Thank you so much for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
Riverbend Church exists to bring people to Jesus, grow
generations in Jesus, and send disciples for Jesus.
We hope that you enjoy this message can.
We just talk about just for a few moments, just how incredible
this morning has already been being able to celebrate baptism
together, new life at the 11:00 service.
We get to do it all over again. We get to celebrate baptism 3
different times in the 11:00 with three different individuals
in the 11:00. So, so incredibly thrilled about
that man Heather Story and her her just reaching out and say
said, listen, I don't want my pain and what I've gone through
to be wasted. And I wish that there was a
group that was kind of centered around like, not just my pain,
but like healing and, and where do we go from here?
I wish that there was a group like that when I went through
that. And then, you know, the Holy
Spirit of God just kind of gripping her for weeks and weeks
to, to the point of going, you know what, Heather, I'm calling
you to start that group. So at Riverbend, we are so glad
to be able to partner with Rachel's Refuge.
If that is something that you're interested in finding out more
information, here's what I would encourage you to do.
Take that connect card and on the back just write more info on
Rachel's Refuge. And then at the end of the
service, you'll drop that connect card into the giving
stations. And then we will make sure that
we connect you with Heather and make sure that you're good to
go. The first time that that small
group is going to be meeting is on November 1st.
It's going to be the first Monday night of every month.
So really, really excited about what God's going to be doing in
and through that group. Also, huge, huge thank you.
If you were here with us last week, you got to, you got to
hear Jared kind of walk us through a really, really tricky
component of this whole issue of the unseen world.
And that's the the cosmic war, the war in heaven, the rebellion
in heaven. And I love what Jared said.
You know, there's a war behind every war.
And that is so, so true. And we're going to be picking up
where he left off in just a moment.
But. Kind of going back, circling
back to the to the announcements at the very beginning of the
service, I know that Julie mentioned and you probably
noticed the signs as you were coming in and on the front of
your bulletin, we're doing something really a fall festival
called Light the Night. And here's how you can help.
You can help by signing up. We're doing like a trunk or
treat if you want to, if you want to set up and be a part of
that set up, just e-mail either Julie or Kathy for that or you
can contact the church office. We would love to get you in that
mix. If you just want to serve in
some capacity, we have some other activities you can, you
can read in your bulletin everything that's going on
there. If you're not free next Sunday
night to do that to to help or to serve in that capacity.
One of the things that you can help with is we just need candy,
right? So we need candy.
And probably the best way to remind us of candy is just to
throw out candy. And yes, I am aware that this is
pretty ironic that we're asking for candy and here I am throwing
out candy. So candy can I also give kind of
a side note about about candy when we say candy, not raisins?
Not boxes of raisins. All right, we, we want, we want
people to like, love the church and love Jesus.
Raisins don't do that. So anyway, I'll probably get
some e-mail from Raisin farmers. Anyway, here we are, week 3,
this series, The unseen world. The unseen world.
Here's what we're going to be doing this morning.
This morning, I'll go ahead and tell you upfront is going to be
and you probably can pick this up.
If you flip your flip, flip, flip your bulletin over and see
the notes. You're like, man, we're going to
be riding a lot. This morning is going to be
almost like drinking out of a fire hydrant.
And what we're doing, what we're going to walk through is not
some exhaustive in depth study. What we're going to be doing is
we're going to be walking through.
We're going to be walking through some bare essential
foundational truths that we need to know about this unseen world.
If you're new to this series, or maybe you're just new to
Riverbend, First and foremost, thank you so much for being
here, for choosing to be with us.
My name is Ben. Get the service of lead pastor.
We'd love to connect with you one-on-one or personally after
the service just for thanking you for being here.
We would also love to connect you with some, with maybe some
ministry areas or maybe some some people of similar age and
stage of life just to help form some relationships because we
know that relationships, they're kind of like the connective glue
to life. And there's just there's
something special about that sense of belonging, right?
