"Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture."
Our Faith is a Knowledgeable Faith Our faith does not glorify intellectualism, but it also does not glorify ignorance. An old school master once said: "Your brain shouldn't be a cold storage chamber, but it should be a powerhouse." This verse tells us some things that we should know. We should know that God is God, and that we should take Him seriously. We should be in awe of Him. God is our friend, but He is not our "buddy." I sometime look into the sky and I think that God is greater than all I see there. The greatness of God sometimes almost blows my mind. I cannot even imagine how great God is, but I can imagine that this immense God loves me. He loves you! We should know that He has made us "and not we ourselves." We cannot separate ourselves from the reality and the greatness of God. He is our creator. We did not just happen, but God brought us into existence. According to the Bible, we did not just evolve, but He created man and woman in the Garden of Eden. That is not more difficult to believe than that we just happened as a mistake of nature. As a Christian, I can say that He made me what I am in Christ. This does not make me great, but it certainly makes God great! .We are not a "do it yourself" project. (Let's pause here and thank God that in spite of ourselves, He loves us. He even sent His Son to die for us that we might be forgiven for our sins.) We should know that "we are His people, the sheep of His pasture." In John 10:14 Jesus said: "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine." Our faith is not of the "maybe so" variety, but of the "know so" variety. We know whether or not we have put our faith in Christ, and whether or not He has come into our lives to save us. Jesus said: "I stand at the door, and knock: If any (person) hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me." (Revelation 3:20) Surely, you know whether or not you have put your faith in Jesus, and whether or not He has come into your life as He promised. "I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene...." Bro. Joe .
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"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing."
Faith" is not mentioned in Psalm 100, but several years ago I found that it gives a great description of our faith. I'm going to take the next few days to explain what I mean. Our text for today is Psalm 100:1-2. These verses describe our faith as active. Verse 1 tells us to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." This describes our faith as vocal. We make a "joyful noise" about many other things like our favorite athletic teams. In fact, we are always encouraged to make a "joyful noise" about great fetes on the athletic field. This means then that we are not to be ashamed of our faith, but we are to talk about it and make it known. (Or make Christ known.) The world will "shut us up" about our faith, but we should use our voices to make Christ known in "all ye lands." We should not be ashamed of Christ, or ashamed that He is in our lives and has saved us. The best way for us to make a "joyful noise" is to live our lives in obedience to the Lord. Verse 2a tells us to "Serve the Lord with gladness." We should serve Christ with joy and gladness in our hearts. I remind myself all of the time that Christ actually allows me to serve Him. (Serving Him is a privilege that He has allowed me to have for almost sixty years. (This also tells you that I'm getting old.) He might be allowing you to serve Him in the choir, where you can sing in joy for Him, as verse 2b reminds us: "Come before His presence with singing..." He might be allowing you to teach Bible classes. Christ is allowing you to teach Bible classes, because He knows that you are able to do it. Whatever your service is in your church, or in your life, be glad that Christ let's you do it, and has provided the presence of the Holy Spirit to help you in your service, whatever it is. Please understand that all of your service is not in your church. He wants you to serve Him with gladness in your daily life.. Your faith is an active faith, and you should not be ashamed that Christ allows you to use your time to serve Him. Let your life make a "joyful noise" as you serve Him, and remember to serve Him with gladness. Bro. Joe “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
As surely as we live there will be a “day of trouble.” This text gives us one solemn prospect and three solemn promises pertaining to the day of trouble. The Lord wants us to be aware of all of life’s exigencies and of His availability in them. Let’s see what the text promises. First, there is always the prospect of trouble. No one lives a trouble-free life. We are always going to face troubles of some kind. This is not a lovely prospect and seems negative in outlook, but is nevertheless true. There can be personal troubles that cause us to be depressed. There can be family troubles that can cause us great distress. There can be troubles at work that make our jobs more stressful. There can be troubling people who come in and out of our lives, causing us to have a problem loving them.. (You could probably name some right now. lol [maybe]) Someone has written that “life is alternate shade and sunshine.” This is true. It would be nice if trouble warned us before it came, but it seldom does. We could handle trouble better if we could always anticipate it. Alas, that cannot be done. We just need to be aware that we will have to face troubles of all kinds in this world. (Adam and Eve lost that world for us, and we haven’t done a whole lot to improve on what they did.) What can we do about these inevitable troubles that we will face? We usually try to handle them ourselves based on our own expertise. When we do this we usually get into deeper and deeper trouble. The Lord gives us the answer. Second, there is always the privilege of prayer. In the text written above, the Lord said “call upon me in the day of trouble.” Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) When we belong to Jesus, He is never out of range for us. This is true, though in the midst of trouble we sometimes forget it. The hymn is true that tells us: “O, what peace we often forfeit, O, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” We need to pay attention to those words that we sing and really think about what they mean. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul reminded us to “pray without ceasing.” In Luke 18:1 we read: “And (Jesus) spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.” We need to memorize and remember passages like these to remind us of our need to pray. They will also remind us of the power of prayer in our lives. No one can take the privilege of prayer from us. Third, there is always a promise of deliverance. The language here is definite: “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee.” He did not say, “I might deliver thee.” His deliverance is certain. There are at least two ways that the Lord delivers us in the day of trouble: (1) He delivers us from the trouble. (2) He delivers us through the trouble. Either way we are delivered. Bro. Joe ."I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from which comes my help. 2. My help comes from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,"
