Scripture: Dt. 6:5; Jeremiah 31:3; Matthew 22:37
Theme: Loving The LORD
Title: Heavenly Waiter or Sit-Down Friend?
Deuteronomy 6:5 -English Standard Version
5 You shall love the Lord your The LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Jeremiah 31:3 English Standard Version
3 the Lord appeared to him[a] from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Matthew 22:37 -English Standard Version
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your The LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33:11)
INTRO:
How many of you ate out last week?
How many of you and your family took the time to travel to a nice restaurant to enjoy a wonderful meal?
Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, going out to eat was not common. Or should I say it was not something that our family did very much. In fact, I don’t think that we went out as a family to a proper restaurant more than 10 times in my first 18 years of life.
Now, there are a few reasons for that:
1. We were a family of seven people who were living on a rather constrained budget.
2. There were not very many family style restaurants near our little town.
3. My mom happened to be an excellent cook, so my dad thought why should we go somewhere else where the food is not as good as what we can eat at home.
That pattern of not going out to eat became a part of my life. Having not been raised to go out to eat, I didn’t think it was important to go out to eat with my family as well.
And like my dad, I gave all the same reasons – not enough money and the food made at home was so much better than what we could find at a local restaurant.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I decided that it was time to break that habit.
So, Rebekah and I have a date day every week. Included in that day is the sharing of a meal at one of our favorite restaurants.
It’s our time to be together. It’s our time when we can get away from the busyness of life. It’s our time when we can share something to eat, and we don’t have to deal with the cooking or cleaning up. And it’s something that Rebekah likes to do so naturally I enjoy it as well.
We have our favorite places to go. Places that we believe provide a pleasant atmosphere, great food and wonderful services. And by wonderful services, I mean that have good waiters and waitresses.
And if you are like me, you want a skilled waiter or waitress. I mean they can easily make or break the mealtime.
Over the years we have had some that have tried to entertain us when all we wanted them to do was to take our order and serve us. We were not there to be entertained by their wit or comedy.
We have had others that were in training and at times that meant that they were finding out that being a waiter or waitresses was not in their skill set.
All of it, makes the times when you have a skilled waiter or waitress a joy. For there is nothing better than a waiter or waitress understanding their true purpose in taking your order, seeing that it is right and then kindly bringing it to you with a proper attitude and smile.
I was thinking about all this the other day and realized that there have been times in my life that I have treated my relationship with the LORD on that same level. I have wanted the LORD to be my Heavenly waiter ready to wait on me at given moment, provide what I feel like I need all with a proper attitude and smile.
Now, let’s take a moment or two this morning and flesh all of this out.
It may be the case that there are some of us here this morning that have done the same thing to the LORD.
You have …
1. Desperately wanted the LORD to be attentive to you like a great waiter.
+You have wanted Him to be aware of your needs without being overly intrusive.
+You have wanted Him to be aware when you need something without you having to always remind Him of your concerns and needs.
+You want Him to just provide for you the things that you want or feel like you need.
2. You want the LORD to be ready to take your order; this is, your prayer requests in a friendly and approachable manner.
+You want the LORD to be a good listener.
+You want the LORD to be ready to write down what you want Him to do. Many times we come to The LORD with a list of things we want Him to do for us or for others.
Much like the way we approach a menu – I want that beverage, I want that appetizer, I want that entrée and I want that dessert. Thank you very much and now please go and start working on our order/prayer.
3. We expect the LORD to provide for us that we have asked.
+We don’t want any discussion.
+We want The LORD to be efficient.
+We have asked (more like told) the LORD what we would like Him to do for us and now we will wait for Him to start doing it.
To be nice (because after all that is who we are) we don’t even mind waiting a little while (after all He has other prayers to answer and other people wanting His attention) but we also don’t want Him to take too much time.
+We know what we want, we have put in our requests and now it’s up to the LORD to deliver.
4. When there is a hiccup or a problem that suddenly arises in our lives, in our prayer lives or even with our prayers, we want The LORD like any good waiter to know how to handle the situation graciously and resolve the issue with a minimal number of disruptions.
We understand that our prayers may in fact counteract with other people’s prayers and we trust the LORD to work the whole mess out without causing us or others very much trouble.
After all, if He is the Creator and the Great I Am, then He should be able to work out all things so that everyone is happy.
