Things That Are Impossible for God: Intro

Change. Redo. Lists. Persevere. Procrastinate. Purpose.

These are words we hear all the time, but they seem to be particularly…potent when a new year rolls around.

With the New Year comes new resolutions, new attitudes, new promises. But it doesn’t take long for those to fade into oblivion, lost among deadlines, busy schedules and life in general?

Sometimes we can get so caught up in keeping resolutions or accomplishing goals that we lose sight of the original purpose of the resolution that is making us so crazy.

As we start off 2012 and this new series, Things That Are Impossible for God, there is one thing that we must keep in mind that stays the same among the ever-changing, ever-increasing, ever-improving world we are immersed in and that is the steadfast promise of the Lord.

You may remember in Lewis Carroll’s classic Through the Looking Glass when Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things. “’I dare say you haven’t had much practice,’ the Queen replied. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’”

Now, this is obviously an obscure example, but it seems that it is a lot easier for people to believe in the impossible, such as aliens visiting Earth, than to believe in the possible – better yet, the certainty – that comes from God.

One idea that challenges people’s views on God is that of the problem of evil. C. S. Lewis, during one of many interviews, challenges his interviewer to think outside of the box, stating “If God were good, He would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.”

The first conclusion Lewis comes to in this statement is that God lacks goodness. We could support this theory just by looking around at all of the evil in the world. Children being kidnapped and having their innocence stolen from them, entire families being massacred, the widowed and the orphaned left uncared for, parents abandoning responsibilities, spouses falling out of love, corporations increasing the annual salaries of high-end executives while faithful employees search for work after losing everything they spent their lives to build.

Where is a good God when illness strikes? When divorce rips a family apart? When senseless deaths shatter the heart of a person who thought their faith could stand the test of time.

Where is that good God?

Let’s get real. The question we ask ourselves isn’t “where is God?” during these times. We know where He is, whether we are Christians or not, we know where God is. He is where He’s always been and always will be. He is in the same place when we’re celebrating that He is when we’re mourning.

No, the question isn’t “where is that good God?” The real question we want to ask is “If God is so good, why are these things happening?”

And there’s only one place to find that answer. The Bible. The Bible has all of the answers to all of our questions, we just have to pay attention to what it tells us.

Genesis 3:16-19 records the very words God spoke to Adam and Eve after they disobeyed Him in the Garden of Eden.

At first glance, these seem like very harsh words from a spiteful God. But take another look. This is nothing more than a completely fair and just punishment from a loving Father who provided everything for His children and disciplined them as a consequence for their actions.

But, here’s where our selfishness comes into play. We read this and we get angry. Why do we have to suffer because of their mistake? If we were in the Garden of Eden with everything at our disposal there’s no way we would have messed things up, right?

Wrong. Regardless of whether we choose to accept it as truth or not, we are disobedient every single day. There is nothing that distinguishes us from Adam and Eve other than the fact that they were born sinless and as a result of their actions we were born into sin.

One of the marks of the goodness of a loving Father is that regardless of our disobedience, He chooses to forgive us and to bless us anyway. Our blessings may not look the same as they would if we had followed His path, but He does not leave us.

But the greatest testament of God’s goodness is the fact that one action caused all of humanity to be separated from God, and one action, the one that sent Christ to the cross, bridged that painful gap forever.

The second part of C. S. Lewis’s proposal was that God lacks power.

That is the equivalent of saying a chair lacks a place for us to sit. It’s a chair. It was created, specifically designed for the purpose of sitting. If it were to lack a place to sit, it would not be a chair.

There’s an actual word to describe God and his powerfulness: omnipotence. It literally means “all-powerful.”

And there are tons of places in the Bible that express this. For further reading, check out these verses:
· Jeremiah 10:12
· 1 Corinthians 6:14
· Psalm 66:7
· Psalm 62:11
· Psalm 89:6
· Job 38:4-6
· Isaiah 40:29-31

Throughout the interview, Lewis expanded on his point of view by explaining that it is no limitation on God’s power that God cannot do contradictory things. And if you ask me, God lacking power or lacking goodness seem pretty contradictory to me. Rather than an “either/or” statement, we need to look at this as “both/and.” God is good, God is powerful, and there is still evil in the world.

Luke 1:37 tells us “For nothing is impossible with God,” and several chapters later in 18:27 we read that “Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with men is possible with God.’”

We know that God is all-powerful. We read here that those things that are not possible for man are more than possible for God. So is there anything that is impossible for God?

The answer is yes.

Anything that goes against His nature is impossible for God. He can’t be inconsistent, He cannot be evil.

So, what are the specific things that are impossible for God? 

Join us at our next Large Group meeting to find out.