Recipe For Joy

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

The other day one of the ladies of the church stopped by my office and gave me this beautiful cookbook. It was put together by an organization she belongs to, and it contains about 500 recipes. Some of these recipes are very elaborate, like this one for lasagna. It has 19 ingredients and half a page of instructions. Some are very simple, like this one for holiday punch, which contains three ingredients and has the instructions, "mix together."
Each of us has our favorite recipes, the men as well as the women. We love the dishes themselves, and we also love cooking them. We memorize some of our favorites and make them whenever possible. Others we make only on special occasions.
The names that we give recipes sometimes don’t seem to tell a lot about them. Some bear the name of the person who originally thought them up, like Janet’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, or Aunt Molly’s Corn Meal Griddle Cakes. Other names are pretty cut and dried, like White cake, or Biscuits. Some of the names don’t give even a clue about what they really are, like Elephant Ears or Copper Pennies.
Recipes don’t always have to be for something we eat. We’ve all heard of a recipe for success, or a recipe for disaster. And we’ve all used recipes to make stuff that’s not meant to be eaten. I’ve seen recipes for stained glass and Christmas tree ornaments.
Not all of our attempts to use a recipe come out right. I’ve followed recipes to the letter, only to be stuck with a pot full of something inedible. Most of us have made fudge that had to be eaten with a spoon, if it could be eaten at all. There are many factors that determine whether or not our recipe comes out right - quality of ingredients, weather, altitude, what kind of stove we’re cooking on. Sometimes it seems as if nothing will come out right, no matter what we do.
When we’re looking for new recipes, I think most of us are drawn to ones with names that offer some sort of guarantee. How many of us have picked out recipes like No-Fail Fudge, Guaranteed No-Stick Pancakes, Never-Fall Cake, or Always Light and Fluffy Biscuits? These are the recipes that grab our attention. We want to make something that’s easy and that always comes out right.
We don’t think of our Bible as being a cookbook. There aren’t any recipes in it for bread or meat dishes or appetizers. You won’t find instructions on how to bake a casserole or stretch a few fish to feed five thousand. There are recipes in it though, for things we need as much as or more than we need food. There’s a recipe in today’s scripture, and that’s what I want to talk about.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of Israel’s history from the first return to Jerusalem in 538 B.C. to the end of Nehemiah’s second term as governor of Judah in 400 B.C. Apparently the material was first split up into two books by Jerome, who produced the Latin translation known as the Vulgate, which is the authoritative translation of the Roman Catholic Church. Before Jerome’s time, the account was treated as one book in the earliest Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.
During the early centuries of the Christian era, the standard text, or the Masoretic text, was meticulously preserved by Jewish scholars known as Masoretes, who counted all the words in order to be sure that no one would ever add or take away a single one. When the rabbis did their counting, Ezra and Nehemiah were a single scroll, which explains why the story of Ezra is found partly in our book of Ezra and partly in the book of Nehemiah.
The book of Ezra focuses on the rebuilding of the Temple after the people started returning from exile. The book of Nehemiah provides an account of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. According to today’s text, Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries, although Ezra was probably much older. Nehemiah, as governor, was the political leader and Ezra, as priest and scribe, was the religious leader.
In those days, a scribe was a combination of lawyer, notary public, scholar, and consultant. They were among the most educated people, so they were teachers.
A great crowd of people had gathered on the square, in front of the Water Gate, which is thought to be a gate that led out to the spring of Gihon. The crowd consisted of men, women, and children, and they had Ezra bring out the Book of the Law of Moses. This would have been the Pentateuch, or Torah, the first five books of our Old Testament, which contain the law that God had given the people.
The Torah was considered holy, so just opening it would have caused the people to get quiet and pay attention. It says at verse 5 that when Ezra opened the book, all the people stood up. Then when Ezra praised God, the people raised their hands and responded by saying Amen, Amen. Then they bowed their faces to the ground and worshiped God.
Ezra read out loud from the Book of the Law from daybreak until noon. While he was reading, the Levites who were there mingled among the people and explained the Word of God to them, making it clear to them so they could understand what was being read. As the people began to understand what was being read to them, they started to cry.
Some folks believe that the people started to cry because once they understood the law, they realized how far they had fallen. They began to understand their own sin, and they were broken-hearted.
Others believe that the people started to cry because they finally began to realize that they were God’s chosen people. They were crying from happiness and gratitude.
I think it might have been a combination of both these things. You have to understand that these people had been in exile for a really long time. They had never seen their homeland, because they had all been born in exile. They didn’t know the Law of God because they weren’t allowed to worship or know God while they were in exile. They had been enslaved for so long that they didn’t have any identity of their own.
They could only think of themselves as property, or chattel, as low-life slaves with no worth or value beyond that which their owners had put on them. They didn’t have any scriptures to read.
Now here they were, free people who could live and love as free people, who could marry and have families as free people, who could own land and livestock as free people. Yet they weren’t free. They were still enslaved, only now they were enslaved to sin and ignorance. Their lives had been broken for so long they didn’t know how to fix them. They needed to hear God’s word, and they needed to understand what it meant.
When Ezra began to read from the Law, the people knew it was a holy book. They stood up and praised God and bowed their faces to the ground. But they really didn’t have any idea what the scripture meant until the Levites began to explain it to them.
We don’t know exactly what Ezra read from the scriptures, but we know it was from the first five books of our Old Testament. If we look at those five books - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - we see that they’re full of laws and instructions for the people to follow. There are actually 629 laws set down for the people of Israel to follow, and some Jews still follow those 629 laws.
But the Books of the Law are more than just a laundry list of do’s and don’t’s. Those first five books of the Bible are full of the story of creation, of God’s love for his people, and of the people’s need for God. Time after time we can read of God’s love, and how he provided for the people, and how time and again the people turned away from God and he promised to destroy them, but later relented because he loved them so much he couldn’t bring himself to destroy them.
This is the stuff that Ezra was reading to the people. Maybe for the first time in their lives they were hearing that God created them, and breathed life into them, and set them above all other living creatures and, most importantly, loved them.
This is the message that God wants us to get when we read the scriptures, too. God wants us to understand that he is our creator - our existence on this planet wasn’t a chance mutation of some one-cell organism that crawled up out of a swamp. We didn’t just spontaneously appear one day and begin to serve our earthly masters. We weren’t hand-picked for a life of slavery and poverty and misery and illness. Each and every one of us was personally created by God himself. God chose to create us.
God is also our Parent. Call God Father, call God Mother. It doesn’t matter what you call God. God is our Parent who loves us more than we can imagine. God is our Parent who is proud of us. God is our Parent who disciplines us. God is our Parent who teaches us and shows us the way to live a life of joy. God is also our Parent who hears us when we cry out in pain, who puts his arms around us when we need comforting, who carries us when we’re not able to walk by ourselves. This is what the people were hearing from Ezra.
We have another name for God - our Redeemer. When we think of God the Redeemer, we naturally think of Jesus, the Son of God who gave his life for us. The people hearing Ezra didn’t have Jesus to think about, but God was still their Redeemer. He had brought his people out of slavery more than once. He had traded for them so they could come home to the land he had promised them. Isaiah 43, verses 3 and 4 tell us, "For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life." So God is the Redeemer of all his people, all who have ever lived, all who live now, and all who will live in the time to come.
This is what the people were learning from the scripture that Ezra read to them. And this is why they were crying. They learned that no matter how far they had fallen, no matter how heinous their sins were, no matter how far they were removed from God, God still loved them, and God forgave them, and they were still God’s chosen people.
Imagine how it must have felt for these people, who had been born into slavery, to realize that they were chosen by God to be his special people. All their lives they had been mistreated and told that they were worthless.
And now, here’s Ezra reading to them from the scriptures, assuring them that God loves them and God chose to create them and breathe his own breath into them. They learned that they were God’s own beloved children, special to him and special to the world.
After Ezra was through reading, he and Nehemiah and the Levites told all the people, "This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep." "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Twice the people are told, "This day is sacred." But we don’t know exactly what that day was. We know it was the seventh month, but we’re not sure what calendar they were using, so we really don’t know what month it was.
What we do know is that after the Word was read and explained, then the people were supposed to respond. The Word had brought them joy, and in that joy they were to rejoice by feasting, by enjoying choice foods and sweet drinks, and by sharing with people who had nothing. God wants us to continue to do the same thing now. He wants us to read the Word. He wants us to explain, teach, and understand the Word. And once understanding has taken place, then we’ll be filled with joy - joy at understanding God and joy at understanding ourselves. And joy’s not really joy unless it’s shared, so we’re to share our joy with everyone, by celebrating, feasting, and by passing on what we’ve learned. Our joy won’t be complete until everyone is involved.
What we have in today’s scripture is a sure-fire, never-fail recipe for joy. First you take a helping of Scripture. Read it several times. Add a generous dollop of teaching and explanation. Mix well. The result is an understanding of God. Take this understanding of God, spread it liberally on our hearts, extract from it an understanding of who we are, and the final product is joy.
Joy comes from understanding who God is, because when we understand who God is, it leads us to understand who we are. And we are God’s beloved children. More than that, we’re heirs to God’s throne, brothers and sisters to Christ. Can there be any more joyous knowledge than that?
This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Jesus Performs His First Miracle

