Find Waldo: What Do You See?

Posted by on December 20, 1998 under Sermons

Several years ago Martin Handford developed an incredibly simple idea that became a series of popular books entitled, “Where In The World Is Waldo?” On each page of each book is a scene. In that scene are hundreds of small figures. Among those figures is Waldo. The object is super simple. Find Waldo.

Parents discover that children can be quicker than adults. It is not unusual for preschool children to find Waldo faster than adults can. Children focus on what they are looking for and see it.

I confess from personal experience that it is much too easy to make the Bible a spiritual Waldo book. Before we begin to study, we are trained to look for specific things. Then, when we read and study, we see what we have been trained to look for.

One of the fundamental purposes of the Bible is to reveal the nature of God. Revelation of God’s nature is the only means that we have to discover God’s nature. Too often we assume God’s nature before we allow scripture to reveal God’s nature. When that happens, we see what we look for, and, too often, only what we look for.

  1. If I ask which of these best reveal God’s nature, what would you say? Wrath, punishment, or mercy?
    1. Which of those three is the primary characteristic in God’s nature?
      1. In your understanding, how would you rank the three?
      2. Is God more likely to be a God of wrath, a God of punishment, or a God of mercy?
    2. In your personal life, typically when you consider God, is the first thing you consider wrath, punishment, or mercy?
  2. Let’s look at the Bible to “see” what it reveals.
    1. Hundreds of years after the death of Abraham, God led Abraham’s descendants out of Egyptian slavery to Mount Sinai in the desert wilderness.
      1. For the four hundred years that they were in Egypt, these Israelites were better acquainted with Egyptian idolatry than with Abraham’s living God.
      2. They were freed by an act of the God of Abraham, and only by an act of God.
      3. At Sinai, God commanded them not to worship idols.
        Speaking of idols, Moses wrote in Exodus 20:5,6 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        1. You belong to Me and to Me only.
        2. I rescued you; idols did not rescue you.
        3. So you worship only Me; you never worship them.
        4. I bring the consequences of iniquity on those who hate me.
        5. I also am the God who shows lovingkindness (mercy) to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
      4. Years later, Moses made this statement to Israel:
        Deuteronomy 7:6-10 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        1. You belong exclusively to God because God chose you and you alone to be His people.
        2. God did not love you or choose you because you are the biggest nation; the truth is that you are a tiny nation.
        3. God rescued you because He promised Abraham that He would make you a nation.
        4. Your God is the faithful God, the God who keeps His promises, the God who shows mercy to those who love Him and keep His commandments.
        5. He is the God who repays those who hate Him to their face.
      5. When God called Moses up into the mountain to give him the ten commandments on tablets of stone, God said this of Himself:
        Exodus 34:6,7 Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        1. The Lord God is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in mercy and truth.
        2. He shows mercy and forgives all forms of evil.
        3. However, his mercy does not allow the guilty to go unpunished.
      6. When the Israelites stood on the border of Canaan the first time and refused to trust God enough to enter that land, God was extremely angry with them.
        1. He was so angry that He wished to destroy the entire nation.
        2. Moses begged God not to destroy them, not for Israel’s sake, but for the sake of God’s reputation among idolatrous nations.
        3. Listen to Moses’ plea in Numbers 14:15-18:
          Now if You slay this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say, “Because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.” But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared, “The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.“ (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        4. If You destroy Israel, idolatrous nations will say it happened because You were not able to keep Your promise.
        5. It is not Your nature to destroy Israel.
        6. You are slow to anger, full of mercy, and forgiving of every type of evil.
        7. It is true that You do not clear the guilty; but it is also true that You are the God who is full of mercy.
      7. When Solomon dedicated the temple that he built for God, he said:
        1 Kings 8:23, “O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing lovingkindness to Your servants who walk before You with all their heart,” (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        1. There is no God like You.
        2. You keep Your promises and show mercy to Your servants who serve You with all their heart.
      8. When Nehemiah heard about the horrible conditions in Jerusalem, he began his prayer to God with these words:
        Nehemiah 1:5, “I beseech You, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments,” (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        1. I beg the God of heaven.
        2. You are the great, awesome God Who preserves His promises and His mercy for those who love Him and keep His commands.
      9. When Daniel, in captivity, prayed for the exiled Israelites, he began his prayer with this statement:
        Daniel 9:4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments,” (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
        1. Great, awesome God, please hear me.
        2. I approach You because I know that You are the God who keeps His promises and shows mercy to those who love Him and keep His commandments.
  3. Throughout the Old Testament, even in the worst of circumstances, God is understood to be the God who keeps His promises and shows mercy.
    1. Those two characteristics distinguished God from all other gods worshipped in all other nations.
      1. Even when God was His angriest, mercy was a part of God’s response.
      2. There was never a circumstance when a Moses, or a Nehemiah, or a Daniel could not approach God through God’s mercy.
    2. When you look for Waldo, you must recognize Waldo when you see him; when you look for God, you must recognize God when you see Him.
      1. For many years I saw only what I was trained to see when I looked for God.
        1. I saw anger.
        2. I saw wrath.
        3. I saw vengeance.
        4. I saw the fear of terror.
        5. I saw demand and obligation.
        6. I saw a burdensome, crushing form of obedience.
        7. I did not see mercy clearly; I thought mercy should be minimized.
      2. In mercy, God allowed the time to come when I let the Bible show me God.
        1. And I saw the mercy and love that sent Jesus.
        2. And I saw mercy that produces the obedience of joy.
        3. And I saw the mercy that comes from God’s compassion.
        4. And I saw the mercy that grants forgiveness and salvation.
        5. And I saw that mercy had existed from the time of the first sin.
      3. Now when I look at:
        1. Adam and Eve’s failure in the garden of Eden, I see God’s mercy.
        2. Cain the murderer, I see God’s mercy.
        3. The flood, I see God’s mercy.
        4. The messed up family of Abraham, I see God’s mercy.
        5. The nation of Israel, I see God’s mercy.
        6. Jesus’ birth, ministry, and death, I see God’s mercy.
        7. The church in the New Testament, I see God’s mercy.
        8. Me, I see God’s mercy.
      4. Someone says, “Oh, David, you are just getting old and soft.”
        1. No.
        2. I am learning to allow the Bible to reveal God to me.

[Song of reflection: The Steadfast Love of the Lord]

God’s mercy is not designed or intended to remove our responsibility. Mercy never gives us the license to be irresponsible. But God’s mercy is the substance of our hope, the assurance of our salvation.