Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Who or what is holding our world together? Here's Pastor Bill Luebkemann with the biblical perspective.

Bill Luebkemann: They talk about the forces that hold atoms together and that hold the electrons together and all the parts that make them up, the nuclear forces. They have names for them. Nobody really understands how all that stuff works. The very forces of nature here.

Yet the Bible says well, God holds it all together. Now I have no doubt God set up a means to do that. He has some mechanism he uses and some scientist someday may figure that out, and I hope they do because I'd like to know how it works. But this is more than just figurative. In a very, very real sense, he is holding everything together. We are walking around, living and breathing in him. We're walking on his dirt, breathing his air, eating his food, and everything we have was provided by him.

Guest (Male): Happy New Year from Hope From the Word. If we're not careful, we can take a lot of things for granted, even the most important things. That's why we have reminders like Christmas. Christmas is a special time set aside to remind us of why Jesus came.

Today, we will be exploring the reason for the season. Because God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son. Whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Christmas may be over, but we need this gospel truth every day of the year. Let's start off this year in God's Word. Here's Pastor Bill as he begins in Luke's Gospel, chapter 4, verse 18.

Bill Luebkemann: Luke 4, verse 18 and 19. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Referring again to the blind receiving their sight, referring to unsaved people who would choose to follow him, and that would include all of us who were blind, and now we see. I love that song that Don Francisco sings. I love every song that Don Francisco sings. My son, I don't think he likes any song that Don Francisco sings, but I love every song that Don Francisco sings. I really like that one that says yesterday I was in darkness, but since I met him, I can see.

He sings it in the first person. Of course, it's the story of the guy. He put some mud on my eyes and then he smeared it around, sent me off to Siloam to wash off the clay, opened my eyes and then I looked at the day. He sings it as if he was that blind guy. By the way, I saw in the news the other day they've uncovered part of that pool of Siloam. They're pretty certain that that's what it is, and they're trying to do some more excavating around it there.

Every time I listen to that song, I think well, that was me because I was blind before I accepted Christ and before somebody shared this good news with me. Since I met him, I can see. Before that, I didn't understand anything. I thought I knew it all. I really didn't know anything. When I was a kid, my brother used to go with his friend to the Baptist church in Willingboro for some boys' thing there, Boys' Brigade or something like that. It was some boys' group.

I used to tell my mother better watch out for them people. Better watch out for them Baptists. They might get you. I don't know if I'd be sending him over there, Mom. I think that I remember I was in high school and he was in junior high maybe, or maybe I was in college and he was in high school. There was a janitor in my junior high school, Abraham Levitt Junior High. He was always handing out tracts.

We'd say oh, here comes the crazy man. Quick, get behind here, hide. Go down the aisle, get outside. Or we'd wait until he got real close, egg him on, and then we'd take off in the opposite direction. Pretty funny because when I was in the hospital a few years ago, the guy next to me went to that Baptist church in Willingboro. He was an older gentleman, maybe in his late sixties, and he said he went there 40 years. Well, I was naming all my childhood friends and he knew them all.

He taught them all Sunday school. Then some people from his church came in because it was right next to the hospital in Willingboro and that's where I was. They came visiting. They were nice people. They had quite a ministry there in that hospital in Willingboro. They had quite a ministry. But here's a guy that taught Sunday school to my neighbors, who growing up were always telling us about the Lord. I told them after I got saved why didn't you people tell me about this when we were kids?

They said Billy, they called me Billy, Billy, you just don't know how many times we tried. I'm sure they did, and I guess I just wasn't listening. Yesterday I was in darkness, but since I met him, I can see. He can open your eyes. If you only accept him into your life, he will open your eyes. Now some folks don't want to have their eyesight restored. John 9:39, Jesus said for judgment I have come into this world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.

I don't understand that. Why would he want to make blind somebody who can already see? Jesus said for judgment I have come into the world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. Why would he want to make somebody blind who can already see? That doesn't make any sense. But he's referring here to those who pretend to see, those who claim they can see, those who think they know it all. This would be the Pharisees of the day and those like them today.

The ones who claim to have some knowledge but really don't. The other day my friend that I was telling you about that I grew up with, there was four siblings, two boys and two girls, and the oldest one was about my age. He's the one that I always hung out with. Usually Christmas time we get together with him because he comes home for the holidays. He doesn't live in the area. A few days ago, Lynn and I met him and his wife for breakfast, and we were able to catch up.

We do that like maybe once a year. His wife said yeah, we were in Ocean City, New Jersey for the summer or for a week in the summer, and we went to the Calvary Chapel there because I said well, Billy goes to Calvary Chapel. Let's go to Calvary Chapel, check that out. They went there, their whole family and all their relatives, sisters and brothers. She said 22 of them were there visiting. She said to me, his wife said, you know your friend John here, he slings out the back, but I always go to the front.

I went up to the pastor and I said do you know my friend Billy Luebkemann? He said Billy, I don't know. You mean Bill? Oh, well we always call him Billy. Well, his name's Bill. Well, we always call him Billy. I thought oh great, how am I going to live that one down? It's funny how your childhood friends, that's just the name they use. That's just what they remember. I guess Billy Joel never bothered him.

This would be the Pharisees here, the ones who said they could see but couldn't, the ones who claim to have some knowledge but don't, the ones who say we know God but they don't really know God. They say we represent God but they ain't representing God. They're really leading people astray, and there's lots of people in the world today that are doing that. People are being led astray by the millions by those who claim to have sight but really don't.

The blind leading the blind, Jesus said, you'll both fall into a ditch. My favorite saying, it's not in the Bible, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. You got a lot of people here who can only see partly. They're confused and mixed up and people are following them. They think maybe they're fooling themselves and they might be fooling others, but they're not fooling God. These are the ones who say they see and Jesus says I'm going to make them blind.

Over in John 9, verses 40 and 41, some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked what, are we blind too? Jesus said if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. Look, it's one thing to say I don't know, and that's okay. You can pray, and I always tell people who are unsaved, they don't know, they don't trust the Bible, I say look, just do this.

Take this Bible, open it up to John, and just pray this simple prayer: God, if you're really there, if there's really a God in heaven and if you can really hear me, then when I read this Bible here, teach me something from it. Let me see you. Get a message through to me somehow. I've never had anybody disappointed who I told to do that. Jesus said here, when you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

There's nothing wrong with saying I can't see, Lord. I need help, I need wisdom, I need sight, give it to me. He will give it to you. He doesn't turn anyone away. I want to look at another reason for his coming. John 10, verse 10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Here we really have two reasons in one: have life and have it to the full.

Jesus wants us to have life, not just a wimpy, go-nowhere, dejected, run-down, beat-up life either. He wants us to have life to the full, which is on a measuring stick that only God can use. John 1:4, in him was life, and that life was the light of men. This verse here, it's more true even maybe than John knew at the time. With modern scientific discoveries nowadays, we know scientists don't even know what holds everything together.

They have all these names, you know, the strong force, the weak force, gravity, electromagnetism. Only electromagnetism they've even scratched the surface of understanding. Exactly what is gravity? How does it work? If we knew what made gravity work, then we'd have no problem making anti-gravity devices, but they only exist on Star Trek, and they're really cool by the way, I'd like to have one. But the bottom line, nobody on this planet knows what makes gravity work.

Look, if you step off of the Eiffel Tower, the scientists can tell you how many seconds it'll take for you to hit the ground. It won't be faster if you're heavy and slower if you're not. They can tell you what kind of condition you'll be in when you hit the ground also. If you hit head, it's not the fall that hurts by the way, it's only the sudden stop at the end. But nobody knows why. Nobody knows why. All kinds of theories. Nobody knows.

As simple as gravity is, when that apple fell on Newton's head, from then until now, nobody knows why. It has to do with mass. We know the more mass, the more gravity. Jupiter has more gravity than the Earth has. The Moon has less gravity. They can figure all that out. They can figure out the application, but nobody knows how it works. They talk about the forces that hold atoms together and that hold the electrons together and all the parts that make them up, the nuclear forces.

