To me it is interesting because Jesus shows two specific characteristics that you would expect of God:

1. He provided the best
2. He provided abundantly

There was no compromise on either quality or quantity. As His followers, He not only calls on us to be uncompromising in our generosity of spirit; He empowers us to do so.

There is one verse that people often seem to misquote. In verse 10 the chief steward says, “You have saved the best until…” Far too many people seem to think it should say ‘last’ – but it doesn’t. The Good Book says, “You have saved the best until now!” God doesn’t wait until the end to act. He is active now. God provides the best for us now – at the start of a wedding, at the birth of a child, while you’re driving to work. Wherever you are, God has provided the best for you now to be able to achieve everything He has called you to do.

We see only a small snapshot of this man’s life of faith. He has a vision – he doesn’t run off and tell everyone about how great he is because the Lord chooses to speak to him. Even more to the point, he argues with the vision. Would you say, “Sorry, Lord – I don’t think you quite understand the situation here…”?

More importantly, he does what he is told – but it is his character that speaks even more clearly through his actions. He doesn’t do the task grudgingly – he calls Saul “brother”. He doesn’t just pray for Saul to receive his sight back, he sees a deeper need and prays for him to receive the Holy Spirit.

It is not too much for us, even in these modern, sophisticated times; to expect God to direct us with the same clarity to achieve His purposes by obediently touching other people’s lives in the way he directs.

This isn’t something confined to the pages of the New Testament (Ephesians ch.1 v.10 and Philippians ch.2 v.10 immediately spring to mind). Habakkuk, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah and Zephaniah all allude to it – it’s in the Psalms too. But the first reference is in Numbers ch.14 v.21.

This is the pivotal point – where the vision God had given Abraham of a family that impacts the whole world; a vision which then develops into a nation of priests; now becomes something more.

God’s plan isn’t just for a single individual, family or nation to be blessed – but for the whole world to be transformed by every nation, family and individual becoming a blessing.

The plan has never changed – but our perception of its impact has.

The question for us now is are we prepared to become that blessing which the rest of the world so desperately needs?

I will focus on another pivotal point in humanity’s encounters with the Divine – but I am going to focus on a New Testament interpretation of an Old Testament event. Romans ch.4 v.3 tells us that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. The passage refers to Genesis ch.15 where God makes a solemn, legal, binding commitment to Abraham. There is no outward evidence that God is capable of fulfilling His promise. Abraham recognises the reality of his situation.

However, Abraham recognises that if you believe that God is able to call a whole universe out of nothing, and bring life into a dead world; then keeping His promise to Abraham is childishly simple. He therefore accepts God’s promise at face value and finds himself entering a quality of relationship with his Creator based, not on anything great that he could do, but based on the greatness and power of the One who is able to call that which is not as if it already exists, the One who can restore the dead to life and bring about His will in a universe crying out for his order to be made known Rom ch.4 v.17.

We find ourselves in the same position. We see ourselves as poor, wretched, limited by our own vain self-interest – that is our reality. But God sees something more – yes, our state is real; but the reality He calls us to is shaped by His word to glorify Him. The question to us is therefore, do we, in spite of our current state, accept God’s perspective on our own reality and act on His promise to us?

But that’s not all. The promise comes in answer to a specific question. It was a tricky, politically charged question. Jesus’ answer was equally to the point – it’s none of your business! You have my mission to complete and here are the tools you will need to achieve all you’ve been called to do.

We’re all called to be Jesus’ witnesses. It’s an interesting Greek word used here – we get the word martyr from it. And that’s the point. A witness has a single responsibility, to give the facts, regardless of the personal cost to themselves. It’s not a witnesses job to tell the audience what they think they want to hear, or to put a specific spin on some information to suit their own agenda. Their responsibility is to the truth.

Truth can be entertaining. It can also be baffling or provoke fear and rage in its hearers. This is why we need the Holy Spirit so badly if we are to communicate the truth effectively. He can and will give us a holy boldness to speak uncomfortable truths. He can help us find the words to explain our faith appropriately to an audience He has already prepared.

