A Prayer and a Plea [35:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Kingdom Singers - Festival Alleluia [2:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

1 Thessalonians 5:23-28 [+/-]1 Thessalonians 5:23-28 [23]Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24]He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. [25]Brothers, pray for us. [26]Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. [27]I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. [28]The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (ESV)

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.  Blessed be His glorious Name forever; may the whole earth be filled with His glory.” Psalm 72:19-20 [+/-]Psalm 72:19-20 [19]Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen! [20]The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”  Numbers 6:24-26 [+/-]Numbers 6:24-26 [24]The LORD bless you and keep you; [25]the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; [26]the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you blameless before the presence of  His glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time, now; and forever.  Amen.”  Jude 24-25 [+/-]Jude 1:24-25 [24]Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, [25]to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (ESV)

Here is your question for today:  what do all three of these and so many more passages like them scattered all over the Bible have in common with the verses that close this letter?  That is right.  They are all benedictions.  And if you studied them you would find that they are all different in wording but remarkably the same in what they desire.  Paul comes to the end of the first letter that he writes to the church in Thessalonica and he does two things.  He prays a prayer, He makes a plea and He prays a prayer.  The prayer frames the plea because what he is asking from them cannot happen and will not happen unless God does it.  The prayer is in the form of a benediction.  The plea is in the form of a proclamation.  It is the benediction that gives shape to the proclamation.

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I have always heard that where there is smoke, there is fire.  I am not interested in smoke.  I want to be where the fire is and I want to be where the fire is burning the hottest.  I have just finished reading a wonderful little book called, Young, Restless, and Reformed written by Collin Hansen.  He argues that there is a growing passion for God and the Gospel among the younger generation.  He sees it taking a Calvinist shape due to the strong commitment of Reformed Theology to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.  Now, I agree that one of the great strengths of reformed theology is its serious attention to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, but I do not think that this hunger and thirst for the Word of God can be reduced to one theological stream.  I  have Arminian frieneds who are much younger than me who have a deep passion for God and His Truth, and I have other much younger friends who do not know either of these theological streams but long to look into and to love the Truth of God.  This is where the fire is.  There seems to be a growing consensus that the fire of God is falling in our day upon the 25-40′s.  This very hard to categorize and capture age group seems to have a longing and a loving of God’s Word that is very passionate and very powerful.  And for a pastor who has the privilege of having so many of this age group in the flock, it is very refreshing and very, very challenging.

Using common sociological and demographic categories, the builder generation would be the those born before 1946.  The boomers would then be those born from 1946-1964.  The busters are commonly seen as those born from 1965-mid-70′s and it gets real fuzzy for me after that, but it is the “after that” crowd that seems to have the real fire for the things of God.  It is real from what I see of it.  The builders in most of our churches are men and women who came home from THE WAR with two things in mind that are still characteristic of their lives:  honor and hard work.  They wanted to honor their country for which they had fought bravely and they accepted the honor that was rightly given to them with many of them coming to think that it was a right that was owed to them.  These brave men and women also began to build what is still today the core econcomic center of much of America.  Along the way, however, the blended the flag with the cross so that their Christianity sees no discrepancy between holding up the cross and waving the flag.  And their hard work that built communities also built the churches in those communities.  This generation gave up much and gave us much in for which we are deeply grateful, but it does not include a plethora of people whose primary priority was to show us how to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength.  I am a product of that generation and I learned little of God from that generation.  I learned to love this land which I do but I had to learn how to love this land as an entity far less and far less important than the Kingdom of God that rules over all.  I learned to work hard to make my way but I had to learn that making my way in this world is not to be equated with either the Word of God or the way of God, in fact, this way of hard work and pulling myself up by my bootstraps can keep me from this God.  It has many boomers, my generation for whom I am the most concerned.  We are good at doing church but not good at all in devotion to God and the Gospel.   We know how to live good materially driven lives making a better life for ourselves than our parents had and wanting the same for our children, but we are not good at sacrificing and suffering for the cause of the Gospel.  We make great Sunday morning people but there are so few of the boomers in churches on Sunday night, even here where I am pastor.

And our children, praise God, are saying “no” to this way of living.  Now some are saying no by going whole hog into the ways of the world.  They don’t even pretend to be Christians.  They have rejected the whole lot.  But others have gone hog wild the other way.  They are on fire for Jesus.  They cause their parents some embarassment because they are more in love with Jesus as thirty somethings than their parents are as fifty somethings.  They praise with abandon and they participate in Bible Studies with a passion.  Their parents wonder what happened to them.  I wonder some times when I see these thirty somethings so in love with Jesus and watch the parents, if the parents wouldn’t rather have them going hog wild in the world.  You know, a little bit Christian and whole lot cultural.  At least then the parents could connect better.

But I say, “God, keep sending the fire among this younger generation.  Don’t burn them out, but keep them burning.”  This is my focus as a pastor.  No apologies.  Why should I.  I am a part of the boomers and I have watched the builder generation all my life being told by them that one day I would grow up and understand how it really is.  Well here I am at fifty-six and either I mature mighty slowly or they were just wrong.  I am going to bet the latter; I can write that now.  I am no longer thirty.  I shave on my own.  In fact, I see more godly wisdom and surely more godliness in that thirty something crowd than I have seen in the builder generation.  God has built a fire among the younger genration. It will change the shape and substance of the church in the next ten years.  That is my prediction.  If it doesn’t, then the church in terms of  influence is done.  I love what I see among the young reformed and non-reformed alike.  There is a fire burning among them.  Gas it up and let it go.

 

 Portrait of a Christian [31:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 [+/-]1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 [16]Rejoice always, [17]pray without ceasing, [18]give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. [19]Do not quench the Spirit. [20]Do not despise prophecies, [21]but test everything; hold fast what is good. [22]Abstain from every form of evil. (ESV)

What does the Christian life look like?  If we could use words and draw with those words a portrait of a believer, then what would that picture portray?  Well, wonder no longer because this is precisely what Paul is doing in these words in 1 Thessalonians 5 [+/-]1 Thessalonians 5 [5:1]Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. [2]For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. [3]While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. [4]But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. [5]For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. [6]So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. [7]For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. [8]But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. [9]For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, [10]who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. [11]Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. [12]We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, [13]and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. [14]And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. [15]See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. [16]Rejoice always, [17]pray without ceasing, [18]give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. [19]Do not quench the Spirit. [20]Do not despise prophecies, [21]but test everything; hold fast what is good. [22]Abstain from every form of evil. [23]Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24]He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. [25]Brothers, pray for us. [26]Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. [27]I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. [28]The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (ESV)
.  He holds a quill instead of a brush and he draws upon parchment rather than canvas but the picture is very powerful and very plain.  I want us to look at this morning to hear with our ears and to see with our eyes what a Christian looks like.

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I am most fortunate to be that pasto of a congregation that is so loving and supportive.  In fact, so many in FBC Wayensboro are more generous in their affirmations of my preaching and teaching ministry than they should be.  I am blessed. So, what will come next is not being written to solicit either support or sympathy.  I am writing to let you peer into the heart of a preacher post-Easter.  What I am about to write makes no sense even to me.  I cannot explain it because I don’t even understand it, but it is very real to me even as I sit in front of this screen with my fingers on the keys of the keyboard.

When I finished the first service yesterday, I was overwhelmed by a scene from the life of Hudson Taylor that came into my head from nowhere.  I was not thinking of Hudson Taylor as I descended the pulpit to make my way to the front to pray, to sing, and to wait for those who would respond.  So the scene shook me.  It was the moment in his life that would launch him to the mission field.  He had preached one Sunday morning with power and passion what for him was the very plain truth of God, and there was no response.  He left the building that day only to be beckoned back by the Spirit of God and while standing before the now empty pews, Taylor heard the voice of God, “why do you continue to preach the Gospel among this people who seem to have all that they want and need but carry little real concern for the things of God?  Why don’t you go to where the Gospel most needs to be preached among people who most need to hear?”  And the quetion led to his answer to leave and to serve God in regions where the Gospel had yet to be heard.  That was the scene that saturated my mind yesterday that stunned me.  I walked out of the sanctuary in deep despair and with deep darkness in my soul, deflated and dejected.  Never I had not wanted to teach Sunday School, but yesterday I did not want to teach. I wanted to go home.  It was all I could do to drag through Sunday School and I had no desire to be a part of the eleven o’clock worship.  Make no mistake that I was delighted to be able to participate in baptism but beyond that moment, I just wanted, for the first time in ages; just to get done.  And what I felt at the end of the 8:30 service, I felt even more strongly and heavily at the end of the 11:00 hour.  I went to my house with a heavy heart and with a spirit of deep and dreadfully dark despair, drained of energy and defeated in spirit.  I drove to Anne’s parents without any conversation.  I did not want to talk.  It was on our way home that I told her what was going on, and she was used of God to minister to my spirit as my best friend usually does.  She had seen this before but never to this extent.

Now please know that I have never been in a church where people care more about the things of God than do so many at FBC Waynesboro.  In fact, religious folks flee our place like dogs running from a hornets nest.  It is not a comfortable place to be if your commitment to Jesus is not leading you into the deep depths of the Word of God.  I have never been in a place where people are more hungry and thirsty for the Word of God.  But like most churches that I know, we also have those who are exceedingly religious because they always come but they have no real hunger or thirst for God’s Word.  They take great comfort in their church membership but show little evidence of being right with God.  They are in a dreadful state neither know it nor see it.  But so many have such a fire for Jesus and a passion for His truth.  I see it.  I know it.  It ignites both my life of prayer and study.  So, where this despair?:

You know if you have been there.  It is from the enemy who has been defeated by the very reality that we celebrated yesterday.  But I have learned about the enemy that knowing his ways is no guarantee of not being seduced by them.  I was.  He took me to a place of deep and dreadful despair from which even now by God’s grace I am still emerging.  It is not dark now.  The shadows are still there.  It wasn’t a happy Easter for me.  For this preacher, it was energy draining rather than exhiliriating.  As people rushed out of the church in delight, I rushed home to hide.  This was my life, this Easter.  Thanks for reading it.  Maybe you have been at this kind of place in your life.  It is a place at which those who preach and teach the Word of God find themselves from time to time.  I don’t like going to this place but I am glad to know that He is there before I arrive, stays with me while I am there and sees me through to better and brighter days.  Thanks be to God.

 

 Being Right With God [40:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Romans 3:21-31 [+/-]Romans 3:21-31 [21]But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- [22]the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23]for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24]and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25]whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26]It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. [27]Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. [28]For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. [29]Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, [30]since God is one--who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. [31]Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (ESV)

I am going to raise and respond to three questions in this sermon.  The three questions emerge out of what comes prior to this passage and establish the framework for the answers that are given in this passage.  Question one:  How do we enter into a right relationship with God?  Question two:  What does that relationship look like?  Question three:  why is this relationship with God so important?  These three questions undergird this text and the answers to these questions are clearly communicated in this text even though it is not so clear to us at first glance as one scholar calls this passage among the most obscure and difficult in the entire letter although one scholar calls them the center and the heart of the entire letter.

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I always love Holy Week in Waynesboro.  It is so good to be a part of  a community that still values the Gospel enough to gather in different churches for worship during the days of Holy Week.  We have just finished day four with Good Friday to go and then the wonderful celebration of Easter.  Each day has been good as the community has gathered and the attendance has been the best that I have ever seen.  I came from the service today, however, reflecting on the themes of the cross that I have heard declared this week.  I have sat under two very good expository sermons and one very good textual sermon.  The two expository sermons have expressed the pain and agony of the cross; the textual sermon taught us about the victory of the cross.  All three have been very true to Scripture and very wonderfully but differently delivered.  The two sermons that called us to focus on the pain of the cross were delivered by Baptist preachers; the one that called us to focus on the victory of the cross was delivered by my very good friend from the Church of God.

What the combination has communicated to me is the wonderful biblical tension between the agony and the victory that is unashamedly present at the cross.  That combination is found in the Gospels where on the one side the darkness of the passion narratives in Mark is balanced by the beauty of the light of victory that shines forth from the Gospel of John.  Most of us are more drawn to John than to Mark, but John needs Mark and Mark needs John in order for us to have a proper bibllical portrait of the cross.  Take Mark apart from John and we are left dragging around in our journey with little joy and lots of despair.  Take John apart from Mark and we are left dancing delightfully through our journey claiming victory in everthing with little ability to deal with the pains and pressures of life.  The victory of the cross comes by way of the sufferings of the Christ which enables us to face our sufferings victoriously.  This does not mean that we dismiss suffering as if it is not real as do the Christian Scientists or consider suffering or sickness as a lack of faith as do the health and wealth boys.  We see our suffering as a part of the plan of God but can rejoice in it because the suffering of Jesus on the cross has purchased for us the wonderful victory that is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ.  This means simply that in the midst of suffering I can know that God will see me through just as He did His Son and I can know that one day in God’s own time I will enjoy eternal and everlasting victory over every foe that I face.

I believe that the emphsasis on the victory of the cross apart from the agony of the cross is far more dangerous in our culture than we know.  It is the foundation of all prosperity preaching.  It is the centerpiece of the call of the health and wealth boys.  It can lead to our claiming our healing because of the victory that is ours through the cross without our seeing that the One in whose name we are claiming our healing is the One who died on the cross.  He was not dellivered either from pain or death.  His victory was in what He was accomplishing through that pain for His people and what God would accomplish three days later because of that pain.  That is our victory too.  In the midst of the pain that God sends us through we can still praise God because we know that somehow that pain will redound to His glory and that one day all pain will end and will rejoice with Him forever when we are raised with Him to be with Him forever.  Don’t ever diminish the agony of calvary and don’t ever dismiss the victory of calvary.  Both are real.  And both are ours through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The phrase means “the order of salvation.”  It addressses the issue of the saving work of God in the lives of humans.  And although it may be true that here we are digging around in an area that is a great mystery or worse that we are trying to tie God down to a certain order in the way He does His work of saving sinners, it is even more true that the Bible speaks to this issue.  How does God go about the work of saving sinners?  R. C. Sproul said recently that the biggest difference between Calvinists and Arminians is right here.  He was speaking specifically of whether regeneration precedes faith or whether faith gives birth to regeneration.  In other words, does God bring us to life by His Spirit and give us the gift of faith with which we trust God in repentance as we yield our lives to Jesus as Lord or do we trust God and by faith in Jesus Christ we are brought to new life.  Does faith come before this new life or does this new life come before faith?  Calvinists argue the former; Arminians argue the latter.  But what does the Bible say?

It seems to me that there are three simple issues in resolving this question.  The first issue is the issue of initiative.  Does the work of God in salvation come as His response to us or does it come as our response to Him?  Does He come to us to call us to Himself or do we come to Him on our own to call out to Him for mercy?  Who takes the initiative?  I find it to be almost impossible even to bend texts toward our initiative.  It is God who comes to us who in His rich mercy makes Hiimself known to us, and that is so whether you are reading the Old Testament narratives or the New Testament epistles.  The second issue is the issue of our depravity before God.  Is Paul right in Ephesians two in his images that we are by nature dead in our trespasses and sins?  Is he right that both in who we are by nature and what we do in our deeds, we are dead to the things of God.  Is it true that by nature we are under the wrath of God and godless in this world?  Is it true that the Holy Spirit has to awaken us to our sin, His righteousness and the reality of judgment?  If these things are true, then our depravity is real so that even our choices are at best not correct and at worst corrupt.  We are sinners by nature who sin by nature and can do no other until God comes to awaken us from our death.  The third issue is the issue of eternal security.  If it is God who awakens me and changes me and gives me what I need to trust in Him and to walk with Him in the obedience of faith, then it is God who keeps me.  But if I do this then I am not only bringing myself awake, I am also responsible for staying awake.

