The Weekend Sermon -- The Attributes of God -- Part 11

      It's time for another opportunity to study the attributes of God in the weekend sermon. I hope that all of you are having a very good week. 

     Last week, we began to look at the fact that one of God's attributes is that He always tells the truth. He is the embodiment of truth. If He makes a promise or a covenant with someone, He will keep it. As the Bible says, God remains faithful even when we are faithless. 

     I want to stay with the idea of God's truthfulness and promise keeping and look at how this applies in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who has come in the flesh. Therefore, He is God come in the flesh. He possesses all of the attributes of the Godhead within Himself. 

     Jesus made a lot of promises while He was on this earth concerning those who would be His followers. Because of this, it is important to us that we know that we can trust in His promises and trust in His word. 

     Jesus said that anyone can come to Him. He said come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Anyone can come to Jesus if they want to be forgiven of their sins and have a new life. Jesus doesn't reject anyone who comes to Him for life. 

     The Lord Jesus made it quite clear that He is truth. In John 14:6 Jesus said, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In order to have a relationship with the Father, we have to come to Jesus. 

     The Apostle Paul said the if we have hope because of Jesus only in this life, we are of all people to be most pitied. We do have hope beyond this life because of Jesus and His resurrection. Jesus said the He is the resurrection and the life. Because Jesus rose, He has promised that He will raise up those who are in Him. Those who put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus do not need to fear death. Jesus is the truth, we can trust in Him and know that if we are in Him, death has no hold over us. 

     Beyond the promise of resurrection, Jesus told us in John 14 that He has gone to prepare a place for us so that where He is, we can be there too. When we pass from this earth, we will go to be with the Lord Jesus in Heaven. Because He is God and truth is one of His attributes, we can rest assured that one day we will be with Jesus in Heaven. 

     Now, what did Jesus promise us before death and life in Heaven. In Matthew 28:20, Jesus said that He will be with us always. He will never leave us, and He will never forsake us. No matter what we are going through, Jesus is always right there with us to help us on our way. 

     Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever. He always spoke the truth and kept His word on earth, He does so now, and He will do so in the future. We can count on Him because He is the Truth. 

    Now what does this mean for us in the sense of what are we to do knowing that one of God's attributes is truthfulness. We must be those who do not lie but who are always truthful. Jesus said that our yes should be yes and our no should be know. We should be people of our word and people that are truthful so that we might honor the one who is the embodiment of the truth. Amen. 

Prayer Requests

     I've been feeling a little better as the week has progressed. Please keep praying for me. I am thankful for your prayers. 

     Please pray for those in California experiencing the bad weather. 

     Keep praying that aid will reach those affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. 

     We need to remember to pray for peace in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen and Haiti. Pray for peace wherever you know there is conflict. 

     For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those in the nations of South Korea and Iraq. Pray that many will come to know Jesus. 

     Next week, we will continue with our current series. I have three more messages in this series. I will post the verses on Monday, and I will try to post something midweek. May God bless you all. 

      

Verses For The Week

 Colossians 3:15 -- "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful."

Psalm 62:8 -- "Trust in Him at all times you people! Pour out your hearts before Him. God is our shelter!"

The Weekend Sermon -- The Attributes of God -- Part 10

      Thanks for reading the sermon this week. It has been a difficult week. I've been in poor health again and was not able to post midweek. I hope that you are all doing well. 

     This week, we are once again studying the attributes of God. This week and next, we are going to focus on the fact that God cannot lie. He always tells the truth, and He will always keep His word. For this week's message, I want to focus on the basic idea of the fact that God is truth and cannot lie, and focus on ways that God showed Himself to be faithful and to keep His word and His promises in the Old Testament. Next week, I want us to focus on the way the Jesus is the embodiment of the truth and cannot lie and will always keep His promises. We learned a little bit about this when we focused on the fact that God in unchanging, but I want to go into more depth and be a little more specific.

     To begin with, lets look at a few of the verses in the Bible that speak about God's attribute of truthfulness:

Numbers 23:19 -- "God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said and He will not do it? Or has He spoken, and He will not fulfill it?

Titus 1:2 -- "In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began."

Psalm 89:34 -- "I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips."

Joshua 21:45 -- "Not one of the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed, all came to pass."

     There is no falsehood in God. He always speaks the truth, and it is not in His nature to lie. He is not at all like human beings who seem to have a very difficult time telling the truth and keeping the promises and the pledges that they have made. 

