Today we are beginning a new worship series at Mount Pisgah, and I’m excited about the privilege I have of preaching the first sermon in this series. For the next 6 weeks we’re going to be experiencing the different ways that God meets our deepest needs.
To help us get a handle on the ways God meets our deepest needs, we’re going to be looking at 6 of the names for God that are found in the Bible. Next week we will experience God as our Father. The following week we will experience God as our Healer. On August 5th we will experience God as our Shepherd. Then we’ll move to God as our Peace, and we’ll conclude this worship series by experiencing God as our Provider.
Father, Healer, Shepherd, Peace, Provider. These are wonderfully descriptive names of who God is and how God works in our lives to meet our deepest needs. Think about it: each of us benefits tremendously from experiencing the personal love of God as Abba Father. God who not only created the universe in all its immensity, but who also knows you intimately, and wants you to be His child.
The same is true of experiencing God as our Healer. We will each face situations at some point in our lives where healing is greatly needed. It may be physical healing, relational healing, emotional healing, or spiritual healing, but we will all come to some point in our lives where we need the kind of healing that can come from God and God alone.
The same is true of experiencing God as our Shepherd, our Provider, and our Peace. That’s why I’m so excited about this worship series. An awareness and deeper understanding of these Biblically descriptive names of God can touch us deep in our souls and truly make a difference in our lives.
With that in mind, I’d like to encourage you to bring some folks with you. Don’t you have some people in your life who need healing? Don’t you know some folks who could benefit from knowing God as their shepherd? Don’t you know some people whose lives could be transformed if they could understand the depth of the love of our Abba Father? Then bring them with you. Don’t just invite them. Pick them up and bring them with you.
I’d also like to encourage you to take your bulletin home today and spend some time this week looking up the Scriptures we’ll be using for this worship series each of the next 5 Sundays. Read the stories that surround these Scriptures, spend some thinking about what it means to understand God as your Healer, your Father, your Shepherd, your Provider, your Peace. Embrace these names of God and hold on to them as sources of comfort and strength and guidance and direction.
Then as we worship together during these next 5 weeks we’ll all be better prepared to experience whatever the Holy Spirit has in mind for us as we worship Christ, whose name is above all names.
You see names are important. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. In the name of Jesus, demons will flee. In the name of Jesus, ask and it will be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.
Names are important. Names can carry power. Names can create joy. Names can bring about hope. Names can bring about despair. Think about the different emotions or thoughts that stir in you when I say: Saddam Hussein, Chandra Levy, Babe Ruth, Winston Churchill, Adolph Hitler, Mother Teresa, Timothy McVeigh, Billy Graham. Names are important.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” I wonder. How many of you have ever been called Stupid? How many of you have ever been called Four-Eyes. How many of you, like me, have been called Fatso? Or Chicken Legs? Or Toothpick? Or any of a hundred other names that we like to call one another, and not only as children.
Names are important. When Nancy and I first moved to Atlanta in 1979 to begin attending Seminary, I worked at the NAPA warehouse out on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. I was one of the parts-pullers in the warehouse. We would take order sheets for the stores that were ordering parts that day and we would pull the parts off the shelves and place them in cartons and then send them on their way on a conveyor belt to the people who would pack them up for distribution to the trucks that would deliver them overnight.
Each parts-puller would put their initials on the order sheets so that if we made a mistake the packers downstairs could call out our initials over the intercom and ask us to send down the right part to finish the order. Well my handwriting has never been all that good and when we would be writing our initials of course we’d always be in a hurry, so my DWD apparently did not look like DWD to a particular packer one day, so she called over the intercom, which everyone in the building could hear: “Would DUD please pull part #……”
Now I know it was my fault that I didn’t write my initials legibly and it was an innocent thing from her perspective, because she simply needed the right part, but I’ve got to tell you, it sure felt funny being called DUD over that intercom. And of course my fellow parts-pullers weren’t going to let it die, so my nickname was DUD the whole time I worked there.
Names in general are important, and our names are important. Our names matter to us. Our names mean something to us. Even though we didn’t get to choose our names, they are still OUR names. They carry value. They carry meaning.
Think about the times when someone has forgotten your name, someone whom you think should have remembered your name. Forgetting your name was not the same as forgetting to pick up bread at the store, was it? If they had forgotten to pick up bread at the store, the same mental process would have been at work, but the emotional value of forgetting your name was far different than the emotional value of forgetting bread. When someone forgets your name, as innocent as it may be, you feel like they don’t value you. You’re not important enough for them to remember your name. It’s just human nature to think that way, isn’t it?
And that scares preachers to death. There is no way I can remember every single one of your names. I try. I try hard. I want to know your name. I want to be able to call you by name, but I’m not going to always be able to do it, and the older I get the worse the problem becomes. Anybody else experience that?
So the day will come when one of you will get your feelings hurt because either Allen or I don’t remember your name. And the scary thing is that to a point there’s nothing any of us can do about it, because we’re not going to be able to remember all your names, and it is human nature for you to be offended if we don’t, because your name is so important to you. Your name not only represents you, to a particular degree your name IS you.
This is especially true in ancient cultures. In ancient cultures names are extremely important. Names are seen as very descriptive of not only who people are, but also who they are meant to become. In ancient cultures names designated meaning, purpose, character, destiny.
This is seen very clearly throughout the Scriptures.
· When Abram received the promise from God that he would be the father of many nations, God changed his name from Abram to Abraham, which means “father of many.”
· When Abraham and Sarah were beyond the years of child-bearing they were told by God that they would bear a son through whom the promise would be kept, and the idea of having a baby at the age of 90 struck Sarah as so absurd that she laughed. When their miracle son was born, they named him Isaac, which means “laughter.”
· Years later, when Isaac’s son Jacob wrestled with God by the river Jabbok, God changed his name from Jacob to Israel, which means “he who struggles.”
Names are important in ancient cultures, our own names are important to us, and names are important throughout the Scriptures. That’s why I’m so excited about this worship series. As we study and experience some of the names that God uses to refer to Himself in the Bible, we are being given a tremendous gift.
In telling us His self-designated names, God is sharing deep and personal characteristics about Himself, He’s helping us grow more and more in our understanding of who He is and who He has created us to be in our relationship with Him.
If God calls Himself the Provider, you can take it to the bank that He’s going to provide for you. If God calls Himself the Healer, you can know with certainty that He has the power to heal. If God calls Himself your Abba Father, you can rest assured that He wants you to be His child.
In sharing His names with us, God is helping us encounter Him, understand Him, experience Him. And for the Hebrew people, there is one name for God in the Bible that stands above all other names, and it is the name that God uses to answer Moses when he asks God what he should tell Pharaoh if he asks the name of the God who has sent him.
God’s answer to Moses and to Pharaoh is simply “I am who I am.” The Hebrew word for this most important name of God is spelled with the four consonants YHWH. You may not be aware that the Hebrew alphabet doesn’t have any vowels in it. Instead, the Hebrew language uses what are called vowel points to help with the pronunciation of words.
Thus it is that the English translation of the Hebrew word that God uses to name Himself in this passage is normally given as Yahweh, YAHWEH, though we really don’t know for sure if this is the correct translation, because the early Hebrew Scriptures did not include any vowel points.
In any event, how this predominant name for God should be pronounced is really irrelevant to the Hebrew people, because they came to regard this name of God with such reverence that they would never speak it out loud, to keep themselves from inadvertently taking this name in vain.
The Hebrews felt that the name Yahweh not only referred to God, but also embodied God. It is not accidental that this most important name of God, the name “I AM,” is the name that the sermon planning team chose to begin this worship series with. God is our Healer. God is our Provider. God is our Peace. God is our Shepherd. God is our Abba Father.
But before God is any of these, God simply is. No matter what we think of God, no matter how we respond to God, no matter what we believe about God, God is who God is. God’s personality and power are intact in and of themselves. There was no creative influence outside of God that helped bring God into being. God simply is, always has been, and always will be.
Now there are a lot of important things that we can learn from this basic truth about God, but today I want to focus on the truth about the name Yahweh that I consider to be the most important for our daily living. Put simply, what we learn from this name of God is that we are not in control. I invite you to write that down. We are not in control.
This is a lesson that many of us find difficult to accept. We like being in control. We like to think we have something to say about what happens to us. We like to think that our destinies are in our own hands. And to a certain extent we do have control. The decisions we make, the words we say, the actions we choose to participate in, these do have a bearing on what happens to us. How we choose to live does make a difference.
I think where we usually misunderstand this control issue is that we want to pick and choose the times when we are in control. As long as things are going well, we like to think we are the ones who have made that possible.
For example, when our careers are going well, we like to think that we are the ones who pursued our education, got the right training, worked the long hours, and made the right decisions. We deserve to make the kind of money we make. We deserve to drive the kind of car we drive. We deserve to live in the kind of house we live in. We are the ones who made it happen, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the fruits of our labor?
But what happens when our career takes a downward turn? What happens when we don’t get that promotion we expected? What happens when downsizing puts us out of work? At that point our natural tendency is blame someone else. It’s not my fault the boss gave that promotion to someone less qualified. It’s not my fault the company decided to downsize.
Yes, we like to be in control all right: when things are going well. But when things aren’t going well, we’ll let someone else be in charge, so they can take the blame. Some of you have already learned an important distinction in your life, and some of you need to learn it today. And that is that there is a difference between responsibility and control.
We are responsible for our actions. We are responsible for our words. We are responsible for the things we say and do. But we are not in control. Now at first thought we usually see this as unfair. If God is going to hold us responsible for the things we say and do, then God should also let us be in complete control.
But God loves us too much to let that happen. Being in control is one of the greatest gifts God gives us. Because as much as we’d like to think we can do a fine job of running our lives, the truth is that God knows far better than we do what is best for us, because He made us. We did not make God. God made us. Please write that down. We did not make God. God made us. Please also write down: I am responsible, but I am not in control.
My prayer is that I can impress upon you today how important this distinction is. You are responsible. But you are not in control. God is in control. When we get this truth out of balance in our lives, there is no way that we can be living in the healthy and vibrant and joyful relationship with God that He intends for us.
Some of you here today know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve lived through the hell that you created when you tried to take over the control of your life that belonged to God.
· You’ve experienced the pain of a broken relationship that resulted from your decision to take control of your sexual life and betray your spouse in the process.
· You’ve been through the torment of addiction to drugs or alcohol that resulted from your decision to take control of what you chose to put in your body, which the Bible tells us is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
· You’ve endured the horrible bondage to indebtedness that resulted from your decision to take control of your finances and spend money on whatever pleased your fleeting fancy.
· You’ve suffered the agonizing shame that resulted from your decision to take control of God’s forgiveness, deciding for yourself that in spite of Jesus’ sacrifice for you on Calvary’s cross, your sin was simply too great, and so you decided that God would not forgive you of that sin.
· And one day some of you may suffer the eternal torment of hell that will result from your decision to take control of how God will provide a way of salvation. It offends you that God has decided that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and in your own sense of self-righteous control, you have decided that you’re not going to accept that.
Oh, dear friends, I hope you’re beginning to grasp how important it is to understand that in using the self-designated name of Yahweh, God Is, God is not only telling Moses and Pharaoh something they need to hear, He’s telling us something we need to hear as well.
We are both invited to, and responsible for, living our lives in relationship with the God Who created us. We are both invited to, responsible for, receiving the gift of salvation that is given us through Jesus Christ. We are both invited to, and responsible for, making our decisions based on the guidelines that God gives us in His Holy Word.
It is important to understand that there is both the invitation and the responsibility. The reason we are responsible for living in relationship with God is because that’s the way God decided He wanted it to be, and God is God. He is who He is. He always has been and He always will be, and He gets to make those decisions.
The reason we are invited to live in relationship with God, is because God loves us and God understands far better than we do how tremendously beneficial it is for us when we do live in that relationship with Him.
I think sometimes we don’t understand how the responsibility and the invitation work together. I think some of us sometimes want to wait for God to prove Himself to us before we will begin to live in a responsible relationship with Him. We want Him to show us the benefits before we’ll start giving up control.
But that’s not the way it works. God loves you passionately. God cares for you more than I could ever adequately describe in human terms. God wants you to experience the benefits that come when you live in a responsible relationship with Him. God wants to be your Healer, your Provider, your Shepherd, your Father, your Peace, and we’ll be talking more about that over the next 5 weeks.
But what God wants FIRST, is for you to surrender control of your will to Him. God does heal us. God does provide for us. God does care for us. But even if He doesn’t heal us, or provide for us, or care for us, He is still worthy of our allegiance, He is still worthy of our love, He is still worthy of our praise, He is still worthy of our hearts, simply because He is.
So where are you today?
· What part of your life are you trying to control instead of letting God have control?
· What sin are you holding on to?
· What addiction are you unwilling to give up?
· What person have you chosen not to forgive?
· What person in your life have you be unwilling to share the gospel with?
· What part of the Bible are you waiting for God to change His mind about because you don’t happen to agree with it?
· What expectation are you waiting for God to fulfill before you give your heart to Jesus?
· What hurt in your life have you been unwilling to release to God?
· What joy have you denied God the opportunity to give you?
· What ministry has God called you to that you’ve been rejecting?
· What miracle have you turned down because it didn’t come in the form you expected?
· What blessing has God been wanting to give you but hasn’t been able to because you haven’t placed yourself in a responsible relationship with Him?
I invite you today to take a big step closer to God.
For some of you that will mean giving your life to Christ for the first time.
For others it will mean repenting and turning away from a sinful habit.
For still others it will mean saying Yes to that area of ministry that God has been calling you to.
It will be different for each of us. But we are all invited by God today to look into that burning bush with Moses and hear God say “I am who I am,” and live our lives accordingly, in a responsible relationship with Him.
