Message: Praise His Creation, Pray for His Return!
Today’s message title was going to be; At His Command, you were created! And I might use that in a future message, but today, I wanted to talk with you about more than just you and I being a part of the creation. As exciting as that is to me, and it is, … I wanted to also rejoice in the renewal that you and I will get to witness when our Lord returns, and we are glorified in Him.
Yes, today I am excited to talk with you my beloved family, about what is so special about us being a family in God. How we both share in the belief of our creation by Him, but also in the expectation of our renewal, transformation, and outright glorification in our beloved Lord Savior, Jesus Christ.
And I guess for us this morning it all begins with our understanding of who God is and what we are not, and how we both fit into the scheme of things. Reminding me of today’s Call to Worship reading from Psalm 148;
1 Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
old men and children.
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Praise the Lord.
After prayerfully reading this awesome Psalm with concentration, we immediately begin to see just where you and me fit into the creation. There is an enormous amount of majesty to gaze upon in reflection and reverence for our Lord! My immediate fear is that I have not even scratched the surface of what is the wow factor that is our God!
This awesome Psalm is a call for all of the creation to praise the Lord. The first six verses call all the creation in the heavens to praise the Lord, followed by all of us below the Heavens to do the same. I would embellish to add that all of the creation must be in the business of praising, glorifying, and magnifying His Holy and precious name from now into and throughout eternity. Where is the sacred ground for me to throw my face against to begin?
Once we truly begin to understand that the creator of everything that ever was, and ever will be, that knows every thought, action, and emotion that you have ever had, knows every hair on your head, and your current cholesterol count, blood pressure, and A1C, remembers that lie you told and more importantly, it’s the one I’m referring to that you do not want me to mention right now, that He knows about… That God, loves you!
Now I don’t know the specifics about anyone’s cover up, but based on some of the looks I just glanced, there is some real stuff God is loving you beyond! Regardless of whatever it is, we know that the Lord is ready to forgive and remove our sin, as instructed by David, in Psalm 103:11-13;
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
And by fear, I think a chief fear is that we have come up short in remembering, thanking, and repenting missing the mark when we must be about praising, glorifying, and magnifying His name through our worship of Him, through service to His creation, by loving our neighbor. This is spelled out for us in the first part of today’s message reading from, John 13:33-35;
33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
*Side Bar; This conversation is taking place around the Last Supper or Passover Meal, and the Lord washing the Disciples feet. Where the Lord is going is to Golgotha and the Cross to die for and then live again for all of us who accept Him in our heart, soul, and minds. Continuing now with verse 34;
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
I do not know how to make this any plainer than the Lord. A command to love one another. Not to push each other’s buttons, or provide the temptation to push another over the edge, but to really love others. Even if you don’t like you… yourself, you had better work on finding a way to do better with other people. And this message is not directed at any one or even a couple of people, but to the whole lot of you, for we all have fallen short of the glory of God on this command.
You will love others. No wiggle room for loop holes, or qualifiers like; I love that person, I just love them a little less than other people. No that won’t do, cuz in our family, this is how it will work: You will love one another. I didn’t say that, Jesus Christ said that. Your God of all of Heaven said that. For me that means there is no room for negotiating.
But why so emphatic? I don’t know, ask the Lord why He thinks you should love other people, even the ones you don’t think you like. Part of the answer lays in what we reviewed in the Call to worship, because the creator of the universe said to. How does one argue with that?…
That does not mean you have to enable people who abuse and take advantage of others. It means that you spend more time working on fixing your strained relationships than on one-liners that insult others, or fast comebacks that cut to the quick. Because what we are doing in this existence is preparation for something much deeper, exquisite, and majestic.
As we have spoken of before in this room, the challenges that we are facing with the Lord right now, are preparing us for other challenges down the road. Hopefully in preparations for the ultimate of progressions you and I might get to be a part of;… Praising, Glorifying, and Magnifying His holy Precious Name. With your extended family; the Saints of Heaven. Reading the second part of today’s message reading; Revelation 21:1-6;
1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
*Cutting in to say; All things will pass away except our Lord who is our Alpha Omega, our beginning and end. In Him all concepts of old and new I think will become secondary to our focus on Him and the eternity He sets for us. All those things that were so important will seem petty when compared to the majestic nature of your new environment.
It kind of makes the grudges we have been carrying around, along with all of that baggage of junk that has been weighing us down, and all of those hurts that were aiming us hell-ward bound, seem not as essential! Or if they are still enmeshing you as we speak, you now have an idea on what you have to work on with your Lord. … Continuing now at verse 2;
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
**Side Bar; What we are working on now with the Lord, will be realized when we actually get to reside with our God. Right now, we are living with His Spirit, then we will be as one, replacing or superseding all the intimacies with something way deeper, and much more beautiful than my mortal words or brain can comprehend. That is at least an idea of the majestic reality that lies ahead for you my beautiful family! Just think of it… No more:
- Crying; for the hardships that I know many of you are going through as we speak. When we join our Lord, those things will be in our past.
- Pain; from all the things that bring us our suffering. In my case most of my pain, arthritis, muscle ache, and relationships, are for the most part, self-induced, and I am reliving my stupidity all over again through my joint and bone pain, and the petty stuff of life.
- Death; that comes from sin. When we are finally able to bid farewell to sin for good, we will also see no more death, which is the price of sin.
The old will be exchanged for the new reality of our eternal existence that dwarfs all human ability to comprehend. Definitely making our efforts to follow our Lord’s footsteps a worthwhile thing to do. Continuing now at verse 5;
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
This was written for our benefit, because “these words are trustworthy and true”. That’s why we read scripture!
Putting a firm reply in the negative to Solomon’s lame rant when he says in Ecclesiastes 1:9;
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Nothing is new, until the Lord determines to do something new, and God can do as God pleases, without changing Himself. Being He is Alpha and Omega, and He will change our viewpoint when we are glorified and capable of enjoying a real, deeper existence in and with Him. From the spring of the water of life, comes our refreshment, wellbeing, and nourishment on a plain the likes of which we have never witnessed in this reality.
When its all said and done, our final destination (Heaven), is a very good reason to fight the good fight within, in preparation for a reality so much better than the one we have right now. But living a real life with and in the Lord and His family, is a reward in and of it’s own.
Meaning each of us have it within ourselves to begin to enjoy our lives with the Lord, because salvation, happiness, clarity of thought are at hand. It’s that Good News that we seek to share with others because there is room for all who want a better existence. And that is the Good News I wanted to share with you this morning.
May all of you begin to find that new dynamic called happiness, by finding your relationship in and with a Lord that really loves you, even after knowing you. And that today is just the beginning of something that will carry you into eternity, and that you will want to share that News with others that He places in your life.
God bless you,
Amen!