Sermon (Click Link to Listen)
Bible Readings: Psalm 34. 1-10; Revelation 7. 9-17; Matthew 5. 1-12
Sermon 2.11.2014
Focus Scriptures : Ps. 34.1-10.
In the Service of Morning Prayer we have a whirlwind of great and life giving words.
Words from the Liturgy……Words from our hymns…Words from the Word of God.
Virtually all the Words are of heavenly and supernatural origin or intent.
These Divinely uttered Words are being spoken into our spirits.
Words…..seed words… simultaneously familiar yet cloaking layerings of resonances, meaning, and growth.
Words with echoes, reminding our spirits that our citizenship is elsewhere. Though we are designed to be salt and light to this world while we are in it.
Words that raise up our heads, eyes and spirits so that each and every one of us… by the burning whispers of the Holy Spirit … begin to be the illuminating light we are meant to be… in this orphaned plant.
We deal in Words that can give life and death.
Words which can create and build up …or…. destroy and tear down.
Words that kindle or extinguish Hope in an unbelieving yet needy world.
Our Words as Christ followers are to be… as salt;
bringing seasoning and flavouring to a world where the blandness of political correctness pressurises us to compromise, dilute, edit, or totally avoid sharing the relentless call and irresistible graciousness of the very politically incorrect, Jesus Saviour.
We have the Words of the Spirit of Christ that put us at enmity with the non-words and moral bankruptcy spawned by the spirit of this age.
As followers of the Jesus, we abide in… and confront a world determinedly pursuing a wholly humanistic/hedonistic agenda where man… not God… is the centre of the universe.
Where God is created in the image of man. …..and….
Where mankind has its origins in a primordial slime not in the glorious image and nature of God.
A world where flawed reason reigns supreme… and only that which is perceived by science and sense is considered ‘true’,
noteworthy or
credited with credence. As the supernatural world cannot be weighed and measured ,even if it exists …it is of no consequence.
Within the arrogance of this domain there is no place for the God who created the ‘Possible’ and Who revels in the ‘Impossible’.
A God for whom what is ‘natural’ is naturally supernatural.
For, our Father is the God of the ultimate and original Creative Word.
In Genesis we witness the power of the Creative Word;
‘Let there be light…and there was light.’
We worship a God by Whose Word all that is….Is.
As God recorded through John;
‘All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being.’
During His life on earth, Jesus uttered many a creative word healing sickness to its roots; delivering the afflicted souls from their demonic tormentors, and infusing life into the dead……Think about it… Jesus ruined every funeral He went to.
Jesus taught and demonstrated to us that His words were spirit, power and life. Able to separate, with laser-like precision, the marrow and the bone; the soul and the spirit.
Infusing our God shaped emptiness with new-birth-life.
Since the Ascension and especially Pentecost, the uttering of the Father’s creative word continues, though now through a new medium…. US… Through you and me…..
God’s co labourers….. indwelt by the Holy Spirit… that very same Divine and Creative Spirit that brooded over the Chaos moments before all that ‘IS’ was breathed into…. and held in existence.
The Spirit of Resurrection power, through faith in Christ, indwells our spirit equipping us to undertake great exploits for the Kingdom of God. Our ability is of little consequence…our willingness is.
For….
What Jesus demands Jesus supplies.
What grace conceives grace births.
Christ gave us authority on His Ascension Day… to;
‘ proclaim the gospel….baptise believers… cast out demons…speak in new tongues… lay hands on the sick and they will recover’
Pentecost gave us the power to perform and accomplish great exploits.
That church history is a history of hit and miss, is due in no small part to our regularly losing sight of that Pentecostal power/dynamite. That power is what saves us from spiritual mediocrity and the barrenness of religious mind sets.
Failure to believe God’s Word of Promise has emasculated many of us Christians. Leaving us looking like the withered, dry bones in Ezekiel.
The Word of God is mighty and invested with power to transform all who accept and yield to it.
Isaiah records that God’s Word when sent out accomplishes its purpose and does not return void.
For a word is not merely sound . It is an entity, a force, a power, for good or ill, for blessing or for curse, relentlessly seeking to manifest itself in time and space.
Words are important… are of consequence… and… have repercussions… they attract power and authority in the heavenlies.
The level of power and authority also depends on the speaker of the word.
When the Speaker of the Word is our own loving Father-God then it behoves us to listen carefully, respectfully and reverentially….for as we read in Philippians we are to;
‘…work out your/our own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you/us, enabling you/us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.’
Might I humbly suggest that even regularly attending our 90 minute Lord’s Day Liturgy and attentively listening to very syllable of my 10 minute sermonette might not be sufficient commitment for the glorious Eternal-Life Challenge set for us!
Relationship, especially ours with God, needs more than 90 minutes a week in order to blossom. For in the words of the hymn;
‘Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.’
Certainly this is the case if we dare to accept the invitation the Lord gives us in today’s psalm.
God dares us. He ‘ups the ante’ and provokes us to encounter Him.
It is impossible to maintain a distant relationship; it is also impossible to have a vicarious or second hand relationship with God. It must be face to face….deep calling to deep.
God has only children. No grandchildren. No distant relatives. We are either His child or an outsider.
In today’s psalm the Holy Spirit challenges us…..
‘O Taste and see that the Lord is good….’
The fruit of the pudding is in the eating…..
God today invites/re-invites us to consciously open and yield our hearts to His embrace.
We are invited to test, use our senses and see.
Taste it…..experience it…explore it …and discover it.
‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’
Discover that the Lord is not; ….just OK, mediocre, tepid, bland or lack lustre.
But that He is good…He is wholesome…He is nourishing and He is fearsome.
We see in today’s psalm;
- He is a friend worth boasting about.
- He affects our sense of emotional wellbeing; Those who ‘looked to Him were radiant’.
- He reduces stress levels; for those who sought Him; (They)
’Were delivered from all their fears’…shame… confusion and all their troubles.
- He give us great security from danger;
For the angels of the Lord encamp protectively around those who revere and worship Him.
- He is reliable;
Happy and fortunate are those who trust and rely on The Lord…. for He delivers them from all trouble.
- He takes care of His own when times are hard.
There will be no want and none of them shall lack any good thing.
- He does not ignore those who love or seek Him;
‘I sought…inquired of the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears…
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.’
In the light of this word- sketch of the heart of God towards us…; it is little wonder that David turns and enthusiastically invites us….. the humble, the poor, the beleaguered and the afflicted…. to join him in praise;
‘O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together.
Considering that the Holy Spirit inspired this psalm almost 3000 years ago. The verse prophetically describes the status of folk, who trust in Jesus for their salvation.
The Lord redeems the lives of His servants, and none of those who take refuge and trust in Him shall be condemned or held guilty.
What to say by way of conclusion!
Think Hosea 4.6…….’my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge’.
The Word of God… in the breath of the Holy Spirit contains life…….. an eternal life of unsurpassable Loving Intimacy .
Make time to study The Word of God. Know and claim your divine inheritance. Do not let your ignorance of your divine inheritance condemn you to a pauper’s existence.
Last week Ricky spoke to Thomas Cranmer’s gobsmacking Collect in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer.
It wonderfully encompasses much of what I sought to express, except more stylishly and way more succinctly;
‘BLESSED Lord, which hast caused all holy Scriptures to bee written for our learnyng; graunte us that we maye in suche wise heare them, read, marke, learne, and inwardly digeste them; that by pacience, and coumfort of thy holy woorde, we may embrace, and ever holde fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast geven us in our saviour Jesus Christe.’
Amen ; ))