The best way that we can connect with you is honestly through
that connect card. So whatever you feel comfortable
jotting down in terms of info, if you're new to Riverbend, just
jot that down. Drop it into the giving stations
on your way out. That also allows us to know
where to ship a small thank you gift out into the mail to you
just as our word of thanks and appreciation for you choosing to
be here with us. So let me go ahead and jump into
unseen world. If you're new to this series,
here's the gist of the series is there is a world that that we
see, that we experience, that we touch, that we smell.
It's a world that we experience with our five senses.
And then there's an unseen world, the spiritual world, the
spiritual realm that we can't see.
However, it is impacting our lives each and every day.
As a matter of fact, if you're taking notes with us this
morning, I want to introduce you kind of to the big idea
throughout this entire series, and here it is, says the unseen
world is just as real as the one I can see, and it's shaping my
life everyday. The unseen world is just as real
as the one I can see and it's shaping my life everyday.
Now I fully understand that there's a variety of people here
with us in the room and joining us online.
You may have grown up in church. You may be familiar with this
unseen, the spiritual world out there.
And my hope, my prayer, my desire for you is that you gain
some clarity, you gain some insight, but more importantly,
you gain some equipping through this series.
And then there's another group that's with us in the room and
joining us online that maybe you're new to church or new to
faith, or maybe you're just seeking truth.
And maybe when we start talking about this unseen spiritual
world or this unseen spiritual realm, you're, you're just,
you're doubtful, you're, you're skeptical.
And, and I would say that's okay.
Thank you for being here. But my hope, my prayer, my
desire for you if you're in that second camp, is that you would
start to see that God would open your eyes to the fact that just
because you can't see it doesn't mean that it's not there.
And just because you may not acknowledge it, it doesn't mean
that it's not impacting your life everyday.
You see, there is a world that we can see and there's a world
that we can't see. And the world that we can't see
is just as real as the world that we can see and don't miss
the And it is shaping our lives every day.
It's impacting our lives every single day.
Now, if you were with us in the first week of this series, we
were talking about how kind of the road map of where we're
going to be heading throughout this series.
This is going to be like a nine week series.
So we're in week 3 of this 9 weeks and we talked about how
weeks one through 5, they're going to be much more informing.
So what does the Bible tell us about these components of this
unseen realm? We need to have a right
understanding. We need to have a truthful
foundation of what the Bible says about this spiritual realm.
And then weeks 4 or 678 and 9, the last four weeks, they're not
just going to be about informing, they're going to be
about equipping. Because I don't know if you know
this or not, but did you know that if you've given your life
to Jesus and the Holy Spirit of God lives in you, you are
uniquely equipped as a son or daughter of God to do
devastating damage against the gates of hell?
And we're going to be talking about everything.
What I just meant by everything that I just said later on.
But this morning, we're going to be looking at more the informing
part this week and especially next week, we're going to be
looking at what does the Bible say about some vital, vital
elements of this unseen spiritual world in this unseen
spiritual realm. And this morning we're going to
be taking a look at God, at angels in heaven.
Now, here's the fact of the matter.
We could do an entire series on on all three of those things, or
individually those three things. We could do an entire series on
God. We could do an entire series on
angels. We can do an entire series on
heaven. But for our purposes throughout
this series, we need to have a base foundational truth of who
God is, of who the angels are, who and what and where is
heaven? And then ultimately, ultimately,
why does any of it matter? Like how does it impact our
lives tomorrow or what we're going to be talking about this
morning? How in the world does this
impact as I'm getting ready for maybe the school week later on
tonight or maybe just mentally preparing for the work week
ahead before I go to sleep tonight, How does it impact any
of that? And I'll go ahead and tell you
on the front end, one of the things that I've been sharing
with our staff and one of the things I've been sharing with
with with different ones of you is the challenge of walking
through a series like this is separating the fascinating from
the useful is separating the fascinating for the useful.
So a lot of what we don't talk about, it's not because it's not
necessarily important. It may be important, it may be
really fascinating is that we need to have a baseline
foundational understanding of who God is, who the angels are,
and what and where heaven is. Because I would argue of these
three elements, these three elements, there's been no more
topic in human history or subjects in human history that's
been thought about, written about artistically expressed
more than God, angels in heaven. I would also argue with you that
there's been no more topics and all throughout human history,
there's been more mischaracterized and more
misunderstood than God and angels in heaven.
For example, we know that God is not some angry old man just
waiting to throw lightning bolts down at us when we mess up and
when we sin. We know that angels are not bald
headed babies sitting on clouds playing harps.
We know that heaven is not like your happiest thought here on
earth to where ultimately when you die you will magically or
mysteriously just run free in a Meadow or drift over an ocean.
Those are all misnomers of God, angels in heaven.
So for us, we need to understand what the Bible says about these
three topics. Like I said at the very
beginning, this is not an exhaustive look at God angels in
Heaven, but it is a base foundation, essential base
foundational essentials. Look at God angels in heaven.
You'll you'll notice out beside on your note sheet that out
beside all the bullet points, there's scriptural references.
We're not going to walk through every single one of these
scriptural references this this morning.
I gave them to you because here's what I want to ask is
your pastor. I want to ask that you take this
note sheet home and in your time alone with God this week that
you walk through that you look up these passages that you read
through that you pray through that you study these passages
for yourself, that you discover these truths in your own Bible
for yourself. And they're going to give a more
well-rounded, more well roundedness to the bullet points
that we're going to go through and explore this morning.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to just in respect of, of, of time, we're going to
go ahead and jump in. Let's tackle that first question
first. Who exactly is God?
If you're taking notes with us, first thing that we need to know
five things about God. God is Yahweh, the one true God.
Let me kind of unpack that
statement in that sentence for a second.
There is only one true God. There is the King of kings and
the Lord of Lords. One true God and the name that
has been given to him throughout the Bible, especially the Old
Testament, is the name Yahweh. Yahweh.
Now here's why that name is important.
Because the ancient Jews, they needed a way to denote the
person of God. When they were referencing God
or referring to God, they needed a name given to God and they
believed that it was irreverent just to give God just a normal
name like Bill. So they come up with this word
called Yahweh. Now I'm not going to bore you
with all the details, but I do think that it's pretty
interesting for you to note that Yahweh ancient Hebrew, they it
did not have vowels in it. So in the ancient Hebrew, if it
was written out in English, it would be spelled for us in all
caps YHWH Yahweh. And in it was an ancient Hebrew
grammatical impossibility. So it broke all the the the
grammatical rules of of Hebrew. And they did that because they
they believe that God's name should be so other or so set
apart. It shouldn't be so common.
When when I say that it broke the grammatical rules, think of
it as like the English equivalent of like breaking the
rule I before E except after C, right?
Except for in the words like foreign or seas or height or
caffeine. You know, those are exceptions
to that rule. But Yahweh was the name, the
Jewish name given, the ancient Jewish Hebrew name given to God.
Now a lot of times when you read through your Bible, you won't
see the name Yahweh. Yahweh has been has been
substituted out. You ever read through your Bible
and you see the name in all caps, all letters and caps Lord.
Lord that is a substitution in our English translations for
Yahweh. But Yahweh denotes that there is
one true God and Yahweh is His name.
Yahweh literally means in Hebrew He is or he causes to come into
existence. He is, He is the one true God.
Second thing that we need to know about God is God is all
powerful. He's all knowing, He's
everywhere present. He is all powerful.
He is all knowing, and He is everywhere present.
Let me kind of unpack that. He is all powerful.
There's nothing that God cannot do.
The word impossible does not exist in God's vocabulary.
He is all knowing. There is nothing that God does
not know. There's nothing that God does
not know that's going on within me, outside of me, and there's
nothing that God does not know. That's unknown to me.
God knows everything. God knows you inside and out.
God knows your your deepest secrets, your your most private
thoughts. He knows what nobody else knows.
He knows what you are ignorant about, and he knows what I am
ignorant about. God knows everything.
He is all knowing. He's also everywhere present.
He's everywhere present. Now this is going to sound kind
of strange, but God exists outside of what we think of as
space and time. So when he looks at history, he
is looking down at one big map. He knows everything that has
happened in the past. He knows everything that's
happening now. He knows everything that's
happening in the future. He not only knows it all, but he
is everywhere in time and in location.
