Whom Shall I Fear?

What is it that you fear?

Death.  Disease.  The loss of a loved one.  Dying alone.  Poverty.  Not having control.  Pain.  

 

I know some of your fears.  There’s this handy dandy social media site called Facebook.  I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.  I can’t tell you the amount of fear I see on there on a daily basis.  Many of you will say, “I’m not afraid of anything.”  And I will say, “I see your statuses.  You’re not fooling anyone.”  You see, fear causes us to act out in certain ways.  It can reveal itself with worry or anxiety.  It can cause you to lash out with hatred.  You can tell what people are afraid of by their visceral reactions to things.  How animated and emotional someone gets about something shows a lot of times how much control they feel that thing has over them.  Of course, most people would never admit that anything has control over them.

My first point is:

Whatever you fear has control over you.  

I’ll give you an example.  

I have a christian friend on Facebook who went on a rant about people receiving government assistance.  The rant was against the government for giving it out and against the people receiving it.   Now, say what you want about government assistance being good or bad or broken or whatever.  That’s not the point.  It was in the way she came against it.  It wasn’t a measured response.  It was visceral.  It was emotional.  What came through to me, was her lashing out at a system and a group of people that she somehow thought had control over the well-being in her life.  That somehow these people and the government were keeping her from living the life she wanted to live.  It is impossible for you to extend love and grace toward people that you fear.  Man is not the one you should fear.  That may seem like a no-brainer to some of you but it’s amazing how quickly we forget this.  And it is in these situations it is revealed where your hope and faith truly lie.  

Let me tell you people of God, your circumstances, your race, your job, your age, your health, your country, this world’s systems… cannot keep you from achieving and experiencing everything that God has for you.  God is bigger than all of those things.  Nothing limits Him.  And your fear of those things reveal what you truly worship.

 

Let me ask all of you...  How are you feeling about this dumpster fire of an election?  Is it causing you anxiety?  Does it cause you to fear?  Does it cause you not to have grace for those who have differing opinions from you?  If this election is causing you to fear, you’re approaching it the wrong way.  God wants to ease your mind.  He wants to take off the pressure and anxiety that this election has stirred in people.  So without further ado, let’s dive into the Scriptures.     

 

Psalm 2

¹ Why do the nations conspire

    and the peoples plot in vain?
² The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
    against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
³ “Let us break their chains
    and throw off their shackles.”

⁴ The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
    the Lord scoffs at them.
⁵ He rebukes them in his anger
    and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
⁶ “I have installed my king
    on Zion, my holy mountain.”

⁷ I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son;

    today I have become your father.
⁸ Ask me,
    and I will make the nations your inheritance,

    the ends of the earth your possession.

⁹ You will break them with a rod of iron;

    you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

¹⁰ Therefore, you kings, be wise;
    be warned, you rulers of the earth.
¹¹ Serve the Lord with fear
    and celebrate his rule with trembling.
¹² Kiss his son, or he will be angry
    and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

    Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Isaiah 8

¹² “Do not call conspiracy

    everything this people calls a conspiracy;

do not fear what they fear,

    and do not dread it.

¹³ The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,

    he is the one you are to fear,

    he is the one you are to dread.

Romans 13

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Here’s a couple quick points here that I want you to grasp.

 

No matter who wins the election, God’s will cannot be thwarted.  God will still be God no matter who wins.

⁴ The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

    the Lord scoffs at them.

God is enthroned and he laughs at whatever scheme the world comes up with to come against His anointed One, Jesus.  Jesus is installed as King and nothing will ever change that.   

I love the Isaiah 8 scriptures because that’s what I tell people who tell me their conspiracy theories.  After they give me their long, convoluted theory about how Oprah and Tom Cruise conspired together with Beyonce' to throw up Iluminati signs at the Super Bowl, I ask them, “Is Christ still King?  Is God on His throne?  Then what do I have to worry about?" 

And when it comes to Romans 13:1, you either believe it or you don’t.  Either you believe that God puts every authority in power or you don’t.  Once you realize that God puts good and evil people in power for His purposes, you’ll sleep a lot easier at night.  There are many many Scriptures about God using evil people to accomplish his purposes.   

Judges 3

3 These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan ² (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):  ⁴ They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses.

When the Israelites first went to Egypt they lived under a good Pharaoh that treated them well.  It wasn't until there was a bad Pharaoh that the Israelites wanted to leave.  And it wasn't until God hardened his heart that the Israelites decided to leave.  Ask yourself this... would the Israelites have left Egypt and gone to the Promised Land if the Pharaoh treated them well?  The Israelites were never meant to stay in Egypt.  In order for God to get the Israelites where He wanted them to go He used an evil Pharaoh.  

 

There is nothing that’s going to happen on November 8th that God doesn’t know about.  I’ll go a step further and say that whatever happens on November 8th is what God has purposed.  He’s either sovereign or He’s not.  Either Romans 13 is true or it isn’t.  You can’t have it both ways.  

People have put too much emphasis on who these candidates are and have ascribed to them power that only God has.  That is dangerous for you and for them.  

Acts 12 (Talking about King Herod)

²² They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” ²³ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

There is a price to pay for putting man on the same pedestal as God.  Many are holding these candidates up to a standard they can never hope to achieve.  Fearing or praising these people serves no purpose other than to take glory away from God.  And honestly, it’s not going to be politicians that lead this country to Christ, but it will be the Church doing everything God has called and created it to do, going into this world and showing it Jesus.  Our country could create every law we have in favor of the devil and it wouldn’t matter if the Church does its job.    

All I can tell you is pray and ask God who to vote for and then go do that.  And can I blow you’re mind for a second… He may tell you to vote for someone different than your Christian brother and sister.  Whaaat?!  He may tell you to vote for one.  He may tell someone else to vote for the other.  He may tell someone else not to vote for anybody.  It all depends on what God’s purposes are and what He’s up to.  