John 2:1-12

This story begins with the words “On the third day,” that is to say just three days after His baptism in the river Jordan, and His identification as the Lamb of God by John (John 1:33-34), Jesus performs His first recorded miracle. Jesus performed His first miracle, not at a funeral but at a wedding; not in the temple but in a private home.
The occasion of the miracle was a village wedding feast to which Mary, the mother of Jesus had been invited. I find it fascinating that the earthly ministry of Jesus began at a wedding and all of human history will culminate with a wedding (Rev 19:9).
Weddings are always special, but Eastern wedding are far different from what we in the West are use to! In Western weddings the bride is the star of the show, the groom just shows up and tries not get in the way. When she enters, dressed in bridal white the whole congregation stands as the organ plays, “Here comes the Bride.” But in Eastern weddings, it is the groom who is the featured one. And here is something to send a shutter down the spine of all the parents of boys in the congregation. Not only is the groom the featured person but he also pays for the entire affair.
Another key difference is that instead of the couple leaving immediately after the wedding for a honeymoon, they had open house for a week.
The setting for Jesus’ first miracle is given in verses one and two, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. (2) Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.”
This morning I want you to notice three things with me about this miracle.

First, The Reason For the Miracle. (2:3-5)

The Request of Mary (v. 3)
“And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine."
Apparently, the amount of wine needed for the wedding feast has been underestimated. As the pastor I understand the dilemma of trying to estimate how many people will be at any particular function. There is the ever present fear that supplies will run out before everyone has been served.
The problem is that the wine has run out and there appears to be no solution. Either there is no more wine available or there is no money to purchase more wine. So Mary takes the problem to Jesus. This in no mere report and although we really have no way of knowing what Mary’s expectations were when she made this statement to Jesus, she informs Him with the hope that He might do something about the situation. Some suggest that she is hinting that He and the disciples need to leave, but I hardly think this is likely. J. Vernon McGee suggest that Mary is asking for is that He at last vindicate her reputation that He is indeed the Son of God. But since He had not yet performed any miracles, this was probably not asking for something super-natural, she just wanted His help. [Warren Wiersbe. Classic Sermons on the Miracles of Jesus. Ch 1. “Empty Waterpots.” (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1995) p.8]
Mary is very careful not to tell Jesus what to do, but it seems clear that she hopes he will do something.

The Response Of Jesus (vv. 4-5).
“Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”
Although in English Jesus’ use of the term “Woman” in addressing His mother seems harsh and abrupt, it was in fact a common term. It is the same form of address He used with the woman at the well (John 4:21) and with the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10) and with Mary Magdalene at the Tomb (John 20:15). It is also the same form of address He uses from the Cross to commend her into the Apostle John’s care (John 19:26). There is no harshness in his voice on any of those occasions.
Jesus goes on to say, “What does your concern have to do with Me?” (v. 4). A literal translation of the Greek phrase would be, “What to me and to you!” Jesus is asking his mother just what has caused her to think the problem was His problem as well as hers. It is as though Mary has said, “Jesus, they are out of wine and WE need to do something!” There is probably not a man in this congregation that can not identify with his wife saying, “WE need to do this or that” but what she really means is “you need to do something!” Jesus responds in like matter with “Ma’am what do you mean we!” Jesus is asserting that not only is he a grown man no longer under the authority of his mother but he is the Messiah! Jesus’ response seems to be setting new parameters in his relationship with his mother. For many years (Jesus is now 30 yrs old) she has raised Jesus as her son. It is perhaps a gentle reminder that she could no longer view him as other mother’s viewed their sons.
Catholics and non-Catholics strongly disagree on the meaning of this verse. Catholic scholars in an effort to support Mary as an intercessor with Jesus are convinced that Mary uses her influence on Jesus to get him to do what he would not otherwise do! The text seems to tell us just the opposite however. The Lord neither abruptly nor arbitrary turns down the request, he does not say, No but neither does he say, Yes. He simply reminds His mother that there has been a change in their relationships.
The only time that Mary is ever recorded as asking something of Jesus, she ends up simply turning to the servants and In verse five says, “….Whatever He says to you, do it.” That is still good advice!
Jesus adds, “My hour has not yet come.” This must surely mean it is not yet time for me to act. Not until the till the wine was completely exhausted would his hour have arrived. All other help must fail before the hour for a miracle has arrived.
Notice Not Only the Reason for the Miracle but…

