Approaching God

I forgot to tell you before I joined the kids, or before I let the kids go. I'm having lunch with our high school right after the service today, so I'm going to make a little quicker turnaround from the lobby that I normally do if you are of high school age. You didn't know that we were doing that. You're welcome to join us. I've baked the pizza myself just with you in mind, and then we go eating on the right of the service. Now let me ask you, what comes to your mind when I say the words to you, approaching God? Approaching God? What sort of imagery comes to mind? A mountain with dark clouds overhead and flashes of lightning, crashing thunder, maybe smoke and earthquakes, be brumbling voice, or maybe the tabernacle or the temple. With that inner rhythm and inner sanctum with the curtain in front, behind it. That sacred object, the arc of the covenant inside, the weird holy objects and the two stone tablets. If you've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, you don't open that thing, or the avenging angels will melt your face. What comes to your mind when you hear the words approaching God? Read along with me, if you will, from Ecclesiastes Chapter 5, verses 1-7, resuming our study in the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes Chapter 5, verses 1-7. The preacher says, guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, but they do not know, they are doing evil. They do not be hasty and word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth, therefore let your words be few, so the dream comes to much effort and the voice of a fool through many words. When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it, or he takes no delight in fools, pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin, and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God, but it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For in many dreams and in many words, there is emptiness, rather, hear God, you pray along with me. Father, we thank you that we can look into this book and the pages, these words printed on the page and see the very words of God reveal the very nature of God, the very heart of God. We are not left to wonder what you are like, you have revealed it to us in 66 books, written over many, many centuries, even millennia, reveal to us who you are and who we are before you and what your plan is for us. I pray this morning that you would give me words of grace and truth, words of encouragement and hope, or that you would allow me to strengthen those who are people who just barely made it here this morning, hanging on by a thread, those who couldn't be here today, try but just couldn't make it. We pray for them as well, for those who might hear this message on the Internet, that you would use my words to impart encouragement and hope, most importantly, through these written words, the printed word, the written word of God, we would see the living word Jesus and whose name I pray. Amen. Let me give you some context if you are new to us, if you have been out for a while and it's been about a month since I have been in Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes, I say it's the most post-modern book in the whole Bible for the questions that it raises for the dilemmas, it's the most enigmatic, in some ways, in some ways, for flexing and challenging in the word of God. Somebody says, well, why preach it? Well, some of that's climb mountains, some people are in marathons, some men try to understand women, I'm trying to understand the book of Ecclesiastes, I'm trying to have you help me understand it along with me as we go. It's written by the preacher, he identifies himself only as one who had been keen over Israel. Some are persuaded, this is Solomon, I am persuaded, it is not, but we don't know. We don't know who the writer is, he does not tell us. What he does do to those, he cloaks himself in a mantle of one who is seeking wisdom and he's warned against the folly. He uses wisdom as a compass, not an end to itself as a compass, to find what is real and true about, and good about life, and along the way he has warned us against the folly of chasing the idols of pleasure, of wine, women, and song, of money, of power, of possessions, of knowledge, just for knowledge sake. Now in chapter 5, now he turns the corner and he says, now let's talk about bowing down at the altar of God himself. How does it were to do that? How is we are to approach God both individually and are individual times of devotions between the Bible and devotions of our prayers, and here corporately as a family gathered to worship God together, what does the preacher say to us about how we are to approach God? Well first thing he says, is to approach him respectfully. The first thing he says here in chapter 5, guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools. Those on say, do not be hasty in word when Paul has been thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God, for God is in heaven, you are on the earth, therefore let your words be few. I like the way the new living translation puts this, as you enter the house of God, keep your ears open in your mouth shut. This is a perspective, not that we can't speak in the house of God, excuse me. Nothing we're not allowed to talk, obviously I'd be out of a job with that word true, that we need to keep in perspective who we are, who he is. Yes, let's talk and let's pray and sing and let's affirm our faith and give our offerings and tell us if we want another, but let's remember who it is, who is our audience, who it is who's speaking to us, would approach him respectfully. The truth is about God, not about you, not about me, it's about us, it's