©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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1/3/99
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Sources Of Security
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1/3/99 Sources of Security
This is the first Sunday
of the last year
of the 20th century since the birth of Christ.
By the calendars we use
we are less than a year away
from the beginning of the 3rd
millennium.
When I was in my teens
I enjoyed reading a lot of science fiction.
That was in the 1960's.
Back then
in the world of science fiction
the year 2000 held a fascination
and an excitement that was almost
magical.
Space travel would be common place,
time travel would be possible,
medical advances all but eliminated
disease and suffering,
and the whole world lived in peace with one another.
Though I didn't realize it at then,
science fiction relates to the future
very much the same way
that evolution relates to the past.
With evolution
no sane scientific mind
can logically explain
how the incredible, mind-boggling
complexity of the physical world
could ever just "happen"
from blobs and chunks of lifeless matter,
but, since the possibility of an intelligent Creator
God is not an option in their thinking,
they mask the absurdity of their evolutionary
explanations
by telling us it happened over the course
of 50 billion years.
Somehow what is completely incompatible with all
logical, rational thought
over a short period of time
suddenly becomes acceptable
and believable
if it is hidden behind enough years.
And science fiction tends to do the same thing
with human nature
as it looks towards the future.
Wars
and hatred
and greed
and immorality
and tensions between people groups
have all increased every year throughout the
entire 19th century,
until we now live in a world
where blood-baths
and terrorist bombings
and genocide are so common
many of them don't even merit a sound-bite on Dan
Rather's pathetic attempt
at the evening news.
And yet, most of the science fiction writers I recall
dealt with the brutal reality
of man's basically evil heart
by tacking on 50 or a hundred years in the
future
and suddenly all the world lives in peace
and respects one another
and works for the common good.
And yet,
here we are,
a handful of days away
from the 21st century,
and what we have looks so different
from what we were promised
by those science fiction writers
of the fifties and sixties.
In fact,
given the apparently insurmountable problems
our world faces in the year 2000,
not only is the human race not
excitedly running towards the stroke of
midnight, December 31, 1999,
but much of our population
lives with the unspoken
but all too real fear that this may be
the last good year
any of us will ever see
for many years to come,
or maybe forever.
Even if we do somehow manage to survive
the destructive blast of Y2K,
the instability of both world economies
and world leadership
makes our world desperate for answers
no one seems to have,
and our outlook for the years ahead
bleak to say the least.
Something somewhere
has gone terribly wrong
with the bright, shiny new world we were
promised.
Given the anxiety
and the uncertainty our world has handed
those of us who live at this point in history,
I thought it would be good for us
to start off our year with a healthy dose of truth.
And let me begin by stating simply
the central message I want to share with you this
morning.
If we are experiencing a greater sense of anxiety as
we look towards the future,
it is not because our God has changed,
or because His commitment to us has
changed,
but rather it is because
we have forgotten who He is
and how He relates to those of us who are in
Christ Jesus.
And perhaps it would help
if I start by restating the basics
of our relationship with Him.
There is no more misunderstood book
in the entire world of written communication
than the Bible.
If we were to ask the average man on the street
what the Bible says
two things would become evident
in the response he would give.
1. He hasn't personally actually read it.
2. He's quite confident that
it is a book in which the writers
tell us the things we should do
and not do
in order to please God.
In fact,
the Bible is the only book in existence
about which people who have never read it
feel qualified to make confident
statements about it.
The Bible was designed by God
to be an intensely personal form of
communication
between Himself and His people.
I don't know if you are aware of it,
but nearly the entire New Testament
was written specifically
and exclusively to Christians.
It was never intended to be
some sort of generic, world-wide,
"How to be a better person" guide.
It isn't a collection of wise sayings.
It isn't a list of moral commandments.
It is a closed circuit communication
between God and His people.
And the power of this communication
is intensified because of the two most common
communication techniques
God has chosen to use.
The first technique is the use of the most personal
form of written communication -
the personal letter.
Of the 27 books that make up the New Testament,
25 of them are actually personal letters
written from one Christian to another
or from one Christian to a group of
Christian friends.
Why?
I think God chose that form of communication
because He wanted each of His people
to know that kind of intimacy of
communication that can only come
in the form of a personal letter
written by our God to us.
When Joni left for college
we had anticipated communicating with her
through e-mail.
It's fast,
it's cheap,
and it's easy.
But early in our communications with her
after she left
she made the comment to us
that she was more of a Post Office
person
than an e-mail person.
I understand that.
In fact I think it might even be a genetic thing.
I get all sorts of e-mails from all sorts of friends.
I like getting them.
I like staying in touch.
But I have to admit that,
when I go to the post office
and I find inside that little box
a letter written to me
by some friend of mine
it effects me very differently than
seeing a little screen telling me "You have 5
messages."
I like to open the envelope
and hold the paper
and see the signature.
In fact,
I'm so bad this way
that even when I get e-mails
about 90% of the time
I refuse to read them on the screen.
As soon as they come up
I hit the print button
and print a copy of it
so that I can hold the paper as I read.
It makes if feel more like a real letter.
And when God chose His favorite form of
communication with the Christian
He chose the personal letter,
because He wanted us to know
that His communication from Him
really is intensely personal,
and real.
But it doesn't stop there.
Because, within those letters,
He used one other communication technique
that takes His communication with us
to an even deeper level.
For, within those letters,
He has written to us specific, personal promises,
promises that add a power,
and a strength,
and a clarity
to His communication with us unlike anything else
could ever do.
This is not God telling us what He thinks we
should do for Him,
this is God promising us what He will do for
us.
I'll give you just one example
to show you what I'm talking about.
