When You Lose Your Wonder

Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)

The Wonder of Lake Superior

I think it was either 2003 or 2004, Venessa and I got to attend the full pastor’s conference for the Covenant Church. And I think it was a place somewhere up north—I can’t remember the hotel for the conference. But my secretary said, “You will drive through Duluth.”

And so I was like, “Okay, sweet. I don’t know what that all means.”

She said, “It’s a beautiful place,” and mentioned something about Lake Superior.

It’s like, “Okay, that’d be cool.”

And so we came down the Proctor Hill. And you know that moment, right? When you come down, and you have the lake, and especially in the fall, and it’s just so beautiful, and the colors. And we’re like, “Whoa! What is this? This is amazing!” Right? You almost feel like you’re seeing the ocean. For us that haven’t seen the ocean then for a long time, that was really an amazing sight. And it was just like, “This is such a cool place. These people are so spoiled that they get to live here,” right? And it was like, “How do we get down there?” And so we tried to follow some signs and to kind of get to the lake, and I think we had a cup of coffee, we couldn’t believe the beauty of the place and the beauty of Lake Superior.

And so now that we’ve been living here for many, many years, right, a lot of times it’s easy to kind of just lose your wonder for the lake. And we have to be very intentional in the summer; it’s like, Venessa likes to just walk with the dogs, you know, in our neighborhood, and it’s like, “I don’t like to walk in our neighborhood. Let’s go to the lake.” Right? And most days you are amazed, but in the summer you get annoyed with all of the visitors, right, and the tourists. It’s like, “Go home!” Right? And it’s like, “It’s just a lake.” Right? And it’s easy to kind of just lose the wonder of the lake when you see that.

Losing Your Wonder of God

And I think that can be true sometimes in our spiritual journey as well, where we just lose our wonder as we reflect on who God is and what he’s doing in our lives, and I pray this morning will be a blessing to you as you maybe think through this new year. And maybe you’re even sitting here this morning and you think, “Oh man, I’ve kind of just lost my wonder. There’s nothing exciting about going to church anymore. There’s nothing exciting about praying and worshiping.” And I pray that this morning that the Holy Spirit will do a deep work in your life.

There’s a passage in Psalm—David—Psalm chapter 8, verse 3 and 4. It says:

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

You can almost imagine David sitting in the fields, right, with his sheep and just kind of looking up into the stars and the sky, and you see this amazing sight of God’s creation, and to be in awe. And so you look at the stars and the moon, and it’s not really to make it about us in that moment, but to think that, man, the Creator and his creativity. I mean, we we spend millions and billions to send people to the moon and to experience galaxies and all of the research, and I don’t know, maybe we’ve only experienced like, ten percent (if that) of whatever is all out there. And so for David to sit out there, and just that that “wow” factor, to look at creation, and it’s like, “God, this is so amazing that you have created all of that, and yet in the midst of all of that, you’ve created me and that you care about me.” That’s pretty sweet. That is amazing to be able to sit here today and to know that the Creator of the heavens and the earth cares about you.

And what can we offer him this morning? What’s gonna impress God this morning? There’s not a whole lot that you and I can do to impress God. I mean, at least two things that I think of this morning is, one, is our faith in him. Right? We can give him that. And the second piece of that is our praise. When we’re worshiping him this morning, we’re just giving him praise as we declare our love for him and what he’s done in our lives and who he is. But if we’re honest, I mean, if we have lost that “wow” factor about who God is, that will be very hard to worship him. Right? If you don’t have the revelation of who God is and how much he loves you and how much he cares for you—and again, just the greatest gift that he gave us by giving his son Jesus Christ to us—if that is all just like, “Eh, same old same old,” it will be very hard for you to worship. And then you will show up on a Sunday morning, and you will just kind of tick the box. “Oh, I’ve done that. I’m a good boy or good girl this morning because I’ve ticked the box. I went to church. Mom and Dad will be proud.” And it has nothing to do with that we show up on a Sunday morning because we want to show up. We want to be amongst God’s people and because we want to worship him. We want to hear from God’s Word, and we want to experience the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit as a community, and say, “Man, this is such a gift. This is so amazing that you and I get to be here this morning.” Right? And this should be one of the highlights of our week as we gather.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Now, I want to show you an interesting passage. It’s kind of a sad passage a little bit. Mark chapter 6. If you want to turn your Bible with me to Mark chapter 6, starting at verse 1. I’ll give you a second to find that. Again, Mark chapter 6.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

So just kind of think about that first sight. Jesus is teaching, people are amazed, like, “Whoa, this is wonderful teaching!”

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing?

Now verse 3.

Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

Verse six, and you can highlight this.

He was amazed…

It’s like, you would think like, okay, he’s amazed at their goodness. He’s amazed at, you know, all these positive things. No, look at it. It’s like,

He was amazed at their lack of faith.

May that never be true of Salem Covenant Church, right, that we will say anything like that. I want God to be amazed at our faith. Amen?

Come on, it’s happy new year, you guys got to be lively this morning.

Now the challenge with this passage, right—and so Jesus grew up in Nazareth. People knew him, and now he gets to preach in his hometown. And first they were amazed, and then they go, “Oh, this is boring. We know this kid. This is Jesus.” Right? “We know his parents. We know his siblings.”

And the danger in all of this is familiarity breeds contempt. Right? It is so easy for us to show up Sunday after Sunday and just kind of get used to the sacred work of God.

And I say “sacred” because it is sacred. There is nothing normal with what happens on a Sunday morning. This is amazing, where you and I get to experience the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives, where we get to hear the Word of God, and so many times on Sunday mornings we know that people’s lives are being changed and being transformed, and where the Holy Spirit is calling people into repentance, or where the Holy Spirit is maybe healing. But there’s nothing normal about a Sunday morning. The Holy Spirit is at work. There’s something beautiful and amazing when we see people gather, and they’ve got their hands up and worshipping the Savior. Or maybe people that did not know him as a savior, and suddenly it clicks, and the Holy spirit calls them in, and it just clicks for them, and it’s like, “This is real.” But there’s nothing normal about just Sunday morning. This is sacred, this is holy, and God is at work.

They said:

“Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”

Right? And it’s like, “We know this. What is special about this?”

Just finished this week this book, Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp, and kind of this quote really even sparked this sermon. And he says:

“Familiarity with the things of God can breed a kind of spiritual boredom. When you lose your wonder, you are left with the mundane and ordinary. Ministry then becomes a series of repetitive tasks rather than a glorious calling.”

And so even when we think about Sunday morning, and when we think about the sacred pieces that happens, and especially even when we think about this morning and to celebrate the Lord’s table and baptism and what the all means, and we’ll talk a little bit more about it—like, there’s nothing normal about our Sunday mornings and when it comes to the spiritual things and what God is doing in our lives.

And so we have to pay attention. We have to be intentional to say, “I will not allow myself to lose my wonder of who God is and what he’s doing in my life and what he’s doing in my community.”

R. R. Tolkien says:

“The most regrettable feature of human nature is how quickly we become unsatisfied with the good. We receive good gifts from God and then grow bored with blessing. Spiritual dullness. Blurry vision. Hardness of heart. This is the challenge for the church.”

And it is, right? And I was there, and I’ve experienced some of that, where you just kind of go because you have to go. But that’s not God’s desire. He wants this to impact our hearts. He wants this to be real.

Don’t Miss the Extraordinary

As we look at that passage, it says they focused on the ordinary instead of the extraordinary. Right? It’s like, this is Jesus. They’re hearing some amazing teachings. They’re talking about the miracles that he’s doing, and then they kind of immediately kind of go back, “Well, isn’t that the carpenter?” Right? And it’s like, whoa, you’re missing out on what’s happening actually right in front of you. This is the old-age challenge for believers, to miss out, to miss the work of Jesus Christ in our midst.

And so true a lot of times for us, when God is doing amazing work and big things in our lives, to actually miss that, to miss out on that and say, “Well let me complain. Did you see that? Did you see this?” Right? And we miss out on the blessing.

