Ok I'm going to talk a little Christianity 101 with you this morning if that's okay if I if I were to ask a show of hands is how many of you believe in God i'm sure most if not all of you erase your hands but how often do we ask ourselves who is God what do we believe about God and before you answer that keep in mind what's riding on the answer to that question. If we don't answer that question correctly then nothing else we believe about Carter about spiritual things will be right and even it goes even beyond what we think it's the quote spiritual arena I mean when we look at the news and any hot button issue that faces our country and our world now just about every one of them can be traced back to what people believe about God or about ultimate reality.
So let's do a little audience participation if you
don't mind. I'd like a few of you to complete this sentence God is God it's what? What adjectives do you have?
I want to continue on with that theme by looking at three prominent attributes that the Bible gives to God:
God is holy
God is truth, and
God is love
Ok the first one I'm going to
look at is God is holy and in our world today the common perception of God is he's the sentimental old guy sitting on his cosmic rocking chair blissfully watching the universe go by and my friends nothing could be further from the truth in that the God of the Bible is a God of zeal and passion and he is a god that requires things of us.
Unfortunately that's the point where a lot of people walk away from it but they we all have the heart of the Apostle Peter who said Lord where else would wego you're the one who has the words of life amen?
Even the term God in the sense of our English language is very limited in some ways the Bible uses it to describe false gods as well as the true God in fact it draws that distinction over 130 times that's something to think about. The Hebrew language is much more descriptive it gives and gives us several important names of God and one of the most intriguing names is designated by our English letters yhwh or as the Hebrew would say yud hey vav hey. They call it the tetragrammaton and keep in mind the Hebrew language has no vowels so the name has been
anglicized over the years it became Yahweh and Yahoveh and as we will commonly know Jehovah. Most of us have had
teaching them on the different
variations of that name
Jehovah Rapha the Lord our healer
Jehovah Jireh the Lord our provider
Jehovah Shalom the Lord our peace
There are a lot more but
you get the idea
At the same time though it's noteworthy that the Jews
have had such reverential awe for that name of God that they've refused to uh turn out loud and could it be that some of us and I include myself in that have have lost some of that reverence.
So with that in mind let's go to Isaiah chapter 6 and I'm reading out of the New Living Translation for those of you following
along i'm going to read in verses 1
through 9:
it was in the year King Uzziah
died which would it would have been about 740 bc that I saw the Lord he was sitting on a lofty throne in the train of his robe filled the temple attending him were mighty Seraphim each having six wings with two wings they covered their faces what to they covered their feet and with two they flew they were calling out to each other holy holy holy is the Lord of heavens armies the whole earth is filled with his glory their voices shook the temple to its foundations and the entire building was filled with smoke. Then I said it's all over I'm doomed for I'm a sinful man I filthy
lips and I've lived among a people with filthy lips yet I've seen the king the Lord of heavens armies then one of the Seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs he touched my lips with it and said see this coal has touched your lips now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven then I heard the Lord asking whom should I send as a messenger to this people who will go for us I said Here I am sin me and he said go.
There are several things in this passage that I'd like to point out to you first let's look at verse 3 notice that God is described not just as "holy" but as "holy holy holy" and in the Jewish mode of communication repetition was often used as a sign of emphasis you know often
in His teaching Jesus would punctuate his statements with "verily verily" or "truly truly"
to repeat something three times was to give it the utmost attention the utmost emphasis and notice that in the entire Bible only one attribute of God is given that sort of emphasis and that is His Holiness. The Bible never says God is
"love love love" or "Mercy Mercy Mercy" that's because every other attribute of his character flows out of his holiness. God's love his holy love and his love is holy mercy.
Next l let's look at the
effect this vision has on Isaiah that's in verse 5 then I said it's all over I'm doomed for I'm a sinful man I have filthy lips and I live among a people of filthy lips yet I've seen the king the host of heavens armies.
Friends this is where it all begins. Every believer’s walk with God must begin with an awakening as to who God is and who we are. He is holy and we're not, at least
apart from him. or not and this realization if you studied out in the
Bible is always accompanied by a feeling of holy fear for example
Genesis 18 27: Abraham enters into God's presence and realizes that he's nothing but dust and ashes
Judges 13:22 we see manoa who was the father of samson see an angel ofthe Lord and all I can say is we willsurely die because we have seen God.
Mark 4:41 when the disciples see Jesus still a storm it's it says that they
feared exceedingly and said to one another what manner of man is this thateven the winds and the sea obey Him?
Friends this is what Proverbs means when it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom but of course it doesn't end there. Next looks in Isaiah let's look at verses 6
through 9 then one of the Seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs he touched my lips with it and said see the coal has touched your lips now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven. then I heard the Lord saying whom shall I send as a messenger to this people who will go for us I said Here I am sin me and he said go
This is where we see God doing what only he can do taking the impure and making it pure.
