as “I AM WHO I AM.” This is the statement of confidence. The great I AM wanted to the Israelites to get this. So, you read in Exodus 6:6-8, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.”
God works in our lives to convince us that he alone is our confidence in the insecure world of ourselves and in the insecure world we live in.
For David, the sense of insecurity came from the people. If you are familiar with his story, you know that he was tested by the people who sought to kill him, especially by Saul. In vv. 3-4, David sees himself as leaning wall, tottering fence that is being assaulted by people around him to topple him by means of lies and hypocrisy of curse disguised in blessing. Talk about disappointment. If there was ever time when he felt he could place his confidence in people, if there was ever time when he could feel secured about himself by people around him, this was not one of them. God tested him by stripping off relationships with people as his confidence. God did this so he can pause and learn that truly God alone is his confidence, his security, his rest.
- Find rest in God alone by preaching to yourself the truth about God
So, in verse 5-6 you see him repeating what he already said in verse 1-2. But, the difference is in verse 5, he is preaching to himself. When noises are loud, when the feelings of insecurity drown you, it is not enough to know in the back of your mind that God is your confidence. You need to say it aloud, to preach it passionately, and to declare it at loud and clear to drown out the noises of your own insecurities.
Here are some truths about God that can preach to your restless insecure souls.
God is strong.
All the words that describe God as fortress, rock, salvation, refuge speak to unmovable powerful reality of who God is. God is strong. His strength, his resolve means he can be trusted in the world of disappointments.
God is loving
God seeking to be your confidence, your rest, and your strong center speaks to himself as God who is love. Only one who loves seeks the well being of others. God who seeks to bless you with his protection and his help is God who loves you very much. And, to preach to your soul God who loves you, there is nothing better than to preach the cross. Paul said in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast expect in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Look at the fruit of Paul's life, many people heard the gospel for the first time through him, many churches were planted; God used him to speak the truth to us. He was fruitful because he knew was proud only in the cross. To boast in the cross is to declare that what really matters in life is remaining in God’s love expressed in sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.
God is the great rewarder.
Psalm 62:12, “Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.”
Galatians 6:8, “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
- Find rest in God alone by pouring your hearts to God
For David, finding rest in God alone was not a private matter. He wanted to his people to know God as their confidence. So, we see him calling people in verse 8 to “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” To pour your hearts to him is an expression for earnest prayers amid tears and discouragement.[1]
2 Timothy 4:7-8, “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will reward to me on that day- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Here is a picture of Paul fighting the good fight, running the race to win, nurturing his faith, aiming for the prize, all because he has this intense yearning to see Christ face to face. This is really the picture of Christian life. We got to begin earnestly pray out of desperation and in tears, we got to cry out, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”
[1] NIDOTTE, (H9161) Ëpv;
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