He Sees

 

Yesterday, we talked about the great El Roi, the God who sees me.  In fact, this is what Hagar said to this Messenger of the Lord:  So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” (Genesis 16:13, ESV) 

You are a God of seeing.  Read Psalm 139 (http://www.esvbible.org/Psalm+139/) and see that it is truly true.  God sees us, really sees us.  Remember the woman at the well?  How truly Jesus saw her.  He knew her story and sensed her pain and listened to her and answered her questions.   

I have seen him who looks after me.  What a comforting thought.  He looks after me.  He comforts, corrects, feeds, trains, cares for me.  He wants me to answer the hard questions of where I have come from, and where I am going.  He wants me to understand that He is all I need.  

Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

    My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength1 of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26, ESV)

   Hagar must have felt that after her encounter with the Seeing God.   He gave her all she needed, the strength to go back and submit to the one who had mistreated her.  

  

I want you to remember this:

God sees you.  You are never out of His sight.  He sees your pain, and your wayward heart, and your running.  And He loves you.  

Where have you come from?

Where are you going? 

God sees.  You are never invisible to Him. 

El Roi

 

Sometimes on a Sunday morning, I walk out into the narthex where all sorts of lovely conversations are taking place, and I feel utterly invisible.  No one needs a greeting, each person is already involved with someone, no one needs me for business of any kind, and I circle the crowd looking for someone to talk with.  

And then I head into the library where I get lost in the stacks, and feel perfectly content.

 

When was the last time you felt invisible?  

Genesis 16 tells the achingly tragic story of Hagar, simply a pawn in Sarah's attempt to accomplish God's will in her own way.  After being ordered by her mistress to sleep with Abram in order to bear the promised child, Sarah abuses her for being snooty about her pregnancy.  (Go figure.)  

As would any of us, she escapes into the wilderness.  

And is met by the Lord Christ Himself, in the form of a Messenger of the Lord.  

(Not exactly what you would expect under the circumstances.) 

Interestingly, He asks her 2 questions: 

Where have you come from, 

and where are you going? 

He wants her to speak the truth of her circumstances, and she does.  

Then He commands her to return to Sarah 

and promises her many descendants, 

whereupon she calls Him El Roi, 

the God who sees me. 

Beautiful, isn't it?  

Tell us about a time when you felt invisible.  

Cry out to God Most High

How often we cry, tears of embarrassment, regret, disappointment, shame, repentance. 

But how often do we cry out? 


David in Psalm 57 put it this way:  I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.


What is David sure of?  He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me.  God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!


Ever feel trampled on?  Cry out. 


Feel the storms of destruction in your life?  Cry out. 


Sense your prayers bouncing off the ceiling back into your face?  Cry out again and again. 


He is the God who fulfills His purpose for me.  He is my El-Elyon, God Most High, who rules over heaven and earth and my life.  All that He does is good and just and right. 


Psalm 138 comforts me:  Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.  You stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.  The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me . . .


How can we be sure?  His right hand, Jesus Christ, has already done the delivering.  At the cross I was delivered from the domain of darkness, and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14). 


Cry out to your El-Elyon, God Most High, who truly is fulfilling His purpose for you. 

El-Elyon

There have been moments in my life when I have felt so alone and so forsaken by God that I really didn't know where else to turn.  There is nowhere else.  He is the only Help we have. 

I needn't have fretted.  He never stepped down from His throne. 

Nebuchadnezzar found that out.  Just when he was really beginning to enjoy his own Babylonian throne and all his stuff and his peeps, God turned him into a beast of the field to eat grass for a few years, 7 to be exact. 

In the end, this great king bowed his face to the one true God:

I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,

 for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

and  his kingdom endures from generation to generation;

all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,

and he does according to his will among the host of heaven

and among the inhabitants of the earth;

and none can stay his hand

or say to him, “What have you done?”  (Daniel 4)

Our God is El-Elyon, God Most High. 

He does all that He wishes in all the earth. 

And He is my God. this God Most High.

Hear the Psalmist's words in Psalm 21:

For you make him most blessed forever;1

you make him glad with the jjoy of your presence.

7 For the king trusts in the Lord,

and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be kmoved.

Because of His presence, I have joy.

Because of His steadfast love, I will not be moved. 

I will not.

Polishing Silver

I discovered today what my favorite household task is:  polishing silver.  Does anything feel more productive than taking a blackish piece of metal and making it shine?  A little silver polish, a little rag, a little elbow grease, and poof, you've got yourself a new bowl or platter or tea set.  Just like magic. 




Now this would be the time when I might wax eloquent about how Jesus shines us up by His amazing grace, or how we pay the silversmith to make us idols that we fall down and worship, or how the words of the Lord are like silver, as it teaches us in Psalm 12.  In fact, the word silver is found 286 times in the ESV Bible. 


But I really just wanted to tell you about how much fun it is to polish silver.  And to find out what your favorite chore is.  (Please share with us by commenting below.)  

Elohim

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 


This is our Elohim, our Creator God.  It is a Hebrew word used 2570 times in Scripture, 32 of those in Genesis 1. 






The word El means mighty, strong, prominent and it used 250 times to denote "God". 


We see this El in Deuteronomy 10:17:  For the Lord [Jehovah] your God [Elohim] is a God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God [El], who is not partial and takes no bribe.  In Numbers 23:22, we see El as the horns of a wild ox.  




That is a strong, capable God.  This is a creative, governing God. This is a God who is sovereign and omnipotent.  Do you find that comforting? 




When we add the ending to the word, we pluralize it.  This is, then, our Three-in-One God, creating the universe, hovering over the waters, sustaining and governing all He has made. 




But that's not all. 




Elohim also speaks of God as the Covenant-Keeper.  Jeremiah 31:33:  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God [Elohim], and they shall be my people. 


Comfort, my people!  Comfort them!  says your God [Elohim].  (Isaiah 40:1) 


Read a wonderful definition of your Elohim in Paul's Mars Hill message here:  http://www.esvbible.org/Acts+17%3A24-28/  


Then worship and rest in this God who is all of the above for you. 

Names of God

Describe your firstborn, spouse, or best friend in terms of nouns only.  What do they do?  As in, my son is a mathematician, pianist, brother, Christian, tennis player, husband, . . . you get the picture.  Those are all names I could call him.  Hey, piano dude!  Each name reflects another facet of his personality and character. 


In the same way, God's many names reflect His attributes and His works.  He is not just our Father, but the Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Holy One of Israel.  Each one brings out another trait that we need to know and trust. 

Psalm 8 tells us how majestic His name is.  Psalm 138 tells us to give thanks to His name, for He has exalted above all things His name and His word.  Proverbs 18:10:  The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.

God's names matter; they show us who He is and what He does and what He is capable of.  They give us a sure footing.  They remind us who God is for us!  

For the next several weeks, the women's Sunday School class will be taking a look at the Hebrew names of God, as we seek to know Him better and trust Him more in our daily lives.

We'd love to have you join us!

Joy to the World! The Lord is Come!

How quickly we forget.  The Christmas lights come down.  The streets are littered with dried-up trees.  The gifts are used up, broken, put out of sight.  The skies are gray. 
We return to life-as-usual.  We forget the joy. 

Think back to Christmas Eve, that great service with candles lit, resounding hymns and harmonies, voices raised in exuberance, stalwart preaching.  Wasn't it marvelous?  Didn't it make your heart nearly burst with the joy of it all? 

Where is that joy now? 

If you need a little infusion of it, turn to Isaiah 35, and read with me.  http://www.esvbible.org/Isaiah+35/   This is our future, and we can taste a bit of it even today.  Creation is restored, hearts are turned back to the Creator, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (v. 10).

Why?  They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God (v. 2). 

This is our joy, the glory and mercy and kindness of our God.  His majesty and beauty.  His ransom of us, His wayward children. 

Joy to the world, the Lord is come.  Now and always. 

Anxiety Addressed

Health care.  Joblessness.  Finances.  Wayward children.  Unsaved family.  Persecution and misunderstanding.  Ice on the driveway.  

There are plenty of worries to keep us awake at night and biting our nails during the day.  Does God see?  Does He care?  Do I have to handle this myself?  

The questions rattle our brains and hearts. 

God speaks to us in these days through Isaiah, his faithful prophet:  Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God . . . will come and save you."  (35:4)   

Beautiful, isn't it?  

So I say to you today, be strong and fear not!  I don't know how, or when, or through whom, but I do know that your God will come and save you.  That is His promise.  He has not left you orphaned.  You are His child if you call Him Lord and Master, and He will care for you more than a mother cares for her own child.  

Let your nails grow . . . and get some sleep.  He has you covered. 

Waiting to Be Gracious

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,

and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

blessed are all those who wait for Him.   (Isaiah 30:18)

Spoken to Israelites who want nothing to do with God, these words remind them (and us) of His desire to do them good, to restore them to a relationship with Himself, to rescue them from slavery to themselves and their independence from Him. 

He waits to be gracious.  He desires to show mercy.  He is a just and holy God, who yet loves His people. 

Check out verse 19:  He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry.  As soon as He hears it, He answers you. 

This is truly a God of mercy.  As soon!  

Are we so merciful to those who have offended us, and dragged our name through the dust, and forsaken our trust?  Oh this is a good God Who longs to show us mercy. 

Glory in His mercy this day.  And His patience, and forbearance, and kindness.  And let that kindness lead you to repentance.  (See Romans 2:4.)

Happy New Year 2014

As we begin a new year together, this unknown series of days and trials and joys, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

Christ is seated at the throne of God, Christ is the sovereign God, He governs.  Let us look to Him, and not to ourselves or government or idols or bosses to rescue us in these unknown days.  Christ alone rescues. 

Set aside your weights, those things that keep you bound and slow and immobile.  Set aside your addictions and bad habits and time-wasters. 

Set aside that sin that clings, that sticks to your heart like glue, that refuses to go away without one more temptation.  Set it aside. 

And run the race like a champ who sees the prize ahead.  Meditate daily on Scripture, obey what you've read, be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry (2 Timothy 4:5). 

Look to Jesus, without Whom none, none!, of the above is possible. 

You [O God] keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You (Isaiah 26:3).