God is all knowing. He is all power powerful.
He is everywhere present. Third key essential that we need
to know about God. God is eternally 3 in one.
He's eternally 3 in one. Now I'm going to go ahead and
tell you that if you have a bottle of Excedrin in your bag
this morning, you may want to bring out a couple of those
pills because this will give you a migraine.
Thinking about #1 God is eternal and #2 God is 3 in one.
But the way that we can best explain it in our finite minds
and in the way in which our human brain is able to
comprehend things eternally means that God has existed
forever and ever and ever in the past.
And God will exist forever and ever and ever in the future.
There's never been a point in time to where God had a
beginning, and God will have an end.
He is eternal. And not only is God eternal, God
exists 3 in one this three in oneness.
The the term that we would put on that is the word Trinity.
You ever heard of the word Trinity?
That means that that denotes that God is 1 but exists in
three equal persons. It's not 3 gods with one
persona, it is one God existing in three distinctly different
persons. We have God the Father, we have
God the Son Jesus, and we have God the Holy Spirit.
All of them are equal in godness.
If you want like the big like theological word on that, it's a
word called homoousius. That's kind of a fun word to
say. You want to say it 123
homoousius right now you can go and press your friends.
Homo uses it literally means of the same stuff.
So this what God the Father possesses in godness, so does
God the Son in in in equal measure.
And what God the Son possesses in godness, God the Holy Spirit
possesses of godness in equal measure.
So it's not God varsity God JV guard God 8th grade team here.
It is God three in one. And guess what God has existed
as the Trinity for all of eternity and will exist as the
Trinity for all of eternity. That's one of the things, that's
one of the things not to chase a rabbit.
That's one of the things that separates Christianity, orthodox
Christianity from, from religion such as Mormonism or, or or
Jehovah's Witness to where they believe and they teach Mormons
and Jehovah's Witnesses both believe that Jesus was created.
You see, the Bible doesn't teach that Jesus was created.
The Bible teaches that Jesus was always God.
John 11. I think that that's on your note
sheet. In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God and the word was God and in the word
that that the word Word is actually referring to Jesus, the
second person of the Trinity. So we need to understand that
God is eternally existing as three in one, eternally existing
as the Trinity. 4th baseline essential that we need to
understand about God is God is both holy and pure.
God is both holy and pure. He is wholly in the fact that he
is completely set apart. He is completely other than us.
He's completely set apart and he is completely other than us.
Here's why that's important is because we have to have the
self-awareness when we start to think about God, are we
approaching God to casually to where it's almost like we throw
our arm around God, We think that we can throw.
Our arm around God and call God like the man upstairs or or our.
Buddy Or you know, flashbacks to the early 2000 T-shirt Fazz,
Jesus is my homeboy. You know, God is holy.
He is other than us. But then also God is pure.
The fact that God is pure means that there's no mixture of evil
or corruption within God. There's no mixture of evil or
corruption within God. You see, another misnomer about
God out there is that God is some cosmic universal yin Yang
to where God is equal parts light and dark, his equal parts
good and evil. And what we're going to discover
this week and then on into next week, there is no part of
corruption or evil or darkness within God.
We're actually next week we're going to talk about when we dive
into the subjects of, of Satan, demons and hell.
We're going to talk about the origins of evil and what evil
really is and how evil came about, but it didn't come about
from God because God is holy and God is pure.
And then the 5th component, foundational, essential that you
and I that we need to know about this God, about our God is this
God is personal and loving. Now check this out, God is
Yahweh, He is all powerful, He is all knowing, He is everywhere
present. He is eternally 3 and 1, He is
holy and he is pure, yet he still chooses to be personal.
He still chooses to be loving. This is another thing that
separates. There's a misnomer out there
that says that the God of Christianity is really the the
same God as as Allah in in Islam.
And we basically pray to the same God.
We just like address our our prayers to different to
different to different names. And the fact of the matter is
that nothing could be further from the truth.
