week.
You're great, fantastic, and you're so good
So remember your great name
Remember you're so great
Remember your great story of life
Your great story of life
Your medicine to the wind
Oh, you're great
When you're so low in the stars
I need you to tell me
Use my dreams to build a strong band
I want you to be yourself, I'm sorry, no, I don't need you
And I'll never see you again
So remember your people
Remember your children
Remember your friends, oh God
Your best is gone
Your best is gone, oh, yeah
Your best is gone
Your sweet, your bright, your awesome
Your best is gone
I'm covered in your love
Your best is gone, oh, yeah
Your best is gone
Your sweet, your bright, your awesome
Your best is gone, oh, yeah
Your sweet, your bright, your awesome
Your best is gone
Your best is gone, oh, yeah
Alright, alright, we're going to just jump right in, so we're going to pray, and jump right in, we're going to have the announcements right this second, and we'll talk a little bit more at the inspirational moment time, which is coming up, and we'll give you more time for that to take, and we're going to do some praying together.
So good announcements, most of everything is going on, and I'll talk to you about a lot of stuff that's in the bulletin. So check it out in the bulletin, check it out.
If you don't know, it's okay, get with me, I'll have you too, or I'll tell you, you can call me, or any empty near the room, but we're happy to point you to everything that's going on, we're just going to pray for it out, and move forward.
Okay, so join me in prayer, let's go.
Father in heaven, you are an awesome God, this day, the first day of the week, is given to you, whatever went on yesterday, for we may or may not have gotten it right, we may or may not have made all the decisions, but they should be, we're right now in this world, commit ourselves to you, we give ourselves over into your service, we want to worship you today,
and we want to declare your word that this place, we're going to sing praise to you today, Lord.
We may not be worthy of doing so, we may not be strong enough to do so, we may not be smart enough to formulate the word just the way they are, or brave enough to put it all together, but we know you can make us able, so we're coming to you today, Lord, confessing our weaknesses, asking for forgiveness, being thankful that Jesus is the care of all of that.
We ask you to be with our missing members, those who are traveling away from home, those who are sick today, I pray for this Jew, Lord, that the pain from her recent surgery would subside, that she be healed and strong, I pray for Nicole, and Dominic, and Dustin, and what they're going through in the family there, and Chris, and Ashley, and Lisa, all of them, Lord.
I pray for those who are supposed to be here today, I ask you Lord to be with them, call them unto yourself right where they are.
I think it's interesting folks say you don't need to be in the church with the church to worship God, but he's our God, I'm not saying I own, but I love him, and we know how to worship you, Lord, and so I'm grateful that we're able to gather together today for worship you make this time about you,
even as we talk about prayer, look at what you're doing, Lord, make this time about you, even as we're reminded of your wrath, and you're all consumed fire today, Lord, make this time about you, even as we play the instruments and sing the songs, Lord, make this time about you, whatever was yesterday, it's gone, can't do a thing about it.
What's coming tomorrow, we can only prepare, but right now, in this moment, we can better self to you, and we pray all this that Jesus saves, Amen.
All right, everyone to stand up with us, we're going to do some clapping.
See,
see,
Moses was a guy who probably had little kids balling on his knee at some point in time.
Had tons of grandkids, right?
And others that lived around him that had kids, nieces and nephews and whatever.
And he loved to see the little kids looking to God, just as much as he did the adults.
And to think this is going to go in, and you would think, there's a pregnant woman, you're
telling me the child inside the pregnant woman of the promised land is guilty of the sin
of the nation?
Moses is saying, this is why, this is how.
We're going to work this out right now.
I'm going to understand, you're going to understand, if you just listen, you can figure out how
it could be that that society can arrive at a point that wretchedness and filth is so
predominant that destroying the man, woman, child and unborn child is the only possible
result.
It's the only way it can be settled.
Not only that, he's saying that that same wrath of God that would be visited against
that people, destroying, now let's remind ourselves that God did keep the Israelites
in imprisonment for 430 years while that society was raising to this level of wickedness and
decadence and wretchedness that all that was left was for them to be destroyed.
So God put it off for over four centuries while they continue to burn their firstborn
children alive in the fires to Molech.
While they continue to go every midweek and every festival and every full moon and whatever
down to the temple prostitutes to sleep with the women of the temple in order to get the
false gods that they worship to bring the rain.
So God put that off for over 400 years but now they've reached a point of wretchedness.
Moses says God is doing something and we have to figure this out.
We have to make this line up so that it can make sense because otherwise a compassionate
God shouldn't he be sending us in there as evangelists instead of as warriors to destroy
this society?
And then on top of that shouldn't God have compassion on me, his faithful servant, all
that I have done and I should be allowed to go in?
Even though yes I didn't do what he told me to do, even though yes I got angry at him
and at his people and I struck the rock instead of speaking to it and I chastised them instead
of testifying on behalf of God.
Even though I did that shouldn't God have compassion on me but there is no compassion
to be found.
I'm not going to be allowed to go into the promised land.
The problem was this, God is a consuming fire.
God is a jealous fire.
He is jealous for the breath that he put in you as he brought Adam to life.
He is not pleased with the way men and women across the world, not everybody necessarily
at any given moment, thank God it's not everybody at any given moment because that would probably
be the end of it right there.
But people across the world have misused the resources that God has given them.
So if God is a consuming fire and he is jealous for the breath that's being used by man and
he's provided it for your lifetime sufficient and if God's people have imperfections, right,
there are stiff necked people so much so that he says don't do this, don't worship idols,
don't have any other gods, don't let anything else be important like God, don't serve anyone
or anything else other than God.
And then in the very next paragraph he says but when you're in the land and your grandchildren
are growing up and you're doing this, you're worshiping God, know that God will punish
you and he will discipline you.
That's the imperfections and so if God is a consuming fire and a jealous God and God's
people have imperfections, then we have a problem because God is going to consume them.
When they didn't go in the promised land the first time, God said no I will not go up with
you.
Don't go now because I won't go up with you now because you've been unfaithful.
When they were walking in the desert, right, one tribe always had to walk surrounding the
tabernacle to keep the wrath of God from pouring out on the rest of the tribes.
Do you remember what tribe by any chance?
Anybody?
Levites, right, the priests.
So they walked surrounding the tabernacle so that God's wrath would not pour out of God's
holy place and it was broken down and it was pulled and wrapped up cloth and the ark of
the covenant was there.
But as it traveled, the Levites had to surround it so that the rest of the people would not
be destroyed by God's consuming fire.
See the problem here, God's consuming fire and the imperfections of his people.
This is the problem that the angels have.
They're like how can this match?
How can this ever line up?
They long to look into this mystery that God was a holy God, a wrathful God, a consuming
fire and jealous over his people and over what he's instilled in his people.
How can it make sense that God is going to allow them, the people, to rule over God's
creation?
You see?
So much so that according to historical doctrines of demons and theology, Satan who was an angel
or Lucifer for sure was an angel, fell because he just couldn't get it.
I don't understand.
God is just wrong.
How can man be allowed to persist and rule the earth when God is a consuming fire and
righteous and just?
So apparently, God is not then a consuming fire and righteous and just and jealous.
That's who we always thought he was.
Well, I'm not going to stand for that.
Whether or not that doctrine of demons really holds true, the bottom line is we know scripture
says that the angels looked into this.
They desire to look.
They long to understand the truth of how it could be that the consuming fire of our God
would not frankly consume God's people in their imperfections.
And this problem persists.
Listen with me to Isaiah 33.
Going to the right in the big prophet section.
Before Jeremiah, which will probably run into you first because he always seems to pop up
sooner in my Bible.
Alright, Isaiah 33 is where we're going.
Alright, and I'm going to begin reading in verse 10.
Listen to Isaiah.
This is thousands of years later, right?
A thousand plus years later, right?
33, 10.
Now I will arise, says the Lord.
Now I will be exalted.
Now I will be lifted up.
You have conceived chaff.
You will give birth to stubble.
My breath will consume.
You like a fire.
This is being said to the Israelites.
To God's people in the promised land after all that they did.
Never truly reaching the full size they were supposed to.
But there it is.
This is being said to the Israelites.
My breath will consume you like a fire.
And then verse 12.
And the people's will be burned to lime.
Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire.
You who are far away, hear what I have done.
And you who are near, acknowledge my might.
