Home Page: www.ProphecyWatch.biz

Sabbath, April 8, 2006 Newark Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Pastor Tom Hughes

“Four Things God-Fearing People Want To Be”

 

Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and to pray to you. It is such a privilege. In Hebrews 6, you said to come boldly to the throne of grace. What a privilege it is for us, Lord to do just that and to come boldly before you and to be here with you now. Please bless us; Father, as we open your word. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I want to talk to you about the four things God-fearing people desire more than anything else.

Louis Pasteur was in his laboratory and the great scientist was bent over his microscope. Not wishing to disturb him, a young man came in but then left. Pasteur looked up and as the student began to leave he said, “I thought you were praying.” Turning again to his microscope the great but humble man of science replied, “I was.” As he did his work, to Louis Pasteur, his work was dedicated to God as a form of prayer.

All of us need to have that kind of prayerful attitude: where our prayer consists not only of spoken words but also in a constant attitude. In the life of a true Christian, their desire is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, so that even their work itself becomes an offering or a prayer to God. The better they do their work – the more professional, the more Christ-like they conduct themselves, the more prayerful their attitude is, and the more glory they bring to God.

Psalm 145:19—“He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him he also will hear their cry and save them.”

The two verses before talk about calling on the name of the LORD (17“The LORD is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. 18The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.”), and if we call upon God’s name he will answer us.

Have you ever said in your prayer-life, O God, I call upon your name. That’s not the way we often pray today. In our language today, in our modern way of thinking, we don’t often think like they did in ancient times. But when they arose in Adam and Eve’s day, those people who would call upon the name of the Lord were noted for that fact in the Bible with distinction. They were the first group to begin calling upon the name of the Lord. We’re told in the Bible that we are to call upon him and he will answer.

If we call upon the name of the Lord, he will:
answer
save our children
deliver us

Calling upon the name of the Lord is something we are commanded to do, we are challenged to do, and we are called upon to do. I have discovered that there is power in calling upon the name of the Lord. It is almost like officially turning a problem over to God when you call upon the name of the Lord:

Father, we call upon the name of the Lord to fill the Newark Church with spirit-filled people to begin a great revival here that will sweep not only our church up into the river of life of the Holy Spirit but will sweep out throughout all the Conference and the region.

God, we call upon you to baptize our church with fire, to fill us with your Spirit. We call upon you, O God, to put away the sin from among us and help us to become holy people.

Do we have a few things that we need to call upon the name of the Lord for?

Someone has said that if we fear God we have nothing else to fear.

Are you a God-fearing person?

A person who is God-fearing has awe, and reverence, and respect for God, and has humility acknowledging that they are great sinners. The great paradox of grace is that the greatest saints feel inside as if they are the greatest sinners. The greater the saint the more they will feel their sinfulness. If you are truly a God-fearing person: if you fear God, you need fear nothing else because if God is for you, who can be against you.

There is nothing we can’t accomplish, there is no goal we cannot reach, and there is no height to which we cannot attain if God is in our hearts and in our church. God can deliver us from any problem. God can give us anything we need. My God shall supply all your need in glory through his riches through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19—“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

If you fear God, you need fear nothing else.

According to this text (Psalm 145:19), God-fearing people desire many things. “He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him….” God’s people desire to be holy. If you would rather read your Time Magazine and watch TV than pray or read your Bible, you have a spiritual problem. And sadly, there are many in the Laodicean condition that think (being like the people of the church of) Laodicea is normal and so anything that is outside the norm they either are afraid of or resent.

Laodicea is the normal condition of the church but it is a sickening condition. It makes God ill when we are lukewarm. A lukewarm condition yawns in God’s face and doesn’t really care about whether they are holy or not.

Reverence is not being quiet as the Roman Catholic’s teach us. Heaven is the most reverent place but it is filled with loud music and praising God in loud voices. It is a not a matter of being quiet or loud. Reverence is being in God’s house acknowledging your deep sinfulness, asking God to put to death your pride and, in humility, bowing before God and admitting that you are a sinner, and that you are hopeless apart from Christ and his righteousness.

True reverence is acknowledging your deep sinfulness and having that sinful sense of being unworthy. A true Christian has unbelievable joy and reverence at the same time. They recognize their unbelievable sinfulness but they are unbelievably happy at the joy of being forgiven and having the righteousness of Christ to cover their wretched condition. So it is such a paradox of grace that we have an unworthy reverence and a joyful exuberance all at the same time!

If you have reverence and no joy, you have a spiritual problem. If you have joy and no reverence, you have a spiritual problem. If you’d rather watch a ‘dope’ opera or a sporting event than pray, read your Bible, or be filled with the Spirit of God then you have a spiritual problem.

That doesn’t mean that God can’t fulfill the desires of your heart or that there aren’t things that are good and things that we can enjoy. But our first duty is to fear God. Amen? Every morning when we wake up, we need to fear God; we need to be respectful and reverent toward God. We need to admit that we are sinners and that we are lost. We need to go to God first thing, get on our knees, pray, and ask God to come into our heart and forgive us for our sins.

Brothers and sisters, the prayer-less, lukewarm, casual Christian lifestyle that many of us have been living has got to go! We have got to get serious and get real with God, and begin to seriously read our Bibles, and seriously call upon the name of the Lord. Every day we need to call upon the name of the Lord! We wonder why our children are not here. Are we calling upon the name of the Lord every day for our children for God to bring them back? Are we? Or have we grown weary in prayer. Have we gotten discouraged? Have we said, Oh well, that’s their choice, it’s up to them. I can lead ‘em to water but I can’t make ‘em drink. Oh no! We’re not giving up that easy. Oh no, you don’t Satan! You’re not going to pull that one on us! You have rocked the cradle and we have been snoring but we’re waking up!

The Bible tells us that just before Jesus comes, the church of Laodicea will awaken from its slumber and will become and army terrible as an army with banners!

I like banners! We’ve got our banners; now we just need to wake up and be the army! Amen?

I am begging you to read your Bible every day and pray every day! I’m begging you. Jesus is coming soon. We need a revival in our church. I need a revival in my heart; you need a revival in your heart. I want to have a powerhouse of prayer at the Newark Church! This week we had many dramatic answers to prayer that were really exciting! People were healed! Devils were cast out. All sorts of Biblical signs and wonders have been following the saints! Things are happening. Don’t be caught sleeping and miss it all. You can miss it—you can miss it all if you’re not reading your Bible, if you’re not praying.

My brother, my sister, you’ve got a spiritual problem. Something’s wrong! Let me ask you a question. When somebody gets sick, what’s the first thing that goes – their appetite, right? They don’t want to eat. When somebody’s dying, they don’t want to eat, they don’t want to drink, and they just lay around. They get discouraged. They don’t care anymore. They become apathetic. Right? Well, that’s true in the spiritual realm. If somebody’s dying spiritually, they don’t want to eat, they don’t want to read the Bible, they don’t want to pray. They just lay around. They become lazy. They become Laodicean. If you’re not eating, you’re dying! You’re spiritually dying! You’re not eating! You’re not praying! You’re not reading your Bible! I’m begging you, wake up! Hear me! Wake up! Do you want to die? Do you want to be lost? What’s more important than reading God’s word every day? What’s more important than getting on your knees and praying? What’s more important than praying with two or three friends?

Now I gave a program on a Friday night. I asked you to form “triplets,” groups of threes, and to begin praying. Do we have any triplets? How many of you have formed a triplet? We have one triplet. Can we do better than that? How many of you would like to come out Tuesday night and pray with us for the revival of our Church?

Sabbath morning – that tells you how popular the church is and how popular the preacher is, but Tuesday night tells you how popular Jesus is – because you’re just coming to pray and talk to Jesus.

I don’t know, people. Do you want me just to stand up here and play “Church”? I can just give you a nice little sermon, we can go home, just business as usual; not really care about whether we’re really doing what God wants us to do. Do you want to just have kind of a lackadaisical attitude or do you want to burn (with zeal inside from the Holy Spirit)? Do you want to have the Holy Spirit in this place? Do you want see people getting saved, and children coming back? Do you want your kids to come back? I want ‘em!

I’m just one person; I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know a lot of things! I don’t have the answers, but I know who the answer is! I know the Lord! I don’t have to have all the answers; I don’t have to know it all. I need Jesus to help me with this church.

I don’t know what to do, but I want those people back. I want those young people back. I want all our members who have gotten discouraged and fallen away – I want them back! I think we should be praying for them.

I don’t know what to do, but I know that if I need the Lord, he’ll help me. I have a need. I don’t have the wisdom. I don’t have the knowledge to know what to do. But I know God wants God-fearing people to be holy. God wants God-fearing people to be useful to him.

Do you want to be useful to God? How can God use you today to do something that will help his work?

God-fearing people want to be a blessing to others. If you don’t want to be holy, if you’d rather do sinful things, if you don’t really want to be holy you’ve got a sinful, spiritual problem, don’t you?

The fourth and most important thing that godly people want: deliverance and salvation.

So God-fearing people want to be holy, they want to be useful to God, they want to be a blessing to others, and they want to be saved – they want salvation.

In Psalm 37:4 it says God will give you the desires of your heart. It’s a beautiful verse. I know God promises to give us what we need, but he even gives you what you want sometimes. “Delight yourself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your ways to the Lord. Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass.”

Godly people want to be holy. Godly people want to be useful to God. Godly people want to be a blessing to others. Those who are God-fearing most importantly their chief desire is that God saves them, and that’s what they want more than anything else—to be saved.

So I want Jesus to save you this morning. I want Jesus to make you holy. I want Jesus to make you useful to God, and I want Jesus to make you a blessing to others.

Do you want to be a God-fearing person today? Would you like all those blessings?

Lets’ pray.

Father in heaven, everyone who raises their hand right now I pray that you will make them holy, make them useful to you, make them a blessing to others, and save their soul through your Son’s sacrifice on Calvary’s cross. Make us all those things, Lord, so that we can be used of you to bless our church and our community, and to tell others about Jesus’ soon coming.

Help us to pray like we’ve never prayed before. Help us to have our worship every day. Help us to get real with you so that you can get real with us.

Give us the desires of our heart, O God. We call upon you and commit our ways to you. We trust in you. Bring to pass in our lives your will on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen and amen.




All Scriptural References: New King James Version / New American Standard Bible

Transcription: Wendy J. Riebel

This sermon is also available on cassette tape.

Visit our church website: www.LivingWord.biz