Happy 47th Anniversary Chatsworth Baptist Church.
May God bless all those that have been associated to the said church in the past 47 years.
25-28 October 2012
The Search For Satisfaction
When it comes to jigsaw puzzles, we all know that to enjoy a satisfying outcome you need all the pieces. In many ways, life is like that. We spend our days putting it together, hoping to create a complete picture out of all the scattered parts.
Yet sometimes it seems like a piece is missing. Perhaps we’ve been pursuing the wrong pieces to the puzzle. Even though we may know that life without God at the center is a life that as lost the most important piece, do we live as though He isn’t particularly relevant? And even though we may attend church regularly, is He the trobbing center of our lives? Sometimes we grow accustomed to feeling distant from God. This makes it easier to sin, complicating the sense that something important is missing.
But no matter how far we may drift from God, He wants us near. He appealed to His people through the prophet Isaiah: “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance” (Ish. 55: 2).
If something is missing in your life, remember that God is the only One who can fully and abundantly satisfy you. Let Him complete the picture of your life. – Joe Stowell.
FROM BREAKDOWN TO BREAKTHROUGH
TEXT: 1 CHRONICLES 4: 9-10
INTRODUCTION
David’s prayer – Ps. 25: 4 “Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths.
Ps. 27: 11 “Teach me thy ways, O Lord; and lead me in a plain path.”
Ps. 51: 10 “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord; and renew …”
Jabez prayed – “Enlarge my coast,” v10.
“LIVING BIGGER FOR GOD”
We can pray the very same prayer that Jabez prayed. It is an awesome prayer. When your coast starts to increase, there is going to be certain challenges that you will be confronted with.
1) Your faith level.
2) Your pain level.
3) Your patience level.
4) The jealousy level will increase.
1) Your faith level – You cannot live larger for God if you do not have faith. When you live larger for God, you need to trust God wholeheartedly that He will minister
to you. When God starts to minister to you, there is going to be a change. Your
faith grows hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Anchor on the Word of God.
2) Your pain level – “Without pain, there is no gain.” Your pain level is going to
increase when you live larger for God. There will be trials, testings and
storms. However, God will supernaturally sustain you. He will not put you where
His grace cannot keep you.
3) Your patience level – Patience is the fruit of the Spirit. You will grow into
maturity, become more tolerant and have longsuffering. You are now getting
ready to grow larger for God.
4) The jealousy level – The people you least expect it from, will be jealous of what
God is increasing in your life. Spiritual jealousy will increase against you
when you live larger for God. Maintain a Godly spirit toward such. Remember
Joseph. Genesis 50: 20-21 “But as for you, you thought evil against
me; God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.”
CONCLUSION
David’s song of thanksgiving – 2 Sam. 22: 37 “Thou hast
enlarged my steps under me; so that my feet did not slip.”
Isaiah 54: 2-3 “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them
stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.”
PRAYER:
Your family and ministry
Your church
Your city, province and nation
WHY ARGUE
Why argue when we don’t know all the
facts and the Pharisees were blamed – we too can be blamed (v.2). Jesus Christ is Lord of the
Sabbath and His law is the law of liberty (James 2:12). He knows the problem that
both the Pharisee and the man with the withered hand have – they are in their
sins. What does He do? He is a God of
love – He said, “Love your enemies
(v.27).” He also wants to save the
Pharisees from the membrane of religion that tied them to their own beliefs.
Christ knows their judgmental thoughts and so He begins to heal the man with the
withered hand to also reach them but their biases come in the way of seeing Him
for what He really is. But He ultimately saves Pharisees like Nicodemus, Joseph
of Arimethea and Saul of Tarsus. When we go to theological college, it is a
general trend to become proud – instead of our learning making us humble, we
become too technical.
In fact we should be
learning how to relate to people. As a music mentor one of my joys is my own
pursuit of also learning from the students I teach on how to relate to them – so
it is not for me to learn music from them because that is my ilk but to learn
how to approach them. Therefore, learning never stops. Concerning the accusation
the Pharisees made about Jesus’ disciples eating grain on the Sabbath, they knew
the allowance of Moses in this matter but they had their own additions to
protect them as the national Jewish people. Moses allowed for immediate needs
such as hunger (Deut.23:25). What
was disallowed on the Sabbath was cutting the grain and selling it. How have we added extra rules to keep others
outside?
When an existing church leadership is hypocritical to the point of
suicide what is the solution? A new leadership must
be established and Christ goes to a Mountain to pray and does that with a
cross-section of humanity among twelve disciples. Douglas Milne puts it well:
“There were businessmen (Peter & Andrew), a civil servant (Matthew), a
political activist (Simon), hot-tempered brothers (John & James), a natural
leader (Peter), a constitutional doubter (Thomas) and a sceptical believer
(Nathaniel).[i]
Luke is the only Gospel writer
that presents Jesus’ beatitudes with woes. When Moses renews God’s covenant with
the nation of Israel before entering the Promised Land, he too places the
blessings and the curses before the people (Deut.27:11-28:68). In Jesus’ audience what kinds of people are
blessed? The poor and the hungry! What kinds of people are cursed? The
rich and the popular! There is nothing wrong in being rich but generally the
rich in their hearts have no place for the poor.
When we were still in our sins
and enemies of God, Christ died for the ungodly (Rom.5:6). There is no bias in Christ’s
love – it is not for one’s own race, class, background or culture but across the
divide. How can we apply that to today’s
world? What about someone who came
into our churches with tattoos or a fellow with pierced ears? How would we
respond? May those of us who are Christians learn more of Christ to love the
“outsider”!
By the time we come to our
suggested parallel chapter in Exodus
3 we see a loving God who wants to establish a leadership for a people that
He has made for Himself. These
people are not going to just accept Him and His servant Moses, considering that
He allowed them to be in slavery of over four hundred years. It is going to take
a few miracles to convince them. But the miracles start here on this mountain,
Horeb (later to become Sin-ai). Here there is a conversation between God and
Moses – Moses’ prayer life begins here.
God knows
that His leaders among the nation of Israel in Egyptian bondage will be like the
Pharisees – they would eventually fight Moses but nonetheless here the story of
love begins. He places a fire on a mountain for Moses to investigate. He doesn’t
come right down to Moses but down to the mountain so that Moses could reach the
mountain – a picture of the high standard of God’s love and law.
Is God just going to deliver the nation of Israel? Does He only love
them? He loves to save to the ends of the earth and
so He begins with Israel and by the time they leave, they leave with some
Egyptians. On the Day of Pentecost we see Egyptians being saved and Philip
speaks to an Ethiopian (Acts 8:26).
The Burning Bush has two vivid pictures: the fire of God’s heaven and Satan’s
hell. When Moses was in the valley, at a distance he first saw the fire of God’s
heaven and it reminded him of a fire that once went out. His own fire of anger
crying out for justice but it killed an Egyptian forty years ago. But here he
sees a fire that doesn’t burn the bush out (the Acacia tree). But also when he
investigated closer, it was a reminder of the fire of hell that Israel is going
through in Egyptian bondage. But through Moses and the Burning Bush God sees
future leaders for His church. What Moses experiences, God wants others to
experience (v.12).
Why argue but Moses’ arguments begin here
through an enquiry. Unlike the Pharisees who believed they were everything,
Moses doesn’t believe that he is anything. He says, “Who am I?” God told him that He would
be with him (v.12). If God could be
with an Egyptian daughter of the Pharaoh to name him “Moses” which means “drawn
out from the river”, God will achieve what that meant. He is the natural leader
to draw Israel out of Egypt through the Rivers of the Red Sea – he is the
redeemer. But he wants to make doubly sure that this deliverance story is going
to work. He is still not convinced. Many of us have been going to church for
years but the bush is not burning for us. We haven’t yet trusted God fully.
If God named him “Moses”, now God
finally names Himself for Moses and the nation of Israel to know God by this
name in the future. “Tell Pharaoh that …I AM has sent you (v.14).” In other words, “It is YAHWEH
that has sent you.” This must be a lesson for Moses to connect because on
investigation he would come to know that his mother’s name Jochebed meant “Yahweh is my glory.” God has the big
picture and the details all worked out. Can we ever argue with a God that loves
to make a people for Himself from every nation, tribe, race and
kindred?
“ONLY THE WORD”
READ Exodus 7.
GOD’S DESIGN: Only God’s Word through Moses will bring
judgment before Pharaoh and it will finally release the nation of Israel.
Although we are going to see signs and wonders God is not going to use these so
that Pharaoh will release Israel. God is only going to use His Word because
Pharaoh has rejected it (Exod.5). We
reject God’s Word, we reject Him. Some of us only dust our Bibles on a Sunday
morning. Ultimately, God is going to finally judge Pharaoh for rejecting His
Word. Moses will appear before Pharaoh as if God
Himself has come to speak His Word
(v.1). The way God instructed what
Moses should do he did: Before Pharaoh, Moses said to Aaron to throw down
Aaron’s staff (v.9-10). This was an object lesson for Pharaoh to perceive that how God
spoke to Moses; Moses speaks to Aaron. Now Moses speaks to Aaron and Aaron to
Pharaoh.
Signs and wonders cannot do what God’s Word can do. When signs and
wonders follow, it is because God’s Word is in its right place. David in a psalm
tells us what God Himself has done: “God
has magnified His Word above all His name” (Psalm 138:2, KJV). Thinking the
thoughts of Spurgeon: “We see the stars, we see the sun and the moon, we see
flowers, and we see human beings! These are all part of God’s great handiwork.
He can create the same again if He wanted to. But there is something that even
God cannot do. He cannot create another Word.” Moses will first be given
utterance to speak and then Aaron will explain the further meaning (v.2). Luther said, “The world was
conquered by the Word.”
Then the rod turned the water into blood being the first plague but
it made Pharaoh hostile. All the signs and wonders didn’t make Pharaoh change
(v.4). Imagine if you were in Egypt in those days
and heard by way of reports the signs and wonders of God, how would you respond?
You would want to seek those signs for yourselves! Same after Moses and
Aaron brought about God’s signs before the Pharaoh. Even Egypt was able to
perform miracles but Aaron’s rod swallowed Egypt’s serpents and since the rods
which became serpents was a mark of authority, Egypt had no authority. Aaron’s
rod becoming a serpent to overpower was only a sign that the fight is now on but
the victory will come through the Word. These signs and wonders was a test to
Israel. They were acts of mercy intended to arouse repentance and faithful
obedience (v.5).[1]
By the time we come to our
suggested parallel chapter in Luke
10 we see that Christ sends seventy two witnesses out to preach the oracles
of the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles. They had a mission to accomplish in a
certain time frame and they were not to waste time anywhere (v.4). When they returned they were more
impressed with the miracles they performed but Jesus cautions them that faith in
Him was more important – that as a matter of salvation their names being written
in heaven is what truly counts (v.20).
As Pharaoh rejected the Word of
God, the wheel has turned in Jesus’ time – God’s own people have rejected the
Word. Jesus passes His woes on Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. Jesus tells a
parable of the Good Samaritan to His audience and makes a profound point. His
lesson was that the religion of both the Priest and the Levite hindered them
from saving the man injured by robbers. But an outcast – a Samaritan (mixed
breed) passed by and helped the man. The Samaritan’s Word was as good as His
character. He paid the hospital the expenses for the injured stranger and gave
His Word that when He comes back He will further pay any more expenses incurred
(v.35). Like Moses who was treated
as an outcast, Christ was treated as an outcast. He is the Good Samaritan Is Christ going to stop promising what His
Word can do? No, He is going to accomplish what He started.