God’s Work and Word
Notes
Transcript
Good morning!
Good morning!
Announcements
Good morning!
If we haven’t met my name is Chris, I’m the pastor of Gateway Chapel, we are a church family that seeks to encourage each other as we hear, love, and obey Jesus together.
If you are new or this is one of your first times at Gateway Chapel a great resource are the connect cards.
And this morning as Ben Wheat mentioned we are worshiping Jesus together as a whole church family, adults and kiddos. About once a quarter we give our faithful kids volunteers a Sunday off, can we say thank you to them? And we want to regularly teach our kids that they are a part of the church. And as the church, we gather and sing and hear from God’s word.
So this morning will have a little more life and energy - parents if you need activities for kids they’re in the back and if you need space you can go in the baby room.
As of today, it is September. Crazy! Kids you got your school supplies ready? Do you still use pencils? Or is it just ipads now? A few things coming up in September, these things are on the weekly email, as well.
Membership class next Sunday right after the service. We value membership because it is devoting ourselves to each other out of response to God devoting himself to us. Please RSVP on the website so we can plan for food.
Church potluck on September 15 right after the service, bring something to share, stick around and enjoy some food together.
And finally, on Saturday September 28 our friends at Summit Christian church are hosting an event about Making Tech Safe at home. If you are a parent, a soon to be parent, a grandparent and you’re wondering how to disciple your kids in a world full of screens, this is a great resource! Gospel Tech is a local non profit run by Nathan Sutherland who was a teacher for over a decade and is a member at Gospel Life Church down the road. 9-11 on Saturday September 28, there is childcare for kids up to 4 years old. You can RSVP on the link via the weekly email.
Prayer
Kids one of the things we do every Sunday is we take time to pray because we love God, we want to talk to him, and we trust that he wants to help us.
In August we prayed for the puget sound region and now in September we are expanding out around the world spending time praying for our missionaries.
As you guys may remember in May we did a special offering for Church in Hard Places which is an organization that plants churches in impoverished areas around the world. And we supported Pastor Alfonso Veerapen in SA to help pay for a weekend of training for himself and 8 other men who are future church planters. Pastor Alfonso sent us a video back and we’re going to put that in the weekly email this week. The weekend of training went incredibly well and literally would not have happened were it not for Gateway Chapel. For those of you who gave you were directly a part of planting churches in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, how cool is that? Our church family is a part of what God is doing in and through his family around the world.
So before we pray, Alfonso has been sending us videos, but I want to send him one back so I’m just going to say a couple words to him and then I’ll point the camera at you and you can say, “Hi Alfonso!”
Pastor Alfonso this is Chris here on Sunday, September 1. I’m here with my brothers and sisters at Gateway Chapel and they want to say hello to you. We love you and we’re going to pray for you right now so know that we care about you, your family, and your ministry.
For the gospel to advance in their township and salvation of its residents
For outreach ministry to the youth and children in the region
For healthy biblical churches to be planted
For God’s protection as some minister among street gangs
For strength and protection and joy for Alphonso and his family as he leads others to plant healthy churches
Intro
Kids - have you ever asked your parents this question -
Why can’t I see Jesus?
Why can’t we see God?
Adults talk about Jesus, we sing songs to God, we pray to him, we put our faith in Jesus, but where is he?
How are we supposed to know God when we can’t see him?
This is a big question.
Can we see him? Can we know him?
This is important in a world that says what we see is all that there is. There is nothing beyond what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. If I can’t see, hear, taste, touch, or smell God, what are we doing here?
If we can’t see God, how can we know him?
David in Psalm 19 this morning gives us wisdom as someone who has thought deeply about the world around him and the God revealed in the Bible.
David says we can see God in both his work and his word. God has revealed himself through what he’s made and has made himself deeply known through the Bible.
David wants us to know that
Creation and the Bible are amazing because they reveal God and our need for him.