Sinners in Zion are terrified.
Trembling has seized the godless.
Who among us can live with the consuming fire?
Who among us can live with continual burning?
He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity.
This is the answer to his question.
He says, who among us can live with the consuming fire?
Who among us can live with continual burning?
And then he answers the question this way.
He says, he who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity.
He who rejects unjust gain and shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe.
He who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil.
He will dwell on the heights.
His refuge will be the impregnable rock.
His bread will be given him.
His water will be sure.
This problem persisted, this conflict between the fact that God is a consuming fire and
his people have imperfections.
And here it says, God says, I will now be exalted.
He says, you who are far away, hear what I have done.
And you who are near, acknowledge my might.
Sinners in Zion are terrified.
Trembling has seized the godless.
Who among us can live with the consuming fire?
Who among us can live with the continual burning?
And then he sets that pattern at the end about righteous works.
Not being part of unjust gain, not getting ahead in an unjust way, not taking a bribe,
not looking at bloodshed.
That's a real problem for the rated R movie watchers who like to see people destroy each
other and go, oh, it's not real.
Whatever.
Right?
He's turned from bloodshed, shutting his eyes from looking upon evil.
That person will dwell on the heights.
That person's refuge will be the impregnable rock.
That person, his bread will be given him and his water will be sure.
So even in Isaiah's day, this problem persisted.
The consuming fire versus the imperfections of men.
And then you get to the New Testament in case you think, well, but now we live in grace.
Right?
Now Jesus has come, he's lived, he's died, he rose again to save everyone.
And so because he had, God is no longer consuming fire.
God's not going to wipe anybody out anymore.
God's not going to come into the world with judgment or wrath.
Wrath is opposition, not anger.
Right?
Coming with wrath.
It's not going to be like that anymore.
But if you go then into Hebrews chapter 10, if you follow along in your Bible, please
do go to Hebrews chapter 10.
You'll find it back there right in front of James, Hebrews 10.
And we'll read the first part where he references this problem and sort of begins to propose
a solution.
Hebrews 10, we'll start in 19.
He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead, talking about Abraham,
from which he also received him back as a type by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau,
even regarding, I'm reading the wrong chapter.
Hold on, my fault.
I do that.
Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh.
And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
in our bodies washed with pure water.
And then he's going to say, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering
for he who promised is faithful.
Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our
own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all
the more as you see the day drawing near.
Now it's going to get into why.
Four, because if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth,
there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment
and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversary.
See the problem still persists.
God is a consuming fire.
He is jealous for that which he has entrusted to us.
This is no joke.
This is a real thing.
The gospel that goes against God's wrath or judgment against people who take what he has
given them, which would include eternal life and spit on it or trample on it.
That's no gospel at all because it doesn't even know who God is.
From the beginning of creation, God was a consuming fire.
God is a jealous God.
He has given you the breath of life and he expects that you will use it accordingly.
I'll go back to the beginning of 26 just to make sure we get the full thought.
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the
fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two
or three witnesses.
Now that doesn't happen today by the way, but they did then.
How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the
Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified
and has insulted the spirit of grace?
For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay.
And again, the Lord will judge his people.
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 says, But remember the former days when, after being enlightened, you endured a great
conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and
tribulations and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.
In other words, it was going really bad for the church for a while, remember how it was
and you stayed the course?
Again helping those as he says in 34, for you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted
joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession
and an abiding one.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need
of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
37, for yet in the very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but
my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure
in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to
the persevering of the soul.
See the same problem of God being a consuming fire and a jealous God exists all the way
to July 17, 2022.
Moses recognized it and the evidence of it in his day was the fact that they were being
called to go in and wipe out an entire society down to the smallest unborn child.
God had given them plenty of time to repent.
He had given them plenty of reasons to recognize his glory, plenty of reasons to recognize
the gifts that he had given them.
They were living literally in the lands of milk and honey.
When the scouts went in in the first place, they saw grapes that were so large.
We now know that even today, some of the lands in question yield as much as four times, or
some people say in the lands getting up closer to Mesopotamia, the crops of those fields are
16 times.
The same amount of seed corn will produce 16 times the yield in a field there near Mesopotamia.