You see, if you ever talk to a Muslim, one of the things that
would blow a Muslim's mind is they do not believe at all that
Allah is personal or loving. They believe that Allah is
completely just, that Allah does not care about them, that he is
just basically going to put on the scales, good versus bad.
And if the bad outweighs the good, then you are banished.
If the good outweighs the bad, then you can go on into heaven.
That is not what the Bible teaches about God.
As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches that God chooses to be
personal and loving. Not because you and I could ever
earn it, by the way, not because that God.
Not because God is impressed with us and our good deeds and
our good thoughts and our good intentions.
It's because he chooses to be personal and loving.
And we see this playing out in the fact that God did everything
to take that first step and creating us with free will and
with the with with the decision or with the ability to choose to
be in relationship with him. And we're going to circle back
to that thought in just a moment.
But despite God being holy and pure, all powerful, all knowing
everywhere, present eternally in the Trinity, eternally
Trinitarian and Yahweh holy other, he still chooses to be
personal and loving. So those are the five basic
essential foundational truths that we need to know about God.
What are some truths that we need to know about angels?
As we're going to go further and deeper into this series #1
angels are created spiritual beings that may take on physical
form. Angels we can read about in
Scripture are created spiritual beings that may take on from
time to time. They may take on physical form.
We see this playing out
throughout Scripture. That that that the.
Angels. That God is the one that created
angels and from time to time those angels would take on
physical form. Whether it be the Angel that
that that met with Abraham to to tell Abraham of the impending
pregnancy of Sarah to where she would give birth to Isaac.
And out of Isaac would be would be the birth of an entire nation
that would outnumber the the stars in the sky.
Or we can see the Angel taking physical form as as Gabriel and
Gabriel taking on this physical form and and having a
conversation with with Mary to tell Mary about her impending
pregnancy with the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity,
Jesus Christ. We see these angels taking on
physical form, but this physical form you and I we need to know
most often is described as in military type terminology.
Again, this is not some like precious moments type of
figurine that angels take on bald headed babysitting on
clouds, playing harps. As a matter of fact, anytime we
see angels taking on physical form and having conversation
with men or women throughout the Bible, the 1st 2 words that
usually come out of that angel's mouth are fear not.
Have any of you ever gone back to river or Little River and
gone back to the nursery and there's like a baby sleeping
like in a, in a crib and you, you need that baby to open up
and go open his eyes and go fear not.
No, nobody's afraid of like a bald headed baby, right?
You're going to be afraid of these Angel warriors.
So angels are created spiritual beings that sometimes take on
the physical appearance or physical appearance.
Second thing that we need to know about angels is angels are
given a variety of assignments by God.
There are a variety of types of angels and there are a variety
of assignments that God gives these angels.
Again, this is where we have got to separate the fascinating from
the useful, but we've also got to understand that there are a
variety of angels, that there's not just one type of Angel that
God created. So and, and, and not just one
type of task that angels are given by God.
So as a matter of fact, you can read in the in the very
beginning of the book of Genesis to where after Adam and Eve
disobeyed God, God posted a cherubim, A cherubim to guard
the entrance of the Garden of Eden.
So Adam and Eve couldn't get back into the Garden of Eden.
You can read these throne room scenes.
Of God to where you have seraphim flying in and
constantly worshipping God, you have Gabriel, Gabriel being the
messenger. By the way, the Angel the the
the the root word for Angel is usually translated as as as
messenger. But then you have these types of
angels called archangels. And archangels are are are
dispatched by God to, to to protect his his people.
But there are a variety of angels given a variety of
assignments by God. Third thing that we need to
understand about angels, some that we really don't talk a lot
about. That's really going to set the
stage for where we're going next week.
Angels actually possess the freedom of choice.
God did not create supernatural spiritual robots and call them
angels. Angels actually are given the
freedom of choice. We're going to look further into
that, especially when we start talking about Satan and demons
and Hell, because we're going to see how angels are actually
given the choice, created with the choice to submit to God or
to reject God, to to to obey God or to, to to kind of go off on
their own way and disobey God. And we're going to see how
demons are actually the angels that chose to disobey God and to
rebel against God. God.
But angels were created with the freedom to choose.
