Good morning, everyone. Maybe we can decrease that a little bit. Shall we pray? Father, we're thankful to be able to come together and sing together and reflect upon these wonderful images and thoughts of the life of Christ.
We pray that as we consider your word this morning that we would continue to be able to reflect upon the life and work of Christ and what it means to know you and what it means to walk with you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. In 2002, Stuart Townend, that song came out in Christ alone. It's a remarkable...
We have a chorus book and we have a hymn book and here is something that is very hymn-like in a chorus book. We don't see in modern times a lot of great hymns being written, but I would posit that this is an example of a modern hymn, an excellent modern hymn. The words, as you can see, and as we have been singing, run in Christ alone, my hope is found. Here's my light, my strength, my song.
This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm. It heights of love what depths of peace when fears are still, when strivings cease, my comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ. I stand. Is it not the only place to stand?
It is the only place to stand. The word that was turning around in my mind for over a year whenever I thought about the words to this song was the word strivings. That's not a word that we hear very often and yet, of course, everyone knows it. It has a couple of different meanings.
And when strivings cease, who's? Who's strivings? We often use the word striv in the sense to try hard. We encourage our children to do their best in school, to strive, to do well.
It has that sense of trying hard. And yet, is that all there is to it? As far as the Christian is concerned, a lot of our earthly striving I think pertains to this struggle for material survival. We try to put bread on the table and so on and there's a lot of striving that occupies our souls and minds and strive and strive and strive.
And yet, that is a very temporal thing, is it not? We know about it. We know about it. The Christian should know more than that.
The Christian should know more than that. The strivings that I think are spoken of here because this is a hymn for believers, for believers. The strivings that are spoken of here, I think, are in the biblical sense. And the Bible has much to say about this.
There is striving. And I could only what jumped into my mind is the verse from Genesis 6, which is the next slide. And I believe that I want you to think this morning about relationship striving, relationship striving. And, of course, if we are going to look at biblical relationships, striving, the single most important, the single biggest question in relationship striving is between God and man.
That's a different kind of effort, is it not? And it is not biblically. It is not biblically a one-sided thing. It is not a one-sided thing.
It is a relationship word. Now here's a verse. This is the verse that my mind was turning over as I thought about this idea of striving. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man.
For that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. Perhaps we often remember that verse because of this 120 year number. We remember that verse because of that, but I believe that this verse is very important from the point of view of God saying that he will not always strive with mankind. Oh, that is a relationship kind of striving.
That his spirit with a capital S will not always do this. This, in looking up in Wilson's and other sources about this idea of striving, it is a slight variation on the word judge. And it carries with it the connotations of ongoing contempt. That is not a good situation.
You may know your Bible well enough. I'm sure you do to know where this verse falls just before the flood. Just before the flood. When we think of striving and offense, I think it is fair to say that many times even on the human level that such relationship striving comes to a head, that's the expression that we use, relationship striving will come to a head very often, even on the human level.
But what about God-centered relationship striving? Who is offended here? Who is the offended party here in this context? God, God is the offended party.
And although sometimes I think as human beings, in our relationships, we face often a temptation when there is strife, there is striving, there is an unresolved offense between people. Sometimes you know what we are is just plain dishonest because we don't want to deal with it. We don't want to expend the emotional energy and have the courage to face up to the fact that there is a relationship that is not at all what it should be and deal with it, face it, come to terms with it. It's actually one of the scariest, most difficult things to do when there is striving, when there is offense at a human level.
We know that there is that tendency to hope that maybe we'll sweep it under the rug and everybody will kind of forget. That is not ideal, is it? In a damaged relationship, that is not the honest, honorable way to go. And one thing I can assure you is God is concerned about honor and that there is nothing dishonest about God.
This is not an option to sort of pretend that an offense can just be swept under the rug. God being the offended one is not an option. Job is an ancient patriarch. He may be of an ancient nest comparable to Noah, in fact, and in answering one of his human accusers, I think it was Bill Dad.
