Services/Sermon in Glendale 19.04.2020

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let us begin this day in opening prayer and thanksgiving.

Dear Heavenly Father, we ask for your service blessing today as we gather around your word. We ask that you would send us comfort, you would send us patience. And dear Heavenly Father, that you would strengthen our faith today so that we can trust that what we experience today is temporary. What we experience in our time is put before us to strengthen our faith so that one day that faith that you have blessed us with will be changed to that which sees perfectly and most clearly. Then we can lay aside that which is necessary for this time and live in the perfection that your Son is creating for us there in eternity.

Cause us to be still this morning, dear Heavenly Father, that we might open our ears to hear, our hearts to believe. And that we can, again for this day, remain a child in your kingdom on the way to heaven.

And we pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses. We forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

For our services this morning, I thought to read the psalm text that has been set aside for this day. This day when we ponder the ascended Lord Jesus. And we read from the psalm text for this day, the 116th psalm, verses 1-9, in Jesus' name as follows.

I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he has inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous, yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple. I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul. For the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Amen.

When you heard this portion of God's word read, I would suspect that you were like me, and that it felt familiar. It was also something, no doubt, that the believers and the disciples perhaps read when their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, left them. Although he visited with them, I believe it was three times, after his death and resurrection there from the grave, he did have to leave them permanently, so that, as Jesus said, the Comforter would come and teach us in all things.

But dear brothers and sisters, you know, as I know, and as the disciples soon began to comprehend, that Jesus was not going to leave forever. As in his word, he so promised, that when he leaves, he is going to prepare a place for you and I, and for the believers, there in eternity. So that when he comes again, to gather his own, all will be prepared there for eternity.

You may remember, as you've read, perhaps in the past weeks, the events of Easter, where after the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples gathered amongst themselves, and even hid for fear of what may befall them, after seeing what had happened to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

What had happened, as you recall, he was there upon the cross, suffering the death of a criminal, although guiltless. And how comforting it was for the disciples, when Jesus visited them after his resurrection.

You may have read, and you may remember, when Jesus visited his disciples, who were traveling to another town. At first, they didn't recognize him, but then he revealed unto them who he was. And he visited them about the Holy Word of God. He visited them about the endeavor.

And what was it that the disciples concluded after that conversation? Did not our hearts burn within us, when he opened the scriptures unto us?

Such experience is not dissimilar to what you and I, dear brothers and sisters, even can experience in this time when we have gathered with brothers and sisters, sometimes even on our own, when we have gathered to read and study the Holy Written Word of God. When God in those moments has sent a period of clarity, a period of great comfort, when the Word, for that moment and that occasion, gives us such peace and stillness.

And it is as if we were like the disciples. When the Word was opened unto us, as it was with them from our Lord and Savior Jesus, it burned within us.

No doubt, the disciples needed often to turn to prayer after the events of Easter, after the events of the resurrection and ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus. Because, like us, they were of little and weak faith.

We remember there when the disciples started to wonder what are they going to do now? What is it that we ought to do after our Lord and Savior has left us?

I believe it was Peter who asked the disciples or mentioned to the disciples that I'm going fishing. Perhaps he thought it was now that Jesus was gone, it was time to return to their temple calling.

They were out on the lake for many hours, perhaps all day and all night. And there, nothing was being found in the nets when they pulled them in.

But as morning came, there was someone there standing on the shore, and he called out to the disciples saying, or inquiring of them how their fishing expedition had gone. And they had said that they had caught nothing.

And then he had told them and instructed them to cast the nets onto the other side. And there, the nets were full of many, many fish.

And there, they dragged those fish upon the shore. And they understood and they could see that it was, again, another visitation of the resurrected Lord Jesus to them.

And in that moment, he called to them, called onto them and reminded them of their duty, as he did specifically to Peter when he said, feed my sheep.

It was no doubt, we could say, or at least when I reflect on, or I try to personify that event, and I think of myself there as a disciple, when Jesus commanded them to go and continue feeding his sheep, would have been a very intimidating task.

Because for several years, the believers, or the disciples rather, had been there around our Lord and Savior Jesus, learning and being taught right from the hand of the Master, right at the feet of the Master, the Lord Jesus, the perfect Teacher.

And now, it was incumbent upon them to wait upon that revelation that would come from the Holy Spirit, as Jesus so promised.

And this is where we are, dear brothers and sisters, in our time. We wait upon the Lord through the Holy Spirit to give us and to teach us of the endeavor.

And what is it that we wait upon, wait for, dear brothers and sisters? We're in a time of Advent, a time of waiting for the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And now, in this time, we are left to feed his sheep. We are left to feed those whom the Spirit calls into this fellowship that you and I rejoice that we have a name of a child of God and dwell in this fellowship of the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

This unified kingdom of which there is one Trinity, one Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is one gospel, there is one message of glad tidings, there is one faith, one baptism, as was reminded there in the letters to the new congregations in the New Testament.

There is one. There is no division, there is no separation. But there is, dear brothers and sisters, as you no doubt have experienced, something that tries to come into this unity, that tries to sever or separate this unity.

He has been there from the beginning and he manifests himself in three ways. The enemy of souls who begins to tempt us, he draws us away with our own flesh, he draws us away by the temptations in the world, and directly he speaks to us and challenges us in our need for faith.

Where is it, dear brothers and sisters, that we find strength and comfort for this battle against the enemy which desires to take away faith?

We find it there in the word of God. We find it there in the gathering of his children. We find it there when we are able to visit about the endeavor, forgiveness for the blessings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which again was to draw us close onto him.

And there we find forgiveness from the work of the enemy who has caused us to fall, who has caused us to doubt.

We find forgiveness in the shed blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, where you and I can personally approach those fountains of grace in a time of need and believe completely, believe personally that our sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

And in doing so, it gives us, we are blessed with patience for a moment in the journey.

The psalmist lamented and rejoiced because he said, I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplication.

The Lord hears our prayers, he hears our voice, even when we cannot express it perfectly. The Father in heaven knows so clearly what we need, even when all we can muster is but a brief sigh.

As he says, he has inclined his ear unto me, he bends down to listen, he leans in, all knowing, all seeing, what is our need.

And as the psalmist, we have need to call upon him while we yet live. And have trust to continue to call upon him as long as we live.

Like the psalmist, we feel the sorrows of death around us, the pains of hell close. We find trouble and sorrow.

When, dear brothers and sisters, do you find this to come about most powerfully? When have you found that death wraps its ropes around you and the terrors of the grave begin to overtake you and you can only see trouble and sorrow?

Perhaps you are like me when I begin to try to find strength in this endeavor inside of myself and not there on the middle cross of Golgotha.

When I begin to find within myself the power, the capacity or the ability to overcome the deficiencies I see within myself, the deficiencies and the weaknesses of my endeavor, when I begin to look inwardly, I feel and see and experience only trouble and sorrow as the psalmist did.

Because what have you found, dear brothers and sisters, when you have endeavored to look inwardly for strength and power?

You see that which is of this earth, that which will return to this earth, corruption, that inherited portion that you and I carry and will carry until the end.

What is our strength and weapon, dear brothers and sisters, against this corruption? What did the psalmist say? Then called I upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

There was a petition given, a prayer sent to the heavenly father to save him, save him from his own corruption, because there in the Lord Jesus is our redemption, salvation.

There in the nail wounds from the cross on Golgotha, where the blood flowed freely, is our sanctification and justification.

You, dear brothers and sisters, have been made acceptable unto the heavenly father, because of the work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And so, dear child of God, how silly, how folly it is for us to begin to try to look inward, where there is nothing but corruption.

But may we, in these moments, in prayer, look outward and upward to the cross on Golgotha and bond to our victory, which is heaven.

And then, God in his time gives us these moments where we can see briefly, but perfectly, that our destination, which we are on, leads to heaven.

Our destination ends in victory, glory, because it has been prepared for by our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

How kind or how gracious is our Lord. He is righteous, he is merciful, he is good, God, dear child of God, is good.

And the Lord preserveth the simple, the Lord protects those with childlike faith.

What, dear brothers and sisters, is childlike faith? We speak about this often. Dear brothers and sisters, perhaps you can even ponder now this matter of childhood faith.

God so wills, we will visit, even here.

Childlike faith, dear brothers and sisters, is faith that isn't from within. Childlike faith is God-given, that allows us to set aside or lay aside our instinct to look inward to find a solution.

But with the miraculousness of our Heavenly Father, He has gifted to us the ability in faith to see, to hear a simple message, a simple message of faith, a simple message to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, a simple message to war against that which separates us from this faith, the powers of sin, the powers of the enemy, with His strength, saving gospel message, namely this, dear brothers and sisters, this which you comprehend and believe in childlike faith, that your sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

This, dear brothers and sisters, is such a concept that I myself find often pondering and wondering about because it remains a mystery.

It remains such a mystery, dear brothers and sisters, that you and I hear and see what we see. And that we not only hear it and see it, but we comprehend it so that we can believe it.

No wonder the psalmist says, gracious is the Lord, righteous is our God, and merciful is he.

