Sermon July 23, 2017 – It Is Well

Psalm 42 is not a light Psalm, it is a Psalm by someone in intense distress, there is a heaviness about it.

The first two verses of this Psalm use the simile of a deer panting for water. Without water, we could not survive more than three days and one of the effects of dehydration is rapid breathing, in the same way the Psalmist is panting for the living God. His soul is thirsty for a fresh encounter with God. He has experienced God in a special way before and he desires that now more than anything else.

The Psalmist begins with a great question, “where can I go and meet with God?” A question that comes out of a longing and a desire for relationship with the creator of the universe. When you woke up this morning, was that your hearts cry? Do you go to Church on Sunday expectant to have an encounter with the living God?

In verse 4, the Psalmist recalls the good times, when he was close to God, presumably he remembers going to the temple in Jerusalem where he worshipped with many other people. It was a time of joy and celebration. He is longing for that, longing to once again experience the closeness of God.

As you look back on your life, was there a time that you long for when you experienced the closeness of God? But sadly, that is not the case in your life now, you once loved spending time with God in prayer and reading the Bible, but now you are a far off from God. You desire to get back to that place of joy and communion with God. We don’t suddenly wake up one morning and find out that our desire for the Lord has gone, it happens gradually as we allow the cares of the world, our business and our sins to creep in and remove our desire, our thirst, our passion for the Lord.

Verses 5 and 11 are the same in most translations, and the verse begins with two questions;

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?” He is feeling depressed and hopeless, but he declares the truth, that God is his hope, God is faithful and God alone is his savior. “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Our emotions often sway us and allow us to feel that God is distant. But our feelings deceive us, God promises to be with us always (see Deuteronomy 31:8 and Matthew 28:20b).

The Psalmist has a burst of faith and then in verse 6 and 7 he seems to go back into a depression. He remembers that he is in the land of the Jordan, in the foothills north of the sea of Galilee, far from Jerusalem and on the fringe of the wilderness. He is attributing his lack of hope to his position. We do the same, we attribute our lack of passion and zeal for the Lord to our circumstances and our surroundings. We complain about our situation in life, but perhaps God has you in that situation in order to be a witness for the Gospel where you are.

As we continue in verse 7, the Psalmist seems to take a turn for the worse. His distress is figuratively portrayed by billows and waves. Trouble has come over him like one wave after another, personified as if they were calling to each other to come down in the waterfalls. He had been overwhelmed as if by a flood. Have you ever had the experience where life just seems to hit you with wave after wave of trouble and trials? So what do we do when the waves of trials overwhelm us? Verse 8 is the key, “By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life”

The Psalmist begins to declare the truths about the character of God. God is loving, faithful and always near! He doesn’t pray a simple prayer hoping that some distant being might hear him, no, he prays to THE GOD OF MY LIFE! He realizes that if everything else is taken away, God, the giver and sustainer of all life is sufficient. Have you come to the realization that Jesus is enough?

The Psalmist ends with that declaration of faith again; “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

Where is your hope today? Do you hope in money, your abilities to work, or for someone else to provide for you? Or do you hope in God?

In the 21st century, why should we have confidence in God?

Hebrews 11:1 says, Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” But when the storms are raging around us, our health is failing, our finances are running out – how can we have confidence?

I can tell you today with absolute certainty that we can have confidence because of Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus the perfect sinless Son of God, died for our sins, and provided a way for us to come and talk directly to the Creator God. And by the Holy Spirit and the Word, He speaks to us, and reveals truth to us (See Hebrews 10:19 and 4:16). Not only are we able to come to God in prayer, but we are encouraged to pray boldly with confidence.

