Sermon Title: God With Us Through His Word Sermon Series: Crave More Presence Sermon Text: Psalm 119 December 7, 2008 Introduction thoughts: Today we turn another page in our series designed to help focus our hearts on the grand event of Christmas: the birth of Jesus, the Christ. I m calling this series Crave More Presence. I hope that title makes you think twice. I want us to stop and think this Christmas season because, it s so easy to get caught up in all the frenetic holiday festivities and traditions and mindlessly cruise right through the grand significance of this season. Each year the challenge is to enjoy the fun, family and festivities of the season without missing the core. My objective for this series is to help us focus on the core of Christmas. My hope is to stir up our craving for more presence NOT MORE GIFTS BUT MORE GOD! Now, before I go to far this morning, again this year I want to remind you about ways to accent or upgrade your gift giving this Christmas and move towards giving gifts that highlight the presence of God, if you will. {Play Advent Conspiracy Video} In your outline, (and on our website) I have listed links for you if you want to give a gift to someone less fortunate or to those in poverty stricken areas of our world or to our missionaries on the field. And the cool part is that you can give this gift in the name of someone on your gift list this year. It is deeply satisfying to the person in whose name you give it and it is a gift that is critically needed by the person or people that receive it. And it s a way to raise awareness of the presence of God Samaritan s Purse, Heifer International, CMA Christmas Gift for Alliance Missionaries, Salvation Army and Gideons International are listed there. Our theme verse for our Crave More Presence sermon series is found in the book of Isaiah and then repeated in Matthew 1:23, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel which is translated, God With Us. It s easily recognized how God is with us through the birth of his Son Jesus. We are going to focus on the presence of God through his Son in a few weeks. But, what we don t recognize as easily are the other ways God is with us. For example, how God is with us through his Spirit, how God is with us through his Church and our topic for today, how God is with us through his Word. How can our craving for MORE presence be satisfied with a book that you might think is just some old book written thousands of years ago? How can a book (whose oldest writings date
back to 1000-2000 B.C.) be practical for us today in 2008 A.D.? Let me give you a couple of reasons why our craving for more presence can be satisfied through the Bible. The first reason is found in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. The Bible is God breathed. 2 Timothy 3:16-17- All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This verse teaches us that we have 66 books that are right out of God s mouth. Think about how incredible this is. The one that made the universe, the one that made us, saved us, and gives us a chance to live in eternity with Him, has spoken to us from his heart. God calls to us and speaks to us in his Word! God wants to speak to you and show himself to you and he has done so in the Bible. 2 Peter 1:21 says, For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This verse makes it clear that no part of Scripture was dreamed up by a human being or the result of human research. It is divine initiative and divine authorship. The Spirit of God spoke through the Prophets, through Paul and the other writers wonderfully and supernaturally working through their unique gifts, styles and abilities. Now, Since the Bible is God breathed or God inspired, it stands to reason that the Bible is living and active. Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 4. The Bible is living and active. The Word of God goes forth with power, authority and effectiveness and does not return void because it is empowered by the Spirit of God. Hebrews 4:12, For the word of God is living 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. The writer personifies the Word of God stressing that it is alive and it contains the power and authority of God himself. Our craving for more presence can be satisfied in the Bible because The Bible is God breathed, it is alive and active and because the personal presence of God is revealed to us in the Bible. Turn to Isaiah 55. The Bible reveals the personal presence of God The whole of Isaiah 55 is an intimate invitation from God to come into his presence to come and find nourishment that satisfies food and drink that fill the soul. And interestingly in verse 3 God says, Come to me {notice not with eyes wide open, but} with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. Isn t that fascinating? God is calling out inviting us to fellowship with him in the most intimate terms possible. And as he calls us to come we are to come with our ears wide open listening for his speech, his Word. Why? Because he is with us through his Word. I want you to see another example of this. Turn to Psalm 119.
