February 14

GENESIS 47 7Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How old are you?” 9And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” 10So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh. What kind of testimony is that? “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life.” Well, Jacob is at least honest in this statement. Most of his days were evil. He spent them scheming to advance himself or his own agenda until he met the Lord at Peniel. In the next 11 years after wrestling with God Jacob’s Daughter would be raped by Shechem. Jacob’s sons would ruthlessly avenge their sister making him odious in the nostrils of the Canaanites. Jacob would lose his favorite wife in childbirth. Jacob would bury his father Isaac and finally his favorite son would be sold into slavery and reported dead to him. He would lose 22 years of life with him. Yes, few and evil were the days of the years of his life. Yet, God was with him. How would he have known it? Do you feel like Jacob, “Few and evil are the days of the years of my life?” If you truly know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then He is with you. All feelings and circumstances aside, He is with you. What a promise. In the good times and the bad, He is with you. The Eternal God is with you. Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * * Job 13 In verse eleven the New Century Version says, “His bright glory would scare you.” The NKJV says His excellence. The New Living Translation says, “His glorious splendor.” One would think that Job had spent much time in meditation on the glory of God. I believe that he had. Because of that time in meditation upon the Lord, he says a couple of amazing things. First he knows that his present problem is not the judgment of God for specific sin that he has done. Look at what he says, “This is my case: I know that I am righteous.” He is doing his best to lay aside useless condemnation, and his friends are not helping him with this task. They are useless physicians. Second he knows that He can trust God to listen to whatever he has to say, “God may kill me for saying this—in fact, I expect him to. Nevertheless, I am going to argue my case with him.” (LB) He is familiar enough with the glory of God that he can speak his mind to God. Have I reached that point? Is that not the true essence of prayer? Understanding the awesome glory of God, he asks two things of Him, “O God, there are two things I beg you not to do to me; only then will I be able to face you. 21Don’t abandon me. And don’t terrify me with your awesome presence.” Those of us who have chosen to cling to Jesus have come to the understanding that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He has promised that. However, He has never promised to not terrify us with His awesome presence. Indeed, Job got what he asked for. He was able to face God. God never abandoned him, but God indeed terrified Job with His presence. I think that if He were to reveal Himself to me as He did to Job, I would be terrified. But it would be a good terror; it was for Job. How about that, good terror? But then, that is the glory of our Lord. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * * Psalm 45 The Lord is represented here as the One coming to His coronation as King. As He is described, we find that He matches the desire for a perfect King. What else could one ask for? He is a mighty warrior. Truth, humility and righteousness are the major cornerstones of His character. In personality He is full of gladness. In this election year would it not be great to have candidates whom we knew the foundation of their characters was truth, humility and righteousness? His righteous rule will last forever, not just 4 years at best. So how do we receive this perfect King? The daughters are exhorted: Listen, O daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father’s house; So the King will greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him. “Forget your own people. . .so the King will greatly desire your beauty.” This righteous King has called us out of a people of unrighteousness. If we wish Him to greatly desire us, we must desire Him more than our people of unrighteousness. He calls us into truth and humility. Do we really want a relationship with a King who is true, humble, righteous, attractive, strong? If so, then we must seek His glory more than our own. Is that really our desire? Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * * Matthew 27:1-26 Every once in a while I do a dramatic monologue as a sermon. I'll take on the character of a person in the Bible and attempt to tell the story from their perspective. Usually I will don a costume with a beard to help the congregation get into the mindset of the story. I remember the first time Liam saw me dressed up as a character. I think He sort of recognized my voice but he certainly didn't recognize the weird clothes or the beard. He wouldn't have anything to do with me until I removed the beard and had "normal" clothes on. He didn't recognize me. But, I was still me. The outward stuff had only changed to enhance communication. Sometimes the glory of the Lord is obscured because we have this outward picture of what He should be like. When the reality doesn't match up with our thoughts, we reject the reality. Consider these ways that Jesus was not recognized. He is priceless but His subjects valued Him at only 30 pieces of silver. In Jesus' day that was about 30 days wages for a common laborer. That is definitely not a fortune, maybe $3,000? Thirty pieces of silver was also a common price of a slave in His day. Hey, you could put it on your Master Card. We pay more for our cars than that. Do we ever value Him so cheaply? Is walking with Him worth the price of a car? How can we put any value upon Him? Yet we do. I am afraid that at times we sell Him much cheaper than even $3,000. He is the King but His subjects did not recognize Him. Pilate wanted to know, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered in the affirmative. Yet this King would not answer the charges of His subjects. He should have been giving them orders. They brought Him to trial. Before we condemn these people, ask the question, "Where is Christ in relation to the throne of my life?" Can we honestly say that we even hear His commands when He speaks them to our hearts? When we hear them, do we obey instantly? Full view of His glory would bring instant obedience to His slightest desire. After all He is our King, our great sovereign. He is just, but His subjects deemed Him worthy of death. There is not injustice in God. Therefore, there is no injustice in Jesus, for He is God. But how often do we complain to Him that our situation is not fair. Like Sarah in the movie, Labyrinth, we continuously protest, "It's not fair!" I had a philosophy professor in college who stated in class as a response to my direct question, "It is never just that an innocent party, no matter how willing, could take the punishment in the place of a guilty party." It is no wonder that the professor couldn't believe the Gospel. He had a faulty understanding of justice. Is it not ironic that Pilate's wife & Pilate, heathens that they were, recognized the justice of Jesus, when Jesus' own people did not recognize His justice? The problem with the glory of Jesus is that we often obscure it with our own concepts of what that glory should look like. The result is that we don't recognize Him when He is standing in full view in front of us. That is why we need to speak the glory to one another as the Scriptures declare it. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor John