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Location:
6425 Jefferson Rd. For
directions, click here.
Jerry
Varnado,
pastor January
27, 2002 No
one is like you, O LORD; Who
should not revere you, O King of
the nations? They
are all senseless and
foolish; But
the LORD is the true God; The
prophet Jeremiah's declaration is
that Yahweh -- the Hebrew name
for God -- is so mighty in power
that all the nations
should revere Him. 9-The
God
Who
Fills
Heaven
and
Earth On
the other hand there is no one
like Yahweh, who is the true God.
Jeremiah's assertion that Yaweh
is the true God is based upon
this fact: Yahweh is the
living God. Not a
living god but the living
God. Today,
I want to talk with you about the
implications of God being
alive. We've
already been through three
implications in this sermon
series. We've talked about the
fact that Yahweh is "a jealous
God" who loves us. And that tells
us that
He
is a God who experiences
emotions. Of
course, He doesn't experience
emotions in exactly the way that
we do because He is perfectly
holy. Among
other things, that means God is
always in perfect control of His
being; therefore the emotions He
experiences do not control His
behavior -- as often is the case
with us. God's emotions, His
power, His intelligence,
knowledge, wisdom, and
understanding are always in
perfect balance. His
power is always perfectly
balanced by love and gentleness.
His anger and judgment always
perfectly balanced by His mercy
and compassion. His love is
extravagant but always balanced
by wisdom. Next
we talked about "a covenant God,"
which means that
God
is personal and
relational.
He knows us and can be known by
us. That
is a radical departure from every
other religion. As I mentioned a
few weeks ago, most other
religions are rooted in fear. The
deities are served because of the
fear that something bad will
happen if you don't. No one knew
or wanted to know the deities in
a personal way. It was too
dangerous. The gods were powerful
and unpredictable, which made
them frightening. We
talked about a Christian
understanding of "the fear of
God" two weeks ago in the sermon
titled, "A Holy God." The
conclusion of that sermon was
that we Christians have, or
should have, a "filial fear" of
God that is rooted in love, which
leads to an earnest desire to
please Him. We're
reminded again of 1 John 4:18:
"There is no fear in love. But
perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with
punishment. The one who fears is
not made perfect in
love." God
isn't out to get us; He is out to
love us -- and to have us love
Him. He knows us; He knows all
about us; and He loves us anyway.
He wants us to know Him, not just
know about Him. He wants us to
live in a personal, intimate
relationship with Him rooted in
love. We
also talked about the fact that
"the Lord is our judge," which
brings us to the third
implication of God being alive:
He
can act in this physical
world.
From
the beginning Yahweh revealed
Himself as God who is actively
involved in the universe He
created. He took the initiative
to seek out individuals to
represent Him to the world. He
chose a people through whom He
would reveal Himself. He
delivered those people from
Egyptian bondage by mighty acts
of power. You
remember Joshua was chosen by God
to lead His people into the
promised land of Canaan. Canaan
was a populated area with many
people groups and many deities or
gods; nearly fifty are named in
the Scriptures. There was great
competition among the people to
show that their god was greater
than the others. The god with the
largest, most ornate temple or
the most followers was considered
to be the greatest among the
gods. Listen
to what Joshua said to the people
as they prepared to enter the
land: See,
the ark of the covenant of the
Lord of all the earth will go
into the Jordan ahead of you.
Now then, choose twelve men
from the tribes of Israel, one
from each tribe. And as soon
as the priests who carry the
ark of the LORD -- the Lord of
all the earth -- set foot in
the Jordan, its waters flowing
downstream will be cut off and
stand up in a heap." (Joshua
3:10-13) Joshua
is saying that God will
demonstrate that He is alive by
doing something in this physical
world that humans cannot do.
Many
years ago, before I was a pastor,
the church I attended sponsored a
refugee family from a Middle East
country. They were Buddhists and
I was asked to visit and share
Jesus with them. I tried to
explain to them that all the
things that we had done for them
were done because of Jesus, that
our actions were the actions of
Jesus to help them. It didn't
seem that I was communicating
with them. Then
I ask them a question: "Has
Buddha ever done anything for
you?" They roared with laughter.
It didn't take me long to figure
they were laughing at me. It was
utterly absurd for me to suggest
that they would expect Buddha to
do anything; he was dead and had
been for hundreds of years.
