Don't Lose the WOW Factor!

[Sermon given by Lou Hodapp at the Missouri Veteran's Home Sunday service on 9-9-2012]

 

 

Hello, veterans. It’s good to be back to speak to you. Labor Day has come and gone – where did the summer go? The older you get, the faster life speeds by. I often feel like that dog with his head sticking out of the car window. That breeze of life is coming pretty fast – but I love to keep sniffing it. All I can say is WOW!

I’m going to talk a little this morning about the subject: don’t lose the wow factor. What do I mean by this? We all have things happen that WOW us. They wow us because we don’t completely understand what is happening. Or they wow us because of their beauty or because of the talent of the person performing them. God has given us emotions of wonderment. He wants us to be awestruck about some things.

But there is a problem. We often lose the wow factor as we learn the basics of the event. That magician’s trick of sawing the woman in half makes us say WOW. But when we learn how the trick is done, we lose the wow factor. I used to be big on doing card tricks. I loved to see the expression on people’s faces when I did the trick. Everyone would say, “How did you do that?” I tried to keep my secrets but sometimes I would show them how it was done. But this ruined the wow factor for them. WOW can easily give way to HO-HUM or even feelings of inadequacy!  

I recently spent a cool evening at our old family place in the country. As I checked out the night sky, I was amazed to be able to see the Milky Way, a rare treat for this city person. As conversation ebbed and flowed we managed to identify the Big Dipper and the North Star which were the sum total of my companion’s knowledge about astronomy.

   I am an amateur (very amateur) astronomer. I don’t even have a telescope – I just have a good set of binoculars. But over the years I have studied star charts and other astronomical literature and can find my way around the constellations pretty well.

   Viewing that sparkling velvet canopy at night, I always feel very small, humbled by the vastness, yet at the same time, somehow very safe.

   I once was invited to attend an astronomy party at a local college campus. Club enthusiasts had telescopes pointing skyward and trained on points of interest. We admired star clusters and the moons of Jupiter. Foreign-sounding names of stars and nebula rolled off their tongues. They knew their way around the heavens like I know my way around my home. As I stumbled back to my car in the dark, I was impressed with how much they knew and how much I didn’t. The contrast suddenly hit me. Id gone from awe and wonder to ignorance and inadequacy.

   What had happened to my childhood sense of wonder? Could it be that children experience wonder because they don’t yet understand how their world works? I call this the “wow factor”. Waves on the seashore provide a fascinating playground until someone explains the rotation of the earth and the gravitational pull of the moon. Now I can predict when the tides go in and out and exactly how many hours I have to build a sandcastle. Handy information, but the wonder and adventure (the “wow”) have been jeopardized. Suddenly it makes seashore walks and sand art projects more calculating.

   Ancient cultures worshipped the uncontrollable nature that existed around them – fire, wind, rain. We’re more sophisticated. We understand global weather patterns and can track severe weather, tornados and hurricanes. We don’t just admire birds in flight; we design and build jets that fly us coast to coast in a matter of hours. From the comfort of my couch I can tour the Earth and the heavens on an electronic screen. At the push of a button I can listen to a symphony orchestra or “read” a book while strolling along my park’s walking trail.

   Progress? Undoubtedly. I’m thankful that we can improve and save lives via science and chemistry. But as we focus on details and reduce everything to its basic elements, I fear we too easily strip life of some of its mystery and wonder – the “wow factor”. How often do I allow myself to revel in the power of rain pounding on my home roof, to be enchanted by wind sculpting dancing motions in my trees or mesmerized by the flames of a late night campfire?

   I never want to come to a point where I won’t see past scientific facts and figures and explanations to the astounding beauty that God has created all around me.

 And there is more to the “wow factor” than just the beauties of nature. There are spiritual wow factors in the justice and mercy of God that we never want to lose.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came as a man to take on man’s sentence of death for sin. God created us to need Him and Jesus’ receiving what we deserve made that possible. What love for humans that God has! Think about it. WOW! What a difference that makes to my destiny.

Another spiritual wow factor is God’s grace, that is, the unmerited favor that God gives us when we totally don’t deserve it. God made us totally incapable of earning our salvation from sin. Religions of the world all preach doing the right things to earn a place in the afterlife. But true Christianity is different. I can’t earn heaven after my death by any of the things I do in this life – but God gives it to me as a free gift. WOW!

One of the biggest wow factors of them all is that Jesus actually comes to live right within me when I accept Him as Savior and Lord. Right within me – united His Spirit to my spirit. WOW! I am no longer a sinner saved by grace. I am one of God’s saints now who sometimes sins. This is a great distinction. As I sin in my human frailty, the Father, like the good parent He is, corrects me back to the right path. It is a matter of discipline, not punishment.

There is quite a difference between punishment and correction.

Punishment is a penalty imposed on an offender for a crime or wrongdoing. It looks backward to the offense, is impersonal and automatic, and its goal is the administration of justice for what the offender deserves. Discipline or correction, on the other hand, is totally different. It looks forward to a beneficial result, is very personal and individually applied, and its goal is training that develops self-control, character and ability.

All of the punishment for our sins was fully received by our Savior, Jesus Christ, on the cross. Now that we are children in the family of God, He deals with us only on the basis of discipline. WOW!

Those who persist in sins of the flesh will be corrected or disciplined by a loving Father.

Another wow factor is that my MOTIVE as a born-again Christian has changed from trying to please myself, and if it happens to please God, so much the better. Now my motive is to please God, and if it happens to please myself, so much the better. As I said, I do slip up because of my human factors, and I do sin. But WOW! God doesn’t reject me as His child but He corrects me like all good parents should.

 I have had a number of times in my own life where I have allowed these spiritual wow factors to temporarily slip away as I became wowed by things which I shouldn’t have. We all like to be wowed. And it’s good as long as we are wowed by the RIGHT things. Since I accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord very early in my life, I have always been corrected back to seeing the importance of living the Christian life. I was corrected, not punished.

Some people are more emotional and are wowed easier than others. But, as Christians, we must continue to be wowed by the things of our faith.

The Bible speaks of not becoming a lukewarm Christian. I believe that this comes mainly by losing the wow outlook of our faith. God is awesome. What do you say when you realize something awesome? WOW!

   OK folks. You’ve heard my spiritual wow factors. Are you wowed too? Do you have these Christian wows? If you don’t, you should have. It is easy to have permanent wow factors. Being born again as a Christian child of God is easy when your heart is right. Just a prayer to God like this:

God – I don’t understand everything about this business of being a Christian. But I want to – or at least I WANT to want to be your child. In my feeble way I sincerely accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of my life. Make me grow into trusting Him to lead me, strengthen me, correct me when I do fall, so that I can make these wow factors that Lou has described – my own. Amen.

Now let me pray for those who prayed that prayer. Father, thank you for persuading new children into your Family every day. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Lead us all into your lifestyle so that we can grow and mature every day. I pray this in the name and power of Jesus Christ, amen.

We are coming into Fall now and some of the greatest sunsets I have seen have been Fall sunsets that are begging to be admired. I’m not going to think about the rotation of the earth, water droplets in the clouds and air-borne dust particles refracting light.

   I’m just going to enjoy the spectacle and allow God to WOW ME!