     There are four events in the Old Testament that I want us to see that demonstrate that God keep His word and does not lie. First of all, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, God made a promise that one day a deliverer would be born. He would crush the power of Satan and evil. God kept this promise by sending His Son the Lord Jesus. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus has crushed the power of death, hell and the grave. 

     After God destroyed the world by a flood in the time of Noah, God made the promise that He would not flood and destroy the world again. God has kept and will keep this promise. 

     One of the great promises of the Bible is the covenant the God made with Abraham. God told Abraham that through Abraham would come a great nation. Through the seed of Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed. This covenant promise was ultimately fulfilled through Jesus Christ who is the descendant of Abraham. Through Jesus, all can receive salvation. When Jesus comes again, all will be restored, and the whole universe will be blessed through Him. 

     There is another great promise that God has kept, and that is His covenant promise to David. God promised David that a member of his lineage would reign forever. Jesus is the Son of David. He will rule and reign forever on the throne of  David. The kingdom of Jesus will have no end. 

     These are just a few of the ways that God demonstrated His truthfulness in the Old Testament continuing right to our time and into the world to come. We can have total confidence in what God says. He has told us that if we will repent and come to Him that He will receive us. I hope that you will take God at His word and come to Him today. Amen.

Prayer Requests

     As I mentioned, I am not doing very well again. Please keep praying. Thank you. 

     Please pray for an end to the war in Ukraine. What is happening there is just terrible. We also need to keep praying for peace in Syria and Yemen. 

     The people in Turkey and Syria still need our prayers. 

     For are prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those in the nations of the Czech Republic and Estonia. These countries have fewer than 50 percent of the people claiming to be Christians. 

     Next week, we will continue in our series. I will post the verses on Monday. I don't know if I will post midweek. May God bless you all. 

     

Verses For The Week

 John 13:15 -- "For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you."

I John 2:6 -- "The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked."

The Weekend Sermon -- The Attributes of God -- Part 9

   Thank you for reading the sermon this week. I hope you are doing well. 

     Over the course of the last several weeks, we've been studying some of the attributes of God. We continue that study this week by focusing our attention on two of God's attributes that are linked. God is merciful, therefore, He is willing to forgive us of our transgressions. 

     We discussed the fact last week that God is a God of justice. Since He is a just and holy God, it is part of His nature that He must punish sin. That is only a part of who God is. We must take into consideration His other attributes as well. God is holy and God is just. At the same time, God is also merciful and forgiving. 

Here are a few verses that speak to us about the merciful nature of God:

Exodus 34:6-7 -- "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin."

Psalm 145: 8-9 -- "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works."

Lamentations 3:22-23 -- "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is Your faithfulness."

Ephesians 2:4-5 -- "But God who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).

     These are just a sampling of the verses in the Bible that deal with the merciful nature of the Lord. He does not desire that any person perish the Bible tells us as well. He wants for everyone to come to repentance. He will forgive the sins of anyone who asks. I John tells us that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

     Some people teach and preach that God is just looking for something that we do wrong so that He can punish us and cause bad things to happen to us. However, the teaching of Scripture is quite clear, the moment that our forbears fell into sin, God found a way to bring about the salvation of the human race and the restoration of the fallen creation. 

     God sent His Son into the world to redeem the world. Jesus satisfied the justice of God as well as the mercy and love of the Lord. God loved the world and gave His Son in order that all who call upon the name of Jesus might have eternal life and be with Jesus forever and forever. 

     Since God is merciful and forgiving to those who have done wrong to Him, He wants us to be merciful and forgiving to others. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Jesus commands us in Luke 6:36 to, "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful."

     What amazes me is that in spite of the fact that we have rebelled against our creator and decided to follow our way and not His way, God still cares about us. He does not want to punish us. Instead, in His mercy, He makes a way for us to be reconciled to Him. 

     For those of us who have experienced the mercy and forgiveness of God as realities in our own lives, we have the obligation to be merciful and to forgive those who trespass against us. When we are willing to be merciful and to forgive, we demonstrate that the grace of the Lord Jesus is a reality in our lives and that we are committed to following Him as Savior and Lord. Amen. 

Prayer Requests

     I have not been feeling well again. Please pray that I will get back to being in good health. I've been mostly not well since I had covid back in August. Thank you for your prayers.

     We need to keep praying that aid will reach the people in Turkey and Syria. 

     There has been bad storms in Mozambique and Madagascar. Pray that these people will get the help that they need. 

     Continue to pray for peace in Ukraine. It is the one year mark since the war began. That country needs peace, and we need to keep praying for peace in Syria, Yemen, Israel and around the world. 

     For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those in the nations of Nepal and Bosnia. Pray that many will come to know Jesus. 

