I'm not afraid of you Well, good morning. Welcome again to Bethany Social Reform Presbyterian Church as we gather together to worship the Lord our God on this blessed Sabbath morning. But before we get to worship, just a couple of announcements. First of all, I want to thank y'all for your messages and for your prayers for my family at the passing of my mother yesterday morning. Again, we ask that you continue to keep us in in prayer, and again, there'll be arrangements and all that to come, but thank you again for reaching out and everything, and we'll continue to rest comfortably in the promises of our Savior as we move forward. Again, thank you very much for all that y'all have done. Kind of hard to transition from that, but other announcements just to take note of, just as a reminder, following the Deacon Installation Service on Sunday, January 19th, The Social Committee is planning a special winter luncheon. If you're able to help, volunteers are needed to prepare soup, sandwiches, chili, cornbread, desserts, and crackers. As with other luncheons, everyone is asked to bring tea or lemonade. Please check the sign-up list on the front queue or talk with Ms. Margaret Ryan, Ms. Donna Turner, or Ms. Pam Walker. If you have any questions, I thank you again for your help. Other things to take note of, just as a reminder, the January Bethany banners are on all the lecterns around. So if you hadn't got an email or want a hard copy, be sure to pick one up. Also on the table down here is the 2025 sermon plan for the Lord's Day morning. And along with it is a little encouragement for all the times that we have set aside during the week to worship the Lord. So again, if you haven't picked one up, they're down here on the table. Other things to take note of, there'll be a session meeting tonight, kind of our monthly stated session meeting at 6.30. Also, we'll be bringing back Wednesday nights this week as school's getting back in session so we look forward to gathering together on Wednesday night at 630. The adults are going to be doing a topical study throughout the spring on particular subjects and so we've kind of sent out a list of things that has already been sent in but if you have particular things that you'd like to learn about especially if it comes to cultural stuff. Just let me know and we'll try to get that On the agenda, but again Wednesday night start back this Wednesday at 630 for adults and children so everybody's invited a quarter Of course to that also on Sunday evening tonight We're starting a new series at 530 on the order of worship, so we're going to be going through each of the parts of the worship service to kind of talk about why we do certain things and how we do them and what the biblical reason is for them. So tonight, we're going to start out with the silent prayer. That's going to be our subject tonight. So we look forward to that. Again, that's tonight. at 5.30. Also down on the front queue there's a sign up sheet for those who are interested in ice skating. That event will be on the 24th of January and we'll meet here at church at 6 for food and then we'll head up to the Pineville Ice Palace. So again we look forward to that. Everybody's welcome to that. Again the sign up is down there. One other thing I have listed here, just as a reminder, the Lady's Circle, we meet today at four o'clock. So again, all the ladies are invited to that. Doesn't matter your age, all the ladies are invited. So we look forward to the new year for the Lady's Circle. So as we begin to worship the Lord today, let us go ahead and take advantage of this time of silent prayer as the Lord prepares us to be in his presence. Bye. Amen. Again, as the Lord has called us to worship on this blessed Sabbath morning, we turn today to the first chapter of the gospel of Luke, as the Lord's apostle tells us, again, the nature of what we are to be expecting, not only in this new year, but in the Christian life. And so we turn this morning to Luke chapter one, beginning there at verse 76. Again, as we hear the testimony of our God. Again, hear the word of the Lord. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, with which the day spring from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen. And as we have come today to the way of peace, to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and are reminded through the opportunity God's given to us to raise our voices unto the heavens, let us stand as we sing together from your red trinity hymnal, hymn number 116 for the beauty of the earth. Let us stand and rejoice together. For them will be glory ever, For them the reign of the skies, And them the gift of heaven, For them the birth of the skies. Oh Oh We serve thee, our grateful praise. Please, please let me walk in your grace. Is heaven a faithful place? Amen. Again, as we come together this morning to give praise unto the name of the Lord our God, as we remember the beauty of not only His creation, but of the new life that we have received in Him, let us come now before the Lord our God in prayer. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, dear God, your goodness and your love unto us is more than we can imagine, more than we can comprehend. And dear God, you have witnessed to us again on this Lord's Day morning the glory of the resurrection of the assurance that we have received from above that all those who die in the Lord die in the hands of their glorious Savior. And so as we rest and trust in these things and as we prepare ourselves even on this Lord's Day morning for that day which is to come, dear God, we gather together in the hope and the peace and the comfort of your truth And to God we pray that you might strengthen us through your word and through your Holy Spirit, and that you might again cause us not only to confess our own sin, but to God that we might seek to be sanctified by the power of your truth. And so to God as we gather together again to experience these things and to renew that covenant which we have made in our confession of faith, to God we pray now using the words your son taught his disciples to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Again, as we continue to worship the Lord, we turn now to our scripture lesson, which as our sermon text is in the Old Testament, now comes from the New Testament. And so we turn here back to the first chapter of the book of Acts. Again, as we've heard the first book of Luke, here we come to the second book that the apostle has given unto us. So let us turn there to chapter one, beginning there at verse nine, as the Lord gives us his word this morning. Hear the word of the Lord. Now when he had spoken these things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went out, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from a mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey. And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying. Peter, James, John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples all together, the number of names was about 120, and said, men and brethren, this scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his entrails gushed out. And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem, so that the field is called in their own language, Akeldama, that is, field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it, and let another take his office. Amen. Thanks be to God for the reading of his holy and his perfect word. Please be seated. I know there's a few of you here this morning, so let's go ahead and come down for the children's lesson today. You can sit back there, Brady, it's all right. Why is the first year good to start new stuff? It's new beginnings right? People don't write checks anymore but you know it used to be the old joke right? That for the first month after the new year what would you keep writing on your checks? And then you d have to scratch it out and put a, I guess now a 5 on there instead of a 4. And you think about that, now we have this year 2025, right? Does that sound like a real number? Every time a new year comes it sounds like I�m living in a science fiction book or something. Years are only supposed to start with 19, at least that�s what I remember. But the new year starts and here in the book of Acts we have another new start. We have one of my favorite scenes in the whole Bible. We have the disciples, and they're standing there, and they're watching something happen, right? And what is it that they're watching happen there in the first chapter of the book of Acts? Who's going up into heaven? Take a guess. Jesus, right? Good job, right? Jesus is going up into heaven. And what are all the disciples doing? They're watching, right? Now, is that what you would have done in that situation? If I all of a sudden started levitating and started floating to the ceiling, right, what would you do? Right, you would watch, right? Because that would be something to see, right? You know, there's a scene in Mary Poppins, right, where everybody starts laughing and everybody goes up to the ceiling, right? But, right, that's something to see. But these two fellas, right, now who are the two men you think? Are they men or are they something else? They're something else, right? They're angels, right? And what do the angels tell the men to do? Stop staring into heaven and start looking at what God's called you to do, right? Now, that's kind of a weird thing. And it's kind of strange, but the angels have come to tell the disciples that Jesus going to heaven doesn't mean that he's done and he's finished with the work that he's come to do. And as disciples, they're called to go from that place and go tell everybody about Jesus. Now, can they do that if they're staring up into heaven all the time? Practically, what would happen if they walked around staring at heaven all the time? They'd run into something, right? They'd trip and fall, right? Would that help them witness Jesus? No, right? So again, one of the things we see there is that as Jesus rises to heaven, we're called to go and to do, right? And so as believers, at the start of the year, we see this at the beginning of the book of Acts, that they go out and tell people about Jesus. What do you think we ought to do in 2025? That's right, we should go out and tell people about Jesus. Because, you know, in the old days, when we introduced years, we used to always say, in the year of our Lord, 2025. And, you know, have you ever seen dates that had AD on the end of it? Do y'all know what that means? Well, it's a Latin word which means Anno Domini, right? And Anno Domini, again, is just Latin for in the year of the Lord, right? And what that testifies to us is that the year belongs to Jesus. And so we should dedicate ourselves today to be about the Lord's work in 2025. Because that's simply what we're called to do. And that's what God calls the apostles in the book of Acts. Just go and do what the Lord would have us to do. Y'all ready to pray? Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we give thanks again for this day and this time. We especially give thanks for the reminder in your providence of this beginning of the book of Acts that as the disciples see the glory of the Lord, they are given this direction. to go and to tell others about the love of Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, obviously, one of the ways we witness to the glory of God and the blessings of His grace is by the singing of His words. I invite you to stand as we testify to these words of Jesus given to us in Psalm 117. So let us stand and sing Bible Psalm 246 as we rejoice in the name of our God. Let us stand together. I need no better thing than to be seen by others who praise your name. Every hope is a star. Shining bright like the sun. Every hope is a star. Now I can see it all. Amen. Please be seated. As we come now again in this time of our service to bring particular prayer requests before our great and awesome God, let us do so again in preparation for this time that God has given to us. Let's pray. The God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The God of all grace and all mercy. The God who has shown forth his praise unto the nations. Who has witnessed through the mountains and the oceans and all of creation, the magnificence of his glory. that no thing made in the hands of man can compare to the power of the wind and of the rain and of the snow and of all of the wonders of this earth. For to God their beauty is more than we can comprehend. Our breath is taken away as we see the vistas and as we see the purple mountains and the amber waves of grain and all of the things that show forth just how awesome it is that you are the one who is in control of the providence of our lives. Enter God as we gather together on this Lord's Day morning and as we enjoy this Sabbath day of rest. As we consider again not only your person and your work, We read Deuteronomy here in a moment, but dear God, as your people gather together to bear one another's burdens, to rejoice with one another, to mourn with those who mourn, and to rejoice with those who rejoice, dear God, we testify to our blessedness in the kingdom of God. In not only the way that you have come alongside those who are in need of comfort, but to God most especially how you have given unto us again the strength of faith and the strength of knowledge and the strength of assurance by which we walk day by day. Heavenly Father as we continue to be guided by your holy and perfect word and as we read your scriptures every day and as we are nourished by your food may you watch over us and keep us may you guide us on to the pastures that are green and full of flavor and full of nutrients and full of all those things that we need to grow in sanctification, to grow in our understanding of Your mighty blessing. Dear God, as we take on these new series both on the Lord's Day morning and evening and on Wednesday nights and as we look forward to this year that you've given to the Bethany A.R.P. Church. God, we submit ourselves to you this day. God, we humble ourselves before you and we place ourselves at your mercy. God, we ask that you would use these means of your grace to be an encouragement to us as the year progresses. Dear God, as we think about all the things that we have planned for the year to come, and as we think about the opportunities you will provide, dear God, we especially lift up unto you those things that we may not be aware of. Those things that you, dear God, have in your plan. And dear God, those things which you have set before us and for the foundation of the world that we might walk there in. Dear Heavenly Father, we are excited for the year to come. We are excited primarily because we know, as you told the disciples, you have a purpose for us. We do not sit and wait and look. We have been given our marching orders. We have been given our great commission to go out onto the world, proclaim Christ in Him crucified, to witness again once more to the bounty of grace. And so to God we pray again for those opportunities that we know of. God, we lift up unto you, you know, outreaches like Appalachia. We look forward to music conference. We look forward to the high school and middle school retreats. We look forward to our Bon Clark weekend. We look forward to trunk retreat and for the outreaches at JC's and St. Patrick's Day and other events that are on our calendar. God, we are ones who live in anticipation of your mighty word. Dear God, we lay these things at your feet, dear God, that your glory might be shown therein, that you might again use these times to bring your people closer unto you, but most especially, dear God, that we might see conversions this year, that we might see men and women come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might see again a mighty work of revival and reformation, not only in the Bethany Church, but in our community in 2025. Dear God, we know that you are more than powerful to accomplish all things, to bring every heart under submission to Jesus Christ. Dear God, we do pray for that this morning. For we know that no prayer is too big for the creator of heaven and earth to fulfill. Dear God, we are ones, again, who seek your face in worship and in prayer. Dear God, we especially lift up unto you those who are a number who are in need of your healing hand this morning. We pray to God that you would bring your comforting power of health unto those who are under the weather, those who are sick, those who are ailing, those who are in physical distress. And we pray that your hand would be upon them, that your comforting spirit would be near unto them. We pray for their doctors and their nurses as they seek the best care. We pray to God that you would give understanding and compassion. God, as we continue again to praise your name, as we continue to look and to see the ways in which you have given us to serve one another in faith, whether that be in offices such as elder and deacon or minister, or whether that be in the lay work that you give to each one of us to go out, to see the needs, and to fulfill them. Dear God, may you give us again hearts of service and hearts which are not afraid to go out and to see where the hungry are, where those who are thirsting for righteousness, those who are naked, those who are homeless, those who are in need not just of physical care. Dear God, we especially pray for those who are backsliding, those who are wandering, those who are in fear of the judgment, God, we pray that you would use this year especially to bring them closer unto you. God, that you would use the missions of your church again to awaken faith, that you would use the light of your gospel to point into the dark places, that they might be found out and they might no longer be servants of the darkness, but those who love the light. And as we think on these things and as we rejoice in your promises, dear God, dear God, we ask through the power of your Holy Spirit and through the blessings of your Son, Jesus Christ, that you might answer our prayers on this Lord's Day morning. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. I didn't know for a reason to see a dream come alive. It is what it has and who it seems to tell. O'er the fields of his church, he sent a wandering sight, In the woods and in the hills, the little darlin' lies. ♪ And wonders inside his mind ♪ ♪ The Lord comes down for me ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes the weak and the hard ♪ ♪ He makes O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? Well, the words to which I'd like to draw your attention this morning come to us from the fifth book of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy. And I invite you to turn in your copies of God's word, Deuteronomy 6, as we're looking at the first nine verses of the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy this morning. Let us stand for the reading of God's word. Again, Deuteronomy chapter six, beginning there at verse one. Hear the word of the Lord. Now this is the commandment and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord God of your father has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your hearts. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. Amen. Thanks be to God for the reading of His holy and His perfect word. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, as we come together this morning on this day in your providence, and as we have these words read unto us, we pray through the power of your word that you may apply their truths under our spirit. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please be seated. As you may have noticed over the past seven and a half years, I'm not a normal Reformed preacher. And part of the reason for that is not just because I'm loud and all that kind of stuff, but I don't stand up here and give you a three-point sermon every Sunday. If you've ever been in a Reformed church for any length of time, especially if you visit somewhere other than Bethany, you'll often hear ministers start their sermons by telling you what the three points are. Now, I hate to break precedent because I'm conservative and I don't like change and all that, but I do have three points today. And our main goal in this series through this year is going to reconnect us with what it means to be a Christian. The basic doctrines, the basic foundation of what we mean when we say that we believe in Christianity. what it is about the Bible that the Bible teaches us, that creation teaches us, that sets us apart from all the other religions of the world. And it seems fit and well and good to start with the most important doctrine of all, which is the doctrine of God. Because without God, none of this matters. Without God, none of us exist. Without God, there is no comprehension to anything that happens. As we're going to see in the next four weeks in the month of January, you know the reason why we can look and understand that white is the color of the walls and cream is the color of the carpet and your Bibles are black and white, the only reason we know that is because God exists. The only reason that you know that you're alive right now is because God exists. The only reason that you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night is because God exists. One of the catechism questions that our Dutch Reformed brothers have as their kind of grounding in everything they do is Heidelberg Catechism question one. And the, how about question one, now the Dutch are more worthy than us, so I'm not gonna quote the whole question and answer to you, but question one simply asks us this question. What is your hope in life and death? What is your hope in life and death? That you belong, body and soul, to your Savior, Jesus Christ. Now we don't testify to that, at least we say we believe that, but there's a lot that goes into just that simple statement. The idea that you have hope in life and death is only true because Jesus Christ is God. And because God has made certain promises to you, and God has fulfilled all of those promises. And so, as I said, there's kind of three points today. And as we start these things, we need to ask ourselves three questions about God. Three questions that should always kind of be rotating in our brain. First of all, what is your relationship to God? Who are you in comparison to Him? Secondly, how then are you to obey Him? Because as we, it kind of goes without saying, but of course every time somebody says it goes without saying, what do they then do? then they go to sin. So I'm going to go to sin real quick that the reason why you obey God is because your relationship to Him is not the same. You're not peers with the God who made the heavens and the earth. Even when Jesus Christ came and put on flesh, you are not the same as Jesus Christ. Because He is holy God and you are not. But the third thing that comes to mind here is that if we understand our relationship to God and then we start understanding how we are to obey Him, well, how then are we to serve Him? In other words, how are we to worship Him? Because again, obedience to God and worship of God only comes when we understand who God is and our relationship to Him. And so to start out this month, I've had us read these first nine verses of the Book of Deuteronomy. Now, this particular chapter comes to us after Moses has repeated for them the Ten Commandments. And it's worthwhile, again, to take a step back and ask the question, well, what's the point of the Book of Deuteronomy to begin with? The Book of Deuteronomy is in a sense a series of sermons that Moses preaches as they're standing on the other side of the Jordan waiting to go into the promised land. The wilderness wanderings are over. The day of the fulfillment of the covenant made with the people in the land of Egypt that God would not just bring them out of the land, but place them back in the land that God had given to Abraham was here, right? The time was present. And remember, these people had not grown up in Egypt. What happened to the first generation that came out of Egypt? Well, they all died. Except for a couple of them. Joshua and Caleb are still hanging around. Moses is obviously still hanging around. But Moses isn't going to get to go to the Promised Land either. That's kind of beside the point. But this generation had grown up in the wilderness. And so Moses, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, through the command of God, is renewing this covenant. He's reminding them of why it is, when they go into the land, that they are to worship God, to serve Him alone, to obey Him alone. And so in order to do that, we have here in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, what is kind of historically called the Great Shema. That is the testimony of those who believe in God. What is it that at the very foundation of our faith that sets us apart from all the religions of the world? Well, read with me there again, Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. It says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now, we believe that, right? That God is one. But what does it mean that God is one? Does that mean that there's only one? Yes, that's what that means, that there is only one true and living God. That's what our Shorter Catechism tells us. That's what the Bible says, that there are no other gods besides the one true and living God as we confess elsewhere. We don't believe that the God of heaven and earth is in competition with false gods. It's not as if there's some cosmic league where God, Jehovah, is scoring points against Allah. Or that Jehovah is trying to get one over on Krishna or some other false god. Again, all the other gods in the world have been made by the minds of men in order to overthrow the one true and living God. And so every soul under heaven, whether Jew or Gentile, is to testify what they think. what Moses writes here in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4. He wrote Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So again, that's one thing that we're taught. That God is one. That there is no competition. That there is one God alone. That's what the first commandment of course teaches, right? That we're not to have any other gods before him. Yeah. But what else did we learn here about the Lord God who is one? Well, we also learned here that God does not need you. It might be hard to hear for some people who like to think of themselves as above God, who like to think themselves as important, who like to think themselves as the center of the universe. I'm sure everybody has somebody in their mind right now who they're thinking of who seems to think that they deny the heliocentric thesis about everything revolving around the sun. They think the whole universe revolves around them. What we hear here is the Lord God is one. God does not need any of us. What does that teach us? What does that show us? It shows us that God was not bored. God was not lonely. God was not running an experiment. But when God decreed that man be made, He did so for His own glory. for his own purpose, for his own blessing, for his own, again, eternal will. Now, we think about that in the relationship that we have with God. So again, we know that God is one, that there's only one true God. We know that God did not need us, that God, again, made us for his own glory. And how does that, again, in our own minds, change how we approach God? And we approach God then only as creatures. Only those who are made by Him. Those who are owned by Him. Those who are created for Him. And again, that has a large thing to do with the other aspect of this, which is our obedience unto Him. And our worship unto Him. The more we understand, again, who God is, the more we should be willing to serve Him. The more willing we should be to obey His commandments, to rest in His statutes, to order our lives in accordance with the will of the one true and living God. Of course, there's other things being taught here about the oneness of God. One of the ways that our confession of faith summarizes this, it says that God has no parts or passions. Again, that seems kind of strange, right? Because the Bible tells us that God gets angry. We talked about this at Saturday school this morning, but one of the ways we define God is that God is love. It seems like an action, right? Well, when we talk about the fact that God is angry, that God is love, or that God repented in his heart that he had made man, as the book of Genesis tells us, we're not to understand, again, that God acts out of an emotional response to what other people do. That's not how we're to understand our God, right? He does not have passions like we have passions. And we understand that because, again, God is one. He does not react to his creation, but he, on the other hand, moves his creation in accordance with his own will. And we think about that again in the context of our own salvation. We think about that in the context of our own relationship with God. And again, there's great comfort in understanding that our God is not like the gods of the nations. One of the things that I'm sure you've heard of or read of or watched or something is how the Greek gods or the Roman gods react to things. They are consumed by their passions. Like they're consumed by the creations. Like they're in a sense under the control. of the creation. And they can only but react to what they see the people in Athens, or the people in Rome, or the people in Corinth, or the people in Sparta, or the people wherever are doing. What's one of the great things that Zeus does? When he gets angry, what does he do? He sits up there and launches lightning bolts at people. When he gets bored, when he gets anxious, what does he do? He comes down to heaven and finds a human woman to love. And of course, there's always hijinks involved in all that. Always, you know, destruction involved in all that. But is that the way we see God described for us here in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4? No. God alone is one. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The reactions that we read in the Bible, God being angry, God repenting, God doing these things, again is a way of us as human beings understanding what God is doing in a moment. In a sense, they're almost anthropomorphizing, if I can say that word, the actions of God. But we don't understand God in that way. And that's why we're comforted both in life and death. Because the assurance that we have is that when God decrees something, He does not change His mind. He does not change anything about Himself. And there's wonder in that, right? There's majesty in that. Because that's not how we are. What do we do every day? We are constantly reacting to the outward things happening around us. And by that I don't just mean like emotional stuff, right? You know, this time of year, what is it? It's cold. And so because it's cold, what do we do? We wear different clothes than we do in the summer, unless you're like a high school boy and then you just wear shorts all the time, right? But the rest of us get cold. One of the small blessings in the past couple of days is I was driving up to West Virginia Friday night. It snowed the whole way up. And there's a little bit of joy in my heart as I'm slip sliding around in the mountain roads and remembering what it was like to be 17 and driving somebody else's car on them roads. And then about halfway down the hill on the other side as you're coming into Peterstown, West Virginia, I remembered that I was in my van, which I paid for. And I probably got slowed down a little bit. But again, there's external stimuli that we deal with every day. But our God doesn't act like that. Our God is not in heaven looking down on us, watching all the fires in the world, wondering how they're going to be put out. Again, there's great comfort in the idea, again, that we're not God and that He's not a man. That's what we mean when we talk about the fact that God does not have parts or passions. This testimony to Israel in Jeremiah 6-4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. This is, again, what separates us from all the religions of the world. Now, there's another aspect of this that, ironically, of course, the Jews of today don't get. We need to be careful sometimes, right? We understand that God has given certain promises to ethnic Israel, that God has promised in his word that in the days to come there will be a great revival and reformation and conversion of ethnic Jews before the end of days. In fact, one of the things the Bible tells us in Romans 11, for example, is that we should kind of go out of our way to bring the gospel to the Jews. One of the former ministers here, George Lauderdale, gave a good part of his life to that ministry. Going out, even to Israel itself, and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost tribes of Israel. And then when we say that, we mean it literally, right? But not just lost in the sense they weren't supposed to be, but because they have forgotten the promises that God has made. And so here in Hebrews 6, 4, we have an opportunity again to witness to our Jewish brothers and sisters that look, you are worshipping not the God of Israel. Because what do we know about the God of Israel from this passage? Again, that He is one. We also know something else about the God of Israel. He's also three. We sing a song every now and then at Appalachia, which isn't my favorite, but one of the songs is trying to explain the Trinity. And it says one plus one plus one equals what? One, right? That's not really how that works, but I understand the point they're trying to make, right? We understand that even though God is one, he's also three persons, right? He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And we have to be very careful how we explain that and how we understand that, right? We don't believe that God changes into the Father at certain points, and changes into the Son at certain points, and changes into the Holy Spirit, right? We call that modalism. We don't believe that God manifests Himself differently at different times. That He is always God, He is always one, but He is also always three. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And what we see here in this testimony in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 is part of how that is a great comfort to us, right? We are Trinitarians as Christians. Any religion which denies the triunity of God is not Christian. The Mormons are not Christians. Job's witnesses are not Christians. Oneness Pentecostals are not Christians. Because they do not believe in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4. Hero is your Lord, our God is one. Because one of the ways that God has described for us again in the scriptures is that he is three in one and one in three. At the very beginning of the book of Genesis, what does it tell us? That God looked unto himself and said, what? Let us make man in our own image. Now again, you know, I joke all the time that English is my second language, but I know well enough that when you say us, how many people are you talking about? More than one. We see in 1 John 5, verse 7, right, the testimony of the God of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We see in Matthew 28, how are we to baptize people? In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so we see here in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 this testimony, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Everything that we need to know as a believer. Everything flows out of this understanding that God is one. Our desire to worship Him, our desire to obey Him, our desire to love Him, to have a right relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, is born again out of what Moses is doing here in Jeremiah chapter 6. Again, remember, he is preparing the people to go into the land of promise. And why are they going to land a promise? Because God made a promise. And what does God do? God keeps His promises. And because God keeps His promise, what then is our response to this Word? It is to worship Him and it's to obey Him. Now, by what standard do we worship and obey God? Well again, we're told very clearly here in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Now this is the commandment, these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all the statutes, commandments which He commands you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life. You know, again, this is one of the key markers. Now, the way I have things laid out, we're going to have a whole sermon on baptism, I think in October, so hold on that long, but the idea here again, we see something about the covenant nature of our God. And the way that the oneness of God informs baptism, the Lord's Supper, the sacraments, and even our worship and our lives. Because as we go into the land of promise, as Christians, where are we going? We're not going to that little section of the Near East. One of the false teachings you'll hear, especially as we draw closer to the spring of the year, is one of the hopes that some people have is that somebody's going to build a tribulation temple. Somebody's going to build a third temple. And the Bible tells us pretty clearly that the third temple's already here. The first two temples got destroyed. The temple that was made by the hand of Solomon, destroyed by the Babylonians. And then the temple that Herod made, or completed, was destroyed by the Romans. And remember, there was nothing that got Jesus more in trouble than telling the Pharisees what? That I'm going to destroy the temple, and what am I going to do in three days? I'm going to raise it up again. They got all kinds of angry about that, partly because I think they probably had some money in some construction, and they were thinking, man, it's impossible to get the permits to build a temple in three days. What are y'all talking? Again, the real problem was is that they did not believe that Jesus was who he said he was, that he was the promised Messiah, that he was the holy one of Israel, that he was the promised land by which men were going to rest. And so as we hear this, we are reminded that what has the Lord our God, who is one, done for us? Again, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the selfsame God, has done what? He has died on the cross for our sins. Now we've got to be careful about that, right? It's true to say that God died on the cross, but we don't believe that God died on the cross. We don't deny Jesus's divinity in order to prove his sacrifice. Again, what is it that makes the sacrifice of Jesus Christ so evident in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4? Here is the word of God, the Lord is one. What is it you're supposed to hear in that? There to hear in the very name of God all of the attributes and all of the blessings and all of the works and all of the promises and all of the things that make God, God. Make us not God. And so when we look at the promise there at the beginning of the sixth chapter, again, that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all the statutes and commandments, which I command you, you, your son, your grandson, all the days of your life, your days may proclaim, when you come in again to possess the promised land. Well, those of us who are in Christ, what is it can be said we have done? It can be said that we have possessed the promised land. That we are living in the promised land. That we are in the land flowing with milk and honey. That we are being nourished by the very land that God has promised to His covenant people. That's who we are as Christians. And because we now dwell in the land of promise, what are we supposed to do? We're here to teach our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren of the things that the Lord has done. Now the primary way we do that is through baptism. That's why it is, as our confession says, a great sin to neglect baptism. Because we are withholding from our children the very sign that God has given to his people by which that they might know themselves that they belong unto the land of promise. Remember in the Old Testament, what was that sign? Circumcision, right? Every boy on the eighth day after their birth was brought to the rabbi and the rabbi did the circumcision. Again, thanks be unto God we don't do that anymore because if you know anything about me, you know I'm not very good with my hands and I don't want to be involved in that. But again, the promise, again, is the same, right? The sign has changed. The outward sign has changed. Now we lay water on the heads of our infants and on adult converts. But again, it symbolizes the same thing that we see here in Deuteronomy 6. The very thing promised in Deuteronomy 6, 4. Here over Israel, the Lord your God is one. We put water on the heads of our babies because we believe that they belong to God, not to us. Now God gives them to us to raise in the faith, to watch over, to care for, to raise up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, as Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter six. And just as an aside, of course, in Ephesians chapter six, who's given the primary responsibility for that? And who's given the primary responsibility here in Deuteronomy six? It's fathers. Fathers who neglect the spiritual raising of their children are in even greater sin than unbelieving fathers who neglect that. That's part of Paul's point in 1 Corinthians 6. Because believing fathers know what God has said and refuse to take that responsibility upon themselves. And why is that a great sin according to Deuteronomy 6.4? Because what have we been told here on Israel? The Lord your God is one. Sometimes we make obedience to God to be more complicated and harder than it needs to be. But again, it is very simply laid out for us. that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all the statutes and commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, that your days may prolong. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Again, we see again the nature of our relationship to God, our call to be obedient unto Him. But ultimately, here also, we see this call to worship Him. Because you notice something in the New Testament, and this ain't true of the Old Testament for that matter, is that when somebody is truly converted, when somebody truly has their heart changed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, what's always their first response? It's to fall on their face before the living God. Even when they're confused and fall on their face in front of the apostles, what is always the response of the apostles when somebody falls at their feet? What's the response of the angels when people fall at their feet? They grab them by the shirt, lift them up from the ground and tell them what? Hey, I'm not going. I don't deserve that. Only one is worthy of such devotion. Only one is worthy of such praise. Only one is worthy of such glory. He is the one who has given unto you eternal life. He is the one who has given unto you new life. He is the one who has provided for you, again, a dwelling place in the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey. Again, this is why this is such an important part of our confession of faith as Christians. That the Lord our God is one. It affects everything that we do every single day. The reason why the Apostle Paul tells the people of Corinth that they do not mourn as the world mourns is what? What's the answer to that poem? We mourn in hope. We mourn in the Lord. We mourn in the assurance of the promise of the one who has called us out of darkness and into the light of his marvelous grace. We rest and trust in the promise of the one who has already established us in the land of promise. One of the things that Christians say when loved ones die is that they're home. And in a sense, when somebody dies in the Lord, they don't go anywhere. They're already home. What does Jesus say to the disciple who's on the cross next to him? When he professes faith in the Lord, when he testifies to his unbelieving neighbor that we deserve the wrath of God, this man has done no wrong. What does Jesus say to him? Today, you will be with me in paradise. And there's a sense in which that's literally true, right? Because what happens to Jesus and him? They both die that day. There's a sense in which Jesus is confirming his faith in that and telling them he's already there. Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Lord God our Father is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Holy Spirit is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That's what God says to Moses when he first appears to him in the book of Exodus. When Moses sees that burning bush, what does he say to Moses as he tells him to go tell the Israelites that he's heard their cries? That he remembers the promise made to Joseph and to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. He says, and God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, you should say to the children of Israel, I am, has sent me to you. That's the very words that Jesus uses to the Jews. I am who I am. I am the Father of One. And I am here on my Father's business. And that's the great comfort of this doctrine, of this truth that our God is One. And so as we enter into this time this year and as we look more deeply into the nature of what it means to be a Christian, that's why we have to start here. Because everything flows from this truth. We'll close on this verse from Romans 16. As Paul is closing out, he says, Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest, and by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the Father. That's what the great Shema means to us as believers. That's why we rest and trust alone in Him. That's why we're able to witness to these things. So let us hear this testimony once more. Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we give thanks again for the wonders and the glories of your name and the awesomeness of the truths that we are told in the scriptures. For to God we are those who rest. and are at peace in the comfort of your gospel grace, of the assurance of the word given to us from above, that our God is one and that he alone is God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's now turn in our green Bible psalm books, Bible psalm number 122, A Dependence on God for Salvation. 122 in the green Bible psalm books. O come, O come, Emmanuel, O come, O come, Emmanuel, O come, O come, Emmanuel, O come, O come, Emmanuel, For the Lord God so loved the world, so He gave His only begotten Son. And God shall always lead. He always shall lead us. And God shall always lead us. Man again one of the things I love about singing the Psalms is that the Psalms testify in every single one that God is one and God is three, and Jesus Christ is our hope and our salvation both this day and forevermore as we rejoice in the goodness of our God. And so if you have need to speak unto me, the elders, we are here to help in any way that we can. Again, let us close our morning service with a benediction from Isaiah 32. Be there at verse one. Hear the word of the Lord. Behold! A king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice. A man will be as a hiding place from the wind and a cover from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. The eyes of those who see will not be dimmed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. Also the heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly. Amen. And it won't be long before the world is free. And it won't be long before the world is free. It won't be long.