They have names for them. Nobody really understands how all that stuff works. The very forces of nature here. Yet the Bible says well, God holds it all together. Now I have no doubt God set up a means to do that. He has some mechanism he uses and some scientist someday may figure that out, and I hope they do because I'd like to know how it works. But this is more than just figurative. In a very, very real sense, he is holding everything together.

We are walking around, living and breathing in him. We're walking on his dirt, breathing his air, eating his food, and everything we have was provided by him. John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Here he clarifies that we will have eternal life. Physical life now, but we have eternal life also if we are in Christ.

We've already crossed over, and it's a life we already have it and it can never be taken away from us. When we die, we lose the physical life. We don't lose the eternal life. We don't get a new one. We still have it. We continue to live in the spirit. John 5, verse 39 and 40. This is Jesus talking again. You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.

These are the scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. These Pharisees here made a big show about everything they did. They were always showing off. We know the Bible. We can quote it forward and backward, front and back. We know the words, we know the meanings, we know who wrote it. We read Highway 66. We can tell you every one of the books in the Bible, everything about here.

But Jesus said it all talks about me. From the beginning to the end, it's all about Jesus. You know when he rode that donkey into town and everybody was cheering and screaming and happy, it would have been easy for the donkey to think well, aren't I something? They're all cheering and clapping for me. But they weren't. They were cheering and clapping for Jesus who was riding that donkey. This whole book here is filled with a message from him, that it testifies about him.

Let's not refuse to come to him. If you've never come to him for eternal life, you need to do that right now and right here. This verse reminds us we have to go to Christ for life. We don't just get it automatically. It's not by mail order. We go to him directly. We need to go to him. Just how do we do that? Well, there's a lot of scriptures about that. Some people say we don't know how to do that. It's so complicated.

You have to do it our way. You have to come to our church or do it the way our group does it. There's thousands of cults in the world, and every one says they have the lock on it. They have the one true way to accept God here. But the Bible is the one true way, and it's very simple. Chapter 20 of John, verses 30 and 31. But Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.

But these are written. In other words, what's written here, the reason it's been written is this: that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That's what it comes down to. It's very simple. We simply need to believe in him. If we believe in him, then we can go to him in prayer and we will receive eternal life.

How about this fullness that he speaks of? He said earlier, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. We can have eternal life with him forever, but also have fullness of life now. Psalm 65:11, you crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. Psalm 147:14, he grants peace to your borders and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.

Those of us who are living in America today, we should be especially happy about this one. Most of us have never known famine or flood or earthquakes or war. Most of us have never known most of these things here. Certainly in Marlton now, man, we have everything we need. If there's anything you don't have, they have it at Walmart. You can get it there. Anything. They have everything here in Marlton.

Isn't it such a crying shame that the non-Christians in the world just don't seem to understand where it all comes from? God provides everything we have, and we are so stinking filthy rich in this country. He has provided the blessings beyond everything. We have nothing to complain about. When you look at the other countries in the world, when you see these people that were living on the beach in huts, here you pay millions of dollars to live on the beach in a mansion.

There, they're living on a hut. When we went to Jamaica for our honeymoon 21 years ago, believe it or not, we were driving down the road and these people have these tar paper shacks, living in total abject poverty. But boy, they have the nicest beachfront land you wouldn't believe what they have there. It'd be worth millions in New Jersey. But they don't have enough food for dinner. Those of us that are living in America today in Marlton, we have so much.

Luke chapter 6, verse 38. I'll find it here. Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. This is just a reminder that we should be sharing the abundance that God has given us. You know this thing with the tsunami, that's just one example. It's a tragedy. God will use it for his purpose.

Hopefully people will get saved because of it. I feel certain that people already have. But God gives us an opportunity to help somebody else and to take something that we have and pass it along. If you give abundantly, the scripture says you're going to receive abundantly. If you give scimpily, you're going to receive accordingly. This applies in so many areas. I hate it when churches just talk about money all the time. Money, money, money, money. They want to get money.

Finances are just one way to approach this. As you give, so you will receive. God invites us to see if we can outgive him. Malachi chapter 3, verse 10. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Nowhere else in the Bible does God say we should test him. Believe me, the Bible says not to test God. You shall not test the Lord your God. I looked up this word and I looked through the whole Bible, and I could not find another place where God said to test him. Lots of places where he was testing people. The word in the King James is prove, and it said he was proving Israel, he was proving this one, proving that one. God was always proving.