Second, The Reassurance of This Miracle (2:6-8)
“Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. (7) Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." And they filled them up to the brim. (8) And He said to them, "Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast." And they took it.”
There were six stone water-pots that were used by the people who attended the wedding for ceremonial washing (according to Jewish customs people’s hands had to be washed before a meal), each of these pots would have held 20-30 gallons. Multiply 20-30 gallons by six and you have some 120-180 gallons.
Jesus does not wave his arms over the water-pots nor does He speak some magical incantation, there is no hocus-pocus no mumbo-jumbo in which he commands the water to become wine. It appears that He never even touched the water in the pots. The water simply becomes wine. We do not even know for sure at what point it became wine. Somewhere between the water pots and the master of the feast the water became wine.
It should perhaps also be noted that perhaps many miracles today occur in ways that seem so natural that they are not even recognized as miracles.

Four Things We Can We Learn From this Miracle.
•This Miracle Assures Us That Jesus is even Concerned About the Little Things In Life.
It is encouraging to note that the Lord’s first miracle is one that many would consider non-essential. A shortage of wine at a wedding may not seem like a big deal but Warren Weirsbe points out that it was necessary for the groom in those days to have adequate provision at the wedding. It would be extremely embarrassing for him and his family to run out of food or wine. If the supplies had run out at a wedding feast, the family and the young couple would never have lived down the shame. Leon Morris points out, “If one gave a feast of such and such a quality (and quantity!) when his son was married, he was entitled to an equivalent when his neighbors son married. If the neighbor did not provide it, he could be taken to court and sued; a wedding feast was not simply a social occasion, but it involved a legal obligation.” [Leon Morris. “Reflections on the Gospel of John”(Peabody, Mass: Henrickson Pub, 1988) p. 70]
It is unlikely that Jesus would have performed a miracle just to save someone from a minor social embarrassment. What Jesus did was He rescued this young couple from a financial liability which had the potential to cripple them financially for years.

•This Miracle Assures Us That When God Takes Something That Is Ordinary He Makes It Into Something Wonderful.
John specifically points out the water pots were “for the Jewish purification rites” (v. 6). To eat with unwashed hands was an act of defilement. Therefore whenever guest arrived, water from these pots was poured over their hands in a ritual cleansing. Jesus took the water from these water-pots and turned it into fine wine, the finest that the master of ceremonies had ever tasted. Nothing is ordinary after Jesus has touched it.
By the same token, the Lord takes some very fallible vessels, men like James, and John, Peter and Andrews, Philip and Nathanael and makes them in men who ultimately turned the world upside down.
•This Miracle Assures Us That With God
The Best Comes Last!
We are assured that the best comes last. The devil however, gives his best first. He lures us into sin with promises he cannot and does not intend to keep and doles out his trinkets up front. Whatever passing pleasures he does hand out in this life will be best that will ever be experienced. The devil never shows you where he is taking you; he only shows you the next enticing step.
“But for those who know Christ as Savior is as bad as it ever will get. Sometimes our heavenly Father gives us a bitter cup to begin with, perhaps the cup of conviction of sin, but its purpose is that we might take the cup of salvation. Sometimes He gives us the cup of loneliness that we might drink from the cup of His presence. Or we are asked to drink from the cup of failure that we might remember that we serve Him alone. But the day is coming in which our fortune will be reversed: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) The best is yet to come.” [Erwin W. Lutzer. “Seven Convincing Miracles.” (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999) p. 48.]

•This Miracle Assures Us That God’s Provision is Always Abundant.
Jesus created over 120 gallons of fine wine, this is certainly more than was needed for the wedding. Yet I think the amount is literal and that Jesus intentionally produced the wine in abundance. The young couple would be able to sell the excess and start their married life with an asset instead of a crippling liability.
Not Only Notice the Reassurance of this Miracle but…

Third, The Results of the Miracle. (2:9-11)
“When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. (10) And he said to him, "Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!" (11) This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”
In verse eleven, John says “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.” The Greek word (semeion) translated here as “sign” occurs 77 times in the New Testament, and is used to identify an act which calls for the exercise of supernatural power (John 20:30-31). The miracle stories confront us with the question of whether the power of God was or was not revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. They compel us to say Yes or No!
The effect on the disciples. The disciples had already believed in Jesus as least to the extent that they understood him. The disciples had only recently begun to follow Jesus and it was only two days before the wedding in Cana that Philip and Nathanael had been called to follow Him. What the miracle in Cana did for them was to deepen their existing faith rather than to bring them to faith. They already believed in Jesus, but their faith grew and was strengthened.
When John tells the story of the wedding in Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle he wants us to believe in Jesus and the Father who sent him. And if we already believe he wants our faith to be strengthened.

Some Really Good News

Luke 8:26-35

Do you like good news? We all do, don’t we? I think we would all like to hear that we just became the sole heir to someone’s multi-million dollar estate. What other kinds of really good news would you like to hear? Would you like to hear that Uncle Sam has made a mistake and is paying you back for the many years he has overcharged you on your income tax? How about hearing that the doctors just found a cure for anything that is wrong with you? That would be great, right?

Well, today we are going to hear some really good news. It will be rather new to some, and a refresher course to others. Today, we are going to be talking about the best news ever – God loves you!

Luke 8:26-35:
‘They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, He was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time, this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tomb. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, don’t torture me!”

For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot, and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, and He gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

To me, this is one of the most exciting stories in the New Testament. It shows clearly what Satan will do with a life when he has the chance, it also shows what Jesus can do with that same life when He meets it. That story paints a vivid picture of what a life without Jesus is like, and what a life with Jesus is like. The man was crazy and destructive before he came to Jesus. Afterwards, he was humbled enough to sit at Jesus’ feet, and focused enough to want to travel with Jesus as Jesus continued on his journey.

