Did Anyone Invite God?

By Grant Gaines

In early April 2014, thousands of eager fans were packed into Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina to see what was sure to be an exciting concert by pop singer Miley Cyrus. As the countdown clock crossed the one-hour-till-show-time threshold, the arena was buzzing with more energy than a busy beehive.

However, as the clock reached the 30-minute mark, something unexpected happened. The people were at the venue, the t-shirts were already being sold, and the food courts were busy flipping burgers and selling ice-cold drinks. Everything that was needed to create the memory of the lifetime was present except for the most important piece – the artist.

Apparently Miley Cyrus had come down with the flu earlier that week but tried everything she could to fight off the sickness and perform for her excited fans. But as the show time drew nearer and nearer, she only got sicker and sicker leaving her manager with no other choice but to cancel the show 30- minutes before it was supposed to start.

The sad reality of this story is that it unfortunately so often describes today’s churches. Every Sunday across our country there are hundreds, possibly even thousands, of churches that are jam-packed with people and programs but don’t have the most important piece – God’s presence. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just go listen to some of the sermons by some of the most popular “prosperity Gospel” pastors out there and notice how little emphasis they put on God’s glory and how big of an emphasis they put on self-help and self-glorification.

Their churches are packed with people but empty of God’s power and presence. The people are present because the preacher is saying only the things that they want to hear. God, on the other hand, is not present because the preacher is not saying what they need to hear. It’s just as 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NIV) foretold, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

Comfort, religious traditions, and narcissism (selfishness) are all contributors to this problem, but perhaps the largest offender of this crime is a presumptuous attitude (or prideful attitude). People just assume that because they are in a building that is called a “church” and because they are singing worship songs that God must automatically be present and a part of what they are doing. Isaiah 32 tells a different story.

Isaiah 32 is in the dead center of the prophet Isaiah simultaneously ripping Israel for their sins while also foretelling their future restoration by the Lord. In this particular passage, Isaiah turns his attention towards this presumptuous attitude and seeks to address what he knows is a massive problem in the Lord’s eyes.

Evidently the Israelites were so sure that the crops would flourish and their nation would succeed that they pridefully forsook seeking the Lord’s favor through prayer and petition. They just assumed that because they were God’s chosen people and because He had provided in the past that He would continue to provide and protect them in the future.

But then Isaiah drops a bomb of truth on the Israelites when he tells them that, “In a little more than a year you who feel secure will tremble, the grape harvest will fail, the harvest of fruit will not come…the fortress will be abandon, the noisy city will be deserted; the citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever…” (Isaiah 32:10, 14, NIV). Over the span of three verses (Isaiah 32:9-11) within Isaiah’s dialogue, the prophet highlights the people’s attitudes of “comfort” and “security” as the reasons that famine and disaster are quickly approaching.

My purpose in bringing up this obscure passage of Scripture is to warn us that if we are not careful to humbly plead for the Lord to be a part of what we are doing as a people of God, that we too will be like the Israelites in Isaiah 32, the audience at the Miley Cyrus concert, and those prosperity Gospel churches who have all the people and programs in the world but are missing the most important “ingredient” – the Lord.

Psalms 127:1 (NIV) cautions us that, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.” We could have the best laid plans to make an impact on the world for the sake of the Gospel, but unless we seek the Lord in prayer and beg for Him to be a part of what we are doing, we will be laboring in vain.

The takeaway from this blog is extremely simple but also the most important thing you can do right now – put down whatever you were going to do next and spend two minutes in prayer entreating the God of the Heavens and the Earth to carry you, the be a part of what you are doing, and to bless the work of your hands. Because it is only when we do that, that we will see the true change in our own lives, in the lives of others, and in the culture around us that we so desperately desire to see.

Is God a part of what you’re doing today?