Finally, Dr. John E. Passavant Part I

This is indeed a time of rejoicing tonight. And as I sat here at the very beginning, as soon as Mike began leading that first song, before you turn your chairs around, even there was a special energy and clarity to the singing was beautiful. And there is a. A sense of a capacity that God has given this body to rejoice together. And it's fitting that we should rejoice. It's fitting that we should rejoice because we share a common value in our brother J and his family, in the effort that went into the accomplishment of his doctoral degree. And it's fitting that we should learn how to rejoice together, because rejoicing is a part of the very atmosphere of heaven. In Luke chapter 15, that well known passage where Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep and then the lost coin, and then the lost son, at the conclusion of each of those stories, he describes how each person involved in finding something that was dear to them called their friends and their neighbors together and said, rejoice with me. And then he said, even so, all of heaven rejoices when one sinner comes to repentance. What is it that enables us to rejoice? What is it that would enable a group of shepherds to rejoice? Because one shepherd friend of theirs, a neighbor, found a sheep because they all understood the value of a sheep and they could enter in with him to his joy. What would enable a group of women called together by this one who found a coin that she'd lost in her house. They knew what it was. They knew the value of that coin, and they shared it with her, and they were able to rejoice. And the man whose son was reclaimed, his friends and neighbors sharing with him the value of a son, were able to rejoice. And all of the angels of heaven, in tune with the heart of God, understand the value of one soul. So every time someone comes to Christ, there can be rejoicing in heaven. And we're rejoicing with Jay and Carol in the accomplishment of what's been done there. Paul says in Philippians, rejoice in the Lord. And it's not enough for him to say it once, he's got to say, again, I say rejoice. And Christians can rejoice in the Lord. And the more we grow, and the more we understand about Jesus, the greater is our capacity to rejoice together. Because our capacity to rejoice in Jesus is directly related to our valuing of him. And as he increasingly becomes the center of what is important to us as he increasingly becomes understood by us in all of his compassion toward us, in all of his redemption. And as the more we understand redemption, the more value Jesus has to us and the greater is our capacity to rejoice together in Him. And I really believe that God is working that capacity in us, in this body. Look at Colossians, chapter one. Just want to read one paragraph, lest you fear this isn't a full fledged sermon. And as I came in tonight, Gene asked me if I was going to teach. And I said, yeah, I'm just going to be very brief. And he said, I've heard your brief introductions. Let's begin at verse 15. We're talking here. Paul is talking about Jesus. And in this we can rejoice. Listen to what it says about Him. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities. All things were created through Him. And for him he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He's the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. That in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And everybody who understands anything about Jesus at all, everybody who has any understanding in their hearts given by the Holy Spirit as to who he is, reading a passage like this and sharing it together can say, amen, Amen. And we rejoice in a passage like this as it reveals to us who Jesus is. Through him all things were created, and for him all things were created. The whole created order, for him and by Him. One of the songs that we sing, and we often sing it at the end of a service here at Northway is, they shall go out with joy, and the trees of the field shall clap their hands. And that's in Isaiah 55, is it? 55. I'm just going to read it for you. Here's a little glimpse of the created order, understanding their relationship to the Creator. Isaiah 55:12. You shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into sacrifice. Singing, rejoicing, sharing a common relationship to their Creator. And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Now, this is poetic language, to be sure. Have you ever seen a tree clap? Haven't really seen A tree clap. Ever seen its hands? Trees don't really have hands, have limbs, but not really hands. This past week, I had the joy of taking my wife on a three day business trip over to Washington. And we drove together. And as we drove, we were reading a book together. And the author of this book just so blessed my heart with his understanding of the heart of God, particularly in this issue. And he was talking about this verse in Isaiah 55, and it opened to me a whole new understanding of what it is for trees to clap their hands. Because you see trees and hills and mountains in whatever way it is, they understand. And we don't know anything about that, but they understand their place in the created order. They understand their place as created things before the Creator. And as they are there to us, immobile, just waving in the breeze or whatever, trees are expressing praise to God. How do they do that? They do that simply by doing what they're created by God to do. And that is be trees or be hills and communicating the glory of God. Romans 1 tells us that all of creation, in creation we see the power and the glory of God. And in the measure in which trees and hills and mountains are able to take their place in the created order, doing what they've been created to do, they give praise to God. And all the way back from Washington, driving through the hills of Maryland and Virginia and Pennsylvania, we heard the trees clapping their hands. You can look out and you can see the beauty that's there. And you can say, God created it. This is the handiwork of Jesus. And these trees, in all of their marvel, fitting into God's creation, put there and sustained there by the authority that God vested into Jesus, are there for his glory, and they're glorifying him. Now. There's one part of the created order that has difficulty finding that place that the trees know so well, and that's mankind. The one part of the created order that God vested with the capacity to choose. And what happened, we know what happened. And the choices that mankind makes cause the necessity for the reconciliation that it talked about in Colossians chapter one. And now Jesus is about the process of reconciling all of everything back to himself because of the disharmony and the chaos and the corruption and the decay and the sin that has been brought about by men and women not recognizing their proper place as creatures before the Creator in the whole created order. Do you see that? That when Adam made that choice, it was because he wanted to be like God, knowing good from evil, taking himself out of his rightful place in the created order and creating the need for reconciliation. And we're so familiar with the story that in Christ God is reconciling the world to himself. And Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8 that all of creation understands this in a way that we don't know. All of creation, he says, groans in travail, waiting for what? The recognition of the sons of God and those trees, even while they clap their hands, being part of God's created order. Somehow there is that consciousness in all of creation that mankind is out of order. And creation eagerly awaits the completion of the reconciliation and the redemption that Christ came to bring to all of mankind. Isn't that a marvel? Isn't that a beautiful thing? Now you and I, having come to Christ, have the possibility of returning to our proper place in the created order, returning to our position before the Creator. And you know what? That's what we're learning to do. As we worship him, as we give him his rightful place, as we sing, as we adore him, and as we say that he's above principalities and powers, and as we ascribe to him glory and majesty, even as we were just doing in so doing and in the measure in which we enter into that, we are taking our place before him as creatures of the Creator. And we're saying, lord Jesus, you made us. And you not only made us, but you made us so that we might be here before you, giving you your rightful place. And in the measure in which we understand that and enter into that, and that position, that attitude pervades our lives is the measure in which we grow up into Jesus. And he provides us with his spirit, his life in our hearts to enable us to do that, to enable us to be what he created us to be. Now he made us all different from one another. I'm so glad he did. He's a marvelous God of variety. It's amazing. Have you ever thought about how just taking the four elements of two eyes and a nose and a mouth, four things, he can place those in such amazing variety? Look around. Even identical twins aren't really identical. None of us is like any other. And he has given us, he has designed each of us. I was blessed the other day. I had on WPIT on the radio just for a few minutes on the way home from work, and I heard some Christian group, don't know their name, sort of singing a rock kind of song, obviously geared at teenagers, challenging them to recognize that they have been put together with designer jeans. And I loved it. That they're not an accident. We're built with designer genes. Thank you, Lord. Each of us endowed with different capacities and abilities and gifts. And it behooves us to understand how we're made and how God has put us together so that we can take those gifts that he has given us and use them. Now, what is it? When you or I have a gift that we have from God and we recognize it, and then we develop that gift so that we can use it, and then we use that gift, what is it that we're doing? We are doing what God created us to do.