psalmsexpository preaching psalms 8:1 "o lord, our lord,how excellent is your name in all the earth,who have set your glory above the heavens! 2 "out of the mouth of babes and nursing infantsyou have ordained strength,because of your enemies,that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. 3 "when i consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have ordained,4 what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you visit him? 5 "for you have made him a little lower than the angels,and you have crowned him with glory and honor.6 you have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands;you have put all things under his feet, 7 "all sheep and oxen—even the beasts of the field,8 the birds of the air,and the fish of the seathat pass through the paths of the seas.9 o lord, our lord,how excellent is your name in all the earth!" what is man?the answer depends on another question(psalms 8) in order to answer this question, we must have a model,
someone to compare man to. for example, we know something is big or small if we compare it with something else. an elephant is very big compared to an ant, but very small compared to the sun. so, in order to know what man is, what the profound truth about man is, we must compare him with something else, in order to have a valid model. that's why we will only be able to solve this question if we compare man's image with something worth to be compared to:
the image of truth. and that's jesus christ. jesus christ is the word of god. and god tells us in his word that man is made in his image. therefore, when man 'destroys' god (when man throws god out, because god cannot be destroyed), when man says as we saw in psalms 2 “let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from usâ€, or as philosophers say nowadays, 'god is dead', then men lose their true model, they destroy it, and with it their true image.
and destroying their true image also destroys their true purpose. that's why people are like this, because they don't have a purpose. so in order to know what man truly is, the first thing we should find out is 'who is god.' i'm going to divide the psalms in 3 parts. the first one is 'god's glory expressed in creation', the second one is 'god's glory expressed in the creation of man', and the third one is 'god's glory expressed in jesus christ.'
as you can see, even if today's question is 'what is man?', the answer is always going to be focused on god, specially on jesus christ. and this psalm is going to help us answer our questions through god, through god's glory. first part: 'god's glory expressed in nature'. 1 "o lord, our lord,how excellent is your name in all the earth,who have set your glory above the heavens!2 out of the mouth of babes and nursing infantsyou have ordained strength, "because of your enemies,that you may silence the enemy and the avenger.3 when i consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have ordained" god's majesty is expressed in the things he created,
the things we see in nature. david wrote this psalm, and we see him captivated contemplating god's creation. he sees god's majesty in heavens and earth. but i realise something from verse 1: it's only possible to be captivated by god's work, nature, if the person previously says "o lord, our lord", as david. david, before describing man's position in creation, sings god's glory and recognises that he's his lord.
how important it is to keep this in mind, that he's the lord. only then we'll understand the rest. only then you'll understand honor. it's important to understand he's the lord, not my maid. only then we'll understand what honor is, what service in the body of christ is, what tithe and offering are... only then you'll understand what it means to be thankful, when he's your lord. let me explain it with an example, because as i say many times, we use common sense in our daily life but not in our spiritual life.
there's no happier child than the one who knows he depends on a father and recognises who his father is, and therefore thanks him for everything. an example: if you go to a restaurant and see those children who don't pay attention to their parents and disobey them in everything, apart from being impertinent, they're not happy. as they haven't been created to be independent (because they're children, therefore dependent), but to be dependent on their parents, when they play a role which doesn't correspond them (being lords of their own lives), apart from being shameful and not being able to take them anywhere,
they're ungrateful and profoundly unhappy. when a child doesn't recognise his father as what he is, his father, his life loses the model. do you realise what i mean regarding god and us? he loses his model, he loses his image, and therefore his purpose. and losing his purpose makes him profoundly unhappy. but not david.
that's why in verse 1, in order to be able express the truth about god's nature, he recognises who god is: his lord. and he thanks god for everything and rejoices in his relationship with him. david is happy because knowing who god is, he knows who he is. he has a model. on the contrary, the world is lost, it doesn't have a model, it has destroyed it. that's the reason why david sees creation very differently from how people see it. people who have lost their ability to be surprised by nature, or if they haven't completely lost it, they aren't grateful.
of course, who are they going to be thankful to, if they don't believe in anyone except themselves? these people who don't believe in god as their lord behave like those children who when their father asks them for a fry at mcdonald's, they say: 'they're mine!.' and the father is the one who bought them. and the father not only doesn't need his son to give him a fry, because he could buy him thousands of them, but the child would enjoy sharing them with his father. do you understand what i mean about our relationship with the lord? that child's selfish behaviour is due to a lack of perspective about who he is: a son,
and about who his father is: his lord, of course. his lord, a good lord who wants the best for him, but his lord, that's why he owes him respect, obedience and gratitude. but all that is lost in our modern society. sin destroys all these beautiful words: submission, respect, authority, gratitude; and it turns them into something ugly and degrading. we think that putting into practise submission, respect, recognition of authorities (a father, a teacher, a pastor...) we degrade ourselves, but on the contrary, they eulogize us.
if you're in a restaurant and you see a child with these qualities (respect, gratitude, submission), what do you think of him? 'what a fool'? no. you think the opposite, 'what an example.' it should be the same with us and god. jesus gave us example with submission, respect, recognition of his father. and he had to learn it in the days of his flesh, as the author of hebrews says. and precisely because of the children's dependance of their father,
verse 2 fits perfectly into this psalm. let's read it again: "out of the mouth of babes and nursing infantsyou have ordained strength,because of your enemies,that you may silence the enemy and the avenger." singing this part david was probably remembering when he, being a child, silenced the enemy and avenger goliath. he was a nursing infant compared to the giant goliath, however god used him to silence the enemy. despite the impressive message nature reveals us about god and his creative power, many people are insensitive to that message and they reject god as the creator of all things. therefore god, in his infinite wisdom and power,
has decreed this moral law, seen in verse 2: that all those who despise nature's revelation, god's revelation through the created things, are blinded and they don't understand, and he gives understanding to children and to the humble, so that those who say they see (as the pharisees told jesus they saw) are blinded. that's what many people today would say to a christian. if you speak about the god creator of all things, they'll say to you as the pharisees said to jesus: "are we blind also?" "jesus said to them, 'if you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, "we see." therefore your sin remains.'" (john 9:40-41)
and that sin, despising god, stays in them because of their pride and produces blindness. and that makes them stumble into everything in life, and they don't hit the mark in any purpose they start. this verse says "out of the mouth of babes and nursing infantsyou have ordained strength" that means truth, because there's nothing stronger than truth. with babes he refers to the humble, those dependent on a father who is in heaven. and there's nothing more dependent in this world than a nursing infant.
that's why it says that truth will come out of those people who depend on god as an infant depends on his mom's breast. because god will give understanding and sight only to them. because they've decided to depend on god as a baby depends on his mother. today is palm sunday, and if we go to matthew 21:15-17 we'll see that jesus mentioned this psalm on that sunday. he had entered triumphantly into jerusalem, and he entered into the temple and started to overturn the tables of the money changers. and there in the temple... let's read matthew 21:15-17: "but when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did...." do you realise that seeing, they didn't perceive? "saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, 'hosanna to the son of david!' they were indignant and said to him, do you hear what these are saying?'
"and jesus said to them, 'yes.'" have you never read psalms 8? it does't say that, but: "‘out of the mouth of babes and nursing infantsyou have perfected praise’? then he left them and went out of the city to bethany, and he lodged there." what did he do to those who, seeing what jesus did, ignored it? what did he do? spend hours explaining to them what they didn't see because of their pride? no. what does it say? "then he left them and went out of the city to bethany, and he lodged there." he left them blinded, because god leaves the proud blind.
