Fear Not!! God's Got This...
Foundations • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 5 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
This Lenten Season
This Lenten Season
Last week we began the Lenten Season. As I described, each person has different ideas about what Lent is. They range from:
I don’t know anything about Lent, I don’t why I would give something up.
I know that some of my friends go to church on a Wednesday and get smudge of ashes on their foreheads but that’s all that I know...
I’m already sacrificing more than I can, have you seen gas prices, food and housing costs. I can’t even find a decent place to live.
The Lenten Season is a time of SELF reflection and of PERSONAL inventory of your spiritual life.
As we talked about, I believe the time of Lent as three elements
Security… Freedom… And Love
Security -
Have you committed your life to Christ?
Do you understand that a commitment to Christ means your sins are forgiven.
The Gospel and Salvation is for you and me… AND for our whole world and everyone in it?
Freedom -
Freedom is NOT found by belonging to a particular Nation or Group. God DOES NOT FAVOR one nation over another
Listen to Ps. 91.
1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
iii. There is NOT a great mystery here… If you shelter in the midst of God Almighty
iv. We can say that He is our refuge, our fortress and He is the one that we can 100% trust.
Love
The greatest expression of love the world has ever known is given in two very well known verses
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
-----------------
And course the greatest of the greats
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Our greatest needs, our greatest challenges and our greatest rewards are found in these these three values
Security… Freedom… And Love
I hope that you can connect with God, always. During this Lenten season I am and you are called to renewal, introspection and connection with the God of the Universe.
Fear Not!! God's Got This...
Fear Not!! God's Got This...
I am extremely grateful that God is in control, He is Sovereign. The universe and ALL that is in it is His.
14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
-------------------
We begin our “Fear Not” journey with this...
From the Book of Genesis, Chapter 15, verse 1. In your pew Bible on page 10.
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”
5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
--------------------
And Verse 18
18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
God saw in Abram obviously something that he did not even see in himself.
He saw a great nation (Israel) and a great people (Jews) that have been used and abused by Kings and Pharaohs alike. And this was just the beginning.
God in His perfect mind and will picked the tribe of Jacob who would become Israel to be His nation.
He would cajole, poke, prod, punish, redeem and bless the nation as they moved along making His history.
All of efforts so far for Jews as a people have failed.
They failed to recognize the Messiah
We have failed to evangelize God’s chosen people.
Christ first then Paul and Peter all gave their best efforts to bring the Jews into faith in Christ.
To this point in time the large, national effects at reaching Israel and the Jewish people have yielded individual victories but no BIG wins.
God is always mending and molding them into something that would please himself and give them a future. A future in eternity in Heaven.
This only happens in a relationship with Jesus
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
A salvation relationship with Jesus is REQUIRED to get into Heaven [period]. Jew, Gentile, Pagan to doesn’t matter.
Here is the BIG QUESTION
BIG QUESTION: IS MY FAITH STRONG ENOUGH?
Strong enough for what you ask? My answer is this, strong enough for
Let’s take a look at that passage for this morning.
------------------
For some context Abram in chapter 14 has just defeated a whole bunch of his enemies. He defeated them soundly. The reigning King said
19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth;
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
So God is just handed to Abram the keys-to-the-kingdom.
God said the HE was Abram’s shield and promised that his reward would be great.
POINT #1 - God sees the BIG picture, even we are stuck in the weeds.
God gave directly to Abram in a vision release, from “FEAR.”
I think about the things that I am afraid of...
#1. Snakes, I don’t do snakes.
What are you “afraid’ of?
Heights, dark, spiders, deep or shallow water, speaking in public, loosing your family, loosing your eye sight, hearing or ability to speak among 100 other things that we can have fear of.
Abram was looking for a heir. Listen...
Genesis 15:2–4 (ESV)
2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” [His house slave]
3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”
To Abram, at that place and time his great big neediest, need was that he needed a heir.
