Inland Empire: Riverside
Transformed By Gods Faithfulness - Audio
There is a common theme to everything we've done so far today, and if you notice the songs that we have sung, even the things that Tom shared, the theme that runs through this is that we are in the presence of God. And I think sometimes Tom's right, it's easy for us to lose sight of that. And so we gather together to try to capture an awareness, not only of being in His presence, but with that myth, to people who came into the presence of Jesus, part of what shook the Pharisees up so much was the potential that it created, just being around the Messiah. To be around Jesus, not only could physical ailments be healed, there were extraordinary miracles taking place, but there was something even more threatening and more dangerous because people's hearts and their spirits were changing. It was no longer the road, religious rituals of Judaism. There was becoming an excitement and a belief that anything could happen in my life. And I don't know about you, but the world just knocks the sense out of me all the time. You can't turn on the TV, you can't go to work. You can't be around people and sometimes it's not like it's heavy. And so to be able to come someplace where there is a spirit of hope and hopefulness, to realize that because of a relationship that I can have with God, all things are possible to me. That's what it is to the Greek Orthodox or any of the Jews that approach the way we will be. It's to be in the presence of something that means everything is possible. And we want to believe that. We want to believe that our best isn't past, that this isn't all there is. Can you imagine a woman whose child is dying or a man whose child is already hearing about Jesus being in Capernaum? And against all logic, against all, just feel like if you could just somehow get close enough to touch the hymn of his garment, things could change. And they did. The possibilities were being replayed day in and day out. And that's part of what shook the Pharisees up so much. Sadly, even in our worship services, we've lost that feeling of the possibilities. And we're going to talk about that today. We've been using, as our theme this year, the idea of transformation and transformation doesn't just mean a change. It means that there is such a revolutionary new beginning that anything becomes possible. The name of the last of days, transformation through God's faithfulness, to really recognize and understand what it means that God is faithful to you and to me. And I love the song that we're just saying because the words of that song are literally all about how amazing God is from the beginning of time until now, until the end of time. God is faithful. Do we believe that? Do you believe that you are so valuable to God that everything that Jesus went through, everything that's happened in this year, God still would have allowed it to happen for you to be sitting here today? That's what it means that God is faithful, not just to the worldwide population, but to you personally. Earlier in the service, Betty Tonke did something I've never seen her do. She got up, came down to the front, walked right past me, and gave Amy a hug. Now it's not the passing me that I've never seen her do, she does that all the time. But as she was standing there with Amy, peers begin to form both their eyes because they're friends who haven't seen each other for probably 10 plus years. And the idea of seeing each other brought up a motion, it brings up the possibility of what God is doing and what God can do. They got transcends time. He's not bound to then or now or the future. God is everywhere and God is faithful and we are in His presence today. But to feel personally what that means for us, that's what worship is supposed to be. That's what the whole concept of being transformed is when we come into His presence, think of what we can be. Not what we're not, not what we haven't been, but what we can be. In Psalms 34 verse 22, the Psalmist says, "The Lord redeems His servants." The idea of being redeemed by God, that you've been taken from something that had no value or had no future to now God Himself has brought you out, no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him. Then if we draw near to Him, there is nothing we had to fear. And that was what created the crowds around Jesus. They didn't know what to believe, they didn't know, they didn't know whether what He was saying was exactly, "You haven't done, they didn't even understand." But it was a possibility, it was a possibility that brought to their lives that somehow being in His presence could transform them, could change them. And when we were singing this song before I got up, "Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King, His love endures forever, for His goodies above all things, His love endures forever." Sing praise, sing praise with the mighty hand and out stress of His love endures forever. What God has done for me in my life, no person has ever come close to, the relationships I have, the help that I have, forget you if God never did anything for anyone else, what He has done in my life should bring me in humility on my knees to the foot of the cross. The day I first got open with my sin and as much as I wanted to feel the fear was just unbelievable in me because everything in me believed that if they just knew who I was and what I was like, they would run screaming from the room. And in their eyes I saw a glimpse