It seems that these three issues help clarify the real concerns in the order of salvation.  If God takes the inititiave to bring to live sinners that are dead giving us the good gifts of His grace to trust in Him and to follow Him, then the order of salvation is regeneration that brings us to life and gives us the gift of repentance and faith that leads us into a right relationship with God.  But if it is at my initative then at some point in time I must choose to trust Christ and when I do (and here we have all kinds of qualifiers:  if it is sincere, real, genuine etc.) He will bring me new live in Himself and change me.  Ultimately the real question in this whole matter is the question, “who starts it?”  And the testimony of the Bible from creation to consummation is that God does what God does at His own initiative and for His own glory, including our salvation.

 

 The Cross [38:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mark 8:27-38 [+/-]Mark 8:27-38 [27]And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" [28]And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." [29]And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." [30]And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. [31]And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. [32]And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. [33]But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." [34]And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35]For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. [36]For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? [37]For what can a man give in return for his soul? [38]For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (ESV)

Jesus had come with His disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi. He had come to a very strategic place for a very strategic purpose. Notice carefully where He is. He is not in the city proper of Caesarea Philippi; He is in the villages. The villages were located outside the city walls of the major cities of this day. They were close enough for people to move in and out of the city to visit the synagogue and the marketplace but far enough away that those in the villages did not enjoy the safety and security nor the protection and prosperity provided by the city. The cities were walled and those inside them were those who were the privileged and the prosperous who could live their lives with a sense of safety and security. It was hard for those inside the city to hear that something significant was missing in their lives; they looked around and by all external measures of meaning, they had everything they could need or want. Not so in the villages or in the rural areas where poverty and pain abounded. It is that kind of place to which Jesus had come with His disciples.

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 Wednesday Evening Message - April 1, 2009 [28:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Proverbs 8:22 [+/-]Proverbs 8:22 [22]"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.
  & John 1 [+/-]John 1 [1:1]In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2]He was in the beginning with God. [3]All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. [4]In him was life, and the life was the light of men. [5]The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [6]There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. [7]He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. [8]He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. [9]The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. [10]He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. [11]He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. [12]But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, [13]who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [14]And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [15](John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") [16]And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. [17]For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. [18]No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. [19]And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" [20]He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." [21]And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." [22]So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" [23]He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said." [24](Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) [25]They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" [26]John answered them, "I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, [27]even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." [28]These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. [29]The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! [30]This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.' [31]I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel." [32]And John bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. [33]I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' [34]And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God." [35]The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, [36]and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" [37]The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. [38]Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, "What are you seeking?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" [39]He said to them, "Come and you will see." So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. [40]One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. [41]He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). [42]He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter). [43]The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." [44]Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. [45]Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." [46]Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." [47]Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" [48]Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." [49]Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" [50]Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." [51]And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (ESV)

Pastor Al continues looking at the names of Jesus. Toinight’s message looks at the the title Logos, or the Word of God, and how this title of Jesus is declared throughout the Bible, starting in Genesis 1 [+/-]Genesis 1 [1:1]In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [2]The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. [3]And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. [4]And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. [5]God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. [6]And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." [7]And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. [8]And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. [9]And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. [10]God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. [11]And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. [12]The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [13]And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. [14]And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, [15]and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. [16]And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. [17]And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, [18]to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. [19]And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. [20]And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." [21]So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [22]And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." [23]And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. [24]And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. [25]And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [26]Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." [27]So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. [28]And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." [29]And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. [30]And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. [31]And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (ESV)
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When the ancients spoke of the Word of God, they alo used Wisdom (Sophia), and interchanged the words. Wisdom always points towards God.