Third thing that we need to talk about this morning, third
question or component we need to look at is what and where is
heaven? What and where is heaven?
First thing that we need to know about heaven.
Heaven is the dwelling place of God.
And even though we see all throughout Scripture where God
is everywhere present or omnipresent, we see every time
we see like the the, the full majesty of God and and God
seated upon his throne like in Isaiah and in Revelation, the
vision that the prophets are given of God, they actually take
place in heaven. So even though God is everywhere
present, the full glory of God is on.
Full display in heaven. Heaven is the dwelling place of
God. Second thing that we need to
understand about heaven is this. Heaven is a real place in the
spiritual realm. Heaven is a real place in the
spiritual realm. So some of us those that are
right with God, we sometimes assume that heaven is a place in
Athens, GA called Sanford Stadium on Sunday close but not
quite. Heaven is a real place.
There's there's so many thoughts about heaven.
You ever had a conversation with people about about heaven and,
and it's only a matter of time before somebody mentions, you
know, I just really believe that heaven is a lush Meadow.
You're like, what are you talking about Bambi or I just
believe that my spirit will I just love to to vacation.
So I believe that my spirit will hover over the over the ocean
waters when I die. You're like, no, heaven is a
real place. It is a real place in the
spiritual realm. And some of the some of the
depictions of heaven that we get from Scripture.
And I would point you, if you really want to know more about
it, you can look back at Revelation 21.
And in Revelation 21, you'll read about streets of gold and
you'll you'll read about there will be 12 gates, and each gate
is made of a singular Pearl. Heaven is so real, in fact, that
Jesus himself even told his disciples.
And this is recorded for us in Scripture.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
If heaven were a myth, I would have told you.
But I'm going away so that I can prepare a place for you, so that
you may be where I'm going one day.
Heaven is a real place in the spiritual realm.
Third thing that we need to know about heaven.
Heaven is the eternal home for all those who belong to Jesus.
Heaven is a is is the eternal home for all those who belong to
Jesus. Heaven is not the eternal home
for everybody. Heaven is not the eternal home
for good people. Heaven is not the eternal home
for people with good intentions. Heaven is is is not.
It is not the eternal home for people that always just send
good vibes and happy thoughts. Heaven is the eternal home for
all those who belong to Jesus, all those who belong to Jesus.
In heaven we will have the opportunity.
If you've surrendered your life to Jesus, you and I will have
the opportunity to see Jesus, the one who came into this world
and who died on behalf of us on a cross to forgive us of our
sins. We'll be able to see Him face to
face in heaven. We will be able to see the scars
in his hand and the scars in his in his feet in heaven.
In heaven, we will be able to join with all men and all women
throughout all of time and history who have surrendered
their lives to God and given their lives to God.
The men and the women of the Old Testament, Moses and Sarah and
Rebecca. And, and Isaac and Daniel and
and Ruth, Esther and, and, and Paul, we'll, we'll be able to,
to be there with them, but we'll also be able to be there.
We'll also be reunited with the people that we're really close
to that they've surrendered. They surrendered their life to
Jesus, but they passed away and, and we, we greatly miss them
and, and this is the reason that Paul reminds us in First
Thessalonians Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant of
any of these things, but we want you to know we do not.
Grieve as those who have no hope.
He doesn't tell us that we don't grieve the loss of people who
have gone on before us. It just means that we grieve
differently if we know that they are in the presence of Jesus.
Because we know that even though we will miss them for this time
here, we will one day be reunited with them there.
And there's great hope in that. There's also great hope and
knowing that the Bible tells us in, in, in, in Revelation 21,
there'll be no more tears. There'll be no more fears and
there'll be no more mourning or crying or, or pain.
There'll be no more aging or, or doctor's appointments.
There'll be no more heartbreak. All the stuff, all the junk that
you and I that we have to navigate in this thing that we
called life, God is going to make whole in heaven.
So here's really the where the rubber meets the road this
morning. Who is God, What are the angels
or who are the angels? And then what and where are
heaven? Here's the big question for us.
Why does the any of it matter? Why does the any of it matter?
