How to Touch the Greatness of God II

Visitors are going to come forward right now. Ushers quickly come up here. If you happen to be visiting while people are turning their Bibles, we're glad you've come. We want to give you a little packet of information about Norfolk. So you lift your hand up as the ushers come down now, and they'll be happy to slip one of these. In fact, Anne, walk up and give me one of those things so I can show them. Thank you so much. Visitors, get one of these packets. Go ahead, that's it. Many of you are putting your hands up. Hold them up high so the ushers can see you. There we go. Some back on your right there, Doug. Back in there. Is there anyone else? Great. Over here on the left, there's quite a few. So good to have you all. During the conclusion, you can read through that material, and there's a card in there we'd like you to fill out. Most importantly, right after the service visitors where it says Visitor Center, we'd like to greet you there for a few moments. We have a 10-minute video to show you. I trust you have the time. In fact, you can't get out of the parking lot any faster, so you might as well just come and join us for about 10 minutes. I'd like to meet you and just kind of get to know you a little bit. Speaking of seeds, unless I forget this too, we've got a fax this week from our mission team, Pastor Ralph and the folks down in Mexico. It says, Dear Brothers and Sisters, All arrived safely. Everyone is healthy. Attendance at services in the film, they're showing the Jesus film every evening, 1,200 people have seen the film so far, 125 decisions for Christ. This part is neck rate, so they want us to keep praying to get back, I think, late this week. Friday, Saturday, something like that? No, early this week. Okay. Psalm 18, are you there? This is David writing. I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. My God is my rock in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death entangled me. The torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me, and the snares of death confronted me. He was having a pretty bad day apparently. In my distress, I called to the Lord. I cried to my God for help. And from His temple, He heard my voice. My cry came before Him into His ears. He parted the heavens and came down. Dark clouds were under His feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew. He soared in the wings of the wind. He made darkness His covering, His canopy around Him, the dark rain clouds of the sky. How many of you remember growing up and being afraid of the dark? Let me see your hands. Wow. How many of you still are? Let me see your hands. You know, I did a little scientific calculation here. I've calculated that we spend half of our lives living in the dark. Right? I mean, that's about right, isn't it? You know, it all works out that way. And we don't ever really get totally acclimated. How many of you still prefer the day to the night? There's a few weirdos that are going to put their hand up. No, I like night better, but most of us do. We're drawn, I mean, we like the light. But darkness is a fact of life. I want to submit to you this morning, very important, that our walk with God is no different. That we walk with God in times of great light, great victory, great revelation, and God seems to light our path, and we know where He is, and we follow Him, and we see Him clearly. And then we walk with God, dear ones, in times when He seems shrouded in darkness, and we don't know where He is, and we're not sure where we're to go, and we even ask the question, God, where are you? Has that ever happened to you? Richard Foster, who is one of my favorite authors, wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline some years ago, and just a very, very lucid kind of author. For seven years he didn't write another book, and just recently he wrote a book on prayer, and in the preview he said, For 18 months, 18 months, God was silent, and I felt like I was walking in darkness. Darkness is part of our walk with God, and it isn't easy sometimes to understand what is God doing? Where is He when I don't see Him, when I can't figure Him out? Look at Psalm 1811 again. It says that He makes the darkness His secret place. It's part of the mystery of God. Last week we talked about God's greatness and His power to control everything. I mean, the fact that He is awesome and worthy of our allegiance and obedience, but there are also times in our walk with Him when we have to see Him as the God of the secret place, of the mystery, where we don't really understand what He's doing, and yet we know from His character that He's not left us. We just don't know how to find Him, to get to Him. And I want you to put on just a little metaphor on your mind right now, because I want you to know that I believe the Bible says that it's at those times when darkness, the darkness of circumstance or confusion or struggle is the worst in our life, that if we invite the Lord, He'll come in, and the Bible says, now here's the metaphor, He'll clothe Himself with that darkness. He'll put the darkness on Him like a cloak, and we don't understand. It's a mystery. I mean, why would the God, who the Bible says, has no shadow of turning? John said that, Lord, there is no darkness in you at all. Why would that God choose to clothe Himself from time to time in the darkness of our life, in our circumstance? This last Monday, I compelled all my kids to put their schedules aside. We got in the car together, drove well on the other side of the city to visit an aunt of mine who, frankly, I just haven't seen that much. She's a step-aunt. I was embarrassed about how infrequently we've been together, but I discovered through my mom that she had been diagnosed as having a brain tumor and was not really given a lot of hope by the doctors to live very long. And so I said, kids, we're going to go see this aunt. We got in the car, and we showed up at her apartment where she lived for 23 years. We walked in, and of course I didn't know what to expect. I knew that chemotherapy and all had been pretty devastating in her physical body and all that kind of stuff, but she was fairly strong when she greeted us. When we walked in, the first thing I noticed was she had heavy blankets over the windows to keep the light out because the medication she was on was light-sensitive, and it created a reaction in her body. So it was this sort of darkness. And for the next few moments, I knew God had a purpose in this time, and it was powerful to me that over the next hour, we talked about God. We talked about the love of God. She even said to us, you know, and though she was raised in a different tradition, she said, you know, for the first time in my life that I'm really, really needy, and I can't do it on my own. And here's what she said, the only people that are really caring for me, that are getting out there and getting me groceries and coming to visit me and taking care of me, the only people, and this was her term, were born-again Christians. And she said, you know, when I get a little better, and it was so good to hear her say that, I'm going to get out and I want to go to this church down the road that I went to just a few months ago before this all happened, where the people talk about God and they're friendly and they read the Bible. And I said, God, in the midst of this darkness, you're working perhaps the greatest miracle of this woman's life, and I'm praying for that. You know, some people don't even believe that God is ever around in the dark. In your notes, if you're taking notes today, I hope you are, look at that insert. I just want to touch this a little more quickly than I have in the past. There are three kinds of positions about God's sovereignty at work in times of darkness. Some of you who have grown up in a tradition of heavily what's called Reformed Theology, where what you're taught is God's in control of everything, and He is, and that, you know, basic posture of life is, hey, God's got it. I mean, everything, God's doing it all. It doesn't kind of matter. Just sort of sit back and what happens, happens. And your theme verse for life is Romans 8, 28, which says, All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Right? Let's flash that up, please. Romans 8, 28. That's a wonderful promise. But listen, I want to share something with you that's made a big impact in my life. Always put Romans 8, 28 in its context. Read the first, the previous two verses, please, Shannon, if you'll slide that up. In the same way, read it with me. In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with the will of God. You want to know that God's working all things together for good? Then be sure, above everything else, that you have come before the Lord and allowed the Spirit of God to pray through you for the will of God to happen. There are far too many people in this church who just let stuff happen to them. They just kind of say, Well, you know, I guess I'm going to get tromped on again. When, in fact, the Bible would teach you to intercede by the Spirit and allow God's Spirit to make intervention in your life, therefore bringing about the purposes and will of God for you. Now, the other side, if I may, the other side of this response to darkness in our life is what I'm going to call a contrived triumphalism. Do you know anybody that every time you go up to them, no matter what, you say, Well, how are you doing? They say, Oh, glory to God, I'm fine. Their eyes are swelling, puffy, shot red, and their tears flowing down their noses. But I'm victorious. And what they're trying to do is convince themselves that God hasn't failed them. Here's my appeal in this, simply this. Folks, I believe in positive confession. In fact, thank God for the fact that that's been a major teaching over the last 20 years because I think the body of Christ is so prone to be negative, this has helped to at least bring some positiveness. But listen, positive confession was never meant to be a head trip with God where we try to convince Him that we really believe while all along in our hearts we're wondering where is God? You see, the problem with positive confession, if you take it to the extreme, is at one time or another it doesn't happen the way you say it's going to happen and then you're wondering where is God? I want to submit to you there's a better alternative. I call it Kingdom Confession. And that's when you have the courage to call out to God and to admit to Him that you're in deep trouble and it's not going the way you hoped it would go or expected it to go but you choose to believe what He's promised is in fact happening even though you don't see the evidence. In theology it's called the Kingdom of God is present but not yet fulfilled. It's here but not yet in fullness. How many planted gardens this spring? Let me see your hands. Garden planters. Long about March or April if I'd gone to you and said, Linda, do you have a garden? You would've said, sure I do. If I would've said, show me your garden you would've walked me out there and what would I have seen in March or April? I'll say it again. Dirt. You're right. Just a pile of dirt. No real proof there's any garden. But now if you showed me what would you see? Hopefully. Lots of weeds. You need some positive confession over here. You'd see flowers and or vegetables. You see, did you have a garden back in March and April? Yes you did. It just hadn't come up. Likewise, God has planted the seed of faith in many of our lives and it just hasn't come up. Is it wrong to say, I have it? No, you do have it but by faith it hasn't quite come up yet. You see the difference? I mean, I really think that's the way to go. You say, God, your word says I have it. I believe I have it but God, I'm hurting right now. I'm just holding on. I'm believing. You know, sometimes God chooses to take us out of circumstance and sometimes God chooses to take us through them. I prefer out. Don't you? That's the way I like to, out. You know, God, beam me up, Lord. I'm ready. Quick. My experience, I don't know about yours, my experience, God, that's not the norm. It's usually, I'll be there with you through. Some years ago, about seven years ago now, a small little group of us stood right out here under the portico of this building when it went up for auction. Our circumstance was we were packed into a little Catholic church down in Route 19 and it wasn't working all that well. It wasn't enough space. It was kind of clammy and cold and everything was not going well and we said, you've got to do something and God chose to lift us out. Boom. Fifteen minute meeting, it was over. We bought the building, half of what we thought it was going to cost and here we are. The current circumstance, God's kind of chosen to take us through it. It's just been a little longer process. He's teaching us new things about faith and trust. I don't know which it will be but dear ones, in the middle of that battle of going through it, you've got to understand something. Even when it seems dark to you, God is at work in the dark. Let me conclude with three ways in Scripture I see that God used darkness to cloak His activity and bring about a massive change. First one, back in Genesis 1. Alright, Genesis 1. You can turn there if you have your Bible. In fact, let's all do it. Genesis chapter 1, it's sort of a familiar passage, I guess. You know, in the first service I saw some people kind of looking in the index for, I thought everyone knew where that was. Genesis 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. There are two theories about what's happening there in Genesis 1. The first theory is what's called the gap theory, that God created, and how many believe God, whenever He came and He created, it's right. I mean, God doesn't have to go back and say, you know, I just didn't do that. He created it right. But verse 2 says the earth was formless and void, the indication being that there's something wrong with creation. And so the gap theory is that somewhere between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2 there was a cataclysmic occurrence that caused some sort of disruption in what God had created. And most commentators, most scholars would say that cataclysmic occurrence was the fall of Satan. That Satan was thrown out of heaven down to the earth and used his limited powers to disrupt creation and what God had put into motion. Now, the other theory is simply that there's really no gap. Genesis 1.2 really precedes what, it's just another way of saying what happened in Genesis 1.3 and beyond. That's how God created. I hold to the initial theory, the gap theory, myself. Something happened there and what it was was rebellion. And rebellion created an environment where chaos and confusion and the Bible says darkness covered the earth. Now, look at this. In the midst of that darkness God shows up and breathes His creative word and out of the chaos and confusion God brings a new order, a new day and look, even us, a new breed of creation. Here's the application. How many of you are in a situation or know of a situation where rebellion has opened the door to confusion, to chaos, to darkness? I can't tell you how many people, how many homes are represented here in our church where rebellion, I have a sense today that there's someone here, that someone in your home has rebelled against the order of God and life has fallen apart and they've sought for solace and a bottle and now alcoholism has infested its way into your home and it's ravaging your home. It's brought darkness into your family. A man called me this week on Tuesday and started just to chew on me a little bit about this and that and the church and his wife not doing what she, I called the wife, I got to her a couple of days later, she said, you know what, he's been in and out of rehab programs fifteen times in the last five years. He's a hopeless addict in my view. And you see, his openness to rebellion has precipitated a situation where now darkness has invaded his home and his marriage is in the very, very brink of destruction. But I said to that woman as I'm going to say to all of you no matter what, listen, into the rebellion and the darkness that it's created, listen, God can come and breathe a new, creative word. God can start again, but you've just got to call on him in the greatness of the mystery of his majesty and say, God, clothe yourself in the darkness of this rebellion and begin to move. Nothing is hopeless in our God, dear one. The second time I see darkness uniquely spoken of in scripture is in the book of Exodus as the children of God are being moved out of Egypt. Did we put that up? In the book of Exodus, you know this story, for 400 years the children of Israel were enslaved and as Pharaoh is approached by Moses and Moses says, you've got to let my people go, that's what God says, Pharaoh resists all the different plagues and finally, at the darkest hour, at the midnight hour, the Bible says in Exodus 14, Pharaoh, in all of his pride, rises up and says, no how, no way am I going to let these people go. And in the midst of the darkness of that oppression, God moves his children under the blood of the Lamb. You know what the vision I have in my mind, you remember the story as it's seen in the movie of the Ten Commandments as sort of the plague goes through the streets and death, it's the plague of death. You see, in the midst of that darkness, God clothed himself and worked a great deliverance of the children of Israel and moved them out of the oppression into the Red Sea, which he parted for them, under a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, into a supply of manna, into the promised land of their destiny and the victory that he'd given them over their enemies, all the way to the place where they became a people under God. All of it traces back, you see, to that time of deliverance to a people, listen, who had done nothing to create the oppression. They had inherited it. And I want to say in terms of application today, some of you are in a situation that you did nothing to precipitate. How many people here have inherited a very difficult situation, maybe a financial disaster that you really didn't cause? Maybe it's something in your home that was passed on down through the generations and it's a curse in your life at this point. I want to say to you, God will clothe Himself in the darkness of your oppression if you let Him. And He'll begin to work a delivering work to lift the oppression and provide for you a blessing beyond which you can imagine because it's been so dark you don't even know where God is. That's the kind of God that we love and serve and the kind of God that's revealed Himself to us as working His will in the dark. The final place that I see darkness talked about in the Bible is at the cross. Did you ever notice that Luke 24 and I think it's verse or Luke 23, 44 says that darkness covered the whole earth at the time of Jesus' death when He was crucified? Have you ever wondered why that was? What was it? Was it a solar eclipse? What was it? A brownout? Why did darkness cover the earth? Two reasons I've thought of. Listen. The first one is possibly as one commentator said it's as though creation itself was so offended by what man was doing to God that creation itself would not participate. And so the sun shut down. His death could not hold Him and in that power Jesus was raised up. He shed off the darkness of our sin rose up out of hell and brought with Him a train of captives that He set free. You can say hallelujah because it's you and me. What's the application? It's simply this. If you're in the midst of a struggle with personal sin today so much so that you think where is God? God wouldn't answer me. I've been through this so many times. I want you to know something. Our Lord loves us so much that He will come and He will clothe Himself even in the darkness of our worst failures and work a redemptive creative miracle to bring us back to Him. I don't care how far you've slipped how many times you've prayed the prayer ask God today to come in and clothe Himself in the darkness of your life. And that's the miracle. What a friend we have in Jesus. But you've got to ask Him. You can't just hope that it will happen. You can't sit back and say well, whatever happens, happens. You've got to speak. You've got to confess your trust in the Lord in the midst of this difficult time. You see, this is the mystery of it all. The God who holds the waters of the world in the palms of His hands. The God who stretches out the heavens with the breadth of His fingers. The God who holds the mountains in His scale also clothes Himself in darkness in the mystery of His majesty and works in our deepest darkest times to set us free to redeem us to give us a fresh hope. That's what His word said. And King David knew that like no other man in the face of the earth. In the beginning of this psalm we read, didn't we that the coils of death speaking of Saul who was chasing him had ensnared him. He felt like he was being tugged under by a current of destruction. Anyone here feel that way? Pulled under. You know, one time in my life I almost drowned. I thought I was as impervious to any kind of thing like that as some of you think today sitting here. I was like 25 years old. I was in the Pacific Ocean and got caught in an undertow and could not make it in and I thought I was going to drown. And I remember crying out to the Lord saying, Jesus, I'm ready but I don't want to go. And some of us feel today we're in the midst of a circumstance that's going to pull us under. I want you to know something. David felt that way and he found that God rode in those dark clouds and worked a great deliverance. And I can say and so can you as David ended the psalm Psalm 18 verse 46 The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock and let the God of my salvation be exalted. We can say today with assurance God in the midst of my darkest hour you live.