God Is Our Refuge
I Want To Go To Heaven • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
As we continue through our series on “I Want To Go To Heaven” we looked last week at why it is good for you and I to want “God as our judge.”
Because God judges with righteousness.
Because God judges with completeness.
Because God judges with goodness.
Because God judges with impartiality.
Today, we are going to turn our attention to another reason we should not only want to go to heaven, but have confidence in being able to “be in heaven one day” as a child of God.
That reason confidence can be found in that fact that “God Is Our Refuge.”
The bible is full of passages that clearly and boldly declare this vital truth.
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
5 I cry to you, O Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
This morning, I want us to consider what it means for us to take refuge in God, in this life, and why that should give us confidence in being with God for all of eternity in the next life.
When we seek refuge in the stronghold of God we are seeking…
Relief
Relief
Removes Our Stress
Removes Our Stress
This life we live is filled with various ways to stress us out as people, much less Christians.
We can find ourselves “feeling overwhelmed” by the reality of the difficulty of this life as Satan hurls his fiery darts our way and strives continually to devour us.
When we feel this way God has given us a “refuge” in him that will bring us relief and remove that stress from our lives.
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
Summary
Summary
Brethren, you and I can have confidence in being with God in heaven one day because we know that when this life tries to burry us in burdens, God offers us himself as our refuge and strong hold.
We can go to him and find relief from those things that would pull us down and away from God.
Not only do we find relief when we retreat to God our Refuge, but we find God is able to “enliven us.”
Enliven
Enliven
Reinvigorates Our Energy
Reinvigorates Our Energy
When this life drains us emotionally, physically, and even spiritually we have a refuge in God that allows us to not only find relief but be enliven.
Enliven means to make something, or in our case someone, more lively and active by creating energy and spirit or vigor.
When we seek God’s refuge we need our spiritual energy levels reinvigorated.
3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Summary
Summary
Brethren, you and I can have confidence in being with God in heaven one day because we know that when we seek God’s refuge when we are at our most vulnerable, God will enliven our soul.
He will provide the spiritual reinvigoration it needs to keep fighting the good fight of faith.
What else happens when we need to seek refuge in our God?
We find God creates within us, through his refuge, a…
Fail-Safe
Fail-Safe
Reestablishes Our Strength
Reestablishes Our Strength
Webster’s Dictionary defines “fail-safe” as…
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) Fail-Safe
having no chance of failure: infallibly problem-free
Sometimes, we need the refuge of God and him to be our stronghold because we have been beat down spiritually so that we can feel like a failure.
Our heart is broken and our spirit is crushed.
When we are in this state, God is there as our refuge to reestablish our strength and reestablish the fail-safe within us.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Summary
Summary
Brethren, you and I can have confidence in being with God in heaven one day because we know that when this life tries to burry us in burdens, God offers us himself as our refuge and strong hold.
He offers to recreate the fail-safe we need spiritually to continue to contend earnestly for the faith and not lose our crown of life.
Not only does God recreate that fail-safe but when we seek refuge in him God becomes our…
Uplift
Uplift
Rebuilds Our Self Worth
Rebuilds Our Self Worth
We don’t just need to seek refuge when we feel beat up by Satan and is ministers, we sometimes need to seek refuge when we feel like a failure or worthless due to the sin in our lives.
If David could feel this way do to his sin, we can too.
When we know we have failed God spiritually and feel worthless in our soul, that is the time more than ever that we need to seek God’s refuge.
Why because there God will demonstrate to us once again his love and his value of us.
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. 3 O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.
Summary
Summary
Brethren, you and I can have confidence in being with God in heaven one day because we know that when this life tries to burry us in burdens, God offers us himself as our refuge and strong hold.
He lifts us up again rebuilds our self worth and reminds us of how valuable and loved we are by him.
We also find in God’s refuge our…
Glory Reestablished
Glory Reestablished
Regeneration Completion
Regeneration Completion
When we obey the gospel God starts the process of our glorification with our regeneration.
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Ultimately when we make it to heaven our glorification is God’s completion of what he began there with our regeneration.
Our moral and spiritual reconstruction into his perfection.
However, along the way we can feel that glory slipping at times.
This is when we need God’s refuge and we need him to be our strong hold.
We need our God to remind us that we can’t do this on our own and that we need our God in this battle.
When we seek God’s refuge he can then reestablish our realization of our need for him.
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Summary
Summary
Brethren, you and I can have confidence in being with God in heaven one day because we know that when this life tries to burry us in burdens, God offers us himself as our refuge and strong hold.
Until that day when our glorification is fully complete, we will need the refuge of God and need to be reminded of our reliance on his strength.
Lastly, God’s refuge offers to “emend us.”
Emend
Emend
Fix What’s Broken
Fix What’s Broken
In this battle our spiritual armor is going to take a beating.
Sometimes we will need to retreat into the stronghold of our God and find refuge in him.
When we do this, God will emend or fix what is broken for us so that we can go back out and fight with confidence.
In God’s refuge he will give us again what we need to fight this fight.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ
And the most important weapon that God offers is himself.
4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Summary
Summary
Brethren, you and I can have confidence in being with God in heaven one day because we know that when this life tries to burry us in burdens, God offers us himself as our refuge and strong hold.
He will emend or fix what has been damaged and give us again the tools we need in this fight.
Conclusion
Conclusion
REFUGE
Relief
Enliven
Fail-Safe
Uplift
Glory Reestablished
Emend
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent
33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
32 Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
