April 27th, 2008 River of Life Ministries Pastor Michael West
Series: His Majesty, His Name Part Five — Jehovah Rohi
Sermon: God is wise enough for me
Scripture: Psalm 23:1-3, Isaiah 53:6
Jehovah Rohi: The Lord is my Shepherd. This means that He will protect, provide, direct and lead as well as taking care of all the needs of His people. God is a tender yet strong and very patient Shepherd. Jehovah Rohi is also known as Jehovah Rahah. Jesus being the Good Shepherd who lays down His own life for all people.
Let’s pray-
At Saint Mary’s Church they have a weekly husbands’ marriage seminar. At a session last week, the priest asked Luigi, who was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to take a few minutes and share some insights into how he had managed to stay married to the same woman all these years.
Luigi replied to the assembled husbands, "Well, I’ve a-tried to treat-a her nice, spend the money on her, but best is that I took-a her to Italy for the 20th anniversary!" The priest responded, "Luigi, you are an amazing inspiration to all the husbands here! Please tell us what you are planning for your wife for your 50th anniversary."
Luigi proudly replied, "I’m a-gonna go to get her."
Jesus is just alright by me. God’s wisdom is alright by me. I trust Him. He is my Shepherd.
English is really a strange language and difficult to learn as all the children in school will testify to you this morning.
Nouns, verbs, adjectives. How come other languages don’t use do and isn’t interesting as well the compound word forms we use. Like science defined means knowledge or potent when defined is power, coupled with omni, which means all, we have omnipotence or omniscience. Omniscience: all knowledge, Omnipotent: all power.
We are very clever to be able to put two different words together to give a better understanding of things. Like Gi (from gigantic) and normous (from enormous) and make the word ginormus, bigger than the both of them together (yes, a real word).
However, there is one word we have yet to be able to do this with and that is, wisdom. In over 300,000 words, there is no omniwisdom. But God is all wise. He is wisdom and He is infinite which makes Him infinitely wise.
By his power he made the earth, by his wisdom set the world firm, but his discernment spread out the heavens. But in him there is wisdom, and power too, and good counsel no less than discretion. which he has given to us so fully and freely. God, with full wisdom and
understanding, Through Christians like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!
Jeremiah 10:12; Job 12:13; Ephesians 1:8, 3:10 (NJB, NCV & MSG Bibles)
But a heart that worships God doesn’t need to be told that. We tend to say, don’t pray for patience for the trials will come to test it in us. There is also something else we should not do, ask God to prove His wisdom or demand proof of it.
If you ask me to prove something I wouldn’t get my feelings hurt, but to ask God would be a slap in His face. He is Majestic. The Most High and lifted up Majesty of all creation and to question Him would be the extreme supreme degradation and insult. He has to be all wise and full of infinite wisdom to be on the throne or you couldn’t be sure of anything. Everything you know could get all topsy-turvy, heaven won’t exist, hell would be the place you want to go and if you don’t get it right you can die and come back and try again.
God is a good God and wouldn’t lead us in that direction. So if God is all good, all knowing, all wise and all caring, why crime? Murder? Disease? Suffering? Peg legs? Explain that.
Okay. Let’s say there is this guy who is extremely intelligent and very wise, in fact he is so rich that he is top of the top. One day he wants to have the largest home ever built. He searched for the best place to build it and spares no expense on architects, designers, builders, materials and so on. Beautiful. The pools that gardens, his is the most talked about in town, the country, the world!
No one has ever seen or could ever imagine. He is more high tech than anyone in the world thanks to Bill Gates.
But, after a short while, there is trouble in the land. An army invades
And takes over the palace only dreams are made of. They stable the horses inside. The doors are always open. The dogs come and go. Wine and beer bottles, pizza boxes, trash everywhere on the marble floor. One of the soldiers worked on some motorcycles in the kitchen, you get the idea.
Things had settled a bit and there was this tourist visiting the country and was told there was this great home open for all to see. He was told it was magnificent, but when he got there, it was not a thing of beauty at all. But the townsfolk told him to wait. Since the bad guys were driven out, rounded up and sentenced for their great crimes, the owner is coming back to fix it up. After a while, it was fixed and the people were once again talking about the greatest mansion in the world.
Once upon a time, in the beginning, there was someone named God Who had let His mighty creativity loose upon the universe and with all wisdom created the heavens and the earth, and beasts, and man, who by the way was created in God’s own image. As it goes, man needed some help, God gave the man a woman He called Eve. Things were pretty tight between the three of them, until one day this bad guy invaded their home called the garden of Eden. Through manipulation and lies Adam and Eve lost everything due to their new attribute called sin and the bad guy, we’ll call him, Satan, took over their stuff and turned the world topsy-turvy. Critics said this place is trashed and couldn’t believe that God would make a place like this.
God, in His great wisdom allowed some foreign occupier seize the land for his own personal gain and this great big blue ball flying at 1300 mph, our home that we call earth, handmade by God, rests under some dark authorities shadow?
Romans 8:19-25 (God’s Word)
19 All creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal who his children are. 20 Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice. The one who subjected it to frustration did so in the hope 21 that it would also be set free from slavery to decay in order to share the glorious freedom that the children of God will have. 22 We know that all creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time. 23 However, not only creation groans. We, who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts, also groan inwardly. We groan as we eagerly wait for our adoption, the freeing of our bodies {from sin}. 24 We were saved with this hope in mind. If we hope for something we already see, it’s not really hope. Who hopes for what can be seen? 25 But if we hope for what we don’t see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
Romans 8:18 I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us.
God’s wise plans will be carried out. For now, we have a bit of foreign occupation—wars, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease, crimes and more, but do not even hesitate to think that God Almighty has signed off. He is still running creation. He is going to bulldoze this place. He is coming back fighting mad and the unseen enemy we fight today as we hold on, will one day be no more!
There are three classes of people in congregations today, unblessed, uncommitted and the committed. Unblessed do not believe sufficiently in God’s wisdom to run their lives completely, they know it means surrender and commitment. The uncommitted aren’t rebels but they are the ones who are spiritually up and down, they hang on in the middle, not willing to trust got and let go, so they tend to backslide. The committed, trust God’s wisdom and are satisfied not letting their own thinking get in the way.
I Thess 4:16-17 God’s trumpet will sound will you be there?
Wisdom. What is it then? The ability and skill to achieve the most perfect end whereby both the means and the end were the best way possible. God’s plans are flawless, precise, perfect and the best for us, even when we might not think they are or understand them. Listen to His voice, He will direct you and lead you. Listen.
Ever noticed when reading the words of Jesus, He never apologized? His ways are higher. His ways are best and just because someone else doesn’t understand, doesn’t mean you apologize for what was said. Jesus didn’t go, Sorry guys, I misspoke Myself yesterday when I said what I said but I meant it.
The other thing is God’s wisdom is infinite and perfect. He thought things through and there is no alternate plan. Rev. 4:11; 5:9-10, 12
Are you committed, uncommitted or unblessed today? Do you trust God’s infinite wisdom for every area of your life? Or do you need to recommit? Church, it’s time for Christians everywhere to take a stand, trust Jesus, follow Jesus, repent and commit to God while we still have today.