     Next week, we will continue with our current sermon series. I will post the verses on Monday, and I may have a midweek post. May God bless you all. 

     

Verses For The Week

 James 4:10 -- "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you."

Matthew 16:26 -- "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Matthew 6:33 -- "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Weekend Sermon -- The Attributes of God -- Part 8

      Thank you for stopping by to view the Weekend Sermon. Usually, I post the sermon on Friday, but this week I had to move it back a day because I couldn't get to the library to post the message before I had to be a work. 

     Today, we are moving on in our series of messages dealing with some of the attributes of God. I want to focus on the fact that God is just and He will bring about ultimate justice. 

     There are two things to focus on when we talk about the fact that God is just. First of all, God is just in that He will bring about what is right and what is good. He will always act in a manner that is fair and impartial. Secondly, because it is in His nature to be just, God has to punish sin. When people sin against the Lord, the Lord must fairly and justly bring about the required punishment for sin. 

     Deuteronomy 32:4 tells us that "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He. In the book of Job we are told that it is unthinkable that God would not do what is just and right. Zephaniah tells us that God never does anything that is unjust. 

    There is an important passage of Scripture found in Romans 2:6-8 that details for us that God is just. This passage reads, "God will repay each person for what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek, glory, honor and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and reject the truth and follow evil there will be wrath and anger.

     When Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, God had to punish their sin because He is a just God. He could not let them get away with their sin. All have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. However, as we will see more of in the coming weeks, God is not just a just God. He is a God of love and mercy as well. The Bible makes it clear that God sent His Son the Lord Jesus to take away our sin. Jesus paid the penalty for sin. Paul puts it this way in Romans 3:25-26, "God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, In order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus. 

     God being a God of justice cannot accept us into His presence in our current sinful state. However, the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross and what He did for us makes us righteous in the sight of God when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus. II Corinthians 5:21 tells us, "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."

     When we confess our sins to the Lord, He takes our sin. In place of our sin, the Lord imputes to us His righteousness. When God looks at us He sees us clothed in the righteousness of His dearly beloved Son. Because of this, the wrath of God passes over us, and the demands of God's justice are satisfied in the righteousness of Christ. 

     Now, I want us to look at the second aspect of the fact that God is just and a God of justice. He will bring about ultimate justice. There is a lot of wrong and a lot of evil in this world. People are oppressed and the have a lot of wrong done to them. People often think that the evil doers and the oppressors are going to get away with what they have done. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

     When Jesus comes again, He will judge the world and He will bring justice for all of those that were oppressed. Those that have done what is evil will be punished for what they have done to cause pain and hurt to others. In Deuteronomy we find that God cares about the poor, the immigrant, the oppressed the hungry and hurting. He will bring about justice for these people against their oppressors. That day is coming. 

     Because God is just, He will not leave this world and its abused people and creation in their current state. Jesus will come and with Him will come justice. His judgment will be based on the good or bad that we have done for the least of those among us. Those have done good to the least among us it is as if we have done it unto Him. Those who have opposed and oppressed the least of those among us, it is if they have opposed and oppressed Jesus Christ Himself. 

     It is important that we as believers in Jesus act justly and speak up for what is just and what is right in this world in the name of Jesus. I wrap this message up with the Word of the Lord from Micah 6:8, "He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Amen.

Prayer Requests

     We did not have a bad winter storm in my area. It was a little icy, but not bad. I am feeling quite a bit better, and things are going some better at work. I thank you all for your prayers. I thank the Lord for His goodness. 

     Please keep praying in regard to the situation in Turkey and Syria. There is aid reaching the people of Turkey, and I thank God for that. Syria is not getting as much assistance, so we need to keep praying that everyone in this situation will get the aid and the help that they need in the days and weeks to come. 

    Let us pray about the situation with the train in Ohio. People there are hurting. Let's pray that this situation will be resolved quickly and correctly. 

     Continue to pray for peace on earth. Syria, Ukraine, Israel, Yemen, Libya, Congo, Central African Republic and Haiti are just a few of the troubled areas that need our prayers for peace. 

     Pray that the diseases harming people in this world will abate. China is dealing with Covid. Many places still are. There is Ebola in Uganda, and many parts of  the world are dealing with cholera. Pray that the sick will recover, and that people will get the medical care and help that they need regardless of their ability to pay. 

     For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those in the nations of Bangladesh and Djibouti. Pray that many will come to know Jesus. 

     Next week, we will continue learning more about the attributes of God. I will post the verses on Monday, and I hope to post something midweek. May God bless you all.