Buddha was a man who had left
them with principles and a plan
that if followed would lead one
to spiritual enlightenment. He
was now dead and they certainly
had no expectation that he would
do anything at all, much less do
something for them. Neither
did it impress them when I
explained that they should see
our actions as the actions of
Jesus. All the things we did we
could have done with or without
the intervention of
Jesus. I
understood that Jesus gave me the
ability to make my way in the
world and that without Him I can
do nothing. I knew that I would
not have had the compassion for
them to help them had Jesus not
changed my heart. But friends
those are statements of faith for
believers. "You ask me how I know
He lives, He lives within my
heart." Again that is a statement
or personal faith that may or may
not influence how a non-Christian
understands God. My
testimony was a different story.
When they learned of my life
before Jesus and how I had
changed they could see the
activity of God in the world.
That is why testimony is usually
more effective than preaching in
winning the world to Jesus:
people can see the activity of
God through the testimony and
that helps them believe He is
indeed the living God. I
have a vague recollection of
that, but I don't remember ever
reading anything that professor
wrote. But somehow this idea of
"the death of God" came up in one
of my classes in
seminary. My
instructor insisted that the
other professor's views had been
terribly misunderstood. The real
point of his musings about the
death of God, according to my
professor, was that modern
Christianity had become nothing
more that a religion in which we
went into our church buildings
once or twice a week and did some
religious acts out of rote
repetition. The
result was that God
was
dead in the hearts and minds of
the church -- and therefore God
was dead to the world. Now,
if that was really was the idea
this man was trying to convey, I
can see his point. If we claim
that we serve the living God, the
world will want to see God act in
the physical realm in which we
live. This
is nothing new; it has always
been that way. That's why the
Bible reminds us time after time
that we are talking about the
living God. You
remember when Daniel was thrown
into the lion's den and God saved
him? Those lions never even laid
a paw on him. And in Daniel 6:26,
King Darius, having seen this,
says this about Daniel's God --
remember Darius is a
gentile: "I
issue a decree that in every part
of my kingdom people must fear
and reverence the God of Daniel.
For he is the living God and he
endures forever; his kingdom will
not be destroyed, his dominion
will never end." King
Darius acknowledged Yahweh as the
living God because He saw God act
in this world. Look
with me at the words of the
Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians
2:1-5. He's writing to the church
at Corinth: I
came to you in weakness and
fear, and with much trembling.
My message and my preaching
were not with wise and
persuasive words, but with a
demonstration of the Spirit's
power, so that your faith
might not rest on men's
wisdom, but on God's
power. Now,
Paul doesn't describe here what
that "demonstration of the
Spirit's power" is, so we don't
know specifically. But look over
at 2 Corinthians 12:12. This at
least gives us an idea. Again,
he's writing to the church at
Corinth: Elsewhere
in the Bible, we told that
through Paul people were healed,
delivered from the power of
demons, even raised from the
dead. Paul
himself says he doesn't want our
Christian faith to be rooted in
some carefully structured
theological statement of who God
is and what God demands, although
good theology is important. But
Paul says he wants our faith to
rest "on God's power." My
friends, God can and does exert
His power in this world on behalf
of His people and His kingdom.
God can do this because God is
not dead. He
is the living
God.
Gateway
Church gathers
for worship
Sundays
at 10:30 a.m.
(Hwy. 129) in Athens,
Georgia.
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of the
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A
GATEWAY SERMON
The
living God
(Sixth
in the series, Knowing
God)
Gateway
Church,
Athens GA
you are great, and your name is
mighty in power.
This is your due.
Among all the wise men of the
nations and in all their
kingdoms,
there is no one like
you.
they are taught by worthless
wooden idols.
Hammered silver is brought from
Tarshish and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith
have made is then dressed in blue
and purple -- all made by skilled
workers.
he is the living God, the eternal
King.
(Jeremiah
10:6-10a)
Jeremiah laments the foolishness
and senselessness of people who
carve gods out of wood or cast
them out of precious metals. He
proclaims that these gods are
worthless.
In
this
series
The
God who actsThis
is how you will know that the
living God is among you and
that he will certainly drive
out before you the Canaanites,
Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites,
Girgashites, Amorites and
Jebusites.
God
is dead?
Back
in the 1960s a professor at Emory
University caused a big stir when
he was quoted in a Time
magazine cover story, title "Is
God Dead?"
A
demonstration of
powerWhen
I came to you, brothers, I did
not come with eloquence or
superior wisdom as I
proclaimed to you the
testimony about God. For I
resolved to know nothing while
I was with you except Jesus
Christ and him
crucified.
The
things that mark an apostle --
signs, wonders and miracles --
were done among you with great
perseverance.
An
audio tape of this sermon is
available
free of charge (U.S. requests
only).
Request
a tape by calling
or writing the Gateway Church
office.
Please specify tape number
020127a: The Living
God.
©
2002 Gerald R.
Varnado