He is God
Notes
Transcript
Good God Almighty
Good God Almighty
Last Sunday, we started a 4 week look into a few of the Psalms that speak to the goodness and greatness of our God! Last week, we looked at the 46th Psalm, and the idea that He is Good! All the time, and All the time, He is good. Closely related to that Psalm is the one we are going to look at today.
Let’s turn to a couple chapters later, to the 48th Psalm.
1 Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain.
2 Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King.
3 God is in her citadels; he has shown himself to be her fortress.
4 When the kings joined forces, when they advanced together,
5 they saw her and were astounded; they fled in terror.
6 Trembling seized them there, pain like that of a woman in labor.
7 You destroyed them like ships of Tarshish shattered by an east wind.
8 As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure forever.
9 Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.
10 Like your name, O God, your praise reaches to the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with righteousness.
11 Mount Zion rejoices, the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments.
12 Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers,
13 consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation.
14 For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.
Video Clip
Is He good? He is good! Is He God? He is God! He is Good God Almighty!
He is God!
You might think - well, that isn’t something I needed to come to church this morning to learn. Of course, He is God. What are we claiming when we say, “He is God?”
It is a question that sometimes we would rather just leave to the theologians. The rest of us don’t often think about theology, do we?
But what is Theology? It is simply the study of God. That is something that all of us who profess to have a relationship with Jesus are involved in.
A.W. Tozer said this, "Whatever comes to our mind when we think of God is the most important thing about us."
We are all theologians, because theology is really simply the study of God.
As we read through the Psalm for this morning, you probably noticed that this particular Psalm isn’t just about God, but it is also about His holy city, Zion - or Jerusalem. There was a pride in the strength of this ancient city, and its mystique. It was a beautiful city that sat on the hillside which made it a stronghold against all challengers! As descriptive of Jerusalem as this Psalm is, I believe it is more about the God of Israel than it is about the city itself.
When we think of worship, our thoughts sometimes are pretty limited - we think of gatherings like this - music, scripture reading, a message, an opportunity to give, and prayer. But this Psalm is a reminder that there is much more to worship than singing songs and listening to a message.
Everything about the city of Jerusalem that was praise worthy reminded the Psalmist of the worthiness of God to be praised.
He bookends his thoughts about the city of God with these words:
1 Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain.
14 that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will be our guide forever.
The entire Psalm is really all about praising our God!
He is our God for eternity!
He always has been, and He always will be. He is the Alpha and the Omega - signifying He is complete - the A to the Z!
If you were completely honest to me right now, you would probably just want to say…duh! Of course, He is God - we didn’t really need you to tell us that. but - it is so easy for us to let other things take the place of God in our lives.
Today is Father’s Day - it is a day that we honor our fathers and the father figures in our lives - a day for many to remember their father who has died. It is one of the many family holidays that we celebrate. You may be planning to get together with family today to celebrate - I know we are. I love my family - families are good! It is great to be part of a family, but if we aren’t careful we can allow our family to take the place of God in our lives.
Money and material things are essential to life here on earth. We all have to have some “stuff” to live - especially during the cold winters here in Western Pennsylvania. Things that we own can be good, but material things and goods can take the place of God in our lives if we aren’t careful.
Sports are fun and exercise is good for both the body and the mind. I love getting out and riding my bike - I enjoy watching a game - although I haven’t enjoyed these games the last few days in Pittsburgh - I guess that’s what I get for making fun of the Pirates last Sunday. It’s all good - but folks, it is possible to turn exercise or sports teams into a god in our lives - we can allow them to take the place of our God.
Careers are important for many people. Not everybody has a career - some of the hardest working people I know never really had a career - they had jobs to provide for their families, but they wouldn’t really say they had a career. For many, though, careers can take the place of God in their lives.
Anything that captures our imagination and becomes an object of worship for us begins to take the place of God in our lives and can eat away at our commitment to the one, true God!
The Psalmist reminds us that there is only one true and living God. When the enemies of Israel looked at Jerusalem, the city of God, they saw what appeared to be an impenetrable place. It brought fear to their hearts to think of trying to defeat them as they were there in their fortified city on a hill. But for the Israelite coming home from war, that city on a hill brought great pride and they would be excited to enter in.