He wants us to be in awe of the world around us and treasure Scripture because they reveal or show us God and that our hearts need him as our Redeemer.
Can you say it with me? Creation and the Bible are amazing because they reveal God and our need for him.
So kids when you read your Bible we think about the structure of a passage like you think about how a lego tower is built, how is this built?
Psalm 19 is built in three sections - Creation in verses 1-6, the Bible in verses 7-11 and our need for God in verses 12-14.
Three sections - Creation, the Bible, our need for God.
Creation
Psalm 19:1–4 (ESV)
1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
King David - who wrote Psalm 19 - is amazed by creation because it reveals God.
David lived thousands of years ago before LED lights and skyscrapers, so he had no light pollution and could see the Milky Way and he goes - My goodness. This is incredible!
David is reflecting on Genesis 1 and how God made the heavens and the earth. Anything that exists, exists because of God.
We can’t see God, but we see Him through what he has made.
The heavens and the sky - they speak about God’s glory. Glory literally means the weightiness of something, or God’s great significance.
“This nebula, formally known as MSH 15-52 or PSR B1509-58, is a striking aftermath of a supernova explosion that occurred approximately 1,600 years ago. The remnant of this colossal stellar event is a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar, which is emitting intense jets of matter and antimatter, accompanied by a potent wind.”
When you look at the stars, it’s like they are shouting about how majestic God is.
Day and night are overflowing with words and revealing knowledge.
What kind of knowledge? Knowledge of God as the maker of the universe.
From the big to the small.
Look at the detail of a sunflower…
I like the NIV translation for verses 3 and 4…
Psalm 19:3–4 (NIV)
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
The hand of God nebula doesn’t speak, but when you look at it, it’s almost like it’s speaking to you.
The stars on a cloudless night are singing, just without words.
We can’t see God but we can learn about him through Creation that he has made.
His glory, beauty, power, and creativity.
Psalm 19:4–6 (ESV)
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Creation is amazing because it reveals God, and specifically, the sun is incredible.
It’s like a man who just got married! He’s happy, excited, proud.
It’s like an athlete who joyfully runs his race.
The sun is joyful, powerful, strong. And so is the God who made it.
Notice too, nothing is hidden from its heat.
Nothing escapes the warmth and life-giving heat of the sun.
The sun reveals its warmth to all people.
David wants us to see that like no human heart is hidden from God, so no living thing is hidden from the heat of the sun.
As the sun warms our bodies, so God warms human hearts to faith through evidence of him throughout creation.
Creation is amazing because it reveals God.
He made it. It points to him. It praises him. It preaches a better sermon than you’ll ever hear on Sunday morning.
Have you ever sat under the stars and had that moment where you just know you’re really small and there’s something more to life than just what we can see?
Or when you look at the ocean, or you stare really close at a sunflower, or you held a newborn baby, and you just go WOW.
Creation is like a signpost that we can see but points to someone we can’t see.
Os Guinness in his book, Fools Talk calls these things signals of transcendence.
It’s what happens when you go out on a cloudless night without light pollution and you look at the Milky Way and your jaw drops. It’s a signal.
CS Lewis says these signals are like “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited.”
God is revealing himself through creation.
Creation is amazing because it reveals God.
But…it’s not enough. We can know about God generally from creation - we can have a sense that someone beautiful made this world, but we still don’t have a clear picture of him.
So how can we truly see God?
Through the Bible.
The Bible
7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
Creation AND the Bible are amazing because they reveal God.
Creation generally reveals God, but the Bible specifically reveals him.
He started out wide with all of creation, then he honed in on the sun, and now he hones in on Scripture.
David wants us to treasure, adore, and love the Bible because it reveals God.
David says the Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
What does he mean Law of the Lord?
The word for Law is Torah which is what the Jewish people used to refer to the first five books of the Bible
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
It’s not just laws - although it includes laws - but it’s a story that gives instruction on how to live well in God’s world.