John Newton was the captain of a merchant ship. He didn’t deal in spices or fabrics, though. Mr. Newton dealt in slave trading. He was among the most despicable of men and must have had among the ugliest of hearts. But Mr. Newton met Jesus, and he began to change from the inside out. He eventually wrote one of the most beautiful songs ever written. That song is entitled, “Amazing Grace.”

The words to that song is a very appropriate backdrop for this message today. Those words are:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me –
I once was lost, but now I’m found
T’was blind, but now I see.

First of all, let me say that without Jesus, we are all the worst of the worst. But there is a power to be found in Jesus; that is the power of the Spirit of God. Let me ask you a question right now. Do you realize just how great and powerful God is? God is so powerful that He spoke the world into existence. He didn’t take a bunch of pre-existing material and then start forming it together and shaping it the way He wanted. He spoke the word, and the world appeared. Now, that’s powerful!

And if God is powerful enough to do that, He is powerful enough to forgive all of our sins.


1. SIN WILL BRING YOU DOWN

This passage says that the man had not lived in a house for some time. Whenever we see where he lived, the tombs in a cemetery, we see how far Satan had degraded this man’s life. He didn’t enjoy any of the comforts of home, including a change of clothes from time to time. This man had nothing. He had dropped as far down on the ladder as a human can go and still be alive. I guess you could say that the man went from the front yard to the grave yard. That is where the devil wanted him. And that is exactly where the devil wants you, too; as low as he can make you go, and he will try his best to never let you up, either.

Sin will take the innocent heart and make it a guilty heart. It will take a pure mind and make it impure with the sin of the world. It will take the clean spirit and make it dirty and unclean. Sin will take you, and it will try its best to kill you.

Have you been paying attention to what’s out there in the world? Sin, by its very nature is abhorrent behavior, against the will of God. And as we said last week, the devil will tempt you with sin and make it look very good..

Last week, we also reminded you that you can walk either one of two paths in life; the path that leads up to God, or the worldly path that leads down to the devil. It is your choice, but you cannot walk on both at the same time – not even a little bit.

The world will tempt you with sins that look so acceptable. Look at that movie about two homosexual cowboys; ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ Here is another example of how Hollywood has taken something sinful and glorified it and tried to make it look so acceptable.

Joan Lunden, co-anchor of a morning news show was on the cover of a magazine recently. On the front was the picture of this incredibly beautiful TV personality. The caption on the front said something like, “Joan Lunden finds a new life as her own woman!”

Inside, the story went on about how after she left her 13-year long marriage, she went out and bought an 8,000 square foot mansion, and how she bought all the furniture for it. She said she bought furniture that was bright and fun, not like the stuff they had in their old home.

The media has, once again, taken sin (the divorce) and glorified it to make it look really cool and fun! Now, I have talked to many people, both men and women, who have gone through a divorce, and not one of them said anything about how neat it was to go on a shopping trip. And I noticed that this magazine didn’t say anything about the hurt that was caused to both spouses and to their children. That is the enticement the world gives us; it’s all fun and everything is just dandy.

I think that truth in advertisement would make the world say something like, “Hide from the truth and have a lot of temporary fun on your way to burn in hell!” Contrary to the picture the world paints, sin always lowers a person to their lowest possible level and then will try to keep them there.

That being said, let me also say that divorce is something God does not want, but sometimes it is going to happen. I personally feel that there are so many divorces because we rush into our marriages. We do not take the time to seek God’s advice in marriage, and because we don’t, we end up in a bad marriage that the only thing left to do is to divorce. But God can take anybody and make their lives holy and righteous through Jesus.

One night a man was brought into New York’s busy Bellevue Hospital. He appeared to be just another bum with a slashed throat. He had been brought in from the Bowery, which in many cases was the last stop before the morgue. The Bowery was an area of filth, loneliness, cheap booze, drugs, disease, and the dead end of many a life.

This man looked like all the rest. It was obvious that he had lived to drink. His health was gone. He was cold and starving. On that icy January morning, this man who looked twice his age, was found lying in a heap, nearly naked and bleeding from a deep gash in this throat. His forehead was badly bruised and he was semi-conscious.

A doctor was called, but time had already ran out. The man died and was sent to the morgue. There he lay with a tag on his toe, and the workers were trying to identify him. In the pocket of his old, ragged coat was 38 cents and a note with these words on it:

“My dear friends and gentle hearts…….”

Before this 38 year old man died, he had once written songs that you and I have sang all our lives. They include,

“Oh! Suzanna”
“Camp Town Races”
“Beautiful Dreamer”
“Old Folks at Home”
“My Old Kentucky Home”
and over 200 more songs that most of us are familiar with.

This bum who was found drunken, half naked, and looking twice his age was the great songwriter, Stephen Foster. Nobody knows what all lead Mr. Foster down that road to his lowly death, but we can tell you that the enticement of sin from the world played a major role in it. It took him right to the bottom, and it kept him there until it killed him.

And if sin and Satan will bring you down …


2. JESUS CAN LIFT YOU UP

‘When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, don’t torture me!”

For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot, and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Something happened to that man when Jesus came by. He was set free from the minions of hell and was set free from the power that sin held over him. He no longer had to live like an animal in the cemetery.

Satan is powerful, but Jesus is more powerful. Satan hates God and everything God has created; including us. He doesn’t want us to live with him forever, but he would rather us be with him in hell than to be with God in Heaven. The biggest difference is that Satan hates us while Jesus Christ loves us.

A preacher was out walking in the country one day and stopped by a water pump alongside the road. While he was there, the old farmer who lived there came out to talk to him. While they chatted, the preacher noticed the farmer had a weather vane on the barn, and on it were the words, “God is love.”

The preacher asked the farmer if that meant that God was as unreliable as the wind, and the farmer said it meant that no matter which way the wind blows, God is still love.

Someone asked Billy Graham once what the difference was between the gods of other religions and the God of Christianity. Rev. Graham said that our God was the only God who strived to have a personal relationship with each one of us. Our God was the only God who would listen to everything we told Him. Our God was the only God who let a Son die; just because He loved us so much.

And our Savior is the only leader of any religion who has come out of the grave to live eternally. All the rest are just a bunch of dusty bones in some hole in the ground, and that’s all they will ever be.