The bottom line is, this was a great land that God had blessed them with and in it they
had chosen to become a people that burned their firstborn children in the fire, a people
that will not follow God, a people that will worship bits of stone and gold or clever craftsmanship,
a people that will go and sow their seed in the temple to bring about the rain.
Not with their wife, but with prostitutes over and over and over again.
A people that have gotten into decadence and used their bodies in every incorrect way.
Moses says, I see the problem.
God is doing something.
Instead of man worshipping God, recognizing God, glorifying God, submitting to God, repenting
and turning to God and God alone, man takes the blessings of God and turns them out for
what he wants.
Tries to make out of it what he wants.
What will make him feel good?
He consumes those blessings, but does not deliver worship to God.
The problem was, God is doing something.
He is a consuming fire and there are imperfections in God's people, traced all the way back to
the fall.
So any angel might look and say, well then why doesn't God just destroy them all and
in the blink of an eye, just as he can, create again?
And in Noah's day, he did.
He literally wiped out every man, woman and child and every unborn child himself.
Didn't send an army, didn't send a fire, didn't send a plague.
He flooded the earth and destroyed.
Now you're trying to tell me that that is not evidence that our God is a consuming fire,
that our God is jealous for that which he has entrusted to man.
Yes, our God is that, as was seen clearly in Noah's day.
But our God is also a God of compassion.
And with this great problem, he has made a way out.
Now before you say, that way out is Jesus.
Jesus paid for all our sins and so now, nobody's going to have to pay.
That's not the solution.
That is a solution to a very real problem in the fact that you could not have your sins
forgiven, have eternal life with God, be born again, if it were not for the sacrifice of
Jesus on the cross.
And that is true.
But out of that sacrifice arises in us something that we need to recognize and do something
about.
The transition looks like this.
If you're following along in your Bibles, go to Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 happens to be one of those passages in the scripture that I have probably
studied at length more than any other.
I studied it in Bible college, again in seminary and did the first 10 verses.
At one point in time, I had it word-perfect memorized from the NIV.
I no longer have that.
But I love this passage of scripture and it speaks in the first seven verses before it
really gets into the solution.
It speaks in the first seven verses of this problem that we're talking about.
He says, and you, that's me, that's Ron, that's Marcos, that's Kishon, that's Jamie, right?
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formally walked according to
the course of this world according to the prince of power of the air of the spirit that
is now working in the sons of disobedience.
In other words, you were under condemnation.
You were destined to spend eternity in the consuming fire away from and never consumed
by God, but rather consumed eternally by that fire.
Now the prince of power of the air, presumably talking about Satan, he is now working in
the sons of disobedience.
The spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience is that same one that we had.
We were like that.
And it says in verse three, among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our
flesh.
We were consumers.
We went after one thing after another, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
And we're by nature children of wrath.
That means we were facing the opposition.
Wrath is opposition.
We were the children subject to the opposition of God, even as the rest.
But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when
we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace have you been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus in order that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing
riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
God, through Jesus, changed our eternal outcome.
Right?
However, the author of Hebrews has already made it clear that then God, a consuming fire,
a jealous God, can readily expect a proper response to that gift.
You are no longer to die as a human if you are a follower of Lord Jesus Christ, no longer
to die as a human and go to hell for eternity, but now you're going to go to heaven.
In fact, your seat there is already being prepared for you.
Your mansion already being built.
Whatever all those words means, it's all taken care of.
However, you are responsible for how you respond now to that action, to what God did there.
He ultimately will show the great riches of his grace, but in the meantime, having received
them, you must respond accordingly.
And the author of Hebrews then clearly shows us in chapter 12, which I think is our last
set of verses for the day, yes it is, Hebrews chapter 12 beginning in verse 14, how that
goes down.
So flip to chapter 12 verse 14 if you're following along.
And he says this, he says, pursue peace with all men and the sanctification, that means
the being made holy, without which no one will see the Lord.
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness bringing
up causes trouble and by it many be defiled.
In other words, if you're in the church or in the kingdom, you're serving God and you
start to have a little problem, don't let that little problem become something that
blows up.
Don't say, well, I'm church hurt and run away from what you're supposed to be doing.
You do what you're supposed to be doing, which is about to be told to us.
In verse 16, it says that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own
birthright for a single meal.
For you know that even afterwards when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected
for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
Now listen, that means that if we do those things in the first part of what I just read,
which is allow a root of bitterness to spring up and cause trouble, be defiled means unclean,
not useful to God, that it is entirely possible that we will arrive at the place at which
there is no repentance for what we have done, just like Esau.
You follow?
It doesn't say you won't be saved, but there's no turning back to God and getting the kingdom
of God rolling again in your life on the earth.
It's possible.
Okay?
A little bit further.
Verse 18.
For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched, and to a blazing fire, and to
darkness and gloom and whirlwind.
Remember, that's what they saw, that's what Moses was appealing to them.
Look, you saw this.
You know he's a consuming fire.
You personally saw him.
But he says, but we didn't do that.
We didn't come that way.
And to blast of a trumpet and the sound of words, which sound was such that those who
heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them.
See when God spoke to them, they said, oh please, no more.
We can't take it.
Right?
For they could see their imperfections.
They could feel his consuming fire.
They felt like they were about to be consumed.
Verse 20.
For they could not bear the command.
If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling.
Get that.
Moses said, Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling.
Because he realized his own imperfections.
Verse 22.
But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and the myriads of angels, to the general assembly, and the church of the first born,
who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous
men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood,
which speaks better than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking.
For if those who did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much
less shall we escape who turned away from him who warns from heaven.
And his voice shook the earth then.
But now he has promised saying, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also
the heavens.
And the expression, yet once more denotes the removing of those things which can be
shaken of created things.
Listen to this.
Yet once more denotes the removal of those things which can be shaken as of created things
in order that those things which can be shaken, cannot be shaken, may remain.
In other words, we've got to choose the not able to be shaken stuff because that will
remain and the stuff that's able to be shaken, you've got to let it go because God is going
to shake it, but God is going to consume it, he's going to destroy it.
Two verses left.
Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us wait for it, show
gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.
And what does it say?
For our God is a consuming fire.
It all connects from the beginning with Adam and Eve to present day, our date, God at consuming
fire has now shown us everything that we need to know to respond to him appropriately to
avoid being consumed.
In fact, Paul would elsewhere explain that this is the gospel mystery explained that
you now no longer have to face the consuming fire of God against your imperfections, this
is how you do it.
Obviously, you have to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you must admit that you
have sinned and because of that sin you are distanced from God.
The wages of that sin is your distance from God.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
When Jesus becomes your master in your life, when Jesus is your leader in your life, then
he paid the price for your sins.
That's where it starts, that's ingredient one.
And then every day of your life after that moment in time is ingredient two.
Spent this way, in gratitude.
You're spending the hours of your day on something that you enjoy.
If you're not using that something that you enjoy to bring glory to the one who died on
the cross for you, then you are not spending your time in gratitude.
You're not grateful for what you have received.
There's so many people out there like, oh, God will forgive it anyway, I'm going to heaven
when I die because I accepted Jesus Christ.
I know why I'm going to heaven.
I absolutely know.
Do you know where you'll go if you die today?
Yep, I absolutely know where I'll go if I die today.
Okay, are you living accordingly?
Well, what does that mean?
Well, are you living in gratitude to the one who paved your way?
You get out of bed in the morning and go, how can I thank Jesus today for saving my
eternal soul?
Are you living in gratitude?
Through that gratitude we can come up with an acceptable service.
We can find a way that we can serve our Lord, serve our God and do what God would have us
to do.
If there's no gratitude, no amount of service you do will be acceptable to the Lord.
In other words, if you fix it, if you go the distance, if you give your money, if you blood,
sweat and tears and you don't do it out of gratitude toward God, your service will not
be found as acceptable.
It would not be before you got saved and now that you're stepping on Jesus, spitting in
his face and dismissing his sacrifice, it will not be found acceptable now either because
our God is a consuming fire and he is jealous for the investment that he has placed in you
and in your life and he desires you to show him the very basic, simple, polite gratitude.
So express your gratitude all the time, everywhere and everything you're going through because
it is an eternity that we need to be grateful for.
It is a payment that we could not pay that we need to be grateful for and that will allow
you to find a service that is acceptable to our God and you will be able to live in reverence.
You will love him.
I love him for what he's done for me.
Every time I screw up, it breaks my heart because I'm like, Oh God, but I love you.
My little daughter comes up to me and she says, I love you.
She's got this routine at bedtime.
She's like, I love you.
Sleep good, dad.
My blow me kisses.
Give me a hug.
Kiss on the cheek and a little bit more.
I'll get a cup of water.
A little bit more.
I love you.
She loves me.
I love you.
And then when she does something wrong and I'm correcting her, I can see in her face that
she is stricken.
She is sad that I'm upset.
The other day I was explaining to her that she wasn't allowed one.
Sometimes she's not allowed to have dessert because she gets in trouble.
We don't want to make it a reward, but like getting up close to dinner time, wherever
she'll do something.
Maybe she didn't do what she was supposed to do.
Like, okay, we're just going to skip dessert because clearly you're having trouble with
self control.
We don't need to get into that.
So we don't say it's the dessert is a reward, but we say, Oh, we're going to skip dessert
today.
And she said, you know, a few weeks ago when I had to skip dessert, she said, I wasn't
upset that I didn't get a dessert.
She said, I'm not going to get a dessert the next day.
I'll get a dessert every day.
It's no problem.
She said, what I was really upset for was that it was taken away from me because I screwed
up.
See, it changes the way you think about your sin.
Stop thinking about your sin as hoping God's not going to punish you for it.
Stop thinking about your sin as like, Oh, screwed up again.
God's going to forgive it anyway and claim in grace and start thinking about the fact
that your sin is spitting in the face of the man, the being, the God, the universe, the
Holy Spirit, God as a consuming fire and jealousy is spitting in his face.
You ever met a really bad guy that you definitely don't want to tussle with?
Did you run up and spit in his face?
Listen to me.
My God, your God, our God is a really big guy that you don't want to mess with.
He's bigger than you.
He's bigger than a thousand years.
He's bigger than a million years.
He's bigger than any you that ever lived as soon as Adam was born.
And from then on, everybody that ever lived, God's bigger than that.
And he's a consuming fire and he's a jealous God.
And quite frankly, he would have every reason to choose to be angry with you, but he's slow
to anger and compassionate.
He's not angry with you, but he is wrathful toward the things that we're choosing to do.
He is a consuming fire and he will consume those things.
You can fear him and you can love him and you can have an acceptable service to him
and you can express gratitude to him.
And that's kind of like the key way that you get to your acceptable service and your reverence.
And then finally, if you're smart, you can hold him in awe.
He is the God of the universe who could trade again all of it again.
He could throw a whole new selection of an infinite number of stars into the sky tomorrow
if he chose to.
He could wipe out the entire earth and create another one from nothing, not remake it.
But he chooses to remake it into the new heavens and the new earth where those who follow him
will exist for eternity.
Our God is a consuming fire and the proper response to his saving us is nothing less
than gratitude and acceptable service, fear and love of him and awe.
That's the solution.
That's how you do it.
You save through Jesus and then you live in gratitude, acceptable service, reverence and
awe because of what he's done for you.
And thereby not get destroyed, thereby not get consumed, thereby not face the wrath of
the Lord.
That brings us to our conclusion.
Godly living to the best of our knowledge and ability every day as we are grateful to
God.
Acceptable service.
Figure out what it is that you can do for the Lord, what it is that God could use you
for.
What it is that you could say.
And B, how you could work.
Do that, whatever it is.
Willingly accept God's discipline.
The next time God is correcting you because you did something wrong, the next time you
read his word and happen to land on a passage of scripture that tells you specifically what
you did wrong and why you shouldn't have done it, willingly accept God's discipline.
The next time your finances, your relationships, your job, whatever fall apart, go, okay God,
what did I do wrong?
God shows you, oh, this is what I did wrong.
I'm sorry, I turn to you Lord.
I willingly accept your discipline.
I am grateful that this discipline that I will accept in this lifetime does not last
for an eternity because Jesus took care of that, but I am your son or your daughter and
I willingly accept your discipline.
Stay the course and together as a church, we are the people of God.
Listen, I get it, you can come in here if you wanted to right now as soon as you get
to know somebody, I don't like that guy because of X.
Everybody in this room you could do that with.