of God. When I come in here and people that I have hurt and people that I have done stupid things who still embrace me, it shows me a glimpse of God. And when we sing the songs and it stirs the memories in my mind of moments in the past that were so painful and yet now are so powerful because He helped me transcend that pain. Our God is an awesome God. And so the songs that we've sung today, they're all about that in Psalms 57. If you look up the song that we sang right before the sermon, a lot of times you'll hear children reading this passage in the background because it kind of explains where the song came from. In Psalms 57 and verse 7 says, "My heart is steadfast. Oh God, my heart is steadfast. My heart is unmoving. It won't be changed. I will sing and make music, awake my soul, awake harp and leer. I will awake in the dawn. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations. I will sing of you among the people, for great is your love, reaching to the heavens and your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth." The song was written because the man who wrote it recognized the influence and the impact God had had on his life and he just wanted to express it. Where's our worship? Where are we at? When Tom was showing pictures, sometimes we think, "Well, if I could just go to Jerusalem, if I could just stand by the wall and feel the vibrations, then I could get close to Jesus. And yet we are in his presence." I want to look at four specific things today, to help us get a grasp of what it means to be here. This isn't just something you're doing to fill your time. It's not just a religious ritual. You and I have come into the very inner sanctum, the presence of the Holy of Holies. We're in the house of the Lord. And we are surrounded by thousands upon thousands of angels that can do nothing but sing His praise because His glory is that awesome. And we sometimes miss that. As I've been thinking about this the last several weeks, one of the first things that I want to talk about is the fact that God is unchanging. And what that means, that means that God is exactly the same today as He was the day before creation began. Before there was even a day, God was thinking about you. God was thinking about me. And there was an aching. There was a longing in His very presence that forced Him to create something that He could share His glory with. And that was you. And that was me, that God longed for a relationship that could be mutual and feed both of us so much that at the moment before He first said let there be light, what was on His heart and on His mind was you sitting here right today. God wanting us to see what all of that means. In Exodus chapter 3 and verse 14, God approaches Moses in the burning bush and Moses had gotten an inkling of God and He had seen the suffering of His people. And He was aware that He was Jewish, His mother was His nursemaid. And so even though He was raised as an Egyptian, Moses saw the disparity between how He lived and how other people lived. And there was something in Him that wanted to make a difference, wanted to change things like so many of us. We sit around and we want our lives to not just be filling up space. We don't want to just be some carbon-based unit that takes in oxygen and produces carbon dioxide. We want to know that we've left a contrail that a trail that people can see that we've been here. We want to know that our life has meaning, that it has impact. And there was a part of Moses that wanted that so desperately, but when he stepped down on his own, he blew it so badly. He spent 40 years kind of wandering around trying to figure stuff out and then God approaches him. You see, time is not the same to God as it is to you and I, and God will give us time. So He approaches Moses in chapter three of Exodus and verse 14. God said to Moses, "I am who I am." That's His business card, "I am." What does that mean to Moses? It means that all those longings, everything that you've dreamed about, the hopes that you've given up on, "I am." 80 years of waiting, 80 years of meaningless existence, and now you are in the presence of "I am." This is what you're to say to the Israelites. Moses, I don't know what to do. He says, "You're just going to tell them, 'I am, I am Sydney.'" The message that you and I have is exactly the same as the message that Moses had. It was a message from the very beginning when God created life. It was God saying, "I am," "I am," "I'm God," "I'm the Elf of the Omega," "I am everything." And that's what God wants our lives to reflect. He wants people to look at us and believe that "I am," exists. There's something about being Christians because there is messed up as everybody else. I mean, good grief. Look at him. See, guys, look depressing. At least I'm wearing a tie. I can't even get half the people up here on them stays to wear a tie. There's nothing about us that's special, but I am. We've come into God's presence. He goes on and he says, "I am," "has sent me to you in Malachi, chapter 3, before God was silent for 500 years." Talking to the Israelites, trying to help them understand what they hadn't gotten, that they've missed the point. He was talking to the priest and he was saying that you're responsible for the fact that people don't, they don't practice the presence of God. They don't get it. They don't understand it. So what Tom was talking about today, we come into church and do we understand the history? When we close our eyes after