He says this, and there's many very interesting, almost prophetic things in Job. There's theology in Job. He says this, I know it's so. I know it is so.
I know it is so of a truth. But how should a man be just with God? This is such a critical question, such a critical question. If he will contend with him, he cannot answer God one in a thousand.
God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened his heart against him and prospered? There's a law in there. We need justification.
We need to be just with God. That's what justification is, a position, a situation of the human being being deemed acceptable and in a proper relationship with God. That is, to be forgiven for the offense. How many?
Well I suggest you there's more than a thousand. Job pulled that number out of a half and he said, just pick a number, a thousand offenses of us against God. And if we take them one by one and we say, this is my excuse and this is my excuse and this is my excuse, it's not an answer. It's not a real answer.
We can't do it. We can't begin to do it. Our situation is very grave. We do need to be just with God.
We don't have a good answer for our thousands of offenses. And if anybody says I'm not merely going to sweep this under the rug and hope for the best, I'm actually, I know that God is dealing with me. I know that I need to be in a relationship with God and I'm going to harden my heart. That doesn't work, does it?
It doesn't work at a human level and I can assure you it doesn't work at a spiritual, heavenly level either in dealing with God. In fact, you might say that is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Is God dealing with you? Do you know it and you purpose in your heart to harden it so that you become more spiritually deaf?
Is this a good strategy for you when you need to be just with God? You need to be in a right relationship with God. You're going to harden your heart? Well, at an ordinary level, that doesn't lead to prosperity and it certainly doesn't lead to spiritual benefit and prosperity.
My, I guess I can say, biblically influenced thinking on a natural sort of progression of things is that there is a, might you say, a hierarchy or a natural progression. There is maybe striving in the sense of hard feelings of offense and it can be unspoken. It's often unspoken in human relationships. And that's going to often come out in a related word of strife or actual contention.
This is now out in the open. The problem, now we have, now we have contending. We are going to contend. We're going to deal with this.
And whenever it comes out in the open, the next natural thing, I think, is that there will be a decision. You are not both right. You are not both wrong in this instance of your position before God. There will be a ruling.
It will be up to God to make the ruling. He is holy. He is righteous. He is never wrong.
And there will be a ruling. There will be a resolution. Let's look a little into Genesis and we read something there that in this period of time, sometimes known as the dispensation of human conscience is not interesting. Men were under their consciences before God.
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually, only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and had grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fouls of the air for it repented me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
What an interesting verse. What a fascinating statement. I think there's one thing that's common, maybe multiple things that are common between then and now. There are those who say that God doesn't know what I'm thinking.
I can think the most horrible, evil stuff and God doesn't know and I can continue to get away with it indefinitely. But it doesn't change the fact that God does know what we are thinking. And he does know evil thoughts as being evil. There's no difference.
There's no change. In fact, when you read the Beatitudes, Matthew 5 and 6, the royal law, not to say about 10 commandments, the royal law of the Beatitudes spoken to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know very well, if you know your Bible at all, that over and over again, he points to what's going on in here and in here. In other words, did you perhaps realize that God knows what's going on inside of you?
The Lord Jesus with his authority as the living Christ says, absolutely true and more than you know. And nothing can change it. It was true 3500 years ago and it's true now. One of the scholars put this word, anthro.
I can hardly say it. Anthropopetheia, I can't say it. What that is, an example of how the scriptures will use words that help human beings understand the attitude of God using human concepts. One of the things we see here is that God is grieved.
God is grieved. Not only is he aware of what's going on explicitly, he's aware of what's going on implicitly in the minds and hearts, but it also grieves him. Do you know that's a love word? If you have a relationship and you don't care about that relationship.
And the relationship is on the rocks completely. The sinful man will say, good, I don't care. I don't have any love for that individual. Let it die.
Let it go on the rocks. Let it be bad. Maybe I'm so sinful I even rejoice in it. That such a thing has happened.
