Brad and Debbie Ellgen

When you think about God, when you hear the word “God”, what images come to mind? Like this old man with a long white beard, and he’s behind a curtain, and he’s working these levers? He’s healing some and then He’s finding parking spaces for others? See, for many people, their concept of God is built around a God who is outside of everything, a God who is essentially somewhere else, a God who made the world but then stands back and, like, watches it from this other vantage point, a God who’s there, and then from time to time, comes here. The problem with this concept of God is, you end up having to even prove that this God even exists. And so what happens is, we start with real life, we start with existence, this, what we all agree actually exists, and then people end up arguing and debating and discussing whether there’s a God somewhere else that has something to do with this. But the writers of the Bible seem far less interested in proving whether God exists and far more interested in talking about what God is like. Like in the book of Exodus, a man named Moses wants to know God’s name, and God responds, “I AM.” And then later, God reminds Moses that when Moses heard God’s voice, he saw no shape or form. I mean, God is beyond anything our minds can comprehend. What does it mean to have a personal relationship with this kind of God? I mean, that’s like, hard to get your mind around. Now I believe that God listens and God cares and God’s involved, but I find the whole relationship idea hard to comprehend. And then loving this kind of God, what does that look like? What does it mean, and how do you do it? When I think of God, I hear a song. It’s a song that moves me. It has a melody and it has a groove. It has a certain rhythm, and people have heard this song for thousands and thousands of years across continents and cultures and time periods. People have heard the song, and they’ve found it captivating, and they’ve wanted to hear more. Now, there have always been people who say there is no song and who deny the music, but the song keeps playing. And so Jesus came to show us how to live in tune with the song, like, that He is the way and the truth and the life. This isn’t a statement about one religion being better than all the other religions. I mean the last thing Jesus came to do is start a new religion. He came to show us reality at it’s most raw. He came to show us how things are. I mean, Jesus is like God in taking on flesh and blood, and so in His generosity, and in His compassion, that’s what God is like. In His telling of the truth, that’s what God is like. In His love and forgiveness and sacrifice, that’s what God is like. That’s who God is. That’s how the song – that’s how the song goes. The song is playing all around us, all the time. The song is playing everywhere, it’s written on our hearts and everybody is playing the song. You see the question – the question isn’t whether or not your playing a song, the question is are you in tune? Like it’s written in the book of Acts (17:25), it says that God gives us life and breath and everything else. God is generous. So when I’m, like, selfish and stingy and I refuse to give, I’m essentially out of tune with the song. Later in one of John’s letters, he says that God is love; unrestrained, unconditional love. So when you see somebody sacrifice themselves for another, for the well-being of somebody else, it’s like they’re playing in the right key. That’s why it is so inspiring and powerful, they are in tune with the song. Now, some people know all sorts of stuff about music. They know stuff about pitch and modes and keys and instruments, and so they can hear things that maybe other people don’t. They hear subtlety and nuance in the song that other people might miss. They appreciate things that others might miss, but it’s also possible to be so caught up in the technical aspects of the song that you miss the simple pure enjoyment of the song. There are people who talk as if they know everything about being a Christian, and yet they can seem way out of tune. And there are others who would say that they don’t know much at all about the Christian faith, and yet they can seem very in-tune with the song. I’ve met lots of people who struggle with what it means to have a relationship with God, but they haven’t lost faith in love and hope, truth and compassion and justice and generosity. I mean, maybe you have this sense like you have no sort of relationship with God because of all these things, these ideas you have about what that means, all these things that you’ve been told about what it is or what it isn’t. And an infinite, massive, kind of invisible God, that’s hard to get our minds around, but truth, love, grace, mercy, justice, compassion – the way that Jesus lived, I can see that. I can understand that. I can relate to that. I can play that song.