There is a story of a little 2-year old girl named Erika who wandered away from the house in the middle of the night. The biggest problem was that this was in northern Canada and it was in the middle of winter.

When they found little Erika, her legs were frozen stiff along with her body, and all signs of life were gone. She was rushed to the emergency room of the local hospital, and the doctors were amazed to find that she was not dead after all. To everyone’s astonishment, there was no brain damage and no signs of frost bite.

Some of us have wandered away from our Father’s house and have been brought near to the point of death. Our hearts have hardened; our spiritual bodies look lifeless; and we have started hating our brothers and sisters.

We are almost at the point of spiritual death and yet we don’t even recognize it.

But our Heavenly Father has noticed that we are missing and He has been looking for us. He can take our lifeless spirits and restore them back to health. He can take our hardened hearts and make them once again loving and caring.

Before He can do that, however, we must be responsible enough to see the situation we are in and go to Him with a heart that seeks His wonderful forgiveness. More than anything else, we need to tell Him how much we love Him and how sorry we are for walking away from Him. We need to become a humbled person, bowing before Him in prayer, begging His forgiveness.

A friend of mine once told me that I was wrong about that. He said we need to pray, but we never need to beg God for anything. I disagree. I think that when we have decided to choose sin, and have walked away from God, we need to feel absolute remorse in our hearts, and that remorse will make us want to beg Him for reconciliation.

That friend of mine, well, his wife left him a couple years after that because he stepped out on her. I saw him drop to his knees, with tears in his eyes, and literally beg her to forgive him and take him back. That is what a humble heart does, and that is how the Christian begs God for forgiveness; not because we have to, but because we want to.

And once we choose to follow Jesus, we find that …


3. JESUS HAS A JOB FOR US

If we read ahead in our text to verses 38 and 39, we see where the man who was healed by Jesus begged to go with Him when He left, but Jesus told him to go back to his home and tell others what God had done for him.

I look at the sum of humanity and feel such sorrow. They are unaware of what is available to them. They just float through life, kind of like those dandelion seeds that float through the air – being taken wherever the wind blows, just to land wherever it puts them down. They have no control at all over their lives, and they aren’t aware of it.

Let me ask you a question. If you were leaving the church today and you saw a small child wandering onto the freeway, what would you do? Would you think, “I am afraid to get involved because that little child might get mad at me, so I will ignore it.” Or would you think, “I HAVE TO GET TO THAT CHILD NO MATTER WHAT THE COST!” All of us would like to say the latter, wouldn’t we? The truth is, most of us would quickly think of the first thought. You don’t agree with me? Let me prove it to you.

When you see somebody who doesn’t know Jesus, you know they are going to die. Knowing that, why don’t you talk to them about Him? See, people are so afraid of others saying something critical to them, they are more willing to just turn their backs on God.

Take the evangelizing cards we have in the lobby. How many have you handed to others? I am not talking about how many you laid down at Homeland or Reasor’s. I am not talking about how many you have left sit back there in the box. I am asking how many have you actually handed to somebody, and asked them to read it when they have the chance?

Jesus has a job for each of us, and that job is to reach other people. Whatever reason you have for not doing so is not good enough. Whatever reason you have for not doing so is actually nothing but an excuse to keep you comfortable. But when Jesus said “Go!” He was talking about our going out of our comfort zones.

This man was saved by Jesus and then sent by Jesus. There was something Jesus needed for him to do. Once our lives have been transformed; once we have professed Jesus as Savior; we receive a mission. That mission is to “return home and tell others how much God has done for us.”

We stand and sing, “I Love to Tell The Story”, and then leave church and refuse to say anything about the story. You hired me to preach sermons. What would you do if I refused to preach? Would you still consider me your pastor? I think not. Likewise, how do you think God feels when we don’t do what He has told us to do?

In 1985, the city of New Orleans was throwing a party at one of the city swimming pools. They were celebrating that there had never been a drowning at any city pool in New Orleans. At this party were over 200 guests, and 100 lifeguards. Everybody was celebrating this great achievement. But as the party was breaking up and the last bunch of guests were leaving, someone saw the body of thirty-one year old Jerome Moody floating face down in the pool.

How many people are around us every day who are also drowning in loneliness, or hurt, or have doubt about why they are here or where they are going. I wander why we don’t reach out to help them. I think we are too much like the guests at the pool, in as much as we enjoy celebrating the Lord in church activities, but we aren’t very good at rescuing the perishing around us.

When I first got there, I gave an illustration about some ducks. I am going to repeat it because it is so appropriate for this message today.

One Sunday morning, all the ducks gathered on the sidewalk and when they had all assembled, they waddled down the sidewalk to church. They do as ducks do and formed a single line, one behind the other.

They filed into church the same way, one behind the other, mindlessly following the one in front of them. During church, however, the preacher duck got excited and started banging his beak against the pulpit and proclaiming the need to stand up for Jesus! The ducks all yelled their “AMENS”, and then the duck preacher started flapping his wings and yelling that all of them needed to become more involved and more mature in the Word of our Lord. All the ducks stood and started flapping their wings in agreement.

This went on for a good hour, and all the ducks felt so fulfilled and happy. Then when they left, they all formed a single line and waddled out the door, one behind the other, just like they came in – unchanged, unmoved, and unable to carry on the work of Jesus. Too many Christians are just like those ducks. We love church. We love to love God, but we aren’t very good at getting involved with our fellow man.

Would the Victory Singers please come back on stage?

In closing, let me say that the reason it is so important to reach others, is because they are where we once were. Sin has a grip on their life and they are being kept down by Satan. There is only one way out of this bondage and that is through Jesus as our Savior. And most of them don’t even know that. If you don’t reach them, who will? Nobody will.

God is all powerful, but He cannot possible love you more than He does right now, and He promises to never love you any less, either. And you must be aware of something – no matter what you have ever done in your life, it is not so big that God can’t instantly forgive you of it.

And as much as we like to carry our sins around with us like a bunch of rocks in a gunny sack, once God forgives, He casts them away from us. Once we receive Jesus Christ, fully and humbly, God makes those sins of ours as far from us as east is from west.

Where are you today in relation to Christ Jesus? How far have you walked away from Him? If your life isn’t in Christ, I can guarantee you it isn’t happy either. Why not take that chance and ask Jesus to help you today. Ask Jesus to lift you out of that miry clay and put you on solid rock. Ask Him to take you out of that pit and put you in His wonderful, loving sunshine. He will if you ask Him to.

If you have been kept unhappy under the burden of sin in your life, if you have been kept from climbing up, do something about it this morning. By coming forward and receiving Jesus into your heart, you are throwing off the lid Satan has kept you under, and you will begin to feel the freedom of being God’s loved child.

A Personal Encounter With Jesus

John 1:43-51

Earlier we looked at “The Requirement of Following Jesus” by looking at the call of Andrew. What stands out about Andrew is that he is a very ordinary guy. In the story of Andrew we witnessed him engaging in a type of evangelism we referred to as invitational evangelism. Any one can do this! There can be no question that the most effective means of bringing people to Christ is one at a time, on an individual basis.
You don’t have to memorize some special plan. You don’t have to memorize the New Testament. You don’t have to be licensed or ordained or have the church’s permission. All you have to do is spend time with Jesus and then go and tell someone about it!
Today we look on as Nathanael has a personal encounter with Jesus. From this encounter we are going to learn four things about Jesus!

First, He Reaches Out No Matter Who We Are.
(1:43-46)
Like Andrew, Philip was not one of the most well known of the disciples. If Andrew is remembered as just an ordinary guy, Philip would be remembered as being a practical guy. We are introduced to Philip in verse forty-three, “The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.” (44) Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.”
Philip was from the same town as Peter and Andrew. Bethsaida was a small town on along the Sea of Galilee. Philip seems to have been an ordinary kind of guy who was at times in over his head. I don’t know about you but I can identify with that. Last week we noted that every time we saw Andrew he was bringing someone to Jesus. We noted in John 6 that it was Andrew who brought the young boy to Jesus who had the loaves and fishes from which Jesus fed the multitude. But earlier in that same account as Jesus looked out over the multitude who had gathered to hear him teach he turned to Philip and in order to test him asked, “Where can we get enough to feed all these people?” (John 6:5). Philip in true analytical style did his calculations and said, “If we had more than six months wages it would not be enough to give them all even a taste” (Jn. 6:7). Philip did not really have a clue.
Again in John 12 when some Greeks came to Philip in Jerusalem asking to see (literally have a private appointment) Jesus, Philip again clearly did not know what to do. So he went to Andrew and Andrew took them to Jesus.
But we have to give Philip some credit when his first reaction after Jesus found him was to go to his friend with the news. Verse forty-five says, “Philip found Nathanael.” We really know very little about Nathanael. In fact all that we know about him we find here in this story of Philip bringing him to Jesus and on the occasion of the fishing expedition recorded in John 21. There are some good reasons for supposing the Nathanael is the Bartholomew mentioned in the synoptic gospels.

• Philip’ Statement (v. 45)
Philip’s opening words to his friend were
“….and he said to him, We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Philip was a very happy man and he told Nathanael all about it so that he could share in his joy. Philip’s opening words to Nathanael are, “We have found him of whom the scriptures speak. Nathanael we have found the one whom we have been searching for all of our lives.” Nathanael, however, fails to be as impressed as Philip would have wished.

• Nathanael’s Response (v. 46)
“And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
One thing Nathanael heard seems to bother him a great deal. It is not that Jesus is referred to as “the son of Joseph” but that He is “Jesus of Nazareth.” We know that in Jesus own time as well as ours, that there is prejudice towards certain places and people groups. For example there are certain attitudes toward people who live in the Ozarks or Appalachia. There is an assumption that great people come from certain areas, while those in other areas are somehow inferior.
For example my folks are genuine hill folks from the Ozarks. Sometimes people from some other parts of the country do not think too kindly of “Hillbillies.” They say that the only thing to come out of the “Hills” is moonshine, bluegrass, coon dogs and men that are none to bright. It may have been my kinfolk that Jeff Foxworthy was talking about when he originated his “You may be a Redneck If - Jokes.” In fact I can make up a few Hillybilly jokes based on my family. “You may be a HillBilly if your father was ever injured when the family still blew-up. No I am not kidding.” You may be a HillBilly if your family ever engaged in a feud where someone was killed! NO I really am not making this up.
Galilee seems to have been the “Ozarks” of Jesus’ day, so being called a Galilean appears to have been no compliment. (see Mark 14: 69-70). For Nathanael at least coming from Nazareth is not in Jesus’ favor as far as any claim of being the Messiah is concerned.
Whatever the reasoning behind Nathanael’s supposition, how do you answer a question like that? Philip did not know the answer. In fact he made no attempt to answer the question, but simply said, “Come and see” (v. 46). He could not argue the point convincingly, and was wise enough to know that he could not argue Nathanael out of his skepticism, so he simply suggests that Nathanael come and see for himself if what he said about Jesus is true.
Not Only Does He Reach Out No Matter Who We Are but ….

Secondly, He Knows What We Are. (1:47)
“Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”
Nathanael may have been skeptical but he went along with his friend Philip to meet this man from Nazareth. When he arrived, the words of Jesus stop Nathanael in his tracks. He has not yet met Jesus or talked to him and yet Jesus sees directly into his heart and accurately describes his character as “… an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” (v. 47). We should stop just long enough to note that Jesus does not say, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no sin.” Nathanael is a sinner just like you and I.
What Jesus was emphasizing was that Nathanael was a transparent, honest man. In fact what Jesus literally said was, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob!” You will remember that Jacob whose name means “deceiver” did indeed deceive his brother Esau out of his birth right (Gen 27).
This brings up the possibility that there is more here than is immediately apparent. More about that in a moment.
He Not Only Knows Where We Are but…

Third, He Knows Where We Are (spiritually)
(1:48-49)

•Nathanael’s Question and Jesus’ Response (v.48)
“Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
Rabbi’s frequently used the phrase “being under your fig tree” like we might use the idea of “being in your prayer closet” or being “in your quiet time” to refer figuratively to prayer. Jesus is saying to Nathanael, “I saw you praying. I heard what you asked.” What I think is important here is that Nathanael had a religious experience that no one but Jesus knew about. The point is, Nathanael had a spiritual experience in his private prayer time and Jesus was saying, “I know all about that experience you had that you shared only with God!”
As the Psalmist says in (Psalm 139:1-4), “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. (2) You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. (3) You comprehend my path and my laying down, And you are acquainted with all my ways. (4) For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.”
Good or bad, nothing is hidden from God!
•Nathanael’s Response (v. 49)
“Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Jesus’ response to Nathanael clearly blew him away, he clearly had not expected anything like Jesus’ answer and it had a profound effect on him. First note that he respectfully addresses Jesus as “Rabbi” or “Teacher.” He definitely has had a change of attitude about whether something good can come out of Nazareth. He then proceeds to affirm that Jesus is indeed “The Son of God.” Nathanael is not saying that Jesus is merely “a” son of God but rather that He is “the” only unique Son of God the rightful King of Israel. .
He Not Only Knows What We Are but….