Now, I know we don’t want to think that we have experienced that type of relationship with The LORD, but if we are honest with ourselves there are times when we treat The LORD like we would some waiter or waitress.
+We know what we want and so we tell the LORD.
+We want Him to go back into the kitchen of Heaven and make sure that our requests are fulfilled.
+With as little delay as Heavenly possible we want the LORD to come back with the answers to our prayers – with our meal so to speak.
+We want Him to graciously stay around to make sure that the answers/meal are pleasing to us.
+When we are finished and if He continues to do a good job then we will thank the LORD and perhaps even put a coin or two into the church’s coffers.
I wish I could say that I have never treated the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY that way – like He is my Heavenly Waiter whose main mission is to meet my needs but sadly that would not be true.
There have been many times throughout my life that I have treated the LORD that way.
There have been many times that I have approached Him not to spend the day with Him or to spend much time with Him at all.
After saying a few nice things about Him (because after all you should start your prayers with praising the LORD) I then give Him a list of things that I want Him to do for me and my family. And I would like those things to be done as soon as possible and with the least amount of disturbance to me or to my family.
I wonder:
+What would happen if suddenly instead of treating the LORD like a supernatural waiter, we invited Him to sit down with us for a meal and for a time of fellowship?
+What would happen if we took a page out of the Moses story, like the one we read about in Exodus 33 where Moses sets up this tent for the sole purpose of spending time with Lord. Moses called it the “tent of meeting”. The Bible tells us that
“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33:11)
Think about that for a moment.
“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33:11)
Can you imagine fixing up a tent, a particular place just so that you and The LORD could have some alone time?
Where would you put it?
What would you put in the tent?
Would you have a chair for the LORD?
Would you set out some snacks?
What would it feel like to know that each time you went into the tent of meeting that you were going to spend some time with the one who created everything.
If that picture is not powerful enough – let’s go back to the beginning of time where we see in the book of Genesis where The LORD would come down in the cool of the day just to spend time with Adam and Eve – Genesis 3:8
Can you imagine that?
“Adam” – Eve says – “It’s almost time for The LORD to come down and spend some time with us. Don’t you just love our time with the LORD? It seems like Eden is brighter and the love that He brings fills the very air that we breath. I can’t wait to tell Him all that we did today.”
If you are like me, it all seems too impossible to imagine.
Here is the LORD, the LORD Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth – maker of some 200 billion galaxies like our Milky Way – and He – The LORD – the only true LORD takes the time to come to one planet – a rather small one called Earth and then to come to a small garden like the Garden of Eden or even a smaller place – like Moses’ tent to spend time with humans.
At first glance all of this seems improbably and impossible.
At first, I couldn’t imagine how the LORD could spend time with us. Or that He would even want to spend time with us.
And yet, as you read the Bible you find the LORD doing that very thing. He has all these different encounters with people like Adam and Eve, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Samuel, King David, Elijah and Elisha and Daniel to name just a few.
And then there is that passage in Revelation 3, where the LORD comes and knocks at our door for us to open it and invite Him to come inside for a time of fellowship and a meal (Revelation 3:20).
If what I have said so far has not at least convinced you a little that the Lord wants to spend time with you take a moment to really reflect on the Incarnation.
The LORD so loved us that He came down.
To do what – just to save us by dying on a cross?
That’s a one moment encounter – Jesus was only on the cross for a few hours until He gave up His Spirit to the Father and died for us.
But the Bible shares something quite different. Jesus came down as a baby who grew up as a child and then as a young man all the time sharing life with all those around Him.
He talks to people, all kinds of people. People who are good and those who are not so good. People who are healthy and those who are unhealthy. People who are free and others who are in bondage.
And He eats with the lot of them. He eats with both the tax collector, the Pharisee and the disciple. He eats with the rich and the poor.
On more than one occasion the LORD even provided the meal to eat. On one particular event He provided more than 150 gallons of wine to share (John 2).
You can’t read the New Testament without realizing repeatedly that the LORD loves spending time with His people regardless of whether they love Him, follow Him or obey Him.
I wonder how many of those He ate with at first understood that they were eating with the Creator, the Great I Am?
I wonder if we understand all the times that the LORD just wants to spend some time with us – listening and talking to us as we eat, as we walk, as we drive down the highway, as we sit or as we do our daily work?
All of this is rather mind blowing if you just take a moment to reflect on it all.
The LORD of the Universe, the King of Heaven and Earth, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings invites us to open our hearts, minds and souls so that He can join us. He just wants to spend some time with every one of us.
He is not in a hurry. He has all the time in the world for after all He created time and can at any moment be both in time and out of time.
However, He really doesn’t want to just be some type of heavenly waiter or waitress whose sole purpose is just to wait on us and meet our every wish and want. He not only doesn’t want to do that He refuses to do that. The LORD is not our lap dog to do what we want Him to do at our every bidding.
But then again like any good father, He will provide for us much more than we could ever need or want. Jesus tells us that He came to bring life – more life than we could ever imagine – Jesus called it Abundant Life (John 10:10).
What does all this mean?
What it means is for us to realize that The LORD wants to do more than merely redeem us. He wants to be in communion with us.
Jesus’ prayer in John 17 shows us this very thing – when Jesus prays that even as He and the Father are one that He wants us humans to be at One with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (John 17:21-23).
That is in fact the whole purpose for the LORD coming down to Earth, dying for us, being raised again and sending His Holy Spirit.
It is so that you and I could have communion with Him. Communion in our lives here and now and afterwards on the New Heaven and Earth to come.
But, practically what does all this mean?
+First it means that we need to set aside some LORD time.
The Lord had the Psalmist write – Be Still and Know I am The LORD (Psalm 46:10).
In other words, we need to have appointed times to be with the LORD. To be quiet in His Presence. To take some time and soak in His Presence and allow The LORD to talk to us.
How will He do that?
How will The LORD talk to us?
Well, in the past The LORD has talked to humans in many ways. There have been those times that He has just talked to people like you and I talk to one another. We see that with Adam and Eve, with Noah and Abraham.
At other times He has used dreams and visions like with Pharoah (Genesis 41), Daniel (Daniel 8) and Joseph (Matthew 2). Still other times He has used nature. We see that in the life of Elijah on the mountain top (1 Kings 19) and His disciples as they have traveled down the road together (Mark 11).
He has also used other people to share His message like Philip with the Ethiopian (Acts 8) and the Apostle Paul with the many disciples in Asia Minor. And of course, He has used the written words which we can read in the Bible.
The question really should not be will the LORD or can the LORD talk to us because those are rather foolish questions given the facts that we have so many examples of the LORD doing just that.
The question we must ask is will we hear – will we enable ourselves to be able to hear what the LORD has to say.
One of the things that Jesus repeatedly reminded his listeners was that they need to have ears to hear (Matthew 11:15; Mark 4:9). Not that they had to provoke the LORD to talk to them.
From the moment of creation, the LORD has always communicated and has always wanted to communicate with all His creation; with humans in particular.
The problem has been and continues to be that mankind has too quickly heard the words of Satan who tells us that the LORD only wants to speak words of judgement and condemnation.
This is when we must always remember Satan’s basic character – He is a liar, a thief and a murderer ( John 8:44; 10:10). We can never believe anything that comes out of his or one of his demons (yes, there are demons) mouths.
The LORD didn’t die for us to condemn us.
“The LORD sent not His Son into the world to condemn us but that through Him, through Jesus Christ we can be saved.” – John 3:17 (translation mine).
The Lord came to save us. He came to restore His image in us and provide for us life not death, health not sickness, joy, not pain and Heaven and the New Earth not Hell.
It’s the whole reason that the LORD came not only to save us but to share life with us through the power and presence of His Holy Spirit.
Our tent of meeting is inside of us.
Each one of us the Apostle Peter tells us can not only receive New Life from above but be filled with the very presence of the LORD HIMSELF. (Acts 2:38)
Just as the first Adam received the breath of the LORD to live so too through the power of the Holy Spirit we receive the breath of the LORD to live forevermore.
Think about that for a moment. You don’t have to go to a special place. You don’t have to make a special tent.
You – your heart, your mind and your soul is the very place if you allow the LORD – for you and the LORD to meet and have fellowship.
Okay – so, let’s say I want that –
I want the LORD to come in and have fellowship with me – I want His Holy Spirit and my spirit to be join one to the another. I want my heart to be a meeting place that the LORD and I can meet and talk.
What happens next?
EVERYTHING
Everything happens next.