That is not biblical and it is certainly not God. When there is an offense and God is the offended one. God grieves over what has happened. We know that normally, normally, when things like this occur in relationships and someone has been offended, whose responsibility is it to reach out?
The offender or the offended? Whose responsibility is it to reach out? The offender, the one who committed the offense, needs to say, what have I done? This is terrible.
I need to take action. This is a bad state of affairs. I need to understand that it's a bad state of affairs. I need to reach out and ask for forgiveness from the one who I have, whom I have, offended.
But do we see that? Do we see that with mankind? In fact, not generally. Not generally.
In fact, what we see is the opposite. We see the offended one reaching out to the offenders. Apostle Peter, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. John wrote the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
This is the hymn of the world every day. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life leads to corruption. Whenever I think of the word corruption, I tend to think of bribery of government officials. But when you look at the meaning of this idea of corruption, a better way of conceiving of this kind of thing is rotten fruit.
Rottenness in the sense of a fruit that we say is perishable and which is a stinking mass that is unfit for anything. When you have a beautiful peach, it has a purpose, it has benefit, it has richness. There's so much there. And yet what is man?
He's turned into something that is rotten and unfit. No longer of any good purpose in his corruption. And that is sad. And that is what happened before the flawed man had come to that point of being corrupted.
And I would say that as Peter wrote that 2,000 years ago, that in fact it's no different today. That the corruption that Noah saw around him, that the corruption that Peter knew that was around the church is no different from the kind of corruption that we see around us every day. Is God unaware of it? Can we imagine in our wildest silly thoughts that God is a God who is actually blind and deaf to these things?
What a nonsensical thought. Of course he is aware of what is going on in the world. And it has grieved him. But, but he has taken action.
He has taken a very, I would say not only surprising but shocking action as he desires this broken relationship to be healed and to be mended and he desires that there be full and complete reconciliation. That is God's desire. We could do a go John Wells said something from this moment. He said, I guess most of us are dispensationalists.
I will stand here and say that's an open question. But I am one. I think that the perspective of seeing how God deals with mankind in different ways over in fact seven periods of time is actually a very important tool instrument lens eyeglass way of understanding scripture. In the Garden of Eden man was in innocence.
Was there striving between God and man when they walked in the evenings together? There was the most lovely communion. There was no striving. How did it end in Genesis three?
It ended with man being expelled from that paradise. We then go to a period where they wandered and they are under conscience and where does it go? It goes to continuous evil imaginations only continually and God takes action and he salvages a group of people and wipes out the population of the earth. One writer said that was an act of grace because the human race had become such a thing that where can the Messiah come from from such a contaminated species.
Then what happens? We have some dispersion but then we have, it's not reminds me of sometimes what we see today, man touting himself up, man striving for his own personal eminence and God limits man. How did he do that? God put a limitation on this race in terms of our seeking to be preeminent.
How did he do that? The confusion of the languages, the tongue, the creation of many languages and they spread out through all the earth. You can actually trace radial patterns of people groups spreading out over this globe ended in the tower, the confusion of the languages during the construction of the tower of Babel. Then in Genesis 12 the next chapter the calling of Abraham and man is under promise and the striving in those chapters in the middle part of the book of Genesis is very interesting.
God strives with men like Jacob, Jacob who would be the progenitor of the state of Israel and this man his name means one who supplants, one who grasps the heel. So if you're walking along and I grab your heel, you know make you fall down and I take your position. That's actually what his name means. He came out of the womb grabbing his brother's heel and he supplanted his brother's position.
He always thought in terms of striving by trickery and God over and over again dealt with him that this is not the way to live. And in the end where did all the Jews end up? His descendants in slavery, in the state of slavery, in the state of bondage in Egypt. The bottom three we have then the giving of the law and we enter into the human race, the people of God under law starting with the giving of the law, Mount Sinai.
And how much striving was there then? One might think that God having given people the definition of what is correct behavior and formal obedience, they would say thank you. Now we know how to behave and we'll do it. In fact they did say that they said all these things we will do.