The Lord, as we have spoken, preserveth the simple. I was brought low and he helped me.

Dear child of God, have you needed to be brought low so that you can be helped?

Remember when the rich man approached Jesus and his instruction was to get rid of all, give away all which he had accumulated monetarily and temporally and become as a child.

Have you found it difficult not to trust in your own abilities? Have you found it difficult to earnestly say, dear Heavenly Father, thy will be done?

I have said it from my lips, but it is another matter, dear brothers and sisters, to from the heart, trust in that petition.

Because we are left in this place that only God will give and provide as he sees fit.

We are left to use those gifts and abilities that he has blessed on to us temporally and spiritually for his glory and for his doing.

It isn't, dear brothers and sisters, that in this time we leave a legacy in the history books of man, but it is only this that our testimony at the closing of our eyes to this life was such that we were a child of God endeavoring on the way to heaven, endeavoring under the grace care of the forgiveness of sins.

Trusting in the Lord Jesus as the one who sanctified us and who has redeemed us and justified us before the heavenly father.

So from this low place, dear brothers and sisters, then the heavenly father can build.

He can't build there where the foundation isn't the Lord Jesus.

If the foundation is our impureness or whoever, that is faulting and crumbling and weak.

But when the foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ, there it remains a sturdy foundation.

And what can be built upon there at least has a good foundation.

Although the work of the enemy in our time may cause that which gets built upon there to become weak and susceptible to the enemy and the work thereof, what remains there after the in the end, is this that it was the table straps that were there that fell to the sure foundation of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It was not work that was done for individual glory or individual vanities, but was faithful work that was done as we have been called to do in our mission command by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Faithful work that is only this, that dear brothers and sisters, when you have been given so much, we serve our neighbor with this prayer, dear child of God, that in our weak confession of faith, one would be called into the place of repentance, and along with us, live in the hope of eternity in heaven, and live in the fellowship of believers where we can find those weapons to fight against the work of the enemy, and where we can return time and time again to the fountains of grace.

Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

So we can rest there, dear brothers and sisters, with the knowledge that the Lord has been good to us, the Lord has given unto you the name of a child of God, death.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from failing.

We have been saved from an eternal death because we have life in eternity, dear child of God.

Our eyes, although they tear along this journey for many reasons, in eternity there is no longer any tears.

My feet are prone to falling, dear brothers and sisters, no doubt like you. We are prone to stumble, but this, dear brothers and sisters, these tears and these stumblings are the nature of the endeavor.

For when we are yet weeping, and when we are yet stumbling, we are yet endeavoring.

We are yet not looking inwardly for something to dry our tears. We are not looking inwardly for something to sure our feet.

But we go from tears and stumbling to moments of sanctuary in the house of the Heavenly Father here upon this earth when we for a moment can there rest in the shed blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and personally believe all sins and doubts of the journey forgiven, that which has caused tears and stumblings forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

Dear child God, this morning and at this moment, lift up your heart personally to believe this gospel message which is timeless. Believe sins forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

Psalmist concludes, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

And so you and I walk now in the presence of the Lord amongst his escorts that he has sent us, amongst the great counsel and the perfect counsel of his spirit here upon this earth.

And it allows us to remain on this earth waiting for our victory when we close our eyes to this life.

Dear child of God, we don't know individually when this end will come. We don't know if it is soon or far away.

But even the elders will tell us, dear child of God, as they approach the advent of their days, they approach the evening of their days, they will tell you that time has gone so quickly.

And how important it is, dear child of God, that we don't let the matters of this time overcome us so that it takes away our trust and our faith.

Rejoice, dear brothers and sisters today, that you are a child of God. Rejoice that you have escorts that keep us on this way.

And rejoice, dear child of God, that today, if today is indeed our last, we have hope of heaven and hope there for eternity.

And dear child of God, if there is one hearing these services this morning, who finds in themselves the heaviness of sin, the heaviness of burden there upon the conscience, don't battle this with your own strength, but seek out there in the kingdom of God an escort that you can open up and speak of the nature of the endeavor and lay aside by name that which the enemy has caused you to battle and fall into so that the enemy isn't victorious, but you can remain in this living hope, this hope that leads one day to heaven and there in those services you can put all sins away and leave them forgiven there in the name and blood of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

There is no deficiencies in this gospel message of the kingdom of God. Believe it unto peace, freedom, and joy.

And may you have this prayer that today's faith can accomplish what it needs and that the Heavenly Father will bless us a portion of faith for tomorrow for what we may experience.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Let us close in the benediction.

The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make His face shine upon us and be gracious unto us. The Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us Thy peace.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen.