Tag Archives: Jesus

Sermons

Be Still and Know – Psalm 46 Part 2 1/10/16

Be Still and Know that I AM God.

Psalm 46 Title part 2.2

Part 2- Psalm 46

Continuing with our series on Psalm 46, and specifically looking at the first part of verse 10. “Be still and know that I AM God.” I want to look at two words in this verse “Be Still”. There are two different translations that we find, and two ways to look at these words.

The first one is translated in the NASB, which says; “cease striving and know that I am God” The dictionary defines to strive as; “to contend in opposition, battle, or to struggle vigorously, as in opposition or resistance:”

Literally what this text is saying is that we must not strive against God. We obviously know that this is stupidity and we would never directly oppose God Almighty. But what about murmuring against God? We have all been guilty at one time or another of complaining or murmuring against God. We don’t have to look further than the children of Israel during the Exodus to see how much their murmuring cost them.

Who are we to complain or murmur to God about what He is doing? We would never call it murmuring, but when we gossip about His church, the Body of Christ, we are murmuring against God. We don’t like what God is doing, but we blame it on someone else, we complain about the younger or older generation, we complain about the Deacons or the Pastor, but what if we are complaining about God’s servants, when in reality, God is answering our prayers for revival but we just don’t like the way in which he is going about it. When you are tempted to complain and gossip, why don’t you stop and pray, and ask God what He is doing? You may find that He says to you, stop striving.

The Prophet Habakkuk complained against God, and God put the world in perspective for him; “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” Habakkuk 2:20.

The fact that He is God, is sufficient reason why we should be still before Him. Not complaining or murmuring in any way, but calmly acknowledging who He is and submitting to Him.

But there is another way of interpreting this verse and that is the way the NIV puts it; “Be still and know that I AM God”. Literally we need to be still.

Last week we dealt with the way in which we so easily get trapped in fear as we look at our television news or the world around us. The world we live in is a crazy place. Never before in all of history have we had so much information available to us at the push of a button. But this leads to a situation of information overload and a short attention span. We live in the digital age, whether we like it or not. And the result is a tremendous increase in stress related ailments. Our news is often boiled down to 140 character headlines in twitter, or poorly written text messages.

A recent study by Microsoft Corporation has found that the human attention span has shortened from 12 seconds to 8 seconds in the last decade. The average goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds, so much for evolution! The study said; “Heavy multi-screeners find it difficult to filter out irrelevant stimuli — they’re more easily distracted by multiple streams of media,”

 This digital age has had a dramatic effect on our personal spiritual lives. The shortening of the ability to focus, has made it increasingly difficult for people to pray. As a result many Christians are weak and easily distracted. We are unable to focus on what is really important, because we struggle to filter out that which is mindless noise. If we were honest with ourselves, we would realize that we have some kind of noise in our lives all the time. Whether it is the radio on, or the TV going all day. We have become a people who are afraid of silence. Silence terrifies us because it is in the silence that we have to confront ourselves. We are so inundated by bad news and mostly irrelevant news that we forget about the good news of the Gospel, we forget that Jesus came to set us free from the world and its treadmill.

Don Whitney said; “As sleep and rest are needed for the body, so silence and solitude is needed each day for the soul.”

If you do not have a daily time with the Lord, you are probably not growing as a Christian. You come to church on a Sunday for a boost and a word of encouragement to keep you going, but then you slowly slide back as the week progresses. I cannot stress enough the importance of spending time alone with God in silence. Oswald Chambers wrote in 1936; “Solitude with God repairs the damage done by the fret and noise and clamor of the world.” If he felt that in 1936, how much more do we have to contend for that solitude with God?

What I am talking about here is discipline. The discipline to slow down and hit the off button. This is a fight for our survival, the church is filled with weak Christians because we do not take the discipline of prayer and solitude seriously. This is not for the few, this is for all who identify themselves as followers of Christ.

Read what Jesus said in Matthew 6:6; Jesus doesn’t say, if you pray, but when you pray. It is imperative that prayer be a part of your daily life. Then Jesus said, go into your room – we need to establish a place for prayer. Find a regular place where you can meet with God each day, Jesus goes on to say, close the door. Close the door on the world, that also means for us, don’t take your digital devices into your prayer room. Take a bible, a journal and a pen. Leave the world outside and spend time with God.

When Moses came down off the Mount Sinai after receiving the law from God, we read that his face shone, because he had been in the presence of the Lord. When you leave your home in the morning, do the people you meet know that you have been with Jesus? They should..