 

When I was first dating my wife, she broke up with me.  She told me that God told her that we weren’t supposed to be together.  Now I thought that God was telling me that we were supposed to be together.  So yeah, that was a problem.  So what happened?  I had a choice to make.  My choice was either to believe that Alaina had heard from God or to believe that she hadn’t.  Now, my choice wasn’t as clear cut as you might think.  If I told her that she was wrong, what I would really be saying is that I don’t trust her to be able to hear the Holy Spirit for herself.  Which, if I believe that, why would I want her to be my wife?  But I felt that what I heard from God was true as well.  It never dawned on me that God could tell both of us different things for His purposes.  So I honored her belief that God spoke to her and we broke up.  I respected her decision.  It wasn’t until four years later that God told her that we were indeed supposed to be together.  But because I trusted her four years earlier, she was comfortable knowing that I believed she knew how to hear from God.  And man, is that important in a marriage.  If I was a jerk about it, it would have undercut our whole marriage.  Keep this in mind when you encounter believers who don’t think exactly like you.  God is in control.  And as a fellow believer, I would just ask this: Pray about who to vote for and then do what God tells you.  Easy Peasy.  Let me share one more Scripture on this.      

 

Joshua 5

¹³ Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

¹⁴ “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”

What is fascinating to me is that when asked if God was for the Israelites(His people) or their enemies, God said neither.  God is for Himself.  God is looking for Himself.  God established that HE was the one to be catered to.  Not His people.  Not their enemies.  But He, Himself.  We get it twisted in church sometimes and think it’s all about us.  It’s not.  God is for us.  But let me take this a step further.  God is for the unique expression of Christ in you.  Anything in us that is not joined with Christ, God is not for.  The great thing is that when you become a Christian, your spirit becomes joined to Christ’s Spirit, so that every time Father God looks at you, He sees His Son.  The Scriptures talk about being hid with Christ Jesus.  God is out there looking for Jesus uniquely expressing Himself in each one of us.  That is what God is for.  

 

So now that we have established everything we aren’t supposed to fear, let me turn your attention to what we are supposed to fear… namely God, himself.  Now before some of you saints tune out and say, “God doesn’t want us to fear Him.  That’s ridiculous.”  I’ll ask you to bear with me and hear me out and more importantly, hear the Scriptures out.  My next point is this:

 

Fear is the appropriate response to God.

 

There are 144 references to “Fearing God” in the bible.  And for those of you who think that it’s probably all Old Testament references or pre-ressurection, let me tell you that 19 of those are in the New Testament, several of which are post resurrection.  It’s interesting that it’s the number 144.  144 is a number of perfect completion.  It pops up a lot of places in Scripture.  God is to be perfectly and completely feared.  Now what do I mean by this?  If you’re like me, you’ve spent your whole life reading these Scriptures about fearing God and not being quite sure what to do with them.  Does it really mean fear?  Like how we mean fear?  I’ve read a lot of commentaries that talk about the fear of the Lord as feeling reverence and awe and wonder toward God and those are true, but those are just a part of it.  The other fear… the classic definition of fear is also how we are to relate to God.  There are around 20 different words used for “fearing the Lord” in the Hebrew and Greek.  I’ll share two of them with you here.   

 

Yirat - Hebrew

dreadful, exceeding fearfulness, reverence

 

Phobos – Greek

fear, terror. alarm or fright -- be afraid, fear, terror. 

    

These sound like your classic definitions of fear. 

Mark 4

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”  ⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

This shows the disciples after Jesus calmed the wind and the waves.  They were terrified of Jesus!  Why were they terrified?  Because in that moment, they knew two things.  Jesus was super powerful.  And that they weren’t Jesus.  It is this miracle that Jesus showed them His vast POWER.  If Jesus could control the wind and the waves, He could easily do whatever He wanted to do to them.  Couple that with Jesus obviously finding their faith lacking, the disciples were thinking not only is Jesus all-powerful, He isn’t super pleased with us in this moment. What if His favor towards us runs out?  This wasn’t just awe, wonder and reverence.  This was terror-inducing panic!  This was Jesus’ 13th miracle He had performed for them.  So this wasn’t the first one but it was the one where He showed them how powerful He was.  

Fear is the appropriate response to God.  I’ll even say this… Fear is an appropriate initial response to God.  If you look at all the situations where God or Angels show up, you see that pretty much everyone falls on their face in fear before them.  Like pooping your pants frightened.  Not once does God or the angels say that is an inappropriate response.  In fact, it’s only when this fear causes people to start to worship the angels that they correct the behavior saying that worship is saved only for God Himself.  Usually it’s after all this that God or the angels say, “Do not be afraid.”  They aren’t saying, “Why were you so scared?  That’s so dumb.  Little old, me.  I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”  The inappropriate response is to not be afraid.  Let me read you a few more scriptures.    

 

Proverbs 1

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,

    but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 9

¹⁰ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

    and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Now what I love about these passages is that the fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of knowledge and wisdom.

 

Let me ask you a question.  How many of you love the ocean?   

 

I love the ocean.  But I have a healthy fear of it.  The ocean is vast and it is deep and it is much more powerful than I am.  I love the ocean.  The ocean brings me a ton of peace but I do not play around with the ocean.  When I get in the ocean, I test it.  I feel if there are any undertows or riptides.  I’m mindful of the depth.  I don’t go out too far.  I would never want to just be dropped in the middle of the ocean by myself.  

 

Have you all every looked on Imgonnadie.com?  Also known as WebMD.  Have you ever had a symptom and you weren’t sure where it was from?  So you researched and researched and maybe even went to the doctor to find out that you have allergies and are not, in fact, dying.  Over the course of a few hours you have earned your Master's Degree in the sniffles.  It’s amazing the vast amounts of knowledge we collect for the things that we fear.  

Proverbs 23

¹⁷ Do not let your heart envy sinners,

    but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord.

¹⁸ There is surely a future hope for you,

    and your hope will not be cut off.

Fearing the Lord births hope in the Lord.  Until you identify who is in control, you will have nothing to hope in.  A lot of our problems come from fearing other people... thinking that they will deliver us or that they are responsible for delivering us.  Remember, we fear what we think has control over us.    

Proverbs 14:27

The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,

To turn one away from the snares of death.

Proverbs 19:23

The fear of the LORD leads to life,

And he who has it will abide in satisfaction;

He will not be visited with evil.

