Ministries:
Adult | Teens | Children

Pastor's Pen's:
2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004
2003 | 2002 | 2001

Sermon Series:
Apostles Creed
Dealing with Feelings
Jonah
Get Real
Promised Land Living

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson
carson@gracechurchwi.org

Secretary Patti Hall
pattihall@gracechurchwi.org

PASTOR'S PENS 2007

Grace Church of Burlington January 28, 2007 “As the Holy Spirit, the Author of the Scriptures, alone can enlighten us rightly to understand [Scripture], we should constantly ask His teaching and His guidance unto all truth.”                                                                                  Charles Spurgeon             This morning we’re finishing our series from Psalm 119. Next Sunday we’ll take one more look at why the Bible is a sure foundation for our lives but we won’t be working out of Psalm 119. This Psalm is so full. One wonderful verse is verse 18 where the writer prays, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things in Your law.” The fact is that you can see many things when you come to the Word without God opening the eyes of your heart. You can see words and grammatical constructions, logical connections, historical facts, the author's rational intention. None of that requires that God open your eyes in a special spiritual way. But what you cannot see is the spiritual beauty of God and His work in the world. You cannot see that God is infinitely desirable above all things. A blind person cannot see the sun, though he can know many facts about the sun and pass a test in astronomy with a score higher than a person who can see the sun. That’s because knowing about and knowing by sight are not the same. Knowing that honey is sweet and tasting honey are not the same.             I hope that you are faithfully in your Bible and have joined us in getting “Back to the Book.” To truly understand what we are reading though is not human, it’s divine. It requires what theologians call the Holy Spirit’s illumination. If there is any hope of our seeing wonderful things in God’s Word of God, we must have a supernatural capacity given to us by God that we do not have by nature. And this is so vital because being changed into the likeness of Christ happens by seeing the beauty and worth and excellence of Jesus Christ. As Paul said in 2 Cor. 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” This is the only way to change behavior so that it honors God. We change because we’ve seen a superior beauty and worth and excellence. If we look into the face of Christ and then look into Sports Illustrated or Glamour and are not moved by the superior beauty and worth and excellence and desirability of Christ, then we’re still hard and blind and even futile in our thinking. We need to cry out again, “Open my eyes to see wonderful things out of Your Word!” If you do, your life will show it. Where your treasure is - your desire, delight, devotion  - there will your heart be also and your days and nights, and your weekends and your money. We’re changed by seeing God’s glory in His Word. If God is not more glorious to us and more compelling to us than the fading attraction of the world, we haven't seen Him.             We must not make the mistake of thinking that what we need from God's Spirit is some new information. We already have a thousand times more information about God in the Bible than we can begin to fathom. What we need is to see with the eyes of our hearts. The average Christian does not need any new information, what we desperately need are new eyes to see what has already been revealed to us in God's Word.             When you pray for eyes to see, please don’t shift your mind into neutral. Don't assume that the indispensability of prayer means the dispensability of focused thought on the Word of God. When you pray to see the glory of Christ, don't coast mentally. Don't just wait, doing nothing. This is a huge mistake, and comes from Eastern spirituality, not Scripture. What is unique about Christianity is that it is cognitive, historical and particular. Jesus lived in a time and place. God's design is to open your eyes to see the spiritual beauty and value of this particular Man just as He is revealed in the Word. But if we pray to see it and then just mentally drift, we’ll never see it. So don't pray and drift. Instead pray and read God’s Word. While it is true that we must pray and are blind without God’s illumination, praying can never replace reading. Praying instead turns reading into seeing. If we don't read, we won’t see. The Holy Spirit was sent to glorify Jesus, and the glory of Jesus is portrayed in the Word, so read the Word asking the Spirit to open your eyes to see Jesus and His truth.             Friend, faithfully stay in the Book but start on your knees asking God to reveal Himself to you and to open your eyes to see truth in your inner man from His Word.