Rev. David Holwick Q Grow Your Faith, #4
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
May 25, 2014
Genesis 28:10-22
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I. It is prom season.
A. I was not great at proms.
I went to two of them, and each time took my sister’s best
friend.
She barely danced with me or talked with me, but at least
I got to say I went to the prom.
I remember the theme song for the first one - “Stairway
To Heaven” by Led Zeppelin.
One of the things I remember was that it seemed to go on
forever and ever.
It is a classic rock anthem, written in 1971, the year
before our prom.
And it is back in the news this week - an obscure rock and
roll guitarist named Randy California claims the opening
chords of the song were ripped off from him.
His claim is plausible because his band played with Led
Zeppelin many times. [1]
It is indisputable that Led Zeppelin got inspiration from
another source as well - the Bible.
“Stairway To Heaven” alludes to Jacob’s experience where he
could see the connection between heaven and earth.
It is an experience you can have as well.
B. How intimate can you get with God?
1) We usually associate religion with its practices.
a) You go to church.
b) You read a Bible.
c) You spend time in prayer.
d) You do some religious thing and expect God to be there
somewhere.
2) God is bigger than religion.
a) I like to think you can feel extra-close to God by
coming to our church services.
b) However, most of your life you are not going to be
here, no matter how religious you are.
3) True Christians find that God can be experienced anywhere.
a) Even mundane locations or events can become spiritual
experiences.
b) Are you perceptive enough to see God everywhere in life?
II. Perceiving God in the ordinary moments.
A. Brother Lawrence’s insight.
1) He was an obscure French monk who lived 400 years ago.
2) His biggest job was being the monastery’s cook but it was
there that he developed his philosophy of experiencing
the continual presence of God.
3) He came to believe that ordinary life could reveal God’s
love.
He kept a journal that was published only after he died,
but it has made him famous.
It is simply called “Practicing the Presence of God.”
To Lawrence, the holiness or mundaneness of a job mattered
less than your motivation behind it.
He wrote in his journal:
“It is not necessary that you accomplish great things...
We can do little things for God;
I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him,
and when that is done, if there is nothing else to do,
I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has
given me the ability to work.
Afterwards I get up happier than a king.
It is enough for me to just pick up a straw from the ground
to experience the love of God.” [2]
4) Are you conscious of God when you go to work?
a) How about when you are in your car?
1> Or doing housework?
b) You can sense God at any time if you want to.
B. See God in nature.
1) If your spiritual life feels dry, try a change of scenery.
2) Meditate during a summer storm -- King David did this, and
wrote Psalm 29.
Verse 9 says, “The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and
strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry,
‘Glory!’“
3) I feel his presence the most on a high mountain, when the
air is bracing and the sounds of civilization fade away.
a) Even a path in the woods can bring you to a different
place, spiritually.
b) Christians don’t worship Nature - Nature and God are
not the same thing.
c) But God created Nature, and when you consider the works
of his hands you will be humbled and your spirit
stilled.
4) This week, why not take an hour or two and go to a place
in nature that is special to you.
a) Contemplate God’s qualities and his plan for you.
C. See God in people.
1) Humans are God’s greatest creation.
a) You might think he was taking a nap on that day and
missed some parts for some people, but we still
possess the image of the divine.
b) To draw close to God, get close to people.
1> Human love reveals something special about the
love that God has for us.
2> The Apostle John says in 1 John 4:12,
“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one
another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us.”
2) See to love, more than to be loved.
a) Perhaps the greatest act of love is to serve others.
b) It breaks you out of your selfish shell and gives you
a new perspective on the blessings he has given you.
3) Jesus says when you serve the hungry, the stranger, the
sick and the prisoner, you are actually serving him.
a) Who could you serve this week who can’t do anything
to repay you? Make it a spiritual experience.
III. Perceiving God at critical moments.
A. Jacob wasn’t your typical believer.
1) He was more of a con-artist.
a) He conned his brother, he conned his father.
b) When he was born, he was grabbing his twin brother’s
foot in his hand. Gen 25:26
c) He spent his life concocting schemes to get ahead.
1> Maybe he was a typical believer after all!
2) One thing he doesn’t seem to do is seek God.
a) The only time he mentions God’s name before this is
to bolster a flat-out lie.
b) At the end of today’s chapter, Jacob says he will
follow God -IF- God comes through on the promises
that were made in the dream.
c) At this point Jacob is more of a mercenary than a
believer.
1> What happens to him next becomes his turning point.
