Isaiah 53:1 asks the question: Who
hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
WE
NEED TO BELIEVE GOD'S REPORT--NOT THE WORLD'S
In 1
Corinthians 2:6-10, Paul spoke to believers at the Church of Corinth
about God’s wisdom and knowledge verses the world’s philosophies.
1
CORINTHIANS 2:6-10We,
of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your
feet on firm spiritual ground, but it's not popular wisdom, the
fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a
year or so. God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the
interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface.
It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God
determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever
arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven't a clue about what
this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn't have killed the Master
of the God-designed life on a cross. That's why we have this Scripture
text:
No one's ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it
all out into the open before you.
Today, I want to speak about hearing, seeing, believing, speaking,
and acting on God's Wisdom and Truth, rather than the knowledge and
philosophies of the world, because there are so many "experts" around
these days who will fill our ears and our hearts with humanistic truths
rather than God's TRUTH.
I.
HEAR AND SEE GOD’S REPORT.
No matter how smart we are or how perceptive, there are things we cannot
see unless God opens our eyes. There are things we cannot hear
unless God opens our ears. Some of the world’s most intelligent people
are totally blind and deaf to the Reality of God’s Word and the things
that are most important in life. And it’s those who approach God and His
Kingdom like a little child who receive His Word and enter His Kingdom.
THIS WAS TRUE FOR OUR SALVATION, AND IT IS ALSO TRUE FOR EVERY ASPECT OF
OUR LIVES.
1
Corinthians 3:18-20 (AMP)18Let no person deceive himself. If anyone
among you supposes that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool
[let him discard his worldly discernment and recognize himself as dull,
stupid, and foolish, without true learning and scholarship], that he may
become [really] wise.
19For
this world's wisdom is foolishness (absurdity and stupidity) with God,
for it is written, He lays hold of the wise in their [own] craftiness;
There are things in this world that must be perceived spiritually. They
cannot be seen with "the eyes of the flesh" or heard with our natural
ears. We have to believe God's report. We have to see
through His eyes and hear with His ears. Sometimes that means rejecting
what we see, hear and feel with our natural senses.
The scripture at the beginning of this message talked about believing
God's report. When Jesus lived and walked on this earth, there was
nothing about Him to make Him look like the Messiah. He didn't dress
like a super-hero; he didn't wear a crown or ride in a fancy chariot.
Isaiah 53 1-2 1Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of
the LORD revealed? 2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and
when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He looked ordinary. People can only know Jesus by hearing and
believing God's report. We can only know Truth by believing God's
report.
The Holy Spirit is the key to Revelation. But,
that's not the end of the matter. Hearing and seeing God's report is
step one. Step two is BELIEVING HIM. And step three is
ACTING ON THAT BELIEF.
God’s
Spirit speaks to OUR spirit and reveals the Truth of His Word, so we can
BELIEVE HIS REPORT.
II. BELIEVE GOD'S REPORT!
In this morning’s “BIBLE MINUTE”, Woodrow Kroll said:
“The basis
for our salvation is not what we think; it's not what we do; it's not
who we are. It's solely Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on Calvary's
cross. See, Jesus was always God; but it was His work at Calvary that
made Him the Savior.”
We know this is
true, because WE BELIEVED GOD’S REPORT. We heard the Word—the Gospel—and
BELIEVED. This information came through the Word we heard with our ears,
or read with our eyes, but it wasn’t really “absorbed” into our hearts
that way. Mere intellect could not have recognized the Truth of the
Gospel.
1
Corinthians 1:21 (AMP) For when the world with all its earthly wisdom
failed to perceive and recognize and know God by means of its own
philosophy, God in His wisdom was pleased through the foolishness of
preaching [salvation, procured by Christ and to be had through Him], to
save those who believed (who clung to and trusted in and relied on Him).
III. SPEAK GOD’S REPORT!
If we believe God’s report, our attitude will change and our words will
change. We will speak like the Word rather than like the world. When our
words and attitude change, our life will change to.
There has been some extreme teachings about Words of Faith, on both
sides of the spectrum. But, let’s not reject the truth just because it’s
been misused or taught wrong. Our words DO produce results. This is
plain taught in scripture---both Old and New Testament.
This is how we received our salvation! We believed in our hearts and
confessed with our mouths that Jesus is Lord.
Romans 10:10 (AMP)10For with the heart a person
believes (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Christ) and so is
justified (declared righteous, acceptable to God), and with the mouth he
confesses (declares openly and speaks out freely his faith) and confirms
[his] salvation.
This is a principle we carry with us for our whole lives. It’s not just
true of salvation. It’s true of every aspect of our lives. They affect
they way we live and the way we serve God and His Body.
Psalm
19:14(AMP)Let
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in
Your sight, O Lord, my [firm, impenetrable] Rock and my Redeemer.
We eat the Fruit of our words.
Proverbs 12:13-14 (NIV) An evil man is trapped by his sinful talk, but a
righteous man escapes trouble. 14 From the fruit of his lips a man is
filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.
Our
words can bring us out of death into life!
Proverbs 18:21 (AMP) 21Death and life are in
the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit
of it [for death or life].
We know that’s true because we left death behind and came into Eternal
Life, not just by what we heard and believed, but by the words we
spoke—we CONFESSED JESUS AS LORD. Really take some time to think about
that.
We spoke it out. If we looked in a mirror right afterwards, we would
look the same—be wearing the same clothes. Our hair would be the same
color. If we had grey roots, the confession of our faith didn’t give us
an automatic touch-up and if we were five pounds overweight, the weight
didn’t magically disappear (unfortunately).
And yet, we were totally different! We were NEW CREATIONS because of
what we heard, believed, and spoke!
Like I said before, the same is true for every aspect of our lives, not
just salvation.
IV. LIVE GOD’S REPORT!
If you believe it, you need to act on it. I love the way the Message
Bible says it:
James
2:14-17 (Message) 14-17Dear friends, do you
think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but
never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a
person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed
in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in
Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing
so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it
obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
Some people believe that knowing the truth sets us free. Knowing
the truth is only the first part. The scripture doesn't say: "You
shall know the Truth and knowing the Truth shall set you free."
It says: "You shall know the Truth and the TRUTH (not just knowing it)
shall set you free."
Just think about medicine. Let's say that someone---John Doe--- has
cancer. There may be a medicine that can cure that cancer and the doctor
may tell John Doe what it is. Does that cure him? No. John Doe has to
listen to the doctor, believe what he says, and TAKE the
medicine. That is what will cure him.
That’s particularly relevant to those of us who are suffering and sick.
We sure do know about taking medicine. Many of us are in great pain and
have to take pain medication. It may be just a little pill or a simple
patch. We take the word of our doctor that it’s going to work and buy
the medicine. But, we don’t just put it in our medicine cabinet…we TAKE
the medicine. And if we’re in great pain, we can’t wait to get that
little pill and swallow it. We also take it AS DIRECTED or it can harm
us. Well, we need to have the same belief and acting on God’s Word.
WE CAN’T REALLY SAY WE BELIEVE IF WE DON’T ACT.
Lets’ meditate on these truths this week and ask God to help us apply
these principles to our lives in a greater way. Let’s fearlessly look at
our lives, our health, our thinking in the Light of hearing, believing,
and acting on God’s Word., no matter how much pain we’re in (and I was
in pain when I started writing this) and no matter what our situation is
like.
Let’s apply God’s Word to every situation. The principles that delivered
us out of the Kingdom of Darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of
Light will surely work for other things.
Acts 22:14 New International Version (NIV)
"Then he said: 'The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will
and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.
