Sermon
delivered on January 11th, 2015
By: Pastor Greg Hocson
Text: Isaiah 40:1-9
Introduction
As I have promised last Sunday, I am going to introduce to you
our theme for this year. The theme for this new year 2015 is "Behold your God!"
I took this phrase from ...
Isaiah 40:9 O Zion,
that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem,
that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not
afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
These words were spoken by the
prophet Isaiah to a frightened, discouraged and depressed people. The northern
kingdom Israel was taken captive by Assyria, and the southern kingdom Judah was
invaded and in exile in Babylon. Jerusalem and the Temple are in ruins, and have been so for
long, to the point that they think that God has forgotten them. They have lost
hope, they have stopped expecting and even stopped desiring to be released.
But in the midst of all that, God
sent Isaiah to comfort and encourage the Jewish exiles in Babylon.
Isaiah 40:1 Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2: Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and
cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned:
for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
Go to my people and comfort them, reassure them, give them hope, by announcing to them
with victorious confidence the certainty of the approaching restoration. This
is the aim of the great prophecy which now occupies the last twenty-seven
chapters of the Book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 40:1 Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, saith your God.
I believe that is one of the two-fold
task of the messengers of God - We are called to comfort the afflicted and to
afflict the comfortable.
I don't know where you are today, you
may be in financial difficulties, physical difficulties, emotional
difficulties, marital difficulties, spiritual difficulties but in the midst of
all that, Behold your God!
The greatest joy I have as a servant
of God, a pastor, a preacher is that God has commissioned and authorized me to
proclaim, Behold your God!
What a privilege it is to seek to set
before men and women the character, the nature of the great God and great
Saviour revealed in Holy Scriptures!
My Mission as a servant
of God
Behold your God! That is what I
believe my calling is, to proclaim to you, Behold your God!
To set before you God and His glory.
I want to be faithful to this calling. Please pray for me that every time I preach, people would go
home from the preaching sensing the presence of God, feeling brought closer to
God. God is here! Christ is in this assembly!
Psalm 27: 4 One thing
have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the
house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD,
and to inquire in his temple.
To those who come with desire to
behold the beauty of the Lord, that you will not be disappointed. That through
the preaching you will get what you came for - to behold the beauty of the
Lord! And that by beholding God and His beauty you will have a deeper hunger
and thirst for Him.
That you will be so impressed with
God, with His beauty, glory and greatness that you will want to know Him more,
want to walk more intimately with Him.
I want people to go home from the
preaching, thirsting and hungering for God.
Psalm
42:1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2: My soul thirsteth for
God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
Psalm
63:1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek
thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and
thirsty land, where no water is; 2: To see thy power and
thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Psalm 73:25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon
earth that I desire beside thee. 26: My flesh and my heart
faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. 27: For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed
all them that go a whoring from thee. 28: But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust
in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.
And to those who come to church not
knowing why they come, will be challenged to seek after God.
1 Corinthians 14:24 But
if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he
is convinced of all, he is judged of all: 25: And thus are the secrets of his
heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and
report that God is in you of a truth.
As they listen, their secret thoughts
will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring,
"God is truly here among you."
Our Mission as a Church
God is calling Zion, calling Jerusalem,
calling us, His people as messengers of good news, to climb up to a high
mountain, to lift up our voices with strength, raise our voices loudly, and not
be afraid; to say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" God is calling us to openly and boldly proclaim the good
tidings, "Behold your God!"
But before we can declare
"Behold your God!", we must behold our God ourselves.
I believe the greatest need of the
Church of Jesus Christ today is not more programs, not more seminars, not more conferences,
not more revival meetings, and not more activities though nothing wrong with all
these, there is time and place for all these, but in my humble opinion our
greatest need is supernatural revelation of a supernatural God. What we need is
a great awakening of the heart and soul to who God is.
If we are to bring the good tidings
to our community and to the world, we need a clear view of who God is. Because
apart from understanding the nature of God, His holiness, His righteousness,
His justice, His anger, His love, His mercy, His grace, the Gospel will make no sense to us. If we don't
understand God's character, sin, justice, hell, the cross, forgiveness, justification will make no sense to
us.
That is what I intend to do this
year, a year-long look at our God! I will be bringing a series of messages on
the attributes of God. We will look at who God is, what He is really like.
Behold God as He is, who He is.
And as we behold God, as we behold
His glory, His greatness and His goodness, my prayer is that we will be
transformed more and more in character into the same image. I hope and pray
that this will be a life-changing journey and experience for all of us.
Made to know God
In the Scriptures we are called to
know God ...
Job 22:21 Acquaint now
thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.