about God. We are not unimportant, please don't misunderstand, in the worship equation there are basically two factors, there's God and there's us, he didn't change very much, back he didn't change at all. It's the same yesterday, today and forever, we change all the time, day to day, church to the nomination, to the nomination, to the city, nation to nation, culture to culture. We change all the time, he does not change, he is the constant in our worship and worship is to be about him, that's the most important thing. I have a good friend that we don't talk that often, but when we do, he'll call me or I'll call him, see how each other see how we're doing and he'll bring up to that on himself and they'll say, well enough about me, let's hear you talk about me. We're so self-aware, we're so self-concerned, you know, you talk to somebody, you meet somebody, you walk away, you wonder, I wonder what kind of impression I made on him. Let me tell you, you didn't make an impression on him at all, he's walking away wondering, well what kind of impression I made on her, we're so consumed with who we are, what kind of impression we're making, God does not exist solely or even most importantly, to bless me. It does not exist primarily to make my life easy for me, and he will bless us. He will give us blessings beyond our ability to comprehend. Let's just start with forgiveness, if you know Christ is Lord, if you have received the payment Christ made on the cross for your sins, you have forgiveness, you have removal of your guilt, your sins are gone, high as the heavens are above the earth as far as the east is from the west, as deep as the deepest part of the ocean, your sins have been removed from you, you're not guilty anymore, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ's season, same end to that, even Presbyterians I would say you're in to that. You've got brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world, and maybe you've had the experiences I have, I know some of you have, you're in another culture, maybe you don't even speak to language, but you go into a worship service, you've got people worshiping, and there's just a recognition that we belong together, we can't speak, you tell this language, but we somehow recognize one another that you're my brother in Christ, you're my sister in Christ. We've got a family of God that goes all over the world, we've got deeper joys than the world has to offer, and oh yeah, when it's all over, we can heaven. God does bless us beyond our ability to imagine or even to dream, but He also may do things that I don't understand at all, and I may not like very much. He may, He may make my life harder than it was before I came to know Christ. Listen, if you don't know this, if you're not a Christian, you think, oh, I need an escape, I need an easy way out, I think I'll become a Christian. Wrong, bark it up the wrong tree, your life is easier outside of Christ, outside of Christ, you're just going with the flow of the world, you're swimming with the stream, with the flow of the culture, you repent of your sins and turn to follow Christ, you're going to experience a ton of pressure in your face from the world. Following Christ is not easy, it just happens to be right, this happens to be true, but if I follow Him, He may make my life harder, following Jesus is not an unending pleasure cruise or each stop, each port of call is better and more fun than the one before that, it is a matter of saying, what is your will, Lord, what would you have me do, where would you have me go today, this week, this month, this new year, where would you have me go with my life, and He may have me doing things, I would never have dreamed of doing, put me in places, I would never dream of going, having situations, I have no idea how I'm handling, I have no idea how to handle, I may do all of a sudden, He likes to take us out in over our heads because I read a long long time ago, the will of God will not lead us with a grace of God, cannot keep us, and so we say, pay me where you will, Lord, equip me and empower me to serve you faithfully where I am, now my will, but yours, O Lord, heard me, I have not given you much, see us Lewis, lately I repent of that, so let me read to you a favorite analogy of His from your Christianity, I've read this to you before, but it's been a while, see us Lewis writes about if you don't know who He is, first of all I forgive you secondly, He was the leading Christian apologist of the last century, popular apologist, His book, your Christianity, was the second biggest seller, Christian book of last century, second to the Bible, you know who He is, I would urge you to be familiar with Him, in Christianity, see us Lewis writes, I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, I'm kind of feel though we do not put it in words, we are now good enough, He's done all we wanted Him to do, we should be obliged if He would just leave us alone, rest is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us, imagine yourself as a living house, God comes in to rebuild that house, and first perhaps you can understand what He's doing, He's getting the drains right, stopping the leaps from the roof and so on, you knew those jobs needed doing and so you're not surprised, but presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abomably and does not seem to make much sense, what on earth is He up to, explanation is He is building quite a different house than the one we thought of, throwing out a new wing here, putting up an extra floor there, running up towers, making couriers, you thought you're going to be made into a decent little cottage, He is building a palace, He incends to come, live in it Himself. First He becomes a Christian, He turns over the controls, He hands over the keys, He takes His hands off the steering wheel and He says, Lord Jesus, you're in charge, help me follow You faithfully as best I can and when I fail is I will repeatedly, continually, daily when I fail, thank You for Your grace, Your mercy, pick me up, dust me off and help me get back in the game and serve You again, listen if You're here this morning and You never come to that point, first of all again, I'm so glad You're here, You're not here by accident, You're here by divine appointment, today is the day God is calling You, today is the day, You thought You were just coming to a church service, today is the day God is calling You, surrender Your heart and Your mind, Your will, Your hands, Your feet, Your life to Him, let Him come in Your life, come in Your heart, forgive Your sins, make You a brand new person, and they will You to follow Him, today and every day for the rest of your life, go to heaven to be with Him forever, it's an act of faith, the grace of God, the faith in Christ alone, You simply receive the payment He made on the cross for You, turn over what You can, what You know of Yourself to Him. If You've never done that, I would urge You to do it today, if You don't know how, get with me after the service for one of the elders, they'll be the guy standing around near me out there in the lobby, I would be happy to show you how You can know Christ, how He can be the beginning of Your eternal life in Him. How do we approach God? Approach Him respectfully, and then the preacher tells me to approach Him biblically. I know that some of what I just said, you know, about how Jesus is going to make your life harder, He may very well take you places you didn't intend to, I just want to just say, you don't hear that in a lot of churches, what I just said probably isn't real popular, and obviously doesn't go to mega church, doesn't sell books by the millions, just happens to be true. And I wasn't called to say the popular thing, or went popularly contest, I was called to preach the Bible, the whole Bible, even as inconvenient parts of the kind of wish weren't there. We're to approach Him biblically. This passage says, we'll let our words be few, He's in heaven, we're on earth, let our words be few. If our words would be few, then that means we must listen to His words. We want to listen to His words. That's hard for us to do, that's hard for me to do anyway, maybe not for you, but for me that's hard to sit still and just listen. But it's so important, it's so necessary, Jesus said as much in the sermon on the Mount. Back to chapter six, verses seven and eight, Jesus said, when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans. They think they'll be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Well, then why talk to Him? Because He's your Father. Here's child. They want you in His presence. We don't come to His presence, and just babble out wherever it comes to the top of our heads, and come before Him respectfully, to come before Him biblically. That's one of the reasons why we're so strong on the Bible in this church. He wants us to come and just be before Him and be still and know that He's God. I'm a missionary by the name of Stuart Sacks, served Lord and Paraguay for a number of years. He recounts the story where a Maka, India, but I have a Raphael came to his home one day and just sat on his porch. Stuart was eating lunch, and so he got up, came out of the porch and asked Raphael if he needed something, and his response to him in his native language was, Ham-Hemeth-Meth. Ham-Hemeth-Meth. You were understood the words, but he asked him again, there's something you need. He said, no, Ham-Hemeth, which means I don't want anything. I have just come near. So later on, Stuart Sacks was talking with a more seasoned missionary. He mentioned this encounter with Raphael to his more experienced counterpart. His counterpart said to him, that was Raphael's way of paying respect to you. What he was saying to you was that he didn't really want anything, he just wanted to be near you. He found satisfaction and pleasure just being near you. It was his way of honoring you. It brings you here, my child. God asks us, Ham-Hemeth-Meth. I do not want anything. I have just come near. Does that not reveal the heart of two worship? We even sing that sometimes, draw me close to you. Drawing near to listen to God, it can be hard in our noisy and cluttered world. Maybe not for you. Maybe you're one of the field that can get away from things and get silent and focus. I find it hard in this world. Fortunately, we're not left to guess. Well, God has to say to us. We don't have to guess what God has to say to us because probably every person in this room has a copy of it. You probably got a copy of it. You don't feel free to take the one that's right in front of you. If that doesn't meet your needs, talk to me afterwards. We'll find a Bible that you can understand. Every person in this place either has a Bible or has access to one. Now, the challenge for us is to turn off the television set or the radio or the iPod or the iPad or the laptop to turn off the noise and the clutter of all that's going on around us and just get quiet. Shut down the computer, stop watching YouTube and just get quiet and attend to what God has to say. Read two chapters a day with us. You can read through the Bible in 20 months. If that's too much, you can't sleep two chapters a day. Do one. If you can't start in Genesis, I know that's kind of jumping in off the deep end. If you can't handle Genesis, the older Testament just read the New Testament but just read it. You don't have to have a seminary degree or Bible college degree. You don't have to know Hebrew or Greek. Not that means special training. You just have to be able to read. Read the Bible in any language. There is a Bible in every language spoken in Miami-Dade County and hundreds more besides, do you know that the Bible has been translated now completely 518 different languages and that 2,798 languages have at least portions of the Bible. The New Testament are parts thereof. I love our brothers and the Gideons. I love their commitment to the Word of God. The Gideons have given away as we speak as I speak. You listen 1.8 billion New Testaments in 190 countries and counting. I love their commitment to the New Testament through the Word of God. The Bible has been translated into all those languages and I'm not making this up. It is being translated into Klingon, Nakhir, Kwenya. Of course you say Kwenya. Kwenya is the language of the elves in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. There's a British professor translating the Bible into Kwenya and something called law cat. Law cat. If you don't know what that is, ask a teenager. The little letters L-O-L and texting, laughing out loud. Well that's short for text speak and they have this cat that appears in these pictures that come in all these text messages so the Bible is being translated into law cat. I'm telling you ladies and gentlemen there's a Bible in a language you can read and there are niche Bibles for everybody now. I've worked on many of them. There are Bibles for children. There are Bibles for young people for teenagers for middle schoolers and high schoolers and Bibles for college students. There are Bibles for prisoners, Bibles for athletes, Bibles for men, Bibles for women, Bibles for left-handed transvestites who wear polyester and bowl on Thursdays. Pretty soon there's going to be a Bible for Kent, a Bible for Lorelei, a Bible for really Anna, a Bible for Sally. There's going to be a Bible for JR. There's going to be a Bible for every single one of us. It is so niche marketed now. My point is there is a Bible you can understand. A gust and said the Bible is a stream in which children can weigh in a river in which elephants can swim. But every level of depth there's a Bible for you that you can read. You can't read because your eyesight knows with a man recently was having that problem. Somebody will read it to you. You can get it on an iPod, you can get on your iPad, you can Peter, you can get on CD. Somebody can read it to you. It's one of the reasons why we're so strong on Bible in this class and in this church, you know, in this church, President Jim's Reform People is special. We're known as people of the book and that's one of the great compliments, I believe, that other people pay us. It sure beats the frozen chosen, doesn't it? I like the people of the book a lot better than the frozen chosen. And look, my role is pastor. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know everything about this book. I don't. I probably know more than you do, at least more than most of you. Probably almost as much as some of you think you know all that you work on that. But I don't know everything about this book. I don't. I don't know everything about this book. And I'm amazed as I've been reading through it again. I do not know how many times I've done this. I don't know how many times I've read Genesis. I'm just reading through it again these last two weeks. I am seeing things I never noticed before. I'm sure God just put them in there. I'm sure they weren't in there before and He stuck them in there to keep me awake. There are things in here, details I had never noticed before. I don't know everything about it and I'm still studying and learning. But what I am is a man who's had the privilege of studying with some of the great Bible scholars and theologians of our time. And I see it as my stewardship to take what I have been given and to pass it on you and anybody else who wants to benefit from it. I'm just a conduit that the great things others have taught me. I don't know everything about the Bible, but what I want to do as a pastor. I don't want to hold this book up. I want to say to all of us, his word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path. This is the way. Let's walk in it. And your role as members of this church is to gather around me. You know things I don't know. You've had experiences I don't have and to hold this light up for everybody. Our brothers and sisters and Christ. And to hold it up for a world that is cold and dark and decaying. Let's hold it up and say, good news people. Good news. Jesus is the light of the world. So come on in and have your minds illuminated by his truth and have your hearts warmed by the beauty of his love. And that's what we do. And there's a name for people who do that. There's a name for people who do that kind of thing. They're called the church. And that's the church I want to pass to. And the church I want to be a part of. We're to approach respectfully. We're to approach him vividly. We're to approach him humbly. The preacher warns us three times in this passage not to come before God and be a fool. Not to be a fool in the presence of God. In the Bible, the fool isn't just somebody who does stupid things, who does accident and unwise manner. That's part of it. But in the Bible, the fool is the person who lives in the immoral and ungodly lifestyle. The person who goes in front of God and shakes his fists and says, who needs you? God, not me. That's why Psalm 141 says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. That person, the one that the Bible considers to be, he may be very intelligent in the eyes of the world. But I think of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens. They pass any IQ test you put in front of him. But in God's eyes, they're idiots. Lightweights, chaff, the wind will drive away. The preacher says, don't run that way. Don't run the way of the fool. And don't play the fool by running into God's house and babbling a bunch of ill-considered inconsequential chaff, striving after wind and vanities. God deserves better than that. The preacher says, he deserves our highest efforts, our deepest thoughts, our most fervent efforts. He deserves his Oswald chambers, our utmost for his highest. That's why I've urged you for over a year now to aim higher, to dig deeper, to reach wide or wide, because you have to? If you don't, God's going to get you? No, because he deserves it. And we get to the apart what he's doing here in our local congregation, here in our city and beyond. Let me use an analogy. I've used this with you before. You have to part, looking for a pickup basketball. You're sitting there and there's three on three going on in front. These two very tall, very muscular black men come over and say, you, you want him? You say, yeah, I want to play. You tell him your name. So your name's, one guy says, my name's LeBron. The other guy says, my name's Dwayne. Did you want to be our third? You say, yeah, I want to be your third. Now let me ask you, you were in the third wheel and gave a three on three with LeBron and Dwayne. They don't need you. They're going to wipe the court with anybody that comes out on the court with them. They're going to win every game. They don't need you. So what will you do? Will you sit back and just kind of be passive and just dog it and say, yeah, you guys just go ahead, do it. I'll just sit here and watch. Will you do that? Or even worse, will you say, all right. Now it's my turn to show these guys what I can do. You're just going to jack it up every time you get the ball in your hands. Will you do that? I don't think so. If you do that, you won't play many games. No, you'll go out there and you will play the hardest you've ever played. You'll try to play the best game you've ever played. And you're not going to hog it and be selfish. Like it's all about you. You're going to try to be the best part of that team you can possibly be knowing that it's not about you and you're there just as a supporter. If you need help with that, that's how we are to see ourselves before God. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need me either. That's the hard part for me. He doesn't need me. So am I going to sit back and dog it and say, whatever God, you got other guys to do that? Or am I going to think, all right, God, you're so lucky to have me on your team. That's all about me. No, I'm going to see myself as a part, an important part, but not the most important part of a team that is here to glorify God and enjoy Him forever and encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ and extend to those who don't know Him yet the gospel of God's good news. We're to approach God humbly and gratefully. Let me have you read along with me. For my favorite parables that Jesus told me, my favorite parables is in Luke chapter 18 verses 1914. To some who are confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one, a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by Himself and prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evil doers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all I get, but the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat His breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you, this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God, where all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, those who humble themselves will be exalted. And as my prayer every Sunday before I come in here, where I do believe, help out my unbelief, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. We approach God respectfully, we approach Him vividly, we approach Him humbly, we approach Him obediently. When you make a vow to God, the picture says, don't be late, man, it takes no delight in fools, pay what you vow, it's better that you should not vow that you should vow and not pay. Approaching God both privately and corporately, it should make an impact on us, it should change us, it should make us different people for having been in the presence of God. When you come into this place, when you're in God's presence, individual are here, it shouldn't just feed your mind, you shouldn't just leave yourself saying, well, learn something today. I mean, I hope you do, but it's not about just feeding your brain, you should leave your chains intellectually, emotionally, my Presbyterian brothers and sisters, emotionally and volitionally, it should change our hearts, our minds and our wills, our hands and our feet, for having been in the presence of God. We don't approach Him obediently, risk-saint summary of that was given to us in 1 Samuel, chapter 15, verse 22. The Samuel replied, does the Lord, the light and burned offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord, to obey is better than sacrifice, and the heed is better than the thought of rams. So I said, well, yeah, that was older testament, we're not under that anymore. Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven. Oh, no, pastor, so you're saying we're saved by works? No, no, I'm not. Oh, yeah, we're saved by works, the works of Christ, and suffering and dying on the cross, and his atoning sacrifice for us in. We're saved by his works, not by ours, and we're saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ alone, but the litmus test of the reality of the validity of our faith in Christ shows in what we do, shows in what we do. James told us the faith for that works is this, so we're to approach God obediently. The Bible teaches the obedience, and listen, some of you, this will be a revelation, is to take place, first and foremost, in the context of the local church. I love how it's out for humanity. I love you for Christ. I'm a product of you for Christ. I love fellowship with Christian athletes, great impact in my life there as well. I love intervarsity and the navigators and get-ins and all the furniture's ministries that we support and many more I wish we could support. I love them. I love all the gospel-based Christ center ministries. God is quite there in a description that the local church is his laboratory for where he works things out. That's why the local church is mentioned in the Newer Testament, 96 times. This is God's front line for working out his purposes in the world. That's reading a story about a Methodist pastor. They rotate a lot, so he's in a new town. He's been there about six months. He's having breakfast one morning, a local coffee shop. He goes to pay his bill. The man standing next to him, they start to strike up a conversation. He tells him his name. He says, on the pastor of the Methodist church in town, the man says, oh, I'm glad to meet you. I'm so-and-so. I'm a member of your church. The pastor says, that's funny. I've been here six months and I don't remember having seen you before. The man says, hey, I said I was a member, not a fanatic. There is such a low view of commitment to the church in our culture. I'm not talking to you. You're here. God bless you. You're here. But there's such a low view of commitment to the local church. I'm in a commitment period. Such a low view of commitment. So let's get real practical, can we? Is there a wrap up this morning? Can I get real practical with you? If you remember this church, when you joined the church, you took a covenant vow with five questions. The first thing you had to do with whether or not you know Jesus is Lord. I'm talking about that this morning. The fourth question that you stood up and affirmed in front of everybody else, do you promise to support this church and to worship and to work for the best of your ability? Again, you're here. So God bless you. You may be doing all you can do just to show up. You really may. I'm not trying to vlog a dead horse here. If you're here and this is the best you can do, God bless you. If you're sitting on the sidelines and not being involved for whatever reason, well, this may be God's way of nudging you to get back in the game. The fifth question that you answered was, do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of this church? The promise to promote is purity and peace. Again, you're here. So I suspect that's what you're doing. Some of you are saying, now you quit preaching and you've just gone to meddling. I know that. I learned a long time ago. There are two kinds of preaching and people will not tolerate. Poor preaching and good preaching. The preach has gone to meddling. So I'm simply asking you to ask yourselves, are you living up to the covenant, covenant vow that you took when you joined this church? Would you approach respectfully, biblically, humbly, obediently, and finally would you approach him herefully? What? Yeah, we're approaching fearfully. After all he's just said about the taking and keeping and paying of vows. He says, don't make rash vows and then not keep them. And in verse 70 says, for many dreams and many words, there's emptiness rather fear God. Fear God. That doesn't sound right, doesn't it? I mean, that really sounds like an Old Testament concept. But when the writers of the Bible say to fear God, they mean to stand in all of them, to hold him in awe, to see him as Isaiah did, high and lift it up. Yes, he's your best friend. Yes, he's a friend that's sick closer than a brother. He is. He's near than your next heartbeat, your next breath. But he's God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is that he is the only one in the universe who can say, I am that I am. My first name is the same as my last as Martin Luther King's in. The only one that calls everything else into being. And that is God Almighty which approach him fearfully and with reverence and with awe. Good news. We may have a hard time approaching him for all the reasons I've just mentioned. We may have a hard time coming into his presence, approaching him. Good news. He's already come to us. He's already approached us. And this time it wasn't with the mountain, with the clouds and the smoke and the lightning and the thunder and the earthquake. This time it wasn't Tuesday on tablets. No, this time for the fullest and the most, the foremost approach of God to place in a little wooden stable, played in an animal feeding trough outside a little town of Bethlehem, surrounded by chepherds, angels, a very young couple called his name Jesus. Let's pray together. Our Lord and our God, we thank you that you have come near to us. So we have a hard time coming near to you. You have come near to us. Or thank you for coming to be not just the God of all, but to be our God and to be in manual. God with us, we pray this day that you would help us to rejoice and be glad that we belong to you and that you're here in our presence, the Lord for the One who's sharing these words and has yet to, has yet to allow you to enter into his heart or her heart. My prayer this day is that this would be the day that he or she would once and forever open her hearts to you. Allow you to come in and approach them in the first of Jesus in whose name I pray. Oh man. Fellowship can thank you