Christ the Sower: Glory and the Seed

we'll be starting our service um I'd like to read from Isaiah 50 verse 4 the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary he awakens awakens me morning by morning he awakens my ear to hear as the learned and you know God gives us uh wisdom to speak to those who are weary and tired and um the servant who listens to God daily he receives guidance and strength from God and um by staying close to God we can also be equipped with this wisdom and knowledge and uh to be able to uplift others um you know so in this service let's listen to what the word says today what the music is saying to us and let's praise God's name and let's stand up and pray Lord God we thank you for this day that you given us Lord and for this morning God we ask you lord to bless the service God fill it with the Holy Spirit Lord guide us and lead us in your word Lord help us to understand what is being said today Lord God help us to learn from it Lord and become better followers of Christ God guide us Lord all praise and glory be to you God bless the sermons bless the singing in Jesus name we pray amen we'll be singing Amazing Grace all together [Music] amazing gra How Sweet the Sound that save a w like me I L was lost but now I found was M but now I see my chains are gone I've been set free my God my savior has rans me and my this Mery unending love unending graise was Grace that t My Heart To Fear and Grace my tears R how preious did the grace of the how I first believe my chain are God I been set free my God my S has Rome me and his Mercy pra unending love [Music] unending [Music] Grace danger to your sles I have already he come his grace has B me save th far and Grace will me home my CH are God I been set free my God my savior has rans on me and of is Mercy unending love unending Gra [Music] bless the Lord oh my soul oh my soul worship His all Holy Name sing like never [Music] before Oh My Soul I'll worship your Holy Name the sun comes up it's a new day daing it's time to sing sing your song again whatever may pass in whatever lies before me let me be singing when the evening comes bless the Lord oh my soul oh my soul wor worship His holy name seem like never before oh my soul I worship [Music] your rich in love and you're slow to waer your name is great and your heart is kind for all your goodness I will be on singing 10,000 reasons for my heart to F bless the Lord all my soul oh my soul worship His holy name sing like never before call my soul I'll worship your holy [Music] day that day when my strength is failing and draws near and my time has come still I soul will sing your Praises [Music] unending 10,000 years and then forever more bless the Lord oh my soul oh my soul worship His holy name seem like before Oh My Soul I'll worship your holy name for I worship your Holy Name praise God praise the Lord brothers and sisters I'm just going to read a quick Bible verse in Galatians 3: 2627 and so it says here so in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith for all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ praise God and I also want to announce our uh program for this morning and uh we'll have some young gentlemen sing us a song called scars and then right after that we'll have brother Doug saying a word for us God bless for [Music] waking up to a new Sunrise looking back from the other side I can see now with open eyes darkest water deepest thing I would TR for anything and is WR you and these words are storing you so I'm thankful for thisa CU without them I would know your heart and I know the Lord always tell of who you are so forever I am thankful [Music] for now I'm standing in confidence with the strength of your faithful days and I'm not who I was before I don't have to fear [Music] anymore so I'm thankful for this SC just without them my word know your heart and I know the always of who you are so forever I am thankful for scar I can see I can see how you delivered me in your hands in your feet I find my victory I can see I can see how you deliver me in your hands in your feet I found my victory so I'm thankful for your SCS cuz without them I wor know your heart and with my life I'll tell of who you are so forever I am thankful I'm thankful [Music] for cuz without them I would know [Music] and I know they'll always tell of who you are so forever I am thankful for the [Music] scars praise God praise God good morning in case you hadn't noticed I'm walking on Two Shoes it uh well I should just briefly tell the story what happened was last year August 15th what I had is I had a a blocked artery in my leg it's the one that goes kind of right behind the knee and uh so I wasn't getting any circulation in my right foot and one day I was soaking my feet tea tree oil always enjoyed that and um I was wiping with a washcloth and there was kind of callus on my heel and um kept wiping away callus wiping away wiping away and then I found kind of a black spot I thought i' better stop wiping well the next day it was infected and I needed to go in and uh there was kind of a core of black black and whenever a doctor sees black they think this is dead tissue this could be Gang Green this could be something I remember I either texted or called um Gennady and uh one of the first things that they told me was that there's a possibility you could lose the leg or the foot um and uh as a matter of fact it was bad um over there at St Luke's wound clinic you know they've they're flatline on everything they have seen some gnarly wounds and they're just Flatline that's just how they are they've seen everything you can't shock them but uh one of the nurses when she saw the wound on my foot her eyes welled up with tears when she saw that she knew it was bad and um there was another man who had gone in to the very first or the very or the second wound clinic visit and he had a similar thing on his left foot and um he was a little younger than me maybe late 30s uh early 40s but I saw him some months later at the wound clinic and he had just had the amputation of his left foot and it was fresh the stump wasn't rounded off it was it it had just just had the amputation and that got my attention and so I've been in this removable cast for uh at least a year uh this is tomorrow is like the day after tomorrow is 14 months from the initial wound and um right now there's just um a little callus a little scar there and uh and I'm basically recovered um I I us usually tell people I have pictures of the wound and I always promise that you don't want to see the pictures because anyone that sees the pictures they get a very the stomach or ow ow ow ow ow ow what is that but now that it's healed I can show you the healed picture and I can show you the gnarly wound if you wish but fair warning right right and praise God for that um um Tim and I keep having conversations about well how many sermons do you want to teach how many do you need what kind of series are you going to do and I just have to say that I I love preaching uh I want to do so many and um you know do you want two do you want five do you want seven I said no seven time 70 I want lots and I've also fallen in love with the process I love having my face what's that 440 that's 490 is 7 time 70 but uh um I love having my face in the soil of scripture all day and as a matter of fact 490 John MacArthur decided at one point to preach through the whole book of Luke and it took him 10 years years he went through almost just verse by verse and um and I figured that out once you know if you figure that that's like 500 sermons that's pretty close to 490 so yeah I want to do that but I actually want to do more than that I want to do 10 times that so I did a little math that's uh 4,900 that's by the way that's how many sermons I want to do 4,900 and I got out the calculator and uh I said okay if I go 50 weeks a year how long will that take that'll take uh 98 years so I'll be um how old am I today I will be 162 years old when I finish and that actually sounds familiar what did I find what did I find in here Genesis chapter 5 I'm going to find this because it just reminded me of something Genesis 5:18 Jared lived 162 years and became the father of Enoch so there we go the number 162 so I digress you guys I have a sermon for you today um and that I want to do a series and uh it's actually something that's been going on for many centuries I'm not the starter of this series the series is called the most beautiful book and the title of today's sermon is Christ The swer Glory the seed and I have two verses one Old Testament and one New Testament let us all stand for the reading of God's word and let's go to Psalm 78 Psalm 78 verse 2 bear in mind as you're turning there that this is God's holy word it was written by God the father Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit it is therefore free of mistakes it is completely um authoritative over every part of your life everything we are to believe and do Psalm 78:2 78:2 I will open my mouth in a parable I will utter dark sayings of old these are the words of Jesus Christ This is a prophecy of Jesus Christ let us turn to Matthew 1335 this will confirm what we're talking about I'm just going to start in verse 34 all these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in Parables and he did not speak to them them without a parable this was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet I will open my mouth in Parables I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world let's pray Father in Heaven what is this mystery that you're proclaiming to us today will you open our eyes and will you remove our blindness and will you uh teach us to not be lost teach us to be found as the song says and uh and will you raise us up this day and uh and utter these says of old amen you may be seated so as I said the title is Christ The swer Glory the seed um I'm making the case today that the parable of the S which uh we don't have to go there right now CU I think everybody knows the parable of the SE it's in Matthew 13 Mark 4 and Luke 8 by the testimony of three Witnesses three gospel writers have this included and uh I'm going to make the case a little bit that Jesus is the swer Christ is the S and we know from John 1 verse one you all know that too right in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God he was with God in the beginning all things came into being through him and apart from him nothing has come into being that has come into being this is Jesus the Creator John is saying that God of the Bible yah way is one and the same this is Jesus all things came into being through him and uh so my outline is Jesus the Creator that is the first seed that he SWS boy I just every time I preach here I whack these mics I apologize in advance um maybe I could stand back farther I'll try to not do that sorry so so the first seed that he SED was creation itself and then we also have all the words of scripture is part of the seed that he SWS then further we have the word himself the word by back in the day I used to preach at the boisey rescue mission once a month and I