First this is important to keep in mind is that as we look further and how this
affects our lives 1 Peter 1:5 at first Peter 1 15 and 16 tells us not
only the God is holy but also he expects us to be holy as he is holy. Hebrews 12: 14 takes it even further telling us that without holiness no man will see God! Those are sobering thoughts aren't they? Let's think about that how can we ever be holy in the way these verses tell us to be? First let's make sure we're defining the terms properly. Holiness is
not legalism and by legalism I mean following man-made rules trying to make ourselves holy. When you think about that's ridiculous from the onset. It's a complete counterfeit to what true holiness really is and it's led a lot of
people to adopt some really bizarre behavior. You know we we said those chuckle a little bit about the people that say that women should wear theirhair up in a bun so tight that it moves when they blink their eyes but really it's no laughing matter. When we when we try to be wholly by our own man-made
efforts what we're doing is robbing God of his glory. The fact is that we can never make ourselves holy only God can do that. As the saying goes God loves us as we are but he loves us too much to leave us that way. The process which God
does that is called sanctification and to be sanctified means to be set apart for holy purpose. We call this room the sanctuary because it's a room that's set apart for the worship of God. If you ever go to Dollywood we did a few weeks ago we you see the eagle sanctuary it'sa parcel of land that set apart for the preservation of those Eagles again same .idea.
When we first come to Jesus there is a sense in which we're
sanctified didn't there were set apart for his use but it doesn't end there. Sanctification is a continuing process that goes on until we get to heaven. now to
John chapter 17 I'm not going to read the whole passage but this is a part of one of the most powerful prayers that Jesus ever offered. This is the prayer he prayed just before he went to the cross and it's important to know that this was some of his parting desires was that his people be sanctified and set apart.
I'll begin reading it verse 15
I'm not asking you to take them out of the world but I'm asking you to keep them safe from the evil one they do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth teach them or the (King James says sanctify them) by your truth teaching me your word which is truth.
Charles Spurgeon put it beautifully:
Our Lord's desire for the sanctification of his people pervades the whole prayer but it is gathered up declared it intensified in the one sentence I've read to you sanctify them through the truth thy Word is truth! How invaluable this blessing of
sanctification must be when our Lord in the highest reach of his intercession Christ sanctify them in the light in the sight of his passion on the night before his death the Savior lifts his eyes to the Great Father in Christ and his most
plaintive tones sanctify them!
I'm going to go back now to verse 17 and that's going to lead us into the next point of the message make them holy by your truth teach them your word which is truth and
the second part as I mentioned earlier is
God is truth
In this prayer Jesus is telling us that one of God's chief tools in accomplishing our sanctification is through his word. Why? Because this word is truth!
I once heard of a minister who
spent a lot of time studying the Bible and someone rather sarcastically said "why do you study the Bible so much? you're
not going to change the world!" and he wisely responded "I don't study to change the world I study to keep the world from changing me" 1 Peter 2:2 tells us to "desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby." if
the Bible is not a living dynamic part of our lives will not get very far as Christians Jesus himself repeatedly said things like
Thy Word is truth
The Scripture cannot be broken
The Scripture must be fulfilled
If the perfect sinless son of God needed God's Word and how much more do we? To be a Bible believer is to place simple trust in the the faithfulness of the integrity
of God, to know he loves us he wants a relationship with us and that we can be perfectly confident he's given us reliable understandable and practical
guide on how to have that relationship!
Knowing that will keep us firmly grounded in the truth and we need that more than ever! When we know the truth will easily spot a counterfeit when it comes up.
We are placing our faith in a God that can be trusted. He's a God of complete integrity! He's
100% trustworthy 100% of the time and knowing that we
can take that proverbial leap of faith with full assurance that he will catch
us every time!
Do you remember the old hymn It Is Well With My Soul? have you heard the story behind it? The song was written by a man named Horatio Spafford and in 1873 he and his family were sailing across the Atlantic Ocean when the ship they're on collided
with another ship and sank and his four daughters were drowned. But even in such a heartbreaking experience with that this manwas able to write:
When peace like a river and attendeth my way
when sorrows like sea billows roll
whatever my life thou has taught me to
say it is well it is well with my soul.
Friends, this man knew the things I was talking about. He knew that no matter how dark
our lives may become, and we all have dark times in life, we have an anchor for our souls that will hold us secure no matter how hard the winds blow amen? I
keep coming back to this theme of God's integrity because it's so crucial in our capacity to trust Him. It's because of God's integrity that He can expect us to walk in integrity. We have to trust that when he tells us to do something or not to do it he has our good in mind and He knows what's best for us. .Further, you know
he has the right to expect us to walk an integrity too. Lying, slander, gossip and dishonesty should have no place in our lives and the spiritual reasons for that are obvious but it's got practical implications for it as well. I mean think about this you tell a
lie deep down you know you're going to be kept found out about it eventually.
When you get busted what are you going to do? You can either admit you lied face the consequences or you can tell another lie
to cover it up and just let it snowball
more and more from there. So as you can see this is not just empty piety. Honesty will simplify your life that's that's just the way it is. or any of you guys
Next we'll move on to the last attributewe're going to be talking about this
evening and that is that
God is love
This statement is based on 1st John 4:8 and noticed that the verse doesn't simply say God loves or God has loved it says
that God is love! It's impossible to
separate him from that and further
Ephesians 3:19 tells us his love "passes all understanding!" it's beyond the grasp of our human grey matter to to comprehend it all! Martin Luther said "God's love is a furnace and ablaze of such love that it fills all heaven!" Friends that's good news?
It's so important at the same time to
distinguish between the love of God and the world sometimes skewed definition of love. God's love is not just some sentimental warm
and fuzzy type of love. As we said earlier God's love is a holy love and while he loves us in spite of our sin he also hates the
sin! And let's look at the living
embodiment of God's love of course that's Jesus.
Are we going to say that Jesus never got angry or that he never confronted anyone? I mean try asking that to those money changers that felt the sting of his whip!
But that's what makes God's love so amazing he lavishes his love on us in spite of our sins our struggles or imperfections and Romans 8 gives us the promise that none of those things can ever separate us from God's love! Isn't that wonderful? There are many
facets of God's love a lot more than
what we can discuss in one message but two of the most important are
called mercy and grace. The nutshell definition of those words is grace is getting what we don't deserve mercy is not getting what we do deserve! Together
they form the point where God's call for total obedience meets His offer
of total forgiveness. it's because we've we've received this fullness of love and forgiveness that God expects us to walk in this way toward other people. Romans 5:5 tells us that the love of God has shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore Jesus taught us to pray that God would
forgive our sins just as we forgive those who sin against us.
That's another sobering thing if we don'tvforgive others God won't forgive us! Further, if we fail to walk in this love the
world will know it! Mahatma Gandhi was well known for his statement "I like your Christ. I do not
like your Christians they're so unlike
your Christ" and unfortunately Gandhi had some experiences
that that reinforced that stereotype. For example he was once denied access to a so-called Christian worship service because he wasn't white. But when we're really walking to the love
of God that kind of nonsense goes out the window. Jesus said that the world would know we are His disciples not by our
perfect theology, not by our encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, not by our huge
offerings but by our love for one another. All those
things are important I'm not downplaying any of them but if they're not done out of a
spirit of God's love within us they're meaningless. With that in mind let's turn to first Corinthians 13 you know to get there eventually. No discussion of God's
love would would be complete withoutspending at least a little time here. I'll start with verse 1:
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
All of our tongue talking and prophesying and our big offerings if it means giving our
bodies to be burned that means nothing if it doesn't have the right motivation
behind it. Going down to verse
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
Does anyone else get convicted when they read this? I sure do! And that
brings us to the point where all three of these attributes of God intersect: that holiness of God, the truth of God and the love of God. That is, of course, the cross. In
that one event
We see the holiness of God pouring the punishment for our sin on Jesus the sin we the punishment that we deserved
We see the truth of God Knowing that that event was ordained from the very foundation of the world and seeing that over 30 Old Testament Scriptures were fulfilled in it and finally
We see the love of God greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for hisfriends. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Once I read about a medieval monk who announced that the next Sunday sermon would be on the love of God. Sunday morning came the monk walks into the
pulpit and surprisingly he didn't say a word. He just lit a candle and held it up to the crucifix. First he held it up to the crown of thorns, then to each nail pierced hand then to the wound in his side. Then he just blew out the candle, put it down walked
away. There was nothing more to add to that..So with that in mind let's turn to
Isaiah 53 and I'll begin to close with this. Isaiah 53 is a funeral dirge for the Messiah and it's one of the most heart-rending passages in the entire
Bible. I'll begin with verse one:
Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
Isaiah 53:1?-?12 NLT
Friends that's love!
Jesus was cursed so that we could be blessed
He was made sin so that we may be made righteous.
He was wounded so we may be healed
He was made poor so we could be made rich
He died so we could live!
I don't know where are you all of you stand in the relationship with Jesus there may be some of you that here who have never opened your heart to him or there may be some of you who have at one point in your life but for whatever
reason you've backed away I would like to share a few simple
words from the book of Romans
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of God's glory.
Romans 6:23 for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our lord
Romans 5:8: … but God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us
Romans 10:9 and 10 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved for with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation. and finally
Romans 10 13: … for whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be
saved.
Friends you have the opportunity
right now you don't have to leave here without full piece that you're right with God.
