Do not be? For God is with you.
Please be warned this is a Salvation Message and there will be an opportunity for response at the end of it.
Have you ever forsaken something? What? Forsaken is to leave, to be renounce, to give up altogether…My first car was a red Ford Anglia 105e that I forsook for my second car, a rather sad karitane yellow coloured Renault T12 Station Wagon, looking back I’m not really sure what I was thinking . Occasionally forced forsakenness comes upon us. One of my sons went to an Intermediate School in Upper Hutt when we lived there that had a cage for locking bikes in during the school day, he would leave his new bike in the cage where it was locked during the day, one day he walked home only to remember around dinner time that he had left his bike in the cage, the cage being now unlocked, we shot down to the school only to find that someone had stolen the bike. We looked all over the neighbourhood to see if it was dumped somewhere…we contacted the Police, but sometime later we realised that it was gone never to be seen again. We forsook ever seeing it again and I brought the boy another bike with some of his pocket money going towards the insurance excess and the understanding that it was never to happen again. You might think that’s a bit mean, but they call that bit tough love.
Last week I started into a small series concerning advice King David gave his Lad Solomon about building the Temple in Jerusalem. This can be found in 1 Chronicles 28:20 and 21. This is the advice. ”David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished. The divisions of the priests and Levites are ready for all the work on the temple of God, and every willing person skilled in any craft will help you in all the work…..”
Today I’m going to address one of these statements from this piece of advice Funnily enough it’s got a bit to do with God not failing us or forsaking us.
Have you ever heard someone say I feel distant from God? I just thought I’d put that out there. Show of hands?
This seems to be a common happening.
Been there yourself?
1) Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.
Well that should cheer everyone up. If you can just get your head around that it should all be just tickityboo!
A simple solution to all of life’s problems. I’m going to go out on a slight limb here and ask is it that easy? I’m also going to answer that it might be.
Now if we look at David and Solomon it was. Back in the day God would get a certain person and fill them to the brim with his Holy Spirit. When the tabernacle was built at the time of Moses, God said this, “I have chosen Bezalel …..and have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts -.” (Exodus 31:1-3 ) Why did God do that? The answer is so that this bloke could do the work required on his tabernacle, the pre-runner of the Temple. Gosd was alos with Solomon by his Holy Spirit.
Then there is this from 2 Chronicles 15:1-2 “The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa (King of Judah) and said to him listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin (tribes x 2). The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him he will be found in you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” The Hebrew meaning for forsakes most common meaning is to ‘leave’.
May be sometimes we feel distant from God because we choose to leave him.
2) Interestingly there is a shift in who the Holy Spirit enters into when Jesus is risen from the dead, in that the Holy Spirit is since then poured out on many, God no longer just resides in a few special people, so that they can do great things but in many. What is it that Peter says at Pentecost? He uses the words of the prophet Joel and says : ““‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people, Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”
The thing is that in this present age God calls us to do great things in his name and empowers us by his Holy Spirit to do so. If you are not doing things in your life that you would never have dreamed of doing God might just have a dream coming that will take you to an amazing place by his power, by the power of His Holy Spirit.
Talking about power and doing great things in God, those who do great kingdom of God stuff are people who are Spirit filled. They are people whose lives are full of things given by God, they show “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23), they are people who are gifted with gifts from God, Spiritual gifts. They play a part in kingdom life and growth. I’ve always found it interesting that some people who believe in Jesus, believe in God shy away from the power that comes from God.
Just as an aside I’d like to show you a couple of saws I own. This one here is as a great saw [Handsaw], as long as I’ve had it this one has cut really well, the other one though is completely useless [power saw] , it won’t cut spit, look at this. Unless I plug it in. ‘We have the ability to be plugged into the Spirit of Christ, that is the Holy Spirit and when we do we know God is with us.’
So should all Christians be plugged into the Holy Spirit? When I was learning how to preach they taught us this one thing you don’t say if you don’t want to turn people off a sermon, it’s this. “Never say in a sermon that people should or must do something. It will turn people off what you’re saying in the blink of an eye.” So to answer this question, should all Christians be plugged into the Holy Spirit? These words of Jesus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ (John 3:5-8) The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Now Jesus said that in a chat with a bloke from the ruling Jewish council by the name of Noicodemus and where he was going was that we have all been born of the water, the waters break and our mums are delivered of an 8 lb 4 oz bouncing bundle of joy in my case, in addition Jesus said we must be born of the Holy Spirit. Then we know we are reborn, we’ve encountered the power of God, he changes us. He will continue to change us, live in us as long as we don’t forsake him; “never fail or forsake us”, maybe our physical health will fail us, maybe a close friend, our money, our position, our children, our car, caravan, boat, cat, dog, get the picture… might fail us or forsake us, but the Holy Spirit…God never will. This is eternal stuff…kingdom of God stuff. Why because God is with you in this journey and will be until the work of the temple is complete.
Why did I say that about the temple?
3) This from the apostle Paul, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
If you have given your life to God, you are a work in progress, if you’re not dead just now you are a temple that is still in the process of being built…and God will not fail or forsake you in that work. So you are now a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, the Spirit of God received from God. You were brought through the death of Jesus and you are now God’s…as a work in progress honour God with your body.
I would pick that as Christian people we endeavour to what pleases God and not ourselves, that while we may struggle with selfishness we endeavour to live for God and serve others. That while we previously were lost in sinful selfishness and got what we could without caring for others we are now empowered to live in the Spirit.
I know that some struggle with this, I know that there have been times when we have been lost. Lost in sin, lost in self, lost in selfish ambition, lost in worldly desires…if you find yourself there do not be afraid or discouraged.
Do you want to be a Spirit filled person, do you want to be right with God? Matthew records some words of Jesus early in his ministry; Jesus says this and this was a message he often brought. “ Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17)
People; the kingdom of heaven is as far away as a repentant heart, a sinners prayer of confession, a desire to be right with God…for God resides in repentant lives and builds his temple there.
Just maybe you are here today struggling with distance from God, afraid of what your life is, discouraged by circumstances, or maybe you want an infilling of God’s Spirit so that you can do great things for his kingdom. If so I’m going to ask you to do something. For about a minute I’m going to ask everyone to close their eyes, (close your eyes now) if you want to respond to God in some way, if God is asking you to journey deeper with him, if you want to take him at his word and be his temple I will ask that you just raise your hand and then I’ll pray.
Prayer: Lord hear my prayer; for those who have responded to you today, for those who maybe for the first time, who maybe it’s been sometime since they responded to you I pray that you empower them by your Holy Spirit that they may know what it is to be born of the Spirit. This I ask in Jesus name. Amen
Please open your eyes.
For those who live knowing the Spirit at work in your lives, this week listen for the still small voice. Do not be afraid or discouraged, God is with you by his Spirit residing in you. Listen, what is the worship that he asks comes out of the temple that is you?