Fourth, He Meets Us Where We Are. (1:50-51)
“Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” (51) And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Jesus reassures Nathanael that this is just the beginning. Jesus says, “Nathanael, because you saw that I am omniscient you believe. You have not seen anything yet!”
Think for a moment at all that Nathanael will witness as one of Jesus’ disciples. He will literally see Jesus perform miracles. He will hear the truth expounded by the master teacher. He will be a witness of the resurrection and the ascension. He will himself be a recipient of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He was a witness of greater things indeed!
In verse fifty-one Jesus uses the term “most assuredly,” (translated “Verily, Verily” in the KJV) to introduce His words of reassurance to Nathanael. The term “verily” or “truly” are words used to introduce a subject of great importance that needs to be heard with special care and attention.
Jesus takes Nathanael back almost 2,000 years to the time of Jacob. (Genesis 28:10-12),
“Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. (11) So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. (12) Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
God gave Jacob a vision of encouragement. He said, “Jacob, look even when you think you are all alone out here, there is traffic between heaven and earth on your behalf.” Isn’t true that God is often closest when He seems farthest away!
Jacob’s response to the vision of the heaven’s being opened is revealed Genesis 28:16, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” A failure to recognize the presence of Jesus is the tragedy of much of the modern Church. As a result an invitation to Christianity is not very interesting to us, much less to a lost world.
The angels are ascending and descending not on a ladder as in Jacob’s vision but rather they were
“… ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” – this means Jesus is the ladder. Perhaps Nathanael had an attachment to a special place, like Jacob did to Bethel. Perhaps he held that one had to be in that special place to meet with God. But the issue is not the place but the person. What Jesus wants Nathanael to know is that He himself is the ladder. Jesus is the one mediator between God and men (1 Tim 2:5). No matter what modern skeptics may say, Jesus consistently presented himself as the one and only way to God. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me!” Have you had a personal encounter with Jesus? If not there is no time like the present. Jesus is still seeking those who would follow Him!

To Know God And Be Known By God

Matthew 7:15-23

I wonder if you have ever heard this said: “God is love; and because God is love every single person on this planet will have a resting place in heaven. God will welcome all people into heaven because he is love. God will not turn anyone away from the gates of heaven; because God is love.”

I wonder if you agree with that. Is it really true that God will welcome into heaven the child abuser who is not at all sorry for what he did? Is it really true that God will welcome into heaven the men who gladly and willingly carried out the genocide in Rwanda and who are still convinced that they were right to murder, rape and pillage? Is it really true that God will welcome into heaven people who are openly and gladly evil? Is it really true that God will welcome into heaven the man or the woman who does not even want to be in heaven? If any of those were true, then God would not be God. The answers are all “No!”

Yes God is love (1 John 4:16); yes God is more forgiving than you or I could ever be; yes God is full of compassion (Isaiah 54:7-8); yes God is slow to anger; but God does get angry; and God is angry towards evil that is plain for all to see. God does not turn a blind eye towards evil, regardless of how big (or small) an evil or wrongful act may be. In other words, a lot of evil is very obvious, apparent; clear for all to see. If a bottle of liquid is poisonous and it has a label saying it is poisonous then it is clearly not to be drunk.

A lot of evil is plainly evil, but in our Bible reading we have just heard Jesus talking about evil that is hidden. As is often the case, the words of Jesus cause us to sit up and listen up and sometimes to clean up! Jesus said (Mt 7:21), “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Our reaction might well to be to ask, “Is that me?”

I am not going to stand here and say, “Don’t worry! Jesus didn’t mean you and he didn’t mean me! Don’t worry! Everything is going to be OK because God is love.” I will not say that, because if I did then I would be like the false prophets that Jesus referred to in our Bible reading (7:15). If I did then I would be like a ferocious wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing, and it is probably the most dangerous kind of ‘cross dressing’!

Jesus said (7:22-23), “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; away from me you evildoers!’”

Religious terrorists who murder people and claim to have done it in the name of God are clearly evil – they are wolves dressed as wolves; but Jesus wants us to be on our guard and watchful because some ‘wolves’ are dressed as sheep.

Thankfully Jesus has not left us guessing. He has given us a measuring device, and he points us to the garden to find it. Jesus said, “By their fruit you will recognise them” (7:16 and 7:20); and he said this: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” (7:18). Thorn bushes don’t produce grapes. Thistles don’t produce figs.

Jesus is saying that there will come a future day when he will deal with wolves who are dressed up as sheep; in other words Jesus has promised to deal with hidden evil. Jesus knows about it and he will deal with it. On Thursday night here at Christ Church the Riding Lights Theatre Company helped us to think about some of the corporate evil that exists in our world; countries where big companies claim that clean water is available for everyone when in reality it can cost 9 months salary for a poor family to actually get connected to a water pipe which runs near to where they live: Corporate evil.

Jesus will judge corporate evil, but he definitely wants us to do something about it now; “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [our] God” and that’s from the Old Testament book of Micah (6:8), a book in which God condemns false prophets and leaders who lead his people astray (Micah 3:1-5).

Some evil is obvious. Some evil is hidden and Jesus has promised to deal with it; but in the meantime we are told to look at the fruit. So you should be encouraged to look at my ‘tree’! That doesn’t mean sneaking in to my back garden to see if I’ve cut the grass or to count how many delicious apples I’ve got left on the Vicarage apple tree (!) but it does mean prayerfully checking whether there is fruit on my ‘tree’ or not. If my ‘tree’ is completely barren, bearing only thorns, despite my claims to be a follower of Jesus, then you would have cause for great concern, because not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21).

I said earlier that we might hear these words of Jesus and worry and our reaction might well to be to ask, “Is that me?” It is a legitimate question to ask, and the key lies within the words which Jesus will speak plainly to wolves who are dressed in sheep’s clothing: “I never knew you; away from me you evildoers” (7:23).

The key for those of us who claim to follow Jesus is whether we know him or not; in fact it is more than that. The key is whether or not Jesus knows us and that means being in a relationship with him.

