Message:
Last week we looked into God’s word to discover He lives with in it. We identified God as FATHER, SON & HOLY SPIRIT.
One God but Three persons called a TRINITY. We learned that GOD is HOLY and that GOD is the BEGINNING and the END.
We discovered that the HOLY SPIRIT is alive in the OLD TESTAMENT and is alive in the NEW TESTAMENT and that the HOLY SPIRIT is now living in us.
GOD’s word revealed to us that JESUS the SON of GOD is the WORD of God spoken by GOD at the creation of the world.
We then saw how the WORD of GOD came to us in the person of the SON of God and dwelt amongst us.
We are not the beginning. We did not even arrive until GOD decided to give us life. We are not Holy. Our righteousness rests in Christ Jesus alone and not in ourselves. But we are alive by the power of God to become New creatures because the Word of God conquered sin and death so that we might live and that the Holy Spirit might take up residence in us.
And there is more Saints…
God knows each one of us personally. Not just the Saints but the sinners too. God knows every human being on the planet personally. Today we are at 7.2 Billion people in the world with 2 babies born every second. Yet our God knows them all. Personally.
Pastor Randy Frazee of Oaks Hills Church in San Antonio Texas put it like this…..
“I’m a runner and I use an app to record where I run, how long I run, my time, the temperature, how many steps I take and even the elevation that I’m running at. All this is being done by a computer program that costs $1.99 on my smart phone. What is truly amazing is that this app can track hundreds of thousands of runners like me at the same time. Now if a little computer program like this, made by people, can do all that for just $1.99 why do we have a hard time believing that God can track everyone on planet earth at the same time and that He can record even more information about each person than this computer program can?”
A few years ago there was a popular song that I liked titled “From a Distance” sung by Bette Midler. In the song the lyric echoes the words that “God is watching us God is watching us God is watching us from a distance.” The song is lovely and the sentiment is heartfelt as it suggests to us that if we just step away far enough to see things from God's viewpoint that we could see that Hope and Love can be found in the hearts of every man woman and child on planet earth.
While the song's sentiment is lovely its viewpoint is off a few million miles.
God is not off in the distance God is here and now and is alive in you and in me and God knows exactly what is going on in the heart of every man. The problem is that the heart of every man does not know God.
People often accuse God of being absent or distant from the troubles and heartache that play out every day on planet earth but that my friends is simply not the case. God is here in the here and now as He has put you and me here in the here and now to do His good will, His good and perfect will.
We have been commissioned.
What about the hungry, what about the homeless, what about the widows the orphans the prisoners and the broken? You and I, we are to do the work of God we are to reach out and be the hand of God until He comes to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords to judge the living and the dead.
God gave man dominion over the earth. God equipped us with His power by His Holy Spirit and we have been changed by the Word of God so that we might do the will of God not from a distance but face to face.
In Genesis 16 we see God keeping His word to watch us. Not just some of us but all of us. In this passage is the story of Abram & Sarai. The elderly couple who eventually have a son named Isaac. But before Isaac came Ishmael. And Ishmael was the product of Abram and Hagar not Sarai but Hagar the servant girl.
You see. Abram and Sarai were impatient for God to work out His plan to give them a son. So they turned to Hagar to make things happen instead of waiting on God to make things happen. They thought just as Bette Midler’s song suggests that “God is watching us from a distance” when in fact God was very much present. But both Abram and Sarai thought God needed their help. The result was Ishmael who was not the son of promise but rather the son of promiscuity.
But God is watching us not like the song suggests but rather like scripture confirms for us in Psalm 139:1-6
O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
God watched over Abram and Sarai as Isaac became the fulfillment of the promise/covenant from which the nation of Israel would be born. God also watched over Hagar and Ishmael even though they did not fall under the full promise. In the desert they were cast out by Abram and Sarai because Hagar and Ishmael were not people of the covenant. But God still provided life sustaining water for them to drink and returned them to Abram and Sarai.
Jesus did the same thing for you and me. Even though we are not Jewish and do not qualify to be under the Jewish covenant or promise. Jesus extends life giving water to whoever will drink it. So that means even if you are not Jewish and even if your not Christian, Jesus holds out the life giving, life changing water to each of us when we find ourselves as castouts in the desert of life. John 4:14
God is indeed watching you personally and He reaches out to you in love, to give you eternal life.
Saints God is watching over the Saints and the Sinners and God is calling us to live in covenant with Him. It is not the Old covenant that Abram entered into but it is a New and Living covenant in Jesus the Lamb of God.
Whichever group you fall into today Saint or Sinner you need to know that God is indeed watching you but it is not from a distance.
God is in this very room. His spirit is alive in His children and He wants to live in you. To be one with you Father – Son and Holy Spirit and You.
But you can only come to God through the Son.
Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life no man comes to the Father but by me. John 14:6
Friends you have to come by the Son to receive the Spirit. Otherwise it is you who are watching God from a distance and friends that distance is separating you from Eternal Life and a New life in the here and now.
Come to Jesus today, He will not cast you away. It is for you He has come. Let there be no distance between you and God but let God come alive in you by the power and presence of His Holy Spirit. – Amen.
