It was another one of those articles, "How to Get People to Come to Church in the ’90’s." It said you need to help them raise their self-esteem, teach them to handle anger, to deal with depression, to save their marriages, give them strength to face all kinds of trouble in this world. All of those are good things, and we do those things around here, and we should. But it reminded me of the time someone attended the church where Abraham Lincoln worshipped and asked the pastor, "Will Abraham Lincoln be in the services today?" He replied, "No, but the Almighty God will."
What do you think? Is it possible to get people to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God? I think that in some of our churches today, we work hard, we want to do things well and right when we do them in the name of Jesus, but something is missing. I think in many of our churches today, God is being missed and I believe it is the mandate of every preacher of the gospel to tell people about Jesus, including this preacher.
Jay Kessler, a former president of Youth for Christ was filling in for a pastor friend. On the way to "after church pie and fellowship," a young man walked beside him and said, "I hope you’re not offended in my saying this, but I don’t come here to the church to hear you or the pastor preach. I come to meet the very fine young ladies who are members of this church. In fact, I am an atheist, I don’t believe in God." You could tell he braced himself for the preachers reaction to this shocking news and that he sort of enjoyed shocking people.
The preacher said, "Tell me what God you don’t believe in, and I may not believe in Him either."
The Psalm 50 is directed at people who went to church, quoted Scripture, sang spiritual songs and had a very close idea of God in their heads. God called them wicked. Look at verse 16. READ vv.. 16-23 They claimed to be God’s people, said they believed in Him. But He said, "I am not the God you believe Me to be."
In these frightfully important verses of Scripture, He warns, you believe in a God who doesn’t exist if you believe He is like you. You believe in a God who doesn’t exist if you believe you can ignore Him or take Him for granted. You believe in a God who doesn’t exist if you believe He does not love you and will do anything to save you.
You believe in a God who doesn’t exist if you believe God is like you. In verse 21 He said, "You think I am like you, but I cannot let you get by with such a false assumption. I will reprove you (that is, ’correct you in this’), and prove it clearly to you.
Seven times in this Psalm, He is called the Mighty One, God, the Lord, Judge, Most High. He has from earliest creation wanted to be with us, to be known by us. In Eden we can look at that beautiful picture of perfection and put a heading over the whole thing entitled, "God with People." How He enjoyed His fellowship with Adam and Eve, but they rebelled against that fellowship. They decided they wanted to be God in their lives and had to be put out of the Garden of Eden, but God didn’t give up. He still came to them; and over that Patriarchal period of history, we can say this is a time of "God to His People."
Then came the Prophetic period where God spoke through people. Then came the time of the coming of the Messiah. When Jesus came, it was God as a person.
What is God like? God is just like Jesus Christ. The attributes of God are seen in Christ: Love, mercy, compassion, purity, sovereignty and might. God’s supreme attribute is holiness and love. God is holy love. How brightly this beams from the life of Christ. He is love. Everyone was accepted and loved by our Lord.
He is holy.
Every now and then, someone saw His holiness. You remember in the Old Testament, God saying to Moses, "You’re standing on holy ground."? Isaiah had been going to church all his life. One day, he saw what was always there, the Holy Lord God.
He heard the angels declare, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty."
Those who were close to Jesus Christ ever experienced His love, but they also experienced what R. C. Sproles calls the "Trauma of Holiness." Mark 4:37 tells us, "One night in their tiny boat on the Sea of Galilee, a furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped." As the storm became worse the disciples were frightened. Jesus was asleep on a cushion.
They woke Him and asked, "Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?" He got up and rebuked the wind and said to waves, "Quiet, be still," and the wind died down, and it was completely calm. He said to His disciples, "Why are you afraid?
Do you still have no faith?"
Now the sea was calm. There was no longer a physical threat to their lives so they were no longer afraid. Right? WRONG!!!
The next verse says they were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this?
Even the wind and the waves obey Him. Sigmund Freud expressed a theory that people invent religion out of fear of nature; that is, we feel helpless before earthquakes and floods and disease. So, according to Freud, "We invent a God who has power over these things." The significant thing in this story is that the fear of the disciples increased after the threat of the storm was removed. In Christ, they saw a power more frightening than they had ever met in nature, and they were in the presence of the Holy God.
Read the story in Luke 5 which lead Simon Peter to say, "Go away from me, Lord, for I’m a sinful man." Our Lord had simply done a miracle. He had not personally nor generally threatened Peter in any way. He had not lectured him about his sin. He had helped him be filling his boat with fish. That’s all, and Peter simply saw, as never before, the holiness of Jesus. Like Isaiah, he was undone.
There is a song that has a line in it that goes, "There’s never been a man like Him. He is mighty. He is holy." If you believe God is like you, you believe in a God that doesn’t exist. You believe God doesn’t exist if you believe He will allow you to ignore Him or take Him for granted. He will not allow you to take His commands and His Word for granted. In verses 16 through 20, our Lord says, "What right have you to recite Him laws or take My covenant on your lips. You pay no attention. You hate My instructions. You put My words behind you as though I had never said anything at all to you. When you see a thief and have a chance to steal something to your own account, you disregard that I have told you not to steal. When you see an opportunity to throw in your lot with adulterers and join in adultery and sexual impurity, you act as though I had never said a word about that. You use your mouth for evil. You teach your tongue to speak deceitfully. You slander your brothers and sisters. I cannot allow you to do that."
In verse 22, the Scripture speaks of those who forget God, who just live as though God did not exist, who take Him for granted. In the Jerusalem Bible it says "You were leaving God out of account, take care." There is a preacher named John Piper who is on a crusade. He has one essential message. It is this: God is an important person. He does not like being taken for granted.
Listen to Isaiah 48:9-11 carefully. God says, "For My own namesake, I delay My wrath. For the sake of My praise, I hold it back from you so as not to cut you off. See, I have refined you, though not as silver. I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I do this. How can I let Myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another." God says, "God does not like being taken for granted."
Suppose the CEO of a large corporation was asked, "Who is the most important person in your life?," and he said, "My vice president of marketing is the most important person in my life. He makes a great contribution to our success." "What about your wife." "Oh, yes, of course, that goes without saying. You can take that for granted." Tell me, do you think it was his abundant love and respect for his wife that caused her not to come to his mind? She was probably thrilled. She said, "I’m like the air he breathes. He never gives me a thought."
There is no direct correlation between taking something for granted and how much you value and treasure that thing or person. "If I don’t come to your mind, you don’t value Me. I am not important to you. If you think I am honored being taken for granted, you’re wrong."
God is a very important person and is not happy about being taken for granted. Too much religion does not show respect for the Author of the Universe.
But tell me, do you think we are just talking about religion here? Folks, we are talking reality. Our Lord created everything and everyone in this universe. We live and move and have our being in Him and without Him we would not exist nor keep existing. Everything has mainly to do with God. If a man fails to mention his wife when asked "Who is the most important person in your life?," he has a defect in his marriage. If you and I live without talking about and giving honor to God, there is a serious defect in us. You believe in a God who doesn’t exist
if you don’t believe He loves you and will do anything to save you.
Look at how the text is surrounded by the grace and love of God. In verse 15, the verse just before the text starts, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you will honor Me;" and in verse 23, the last verse of the text, "He who sacrifices thank offerings, honors Me and prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God." Time and time again we are told in the Bible to glorify, to give honor to God. In fact, the Scripture declares whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.
Jesus said, "I live for the sole purpose to bring glory to My Father." Why?
Is God on some ego trip? No, He made us and knows us, and He knows what some of you have learned and experienced: What robs Him of glory, robs us of joy. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with Him.
Find your satisfaction in the Lord, and you will find the treasure and pleasure of your life. God loves you and wants so desperately to bring His treasure and pleasure to you that He sent His only Son to die for your sins. In Romans 5:8, the Bible says that God clearly demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Graham Green’s novel, The Heart of the Matter, is about a police officer in a British colony in Africa who becomes involved in a web of intrigue, a sordid affair with a woman, and finally the murder of a trusted assistant. Henry Scobie, the police official, reaches the point that he cannot live with his guilt and despair and decides to take his own life. But before carrying out his plan, he decides to go to church one last time. His purpose in doing so is more to curse God than to pray; but in the Sanctuary, there suddenly breaks in on Scobie the awareness of a God who will not let him go. This amazing persistence causes him to cry out, "How desperately God must love me!"
Even though God will allow a man to go on in his sin past the point of no return, He loves the sinner so desperately that He gave Christ to die so that the door to salvation could be open. Oh, He loves you! Have you ever wished with the wonderful lady who wrote, "I wish there was some wonderful place in the land of beginning again where all our mistakes and all our heartaches and all our poor, selfish grief could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door and never put on again."
My friend, there is a place like that. It is found in Jesus Christ. Would you come to Him? Would you say, "Lord, no longer will take You for granted. I come to Christ as my Savior and Lord." Will you do that today? He is waiting. As a matter of fact, He has been waiting for you all along.