Psalm 121 is one of the "songs of ascent" into Jerusalem. It was sung as pilgrims approached Jerusalem where the Lord abided in the "Holy of Holies" in the temple. The traveler was in the final leg of his journey as he looks unto the hill where Jerusalem lay. This is not as psalm of praise to the city of Jerusalem, but to the Lord Who abided in the temple in Jerusalem. This does not mean that the pilgrim thought that the Lord was limited to Jerusalem, but it means that the Lord was present there in the temple. The pilgrim said: "My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." His source of help is also our source of help. He is still the Lord who made "heaven and earth." He is the Lord who loves us. This is difficult for some people to understand, but it is nevertheless true. We can lift our faces to the Lord wherever we are, and know that He hears us and that He loves us. He is the Lord who will help us make the right steps in life: "He will not suffer thy foot to be moved." He is aware of every step that we take and will guide us in the right direction. The problem is that we sometimes take steps away from Him and get into trouble. All of us probably remember times in our lives when we got out of step with the Lord and went in the wrong direction. But after the trouble that came because we got out of step with the Lord He was, and is, always willing to forgive us. This doesn't mean that we did not have to pay the price for getting out of step, but that He loved us enough to forgive us and put us back into step. In verses 3-4 we are reminded that the Lord will never be asleep as we walk in the path that He has set for us. He is aware of every step that we take. Jesus reminded His disciples that the Holy Spirit would guide them in their lives. The Lord Who never sleeps is at work in our lives today. He still loves us and He is still aware of every step that we take. This should not alarm us, but it should thrill us that the "maker of heaven and earth" loves us enough to guide us in the right direction in our lives. He is your Lord too and He will always be present in your life and will always guide you in the right direction if you will follow His guidance. Selah Bro. Joe “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
Ritualism is defined as: “adherence to and fondness for decorous ceremonial customs in public worship.” (New Webster's Dictionary) Hosea was writing to the northern kingdom of Israel about God’s judgment on them for the way they were living. The problem was that they were going through all of the rituals of animal sacrifices that God had prescribed through Moses, but that was not enough. The sacrifices were intended to remind the people of who and what God was/is and how they should live. In other words, Israel was going through the motions of religion, but their hearts and lives were not in it. What the people of Israel did not understand was that God did not just want their empty ceremonies as much as He wanted their hearts. He wanted them! It is the same with us. It is important for us to worship together in church, sing, pray, give and preach. But the act of doing those things in public worship does not mean much if the life that we bring to the worship experience is devoid of dedication to God. God wants us to let our rituals make a difference in the way we live our lives. Let me give a personal example. I have been in church most of my life, and I have sung the old hymns over and over again over the years. In fact, I know a good many, if not most, of the familiar hymns by heart. I sing them in the shower and to myself at night before I go to sleep. (I know verses 1, 2, and 4 of the four verse hymns, because we usually do not sing the third verse.) I guess that is commendable, but I am aware that when I stand before God to receive my rewards, He is not going to say, “Joe how many hymns do you know by heart?” He is also not going to condemn me because I don’t know third verses. What the Bible tells me is that I will be judged and rewarded by my genuine acts of service to the Lord. That will include my treatment of people. It is not enough to just “go to church.” Going to church is a good thing, but it is a means to an end. To just go to church and not let it have some effect on our lives, is like the Israelites taking their sacrifices to the altar without it touching their lives or making a difference in how they lived. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:25 to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together.” Therefore it is important to attend public worship, but our mere bodily presence is not enough. I compare going to church to fueling my car. I do not take my car to the service station (usually convenience store) to buy gas just for the sake of buying gas. The church is our service station where we go to get fueled up to live each day for the Lord, just as I take my car to buy gas so that it will take me where I need to go. You can’t get what God has for you at your church if you do not go, but if you do not take away from the service a renewed faith in Christ, and a greater desire to serve the Lord, you have missed the point. It is not enough to just read the Bible. Reading the Bible can be an empty ritual if reading it does not help us to live better lives. One of my daily rituals is to read eight chapters from the Bible each day. But when I stand before the Lord, He is not going to commend me for arbitrarily reading eight chapters each day. He is going to be more interested in what reading the Bible did for my life. We can feverishly read our Bibles each day to keep up our quota of reading, but we need to let the words penetrate into the deep recesses of our hearts. We will not be commended for just reading the Bible, but we will be commended for the difference that reading it makes in our lives. Don’t misunderstand me, ritually reading the Bible is not a bad thing, for if we do not read it, we cannot know what’s in it. But the reading of it should make a difference in our lives. As you live your life today, remember that God “desires mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” Bro. Joe “…And Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.”