You find a reason not to like them, find a reason to be distant.
You go to another church, you'll do it again.
You can find a reason not to like me because of the sermon I'm preaching today.
We are all imperfect.
I'm going to screw up.
I'll guarantee you there are mistakes in the sermon.
The part that I will guarantee you is not a mistake is the fact that our God is a consuming
fire.
He's a jealous God.
I know that because Moses said it multiple times.
Moses lived it, was not even allowed to go into the promised land because of it, even
though I would love to be a guy like him, but he wasn't even allowed to go into the
promised land because of it.
And then he explained it as best he understood it in his day, that's what we read.
And Isaiah, a thousand years later, did it again.
And then the writer of Hebrews, a thousand years later, did it again.
It's always been this way.
And we've got to accept that fact instead of continually denying it.
Get together as a church and stand up with imperfect people.
You can be like an angel if you want to be.
You can look around and say, well, I don't think God should spare them because they're
too loud, they're too not nice.
They look a certain way, they act a certain way.
That'll do what I think they should do.
They're not disciplined.
They're not strong.
They're not smart.
They're not capable.
Whatever they said this thing I didn't like, they hurt me.
They talked about me.
You could do that all day long and find the imperfections of people.
But that's not what you're called to.
You're called to live a life of gratitude under a holy God who is a consuming fire and
a jealous God.
Oh, and by the way, while you're doing that, finding the imperfections of other Christians,
you need to understand that our God invested just as much in them as he did in you.
And so you're doubling the wrath because now you're attacking somebody who is just as much
made in the image of God, who's just as much filled with the Holy Spirit, just as much
screwed up.
Yes, I get that.
But you're attacking that person who has been given everything, a seat in heaven.
They've got a throne there waiting for them, a chair waiting for them to come and sit.
It's got their name on it.
You look at Mike and you go, I like Mike because he does this.
You look at Lynn, I like Lynn because she does that.
That bothers me.
I'm going to withdraw from fellowship from them.
You be mighty careful because you're going to get to heaven one day and you're going
to have to fellowship with that person that you didn't like because they were imperfect
on the earth.
You're living the very same role that Satan and the demons live every day, looking at
people who are imperfect and saying, I don't like that.
That's not your job.
If there's anything you're not to like, it's the way you don't express gratitude to God
and you fix that because that's consuming fire is coming and it's going to burn that
stuff away and it's going to hurt like a doozy.
In 1 Corinthians 3, it says, whoever builds on the foundation of Jesus Christ with anything
that can be burned away, it will be burned away.
It will be consumed by that consuming fire.
It will be destroyed by that jealous God.
That's the great glory of it.
You will make it in.
If you've accepted Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, you will make it in.
You may not get the kingdom of God on this earth or follow the Lord or be blessed as
you would be blessed.
You may not get to enjoy the blessings as He pulls them one by one out of your life
because you wouldn't be grateful for what you were handed.
That very same fire though that rightly scares us will once and for all destroy that sin
which so easily ensnares us.
Shall I say that again?
That very same fire that rightly scares us will once and for all destroy that sin which
so easily ensnares us.
Even in that moment as we will still be making every attempt if we love the Lord to dismiss
that sin and be rid of it and follow the Lord the way we're supposed to, then His righteous
holiness will come in and destroy that sin once and for all and you will go into heaven
for an eternity.
But should we be collecting them in the meantime?
Should we be stapling them to ourselves?
Should we be gathering things of value and worship in this lifetime?
Should we be enjoying this life and going, well I've got to go after that now because
I enjoy it, I need a little more, I really want to do that?
Every time you think to yourself, I feel like I want to do that again, I want you to understand
that that thing that makes you think you want to do it again, that was given to you as a
gift by God.
And if you would say to yourself, I want to go watch a movie again or play a game again
or eat a steak again or go with my family somewhere again, you would do that without
first exhibiting gratitude toward God, then that thing has become an idol in your life
at least in that moment.
Live in gratitude, find acceptable service, revere, which means love and fear the Lord
and hold Him in awe because He is an all-consuming fire.
And here's the bottom line, if you cannot be grateful to God for what you're experiencing
and if it cannot foster in you an acceptable service and if it cannot lead you to reverence
and awe of the Lord, then cut it out.
Be done with it once and for all.
It does not belong in your life.
If on the other hand you can be grateful to God for it and you can use it to serve Him
in some way and you can recognize it as a gift from Him having been saved for an eternity,
then it can stay.
Then it can stay.
And the problem is instead of us being a people where we are going around asking what can
stay and what's got to go, we're just becoming a people that just wants more to stay.
We just want more.
Bigger, better, shinier, more of it, store it, keep it, collect it, watch it, enjoy it,
just more.
Like the world-consuming consumables, Christians who need to say with everything that comes,
should it stay or should it go?
We instead just say, I want more of that.
That tasted good, that felt good, that looked good.
I want more of that.
Just understand that as you do that in the world, basically you're drinking gasoline,
a consumable that once exposed to God's consuming fire, it will light you up.
And for a moment, you'll burn very brightly and then it will all be gone.
And according to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, if you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord
and Savior, you will still make it in as if through fire.
That's what the scripture says.
I want to live, I really do want to live under the auspices of a God who is a consuming fire,
who is jealous.
He is not only jealous for what He gave me, but He is jealous for me.
So much so that He is my protection, my keeper.
He is the one who will hide me out in an incredible fortress and keep me safe.
If I would just choose to exhibit gratitude, acceptable service, reverence and awe toward
Him after, of course, having accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord, that means He tells me
what to do when I do it, as my Savior, that means He paid the price for my sins.
Will you cry out to God today?
Internally, you don't have to go, Oh God, where are you sitting?
If you don't want to.
Will you internally say to God, God, I want to be your servant.
I don't want to keep adding things on to me.
I don't want to keep enjoying things and stacking them one after another, finding ways to have
more.
Rather, I will ask of the things that come into my life, do they belong or do they not?
I will get up in the morning and I will try to live a life of gratitude toward you because
you did this for me.
You did for me what I couldn't do.
Has it ever been seen?
Has there ever been a God like this who claimed for Himself a people who paid such a high
price to claim for Himself a people that out of all the nations, all those who believe
and receive Christ could have a permanent seat in heaven?
And on top of that, live on this earth as this people, has that ever been done?
There is no other God.
Why do people get tangled up in money that stays for so long?
Because money is the transfer currency, right?
It's how you get the other consumables.
Why do people get wrapped up in food and they eat too much and their arteries get clogged,
they overweight, all these kinds of things?
Because it's consumable.
And every time you eat, it tastes good.
It must be realistic.
It feeds you so you can do what you need to do.
Why do people get wrapped up and stay in too late and involving themselves in shows or
games or whatever at night?
Because it's enjoyable.
Why do people get out of bed in the morning, dead dog tired, can't go do what they're supposed
to do?
And they're not tired because they served the Lord faithfully the previous day.
They're tired because they spent the resources of the Lord aggressively the previous day.
They repent and turn to God because he is a consuming fire and a jealous God.
And there would be no way to be saved because of our imperfections.
Well, because Jesus went, Oh, by the way, Moses is our example, having right, not been
allowed to go to the promised land.
Who else faced the wrath of God?
Jesus.
Can you not see?
He is a consuming fire and a jealous God.
Somebody had to pay.
So Jesus came to the flesh and Jesus grave the consuming fire.
Jesus faced the jealous God.
God essentially sort of turned away from him and he died a sinner's death.
So it's been painful.
That's how your eternity was sealed.
Are you not grateful?
That's the crazy thing.
Come forward and meet us in our closing time at this time.
This is your opportunity to really ask yourself, what is the Lord saying to me?
What part of my life am I adding to my life?
I'm not adding to my life.
I'm not adding things in and consuming things that are not honoring God.
And it can be anything.
And by the way, these are not bad things.
Most of them.
If you're sleeping around, that's a bad thing.
You should stop.
If you're indulging in pornography, that's a bad thing.
You should stop.
But the bottom line is food's not bad.
Money's not bad.
Job's not bad.
Movies aren't bad.
Games aren't bad.
No, it's bad.
It's not bad stuff.
It's good stuff.
Misused, overused, consumed, good stuff.
And that's what Jesus is saying to me.
He's saying to me, I'm not going to be able to do anything.
I'm not going to be able to do anything.