It’s a story of a God who made the heavens and the sky, and humans. And those humans rebelled and chose to worship themselves and creation instead of the creator. But God loved them so much that he promised to one day send someone to end the rebellion. And God’s plan to do that was to choose Abraham and his descendants and through them restore blessing to the whole world. And Genesis through Deuteronomy detail how that plan begins to get worked out.
And by the end of Deuteronomy you have Moses - the great deliverer of Israel, the great prophet, and he says - you guys are a mess - but one day another prophet is going to come, one who is greater than I am, and you need to listen to him.
This Law, instruction, teaching - Genesis thru Deuteronomy - they’re perfect, complete, unblemished.
Look at how David gushes over Scripture.
It’s perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, more desirable than gold, sweeter than honey.
It is more complete than any textbook, more right than any theologian, worth more than any briefcase full of cash, and tastier than the best ice cream you could find.
Not only that, but it’s amazing because it warns us or teaches us about life.
Relationships, faith, hope, how to live and how to die.
And when we not only read it but do it, there is great gain because we’re living well in God’s world.
Creation and Scripture are amazing because they reveal God.
God has revealed himself through the stars, the sun and moon, and through our Bibles.
We can’t see him, but we can hold in our hands the very breath and words of God.
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Merciful, gracious, just
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
What would it look like for you to treasure Scripture?
David is not meaning to shame us for not reading our Bibles every day - daily bible reading was not a possibility in a pre-printing press world. But he’s saying we are to treasure the Bible because it reveals the glory of God.
TRANSITION - We can’t see God, but we can see the universe, we can see the sun, we can read Scripture, and Creation and the Bible are amazing because they reveal God. But they don’t just do something out there, they do something inside our hearts, and we read that in verses 12-14.
Our Hearts: 12-14
12 Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Creation and the Bible are amazing because they not only reveal God but they reveal our need for Him.
We don’t just read the Bible, but the Bible reads us.
It’s like David is looking at the stars, deeply contemplating Scripture, and he comes to realize that not only is God perfect, but he is very much not perfect.
Notice in verse 12 the repeat of the word hidden - just as nothing was hidden from the sun’s heat, so now David says only God through the Bible knows our hidden faults.
Just as the sun sees all parts of the earth, so God through Scripture can see every part of our inner life.
Keep me back from sin, don’t let it overtake me!
Remember God talking to Cain when he was angry with his brother and what does God say to him? Watch out, sin wants to have dominion over you but you must master it!
Then, I will be blameless - that is the same word for perfect used to talk about GOd’s law earlier in the Psalm so you see the poetic brilliance of this passage, and innocent of great sin.
David is reading Scripture and realizing there is something deeply wrong with me!
And so he offers this prayer…O Lord my rock (psalm 18) and my redeemer.
People tend to bash Scripture.
Contemporary people tend to examine the Bible, looking for things they can’t accept; but Christians should reverse that, allowing the Bible to examine us, looking for things God can’t accept. Then the sweet grace offered, the beauty of his love, will mean something to you. - Tim Keller
So we come back to our original question -
Why can’t we see God?
Why can’t I see Jesus?
The Bible tells us the issue is sin.
While creation preaches to us that we should worship God, we exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped created things - like the sun, rather than the one who made it.
When we should have heard God’s word and believed him, Satan came along and asked, “What did God say?” And we believed a lie that God wasn’t really good and shouldn’t be trusted.
Sin has quite literally blinded us.
4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Who will help us?
Jesus is both the one who made the stars in the sky and the word of God who came as a man to save us from our blindness.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Explain this more fully…
Creation and the Bible are amazing because they reveal God and our need for him.
The Bible is all about Jesus, how he is the Creator and the Redeemer of all people.
And we can be healed from our sin
So what do we do?
Treasure Scripture!
Not just read your Bible every day.
Biblical imagination
Treasure Jesus! How? Meditate on Scripture