How does any of what we just talked about?
How does it impact our Tuesday? How does it impact your
marriage? How does it impact like the
family dynamic that you're trying to navigate through?
How does it impact some, some, some decisions that you and your
you and your spouse are making? How does it impact maybe the
relationship that you have with your kids?
How does it impact some of the stresses that you have at school
or or on the job site? How does it impact any of this?
I'm glad you asked. Three things in conclusion, to
kind of put a bow around all of this.
Number one, you and I, we have to understand the God who
created me desires to have a relationship with me, the God
who created me. Can I tell you this God is not
some angry old man waiting to throw lightning bolts down at
you and to cosmic cosmically and supernaturally spank you.
When when you do wrong, this God loves you and this God desires
the best for you and he knows that the best for you is for you
to surrender your life to him and for the one who created you
to guide you into living out the reason that he created you and
the purpose that he created for you.
You know out to the side on your on your notes.
I gave you the text John 316 and 17.
And, and if you grew up in church, you know this or if
you're a football fan and watch NFL football on Saturdays, you
typically see this sign held up in the bleachers.
John 316. You know what?
John 316 tells us that God has done everything that he can.
He has taken that first step. He's given everything that he
can. He gave his only son to die on a
cross, to take the place of you, to forgive you of your sins, to
pay the price for your sins, to pay the price for my sins.
He's taken that first step. And, and where we are this
morning is now the ball's in your court.
The ball's in our court. God has done everything that he
can. Did you realize that God loves
you so much that he gives you the ability to accept him or
reject him? God could have.
I mean, we know that God can do everything, anything, right?
He could have created every single one of us robots.
And one of the things that we talk quite frequently about
here, Riverbend, is the fact that relationship requires
choice. Relationship can never true.
Relationship can never be forced or coerced.
It has to be chosen. Listen, God's made a way for you
to be in relationship with Him. You just have to choose him.
You just have to choose to be in relationship with Him.
Second thing that all of this impacts our lives and that I
want to I pray and I hope that God opens our eyes to is this is
that I am being protected in ways that I don't realize I'm
being protected in ways that I don't even realize.
If you, if you, if you're with us this morning in the room or
we're online and you surrendered your life to Jesus, you need to
know that I don't think that we will ever understand that we'll
ever fully know all the many different ways that God has sent
his angels to protect us. But if you're with us this
morning and you're, you know that you haven't surrendered
your life to Jesus, or maybe you're unsure.
Can I tell you this? God has protected you in ways
that you don't even realize. Let me let me throw out a
possibility to, to to you. If you're, if you're unsure on
whether or not you surrendered your life to Jesus, I believe
fully that God has protected you in ways that you don't even
realize to get you to this place, to this space, to this
moment to give you one more chance to accept him as the Lord
and Savior, to surrender your life to him.
You see, you and I, we are protected in ways that we do not
even know by God that loves us and desperately desires to have
a relationship with us. Here's the third way that all of
this impacts our life. When heaven is home, man, earth
loses its hold. When heaven is home, earth loses
its hold. It doesn't mean that we're not
bothered. It doesn't mean that we don't
feel what we feel. It doesn't mean that we don't
worry and that we don't have stress and that we don't have
emotions. It just means that we realize
that we walk this life, that we live our Mondays and our
Tuesdays and our Wednesdays, our Thursdays, our Fridays, our
Saturdays and our Sundays, knowing this place is not my
eternal home. This place is not my eternal
home. You see, if I've surrendered my
life to Jesus, catch this. This place is as bad as it's
ever going to get. If you have not surrendered your
life to Jesus, guess what? This place is as good as it's
ever going to get. That's a sobering, sobering
thought. When heaven is our home, earth
loses its hold. It means that we start thinking
with an eternal perspective. It means that we start to
realize that you and I, that we have been giving this brief time
and this brief slice of history and the decisions that we make
in this brief slice of history, what we would call a lifetime.
And here's the thing, I don't mean to be morbid.
None of us have any control. None of us really know how long
that lifetime really is, do we? God knows.
But the brief slice of history that he has given us, He's given
us that brief slice of history. To know him.