If God had chosen to,
He could have included a statement in the Bible
telling us that,
because He is a spirit being,
He has the ability to be all places
at all times.
From that we would have developed
a theological doctrine of the omnipresence of
God.
The doctrine would have been true,
it would have been consistent with the nature of
God.
But that isn't what He did.
Instead He offered us that doctrine
in the form of a personal promise.
He said,
(Heb. 13:5) "I will never desert you, nor
will I ever forsake you,"
(Matt. 28:20) ...and lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the age. "
And it's two completely different worlds.
For God to tell us that He is everywhere,
all the time, is fine.
But for our God to write us a letter,
and in that letter promise us that He will never
leave us, and never forsake us,
and to make a solemn vow to us that He will
personally be with us always,
as long as this world lasts,
is a very different thing.
You know what it is?
It's the difference between my daughter
hearing a rumor from her aunt
that Sandee and I plan to come to Seattle
for Christmas,
and my daughter opening her mailbox
and finding in it a note,
written and signed by Daddy that says,
"On December 21st at 6:16 p.m.
mom and I will step off Alaska Airlines flight
94 and the three of us
will spend two wonderful weeks together."
Now, I've spent so much time on all of this
because, if our Lord's communication to us
is to have the effect He intended for it to
have,
we need to begin by understanding
the lengths to which He went
in order to make it personal.
Because, you see, as we look towards this next year,
and the one beyond that,
and the one beyond that,
the one thing we have
that has the ability to give us
a true, unshakable sense of security
is the character of our God,
and the nature of His commitment to us.
Right now
the two things that are more important
than anything else happening in our world
are these two things:
1. Who our God is,
2. And what He has said to us.
Do you remember the statement I began with?
If we are experiencing a greater sense of anxiety as
we look towards the future,
it is not because our God has changed,
or because His commitment to us has
changed,
but rather it is because
we have forgotten who He is
and how He relates to those of us who are in
Christ Jesus.
And I have to be honest here -
if we felt a greater sense of security
when our world seemed more stable
it was a false sense of security anyway.
The only true source of personal security
any human being can ever have
is found in the knowledge
that we stand in the center of the hand of
God,
and He knows we are there,
and He has promised to keep us there.
Remember those promises I promised you?
Listen to this:
John 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and
I know them, and they follow Me;
John 10:28 and I give eternal life to them,
and they will never perish; and no one will
snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:29 "My Father, who has given
them to Me, is greater than all; and no one
is able to snatch them out of the Father's
hand.
Now look at this -
this is the way it works for the child of God.
Here we are,
held in the hands of Christ,
protected,
loved,
secure for all eternity.
And then,
as if that were not enough,
around the hands of Christ
God the Father has placed His hands.
And then, together they both say to all of creation,
"This is Our child. No one
and nothing gets to them
without going through us first.
Anyone want to try?"
That's true security.
I had planed to deluge us in piles of the promises of
God.
I only have time for a few more today,
but there will be lots more coming
in the months ahead.
Another one I want to mention before we close this
morning
comes from II Cor. chapters 2 and 3.
I wish I had time to read this whole section,
because it is just rich with strength
and encouragement
and glorious truth about the true nature
of the Christian life,
but for the sake of time
I'm just going to yank two promises out of
it.
The first is found in
2 Cor. 2:14 ¶ But thanks be to God, who
always leads us in triumph in Christ, and
manifests through us the sweet aroma of the
knowledge of Him in every place.
And actually there are two promises
in that single verse.
The first tells us that God promises us
that His leadership in our life
will always keep us squarely in the triumph
that is in Christ Jesus.
Not terror-driven panic.
Not just survival.
TRIUMPH!
What a word!
Are you fighting God's leadership in your life right
now?
Does His way,
His plan,
His purpose look all wrong from where
you stand?
Does it look like death?
Well, let me show you what it looks like
from the other side, looking back.
2 Cor. 2:14 But thanks be to God, who
always leads us in triumph in Christ...
It looks just like Triumph,
victory,
because that's what it is.
And there is another promise in that verse as well.
No matter what we may face
in the next 12 months,
because we are His,
and because He lives in us,
and expresses Himself through us,
even though we often never see it,
...He manifests through us the sweet
aroma of the knowledge of Him in every
place.
And never has our world needed that aroma more
than it does right now.
It is possible that we may see
an increasing sense of fear,
anxiety,
panic in the lives around us in the
months ahead.
But, when the child of God passes by,
carefully following the leadership of his Lord,
resting secure in the palm of His hand,
our world cannot help but notice.
And then, one final promise:
2 Cor. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in
ourselves to consider anything as coming
from ourselves, but our adequacy is from
God,
2 Cor. 3:6 who also made us adequate as
servants of a new covenant, ...
Do you find yourself feeling inadequate for the
future?
Do you wish you had more knowledge?
More power?
More control over what may be?
Well, I want you to know
that our God has already made you adequate for
the year ahead.
He has carefully chosen us
for this year,
this time in history.
He has placed His Spirit within us,
and promised us His presence
and His leadership one day at a time.
If we take our eyes off of Him
and look at the chaos
and the turmoil in our society,
we will feel inadequate,
overwhelmed,
just like Peter
taking his eyes off of Christ
as he walked on the churning waves.
But the truth is
our God has already made us adequate
for this time,
and this place.
We can live in fear if we choose to,
but the truth is,
if we do so it is not because there is
anything to fear,
but rather because we have chosen to take our
eyes off of our God.
For you see,
If we are experiencing a greater sense of anxiety
as we look towards the future,
it is not because our God has changed,
or because His commitment to us has
changed,
but rather it is because
we have forgotten who He is
and how He relates to those of us who are in
Christ Jesus.