Audio Sermon: Luke 9:27-36
“This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” (Luke 9:35).
Saints want to enter in to Jesus’ thoughts and words because they desire to be His sacred cavalry and holy infantrymen who position the artillery of His word so that all might become mighty in the Scriptures. Nonetheless, they must be careful and aggressively thorough listeners to fulfill their chief end. Ambassadors of Christ draw their doctrine from the most hallowed of fountains filled with the most consecrated of words.
God expects a sanctifying response to Jesus’ teaching, so negligent hearing is a sin. What encumbers or distracts your listening to His wonderful words of life? Fertile imaginations, strange fantasies, voyeurism, dullness and tempting options affect your hearing and afford mal-hearing. You are responsible for not only hearing, but hearing accurately without imposing your philosophy, theology or personal desires into the hearing. Vice occurs when virtue is dishonored.
God commanded Moses to remove his sandals from his feet to emphasize the holiness of the situation he was entering and attune his ears to the personal declarations of the God who is (Ex. 3:5f.). Mary understood that the only way she could effectively listen to the Lord’s word was to be seated at His feet (Lk. 10:39). Busyness, inordinate cares and the movement of others would not distract her.
Your ear is your heart’s ambassador even as your heart is your ear’s ambassador. The Bible is God’s legacy to man – the only creature in all of His creation He afforded the ability to hear and respond eternally to everlasting words. The word appropriately preached and received increases knowledge and diminishes sin. Jesus’ word is as the manna to the Hebrews. You can only get enough of the angel’s food for that day and an accounting will be made to God for the manna gathered and the manna you fail to gather.
Scores of churchmen walk in a land of broken dreams, broken promises and broken vows because their hearts have been broken by a fallen world that consistently disappoints. Nevertheless, the remedy for all this brokenness can be found in the word of Christ. God wants you moving from being a mere spectator in this world to being a full participant in the world to come. How can this come about?
Adam listened to the words of the same God who walked with him in the cool of the garden. Eve listened to the voice of the serpent of old. Adam amended allegiances and listened to the serpent’s disciple. No one was listening to God. You must not listen to worldly voices but to the voice of the One who rebukes the wind, calms the waves and stills the souls of men. The word of God should scare the foolishness out of you so that you can rightly parse the verb of living in a fallen world.
The word of the Son of God birthed His church. God’s word allows you the opportunity to dwell in the heavenlies of God rather than the jaded earthiness of men. At this very moment, Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for every living saint (Ro. 8:34). That is what Jesus wants you to know when He intercedes to God for you crying out, “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth” (Jn. 17:17).
In the 19th Century, a naturalist from England came to Charleston to meet with the president of the College of Charleston. It was loud at the site of debarkation with hawkers, cobblestones and horse drawn wagons clacking. The naturalist asked the president if he heard a certain cricket sound. The president thought it impossible with all the noise. Just then the naturalist threw a handful of shillings on the cobblestones and it became deathly quiet as all started looking for the man’s silver. You will hear whatever you listen to hear.
“If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself” (Jn. 7:17).
SOLI DEO GLORIA!
MORNING WORSHIP
Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs
- No. 295 Crown Him with Many Crowns (tune: Diademata)
- No. 660 O God Beyond All Praising
Hymn of Commitment
- No. 511 Jesus, and Shall It Ever Be (tune: Brookfield L.M.)
Postlude
- Remember Mercy
VESPER SERVICE
Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs
- No. 271 Sing, Choirs of New Jerusalem
- Remember Mercy
Your mercy flows upon us like a river.
Your mercy stands unshakable and true.
Most holy God, of all good things the Giver,
We turn and lift our fervent prayer to You.
CHORUS: Hear our cry, O Lord,
Be merciful once more;
Let Your love Your anger stem,
Remember mercy, O Lord, again.
Your church once great,
Though standing clothed in sorrow,
Is even still the bride that You adore;
Revive Your church, that we again may honour
Our God and King, our Master and our Lord.
CHORUS
As we have slept, this nation has been taken
By every sin ever known to man;
So at its gates, though burnt by fire and broken,
In Jesus’ name we come to take our stand.
CHORUS
Hymn of Commitment
- No. 508 Jesus, Lover of My Soul
Doxology
Let all the words I speak
And all the thoughts within
Come up before Thy sight
And Thine approval win.
O Thou Jehovah, unto me
My rock and my Redeemer be. Amen.
Postlude
- Stand Up, O God, Be Present Now
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).
How can you experience enduring joy in the midst of trials? When you are in the thicket of testing, do you really care if your faithfulness produces endurance? Who is interested in being made perfect and complete as the hounds of hell are assaulting them?
Joy is more of an attitude than an emotion. Notice that James employs the verb “consider,” rather than the word “feel.” Consider engages your mind; whereas, feel commissions your emotions.
Joy is a disposition toward life premised upon your total heart, soul and intellectual acknowledgment of the worthiness of the Lamb who was slain. Your joy in Jesus does not induce you to ignore your trials. Quite the contrary! You are joyful because you know you are being made perfect by virtue of your trials.
You appreciate the certainty that “to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29). Christian joy overcomes despair, despondency and discouragement because of the Christian having the eye of his soul affixed upon the joy set before him.
You have an awareness that the world is lacking. You know that your trials come from God, the devil, and this fallen world as well as from your own flawed choices (Isa. 45:7). Regardless of the source, your trials are God-provisioned strengtheners. He will not allow a test to come your way too colossal or too horrifying for you (I Cor. 10:13).
Every trial is going to test your faith so that you might prove you truly possess the genuine article (Hab. 2:4). Your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a revolutionary grace serving as the summit of all graces. It is the most worked and attacked grace in your Christian armor. Since only exercised faith can be proven, only proven faith lacks nothing, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). The world, the flesh and the devil do not want God pleased with you – you do want Him pleased.
You are joyful because you know that tested faith develops perfects and completes the saint. The larger your trials, the more faithful you persevere, the more perfect and complete you will become. You will lack nothing when you appear before God’s throne.
Perhaps, faithful endurance is the most difficult stride in your sanctificational walk. You will never allow your faith to founder when tested, will you?
“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Pe. 1:6f.).
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO!
