Open Arms

Sermon by Pr. Paddick Van Zyl

Oct 21, 2014

Title: Open Arms

Intro:

Have you ever watched someone run to a loved one that has their arms wide open? Ever seen a dad beckon to his son or daughter to jump, he will catch them? There is a 'magical' and comforting aspect to arms that are wide open as opposed to arms closed and fists clasped....

Text:

Deut. 33:27

Sermon:

Our very first contact with arms are those of our mother's when we are born and then nursed and being rocked to sleep in arms wrapped around us.

Mothers are a child's very first representative of God and His loving arms.

'In a recent issue of his One Minute Uplift newsletter, Rick Ezell writes: "Know that God's love touches every part of our (lives). Nothing—no calling or circumstance, no adversity or advancement, no pain or promotion, no status or station—escapes the brush strokes of God's love. God's love bleeds into every fabric and fiber of our lives. We can't escape His love.

"We are like the little boy who got separated from his mother in the mall. He was looking around for his mommy and getting scared. He began to cry because everyone was a stranger, and everything looked so confusing, and every store was packed, and he didn't have his mommy. (Suddenly), his mother found him and picked him up. His eyes began to dry, not because his surroundings were changed, but because of whose arms he was in.

"When you have someone who loves holding you, it doesn't matter anymore what everyone else does or what the circumstances are or what the future holds. When you are in the arms of a loving God, when you have been consumed with His love, you know you are OK."' ###

Arms and the arm of God symbolizes and represents strength in Scripture. It also speaks of comfort and protection.

Isaiah 46:4

Hosea 11:3

'His boundless eternity; he is the eternal God, and his arms are everlasting,

Never were people so well supported and borne up: Underneath are the everlasting arms; that is, the almighty power of God is engaged for the protection and consolation of all that trust in him, in their greatest straits and distresses, and under the heaviest burdens. The everlasting covenant, and the everlasting consolations that flow from it, are indeed everlasting arms, with which believers have been wonderfully sustained, and kept cheerful in the worst of times; divine grace is sufficient for them, 2 Cor. xii. 9.' ##### Matthew Henry Bible Comm.

Listen (watch) to the words of Micheal W. Smith's song - Open Arms:

Lyrics: Open Arms Michael W. Smith:

'Many people in the steeple

But no one leaves the walls

Quick to stand and speak all of their beliefs

Quick to leave you if you fall

Tell me where's the love

It knows no boundaries

Tell me where's the love, yeah, yeah

Open arms, we need to be open arms

Never judge You, always loving

Needs to be what we become

Lifting up the lost, showing them the cross

Shining brightly like the sun

Tell me where's the love

It knows no boundaries

Tell me where's the love, yeah, yeah

Open arms, we need to be open arms, yeah

Tell me where's the love

It knows no boundaries

Tell me where's the love, yeah, yeah

Open arms, we need to be open arms, oh yeah

And everybody sing

Open arms, we need to be open arms

And the whole world sing

Open arms, we need to be open arms' ##

This sums it up so beautifully - are we open arms to those around us? To a broken world? Are we the loving arms of God on earth to those who are hurting.....?

Illustration:

'J. Wilbur Chapman often told of the testimony given by a certain man in one of his meetings:

I got off at the Pennsylvania depot as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the streets for a living. One day I touched a man on the shoulder and said, "Hey, mister, can you give me a dime?" As soon as I saw his face I was shocked to see that it was my own father. I said, "Father, Father, do you know me?" Throwing his arms around me and with tears in his eyes, he said, "Oh my son, at last I've found you! I've found you. You want a dime? Everything I have is yours." Think of it. I was a tramp. I stood begging my own father for ten cents, when for 18 years he had been looking for me to give me all that he had.

What a wonderful illustration of the way God longs to treat us, if we will only let Him.'####

Close: