Jesus - the Voice of God

Good morning Well, I want to first of all bring you greetings from Some of the saints in ireland we were uh, we were in ireland last sunday and speaking to a A great group of folks that had gathered together for the conference that we had over the weekend and the lord's doing some really sweet things just some Wonderful testimonies that we heard of some of the different People who have come to christ and the different uh ministries churches that are being built up and so forth So it was just a really good time and just wanted to bring you greetings from The saints there this morning. We're going to be looking at the passage that we just read together here in matthew chapter 17 17 and we'll focus primarily on The fifth verse but here in this 17th chapter as we just read the account of the Transfiguration and here at the transfiguration for just a very brief moment The glory of christ breaks through and the apostles here witness This this glory later when peter writes his um epistle his uh, His uh second epistle there he speaks of this, um this event this uh, really Was you know in some senses sort of the revealing moment for the apostles where they really began to grasp Who jesus actually was? And so here in the um The story You know peter is excited and who wouldn't be but you know comes to jesus lord Should we build three tabernacles? And as peter is speaking out of turn really, uh, but in his excitement the the voice of the father breaks through and the father says This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased hear him Hear him and that's what we want to really focus on today now up until this point God had spoken primarily through the law and the prophets and now There there's going to be this this change now Uh moses and elijah remember they appear here with jesus so they're the representatives of the law and the prophets so in a sense, it's it's kind of a um The whole thing is is communicating the same message Because here are moses and elijah They have been the voice That the nation has listened to Uh the law and the prophets but now god says now this is my beloved son hear him Uh the the writer to the hebrews He expressed the same thing in this way God who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers By the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son Whom he has appointed the heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds and then he says Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power When he had by himself purged our sins sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high so in a sense the the writer to the hebrews is you know sort of Encapsulating the message that is communicated here In this voice coming from the father there at the transfiguration god in time passed in various ways spoke to the fathers by the prophets But now he's spoken to us in a sense. The the message is final.

The message is now complete in christ Do we realize? When jesus speaks it is god who is speaking Do do we understand that now? I think of course we um as christians would generally understand that but Obviously most people in the world don't get that today. Do they? I saw this past week that a pastor was being interviewed by somebody uh in the media and the the topic that they wanted to address was Who would jesus vote for in the upcoming election? And I thought well, it's obvious this person doesn't have a clue who jesus is because jesus isn't voting for anybody he doesn't vote For people he's god he appoints he's in control But but that's the mentality of the world, right?

They don't they don't get this stuff but we Hopefully we get it Hopefully we get that when jesus is speaking it is god who is speaking Now there are many voices today clamoring for our attention There are many voices claiming to have the answers to our deepest questions There are many voices purporting to speak for god but There's only one who speaks with the absolute authority of the father And that is jesus god's beloved son and so what what I want to do over the next few minutes is I want to just uh Think with you Through a few things that jesus said and just kind of taking matthew's gospel And going through some of the statements that jesus made of course We could go on endlessly with this and if we included the other gospels There were so many things that we could talk about but just some things that as I prayed about it These are the things that sort of stood out to me that that we should consider In the the context of of Jesus being the voice of god That these words that jesus spoke are nothing less than god's word to us They were when he spoke them, but they are god's word to us today So we'll go back to the fourth chapter of matthew's gospel.

You don't need to turn there, but there in the fourth chapter Jesus says this and it's actually a quotation from the old testament from deuteronomy And the context of the story is the temptation there where satan is tempting jesus, but jesus said this at one point He said man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of god Man shall not live by bread alone We the tendency is to think Always in terms of the material the tendency is to think that you know what I need Is primarily material I need food I need Provision I need things I need material things those are the things that are going to Benefit me bless me help me through life help me to You know enjoy life or or whatever the case might be But jesus is saying here In the the broader sense, although he's speaking specifically about food Speaking specifically about bread, but in the broader sense, he's he's really saying that man cannot live on the material We are a materialistic culture not just in the sense that we we want to have Material possessions but in the larger sense that we think pretty much in terms of Materialism philosophically In that we think that all of life is about What the material world has to offer?

But it isn't true What's true is that man is primarily? a spirit being That we are secondarily material But primarily we are spiritual And our deepest needs are going to be met spiritually And so more even than bread I need the word of god I need to commune with god.

I need that more than I need to eat breakfast lunch or dinner Not saying I don't need to do that, but I I need this even more You know, I i'm always fascinated when I read This portion of scripture back in the old testament in the book of exodus We have moses going up onto the mount for 40 days and 40 nights He's there in communion with god and you know what it says about him It says that he neither ate food nor drank water for 40 days and 40 nights Now that is humanly impossible You can't do that But moses did it. How could he do it? He did it because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of god He was sustained. Of course.

This was a unique situation, but he was sustained by the very presence in the words of god But you see for us today Every word of god is what we need to be living on primarily in other words This is the thing that we need to be looking for to strengthen us to sustain us We need to be going to god's word Just like we would go to sit down at the table for our meals to nourish and strengthen our bodies So we can do the things that we do every day. We need to be going to the word of god Because man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word of god and so Jesus speaking the voice of god here. This is my beloved son hear him.

What is he saying? He's saying that we are dependent on god's word But do we realize that? We all have bibles. I trust I have So many bibles. I can't even count them And maybe you have quite a few as well and we're above all people probably Americans or at least people in western society We We have access free access Abundant access to the word of god That is not true everywhere But it is true for us Do we take it for granted? Or do we take it seriously? And are we seeking to live by every word of god? That's what jesus said we're to do not Looking to the material to Sustain us or to fulfill us but looking ultimately to the spiritual looking ultimately to god's word now the next thing that I want to highlight that jesus said is something that that sort of Is in addition to this but in the sixth chapter of matthew chapter 6 verse 33 Jesus said seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness And all these things shall be added to you Now in the context jesus is talking about The tendency of man to worry Take no thought for your life He says take no thought take no anxious thought for your life In other words, don't be worried about your life what you're going to eat what you're going to wear Don't be worried about the the basic necessities of life food shelter those kinds of things Jesus said because these are the things that the unbelievers Are worried about and preoccupied with and and these are the things that become the priority in their life He says but the that's not the case with you because you have a heavenly father And then jesus illustrates his point.

He says look at the birds They do not sow They don't go out and plant their crops They do not harvest their crops. They do not store them up in barns But your heavenly father feeds them He says look at the flowers They neither toil Nor spin they they don't they don't have to work at it. They're beautiful because god has made them beautiful and if god Takes care of the birds and so close the flowers of the field will he not much more take care of you? Jesus said He said so don't be preoccupied with these things but rather you Seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you so This word has to do with priority What are our priorities now? It's easy To get distracted from this as our priority, isn't it? because we get under the pressure of life And we've got all of these things that come flooding in upon us and so we've got to give more time to this situation and we've got to you know work extra hard at that and of course that takes away from other things that are More important, but nevertheless we we just you know get caught up in these things And we've got to resist that tendency to do that and we've got to keep reminding ourselves to go back and seek first god's kingdom and his righteousness And instead of being overwhelmed by these things we've got to remember wait the lord said he's going to take care of these things My priority is to seek him Because you know what happens so often is that people get Overwhelmed with just the cares of this life The daily routine that they begin to neglect their lives spiritually happens all the time And so pretty soon I I once had a priority of of consistent Devotional time in the word Man, I I don't have the time for that like I used to I used to be plugged in to a fellowship.

I was there consistently. I was faithful I was growing there with god's people, but you know, I haven't been for quite a while because I'm, just too busy. I got so many other things going I used to be involved in serving the lord.

I was doing this and I was plugged into that and you know, we were reaching out and god was working but man It's been a long time since i've done anything like that. What's happened? These things have come in and they have robbed us of the spiritual priority But you know, here's the reality You can be out there Pursuing all of these things trying to get it together and even in the back of your head saying, okay You know as soon as I get it together, then i'm gonna you know, i'm gonna get back into the word I'm gonna get back into fellowship. I'm gonna get back into serving the lord, but it never comes together That's not the way to do it the way to do it is go back to this Seek first the kingdom of god stop all of the other stuff and say wait a second I gotta get back into fellowship.