Grander earth has quaked before
Moved by the sound of His voice
Seas that are shaken and stirred
Can be calmed and broken for my regard

Through it all through it all – My eyes are on You
Through it all through it all – It is well
Through it all through it all – My eyes are on You
It is well with me

 Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can’t see
And this mountain that’s in front of me
Will be thrown into the midst of the sea

 So let go my soul and trust in Him
The waves and wind still know His name

 It is well with my soul

 CCLI Song # 7021972, CCLI License # 122365
Horatio Gates Spafford | Kristene DiMarco | Philip Paul Bliss

Church in the Park – July 16, 2016

We have just celebrated a wonderful service together as a church. We held our church service at John Anderson Park in Grandview. It was well attended and the weather was amazing, although admittedly it was a bit warm for some.

When we promoted the idea of having a church service in the park, it was a bit of a stretch for some, I admit that I had some doubt as to the wisdom of the event.

But the Church met last Sunday, we didn’t meet in our normal building and in our usual seats, but the church still met. The Church, the followers of Jesus Christ, those who have submitted themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. A healthy church understands that we are to be the church in our community and whenever and wherever we gather, the Church gathers.

There are churches that Satan does not have a problem with people going to. Unfortunately, there are many of these churches, who do not proclaim the Gospel and do not challenge their members to focus on the Great Commission that Jesus left the Church to do in Matthew 28.

However, if the church gets out from behind their four walls and begins to make an impact on the community, then the kingdom of darkness is threatened. I am always reminded of what Jesus said in Luke 10 when the 72 early missionaries returned, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven”.

The basis of the church, our foundational statement is the Gospel message.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 we read the Gospel in a nutshell, “”Now I make known to you brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures . . .

The Bible says that we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23). This means that we have all offended God and have all broken His law. Therefore, we are guilty of having sinned. Because of this, we are separated from God (Isaiah 59:2), are dead in our sins (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:3), cannot please God (Rom. 3:10-11), and will face an eternity of suffering separated from the presence of God (2 Thess. 1:9).

The only way to escape this judgment is by placing our faith in what Jesus did on the cross (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Pet. 2:24). We can only be saved from Hell by submitting our lives to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ as our savior, we cannot save ourselves by our own efforts (Galatians 2:21).

We have to rely on God to remove our sins. Jesus, who is God in flesh (John 1:1), bore our sins in His body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24). He died in our place. He paid the penalty of breaking the Law of God that should have fallen upon us. He satisfied the law of God the Father by dying on the cross.

It did not end there, God raised Jesus from the dead and he appeared to many people in his resurrected body over a period of forty days (1 Corinthians 15). Jesus then ascended into Heaven where he lives today interceding for us (Romans 8:34). Jesus is our advocate with our Heavenly Father and he is coming again one day to take the church to be with him and to rule over the earth with justice restoring all things according to God’s perfect plan.

That is the Gospel message.

Without the Gospel, we have no church

Without the Gospel, we have no hope of salvation

Without the Gospel, we have no testimony

Without the Gospel, we cannot pray for healing

Our mission statement as a church is as follows: “to be a loving church family, worshipping God and transforming our community with the message of the Gospel.”

Our community, our city, our nation desperately needs the Good news. Every day on the evening news we see that violence is everywhere. Kansas City is ranked as one of the most violent cities in the nation.

Our city needs the Church to be the Church and share the Gospel. We cannot change a city by being nice people, only God can change a city and a nation, and that is only by the power of God as the Gospel message is understood and revealed to the world.

So, what does the Gospel mean to you?

Sermon July 9, 2017 Hunger for God

2 Kings 4:1-7

Hunger is an interesting fact of life, our bodies let us know when we need food and when we need more fuel to continue the day. God has created us to have hunger of many kinds, the greatest and highest of which is to know God, to have a personal relationship with him. this is the inner craving of every human being, people try to fill this craving with money, sex, drugs, food, fame, exercise and many other pursuits, but ultimately the hunger for God can only be filled by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Even when we become followers of Jesus, we still have needs that only God can fulfill.

As you read this, what is the one thing that you need God to give you right now? It might be the healing of a sick family member, financial provision, salvation of someone close to you or the mending of a broken relationship. Everyone has something that they are hungry for.