just used a simple definition definition in the beginning was the word what is the word it's one of the names of Jesus and I can show you how that is but the life of Jesus is also part of his revealing part of the reveal of who he is is his life and then the life that he lives in US is also part of the reveal not only to us but to the world we are witnesses so so the big idea if you get lost anywhere in this big idea is this is a little bit long but it's just what I just said Christ is the S the creation every word of scripture his life on earth and the life he lives in us all speak his glory right so let's go around a little bit in the Bible and I might mind everybody bring your Bible to church it's really the best way let us go to Psalm 19 there's a question whether I should just read the first two verses or three or I could go on but we're just going to start this uh this is the nasb Bible and it has has this this super tile over Psalm 19 it says the works and the word of God verse one psalm 19 verse1 the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expense is declaring the work of his hands day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge now in verse three there's a clarification there is no speech nor their words their voice is not heard but their sound has gone out through all the Earth and their utterances to the end of the world see the heavens when the SE first started to reveal himself it was creation we all know the creation story I'm going to go there you might know it well enough that you can just not need to go there but just look at this for a minute in the be in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth now we've heard that so many times that we don't hear it anymore but uh those of you who know me I get up early in the morning while it's still dark and uh we go and exercise a few days a week and uh one of the things that I do when I'm walking exercising is I pray and uh this week it really really hit me when I saw the clear sky and a billion stars that that is telling of God that is God revealing himself you know what that is the heavens and the Earth all the whole phys physical Universe represents things the heavens the Stars represents the spiritual Universe Heaven it even says that in Genesis 1 verse 8 God called the expanse heaven so first they call it the heavens that's the physical part and then he called it Heaven it represents it's not heaven but it represents Heaven it shows us the Earth represents the physical universe everything else represents what's higher than us what we can't reach and touch you know and the Ancients would have looked you see how far away are those Stars you can't throw a stone and hit one how far away is is that Isaiah 55: 8 and9 says my as high as the heavens are above the Earth so are my ways higher than your ways right we all know that verse I'm speaking in a lot of verses that we may already know if you're an experienced Christian but what does it tell it tells how much greater this is than ourselves it shows us we know that God is huge how huge well he's he's he supersedes all location but we say omnipresent he's all present no matter how big the universe is how many stars are there billions no matter how many there are they never exceed him how power powerful is he no matter how powerful the sun is you can't even get close to it you will burn there are a billion Suns out there that's what a star is it's a sun how powerful is he no matter how powerful those things are he is more powerful he had to be in order to create all those things matter of fact how much does he know he had to know everything in order to create all of this so This does declare his glory how much bigger is he we can't reach it that tells us that we can't fully understand everything about him and isn't that good news we wouldn't want a God that was so small that we could just understand him he reveals some of it Deuteronomy 29 let's look right near the end of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 29 it's the last verse before Deuteronomy 30 it says the secret things belong to the Lord Our God but the things revealed to us and to our sons belong to us forever that we may observe all the words of the law so his his re R isn't we don't get to know everything he reveals some of it doesn't reveal the rest of it that's for him okay now if you notice something else in Genesis 1:1 is that when he created everything I told you he knew everything he also Al knew what he was going to create he knew that he was going to create humans with eyeballs because on the first day God said let there be light and there was light he knew that we'd be able to see because he knew he was going to create mankind In His Image but notice what it says God said let there be like wait a minute those are words how do you speak words with a voice so God takes the form of human here and he speaks God said he says things all the appearances of God all the words of God are in words so God is the author of scripture and all things came into being through him that means scripture came into being through Jesus Oh you might say where's the Holy Spirit oh yeah back in in verse two the Earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters so the Father the Son the Holy Spirit they're all there at the beginning the Lord Jesus is there at the beginning this is how we know that he this is John saying who Jesus is like where does the story begin with Jesus and who he is that Jesus actually is the god of the Bible he's actually one and the same with the father one