No. Complete failure. Complete failure. And in all of their struggles to have a country which would be a testimony to the whole world in its godly testimony and prosperity.
The end of it was that they were thrown out of that land. They were expelled from that land. A small remnant came back but we then find that the testimony has declined to the point of the book of Malachi 400 years before the arrival of Christ and a sad, sad testimony. It is the arrival of Christ.
I have put the cross. But today I'm going to say the cross and the empty tomb. What a beginning of the age of grace under which we live. The most significant event in the history of the universe.
The death and resurrection of Christ. Now that we are in the age of grace, what does that imply about striving? You know if you see a schedule like a church schedule or bulletin and it says TBA, everybody knows what that means, to be announced. We don't know what to put here.
I didn't know what to put here. So I'm going to be discussed. I'm going to discuss this in a minute because it's complex. That will end with the return of Christ first at the rapture and then his visible return at the beginning of the millennium.
The millennium will be Christ ruling on the earth personally. And you know there won't be any striving in that period because whatever the Lord Jesus Christ says will go. There will be no upending of the purposes of God in that time. The rule of God and the purposes of God will rule and will be the rule of life.
Amazingly it too ends in a rebellion and it ends with the great white throne judgment. But believers are not judged at that time. So this is actually I guess you can say part of the big picture of God's plan of salvation. What about this to be discussed part?
If you know the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of your relationship with God, your reconciled situation with God because as a believer you have a relationship with God paid for in blood at the cross, proven to be a reality by the resurrection. So if we were to go to our New Testament and say how many blessings and how many benefits are there associated with knowing the Lord is your personal Savior, I guess you could say I don't know where to begin and it's 1201. But we have the fact of the many blessings that we can enjoy and I hope you enjoy as believers. One is peace therefore being justified by faith.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is a theological reality from the cross which then brings us to the experiential reality of that peace with God that is the peace of God, the peace of God in your heart, in your life through the fiercest drought and storm. The peace of God. It's lovely that Paul wrote that passes understanding.
In other words, Paul says I can't figure this out and you won't be able to either but it is a fact and it is a reality and I hope that you know something about that in your life. In fact it is a great blessing to know that in the midst of the most terrible experiences God can give you peace in your heart because you have a relationship with him. You do not fight against him. You do not strive against him.
You are in a relationship with him. You are kept through that. Number two, joy. Romans, two verses from Romans separated by nine verses.
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace. We are in, we stand here in the love of Christ I stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and that not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement. Rejoicing in hope and having joy in God. It is the kind of joy that no one can take away from you.
I once put on my office door, no amount of happiness is a substitute for joy. The world looks for happiness every day. I can kind of be happy today. I hope so.
I am going to try my best to get happy. Somehow or other than my mother might say. Joy. Joy is something that transcends that.
There may be many circumstances in a given day that are not happy but do you have the joy of the Lord in the Lord due to and because of the redemption that we enjoy. Now here is a really good one. A really good and surprising aspect of the Christian's relationship with God. Growning.
Growning. Let's read this. Likewise the Spirit also help us our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we are but the Spirit itself make a thing session for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Have you ever come into the point in your life where you are so concerned about someone or you are so concerned about your perhaps your own life that you are at a loss for words?
You are at a loss for words. So heavy is your burden. So great is your concern. I have the amazing thing here is that God says you know I know all about that.
I come beside you. I help you pray. And when you are laboring in prayer there may be no words at all but God says I know what's going on and I am helping you. I am helping you.
Do you feel speechless in prayer? This can be of God. Go with God on that one. Know the help of the Holy Spirit in this holy groaning.
That is a very special kind of striving isn't it? It's a holy striving. It is a very special thing. And fourthly it says in Romans a little later for as many as are led by the Spirit of God.
They are the sons of God. If you are a believer you can spend your whole spiritual life learning how this can be true. Does God tell you to turn left at the next light? Well perhaps not.
This is David thinking. So the engineer and me goes well if that isn't true then I can't figure it out. You got me here. If you are not going to tell me when to turn left at the next light for example then I am a bit out of loss as to how this is going to work.