Matthew 10

²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Jesus was commissioning His disciples and sending them out.  Previously, He told them to not be afraid of those who follow satan and all those who would persecute them.  But He does say to fear God, who destroys both the body and soul in hell.  Why?  Because it is a reminder of who has control over them and who they are to cater to.  Sometimes God has to remind us not only how powerful He is, but also that our actions should reflect how powerful He is.  Also it is a reminder that no matter what man may do to you, God has the final say.  If you fear man, you won't be able to achieve all the God has for you to do.  The fear of the Lord helps us to be able to do everything He calls us to do even in the face of opposition from the enemy or people.

Acts 9

³¹ Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.

2 Corinthians 5

¹¹ Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.

   

What does not fearing the Lord look like as a Christian?  It’s when Christians play with God.  They give lip service to loving Him but they have not made Him Lord of their life.  The live like what they do has no consequences.  Many times God is one of many crutches that they use to get through life.  I’ll tell you a story. 

 

I did a mission trip to Africa where we went to a country called Niger.  Now 90% of the population were Muslims.  The other 10% were Animists.  A religion called Bori.  They worshipped animals.  These people lived in remote villages.  Were were ministering in one of these villages when a mother brought her child to be prayed over because it was very sick.  Now this mother had recently became a Christian in the last year and she couldn’t understand why God wasn’t healing her child.  My Pastor started to pray for her and then he noticed something around her neck.  It was a talisman.  Talismans are what the villagers wore to help control the animal spirits.  Basically, demons would come to their village and turn into animals.  So they would wear these talismans to ward off or appease these demons.  My Pastor told her that she needed to renounce all of her other gods in order for her child to be healed.  Once she did that, her child was healed. 

You see, she didn’t understand that being a follower of Christ means you renounce all other gods.  She was collecting every god she could.  She was open to any religion as long as she thought it could help her.  But the one true God doesn’t co-habitate with other gods.  You may laugh at her but many Christians do the same thing here in the states.  Except here, they aren’t animal gods.  Our gods show up in other ways.  "Oh I love you Jesus.  But I also love money.  I also love drugs and alcohol.  I also love the praise and opinions of other people.  I also love me some me.  If you’re cool with that Jesus, I’d love to have you around.  Can you take care of that hell part for me?  That would be great.  Now scoot over, Jesus.  I am going out tonight!"  But eventually all those other gods let you down.  And God says, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to Father but by me. Get rid of those gods and worship me."  We've got to stop playing with Jesus.  Once you get that fear of the Lord… when you start to process everything that He is.  When you realize how vast and powerful and holy and perfect He is… And how you, apart from Christ, are none of those things.  You realize that God deserves nothing less then your everything.  All we are.  No less.  

 

Now that may have been a little heavy, but let me tell you some good news.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom.  It’s not all of it.  That knowledge and wisdom leads you to understanding how much Jesus loves you.  Loves you so much, in fact, that He gave His life for you and was crucified to pay for your sins so that you could have a relationship with Him.  To be loved by Him.  To be known by Him.  And to never have to be afraid of Him again.  To hear God say, “Don’t be afraid.  I love you.  You are mine.  And since you are one with my Son, I am for you.”               

1 John 4:18

¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Once you let perfect love invade your life, it begins to drive out all of your fear.  Because the only one that you should fear, has said, “Don’t be afraid.”  Once you are in Christ, there is no punishment.  Now you get to walk in the type of fear that means awe and reverence and wonder.  The kind where you are mindful of God Almighty because you know He’s in control and that He deserves to be catered to.  Anything less, would be to worship another God.

He seeks Worshippers... Spirit and Truth

Communion - Bread and Wine.  The Lord allowed His body to be broken like the bread and His blood to be poured out like the wine.  

Bread so often is used to represent the Word.  

Give us this day our daily bread, not only means physically, but spiritually.  

Wine is so often used to describe the Spirit.  God’s body was broken and His Spirit was poured out to us.  Wine and bread.  Spirit and Truth.  

God seeks worshippers to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

John 4

²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 

Worship in the greek is the word proskuneó - besides laying prostrate or on one’s knees adoringly, in the opinion of most scholars, it is translated "to kiss”.  

 

To me, worship is an intimate action.  You have to be close enough to someone to kiss them.  So often, we get caught up in the Father/son/daughter dynamic, that we forget we are the bride of Christ.  Being His bride denotes intimacy.  If we are to be the types of worshippers that God seeks, the way we worship must be intimate.  And if He is telling us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth… our interaction with the Spirit and the truth must be intimate as well.  And I want to delve into how we respond to God in Spirit and truth through the movie, the Book of Eli.

 

When Joe put it out there that we would be doing a movie series, I was excited.  I feel like Christian culture has such a love/hate relationship with movies and Hollywood.  So many Christians have checked out of participating with culture at large… and I don’t blame them.  There’s a lot of terrible things out there.  The problem is, if you choose not to participate with culture, you’ll miss where God shows up in the culture.  And He does show up.  Despite the intentions of those who make the movies.  You’ll be surprised where you find God’s truth or inspiration.  God can’t help but be glorified.  We’re so busy being worried about the world infecting us that we don’t pay attention to the times where we infect the world.  It happens more than you know.  You might say, “But Pastor Dan, aren’t we supposed to be in the world but not of the world.”  And I would say, “You are absolutely right.  We are not of the world.  But we are to be in the world.  Read John 17:14-19 yourself and you’ll see, being not of this world is our identity.  But He sends us into the world.  In the world is where we should be.  But our nature is not the same as the world’s.  To sum it up, “Don’t be scared of the world, the world needs to be scared of you.”  Amen?  Amen.   That’s a whole ’nother sermon.  That one’s free.   

 

I picked the Book of Eli, not because I went searching for movie sermons, or because I thought it was cool.  I picked the Book of Eli because it stirred something in me.  There was a love for the Word that bubbled up in me when I watched it.  So let me set the stage for you.      

Book of Eli

Thirty years after war turned the world into a wasteland, a lone warrior named Eli marches across the ruined landscape, carrying hope for humanity's redemption.  You see Eli has the only known copy of the Bible that exists in this world.  Only one other man, Carnegie,  understands the power of what Eli carries, and he is determined to take it for himself. Though Eli prefers peace, he will risk death to protect his precious cargo, for he must fulfill his destiny to help restore mankind.   Btw… it is a Rated “R” movie for violence and a little bit of language in case you’re sensitive to that or you have children.  

This first clip, we pick up Eli being asked questions about the Bible by Mila Kunis’ character Solara.  She’s never heard of the bible.  Has no concept of what it is.     

This clip addresses both "Truth" and "Spirit"

“Truth"

So many of us look at the Word of God as a chore.  Yet the Word is not only a love letter from God to us, it explains our relationship to Him and all that comes with it.  Reading the Word helps us fall deeper in love with God.  Not only that, it shows us how to love Him.  It shows us how God wants to be loved.  That communication is so important in every relationship, why would it be different in our relationship with God?  If your wife or girlfriend had a journal and in this journal, not only did it list her favorite things, what she likes to do, favorite color, what she’s passionate about…but it also had all of her feelings about you.  All the things she loves about you, how proud of you she is, how happy she wants to make you, and all of your favorite things that she knows about you.  And not only that, if that weren’t enough… it listed how to make up when you make a mistake in such a way that it would never be brought up again.  I know some guys in here would like that.  Tell me you wouldn’t read that book.  Tell me that wouldn’t make you feel amazing about your girlfriend or wife.  Tell me it wouldn’t make you value the relationship that you have with her in a whole new way.  Yet so many of us have a disconnect when it comes to reading the Bible.  It’s just a book.  Oh, I’m not much of a reader. I don’t understand everything.  If your wife or husband wrote it and it was as good as I’m saying it is, you would read it.  You wouldn’t let that stop you.  There’s a lot my wife tells me that I don’t understand, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.    

 

In middle school, I had been a Christian for awhile at that point.  I think I was 11 or 12 and I got such a hunger to read the Word.  And only the King James version would do.  I wanted the closest thing to the greek I could get.  So many “Thee’s and Thou’s”.  Though, I will say it reads more poetic than the later translations.  But I couldn’t get enough.  I believe in middle school and high school, I probably read through the Bible 4-5 times.  And I’m not saying that to say that I was anybody special… God had gotten a grip on me and I was passionate about Him.  It wasn’t just a book, it was a relationship.  And I was figuring out who He was and who I was. 

The more I learned what the truth was, the easier it was when something didn’t line up with that.  I was a bouncer in Hollywood for many years and one of the things you do at a club is check ID’s.  Now how do you know which ID’s are fake?  You study a real one.  The more you study a real one, the moment someone gives you a fake, you know it’s fake because you’ve spent time studying a real one.  I had one fake ID a kid gave me and when I checked the Date of Birth, it said “On their birthday.”  You can’t make this stuff up.  

The more truth you know, the more you know God.  Many of us have a relationship with God, but don’t have much understanding of who He is and who we are.  Whatever we don’t know about God, we will fill in with our own understanding.  Our own understanding is self-serving and will promote ourselves over God.  

Proverbs 3

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶ in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

“Spirit”
 

Not only does Eli read the Word every day, God speaks to him.  God wants us to speak to Him and He wants to speak to us. 

Ephesians 6

¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

John 14

²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 15

¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

There’s an intimacy in being friends.  So many of us end up on one side of the spectrum.  You have your people that read the Word every day, but have no concept of God wanting to speak to them or of being led by the Spirit.  And then you have people on the other side, they say God speaks to them all the time, but actually know very little about this God they serve.  So a lot of times what they think is God speaking to them, is really themselves because they haven’t done the ID test with His Word.  You want to know if what you’re hearing is from God or from you?  Put it against the Word of God.  If it contradicts it, then it’s from you.  That was one of the greatest things about getting that Word foundation.  Because when you hear a lot of different voices, you can discern what is true because it lines up with His Word.  I’ll give you an example:  For those of you who have seen Pulp Fiction and I’m not recommending all of you going out there and watching it, Samuel L. Jackson’s character quotes Ezekiel 25:17.  It’s a pretty long verse.  I remember watching the movie in the theater and realizing, that’s not in the bible.  Literally, they only use the tail end of Ezekiel 25:17 and make up a ton of scripture.  And when I went home and checked it out, I was right.  How did I know that scripture was made up?  Had I read Ezekiel recently?  No.  I knew it was made up because after years of reading the Word, I knew what it sounded like.  And I knew the moment someone tried to imitate the Word that it was false.  It becomes a part of you.  I’ll show you what I mean with this next clip.  Eli has had the bible stolen by the bad guy Carnegie.  But Eli still goes west and ends up finding the last library on earth.    

 

Intimacy is achieved.  

 

Eli realized that he didn’t need a physical book anymore.  It was written on his heart.

 

Hebrews 10

¹⁵ The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

¹⁶ “This is the covenant I will make with them
    after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,

    and I will write them on their minds.”

 

I knew a prophet who God actually allowed to memorize the Word named Kelley Varner.  He could recall any spot in the bible you asked him.  It was amazing.  The Word is supernatural!  It’s alive.  

 

Hebrews 4:12

¹² For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Eli had such an intimate relationship with God, with the Spirit and the Word, it became a part of him.  And isn’t that what intimacy is all about?  Becoming one.

 

John 15

 ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  

The vine has branches.  The branches are not separate from the vine.  The branches are one with the vine.

God is seeking worshippers.  He’s seeking lovers.  Those He can be intimate with.  And what do lovers do?  They create life!      

 

I’m not going to lie to you, sometimes I take the Bible for granted.  I take my relationship I have with God for granted.  Because He is faithful.  He is always there.  Watching this movie, convicted me to honor the intimate connection I have with God.  To treat the relationship with God I have even more sacredly than I do.  It reminded me how much I love the Word. 

 

God is calling us… searching for us… for worshippers who will worship Him, in Spirit and Truth.  God wants to create life in us.  In our families, in our jobs, in our friends, in our country, in our world.  You are the true worshippers that John talks about.  That is who God created you to be.  That is who you are.    