and the same with the holy spirit so all of the words of scripture now what is scripture let's start in descending order just like we talk about the creation all the physical all the physical stuff are part of his the seed that he SWS part of his reveal part of his Revelation um we go back from there and say that that represents something bigger something spiritual that's what a parable is by the way it's a physical story that represents present a spiritual truth so is the word this physical book this is a little quiz is it the book well yes in one definition this is a Bible the Bible is the book that's the scripture that's what we say but it goes behind that doesn't it there's something beneath the Bible notice that the one scripture in Psalm 78 said something slightly different different than the New Testament version of it in the Old Testament it said I will utter dark sayings of old in the New Testament it says I will utter truths hidden since the foundation of the world why are the words different one's in Greek one's in Hebrew oh so it actually isn't the paper and the ink it isn't the language right if you buy a Bible you pay more money for a nice leather cover you pay more if it's brand new than if it's used but here's the thing if you buy a used Bible that has the cover torn off if it has all of the words in it then you have all of the revelation of scripture How about if it's written in uh oh there are 60 different English translations there's another thing we have to deal with is the translation God's word word no it's it's behind the translation How about if it's written in Russian or Spanish is that a different Bible no it's the meaning of the word behind that right so how about the story take a story are everybody's favorite story David and Goliath is the story the scripture is the story the word actually I want to say it's what God revealed about himself behind the story that is the word that's why we have another word for that we have this word book we have the word bible we have the word scripture and we have the word the word of God and then we finally have Jesus is the word let us go to John chapter one and we all know this so this is just excellent repetition here we have one of the most beautiful passages in the whole Bible in the beginning was the word w there's just a a million bucks just in that in the beginning means that that can't be anybody but God there was no one before God Colossians 1:17 says he is before all things there's no one before him in the beginning was was the word okay so keep one thumb or one finger in there and we're going to go to Revelation chapter 13 that's if I'm guessing the the verse number right no I think I'm wrong I think it's revelation 19 it's not 13319 it's 1913 see how I do that I get those numbers flipped sometimes somebody help me if they find it before I do 1913 he this is talking about Jesus he is clothed with a robe dipped in Blood and his name is called the word of God thank you for that help so what does that mean he's not a word he's the word and we have a special definition for that word and it's only true of Jesus we know what a word is you see T re that means tree that represents a tree it's a representation of something but the word with a capital W the word of God the word who was in the beginning with God and who was God that only means Jesus and it means the Divine expression in Hebrews 1 verse3 it says this and he that's Jesus is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power that's saying oh and there it is someone put the verse up on the on the thing he is the radiance of his glory so Jesus Christ himself declares the glory of God his life does that and then as we know we ourselves are that witness one more verse while we're in while you have your thumb in John 1 verse 14 and the word oh I've got to I've just got to tell you something first yeah here it is it's right here he put it up but uh this summer I uh decided to do some Bible reading the Petra school was having uh uh Mr babchenko had a uh a challenge to some students if they wanted to read the whole new testament during the summer me and my family decided to join in that and uh I didn't get all the way through but I read Mark and Luke in the book of Acts and I read uh Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 and 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2 Timothy um Titus philimon Hebrews and I also read Genesis and exodus and Ruth but in the middle of Exodus I knew the story of The Exodus but when I got into the middle of it like about verse 25 it starts talking about the Tabernacle in the wilderness and I just stuck on that I just I was about 10 days on chapter 25 and just waiting into chapter 26 and looking through this do you know that the Hebrew people had this ginormous tent it actually wasn't too huge they had this tent in the desert and it was called The Tabernacle does everybody understand the Tabernacle anybody know the story so there was a place the prize goes to this man over here now we do know we do know that there was uh a division in the middle middle there was the Holy place that only the priests could go and then there was a veil and it was the holy of holies where only Aaron could go and only once a year and he had to be washed he had to make sacrifices beforehand and um they had they had the tent they had the place where they did animal sacrifices and you bring your animal to the opening of the tent and you do your sacrifices there and having done that then you go and there's a wash basin and then you wash your hands and your feet and then you can enter the holy place and there's a a golden lampstand and it's made out of pure gold like 75 pounds of pure gold that's a heavy hunk of gold and it's solid it's not like today you find lots of thin Hollow golden things they're brass with gold plating and and you can pick it up you know like a microphone stand it's nothing this was a 75 lb um serus it's in it's it's right in there in the book of Exodus and it was and it had lamps it had seever seven lamps there and these represent the prayers of the priests the priests had to keep oil in the lamp it had to burn perpetually and then over here there was a table that had bread and there was there were 12 loaves of bread one for each of the tribes of Israel and then forward there was an altar all the box is completely plated in gold and uh this is made out of Acasia wood who cares about acacia wood ACAA wood is uh is a wood it's a wood that has thorns matter of fact they say that it might be the wood that the crown of thorns was made of it was a very thorny tree it was a prophecy of Jesus also ACAA wood is very resistant to Decay does it not say when Jesus was in the Tomb he did not suffer Decay when he was in there for three days this wood would this was a prophecy of the coming Messiah and you burned incense and incense represents the prayers of the people and while you're burning incense all the people stay outside and pray and a matter of fact that's what Zechariah was doing in the Book of Luke chapter 1 uh the father of John the Baptist it was his job to go in there and burn incense and everybody's outside and this is when the angel of Gabriel shows up and and says you and your wife will have a son and you'll name him John and he'll be a prophet of the most high and he'll proclaim the coming of the Lord this was all prophecy pH and the Tabernacle prophesies that and then there's the veil and behind the veil was the Ark of the Covenant this is also a box of acacia wood and it's also it's also decked out in pure gold and inside there's Mana from the desert there's the the stick the staff uh of Aaron that actually sprouted it wasn't planted in the ground and also the two tablets of the Ten Commandments were in there and a column of smoke Rose from there during the day and it was a column of fire at night that was the presence of the Lord now why am I saying all this because the C the Tabernacle was a place where the Lord would dwell and and in John 1 I had you go there4 what it says right there it says and the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us the the word right there in Translation is and the word that's Jesus became flesh and tabernacled Among Us in other words he made his Dwelling Place temporarily on Earth and now he lives in us he makes his Tabernacle in us this is the doctrine of Union with Christ and by this we are transformed and we Proclaim his glory in our daily walk I see that it's 10 till I need to wrap this up now but let us pray e [Music] oh my soul do you not know have you not heard it's been told from the beginning the Lord your God is on your side oh my soul don't be afraid open in the Lord by his rightousness and power he will strengthen he will die and I will soar on wings like eagles H by the hand of God I will run and not grow on his name I call for the Lord is never weary his way are beyond my thoughts I will trust in him with all my heart oh my soul do you not know have you not heard it's been told from the beginning the Lord your God is on your side oh my soul don't be afraid open in the Lord by his rightousness and power he will strengthen he will go and I will swar on wings like e hel by the hand of God I will run and not go TI all is name my go for the Lord is never wearing his WS are beyond my thoughts I will trust in you with all my [Music] heart I will trust in him with all my heart praise God praise God my dear friends and our service has come to the end and uh we heard a good message today and you know about the Tabernacle and how the Bible says that that we are that Tabernacle and you just see the sanctification that the priests had to go through to to enter and if we are that tabern tacle how much more do we have to sanctify ourselves knowing that God is in us and I think a lot of um I'll say uh people make excuses for sanctification but this just shows us again that if God dwells in us how important in our lives we have to sanctify ourselves you know because God lives in a whole holy Tabernacle so may this word today touch us may this word teach us and may this word like uh strengthen us in our week um but with that does anybody have any needs if not then let's pray Lord God we thank you for this morning God for all your blessings Lord that you give us Lord God we thank you for this message and for the worship God that we can honor and praise your Holy Name Lord may this seed Lord Lord God grow in our hearts and in our lives Lord God that we can be more like you Jesus that we can be more like you Jesus God the word Lord God that that was spoken today Lord we thank you so much for everything we thank you for everything you do for us God you've been so good to us Lord You've spoiled us Lord God may may like each heart be thankful for everything you give us Lord in Jesus name we pray amen Our Father in heaven hallow be your name your kingdom come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from the evil one for your kingdom your power and Glory forever are yours amen be blessed and in the gym we're going to have some coffee and some uh breakfast