God calls us to
constantly gaze upon Him; to constantly stop and look and see Him for who He
is; to get to know Him, to walk in intimate fellowship with Him.
Jeremiah 9:23 Thus
saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24:
But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me,
that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness,
in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.
Do you want to have true wisdom,
experience true strength, enjoy true riches? Know God!
True wisdom, true strength, true
riches is found in knowing God. This is ultimate purpose of our existence. This why we were created. We were
created by God and for God.
Blaise Pascal a French physicist and inventor, got
it right when he said...
"There is a God shaped vacuum in
the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by
God, the Creator, made known through Jesus."
The highest good and deepest joy is
found in knowing God, in beholding God, in God!
The great goal of these series of
messages is God! God is the goal. To be brought to God.
God is an
incomprehensible Being
I am aware that God is
incomprehensible. It would be arrogant
or presumptuous of me to say, Behold your God! This is your God, in a year and promise that you will know and understand
Him fully and completely. No. When we behold God, we will be lost in wonder at
His infinite greatness.
This is what Zophar (Job's friend)
experienced we he contemplated God ...
Job 11:7 Canst thou by
searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
Can anyone attain to the searching
out of God? Can
anyone attain to the perfection of the Almighty? Can anyone attain a perfect
knowledge of God? Can anyone search out and fully know the character of God?
The answer is obvious - No!
Job 11:8 It is as high
as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? 9: The
measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.
When we turn our thoughts to God's eternity, His power, His immensity, His wisdom, His love,
His grace, His mercy, our minds are overwhelmed. All we can say is ...
Romans 11:33 O the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34: For who hath known the
mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
This is not agnosticism
This is not to say that we can know
nothing about God as the Agnostics claim. It only means that we can never know
Him fully. We can never exhaust the knowledge of Him, for He is infinite. God
is incomprehensible and what may be known of God will take us an eternity to
know.
So I am aware of the
incomprehensibility of God, but the incomprehensibility of the divine nature should not keep us from praying with Moses in Exodus 33.
Moses had an life-changing encounter
with God when God called him and when he was given the privilege to know God's
name.
Moses had enjoyed a close communion
with Jehovah. He had often heard the voice of God that called him, commanded
him and guided him. Observe that it was not through another man that Moses
communicated with God but rather he had a direct communion with God.
Exodus 33:11 And the
LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend ...
But here in our text we read Moses
pleading with God ...
Exodus 33:12 And Moses
said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou
hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know
thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. 13: Now therefore, I
pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may
know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is
thy people.
Exodus 33:18 ... I
beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
"Lord, I know Your name, I know
You know my name, but now I beseech thee, show me Your glory, allow me to
behold Your glory!"
Moses was not satisfied with just to
knowing God's name, and that God knows his name, now he wants to have a sight
of God's glory.
God is knowable
God graciously answered Moses' prayer.
When Moses besought Jehovah for a
sight of His glory, He answered him ...
Exodus 33:17 And the
LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou
hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.
Exodus 33:19 And he
said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the
name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
Exodus 34:5 And the
LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name
of the LORD. 6: And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD,
The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness
and truth, 7: Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third
and to the fourth generation. 8: And Moses made haste, and bowed his head
toward the earth, and worshipped.
God has so graciously revealed of
Himself in His Word. Because we are unable to acquire perfect knowledge, it
would to our loss if we say, we will therefore make no efforts to attain to any
degree of it.
Do you know God?
My question is not, do you know
things about God? But do you know Him?
Do you want to behold God?
You must begin by beholding the Lamb!
John 1:29 The next day
John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world.
Have you beheld the Lamb of God? Have
you looked to Jesus with the eye of faith? Do not look to Moses. Do not look to
the law or the Ten Commandments, hoping by keeping the Ten Commandments will
save you. The Ten Commandments was not meant to save us. It was meant to point
us to the Saviour, who alone can take away your sins?
Look away from the law, look away
from yourself, look away from your fellow human beings. But "Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
Look to Jesus Christ who is able to
remove your sins completely.
Come to Jesus Christ. Come to Him in
repentance and faith. Come to Him confessing your sins. Come to Him relying
only on His grace for your forgiveness and salvation. You may have been sinful
and have been careless but Christ is just waiting for you to call upon Him. He
is willing and able and ready to forgive you and give eternal life and live
with Him in Heaven forever.
He will save you. He wants to save
you. He wants to forgive you. He wants to give you eternal life and spend
eternity with Him. Would you come to Him? Come as you are, come with all that
you are, but come, come, come to Him who is all in all. Come to Jesus, the Lamb
of God!