Offense Replaces Awe

Here’s a big one. When we look at verse 6, it says offense replaced awe. And it says.. oh sorry, verse 3b says, “… and then they took offense at him.” They went from being amazed at the teaching and the miracles, and then they took offense. Right? When we look at the Greek word here, it says, “to take offense, become indignant, or reject due to disbelief.” They couldn’t see past the fact that this is Jesus Christ the Messiah. All they could see was Jesus the carpenter, Jesus that grew up right in front of them.

And even for us this morning, right, how are we looking at Jesus? With what type of eyes are we looking? Is it the same old story, and is it just boring, or can it hit us differently this morning? To be able to realize, man, we’re talking about Jesus Christ, and it’s alive, and it’s powerful in our lives.

Effects of Losing Your Wonder

What happens when we lose our wonder?

Well, we will lose our gratitude. We will lose our gratitude. Romans chapter 1 says,

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Number two, we will fail to inspire others. When you are not inspired and when you have lost your wonder, how do you think we will inspire other people? We will not be able to do that. Matthew chapter 5 says:

… let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

The prayer team talked about that this morning, and we were talking about some of the hopelessness and different things that’s happening in our communities, and people should be looking at the church, but if we’re not hopeful, right, and if we’re not excited and if we don’t believe in the work that God has done in our lives, how will we be able to inspire anybody else? It won’t happen. So it’s got to start inside of the church.

The Wonder of Redemption

So this morning then is—what steps can we take? What do we need to do this morning to maybe work again on this wonder factor in our lives?

Well, maybe one of the first steps that we can do this morning is to experience again the wonder of redemption. The wonder of redemption.

Let me just check: within this new year—so just starting Wednesday to today—who was perfect all week so far, no sin? Just raise your hand. I see one hand, just Mark. That’s why he’s getting baptized today. Maybe you should just do the baptisms, right? We’re not worthy. Okay, so who was perfect? What, nobody? Bunch of sinners! We all messed up this week, right? And we will continue to mess up.

This church is not a place for perfect people, and it is so easy when we have lost our wonder to sit here and to think, “Oh, I have arrived,” and we’ve lost the perspective that I am in need of a Savior, and to know that there’s a God that loves me so much that he gave his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me. It is amazing! That should drive us to tears and joy and laughter and excitement as we think about all of these things. But again, when we have lost our wonder on what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us, man, then we become self-righteous. But maybe the first step this year, as we as a church try and restore our wonder of who God is, is to actually be intentional,  every time that we walk through these doors on a Sunday morning, and when you have opportunity at your house, to think about your shortcomings and how good God is, that he died on that cross for you. Amen?

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

It says:

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    his greatness no one can fathom.

Amen? It’s like, our wonder—there shouldn’t be one Sunday where we sit here and where we lose our wonder. I mean, it is just amazing that we look at all the things that’s going on in this world and all of the brokenness and how many opportunities there are in this world where we disappoint God and where we pick sin and where we pick evil, and yet God shows up. And yet God shows us mercy and grace, and he loves us.

The Wonder of New Life

Maybe this morning it’s to start by the wonder of new life. And what a great image as we get to participate and celebrate with those that are getting baptized this morning. Romans chapter 6:

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

There is nothing normal and nothing simple about baptism. When we think about the
Great Commissioning in Matthew 28, where Jesus tells his disciples, “Go out and make disciples and baptizing them,” that for centuries now that we get to be part of that same call, and that we get to be part of that this morning, and that the Holy Spirit is working in the lives of those this morning that are getting baptized.

The Wonder of the Cross

Maybe it’s this year, or this week, to just reflect again on the wonder of the cross as we come to the Lord’s Table. It says:

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

It is so easy, again, for it to just become normal in our lives. And this year, I believe, you know, it’s important for us to stay passionate, to have that sense of wonder every time that we come to the Lord’s Table. May we reflect on his passion. It was his passion for us, his love for us, that drove him to the cross. Amen?

Conclusion

I’ll end with this quote. It says:

“When we are lost in wonder, love, and praise, we find ourselves most truly alive in the presence of God, for he is the wellspring of all that is beautiful and good.”

May we be amazed, may we stand in wonder, as we show up on Sunday mornings, as you read your Bible, and as you pray. Don’t just check the box. Don’t lose your wonder. Be intentional. Press in. Don’t let the sacred become normal to you. Amen?