 

If you would like prayer to kindle the fire in your heart for more intimacy with God, come on up.  The prayer team will be up here.  And as you go, watch this last clip.  

 

Worrying and Certainty... two sides of the same coin

The following was a blog I wrote 6 years ago today.  It's amazing how things God has told you in the past can speak to you in the future.  So I thought I'd share this with you.  It speaks to a lot of what I'm going through and maybe it will speak to you too.  What's funny, is that 6 years ago I hadn't met Joe yet.  I would meet him a few weeks after I wrote this.  To say that where I am right now and what I am doing is surprising would be a huge understatement.  My life is completely 180 degrees different then when I wrote this blog.  But the God I serve is still the same.  In that, lies my comfort.  :)

Life being what it is, there are always obstacles and trials coming at us.  We really have no control over this.  What we do have control over is how we respond to it.  And as Christians, we are always trying to make sense out of what we're going through.  How we do this and why we do this says a lot about who we are as people.

With the advent of Facebook, it's so easy to see what our friends are going through and how they are dealing with it.  Status updates are filled with hope, despair, and everything in between.  It's not unusual to see someone praise God for the definitive work He is about to do in their life and the next day when that thing falls through, plunge into despair and worry.  This doesn't seem to be the way to go, now does it?  Nor does it seem to glorify God.  As Christians, I don't feel we should be so up and down all the time.  I'm talking to myself too, as I have fallen into this trap as well.

Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Many of us have heard this a million times, and for good reason.  I think the main point of this is seeking His kingdom first.  It doesn't say that after awhile of seeking you won't need to keep seeking. We will never reach a point where we can stop seeking God.  This is the danger we fall into when we have no challenges or trials facing us... when we have more than enough money in the bank and when we and everyone we know are all super healthy and safe.  We stop seeking.  It seems to me that if we seek God we will cease to worry.  And seeking is something we do everyday.

Certainty

Seemingly the opposite of worry, right?  Not so much.   Certainty of what our future holds and even what we think God will do in certain respects can be just as dangerous as uncertainty.   Let me explain with these scriptures...

James 4:13-16
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard Christians say "I'm going to do this... I'm going to do that." Or "It's definitely God's will that I will go here and do this or get this job or move to this place".  And you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I believe God does reveal His will to us sometimes in a very clear way.  But I think Christians suffer from the pressure of knowing exactly what's going on all the time in every situation.  And sadly, this can lead to boasting about where their life is going, taking pride in seemingly knowing all the details as if this was brought about by their own works and righteousness.  And in their rush to feel like they have God's approval on everything, they fall into the sin of presumption.  We see others with what appears to be perfect lives having everything figured out and we think, "I love God, I want to do what He wants, so naturally I should have everything figured out as well."  We can have such a certainty about what God is or isn't doing in our lives that when things start to go the opposite way of what we thought, we exhaust ourselves at every turn telling God what He ought to be doing at the moment. When at the end of the day, we are scared that what we thought was God, wasn't.

I've have been privy to this myself, and it comes down to a pride issue.  To open myself up to the possibility that God's plans aren't necessarily my own all the time makes me face the fact that maybe I'm not as wise in my own eyes as I think I am.

This scripture tends to go against common Christian thought on knowing God's will. The scripture in James that says "If it is the Lord's will, we will do this or that..."  What that verse is saying is that there is a possibility that YOU don't know what the Lord's will is in every situation and that you're just going to have to trust Him.  It's saying that sometimes His will cannot be known until the thing comes to pass.  To think, we as Christians can live Godly lives and still be in the dark about aspects of our life.  That not knowing His will is not always a byproduct of sin or faithlessness.  But that sometimes God just wants to see that we trust Him no matter what the situation is.  And that some of the trials you are going through that you blame on the enemy, is really God working in your life.  And by holding onto what you thought was God, is really you fighting Him, and "kicking against the goads", so to speak.

The reason that this can be dangerous is because a lot of times when we are so sure of something, we stop bringing it before God.  We stop acknowledging Him in all our ways.  That's how "Certainty" is like "Worry".  In both instances you stop acknowledging God. And there is nothing the Father wants more, than to talk to you every day.  Too often we view prophecy and such as fortune telling... hoping that the words that are spoken over us is the destination and not the direction He is pointing us in. They are guidelines and not a full picture of what we are to expect.

If we prefaced our plans with "If the Lord wills..." life wouldn't seem like such a roller coaster.   By acknowledging God's right to do as He pleases, we are more flexible when the unexpected shows up. And to be sure, the unexpected will show up.  Regardless, if you have no clue of what God is doing in your life, or you feel like you have it all figured out, there is a peace and rest that comes from relying on God daily to work out the details.  Do what you feel like He's telling you to do, but also know that God can do what He wants, when He wants, and is not obligated to tell you anything.  He loves when we trust in Him, knowing that He is always looking out for our best interests.   Plus there is a humility that is attractive to God when we acknowledge that we are not in control.   I'm not saying to give up on dreams that God has given you, but leave yourself open to the fact that maybe it will come to pass at a time and in a way that you are not privy to right now.  Remember, God let's us believe what we need to believe to get us where He wants us to go.  Be consistent in what you believe about God and who He is.  That is true faith.

Intimacy at the Feet of Christ: Knowing vs. “Knowing"

Luke 7

³⁶ When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
⁴⁰ Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
⁴³ Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
⁴⁴ Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

I love this story in the bible.  Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees are always so fascinating.  The contrast between who they think they are and who Jesus thinks they are is so vast.  It is very satisfying to see the Pharisees get their comeuppance and to see the depths that Jesus is willing to go to love the least of these.  The sad part of these stories is the parallels these Pharisees have with many of us in the Church today.  I say, “we”, because I believe all of us have struggled with being Pharisees from time to time.  But what struck me in this particular story, this particular time I’ve read through it, is how much a story of salvation and intimacy this is.  

Other Gospels have a similar story inasmuch as there is a woman, sometimes called Mary, who comes and anoints Jesus the week before His crucifixion.  And the theme in those stories is one of preparing Jesus to die for the sins of the world.  This particular account in Luke, chronologically takes place more towards the beginning of Jesus’ ministry than towards the end.  And the theme is one of salvation and intimacy.  Let me dive into this a little bit.  

³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.

Most biblical scholars believe that this woman was a prostitute.  Now as you can imagine, biblical times weren’t the most fragrant period in history when it came to personal hygiene.   Oils and perfumes were used whenever there would be close interaction.  People didn’t have their own showers for daily bathing, so they needed to mask their scent.  So if you were going to be in close proximity with someone, you would usually put some oil or perfume on.  And especially if you were going to be having sex with someone, perfume was going to be a big must(no pun intended).  The reason she had over a year's wages worth of perfume was because she was having sex a lot.  The reason she could afford to have it is because she was paid to do so.  

The perfume was held in an alabaster jar.  Now an alabaster jar looks like this.  

Couple quick things about Alabaster.  Alabaster is primarily translucent and usually appears milky white.  It also is a material that erodes if kept outside.  So if you kept something in an alabaster jar, it would be kept indoors, hidden from the elements.  I’ll come back to this later.  

³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

This is such an interesting picture of saving faith as verse 50 states. Notice that Jesus doesn’t reject her affections.  Why?  Simon the Pharisee is correct in his assertion that she is unclean and that no one, least of all a prophet, should allow her to touch Him.  

 

 

⁴⁴ "Then he turned toward the woman..."

 

Simply, Jesus saw her.  He saw her heart.  He saw what those actions meant.  He saw the tears that flowed from her eyes… filled with sorrow and shame.  In that moment, she knew that it wasn’t just laws she had broken, but the heart of the God who loved her.  Jesus saw her let her hair down, which women never did in public and only in the privacy of their own homes with their husbands.  He saw the intimacy that she was communicating with Him.  She used her fallen hair to clean the feet of the Messiah.  Jesus saw her break open the alabaster jar of perfume and anoint His feet with it.  That jar represented all of the sin in her life.  It represented literal wages of her sin life.  And it not only represented all the moments of intimacy she had shared with all the other lovers in her life to that point, it represented all of the moments of intimacy she was going to share in the future.  The jar was full.  Full of future moments of wasted intimacy spent on lovers who didn’t deserve it.  What Jesus saw in the breaking of that jar of perfume was that all of her intimacy was now reserved only for Him.  She spent all of it on Him.  She was done spending her devotion on worthless idols.    

 

Jeremiah 2

⁵ This is what the Lord says:

“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
    that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves."

Jesus.  Saw.  Her.  And in that moment, in His eyes, she ceased to be worthless.

And she couldn’t stop kissing his feet.  

 

Romans 10:15

"… As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” 

We kiss beautiful things.  We kiss babies.  We kiss our loved ones.  We kiss our lovers.

 

Jesus brought her the good news… that He was the Messiah.  That He was her Savior.  That He loved her and that she had worth in His eyes.  This woman who was passed around as property(probably by the very same people hosting this party) was now a daughter of the Most High.  With the tears of her repentance, she washed the feet of her Savior.  She laid her sins bare at His feet and anointed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her intimacy.  And she kissed His feet… those beautiful feet that had brought her the Good News that God desired to have a relationship with her and that her past would no longer be a barrier to partake in the intimacy that God always intended with those He loved.  In that moment, she was “known” spiritually.  And in that moment she “knew” Jesus spiritually.  

 

I don’t mean known in the sense of intellectually knowing something, I mean “known” in the biblical sense.  And if that’s too coded for you, I mean the same kind of “knowing” that the bible uses to describe Adam making love to Eve.  

Genesis 4 (KJV)

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. 

Genesis 4 (NIV)

Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” 

These intimate gestures this woman displayed before Jesus were all gestures that were saved for when you “know” someone else.  This is the kind of intimacy God craves with each of us!  God is a jealous God and He does not want to share us with other lovers!  Other idols!  When we come to know Christ, all of our intimacy is saved for Him.  It’s all His.  

 

Contrast this “knowing” with the knowing that the Pharisee displayed.  Simon, as a Pharisee, would have known the old testament by heart… all of it.  So that means that Simon would have known more about the Messiah than anyone.  He would have known all the prophecies about the Messiah.  Yet Simon’s actions show that all of that knowledge was worthless as he has the Messiah in HIS HOUSE(!!!) and yet couldn’t recognize Him.   

⁴⁴ Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

It was customary to wash the feet of a guest or at least have a servant do it since the roads of the time were completely filthy.  Also, depending on the distance traveled, it would soothe the feet.  It was customary to greet a guest with a kiss.  It was customary to provide olive oil at the very least to put on ones face so as to smell better and to moisturize the skin after being out in the hot sun and desert.  All of these actions are the bare minimum when it comes to receiving a guest and being a good host and Simon failed to do all of them.  He intentionally disrespected Jesus and you could see through these actions what he thought about Jesus.  Simon had all the biblical knowledge one could know about God and the law.  Yet keeping the law and knowing about God couldn’t substitute “knowing” God.  God desires intimacy.  God wants to know you and for you to know Him.  

Like I said earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised that the reason that Simon knew who this woman was is because he’d been a client of hers.  He didn’t seem surprised to find her in his household.  She didn’t seem unfamiliar with her surroundings.  The difference between the two was that she knew she needed a Savior, while Simon did not.  Which brings me back to the Alabaster jar.  That jar had to be protected indoors if the contents were to be contained properly.  If it was kept outside the elements would have eroded the Alabaster and the contents would have spilled out.  

So many of us hold all of our darkest secrets, most terrible pain, shameful deeds and insecurities inside ourselves well protected in a place that looks white and clean on the outside.  It reminds me of something else that looks clean and white on the outside but on the inside conceals death and sin.    

 

Matthew 23

²⁷ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. ²⁸ In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

God’s primary concern for us is not our righteousness… is not our behavior.  It is knowing Him. Out of that knowing, we receive our righteousness.  Knowing about God won’t save you.  Even demons know the name of Jesus.  But do you know Him?  Really know Him?  Are you intimate with God?  Has He captured your heart like a lover does?  

There were two Alabaster jars in the room that day… only one of them was broken.  

⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

"What's up with my son's tumor?" or How to trust in Father God when He disappoints you.

First Point:  God’s Word describes God’s character.  Knowing God’s character or His nature can ensure you aren’t disappointed when things don’t go your way.

Character - the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

Nature - the basic or inherent features of something, especially when seen as characteristic of it.

As Christians, we are familiar with Romans 8:28

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  

And Jeremiah 29:11

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

These are promises that God the Father has for us, His children.  But who is it that is making these promises?  Is He trustworthy?  What is His personality like?  Who does He say He is?  In our minds, we all have a definition of what a good father looks like even if we’ve never had a good one.  When we speak of what a Father is, there are a few definitions.  

Father - 1. a man who has begotten a child.  Pretty self-explanatory.  

               2. one that originates or institutes

But I think the definition most of us think about when we hear the word Father is: 

               3. to assume as one's own; take the responsibility of.  Paternal protector or provider.  

Rightly or wrongly, that is what many of us set as the expectations for our earthly fathers and have judged them accordingly to how they have protected us, provided for us and claimed us as their own.  But that’s not it.  It’s possible to have a distant Father who claims us, takes responsibility for us, protects us and provides for us and yet not know who he is.  Maybe you had such a father.  One who for whatever reason didn’t make it a priority to connect with you.  To reveal himself to you.  And since there was distance… since there was a disconnect, it was totally possible for you to second guess his love for you.  To be disappointed in him.  It is so much easier to know a person’s motives when you spend time with them and get to know them.  In spending time with someone, their character is revealed.  Their nature.  Who they are.

One of the ways that God reveals who He is, is by the various names He has in the bible.  God literally has 100’s and 100’s of names.  And why is that important?  Why has God shared His names with us?  It’s because names denote nature.  It’s not like nowadays, where some of us have names that are totally random or arbitrary.  Words meant something back then.  God wanted us to be able to know Him.  And He communicates who He is by His names.  In order to know something, you must be able to name it.

So often in our culture, we hate being labeled.  We hate when people label us a certain way.  And why is that?  Well one reason, we don’t like being labeled incorrectly.  We don’t like being told we are one way, when we feel we are another.  I believe another reason we don’t like being labeled is because if we are labeled, we have to embrace the behavior that goes along with that label.  And depending on what label it is, we don’t want to be responsible for it.  I’ll give you an example.  If you are driving and someone cuts you off, what do you do?  You could lay on your horn.  You could speed up and cut the other person off, maybe using a hand gesture in the process.  You could speed up and roll down your window and give them an earful.  How many of us have done that?  Now dear people, think of that same scenario with a Jesus fish on your car or a “Jesus is Lord” bumper sticker on your car.  How has your options changed?  Would you consider any of those a valid option?  That label on your car gave you a responsibility to live up to.  Didn’t it?  That’s partially why we don’t like labels.  Because we don’t want to feel like a hypocrite when we don’t live up to them.  But here’s the great thing about God… He does want you to label Him.  In fact, He gives you hundreds and hundreds of labels that give you an idea of how this God you serve, this Heavenly Father you have, is supposed to act.  And He isn’t afraid of letting you down because He can’t help but live up to each and every name He has given Himself.  Let me read you a few of the many names of our Lord.         

JEHOVAH JIREH:"The Lord Will Provide" (Genesis 22:14) – the name memorialized by Abraham when God provided the ram to be sacrificed in place of Isaac.

JEHOVAH-RAPHA: "The Lord Who Heals" (Exodus 15:26) – “I am Jehovah who heals you” both in body and soul. In body, by preserving from and curing diseases, and in soul, by pardoning iniquities.

JEHOVAH-NISSI: "The Lord Our Banner" (Exodus 17:15), where banner is understood to be a rallying place. This name commemorates the desert victory over the Amalekites in Exodus 17.

JEHOVAH-M'KADDESH: "The Lord Who Sanctifies, Makes Holy" (Leviticus 20:8; Ezekiel 37:28) – God makes it clear that He alone, not the law, can cleanse His people and make them holy.

JEHOVAH-SHALOM: "The Lord Our Peace" (Judges 6:24) – the name given by Gideon to the altar he built after the Angel of the Lord assured him he would not die as he thought he would after seeing Him.

JEHOVAH-ELOHIM: "LORD God" (Genesis 2:4; Psalm 59:5) – a combination of God’s unique name YHWH and the generic “Lord,” signifying that He is the Lord of Lords.

JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU: "The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:16) – As with YHWH-M’Kaddesh, it is God alone who provides righteousness to man, ultimately in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who became sin for us “that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

JEHOVAH-ROHI: "The Lord Our Shepherd" (Psalm 23:1) – After David pondered his relationship as a shepherd to his sheep, he realized that was exactly the relationship God had with him, and so he declares, “Yahweh-Rohi is my Shepherd. I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1).

JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH: "The Lord Is There” (Ezekiel 48:35) – the name ascribed to Jerusalem and the Temple there, indicating that the once-departed glory of the Lord (Ezekiel 8—11) had returned (Ezekiel 44:1-4).

JEHOVAH-SABAOTH: "The Lord of Hosts" (Isaiah 1:24; Psalm 46:7) – Hosts means “hordes,” both of angels and of men. He is Lord of the host of heaven and of the inhabitants of the earth, of Jews and Gentiles, of rich and poor, master and slave. The name is expressive of the majesty, power, and authority of God and shows that He is able to accomplish what He determines to do.

This is why worshipping a God who cannot be known doesn’t make any sense.  If God can’t be known or if He doesn’t have any names, then He has no responsibility to you.  And guess what? You don’t have any responsibility to Him.  If God can’t be known… if your heavenly Father cannot be known… How would you know what kind of son or daughter you are?  God reveals Himself to us and in so doing, reveals who we are to Him.  We find out who we are when we find out who He is.  And when you know who God is, it’s a lot easier to believe that He works out everything for the good of those who are called according to His purpose or that He has plans for us, for a hope and future.  When you know God, it’s easy to believe that He is just the kind of God who would work out everything for us.  That’s the difference between having a Father you know and one you don’t.  

Second point: If you know God's character, if you know His nature, you know that if You haven't received something He's promised, it's because He's giving you something better.    

Sometimes God can break our hearts with what He asks of us.  

Genesis 22:1-2

22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Genesis 22:9-14

⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

¹² “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.^"13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Hebrews 11:17-19

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸ even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” ¹⁹ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Abraham was familiar with God.  He knew God.  He knew that God was trustworthy and had come through on all the promises that He had made to Abraham in the past.  He obeyed God even though it was breaking His heart.  And what did God do?  He spared Isaac’s life.  

John 11:1-43

11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.² (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.)³ So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

⁴ When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, ⁷ and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

¹¹ After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

¹² His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” ¹³ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
¹⁴ So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

¹⁷ On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
²⁸ After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
³² When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
³⁵ Jesus wept.
³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

³⁸ Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said.

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?

⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

⁴³ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

How do you think Martha and Mary felt when Jesus didn’t show up to heal Lazarus especially after Jesus said that he wouldn’t die?  Even though Martha was devastated by God not healing Lazarus, she still had faith.  Martha was familiar with Jesus.  She believed He was the Messiah and that God would give Jesus anything He asked.  Even in their hour of mourning, there was hope that Jesus could raise the dead.  Now Jesus could have showed up and healed Lazarus before He died.  Martha and Mary had seen Jesus heal before.  But Jesus instead chose to do something that they had never seen before.  He chose to raise Lazarus from the dead.  God wanted to do something greater than either Martha or Mary knew.  And why?      

⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?

⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”  

It comes down to God’s glory.  Which leads me to my last point. 

Third Point:  God does things for His glory, not according to our desires.

You ever felt like God lied to you?  Or that He didn’t come through for you?

Look at the Jews in Jesus’ time.  They believed the Messiah was going to bring an earthly Kingdom through them and that they were going to rule and reign with Him.  To the Jews, Jesus was a huge disappointment.  But God had it in mind to glorify Himself in a greater measure than just having an earthly Kingdom.  He didn’t want to be Lord and Savior to one people group, but to all people groups.  His vision was greater than the Jews.  God’s vision is greater and more magnificent than our vision.  

Isaiah 55:9

⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

John 9 

9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³ “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

⁶ After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.⁷ “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

⁸ His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
¹⁰ “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.

¹¹ He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”  

We seek fault with others and ourselves when God disappoints us.  But no matter what our circumstances look like, we can be confident that God will answer us in a manner that gives Him the most glory.  

“but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  

My son Kai Rey is two and a half weeks old right now.  I am a proud papa.  When Alaina was around 7 months pregnant we had an ultrasound.  Now in this ultrasound they found out that Kai Rey had a pretty big tumor on his arm.  This is what the doctor actually said.  "We have no idea what is on your son's arm.  I've never seen anything like it in any other baby.  In fact, when he's born, can you call us and let us know what exactly it is that is on his arm."  I got to say, when doctors tell you that they don't know what the huge mass that is growing on your son's arm is, it can be a little disturbing.  Along with all the other feelings that go into having your first child, adding unknown tumor into the mix isn't the best feeling.

Alaina and I left the hospital and we both looked at each other and said, "I believe he's going to be healed."  That's what we felt like God was saying to us.  We felt like our son was going to be fine.  So we went home and had a peace about it.  I didn't even look up on the internet what it possibly could be because I didn't want to give into any fear.  I told several people that I believed that God was going to heal our son and that his arm would be perfectly fine.  Alaina and I put our faith out there.  We trusted God that the tumor would be gone by the time he was born.  

Fast forward to the delivery room.  Alaina gave one more push and our beautiful son, Kai Rey, comes into this world  And then in the midst of our joy, we see his arm.     

Obviously, Alaina and I were crestfallen when we saw his arm.  We were disappointed that, in a moment where overwhelming joy should be the only feeling, we had a tinge of sadness that God didn't come through the way we thought He would.  

Had we heard from God correctly?  Had our faith not been enough.?  Was God displeased with us or worse yet, not as powerful as we thought?  Did He not care about us or our son enough?

These are the questions that could have gone through our heads.  But what did go through our head and what we couldn't shake was the knowledge of who God is and what He's done in the past for us.  We remembered.    

We remembered that God can be trusted.  He’s been trustworthy in our lives over and over again.  We know what God’s character is and how He’s interacted with us in the past.  I don’t know why Kai Rey’s arm is like this.  But I know God is going to be glorified in it and that His ways are higher than my ways.  I know that He loves Kai Rey more than I do even though that sounds impossible since I love him so much.  

And here's the thing... what God told us was that Kai Rey’s arm would be fine.  Even in the moments after his birth, the doctors and nurses around us couldn't tell us what it was.  It wasn't until the next day when we saw the Pediatrician that he alleviated our fears and told us what this mystery tumor was.  it is a Hemangioma.   A Hemangioma is basically a benign tumor of tangled blood vessels that will go away on its own, usually by the time they are 5 years of age.  It doesn't hurt my son.  It's not in the muscle or the bone, it's just under the skin.  He is perfectly fine and it will eventually go away on its own.  That's a great report!  God told us He would be fine and He will be, Praise God!  It just didn't quite happen like we thought.  

God knows what He’s doing.  And He knows what will bring Him the most glory.  I’m excited and expectant to see what God is going to do through my son.  There's a reason it all happened this way and I can rest in the fact that God has a plan.  There's peace in that.
    

2 Corinthians 1

²⁰ For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

Since we can know God's character we can trust Him when things don't go as planned. 

If you don't know God's character… if you don’t know his nature… you will be disappointed all the time. 

And as God does things for His glory, so should we focus our lives around giving God glory.  And how do we do that?  Giving glory to God is tied in with the knowledge of God (revelation of God), and knowing God personally (response to God).  That means we know everything we can about God… and we know Him personally.  The combination of those two will bring God the most glory. And the more God is revealed to us and the more we interact with God, the easier it will be to trust God and believe that He is working out everything for the good of those who love him, and who have been called according to His purpose.