B. His most important spiritual experience came out of the blue.
1) Isaac, his father, had sent Jacob back to the old country
to get a nice girl for a wife.
a) One thing Jacob got right is that he always obeyed
his dad.
2) Along the way, he stopped for the night at a nondescript
place. 28:11
a) He used a rock as a pillow.
b) As he fell asleep, he had a vision of a stairway to
heaven.
1> The King James describes it as a ladder but a
staircase is more appropriate way to translate.
2> Jacob knew it was heavenly because angels were
going back and forth on it.
3> He came to understand that God was real, and he
could fulfill his promises.
C. At a critical time in your life, have you ever experienced this?
1) Tragedy, sickness, or financial meltdown can hit any of us.
2) You can seek God by walking in the woods and helping a
neighbor, but Jacob’s experience is something you
cannot manufacture on your own.
a) God has to give it to you.
b) If you need it, he will.
1> But sometimes when we desperately want it, we get
nothing.
2> Why is this?
IV. When you don’t sense God at all, he is still there.
A. A missionary’s Gethsemane.
Darlene Deibler Rose was a young American missionary in the
jungles of New Guinea in the 1940s.
During World War II she was captured by the Japanese and
spent four years in a prison camp.
Through beatings, horrible illnesses, the cruelties of her
guards, and the death of her husband, she continually felt
a powerful sense of God’s loving presence sustaining her.
But toward the end of her imprisonment, something changed.
At the time, she was in solitary confinement and severely
malnourished.
Her sense of inner peace evaporated.
She wrote:
“Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I felt enveloped in a
spiritual vacuum.
‘Lord, where have You gone?
Why have You withdrawn Your presence from me?’
In panic I jumped to my feet, my heart frantically searching
for a hidden sin, for a careless thought, for any reason why
my Lord should have withdrawn his presence from me.
My prayers ... seemed to go no higher than the ceiling....
I prayed for forgiveness, for the Holy Spirit to search my
heart.
To none of my petitions was there any apparent response.”
Rose spent the night crying out to God, trying to figure out
why she couldn’t feel his presence.
When no answer came, she prayed:
“Lord, I believe all that the Bible says.
I do walk by faith and not by sight.
I do not need to FEEL You near, because your Word says You
will never leave me nor forsake me.
Lord, I confirm my faith; I believe.”
At that moment the words of Hebrews 11:1 came to her mind:
‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, THE EVIDENCE
OF THINGS NOT SEEN.’
“...Evidence not seen -- that was what I put my trust in -- not
in feelings or moments of ecstasy, but in the unchanging
Person of Jesus Christ....
I felt that I understood what Job meant when he declared,
‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him’ (Job 13:15).”
Miss Rose concluded that you can feel God’s presence, and we
should seek it.
But we cannot base our faith on a foundation of emotional
experience.
If we base our faith on feelings, when the feelings go, the
faith will flee.
FAITH IS BEING SURE OF WHAT WE HOPE FOR AND CERTAIN OF WHAT
WE DO NOT SEE.
#34217
B. Wisdom from Laura Story’s song “Blessings.”
We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe
‘Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to
know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise.
V. You have access to the heavenly staircase.
A. Better than a staircase, we have a Savior. John 1:51
After Jesus had amazed Nathaniel with his supernatural
knowledge, Jesus told his disciples this:
“I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels
of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
B. To really see God, we must experience his Son.
1) Jesus is the purest expression of God’s love for us.
2) Like Jacob, we must choose to believe.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
1. “Not Too Late For A Lawsuit Against Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’,”
by Peter Decherney, May 21, 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdecherney/2014/05/21/not-too-late-for-a-lawsuit-against-led-zeppelins-stairway-to-heaven/>
2. “Brother Lawrence,” Wikipedia.org; paraphrased by Holwick.
#34217 “What We Do Not Feel,” Betsy Childs, A Slice of Infinity: Ravi
Zacharias International Ministries; http://www.gospelcom.net/slice/,
February 27, 2007. It draws upon the book by Darlene Deibler Rose,
Evidence of Things Not Seen (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988),
155-156.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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Another possible illustration for this message:
The famous author G.K. Chesterton was a devout believer. One day he was standing on a London street corner when a newspaper reporter approached him. The reporter said, “Sir, I understand that you recently became a Christian. May I ask you one question?” “Certainly,” replied Chesterton. “If the risen Christ suddenly appeared at this very moment and stood behind you, what would you do?” Chesterton looked the reporter squarely in the eye and said, “He is.”
(#25089)
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