When he was born, Jacob was holding onto the heels of his fraternal twin Esau and never stopped doing it. If you remember, he cheated Esau out of his birthright as the older son with some pottage, or red stew. Then he and his mother Rebekah cheated Esau out of the blessing that normally went to the older son. (You can read all about it in Genesis 25 and the ensuing chapters) When Rebekah heard that Esau was planning on killing Jacob because of his deception she sent Jacob to her brother Laban, who lived in Padan-Aram. Laban was as wily as Jacob. We read of all kinds of deceptions between Laban and Jacob. I might add here that Jacob, the deceiver, met his match in his uncle Laban. There is much more to the story, but I have related enough of the story to make the points that I want to make in this article. Read on: Often, we feel that we are not worthy to be used of the Lord in His ongoing work in the world. We are right because no one deserves to be used of God, but Jacob teaches us that He uses us anyway. When you feel that God cannot use you, just remember Jacob, who was a deceiver, and know that if God can use Jacob, He can also use you. Remember, however, that Jacob changed as time went on after a dramatic encounter with God at Peniel. The point here is that no matter what your past has been, God will change you and enable you to serve Him in whatever way He wants you to serve. You might think that you do not have any qualities that would enable you to do anything for God. Remember this; God will have something for you to do in your church and community if you will just release yourself to Him to be used of Him. If God can use the man whose name was "deceiver” He can certainly use you. Surrender to His Lordship and see what He will do with you. Now, what about Jacob’s twin brother Esau? He was totally different from Jacob, for the Bible tells us that Esau was what we call “a man’s man.” He loved to hunt and was at home in the fields, while Jacob was a “stay at home” kind of guy. Why did Esau get such a bad deal by having his birthright stolen, and by losing the blessing that his father, Isaac, had to give? To get a picture of what was wrong with Esau, we need to go back to the stealing of his birthright. Esau had been in the fields hunting all day, and when he came in from the field, Jacob was making a mess of porridge. Esau was hungry and wanted some of that stew, so he gave his birthright to Jacob for a mess of porridge. By this we know that Esau was a compulsive person who lived only for the moment. For example, when he was hungry and was about to faint from his hunger, he didn’t consider the future ramifications of giving up his birthright. The lesson for us is that we need to be careful about what we do in those trying moments of our lives. Satan loves to get us backed into a corner where he figures that we will compromise our faith. Like Esau, in a moment of hunger for the things of this world, we can make decisions that will affect the rest of our lives. We need to be aware that the decisions that we make now will affect the quality of the rest of our lives. We need to learn these two lessons from these brothers: God can and will use you in spite of your past, and He wants you to be careful about obeying your own sinful impulses. Bro. Joe “Let not then your good be evil spoken of. 17. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy of the Holy Spirit.”
