Living Limited Before an Unlimited God

April 3, 2020

14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. (Psalm 103:14-16)

From the first day of Kindergarten, math was my absolute favorite academic subject.  It not only fascinated me, but it always seemed to make perfect sense.  When the teacher taught us that you can’t subtract a greater number from a smaller number, I believed her.  After all, if I have three chickens, and my neighbor needs four chickens for a dinner party, I can’t fulfill that order.  All I can do is sell him my three chickens.  Sound reasoning. That was, until my older cousin informed me that it was all a lie.  He told me that you CAN subtract a greater number from a smaller number—since there is something called “negative numbers.”  Negative numbers?  I almost totally gave up on math the day of that revelation.  Thankfully, when I advanced just a few more grade levels, I learned the logic behind this strange concept.  Math became enjoyable again--even when it didn’t seem to make as much sense as it did in my limited Kindergarten experience.

If you have either forgotten negative numbers or simply choose not to acknowledge their existence, you know the related concept of infinity.  Symbolized by that cool figure eight lying squished on its side, infinity has no limits--it has no end.  So, in geometry, we learned that a line has infinite length—it goes in both directions, without end.  Then, when fractions were taught, we learned that one-third is a finite number; but written as a decimal, we get 0.33333…with threes that repeat infinitely.  Finally, there’s the mind-blowing concept that infinity is not a real number and cannot be measured—it is a limitless idea.  Yet, as complicated as infinity may feel, it’s actually quite simple.  Why? Because when something has an end, we have to define what that end, or limit is.  But, on the other hand, when there are no limits, there are literally NO LIMITS!

Mathematics is incredible because it reflects the order and magnitude of our Creator.  The God of the universe is infinite—like the straight line, He has no beginning and no end.  As Genesis 1:1 puts it succinctly: “In the beginning, God….”  When our world began, God already existed.  That theological fact alone gives Him the full power and ability to bring everything else into being by the Word of His own power, out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3).  Since God is infinite, He alone created all that is finite.  Foundational to our understanding of ourselves as human beings is the recognition that God has always existed and will always exist.  There will never be a time where God is not.

When we consider the characteristic of infinity, we must return to the term “unlimited.”  When something finite is described as unlimited, it only appears to have no end.  The puppy that seems to have unlimited energy.  The ocean that appears unlimited from your position on the beach.  This novel coronavirus that seems unlimited in its impact on humanity.  But of course, even the most gregarious of puppies, the largest ocean on earth, and the most virulent of diseases have ends, or limits.  The triune God does not!  Everything about God is unlimited—His love for His people, His knowledge and wisdom, and His presence in the universe.  Best of all, His holiness is unlimited, which means He cannot sin or do anything against His holy nature.  In a sense, God only has self-imposed limits against sin and evil because He is without limits.  An unlimited God is confined by nothing external, and no one else in existence.

So, when we arrive at the truth that God alone is unlimited, it brings our own limits into sharp focus.  As the Psalmist writes, “for he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.”  Our days are like grass—we flourish for a little while, then we are gone.  In these days of a raging pandemic, always remember your limitations.  Even with all the social distancing in the world and personal cleanliness habits, you are not unlimited in your power to stave off sickness.  All humans, all scientists, all medical professionals, and all world governments are limited in knowledge, wisdom, and skill.  Thankfully, even a seemingly all-powerful virus has its limits.  But, praise be to God, our Father is the unlimited One of the universe!  Only when we rest in that truth can we “live limited” before an unlimited God!   

Longing for Diversity? Reach Your Disability Community

If you looked out from the pulpit in our church sanctuary on any given Sunday morning, what would you see?  Hopefully, faces of people who love Jesus and are joyful worshipers of the God!  Yet, if you focused primarily on skin color, you would see about 96% Caucasian, and the rest a smattering of Africans-Americans, Hispanics, and Indians.  To put it bluntly, our church is, and has been for a long time, a very white congregation.

Now, if you are like many of us in our congregation, this is not a desirable situation.  Why not? For one thing, it doesn’t reflect heaven.  We know heaven will be filled with worshipers from every nation, tribe, tongue, and ethnicity.  But just as important, it doesn’t reflect our neighborhood either.  Go out our sanctuary doors into our metro area and you will find an entirely different mixture of color and ethnicity.  So, with those two reasons in mind, our elders formed a Neighborhood Diversity Committee (NDC) a couple of years ago.  It reflects the leadership’s deep longing to see our local church be transformed into a multiethnic congregation, by God’s grace.

But here’s something very interesting.  For nearly twelve years we our church has had a growing and thriving disability ministry to our member families as well as the surrounding community.  If you would drop by and peek through the windows of our multipurpose building on a Friday night Sonbeams Night Out (our respite care event), what would you see?  Hopefully, faces of people who love Jesus and are being joyfully ministered to by people who love them and love Jesus.  But if you looked at the 75-80 faces of those with disabilities, you would see about 50% white, 40% African-American, and 10% other ethnicities.  I don’t know about heaven, but this is much closer to the breakdown of our surrounding neighborhoods!

So, why is there a much more robust ethnic diversity in our disability ministry than in our actual church membership?  It’s certainly easy to understand the first part of that question.  Disability does not impact just one ethnicity or one color of the human race.  It also doesn’t just strike a certain socio-economic segment of our society and leave the others untouched.  Because it moves across each and every boundary and barricade that separates us, it often becomes quite a strong unifying force.  In pretty much any city, town, neighborhood in which you live, people touched by disability already have a community of their own.  And the reality is that this “neighborhood” is most often a very unchurched group of people.  This community not only needs the gospel of Jesus Christ, but local churches that will welcome them into the family of God.

How, then, do we answer the second part of the question?  If the disability community is already a multiethnic group (and that’s what we long for our church to be), why aren’t they also becoming worshipers in our church?  Certainly, a few families check out the church after a respite care event, because they feel loved and welcomed.  But why don’t more desire to join with us, and the few that come actually stick around?  That’s the question that needs to be addressed in an honest and thoughtful way.  Are we still putting up barriers that keep us from the diversity we desire?  Are we not as welcoming and warm as we think we are?  Do we send the message that we want to stay a fairly homogeneous group of Christians?

Every local church that longs to be more diverse needs to ask and answer these sorts of questions.  But don’t lose the main point here:  A fundamental way to work towards the Biblical, yet challenging goal of a multiethnic church is to reach our disability community.  This group is already ethnically diverse.  This group is already connected by their brokenness.  This group needs the gospel of Jesus Christ as well as concentrated and regular mercy ministry.  This group will gladly come around when we become churches that reach out and serve the most marginalized of all.

But there is even a better reason for reaching out to the disability community in our neighborhoods, if we long for diversity in our local churches.  Disability itself brings diversity to our churches, even if the faces are all the same color!  The diversity inherent in disability may not be cultural or ethnic or language-based; yet, it creates the same distance in our society.  In other words, the coming together of the sick, the lame, the blind, and the deaf, with those who are physically healthy, is a beautiful example of differences that must be overcome in order to worship Jesus together.  And, it is also a picture of heaven, where our spiritual brokenness will be ultimately healed as we enjoy our glorified bodies in heaves. 

We should be all for any effort to reach our neighbors for Jesus who live in the houses near us and near our church. Yet, as we seek to become churches on earth that are truly diverse, we should also prioritize and emphasize our pursuit of people and neighborhoods touched by disability!