I have a friend called Keith who became a Christian once he realised that following Jesus is not about performing religious duties or trying to be a good person, but about being in a real, living relationship with God – knowing God and being known by him. So my question to each one of you is simply this: Do you know him? Does he know you?

If you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m just not sure” then that is fine, providing you are now ready to say and believe that you want to know God, and want to be known by God. If you want to be in a relationship with God, made possible by the work of Jesus Christ, then God is ready and willing and longing to come into your life, so that you will know one another. All you need to do is ask him, because he stands at the door of our lives and knocks, waiting with immense patience to be welcomed in.

Some evil is plain for all to see and God will deal with it. Some evil is covered up and dressed up to look like respectability and even sometimes dressed up as religious duty. God will uncover it and deal with it. The important question for each of us who claim to know God is whether in fact we do know him, and whether he knows us.

Why Worhsip God?

Matthew 4:8-10

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’" (Matt. 4:8-10, NIV).

Just what do you mean “worship”?

The Greek word is PROSKUNEO, which could be translated in English as “bow down,” “bow down before,” “worship,” “worshipers,” etc.

According in the margin of my Bible, Verse 10 was quoted from Deut. 6:13, “Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.”

You will notice that there is no “worship” in that verse in the New International Version. But in the New American Standard, we read the same verse: “You shall fear only the LORD your God; and you shall worship Him, and swear by His name.” The word “serve” was rendered “worship.”

In that verse, the word “worship” came from the Hebrew ABAD. It could be translated in English as “been slaves,” “burdened,” “make a servant,” “serves,” “tiller,” “work,” “working,” “worship,” “worshipers,” etc.

And what do you mean “worship” in the English dictionary?

Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary defines worship, as a noun: “the adoration, homage, or veneration given to a deity,” “the rites, ceremonial forms, prayers, etc., such adoration requires or assumes,” “excessive or ardent devotion or admiration.” As a verb: “to pay an act of worship to,” “to have an intense or exaggerated admiration or devotion for.”

Do we have “an intense or exaggerated admiration – a feeling of wonder and approbation; high esteem – or devotion – strong attachment or affection – for” God only?

And why would we have such kind of admiration or affection for Him? Because we are just commanded to do so?

Let us read 1 Chronicles 16:25-36:

“For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; He also is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and joy are in His place. Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the LORD in holy array. Tremble before Him, all the earth; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; And let them say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns.’ Let the sea roar, and all it contains; Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the LORD; For He is coming to judge the earth. O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting. Then say, ‘Save us, O God of our salvation, And gather us and deliver us from the nations, To give thanks to Thy holy name, And glory in Thy praise.’ Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, From everlasting even to everlasting. Then all the people said, ‘Amen,’ and praised the LORD.”

We could read similar words in Psalm 96. The Everyday Bible translates verses 3-6, “Tell the nations of his glory; tell all peoples the miracles he does, because the Lord is great; he should be praised at all time. He should be honored more then all the gods, because all the gods of the nations are only idols, but the Lord made the heavens. The Lord has glory and majesty; he has power and beauty in his Temple.”

And part of verse 9, “Worship the Lord because he is holy…”

We give Him the highest honor, the “exaggerated admiration, “ the intense or strongest affection – we bow down before Him – not because we are just commanded to do so. Because He is Great. He is the Creator. He has Glory and Majesty. He has Power and Beauty. And He is Holy – He is the Only One who towers above all – distinct, unique and separate from His creation.

We worship Him, because His Supreme Worth inspires us to do so.

As we behold His Holiness, we will be stirred or moved to adore Him. We read in Psalm 29:2, “Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (NKJV).

We also read in Psalm 99:9, “Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy” (NIV).

What do we mean “God is holy”?

Judson Cornwall wrote in his book Let Us Worship:

“…Not only is God holy, but only God is absolutely holy; all other holiness is derivative. Some theologians define holiness as the pervading moral attribute of God’s nature. Others insist that it is not one attribute among the other attributes, but that it is the innermost reality to which all other attributes are related. God is more holy than He is anything else. Whenever we get a glimpse into heaven and hear the might angelic beings praising God it is always ‘holy, holy, holy’ that they chant, not ‘omnipotent’ or ‘omniscient.’ The holiness of God is the consummate perfection, purity, and absolute sanctity of His nature. Hence we recognize that God is entirely separate from all that is evil and all that defiles, both in Himself and in relation to all His creatures…”

In the book Our God Is Awesome, Tony Evans explained: “The holiness of God is His intrinsic and transcendent purity, the standard of righteousness to which the whole universe must conform.”

He added, “God does not conform to any standard created by others. He is the standard. Therefore, He demands that His creation conform to His standard.”

Further, he wrote: “Holiness is the centerpiece of God’s attributes” and “God’s holiness is central to understanding who and what He is.”

Now, let’s see how the Holy God is being worshiped in heaven. Let’s read Revelation 5:11-14:

“Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’ The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

Let’s continue on Revelation 19:1-6:

“After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting:
‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.’ And again they shouted:
‘Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.’ The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: ‘Amen, Hallelujah!’ Then a voice came from the throne, saying: ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!’ Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.’”

It is interesting to note that we also read in Psalm 96:10, “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns’" (Compare with Isa. 52:7).

Could we have such kind of worship here on earth?

Could we also admire with great ardor the Holiness of God?

Listen carefully to these words of A. W. Tozer, “…We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine.”

He continuous, “Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy” (The Knowledge Of The Holy, page 138).

We could say we worship God, but it could be in vain (Mark 7:7, also Isa. 29:13).

Just consider what Saul said to Samuel after God rejected Saul as king. He said: “Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD" (1 Sam. 15:25).

According to Saul, “…I may worship the Lord.” But it was in vain. Why? Again, notice what he said in verse 30, “I have sinned. But please HONOR ME before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD your God." He said he would worship God, but he wanted actually to honor himself!

But even here on earth, we could also truly worship God (John 4:23-24), as Tozer said – “the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy.”

Study how an individual, who grasped the knowledge of the holy, would worship.

Read Genesis 22:1-18.

God told Abraham in verse 2, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

“Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. WE WILL WORSHIP and then we will come back to you’" (verses 3-5).

If God would grant us His Spirit to enable us to behold the Beauty of His Holiness, like Abraham we could truly worship Him.

We would be willing even to forego what is so close in our heart, so we can just offer it to Him – who deserves the highest admiration and most ardent affection – the Holy God who alone is worthy of worship.