The theme of Romans 14 is primarily about eating meat offered to idols. Under grace we can eat whatever we want, but not every Christian in Rome had reached the maturity for that. They could not eat meat offered to idols, which was sold in the meat market, and were the best cuts of meat, because it might hinder their new found faith. More mature Christians insisted that eating that meat was alright. Paul’s idea was that it was not wrong to eat that meat, but if eating it became a stumbling block to new Christians, then they should not eat it. In the two verses under discussion here, Paul is reminding both groups that the kingdom of God is not about what to eat or what not to eat. He wanted them to get away from such mundane arguments and think about the higher elements of the Christian faith. The kingdom of God is about righteousness. Righteousness in the kingdom of God does not have as much to do with what we eat and drink as much as it does about how we live our lives. The first step to the righteous life is faith in Jesus Christ, for our righteousness is not our own, but is imputed to us through faith in Jesus Christ. This does not mean, however, that righteousness does not have to do with our behavior. For example, Paul asked the mature Christians to “let not then your good be evil spoken of.” It would not be righteous to eat the meat sacrificed to idols if it hurt the faith of a fellow Christian. Righteousness is not just refraining from doing things that we used to do, but to do things that would be pleasing to God and a good witness to people. I think that a good measurement here is what has become a cliché, but is nevertheless important: "What would Jesus do?” I doubt that anyone could ever keep that admonition perfectly, but it surely is a good goal, and would lead to kingdom righteousness. The kingdom of God is about peace. Kingdom peace is not about “Peace on earth.” It could have to do with that, but it is mainly about peace in our hearts. Jesus told us that we would have trouble in this world, but that He was giving us His peace. (John 16:33) Kingdom peace is peace of mind and heart in spite of turmoil. Paul certainly knew something about this, for he experienced a lot of turmoil everywhere he went. Leonard Ravenhill wrote that everywhere Paul went there was a revival or a riot. But Paul had kingdom peace, because he was at peace within himself. I think that the turmoil in a lot of churches could be done away with if people were at peace in their hearts. The point is that instead of worrying about legalistic things like what we should eat, we should be trusting the Lord and living in His peace. The kingdom of God is about “joy of the Holy Spirit.” When we spend our time arguing about this, that or the other, we are not taking advantage of the “joy of the Holy Spirit.” Like peace, this is not just outward joy but it is inner joy – joy in the heart. Part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, is joy. It is not joy that comes and goes with circumstances but stays in our hearts through good times and bad. In fact, it is joy of the Holy Spirit that gets us through good times and bad. It is this joy that helps us to love one another, minister to one another, and witness to the world. With this spiritual joy we can go forth into the world and spread the joy of Jesus. Everybody will not appreciate it or share the joy, but those who do will have a better life. Let’s take Paul’s teaching about true kingdom living to heart, and cease worrying about things that do not really matter and concentrate on those that do, such as, rigtheousness, peace, and the joy of the Holy Spirit. “When therefore (Jesus) was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this unto them: And they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus said.”
After Jesus’ resurrection, His disciples believed what He had previously told them about it, and they believed the scriptures – the Bible. They realized afresh and anew that the Bible had a place in their lives. The Bible should have a place in the life of every Christian. It is our source book. There are many good Christian books on the market, but none should take the place of the Bible. Let me illustrate what I mean: The Bible has a place in the hands of a Christian. We need to take the Bible in our hands and read it every day. We should set aside a time each day to read and study the Bible. We should read it systematically. We should begin at chapter one of a book and read through to the end. Of course there are times when we will read a verse here and a verse there, but this should not be all that we do. The Bible has a message, and we can’t get the message by just skipping around in it. We should read it through. It is not too much to ask a Christian to at least read the New Testament through every year. There are 260 chapters in the New Testament; therefore, we can read it through in 260 days if we read just one chapter a day. Ideally, we should read through the whole Bible every year. The Bible has a place in the head of a Christian. We need to know what’s in the Bible and what the real message of the Bible is. It is a book of redemption ultimately through Jesus Christ. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses tell us that most of their converts in the south are Southern Baptists. If those Southern Baptists knew the Bible, they would not believe those doctrines. We need an intellectual grasp of scripture. This does not mean that we have to be intellectual to understand it. It means that the message of the Bible should be part of our thought processes. We really need to think about what we read in the Bible. The Bible has a place in the heart of a Christian. We should internalize what we read in the Bible. Its message should be in our hearts, our emotions, indeed, in our souls. Just as the food that we eat becomes part of us, what we read becomes a part of us. If we never read the Bible, or only read it sporadically, it will not become part of whom and what we are. Life’s decisions are made from the head and the heart. If the Bible is to help us make decisions, it should be in our heads and hearts. We should take the Bible seriously enough that its message becomes a part of our decision making processes. If it is not in our hearts, we will not believe it or practice it. We should be emotional about the Bible. It should make us laugh and cry. It should make us stop and think about our lives and cause us to change what needs changing in our lives. We should be emotional enough about the Bible to share its message about Jesus with other people. After all, Jesus is the main focus of the Bible. I do not consider myself an expert on the Bible. I am a student of the Bible. I read it through every year and learn something new almost every day. I do not write this to brag, but to get you to see that if I can read it through, you can too. Pick up your Bible, read it, think about and believe it in your heart. Bro. Joe “Take what is yours, and go your way: I will give unto the last even as unto you. 15. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will my own? Is your eye evil, because I am good? 16. So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many will be called but few chosen.”
In the parable of the “Workers in the Vineyard,” Jesus proved a point to His disciples, and to us, about who is most important in God’s kingdom. In the parable, the vineyard owner goes into town and begins to hire workers for the day. The first workers hired agreed to a denarius as their pay. (A denarius was the day’s wage for that time.) He went out three other times and hired workers. The last hired probably worked only an hour. When the time for the workers to be paid came, the owner paid all of them a denarius. Those who had worked all day were irate, because they thought they should be paid more. The owner reminded them that they agreed on a denarius for that day’s work, besides; the owner reminded them that He could pay what he wanted to pay since he was the owner. We have to admit that we cringe a little when we read this parable. It does seem a bit unfair. But Jesus is making points here that we need to know about working in the kingdom and the rewards for it. First, since all of Jesus’ disciples were Jews, he was reminding them, and future generations that Gentiles would be rewarded the same as Jews, though the Gentiles were late coming into the kingdom. If God wanted to include Gentiles in His kingdom, that was His business, and He could reward Gentiles as well as Jews. Second, the parable is a reminder to us that we do not serve in God’s kingdom for what we can get from Him. There is always a danger that we will think that God owes us more than He does others. We might think that we have been Christians from an early age, and God certainly owes us more than He owes those who came into kingdom late. Let’s use “deathbed repentance” as an example. There are people who do not believe that one can be saved just before his or her last breath. But if God wants to save someone in their last hour, why would we be upset that He wanted to do so? Who can be saved is God’s prerogative, not ours. What I mean is that no matter when one repents and asks to be saved, it is God’s prerogative to save him or her. It is not our task to decide who can come into the kingdom; rather, it is our task to witness to others in order for them to be included in the kingdom. Third, the parable is a reminder that there are no “big I’s” and “little you's” in the kingdom of God. After all, we were not saved to get what we can from God, either here or in eternity. We are saved to serve Him and not to lord it over other people. We are supposed to serve Jesus out of love for Him and thankfulness to Him for being our Savior. The rewards for this service are up to God. Service for our Savior is its own reward. I have gotten to the point in my life that I just thank God that He allows me to serve Him. He doesn’t owe me anything for it, and I owe Him my whole being for allowing me to do it. It should be the same for all of us, whether we are choir members, song leaders, Sunday School teachers, deacons, missionaries, etc. We should have the same attitude toward our witness for Him to the world. He has empowered us to do it, and allows us to do it in spite of our own sins. Let us not quibble over who will be “first” and who will be “last.” We just have to leave that up to God. Bro. Joe ""Continue in Prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving."
The text is one of the many reminders in scripture about the importance of prayer. I thought that a good read for this weekend would be about the basics of prayer. I will probably not mention anything that you are not familiar with, but it is a good reminder. I want to share three basics truths of prayer. We need to continue in prayer because it is our means of communication with God. Communications is a basic need in all of our relationships, and there is no difference our relationship with God. I think that you will agree with me that if we spend a few days without communicating with the Lord, we can tell the difference in our lives. I remember reading a blurb one time in a church bulletin, that reminded me that: "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." There is certainly a lot of truth in that blurb. Perhaps prayerlessness is one of the reasons of problems in churches. I could never imagine facing the problems that can arise in churches without daily, and sometimes, hourly prayer. We need to stay in communication with God, and that is why Paul reminded the Colossians to "continue in prayer" We need to continue in prayer because it is the means of our fellowship with God. "Fellowship" carries the meaning of time spent together. A church that is having a lot of fellowship problems is certainly out of fellowship with God. In fact, we cannot stay in fellowship with each other if we are out of fellowship with God. Prayer meetings are important in church fellowship, but personal, daily prayer is of utmost importance in the lives of individual members of a church. It is impossible for us to stay in close fellowship with each other if we are not in close fellowship with God on a daily basis. We need to give careful thought to this truth... We need to stay in fellowship with God because it is the source of power in our lives, as Christians. I do not want to think of preaching if I have not stayed in close fellowship with God through prayer. Preparation in preaching is very important, but a clever outline can not replace the power of God in a sermon. Power comes from the Spirit of God at work in us. People in our churches do not need clever thoughts without the power of the Holy Spirit accompanying them. The same is true in worship music, in Sunday School lessons, or whatever we do in fellowship with the people of God. These are three important reasons why we need to "continue in prayer." Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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