only children, those who depend completely on a father who is in heaven, will be given the ability to see what the wise and experts of this world will never be able to see. because seeing is a miracle. it doesn't depend on studying or being very smart, it depends on being humble and obedient to the word of god. matthew 11:25 refers to the time when jesus had performed many miracles, but even if people had seen them they hadn't repented. "at that time jesus answered and said, 'i thank you, father, lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.'" (matthew 11:25) that's what verse 2 means:
"out of the mouth of babes and nursing infantsyou have ordained strength" power, truth. such is god's power and such is its manifestation, in humble earthen vessels as paul says in 2 corinthians 4:7: "but we have this treasure [jesus, the truth] in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of god and not of us." let's go back to psalms 8. there's something very interesting between verse 1 and 2, and it's quite hidden. god's glory is inseparable from his grace. god will only give the glory which appears in verse 1 to those who are given sight by grace. and he gives sight to children,
those people who, like children, depend on their father in heaven. they depend on god as a child depends on his father in everything. these people mentioned in verse 2 silence their enemies. they're apparently strong, powerful, proud enemies, but end up like goliath, taken down by the simplicity of a child's argument. i've repeated this many times: “god resists the proud,but gives grace to the humble.†(james 4:6) let's read 1 corinthians 1:27-29 to see what paul says about what god has chosen for himself: 27 "but god has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and god has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
28 "and the base things of the world and the things which are despised god has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in his presence." only when someone says, as david in verse 1, that god is his lord, and defends him as a child defends his father, verse 2, then god's sovereignty over all creation will be recognised naturally, without being ashamed, as in verse 3: "when i consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have ordained," probably david was remembering when he was a shepherd as a child, being with the sheep in the countryside. and at night, seeing the firmament full of stars, he would be captivated by it.
so again, we see a child believing his father. the opposite to what paul says in romans 1:20-23 about those who despise god's counsel and word. 20 "for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 "because, although they knew god, they did not glorify him as god, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. [it's the same thing we're seeing in psalms 8] 22 "professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible god into an image made like corruptible man..." this is the difference between the pride of someone who thinks himself wise and the strength of a child who believes his father. well, apart from what we've said about god's glory manifested through nature,
god's majesty is expressed more fully in the creation of humans. that's what we're going to see in the second part: 'god's glory expressed in the creation of man.' 4 "what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you visit him? 5 "for you have made him a little lower than the angels,and you have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 "you have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands;you have put all things under his feet, 7 "all sheep and oxen—even the beasts of the field,8 the birds of the air,and the fish of the seathat pass through the paths of the seas." after seeing god's glory through the created things, david asks himself "what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you visit him?"
compared to the cosmos, humans are insignificant in size. however, david knows god is mindful of him and visits him. evidently, man's body is weak and gets sick and dies with any little bug that infects it. he doesn't have elephant's strength, nor cheetah's speed, eagle's sight or tortoise's longevity. however, god is mindful of him and visits him. so there must be something in man so that god respects that dignity that we many times despise. literally, in hebrew, it says "for you have made him a little lower than god" the hebrew word is 'elohim',
and even if it's translated as 'angels' in other passages, looking at the context and the passage in genesis which we'll read now, man, not now but as he emerged from god's creative hands, was made in the image of god. another reason for translating it as 'god' is that he never sent a saviour for the fallen angels, but for men yes, he sent jesus christ. this confirms my conviction that god made men, in his state of genesis 1 and 2,
a little lower than god and not a little lower than the angels. in order to know what man is, the best way is to go to genesis and observe what god created, and what his purpose was for him. there we'll find the purpose of god for creating man and the reason why god is mindful of him and visits him. evidently, the difference between god and man was great. the attributes of man that we see in genesis 1 and 2 are not the same as god's attributes. but there's no doubt god granted men with qualities no other created being has on this earth.
man has intellectual, moral and spiritual faculties that no other created being has. furthermore, he has self-awareness, and no animal has that. god also gave him a personality that no other created being has, and it gives him the ability to have a relationship with other people, apart from being able to have a personal relationship with god. the man of genesis 1 and 2 is the culmination of god's creation. and god himself saw that it was good. today i won't speak about the absurdity of thinking that all this comes from the evolution of an explosion.
any explosion creates chaos and destruction, it doesn't create order, life and of course purpose. and the word 'purpose' is fundamental for us. purpose only comes from design, and design only comes from the designer. let me put an example. the purpose for a boat to float and not sink so that it can transport people comes from a design which achieves that purpose, and that design can only come from an intelligent being called designer.
genesis 1:26-28: 26 "then god said, 'let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, 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 "then god blessed them, and god said to them... "[here's the purpose...] "be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." do you realise what we have here? in a few verses we see the design, the designer and the purpose he gave to the design of man, which is to reflect god's glory (that's what be fruitful means) multiply his image (we'll analyse this later),
and to have a correct dominion over all creation. this image of man before genesis 3 (not like the fallen man after sinning), who was made a little lower than god, gave him the ability to rule over fish, birds and beasts. but something happened in genesis 3. and from that moment, the reflection of god's glory in man was distorted with sin, and man lost dominion over nature. in that moment there was a change of lords. man thinks himself free, but it isn't so.
as paul reminds us in romans 6:16 you can be a slave of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness. obedient to christ because he's our righteousness. what's was the problem in genesis 3 and the problem today? that man wasn't content with being made a little lower than god. that's the real problem. both yesterday's adam and today's man believed what the serpent said, and wanted to be like god. this pride and ambition is what blinds man and destroys the true image god designed for him. therefore, every time man achieves progress in science,
as he doesn't want to give glory to god, because he thinks it's his achievement and that he's like god, there's always a deterioration in society. after the discovery of nuclear energy, which wasn't bad itself, there was disaster and massive destruction. after the discovery of a new healing medicine, a new illness arises, which didn't exist before or at least it wasn't suffered. and on a on. what's sad is that man doesn't want to realise of this failure. do you remember what the lord said after genesis 3?
that the ground would bring forth thorns? and thank god for scientific progress, but that only happens because god's mercy is still over us, because we still have part of his image, even if it's distorted by sin. but man's failure in humanity's history, specially moral failure, should make man think that god is right. that being which was created by god and put on earth to look after his creation has turned against his creator and since then his life produces only thorns in his soul and in his relationships with others.
when man stops worshiping god he starts worshiping his body, money, fame, power... so instead of serving god and thank him for everything, he serves that other lord named satan. he doesn't realise he's still a servant, but of an evil and lying lord. and the only thing he wants is "to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." and jesus says: "i have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (john 10:10) what man should recognise once and for all is that he's unable to live with the moral standard with which he was created. that's why he suffers and makes others suffer.
he was created to be owner, lord, protector of creation, but he degenerated into a slave of himself, and that's the reason he's like that. but god didn't stay idle, he wanted to recover his most precious work, that's why he sent his begotten son, to rescue man from himself. so in this psalm we see something else. we've seen god's glory expressed perfectly in nature, we've seen god's glory expressed fully in the creation of man,
and now we're going to see god's glory expressed even more perfectly in his son jesus christ and his work of salvation. third part: god's glory expressed in jesus christ. 4 "what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you visit him?5 for you have made him a little lower than the angels,and you have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 " you have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands;you have put all things under his feet, we're going to speak about jesus christ. and if you look at the gospel, you can see that the dominion over creation that god gave man and that adam lost because of sin was exercised by jesus, over fish, birds and beasts. we all remember those passages when jesus dominated the fishing,
or the fish with a coin in its mouth to pay the tribute, or the rooster he made sing three times after peter's denial, or when in the desert beasts served the lord. no one today can control nature as he did. fish, birds, beasts; sea, waves and winds. so if you pay attention, we see jesus christ in this psalm. we see god visiting men as verse 4 suggest. so psalms 8 is a messianic psalm,
but not only because of what we've said or because jesus himself used it referring to himself when he reproached the scribes and priests in the temple because they were indignant when they heard the young men say “hosanna to the son of david!", but also because the writer of hebrews mentions it referring to jesus. hebrews 2:6-10 6 "but one testified in a certain place [psalms 8], saying 'what is man that you are mindful of him,or the son of man that you take care of him? 7 "'you have made him a little lower than the angels; [than god]you have crowned him with glory and honor,and set him over the works of your hands. 8 "'you have put all things in subjection under his feet.' [remember, it's the man before genesis 3] "for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. but [and this is now] now we do not yet see all things put under him. 9 "but we see jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of god, might taste death for everyone."
10 "for it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." here in hebrews 2 we see the person of jesus and his work of salvation, related to psalms 8. i said 'the person' of jesus because it's in this human condition where the words and context of hebrews 2 must be understood. why? because otherwise we won't understand, and we'll think, as those who don't search the scriptures, that jesus is lower than god, and therefore he is not god.
and that's the first thing i want to make clear about this text. we've read in hebrews 2:10 that god wants to bring many sons to glory. in order for this to be possible, god had to make the ultimate expiatory sacrifice to free us from the wages of sin, which is death. it was his son jesus who made this sacrifice, but in order for that sacrifice to be valid, the only way was that the son of god, 100% god, had to be made human, 100% man. he could only carry and pay for man's sins assuming and incarnating the same condition as man.
so now we can understand better what the passage says about jesus. "you have made him a little lower than the angels [than god], "you have crowned him with glory and honor,and set him over the works of your hands." 'a little lower than god' refers to jesus 'for a short time', for those 33 years he was on earth, and while he was here, incarnated. he was a little lower that god only in his carnal nature, as the second adam, but not in his other nature, his divine nature. let's read hebrews 2 again. 6 "but one testified in a certain place, saying:'what is man that you are mindful of him,or the son of man that you take care of him?
7 "'you have made him a little lower than the angels [god];you have crowned him with glory and honor,and set him over the works of your hands. 8 "'you have put all things in subjection under his feet.'[we saw this in genesis 1] "for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. but now we do not yet see all things put under him [man]. 9 "but we see jesus [and all hebrews 1 speaks about jesus as god, specially 1:9], who [being god] was made a little lower than the angels [temporarily lower than god because of the incarnation], "for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of god, might taste death for everyone. jesus did all this. we know it well, because of love. love for you and for me. and what's the purpose of it?
since we've lost our correct image, the image similar to god, because we're disobedient and wanted to be like god, he does it so that we can recover our original image. for god so loves us that he wants us to recover what we lost, what the enemy took from us with tricks, as he took it from adam and eve. so christ, as the author of hebrews says, fulfilled the words of psalms 8 so that we can be made in him what the fall took from us.
what did it take form us? being the perfect man to whom god gave rule over his creation. i'll say it again: christ, apart from being god, is the perfect man, and through his sacrifice he recovered for you the condition of man of truth, not the one we have now, fallen. that perfect condition god always wanted you to have. it's true that now we do not yet see all things put under us, as the author of hebrews says, but that will only happen when our body is glorified.
jesus fulfilled the prophecy of psalms 8. and as paul says of jesus in philippians 2:8: "and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." he was made lower than god for a short time, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. all that as a gift, as we've read in hebrews 2:9. he was made a little lower than the angels, that by the grace of god, might taste death for everyone. it he hadn't been made lower than the angels it would have been impossible for him to taste death. so it was thanks to that terrible voluntary humiliation,
coming in the flesh, suffering, dying and being buried for something you and i deserved, that we can be saved. but once that humiliation was fulfilled, during the period of time he was in the flesh, he wasn't inferior to god, he never was. going back to psalms 8, we see jesus fulfilling for us what the first adam couldn't due to sin. i want you to think about this again: jesus is recovering for us what adam lost.
and he's recovering it in his same territory, as a man. otherwise the match would have been cancelled. do yo understand? what do we see in psalms 8? we see the second person of the trinity, voluntarily assuming human nature, similar to ours in everything, but without sin. he was made a little lower than the angels so that he could pay for us what's impossible for us to pay.
unless with death, because the wages of sin is death. and that means eternal separation from god. we see jesus holding everything for us, even death. but now we do not yet see all things put under us. that will only happen when we have our glorified body. final reflection: man is god's highest creation because he was made in his image, but man, believing the devil's lies, has lowered himself.
and he has lowered himself to the level of an animal, and i would say lower than an animal, rejecting god and his word. so man, breaking the bonds that tied him to god, casting away his cords, in short, removing god from his life, has degraded himself. i don't know about you but i see a world in chaos, destruction, disorder, brutality. if someone doesn't believe this,
i honestly don't know what his eyes are seeing. i guess the same the pharisees saw, and they'll say: “are we blind also?†and jesus will say to them, “if you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘we see.’ therefore your sin remains." (john 9:40-41) psalms 8 praises man's dignity, but how could we recover the image god gave us and we lost? how could we recover it, at least in part, until this body is glorified? pay attention, this is the key. you can see it from genesis 3 to revelation. don't justify yourself in your sin, as the pharisees did. this is the key to be able to see,
not justifying yourself as the pharisees did. we know that in genesis 3 man tried to elude his responsibility blaming his wife and then god himself, for having given her to him. and that's always our problem. always. do you want to know what your problem is? justifying yourself. that's what almost always happens with people confronted with their sin, that they blame society, their wife, parents, the pastor, the church... even god. 'because god made me this way.'