In the same way, those who are in relationship with the true and living God - Yahweh - have a deep respect for God, but there is no reason to fear the final judgement. We can approach our heavenly Father, knowing that He loves His children, and wants what is best for us.
We are invited to put aside everything that would take the place of God in our lives and worship Him only!
He will be our guide.
What good is a guide? Well, that kind of depends on the guide, doesn’t it? I’ve had some really good guides, and I have had some really bad ones.
Friday afternoon, I was working at my other job, delivering books for Choice Books, and I was going to a place I was somewhat unfamiliar with. I am thankful that when I am driving all around Pittsburgh that I have a GPS on my phone. On Friday, I was on Interstate 70 East, and thought that I would be just going about 3 exits, but my GPS told me to exit at the first exit, so I obediently did so. After about a 5-10 minute drive through rural Western Pennsylvania and through a small town, I came across an entrance for I-70 and crossed over to the place I was headed. If I had stayed on the interstate, I would’ve gotten there much sooner, but I followed my guide!
Other times, my GPS takes me the quickest way, and gets me where I am going without any problem. It helps to have a good guide! A bad guide on the other hand, could lead us far astray!
When it comes to our spiritual lives, there are all kinds of different people, philosophies, teachings and techniques that people use as a guide to their lives.
Go to any bookstore and go to the religion and spirituality section and you will see that there are all kinds of ideas out there - from those that are rightly termed religions to those that are cult like, and even a bit bizarre!
The Psalmist says we can have God as our guide - and God is the best guide we could ask for. God is a guide who can see the big picture and warn us against the pitfalls of life!
How does God guide?
Through the Holy Spirit that works within us.
God begins working in us even before we come to know Jesus as our Savior. We call that Prevenient Grace - the grace that goes before. Without the Holy Spirit drawing us into relationship with God, we would never be able to know the power of grace and forgiveness.
When we are convinced of our need for forgiveness and salvation, we are drawn to repent - to turn around, turn away from our sin and begin living our lives directed by God. In that moment of repentance, God forgives us and cleanses us from all sin!
Following that moment, the Holy Spirit continues to draw us closer to God, and changes us through the process of sanctification. Day by day, as we follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives, we grow closer to God - the things in our lives that are displeasing to God are rooted out as we follow our guide in obedience. This process needs to continue in all of us until the day we die, because we will never reach a place in this life of being completely perfect.
On this journey of life in Christ, every individual is brought to a point where they need to make a decision - Will I give my whole life ; my past, present, and future to Him? Will I give every aspect of my life - hiding nothing from God, and giving God free reign to guide me fully and completely? When we make that decision and give ourselves fully to Him, there is a second work of God’s grace when in a moment of time God sanctifies through and through.
That moment in time, we often refer to as Entire Sanctification, but that term can be problematic because some have gotten the idea that it is entire in that God’s work of sanctification is done in us. That is not what the Bible tells us. Instead, what we find is that the Holy Spirit continues His work of cleansing and guiding us through every moment of our lives. God will continue to guide us, continue to cleanse us, continue to draw us closer to Godself.
God guides through the study of His Word.
God’s Word is essential to this lifelong guidance, direction, and growth!
We need to spend time in the Word of God regularly! The Word of God - not just books about the Word of God, but the Word of God.
Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
The Word of God will guide us into all truth as we read it and as we obediently apply what it says to our lives.
God guides us through relationships within the family of God.
We are spurred on towards growth as we relate in the family of God. I am so thankful for the church! In the church, I have found my closest friends, and my life has been transformed through those relationships.
We are brought together in order to encourage one another and to grow in Christlikeness.
Hebrews 10:24-25: And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
I love that we are able in this day to provide an online presence through our livestreams. I want to thank all of you who have been watching, and I hope that on the days that you cannot be here in person, you can join us that way, but can I just encourage you this morning to consider - if you are in the area, to come and join us in person? There is no replacing the relationships that are built as we gather together for worship and fellowship.
And God will guide us not only in this life, but He will guide us all the way to our final breath and take us to be with Him if we know Jesus as our savior. He’ll guide us through death and up to glory! He is our God and He is our guide! We are told that God will never leave us or forsake us. That guidance does not stop at the moment of our death, but continues to lead us to heaven where our sanctification will be final!
I want to invite our praise team back up here, and we are going to sing in closing, that song that we sang earlier in the service - He is the Waymaker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness!”