MRS. HAUER RETIREMENT
June 26/27, 2011
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: Hebrews 13:5

“GOD’S TIME AND GOD’S TIMING”
1. Never.
2. Forever.

Hebrews 13:5 (NIV) “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

In the city of Watertown where I grew up there is an odd shaped house sitting on a hill overlooking the Rock River. It’s known as the Octagon House because of its unique eight-sided construction. We never paid too much attention to it as kids because what was next to it was more important, the absolute best sledding hill in all of Watertown. It was rollercoaster fast with built in jumps and hills you could almost skim from the top of one to the other. It has ,of course, since my time, been deemed too dangerous for these days children and so no more sledding take place there. Now on the other side of the Octagon House in Watertown is another point of interest that is safe for children. It’s the building that housed America’s first kindergarten. It’s true, right there in little Watertown the very first kindergarten in America was started and I got to see it. Since that time I’ve also been privileged to see the best kindergarten. It’s the best because of the person in it. And as we gather today to observe the retirement of Mrs. Leona Hauer you know that I am of course talking about Jesus Christ.
Mrs. Hauer, for 36 of your 37 years in the teaching ministry of the Gospel you were privileged to serve in that kindergarten and you served faithfully. I don’t know if you always did this but my favorite time visiting your class was what you called God’s Time. Any of you who ever had a chance to see or be a part of that knows that God’s Time in Mrs. Hauer’s kindergarten was the most special time of the day and for me as an adult it was a wonderfully uplifting, encouraging spiritual experience. It was obvious the best was there. Jesus was there.
Jesus is here. Today our sermon time is yet one more God’s Time where we will look at God’s Timing based on your favorite Bible passage, Hebrews 13:5 (NIV) “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” We will see that God’s timing is at the same time never and forever.
In the last chapter of the book of Hebrews the writer reminded all readers of a promise of God. God’s promise to His people is “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Never! God says. Are you serious? Really? Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. Would you make a promise like that? Oh people try. At their Confirmations they promise they will never leave Jesus or forsake His teachings but when a higher paying job or a more fun activity or a seemingly special person comes along that never is revealed to be the qualified “kind of” that it really is as Jesus or part of His truth is forsaken for an easier earthly life. “Never will I leave you!” is the promise husbands and wives make to each other but with a Wisconsin divorce rate of 1 divorce for every 1.5 marriages these days you can tell that promises is also conditional as some sins break those marriages and some are sinfully broken. “Never will I deny you,” bold Peter said and we all know how that turned out. Never is an awfully strong word that usually needs some qualifications attached. How about God’s “Never?”
“Never!” God says to a people He knows will sin against Him. “Never!” God says though He knows we don’t have the strength to keep our responsive promises to Him. Think, brothers and sisters of all the reasons you have given God in your life to leave you and forsake you. How many times have you come to the Communion rail with a repentant heart, truly sorry for sin, grateful for your forgiveness, promising never to do that again only to have the promise broken within the week? How often have you begged your God for forgiveness and then barely gotten out of church before the gossip and tearing down of others began all over again. Think of how easily we leave the 15% tip when we go out to eat or leave 20% for drinks at a bar and then have the gall to think we’re honoring God with a measly 2% or 3% of our income in offerings. To such people the holy almighty and merciful God promises Never? God says, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you”—when we give Him reason after reason after reason?
Yes. Never. Because God’s promise is a one sided promise and an unconditional one. It is not based on our performance but on God’s great love for us and it is powered and sealed by the one we talked about earlier. Jesus Christ. Your favorite Bible passage, Leona, comes at the end of a Bible book that shows in myriad ways why Jesus is the best—the best holy being, better than angels. The best one to speak God’s Word to you, better than any of the prophets. The best one to rule, better than any earthly king, the best one to intercede for you and sacrifice for you, better than any high priest. It’s because of Jesus that our heavenly Father says and means never. All our unfaithfulness, all our weakness, all our selfishness was taken by Jesus on to Himself and painfully paid for when He gave His life on the cross. So God doesn’t see our sin, our weakness, our broken promises and our valuing of so many luxuries as more important than Him. He sees Jesus. He sees perfectly obedient children that He loves and He will never leave them nor forsake them.
You know that Leona. Your life has not always been easy. I’m sure you can think of more than a few times where you found yourself saying, “Oh brother, how am I going to get through this one?” Yet when you look back, you did. How? “Never!” God said. Never, will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” And He didn’t. And that’s a truth you got to pass on to other of God’s children. Love for Jesus has motivated you to faithfully serve Him in Gospel ministry teaching His lambs. You did not serve perfectly. Only Jesus did that. You did however serve faithfully. No one could go through your class and not learn that Jesus is the most important, the only Savior. No one could come out unless they slept the whole time and not know how much Jesus loved them. You simply passed on what you learned by experience that God never left you and never forsook you.
And He won’t either. You see there’s something really neat about the word never. Its logical flip side is forever. When God says He will never leave and never forsake that means He will stick with us forever. In God’s time and God’s timing never becomes forever.
Forever with God includes right now. Your service to God in the public ministry of the Gospel has now come to an end. Your service to God will continue. So what are you going to do? How many times have you heard that question? Do you still like blue convertibles like you did in high school? Will you try to get one? Is it still a goal to fly around the world? What are you going to do with all the time on your hands? Everyone here who is retired is kind of snickering right now because they know that when you retire you don’t get all this extra time. You just do all kinds of things without getting paid. The Lord will put all kinds of opportunities before you of good things you can do in serving family or other people. He will place before you opportunities to worship Him by enjoying the world He created for His people and we can still enjoy it in its sin ruined state. You will have to make choices but for every one God will be there. He will be there forever for He will never leave you nor forsake you.
And God’s forever continues to the real forever. Heaven! How many questions weren’t you asked about heaven from those little ones you served? Some God may have allowed you to answer because He told you in His word, some not. But the best thing about heaven is that we will be with Jesus. We will see Him face to face. We will be reunited with all our loved ones who died with faith in Christ. We will meet all kinds of Christian brothers and sisters we never knew about before. We will be with them forever.
Look forward to that. In His wisdom God knows that sometimes we need hard things in our lives to keep us close to Him. When those hard things, death of a loved one, serious illness, heart wrenching relationship problems happen we can feel like God has forsaken us. We can feel like God has left us and the great enemy the Devil will do his best to get us to believe that lie so that we forsake Jesus. We’ll reject that lie because God has made a promise. It’s so clear even kindergarten children and their teacher can remember. For God has said, “Never, will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Amen.