It’s a guarantee that we can confidently take God up on, for He has made this promise precisely because He is supremely confident that we are able to do this in partnership with Him.

However, in tension with this we have God’s guarantee that He will act consistently in relation to how He has chosen to reveal Himself. We therefore need wisdom to understand Him and deepen our relationship with Him.

A classic example of this is the image of the suffering servant in Isaiah ch.42 v.1-9. This is a sharp contrast to our view of the Lord of the Universe on whom we have no claim for mercy beyond His grace – yet it does not contradict this revelation. It gives added nuances and depth and explains much of how we are expected to act. We are shown this picture of a suffering servant, because to lead, we too must serve. We see incomparable power exercising justice – but tempered by a tender mercy, because we too are expected to do what is right and forgive as we are forgiven. If it is not too hard for our Creator, then as the people He has chosen to demonstrate His power and love, it should not be too hard for us.

This is the challenge we face, but – also with it comes the promise that not only will He fulfil it, but that the future is assured – we can touch it through faith and live in its benefit now. The choice is entirely up to us.

God’s purpose in blessing us is to achieve His will, not ours.

He doesn’t heal us or make us wealthy in order to make us feel good about ourselves. He doesn’t even do it to make us feel good about Him – neither should the converse be true. If bad things happen to us, do we re-assess our theology and declare that a god who we previously thought was good, must – according to our twisted logic, actually be bad?

Theology is fundamentally a relationship. Good theology stems from a good relationship with God.

It does not define Him completely, or put Him in a box – He is too complex, too astounding, too powerful to fully comprehend or predict.

But the principles He reveals to us provide complete confidence in His consistency – we can have a certain faith that He will make His love known to us. How He does so, we can guess (sometimes wrongly), or listen to see if He will reveal more of His will to us.

It is no coincdence that this verse focuses on God’s love. Not His power, or wisdom or knowledge. For without love, these attributes would be pointless at best, a fearful tyrrany at worst.

It starts off with ”For God” – this makes sense. God is the source of all creation, so he should be at the forefront – the prime mover in our salvation. It is after all, His idea, His plan.

Our transformation from sinful failure to righteous co-heirs with Christ is not a happy accident, not a consolation prize for being part of Plan-B after God’s original idea falls apart in Eden, not even something we can boast of as an achievement of our own.

God is sovereign, and we would do well to remember it. He is not here as our servant, to provide all our wants and make our life conveniently easy. Quite the reverse. we are here to serve Him – whether we like it or not, whether we realise the significance of what we do. He works through us, through our circumstances and through those around us to achieve what He wants.

We can choose to enter willingly into partnership with Him – but He even supplies the faith and power for us to do that. He owes us nothing and has the right to demand everything from us. Yet, He shows infinte patience and tolerance as we grow in the shadow of His grace.

To top it all – far from promising us a life of ease. He warns us in advance that His intervention in our lives complicates things. By setting us apart as participants in the solution to the world’s problems, he propels us into division, opposition, persecution. We are in conflict with the flow of a world that neither knows nor cares for the purpose of its creator. Yet we can stand with a calm assurance that He will not forsake us, for He has not forsaken His creation – that is why this passage starts with Him – not our problems, not our potential, not even our purpose.

I don’t think I’ve worded that as well as I could. Which is supremely ironic. Not merely because I’m supposed to be good with words – being an expert at clear communication of complex ideas is my profession. But also because I was considering Acts ch.4 v.20 – where Peter and John explain that they cannot help spreading the good news about Jesus, and I saw an image of a river.

This illustrated perfectly what I wanted to explain about what it means to have faith in Jesus and experience His life-changing power. It is as if we are in a river, with clean water flowing over us. This is an immutable law – we cannot change it or prevent it. We can only live in the benefit of it. We can try to muddy up the water pour in waste through lying, cheating – add whatever sin comes to mind. It makes a mess – that’s the natural course it takes – but the moment we stop – the river flows through and cleans us up.

What we need to do is just stop trying to dirty the river up – just say no. And focus on experiencing the cleaning power of the water continually flowing. It’s our choice. We cannot help but be made clean.