the prayer before communion, do we see the cross? Do we understand the presence of God? And so when God is talking to the priest in the book of Malachi in chapter 3 and verse 6, he says, "I, the Lord, do not change." I am. I am the same. My desires are the same. My spirit is the same. It's not like God changes with the times that his morality shifts. With circumstances, he's going to have a different attitude about stuff. He is God. I am. I am who I am, and being in my presence makes all things possible. I, the Lord, do not change, so you owe descendants of Jacob or not, so you know why God doesn't change? Because if he did, would be wiped out. There's a constancy, a consistency. God loves me. He loves me now. The same way that he loved me when he began creation for me. God loves me now, the same way he did at the cross, when Jesus said, "Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." I, the Lord, do not change ever since the time of your forefathers. You've turned away from my decrees and not kept them. There's something in us that we just, we don't get it. We can't trust that he's just God. And so when things are bad and we're desperate, then we'll go to the crowd because there's possibilities. But when things start going okay, we can't turn away from God and we start asking, "What does God really want? He wants to send things now as he did before." It's not like the rules have changed. And over the last 10 years, some of us in the church, we've gotten really confused about who is God. God, as I am, and the rules haven't changed. Why? Because if it changed, it would destroy us, but he wants us to understand, when I first started coming out to church, I couldn't believe it. At least people couldn't be real. Their smiles, their relationships, it had to be a facade. They had to want something. It must be multilevel marketing. And I was a prospect. But the more I was around them, I saw the thread that ran through the depths of their soul that with all of their weaknesses and all of their sin and all of their fallacies. What was really different about them was I am. They were standing in the presence of the Lord, and it was changing them from one degree of glory to another degree because they were like the moon reflecting his light. I am, and I don't change. Return to me. And why is he saying return? Because we turn away from him. But there's, if you ever been in a store and you turned around and your child was gone, the panic, or your child screams in the backyard, and you're aware that there's a problem, but you don't know what it is yet. That longing, that intensity, that's what goes into this phrase, return to me. God hasn't changed. He loves you. And he loves me. It's the cry that created the heavens and the earth. It was him calling out for you and for me. I am. And I don't change. Return to me. Draw close to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. But you ask how we to return? Just turn around and come home. Just cry out, God. I'm a Father. Help me. Just pull some other sinful wretched carbon-based unit out and say, "Help me." God can work miracles, and masterpiece is out of messes. Revelation 1, the last book of the Bible, in verse 8, he says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the beginning, I am the end," says the Lord God. "Who is who was, who is to come, the Almighty? I am God, and I do not change. I will be God tomorrow. It won't be your boss at work. It won't be your bossy spouse, or your bossy kids, or your bossy neighbors, or the government, or your accountant. God is, I am." Not only in His presence are all things possible. So no matter where we've been, no matter what we've been doing, God wants us home. You're where you should be, and don't feel like it's about time they welcome me home. Come on your knees. There's no matter what we've done, God loves us. Why? Because of my second point, number two, God's love endures forever. You may have been hurt by me. That's probably hard for you to imagine if I could hurt anybody. I've been hurt. I've been hurt more by people in the church, and people outside the church. I've been hurt more by my friends and family than total strangers. And sometimes, because we've been hurt, we stop believing that God loves us. That God's love endures forever, it's always there, and sometimes we think pain implies a lack of love, and yet what about the pain of childbirth? What about the pain that tells you there's something wrong? What about the pain of someone sharing? You're not where you need to be. It's not meant to hurt, it's meant to heal. In 1 Chronicles, chapter 16, David had been confronted by his sin. And the Bible in God described David as a man after his own heart. David got it. David understood a level of God that very few people did, and it meant a lot to God so much so that God expressed it for eternity in his word. And yet David's sin and his sin was so heinous, so grievous, that it was not just adultery, it wasn't just murder, it was betrayal, it was he had turned his back on God. God who had allowed him to experience such incredible victories, and for a short period of time for the love or lust of a woman, David took his eyes off of God. And what that produced in him was so consequential that even evil people would have seen it as being evil. And yet God sent a brother to David to help open David's eyes. It was meant to hurt David, it was meant to produce in David healing, a redirection. And once David began to grasp that, and