I gotta get back into communion with the lord I gotta get involved in serving god again lord I'm trusting you to take care of these other things and he will How do I know he will because jesus said he would And jesus is the voice of god And jesus is the one who created the birds and the flowers and he says that those things are insignificant in comparison to us So if he takes care of those things we can trust him to take care of us So you see This is what god's saying to us seek first my kingdom this is That voice of the lord to us today, but then another passage That is so encouraging we find a little further in matthew's gospel in the 11th chapter chapter 11 Verses 28 through 30 one of my favorite passages and no doubt for many of you It would be the same where jesus says Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest What an amazing thing Life can be full of burdens, can't it? And we can at times find ourselves so weary and so Weighed down With the things of life the burdens of life What do we do when we're like that? now There are all kinds of voices out there that would say well, you know here try this or or do that Or have you thought about this and we can help you over here And you know, sometimes there there can be a little bit of help here and there But There's somebody above and beyond all of that Who can help us in the ultimate sense because he's got all power And that one jesus says come to me Come to me with your problems. I am amazed at how often It is the case That christian people do not come to the lord with their problems, but they go to all different kinds of places Rather than coming to the lord And for for whatever reason sometimes we maybe think that well, you know god this isn't the stuff that god helps us with We've got to go get some help somewhere else. Well, you know god will help you with everything There's nothing That you could go to the lord for and say Uh lord i'm coming to you with this you say oh, no.

No, I don't I don't feel that's that's not my department That's uh, you know, you got to take that over there I mean, even if there's going to be some more immediate help or some human agency through which he's going to help you God will be the one to direct you to it So we can come to him with all of these things And what a wonderful invitation The lord himself come to me And of course there are certain things in life that happen At times that you know, there's absolutely nothing that anybody can do to help us except the lord He's the only one and thank god we can come to him the rest of that passage goes on and says Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and i'm gentle in heart And you will find rest for your souls for my Yoke is easy and my burden is light And jesus is saying come and be joined to me And so he he gives us this invitation. He calls us. This is what he wants you to do today if you're burdened Whatever it might be in some cases people are burdened down by sin Sin is weighing down upon you.

It's crushing you. What do you do with that? How do you get out from under the the crushing burden of sin? You have to come to christ. There's no other way There's no other means of relieving that burden You have to come to jesus because he's the only one that can forgive sin But when you come to him under that burden of sin, he doesn't add to that with condemnation He lifts that burden off of you with forgiveness And whatever that burden might be Uh rooted in whatever the sin might be whatever the guilt might be there's nothing too great for christ There's nothing too sinful that he is not able to deal with.

There's no Sin that he's not able to forgive and to cleanse you of And so when we're burdened down by sin, you know What do we do a lot of times the tendency or the idea is we need to run away from god That's what adam and eve did remember They sinned and god came to meet them. And what did they do? They hid from him. We do that too, don't we? We hide or we run the other direction, but no we need to come to the lord come to me Whatever the burden might be if it's sin come to him for forgiveness if it's the the burdens of life Crisis tragedy, whatever it is.

You see this is the wonderful thing. We're talking about the living god. We're talking about a person We're talking about somebody that we can go to we can't see him.

He's invisible, but he's very real And we can go to him and get comfort And he can minister to us and he can do things in our hearts to heal us and to Restore Joy and peace things that we can't do for ourselves things that other people can't do for us But this is the voice of the lord. What is he saying? He's saying come to me Bring those things to me. I was talking to a lady earlier this morning and about three or four months ago.

She came To church she's from out of town Her husband's a pastor actually and She was telling me about one of their children their son who had a mental breakdown in college and things had just deteriorated so rapidly and he was on all of these various medications and Essentially the the doctors were saying, you know, there's nothing else we can do for him they were even suggesting that they might need to institutionalize this young man and you can imagine the The burden that this was placing upon them So anyway, we sat and talked for a bit and then we prayed but she came this morning She said I just want to I want to give you a report on what's happened And she said we went home We prayed more specifically god really give us wisdom show us what to do We felt like the lord was saying you need to get him off the medication. She said we did that And she said he's doing wonderful he's he's working at the church he's serving the lord he's in the ministry And god has just done a an amazing restoration You see where do you go with a problem like that And Of course, there are doctors and people that will try to help But we know that there are so many things that that people can't deal with the experts can't Even help you But jesus can And not only can jesus help you he will He's the one who bid you come come to me I will give you rest Cast those burdens remember what peter would say Casting all of your cares upon him for he cares for you. Isn't that a wonderful thing? That god says come and cast your cares upon me He invites us to do that and so we're to remember That we are are not going to be fulfilled Ultimately through the material but we must seek the lord every word of god We must remember to keep the priority right the kingdom of god.

That's what we're to be pursuing above everything else We're to remember this gracious Invitation to come to the lord and to cast our cares upon him But here's here's another thing that I want to Remind us of that. Jesus said today that is different In tone than this, of course Everything that we're looking at has been words of encouragement and we could go on words of grace and blessing and all that and jesus has You know many of those words to offer but there's another side to what jesus said as well jesus also spoke words of judgment and I bring that up because that's something that People today are in a sense denying that he ever did there are people that are happy to talk about all the You know loving and merciful things that that jesus had promised which are true and great But there's another side. There's also a judgment that he spoke of And the world today Completely rejects the idea of a god of judgment And outside in the culture, you know that the the very idea that Anything is sin almost I mean, we're almost to that point today where You know, there's nothing that's sin.

There's some Explanation or excuse or allowance for everything that people do practically today And the idea that there are things that are sins that are Punishable That are going to require Reckoning and a day of judgment That is so out In our culture today, isn't it? Man, we need to have a spiritual awakening in our world and It's going to begin with the conviction of sin And Jesus said when the holy spirit comes he will convict the world of sin And of righteousness and of judgment and we will know when an outpouring of the spirit really begins to take place When people begin to realize man, I am a sinner I am under judgment And that that's what does happen to individual people, but we need to see that in a broader sense But also we need to remember that within the church, it's possible for us to become deceived It's possible for us to start thinking that You know These kinds of things that they used to talk about living in sin and all of that Well, you know things have changed and it's a different cultural situation And so we no longer think so much of those things in terms of sin And people in the the christian church Start to develop these kinds of mentalities paul warns us that this is a deception that we have to be careful not to fall into Just this past a couple of weeks. I Go, I I read an interesting thing. It didn't totally Shock me But you know, here's a person who claims to be an evangelical leader and he's always talking about You know how the church is too condemning and you know, we need to get away from judgment talk more about love You know, that's kind of his thing.

Well, I I just read recently how he officiated the the the marriage ceremony for his homosexual son to the partner and The reason i'm bringing this up is because the sad thing is that this person Instead of saying son, I love you, but that's wrong and we can't condone that Instead of doing that which would be the right thing to do Still loving. I mean we we love our kids right regardless of what they're doing But we we still at a certain point have to stand for the truth and what god says but instead of doing that He endorses it But I guarantee if you were to ask him about this I know for a fact because he's already written plenty that you can read but but he would He would say that Well, you know, it's debatable It's debatable that that there's really anything wrong with homosexuality We christians have been misreading the bible all of these years. There's nothing wrong with this.

See that's a deception that's a deception that's come upon the mind of a man who uh Well, he claims to be a christian Sure at some point he was Don't know where he's at today, but We have to remember That beside all of these other things Jesus spoke of judgment Listen to what he said. Matthew 25 when the son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him Then he will sit on the throne of his glory All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them one from another Then the king will say to those on his right hand come you blessed of my father Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Then he will say to those on his left hand Depart from me you cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels So jesus speaks very clearly here that there is a a day of reckoning that's coming. There's a day of judgment that's coming And he's basically saying what nobody wants to hear today People are going to end up in hell for eternity That's a reality you can deny it.

You can try to erase it You can protest against it and refuse to believe it doesn't change anything That's the thing about god. You can't you know We can shake the fist and we can disagree and i'm going to tell god this or that But you know god will have the final word And there is a hell But notice it wasn't prepared for people But sadly people will go there We just read about it depart from me you cursed into the everlasting fire It was prepared not for people but for the devil and his angels, but people will go there Because they follow the devil in his rebellion against god and that's where it leads so As we're thinking about this is my beloved son hear him my point is this we need to hear everything he's saying The world needs to hear it So we got to get the gospel out to them, but we need to be reminded of it And as much as we need to be reminded of god's love and his grace and his mercy Which we do we also need to be reminded that god is very serious about sin And he doesn't tolerate it And if we go on Living in it and end up deceiving ourselves into thinking that everything's okay We are in for a huge surprise down the road So we need to be careful final thing in the 28th chapter the the final chapter of matthew jesus gives us uh one word there one last word that I want to mention and this is is kind of a You know kind of a word of motivation I guess because you know what I see happening today I see people that have been in the church for lots and lots of years growing Hardened and Boredom is setting in and you know, it's it's the routine that we've been doing for so long and It's kind of a a loss of interest is occurring But you know, you know why that's happening I think in some cases maybe in a lot of cases it's happening because We're just getting input, but we're not giving out There's nothing in the bible that would ever Indicate remotely that christians are to be spectators. We're to be participants In this whole thing and jesus said this matthew 28 all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations You see we are to take this life We're to take this salvation.