Psalm 119 is a total tribute and showcase of the beauty and wonder of the Word of God the author adored the Word of God as he did God himself. He took the Hebrew alphabet and wrote 8 love lines that began with the first letter of the alphabet Aleph then went to the second letter (beth) and every line in that 8 line stanza begins with that letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. It s absolutely a work of poetic genius. {Show slide of sample in Hebrew} Read three segments each day of this Psalm and look for the ways it shows us how God is with us through his Word (decrees, laws and statues). The last day you ll need to read 4 segments since there are 22 letters in the Hebrew Alphabet. If you really want a fun challenge, trying writing your own Psalm adoring the Word of God using the letters of our alphabet. Now, in Psalm 119 notice the close connection in the poet s mind between the word of God and the personal presence of God. 57 You are my portion, LORD; I have promised to obey your words. 58 I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. 68 You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees. 114 You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word. 135 Make your face shine on your servant and teach me your decrees. When you read through the Old Testament, you notice that the deep longing and aspiration of the saints, the best blessing they could possibly conceive of was to see the face of God. In Exodus Moses asked to see the face of God and God told him that he could not grant his request because no one may see me and live (Ex. 33:20). Nevertheless, God placed Moses in a gap near a rock on the mountain, covered him with his hand, and passed by, {notice} speaking his covenant name and allowing Moses to look only at his back after he passed by (Es. 34:6-7). In that way Moses did indeed see him. God word, his speech, his name was all Moses could in fact handle as a human being and in the hearing of his name being spoken experienced the presence of God. (Boice, James Montgomery, Psalms, Vol. 3, Baker: Grand Rapids, 1998, p. 1043). This is how you and I see God as well. We don t see him in some imaginary, direct, unmediated revelation of God to our souls. We see God through the Bible s revelation of him. Jesus told the disciples, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9), but it is in the Bible that you and I see Jesus. We can see how he thinks, how he feels, what he desires and how he operates. Last May I had the honor of officiating the memorial service for a very good friend of mine who died of cancer. In preparing for that service, his wife gave me a file full of thoughts he had written down as he reflected on his journey and fight with cancer. Included in those notes was a
sermon that he was preparing on the subject of the blessing of facing death as a Christian and why Christians don t need to fear death. My friend hadn t even been gone that long and I already missed him. And as I read through his words smiled at his turning of a phrase and lingered on his thoughts I felt like he was in thr room. The words of someone who has died capture the much of the essence of the person it calls back to our mind the personality, demeanor, spirit and style of the person. The way they turn a phrase or what they write about highlights what was important to them what was on their mind. And any words of affection penetrate as if they were spoken face to face. Back in they day, before email and webcams, when Cindy and I were dating and apart from each other for one reason or another, we would exchange cards and letters. The power of Cindy s written word in the cards and letters when we were separated during our dating years. Get out the box of old cards and letters. I think we ve all heard the stories of spouse getting letters from their mates who were serving overseas in the military. In the absence of physical presence, the written word is embraced and carries the presence of the person to our hearts and minds. And this is true about God and his letters to us. I hope you realize that the Bible is fundamentally a love letter to you and to me. And as we wait in eager longing to be reunited in the physical presence of God in heaven, we can connect with his presence through his Word. Few have captured the fundamental significance of God with us through his Word than W. H. Griffith Thomas. He wrote, The chief end of revelation is the union [communion] of God and man, and in that union [communion] the fulfillment of all God s purposes for the world. The elements of sonship, worship, stewardship fellowship, heirship, practically sum up the purpose of Divine revelation as it concerns man s life a life in which he receives God s grace, realizes God s will, reproduces God s character, renders God service, and rejoices in God s presence in the Kingdom of grace below and the Kingdom of glory above. (W. H. Griffith Thomas, Revelation, in Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings (New Your: Scribner, 1909, reprint 1951), 797 So what? What is the benefit of having God with us through his Word? The verse we started with today, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which says, All Scripture is God breathed it goes on to say that the Word of God is useful to us. Well, useful how? We have a book that speaks to us. [We get to hear God s Voice] (v. 16) We have a book that changes us. [We grow in God s-likeness] (v. 16-17) God wants you to become like him, godly taking on his values, attitudes, and character. We were created to be like God, but sin entered the world and now our ultimate goal for our life on this earth is for us to be transformed and strengthened for heaven. How does the Bible change us?
-By teaching us what to believe about God.(for doctrine) -By rebuking us in telling us what NOT to believe.(for reproof) -By correcting us in improving our life and character.(for correction) -By training us in helping us understand what should be done.(for instruction) We have a book that equips us. [We gain God s Tool belt] (v. 17) God not only wants to work in you, he wants to work through you. He doesn t deck us out with an ultimate tool belt and then not use us for something special. This verse implies that God s design is to use those that are allowing themselves to be trained and familiar with His word Conclusion Assuming you want to crave more presence of God through his Word, what should you do? 1 Peter 2:2, Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk {of the Word of God}, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Basically our key challenge this week is this: Find any way to ingest the Word of God! Our craving for more presence can be satisfied as we ingest God s Word because God is with us through his Word. I spoke with a friend of mine who has cancer this past week. He was explaining to me his experience of the ups and downs of his Chemo treatment cycle. And he told me that since he has started Chemo he really has no appetite. But, he knows he needs to keep his body nourished so he has started eating by the clock some days the food doesn t even taste good but, he eats because he recognizes that he must keep up on proper nutrition if he is going to stay strong. This principle is true for our spiritual strength as well. If we crave more presence, we need to feed on God s Word in some way on a regular basis. We need to either read it, listen to it, meditate on it, memorize it, reflect on it and/or journal about it. These are all ways to feed on the Word of god. Understand it as pure spiritual food that you must ingest regularly in order to gain its benefits. I love what Cynthia Healds says regarding the importance of feeding on the Word of God. God s word gives the Holy Spirit a vocabulary with which to speak to us. In other words being intimately familiar with the Bible is so key because it provides a common language through which God can communicate with us. If your appetite or craving for the Word is low, ask God to increase your appetite. But, even if you don t feel into feeding on the Word, nibble on it anyway recognizing its spiritually nutritional value. If you don t your spiritual blood sugar level is going to drop and you will lose strength, coordination, focus and orientation.
This Christmas let s remember that God is with us through his Word and let s find any and all ways to ingest it so that our craving for more presence will be satisfied.