he wasn't all the way there when he wrote this, but this was part of the prayer, it was part of a song that he's saying to God, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love endures forever. He's expressing men at my worst when I've done some horrible stuff. God loves me. What I've been looking for my whole life or relationships were even when I blew it, they would be there. They would care that they would look past me and see me. And value me. And yet even now, we get so caught up in being good enough, we will never be good enough. We try in relationships to build security by being good enough rather than just recognizing no, we are loved. We are loved. One of the most beautiful psalms in the whole Bible in my opinion is Psalms 136. And the passage it just keeps repeating itself over and over in that song and in that prayer is his love endures forever. If you went through all of the psalms in red, how many times that simple phrase was there? It is one of the most common expressions in all songs that we have recorded of praise to God, in all the psalms and poetry. It is one of the most common expressions. It's just simply saying God's love can fix everything that no matter what you've been doing, no matter what I've been doing, no matter how bad it is, God loves us. He doesn't want us to be afraid of him. We don't have to fear him. That's what the song that we talked about in the beginning was all about Psalm 34 verse 22. The Lord redeems his servants. Those who draw close to him, God draws close to them and we don't need to be afraid because God loves us. When I saw Betty come down here, there was a little part of me that thought, what about me? Better looking, better. There's that human part of me that can really literally feel that. That last, just a nanosecond, I think that's got to hurt God's heart, but the very next emotion I had was joy that seeing love given and love received. And in that moment, I saw glimpse of God holding me in his arms and it made me realize all things are possible for those the Lord loves and the Lord loves you and he loves me for God's so love this world and you know the rest. His love like God doesn't change, it stays the same. It is the desperate cry of a mother searching in a store because she's lost sight of her child. It's the celebratory embrace when the child who is sick has been healed. It's the pride of a father watching his daughter is given in marriage to a man that he respects. It's God looking at you sitting in your seat right now and what God wants you to feel from this service more than anything else is his love. It endures forever and it's directed at you because you are that precious to him. Everything he created was a communication. I am in love with you. The third thing that I think helps us to change the way that we practice his presence is when we realize that God's mercy is without limits. His grace and that doesn't mean that it's unconditional. His grace is very conditional. It's conditional on obedience and it's conditional on returning to him. But there is nothing that you and I could do. There is no place that we could go. That would be so far that God couldn't carry us back home. In the writing of the Levitical Law, one of the first significant covenants that God made with all of the Jews, in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 31, God wanted to communicate this. It's very simple, for the Lord your God is a merciful God. Now why would that be so important? How would you feel if the highway patrolman showed up and you believe he's merciful? I have to confess that God has never passed my mind. And last week, while I was innocently coming home, I saw his lights and innocent or not, there was not an answer to me that thought, "Oh, this is going to be good." And that's how we feel about God. That can be how we feel about any authority. Uh oh, we're in trouble. You come in around the Jesus freaks and you're going to get exposed, they're creepy. And God knew that, so from the very beginning in his covenant, he says, "The Lord your God is a merciful God." He's trying to create a home base, he's trying to create an openness and an approachability. He will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. God is saying, "I've made a promise you, I am merciful, I will be gracious. I am God. I don't change and I love you and I can be gracious." Satan wants us to feel like who we are and what we've done is so bad that we can't feel comfortable approaching each other even. I mean, I can look at Tom, I can tell he's a mess, you'd think one messed up guy could at least approach another, but Satan gets us so far that we feel like we can't tell anybody. And so even in a crowd we're so alone and God doesn't want that, God wants us to know, "I am in love with you and I am gracious to you." And when you and I have experienced the grace of God, it's a whole lot easier to be gracious to somebody else. Grace begets grace. In Luke chapter 6, one of his early sermons, verse 27, Jesus says, "But I tell you who hear me, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, you know the text, bless those that curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. And as a defense technique, I was never taught, we didn't do it. But Jesus wants us to learn a new way of thinking. Don't take your cloak, rip me off, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice. Someone takes your cloak, don't stop him from taking your tunic, gift to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs you, do not demand a bet. You say, "This stuff doesn't matter." It just doesn't matter. You know others that you would have them do to you. I should love people because I like to be loved even when they're nasty. Yeah. Don't give them what they deserve. Because you don't want what you deserve. I got you. If you love those who love you, my credit is that to you, it's so easy to love Libby. She's like the love mama. And I watch that he watched by me, hugs Libby, hugs Amy. Things don't rush the stage and hug me, I'm actually okay. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid and full. You love your enemies, do good to them and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great. You'll be sons of the most high. You'll be like God. Remember when Jesus said, "Come, follow me." And I will make you into little Jesus's, you become like Him. But He is kind to you, the ungrateful and the wicked. From the very beginning of the Bible, it was written to wicked ungrateful people about a love that surpasses anything we can understand and a grace that's offered with open arms. And how easy it's been for us to blow that off when the storms calm down and the troubles pass over. In John chapter 8, Jesus demonstrated in another way, talking to the Pharisees and a woman caught in the act of adultery, "Kilpy, there is no doubt about it." Draw down in the room. Maybe they threw the bed sheet over her and as disaddled as she was, they drugged around in the public square to make an example of her. And absolutely terrified, knowing that death was imminent, not expecting any mercy or grace. These people are mocking her, they're calling her names. And the crowd is beginning to be enraged and she sprung down at the front of a church service. And the whispers begin, "Stoner, stoner." It's obvious what she is. And it was, she's you, she's me. And maybe everybody else out there wants one thing and one thing only for you to get what you deserve, but God so loved you and He so loved me that Jesus died to open His arms and give us grace. And once He had quieted the crowd, He looked to the woman and He said, "Where are those who condemn you?" And you may feel that if people in here knew you'd be judged, you'd be condemned. But where are those who condemn you? They're not here. In Romans chapter 5, talking to the church at Roman verse 6 to 8, Paul says that while we were still sinners, at are very worse when it couldn't get any worse. It was at that moment in time Jesus chose to die for you. It was only by being willing to do that. At our worst could the message be clear that He had sent at creation, "I am." And I love you. And I am gracious. Return to me. And I will return to you. The fourth thing that I think is helping me as I'm going through this now is the faith and the confidence that God's promises endure forever, that there's no expiration date. When you purchase this product, it is a lifetime full warranty that if God says it, that settles it. If He says this is what you must do in order to receive this, then that will not change. The rates don't go up, they don't go down, they stay the same. There's no spiritual inflation. The interest will stay what it is, nothing. It was paid for you, before you, for you. God tried to convince Abraham of this. When he said, "Your offspring will be greater than the sands of the seashore or the stars in the sky," and it was not until he was 90, it's not on God's time. But it is on God's mind. And if He says what He says, it settles what He says. And if He says return to me and I will return to you and I will restore you to the places that I had placed you before, that's what He means. He's all in. Psalms 100 verse 5, "For the Lord is good, His love endures forever, His faithfulness continues through all generations." There's no time out clause. Second Corinthians 1 verse 20. Paul puts it this way, and I love this. No matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. It doesn't matter, the answer to all of them is yes in Christ. Return to me and I will return to you. And so through Him, through Jesus, the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. What does Amen mean, let it be? No matter how many promises God has made, His answer is yes through Christ. Amen, let it be. Now it's God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, said He's still of ownership on us, put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. He's placed the very essence of His being inside of Him as a deposit, a proof of promise. John read from Hebrews 12, but in Hebrews 10, verse 23, he says, "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." Chapter 11 verse 11, "By faith Abraham, even though he was past, agent, sir, or self was there, was unable to become a father because he considered him faithful, who made the promise." If you're visiting with us, we are so grateful that you came out. Sometimes we don't know what to say to you because you're a little spooky, but what we can say is that today you're with the great I am. And God doesn't change. He's the same today as He will be at the end of time as He was before time began. And His love for you and His love for me, it endures past any boundary our sin can create because He's gracious and His promises are faithful in hopes that His faithfulness can transform us to reflect the glory of what it means to be in the presence of the Lord, amen. [Applause] [Applause] [ Silence ]
Sunday lesson by Mike Rock