We're to take the gifts that god has instilled in us and we are to go out and do something What are we to do? We're to go out and make disciples of the nations we're to get this message the reason the church is still in the world is because We've got to get the message out God has left us here as a testimony and this is our task And so we are to go Therefore and every single one of us Have some part to play in this larger task of taking the gospel to the nations We've all got a part to play There's not a single person that is excluded from this Everybody's got a part to play now. I don't know what your part is. I I know what my part is I don't know what your part is But god knows what your part is And your job is to seek him And to simply yield yourself to him So he can show you what your part is and you can get in there and do what he's called you to do And you know, here's the thing When you're serving the lord You don't have to worry about being bored There's no boredom in the kingdom When you're active when you're really serving when you're really seeking him every New step is is really an adventure And that's how god wants us to understand this thing that he's called us into And so he's made us part of it and he said I'm gonna use you i've got something for you to do It's to make disciples of the nations and that you know, there's all different kinds of ways that that happens but we just have to open ourselves up and make ourselves available and allow the holy spirit to Fill us up and to gift us and the lord's going to take us One of the things that I always get reminded of when I travel like I did this past week um And particularly with the the missionaries that are out there is that you know, these are just ordinary everyday people that god's god's using and they've just They've taken the call up.

They've responded. They've opened themselves up and just said, you know, here I am i'm available lord What do you want to do? One of the guys pastoring one of the churches in ireland It's 29 years old now. He's been there 10 years and At 19 years old he just ended up there and I overheard him saying to another person who was from another city He goes.

Hey, I spent the a few nights on the streets of your city when I first came to ireland He said yeah, I came to ireland. I just felt like god was calling me here I didn't know anybody didn't have any place to stay but I just so I just slept on the streets and you know Lord opened another door and you know now that's an adventure So you're bored Get yourself a plane ticket and go somewhere and sleep on the street and see what happens You know, he was 19 years old he's crazy he's a kid But I don't only meet 19 year olds 29 year olds, but I meet 49 year olds and 59 year olds And and you know i've had people in my office who were in their late 60s and early 70s telling me Hey, we're moving to africa. We're going to the mission field.

God's called us Now i'm not saying everybody has to go to the mission field. The mission field is right out your front door It's right off the property here To some extent it's right here as well But what we need to do is Just take to heart That we are to go and to make disciples and then to just simply say lord here I am And if we are realizing the the priority of the spiritual if we're putting the kingdom first If we're casting our cares on the lord If we're realizing there's a day of reckoning and accountability we're going to be Quick to say lord here I am That's what it's about And one final word Jesus said this Heaven and earth will pass away But my words will never pass away man. Think about that All of the things that have been written and all the words that have been uttered and all the speeches that have been spoken And all of all of the words They'll all pass Along with the heavens and the earth But the words of jesus will never pass away That's why we need to hear him That's why we need to tune out all of these other voices that are Contradicting him and distracting us from what he's saying and we need to listen to jesus Because jesus is the voice of god Lord, we thank you That you are the living god That you are the speaking god We thank you lord that you are Speaking to us today And lord we want to receive what you have for us and lord I pray this morning for each person Lord myself included lord help us to Remember That we cannot live by bread alone Help us to remember that the material will never Satisfy the longing in our soul help us lord to feed upon your word Help us lord to make sure our priorities are right Help us lord to remember heaven and earth is going to pass away Everything one day will will be over Help us lord to make sure the priority is right You your kingdom your righteousness Lord, thank you that we can come to you and cast our burdens and our cares upon you And thank you lord that you forgive our sins and that you heal our hearts and that you comfort us And you give us rest and peace Lord keep us on the straight path Help us never to be deceived Into thinking that we can live in sin And there will be no consequences and lord help us and I pray specifically for All today lord to find that place In the body To find lord that That niche that you have So that we can fulfill That great commission To make disciples of the nations.

So work in our hearts. We pray Amen Amen, let's stand together So the pastors are here this morning they're up front available to Pray with you and so if you've if you've got something