A whole new world opens to your heart, mind and soul. You begin to breathe differently, see differently, think differently and live differently.
There are a couple of songs that can help us here.
They are:
+Your Presence Is My Home | New Christian Worship Hillsong Music – (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLzlVXEDhvQ)
+Your Presence Is My Home | Uplifting Christian Worship Song of Belonging, Peace & Divine Intimacy -Your Presence Is My Home | Uplifting Christian Worship Song of Belonging, Peace & Divine Intimacy
Both of them focus on this one thought – YOUR PRESENCE IS MY HOME
The more we realize that allowing the LORD to set up His Presence in our lives the more we can enjoy The LORD to His fullness.
Can there be anything greater than allowing the LORD into your heart and life and then spending time with Him?
It opens the door to everything.
Moses saw the LORD, heard from the LORD, was transformed by the LORD and worked with the LORD to transform our planet, our history and all of creation.
The same could be said of Ruth, Esther and Mary. The same could be said for Matthew, Luke and the Apostle Peter.
And the same could be said for you and me.
We have the ability to be transformed from the inside out.
In a small way we do this very thing each day with what we eat, what we drink and what we put into our bodies. We do that with what we watch, what we listen to and what we give of our time.
People who eat too much will find out one day that they can’t hide it.
People who take drugs cannot hide it in the end.
People who listen to a certain type of music play that music in their car, in their homes and over time pick up a certain musical vibe along with a certain lifestyle.
People who continually watch certain things open the door for those things to transform the way they look at the world.
In the same way, the more time we spend with the LORD – just talking, just sharing life, just allowing His Presence to become our Home – our shelter, our resting place, our dwelling place – will transform us.
I love to go to restaurants when they are alive with people, with family and friends talking and sharing life.
Two of the places that Rebekah and I like to go to are Cracker Barrel and Olive Garden.
I know that they don’t seem like they should go together but one has a great breakfast and the other on has a great lunch menu.
And at times both are full of people – people that are laughing, talking, sharing life, helping one another and enjoying the food and atmosphere.
Both are different – but both are the same.
Each of them provides a place to sit and a meal to eat and a time to share life.
It’s a slice of heaven.
That is what the LORD invites us to experience with Him.
It is not by accident that Jesus used a meal to share the elements of Communion. The shame is that we have taken the meal, the time of fellowship out of Holy Communion.
We have made it to much of a ritual – a ritual while beautiful is far too often solidary even in the midst of community. Too often it just becomes something we taste, and we don’t allow enough time to sit, pause and rest in Christ.
We don’t have a time for fellowship where we can talk to one another and talk to the LORD.
Go back and read the Last Supper passages - Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 22:7-38, and even 1 Corinthians 11:23-25.
All of them are centered around a real meal; a meal that provides a time of celebration, joy, fellowship with the LORD and other human beings.
I fully understand that only in small settings at appointed times that I could ever hope of such a thing happening in a church, but we miss out on the fullness and beauty of what happened that first night of the LORD’s Supper 2000 years ago.
So, in your life – is the LORD more of a waiter/waitress or a friend joining you for a meal?
Do you allow Him a time to talk to you?
Do you allow His Presence to become your home?
You can – He would love to spend time with you this upcoming week.
He would love to just rest in your presence, and you rest in His.
No real agenda, just a meet and greet.
In time, if you listen, the Holy Spirit will bless you, guide you and transform you and you will enjoy your life here on this earth in ways that only you can through Him.
The Christian Life is not as complicated as sometimes people try to make it.
Jesus called us to Repent – that is to turn from sin and selfishness and turn towards Him, the Father and the Spirit and then follow them.
They will lead us. They will guide us. They will talk to us. They will spend time with us.
God didn’t come down to our earth for 33 ½ years, go to a cross, die a horrible death, be raised from the dead, ascend into heaven and send His Holy Spirit to not spend time with us, guide us or redeem us.
No, He did everything so that we could once again have some Garden of Eden time, some Moses in the meeting tent time and some time where we experience the transforming oneness with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
So, I challenge you today:
Go for a walk with the LORD.
Take a Drive with just you and the Lord.
Let the Lord go to work with you.
Talk to God throughout the day – become His friend – get to know Him. Read His Word. Invite His Spirit to teach you. Rest in His Presence.
Just Follow Him and You will be Amazed at what the LORD and you can do together!