In 1 Kings 4 we read a short account of a fascinating and powerful miracle. A prophet under the leadership of Elisha died and left his wife with unpaid debts. This woman is in a desperate situation, this woman who had just lost her husband was now about to lose her two sons into slavery. So, she cries out in desperation to Elisha, the great leader of the prophets. Elisha starts by asking some simple questions; “how can I help you?” It seems as if he is testing her faith at this point.

I want to take three observations from this account.

  1. Awareness of Great Need

For anyone to cry out to God, there must be an awareness of the need. True hunger creates a capacity for God to work a miracle (see Matthew 5:6 and Matthew 6:33). Where is the focus of your hunger today?

Duncan Campbell wrote: “the crisis of conversion is a conviction of sin, but the crisis of sanctification (growing in our Christian walk) is a conviction of want.”

2. Confidence in God to Meet the Need.

As the widow expresses her need, Elisha asks her the question, “what do you have in your house?”

All she has is a small jar of oil. This sounds very similar to the miracle that Jesus performed in Matthew 15.

The principle is that we need to bring what little that we have to the Lord and allow him to perform the miracle. We try to find solutions to our problems through human resources, when God is calling us to first go to Him in prayer. We have such an awesome privilege to go before the creator of the universe in prayer, presenting our requests to Him. Are you confident that God can meet your every need? (see Philippians 4:19).

Confidence that God can perform a miracle is one thing, but are we expectant?

The widow called Elisha not because of confidence in God alone, but because she was expecting that He would bring relief to her situation.

3. Faith in Obedience brings about the Miracle.

The widow goes and collects jars from all her friends and neighbors following Elisha’s instruction, “don’t ask for just a few”. She goes indoors and closes the doors with her sons and takes the first step in faith. She takes the little jar of oil and begins to pour it, as she obeys the miracle takes place. In faith, she proceeds to do as instructed, and the miracle happens. God blesses and is pleased with faith (see Heb 11:6), we cannot please God without faith.

Notice that the jars she collected had to be empty. If one of her caring neighbors gave her a full jar to help her out, would that have done any good? No, the jars needed to be empty to receive the blessing of the miraculous oil.

Similarly, when we pray for a miracle of God’s blessing, we cannot bring anything to the table, we must not come with any of our own merits or qualifications. We must be totally dependent on the Lord to provide. Sometimes our own credits or achievements prevent us from receiving all that God wants to bless us with.

A PERSON WHO IS FULL OF THEMSELVES HAS NO ROOM FOR JESUS.

Notice the lyrics of the classic Hymn “Rock of Ages”

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;

In verse 6 we read that the oil flowed continuously until the last jar was filled, as the last jar was filled the miracle seemed to stop. The supply of oil stopped, not because it dried up, but because the capacity to receive the oil ended.

Our God never runs out of resources, material or spiritual resources, He is more than capable to bless us beyond our wildest dreams. God never looks at his bank account or his supply house and meters out his blessings according to a strict budget.

God desires to bless his children, but we must keep bringing the vessels so that He can pour His blessings into them. We must keep coming back to God in faith and asking him to fill us, no need is too small, no need is too big for God. As His children, we must present our empty vessels to Him, not half full vessels, relying on our abilities, we must rely totally on him.

When we come to Christ we must be dead to ourselves for him to be our life, we must be beggars for him to be our riches, we must be sick and weak for him to be our health and strength. We must know we are lost for Jesus to be our savior.

When we come to God with a need, I believe we don’t realize the capacity that God has to meet our needs. When Elisha told the Woman to borrow many jars, he knew the size of the miracle God could do, and it was only limited by the capacity that she was prepared to receive.

Are you praying for big miracles? The size of your prayers is directly related to your understanding of the glory and majesty of God, which is shown in your level of expectancy. What are you expecting God to do for you?

CS Lewis once wrote; “it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Let us be a people who pray boldly, trusting in the all-powerful creator of all things to provide all our needs according to His riches in Glory.