To surrender our lives to him and to make him known to, to,
to, to experience the reason that he created us.
Can I ask you a question? And as we kind of come to a
close this morning and this question, things probably going
to hit pretty close to home. When we start thinking about and
we start talking about things like God and angels in heaven
and eternity, what immediately comes to mind?
What emotions start rushing in? It is, is there is there like a
is there a deep sense of longing?
There Is there a deep sense of longing to where you sit there
and go. God, I am so I'm ready.
God, thank you for the many blessings that you allow me to
experience here in this life, that I'm so ready to be with you
face to face. I'm so ready for what I believe
by faith to experience by sight. I'm so ready to be in your
presence. God, is there a deep sense of
longing or is there a deep sense of fear?
Does it make you feel uneasy? Listen, this is not about
scaring you, but I just want to pose a question to you.
If it makes you feel uneasy, why is that?
I think it, I think it makes us feel uneasy for one of two
reasons. I think it makes us feel uneasy
because we may be unsure about ourselves.
Let me let me kind of put a fine point on that.
Can you go back to a time and a place that you surrendered your
life to Jesus? You know, we were able to
celebrate the baptism of three people this morning of Hart,
Blake and and Ella. Next service we'll be able to
baptize 3 more and celebrate them.
Can I ask you a question? Has there been a point in time
to where you know that you've surrendered your life to Jesus?
To where when you die, you know that heaven will be your home.
I think sometimes when we're unsure about that, subjects like
God and angels in heaven and eternity kind of make us feel
uneasy. I think there's a second reason
it makes us feel uneasy is because you may be sure and
secure in your personal salvation, but there's somebody
really close to you that you're highly doubtful of.
So the thoughts of that person dying without giving their life
to Jesus, Man, it's heartbreaking, isn't it?
In just a moment, what we're going to do is we'll pray
together, we'll stand, we'll worship.
But I want to just call us back to a time of prayer as a church.
If you were here with us our first week together, you know,
the invitation was simply this. If you need to get your life
right with God, if you need to surrender your life to Jesus,
we're going to have some pastors down here at the front that we
would love to pray with you. But if you are sure and secure
in your salvation, ma'am, praise God.
But we're going to invite you to come down and we're going to
invite you to pray by name for people that you may be concerned
over. They may not be here.
They're probably not. They may not be with you online.
They're probably not. But here's the thing, There's
great power and prayer and praying specifically for name by
somebody to where we ask the Holy Spirit God, wherever that
person is, go invade their life, invade their heart God, capture
them with your pursuit and your love for them.
Draw them to you. You do what only you can do by
going where you can only go into their soul, into their heart,
into their innermost being and draw them to to you.
So as we as we're about to pray and stand and sing, I'm going to
invite you just to come and pray for people by name.
So let's pray God, we love you and we thank you for who you
are. And God, if we were given 1000
lifetimes, we can never exhaust talking about who you are.
But God, I pray that this morning, God, that we would be
captured by the thought that you are holy and you are just and
you are pure. You are everywhere, present, all
knowing, all powerful. You are eternally existing.
You are Yahweh, yet you choose to be loving and personal God.
Many of us in this room we have, we have accepted that personal
invitation of yours just to accept you as your as as our
Lord and Savior. God, there's some of us in this
room that we're just not sure or we know that we haven't, but we
know that we need to. God, for that person, for those
people in this room, God, I pray that you would give them the
boldness in just a few moments to step out and to come talk to
a pastor and to pray with a pastor.
God, there's also so many of us in this room that our hearts are
heavy and burdened by friends or family members or Co workers
that even though we are sure and secure in our own salvation and
our own eternal destination, God, we're very unsure and we're
very concerned about their souls.
So God, we want to take this opportunity to lift them up by
name directly to your ears and to your throne to unleash your
Holy Spirit upon their life. So God, I pray that you would
grant us the boldness and the courage to come down and just be
able to pray for people by name. God, we pray that your Holy
Spirit would move in power and might and that your Holy Spirit
would do what only your Holy Spirit can do during this time.
And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,
connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.