Je t'adore

Isaiah 57:15 “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

I’m sure someone has taught you along the way how to pray using the ACTS method.

Start with Adoration.

Move to Confession

Then to Thanksgiving

And end with Supplication.

Our service tonight is built around these four acts

And we’ve just spent about 14 minutes singing songs of adoration.

Adoration is kind of a high-falutin word, you know?

A church word - don’t use it much anywhere else.

So let’s talk about it.

Let’s see what adoration looks like so we’ll know it when we see it.

When I was an angst filled teenager in high school, I took two years of French.

I don’t remember a lot from those classes of long ago, but I do remember three things.

Salle de bain

I knew if I was in France I could point to food, but what would I do if I had to go to the restroom.

Salle de bain - that’s restroom in French.

Je t’aime.

I love you.

I was like every red-blooded 16 and 17 year old boy alive.

I wanted to find that one little girl I could whisper - Je t’aime in her ear and watch her melt.

And then there was je t’adore.

Je t’adore is complex - you can hear adore in it, right?

The original meaning of adore was to worship, but Je t’adore didn’t mean that exactly.

The best we can do with it in English is to say “I really, really like you,”

But that falls miserably short of what it means to adore someone.

So let me explain Je t’adore this way.

When I was a little boy, my grandfather and grandmother lived right next door to us.

My grandfather was Granddaddy and my grandmother was Nanny.

Granddad was a million years old when I was little.

I remember asking Nanny how old she was once and she said 49 - that means I was nine and as far as I was concerned she was close to death.

Granddad would have been just slightly older.

When Granddad was 9 his daddy took him out of school - needed him to help on the farm.

9 year old Red Stephens got up at sunup every morning and hitched a plow to a mule.

And until sundown, the man who would become my granddad chased a mule down row after row and row.

Somewhere along the line he did get to play some baseball.

He was pretty good at it - played with the Atlanta Crackers for a little while.

Then he married and went to work for Dixie Steel in Atlanta as a pipe fitter.

He worked there until he broke his back at work one day.

Retired with medical disability - though he never talked about it.

Granddaddy could do anything.

And he could do anything with me by his side.

My home life was a bit - ragged shall we say.

Granddad tried to fill a gap.

We were all poor as gully dirt so when something broke we fixed it.

Granddad drove an old Plymouth car that you could see the road through the floor board.

He’d work on it with little Randy by his side.

Handing him tools.

Making that job take way longer than it needed to.

But he seemed to be glad that I was there.

Our septic system messed up once.

Granddad fixed it.

I’ll go into no detail other than to say I saw Granddad do some really awful things, barehanded.

Without fear.

Without complaining.

He was a man doing man things, taking care of his family.

As far as I was concerned,

There was nothing Granddad could not fix.

There was no one Granddad was afraid of.

There was no situation that Granddad couldn’t figure out what to do.

Nanny and Granddaddy’s house had a front porch on it.

2 rocking chairs.

A glider swing.

Two metal porch chairs painted green and white.

I would sit on the porch with Granddad.

He sat in his rocker - no one else ever sat in that chair.

His right hand would gently rest on my German Shepherd’s head.

He’d tell me stories sometimes.

Or we’d just sit.

And listen to the wind blow through the trees.

And wave at the cars that would blow as they passed by on Old Alabama Road.

Just my Granddad and his little, adoring shadow.

What a wonderful name it is.

What a powerful name it is.

The name of - Red Stephens, my Granddaddy, my hero.

See how adoration works?

I didn’t blow smoke at Granddad to convince him I thought he was all that so maybe he’d listen to me.

Didn’t have to.

Granddad could see it in my eyes - Je t’adore.

I adore you.

When we approach the Lord to pray - we tend to want to start with the “High and lifted up” language

Isaiah 57:15 “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place,..”

That’s not a bad place to start - seeing the Father on the throne leads one to worship.

But to adore him, well that’s the second part of Isaiah 57:15 “... and [I] also [dwell] with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

You know what I adore about Jesus?

I adore the way he treated the woman at the well.

Such dignity and respect.

He never once made her feel like dog dirt.

He never made fun of her or told her how trashy she was.

And when she tried to stop the conversation - He cared so much for her, he wouldn’t let her go.

Until he took that trashy woman and made her the most respected person in town.

You know what I adore about Jesus?

I adore the way the walked up to that man at the pool at Bethesda

And asked him if he wanted to be healed

And the guy was so hopeless he didn’t say yes or no.

He said, “I’ve got no one to help me and I’m so slow, by the time I get there, it’s too late.”

The guy didn’t know who Jesus was.

The guy had no faith in Jesus.

But Jesus healed him anyway.

You know what I adore about Jesus?

I adore how he loved Peter.

Peter so brash and so bold.

We’ll die with you Jesus.

We’ll walk into hell with you Jesus.

Until Jesus walked into hell.

And Peter ended up whimpering in a corner like a humiliated little boy.

But when Jesus was resurrected.

He found Peter licking his wounds on a fishing boat.

Jesus asked him if he loved him three times.

Peter’s heart was breaking.

With his head bowed, he finally whispered, “I love you like a friend.”

Jesus loved him and made Peter His number one man.

What a beautiful name it is.

What a powerful name it is.

The name of Jesus Christ my King.

Let us pray.

Our heavenly Father,

For all of your tender mercies to each and every one of us, Je t’adore.

Amen