but in order to fix our situation we can't do the same thing adam did, justifying himself. because we know the results justifying oneself caused and continues to cause. therefore, and in order to fix this situation which is leading us to ruin, we must know this: god doesn't forgive excuses. god forgives sins. confession of sins. i don't know if you've realised, but we have a verse left, verse 9: "o lord, our lord,how excellent is your name in all the earth!"
psalms 8 starts and ends with the same words. from the three parts in which i've divided this psalm, god's glory expressed in nature, god's glory expressed in the creation of man and god's glory expressed in jesus christ, david only knew the first two: god's glory expressed in nature and in the creation of man. but he didn't know god's glory expressed in the redeeming work of his son jesus christ on the cross. that's why, for us, after knowing what christ has done for us and with us, and accept his redeeming work,
we should sing verse 9 with even more gratitude than david had. we have more revelation, more understanding. if david expresses about god with an explosion of worship without having known christ's work, we should do it even more, we have a bigger understanding, therefore a bigger reason than david to sing and worship he who recovered for us the dignity we lost because of sin. and christ has done much more than recovering for us our lost dignity, much more than returning to us the image we lost with adam. do you know what he's done?
he's made us participants of his glory, and from this moment. so pay attention if you're a christian: in order to be able to be participants of his glory we must understand something: he is the lord. not my maid. only then we'll be able to fulfil the purpose for which we were created. do you remember the story of the father and the son? the same. only then we'll be able to fulfil the purpose for which we were created,
which is growing and multiplying. what's growing? being fruitful, that christ's image grows in us. and what's multiplying? that we can multiply that image in others so that they know christ. if christ has saved you from your wrong emotions, from an illness, from a marital failure, or if he has simply taken you to the truth, even if you do not yet see all things put under you,
it's not so that you just get happy and then continue to be a slave of your own selfishness, living for yourself. what god wants is being glorified in you and your life, in your marriage, your family, your job, your university. god wants to be glorified through you, so that everyone sees he's the lord. what a privilege! you'll only be blessed in your life here if you understand this truth,
and understanding it, you receive it: "therefore, if anyone is in christ, he is a new creation"; [the frustrations and the selfish purpose of my life] "have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 corinthians 5:17) what has become new? all things. the purpose of my life and the intentions i have to do that purpose, everything's new. and i stress intentions because that's the drama of many christians. for this, you must die. die to oneself, every day,
so that christ's image can be resurrected in me. and that means that i'm being made new, in all things. so don't keep walking as the pharisees did, blind, stumbling on all of this worlds' fascinations. the church is going to help you. but church isn't a social club, ok? we know it very well here. a true church will tell you things as they are in scripture, just as they are,
so that you can fix your situation with god. i''ll repeat it again: don't follow the lord for the wrong reasons, because if you do, do you know what will happen? you and your family will suffer. and while you don't hand everything over, it means you follow him for the wrong reason. only handing everything over you won't have the wrong motives.
'i go to church to find a girlfriend, 'i go to church so that i can play, 'i go to church because... whatever' wrong motives. and those who follow him for the wrong reasons, end up disheartened. do you know why? because jesus is not santa claus. he's the lord.
let's go to john 6 to see a good example of this. john 6:2-3: "then a great multitude followed him [i stress 'great multitude'], because they saw his signs which he performed on those who were diseased.[talking about the wrong motives...] "and jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat with..." the multitude? does it say that? he sat with his disciples. the moments of intimacy, of refreshment, aren't for the multitudes that fill the churches looking for jesus for the wrong motives, such as the signs he performed. the times of transforming power are only for his disciples. so if you're looking for jesus for the wrong motives, it means you're from the multitude,
and do you know where you'll end up if you're from the multitude? at 6..6...6.. the mark of the beast... no, john 6:66. pay attention, because there are times when even being disciples, you can end up leaving him. because after this, jesus explained very hard things, as i sometimes say here in church, and what happened? "from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more." because they followed him for the wrong reasons. don't let that happen to us. amen.
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