Abram didn’t even react to the vision from God and the instruction from God that said “Fear Not.”
When we are asked my guess is that we tend to get into the weeds quickly.
We talk to God about our lack of money, time, we talk to him about our car, our house and our retirement account balances. We talk with God about our health or lack of it. And God listens and meets all of our needs.
And because we are in the weeds we miss it the same way Abram did, Listen again...
Gen 15.1b“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
We get stuck in the weeds while our God meets all of our “fear” needs and we don’t see him meeting the larger needs
APPLICATION: YOUR INDIVIDUAL, PERSONAL NEEDS ARE NOT UNKNOWN TO GOD! CLAIM THE PROMISE
He’s got the big stuff and the little stuff will fall in line.
I want to make an observation. I have been a Christian for 35 years. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for certain things. Things that met my needs and my wants.
I have never thanked God for being my shield, I know what he has put me through, but I don’t know what it would look like without his “shield.”
POINT #2 We are the chosen children of the King, grafted by the blood of Christ into ALL of the promises of God!
Let’s move on...
First part of V.4
Genesis 15:4 (ESV)
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him...”
In the Old Testament and in the times before there was a written word, the “word” could have come in audible form, it could have even came from a donkey.
God’s promise to Abram is V.4 is that God would meet his most urgent need… An heir.
But God did NOT forget that he still promised Abram that he would be “A Shield.” Which he has done over and over for the nation Israel, for followers of Jesus to this day.
----------------------
This “word” that Abram identified as from the Lord.
For 1000’s of years “the word from God” was delivered from person-to-person by memory or from stone tablet to stone tablet.
Today… We have God’s Word and God’s Word about the Word.
Listen
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
God just gave to the world His great gift… The gift of the Word. That word… Is Jesus!!!
We now have the Word of God, accessible in a book, on a phone or tablet.
God met our biggest needs by sending his Son [The Word] to die for us on the cross. After Jesus went away we were given God the Holy Spirit.
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
-----------------
and the Spirit will be our helper
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
We no longer have to beg and guess how our God meets our needs. He has sent His Spirit, The Holy Spirit that we might hid the Word in our hearts.
No longer are we STUCK. Wanting to know what God wants, or says… We have it, in the form of His written word to provide for us. Just in case we were going down a bad path. He sent the Spirit to drive the word deep into our soul.
POINT #3 - HOW DOES THIS MESSAGE ADD TO OUR FOUNDATION?
My hope is that I have planted deep in our thick skulls that God is a God of the BIG THINGS in our world. At the foundation of world God, along with the Son and the Spirit gave us
“A Shield”
That shield protects us, even from ourselves and our stupid choices. In the big things and the little ones
Because God knows that we are human, prone to mistakes and prone to wander. He gave us His word, that spells out for us that he is shield.
IF you are a follower of Jesus… You can now add “The Shield of God” to your foundation. This is one of the pieces of your foundation that WILL NOT BE WASHED AWAY!!!
I want to return to the BIG QUESTION
BIG QUESTION: IS MY FAITH STRONG ENOUGH?
I’ll answer that question with a series of questions
Do we have what it takes to go through life with only Faith?
Can we, rely on Faith Alone for our salvation?
When our world is crashing down around us, do we have enough faith to poke the faith killing satan in the eye? And tell him he has no comfort here and to move on… to the herd of pigs.
Do we have the required ears to listen for and act on what the Holy Spirit is telling you.
Let’s Pray....
God help is to see past all of our “needs” to your shield.
God help us to understand that your shield is part of our foundation, we may be rocked by winds and rain but our foundation is firmly in place.
God we give to you all of the little stuff in our lives, we know that your shield protects us. And in the big stuff you are ever present by the power of the Holy Spirit, and will protect us or take us home.
God we love you, thank you for sending your only Son and we can have everlasting life because of our relationship with you through Jesus
AMEN!!!!