Let us learn what it is to once again be still and know that He is God.

Sermons

Why Christmas Part 4 12/27/15

#whychristmas

Why Christmas Part 4 Title.2

Acts 1:1-11

So we come to the final questions for our series, and the first is, why must Jesus come again? Acts 1:1-11 is about the ascension of Jesus, it seems to be out of place for us to read at this time of the year.

When we look at the prophets that I mentioned in the first part of the series, I said that there were some prophecies about Jesus that are still to be fulfilled. For example Isaiah 9:6-7 is a scripture that we read every Christmas, but verse 7 is still not fully realized, we wait for the day when justice and righteousness will be established and continue forever.

This is not unusual in the writings of the Old Testament prophets. It is much like looking at a mountain range from great distance, this is how the prophets saw what God was giving them. All the mountains look the same distance away, but as you get closer you see that there are valleys and great distances between the mountains. The Old Testament prophets saw from a distance, but the disciples who walked with Jesus saw the first “mountain” being fulfilled in the presence of Jesus. They believed Jesus when he said that he must go and that he will return again one day. From their vantage point, they looked to another distant mountain, the great Day of the Lord, when Jesus would come as a warrior king, to judge the world and establish his rule and reign.

The first coming of Jesus was a mission of humility and sacrifice, he came to deal with the problem of sin and he came to conquer death. But the next time Jesus comes, he will come on a mission of triumph and justice.

When Jesus comes again, it will be with a loud trumpet blast and fantastic Glory, far different from his humble birth in a manger (see 1 Thessalonians 4:16). Jesus must come in order to receive his Bride the church, and to judge the World. Both the living and the dead, both believers and unbelievers, everyone will stand before the judgment throne. At this time, Jesus will separate his faithful children from those who refused to believe in him. One to eternal reward, the other to eternal punishment. At this time Jesus will establish the New Heaven and the New Earth, all things will be made new. God’s people will live together in perfect fellowship with one another and with our creator. No more sin, no more pain, no more tears. That is why Jesus has to come again, and we eagerly await that day.

We come to our next question, why do you and I need to believe in Jesus? As we look at the Bible’s account of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, we see many facts, we see the account of Mary and Joseph, the Shepherds, the wise men, and even Herod. All of these people were real people, but only people who witnessed the greatest miracle of all time. The story of Jesus that we remember this week is not simply a story of a life two thousand years ago. The story of Jesus affects all of history and all of mankind. The disciples were given the privilege of seeing Jesus in person, they believed in him because they saw his miracles, and they witnessed his resurrection from the dead. But we have something even more wonderful than that, when Jesus ascended into heaven, he promised the Holy Spirit would come and live within us. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity actually resides in all who believe in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is our comforter, our counsellor, and our guide in life, we are not left as orphans, we have become Children of the living God. We must believe in Jesus, he is our only hope. When Jesus comes again, it will be too late to then decide to believe in Him.

But I want to challenge you today to consider that believing in Jesus is not enough. In James 2:19 we see that belief in God is not enough unless it is accompanied by a life of faith and action. Merely giving mental agreement to the virgin birth, accepting that Jesus is the Son of God even believing that he came to be a sacrifice for our sins is not enough. Someone who is truly saved is someone who takes the truth of the Gospel, believes it and then acts accordingly, the Gospel message must change our lives. So the third question is why do you need to make Jesus Christ Lord of your life?

In Acts 1:10-11, we see the disciples standing on the Mount of Olives gazing up at the sky. They were staring in a stunned silence, paralyzed in a mixture of confusion, wonder, fear and anxiety. Jesus has just left, what will they do now?

Then almost as if to wake them up, two angels appear in human form, and give them some comfort that Jesus is coming back again. But the truth is that they had a job to do, Jesus had just given them his final instructions (Acts 1:8), and there was work to be done. The disciples needed to be reminded that they were not called by Jesus to sit on top of the Mount of Olives, stargazing and waiting for his return. They were called to go and change the World with a message that was life changing and revolutionary.

And that is our calling too. We are not saved in order to sit back and continue life as normal. How can we continue as normal, when we have received the Holy Spirit? We have the presence of the Living God within us, we have been called with a purpose to give our lives to Christ as living sacrifices. That is what it means to be a Christian, the most incredible privilege and calling any human being can have, to be the representatives of the Living God. As we wait for Jesus to come again let us be about His business, let us be found faithful, doing what God has called us to do.