And I have spent my entire Christian life for the past 40 years minus one learning that it's true that God leads. He does lead. He has led me. He has led me.
He has pointed the way. He has affected me. He has caused circumstances. He has led my heart and mind into correct paths.
And when I have said no I don't know what's going on. So faithless utterly faithless. Then I realize you know I went the wrong path and I knew that the other one was the right way. I can't tell you how I knew but I did know God was leading me in that way.
And he will and he does and you need to learn it. And it is part of your Christian birthright. We are out of time but we have a very famous verse in Revelation 3. You know often we are having people over for lunch today.
You are probably having people over for lunch today. And in the world, in the cultures of the world to sit down and eat together. Does that speak of people who are mutually out of sorts with each other? That there is an offender and offended and we are all going to sit down and eat and not speak?
No, that's not the picture at all. You go back to a broken relationship in Genesis. You come to the last book of the Bible and you find the Lord Jesus still inviting a relationship with the beautiful picture of sitting down to a meal. As many as I love I rebuke and chase and be zealous therefore and repent.
Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him. He is speaking to Christendom in that day using various city names as metaphors for the state of Christendom which is the state today. Some which have nothing to do with God and some of whom have somewhat lost their way.
I believe that whether you have your outside the door or inside the door as a congregation, why is that? Well it's because of the individual hearts because the Lord is not in the heart. That's what's the reason. The Lord needs to be in the heart.
He needs to be in communion with us. We need to be in communion with him. And so it is still a very appropriate verse. The verse that I love for the believer is not interesting.
Here we have 3,500 years later the word imagination comes up again. We live in a day and age with technology that leaves nothing to the imagination. You want to see something? You can see it.
That's the day and age of technology that we live in. Nothing left to the imagination if you want to imagine things. So what does Paul say about knowing the Lord, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. That's a healthy spiritual relationship.
What's going on in my heart and mind honors the Lord. It's in submission to the Lord. It's not running amok like the world's imagination is running amok. Finally, in this age of grace, what do we have to say about the person who is the Lord?
Is this reminiscent of Job 6? The recommendation of the writer of Hebrews is don't do that. Don't heart in your heart. Don't heart in your heart.
So if you ask this question as an unbeliever, is God dealing with you? Is he convicting you? Is he dealing with you? Well, if you say no, I'd say be afraid.
Is that where your heart is? But with all the sin in and around you that you're swimming in and you say that your heart is in a state where you don't even feel that God is dealing with you about that? You should think very carefully about your situation. What if we ask the question again?
Is God dealing with you and you say yes? I am convicted. I know that I am not right with God. I want to tell you today as per Hebrews 4 7, that that means that there is a window of opportunity.
Are you going to presume that God will deal with you right up until you pass away on your deathbed? Don't presume such a thing. It is a grace. If God is dealing with you, that is a grace.
God wants you to be in relationship with him. Do not heart in your heart. What's the illusion to Psalm 95 today? Today, today, today, today.
Do not heart in your hearts. As some did in the Old Testament, if God is dealing with you, be thankful and respond, respond to the gospel, respond in faith and repentance to what the cross of Christ means and the shed blood of Christ. You need to respond to that. You need to be thankful that you are convicted of sin so that you can repent of it.
Today is the day. Today is the day. If anyone here would like to speak to anyone or pray with anyone as a result of the words that you've heard from the Bible this morning, feel free to do so. I would encourage you to do so.
Maybe only you have questions. Maybe you have misgivings. Whatever it may be, we are certainly at your disposal. Shall we close in prayer and then we'll maybe just sing the first verse of in Christ alone.
Father, we thank you for the testimony of your scriptures, the Bible from Genesis to Revelation that unified an amazing documentation of your love of especially the work of Christ in the empty tomb. And we realize that these things are powerful and true, not at an intellectual level but at a heart level. May these things be applied to our hearts in this week as we go out from this place. We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen. Thank you for your attention. I went over to...