But God never said test me. The scripture clearly said Jesus said you shall not tempt the Lord your God. But in this one area, he invites us to try him out. I have found, as have many others, that you cannot outgive God. The more you give, the more he gives. You give more, he gives more. It's like a game for me. If you're holding on to as much because you want to accumulate as much as you can get in this life, Jesus said the one that builds a bigger barn, what a fool he is.

Even tonight, his life may be required of him. And who will get all those possessions then? Somebody sent me a picture last week on the internet. They showed a hearse towing a U-Haul, which was pretty clever. But you can't bring it with you, but you can send it on ahead by passing it on to others. He is able to do even more with what we give than we can imagine. God here simply uses our measuring stick to meter out how much he gives back to us.

If you can imagine measuring your height by a measuring stick of your own design, you would get the purpose here. You would get the point. If you want to be six feet tall, no problem. Make a measuring stick and calibrate it so that you're six feet tall, then you're six feet tall. I stood up there by that microphone, I thought how does he sing into this microphone? How does that work? And that's nothing when Brent used to come, we used to have the thing all the way out as far as it goes.

Can you imagine you could measure your height by a stick of your own choosing? Say you want to measure your weight. Want to be 99 pounds? No problem. You can calibrate your scale just the way you want, step on it, wow, reached my weight goal. Tomorrow it's a little higher, just calibrate it again. You can always be at your ideal weight. Just change the setting on the scale and recalibrate the measuring stick.

Well look, you may not be able to control your height or your weight this way, but God is clearly telling us that it will be given back to us in accordance with how we give. And don't be confused to think he's just talking about money here. That's certainly one area, but there are other ways we can be giving ourselves to him. We can be serving him every day. We can be serving other people. We can be setting aside time for those who need it, our talent and our resources.

Maybe it's somebody in the hospital that needs a visit. Maybe it's somebody that needs a meal cooked for them. I was looking through my old emails the other day, I decided on Christmas Day that 900 emails was too many to have in my inbox. My wife kept calling what are you doing down there? I was getting rid of old emails. I found one somebody had just had a baby, needed some meals brought over in October. And now it was December.

I said well, we missed out on that one. We missed out on a blessing from God because I got too many emails and I forgot to follow up on that. Jesus said pass it around, and you can pass around lots of ways. You can give of yourself, of your time and your talents. I want to say you should be giving some of everything to him. Jesus came, look, not to condemn the world, we saw, but rather to save the world.

We get saved by hearing and by believing. He came to feed us, and we should be feeding off of him. We see that he provides for us. We see that he sends us as the Father has sent him, he said, so he is sending us. He wants everyone to come to repentance. He is not willing that any should perish. He doesn't want anyone not to choose him. Just to summarize here, he came to bring sight to the blind.

But the know-it-alls that claim they see, the God experts, he's going to let them become even more blind. In other words, they're blind already, and he'll just leave them be. He'll allow their hearts to become hardened and he'll confirm them in their unbelief. But for those that believe, he gives us everlasting life and life here on Earth to the fullest. To the fullest, he has given it all to us, so much. And he wants us to pass it on and pass it around. Look, if you know everything you have came from God, you shouldn't mind sharing whatever it is that you have.

Guest (Male): That was Pastor Bill Luebkemann with a timely reminder on why Jesus came and practical encouragement on how we should respond. This is Hope From the Word. For a CD copy of the message, call 856-983-1662. That's 856-983-1662. You can also replay today's program and catch what you may have missed at ccmarlton.org.

Another great way to listen to a program you enjoy or access other teachings from Pastor Bill is through the Hope FM app. Go to ccmarlton.org to download the Hope FM app today. It's available on all platforms and it's free. We want to invite you to join us here at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. We have a Sunday morning service which begins at 10:00.

We also have a midweek service as well on Wednesdays at 7:00. It would be great to have you here with us. Look for our directions and more information about the church online at ccmarlton.org. And would you please send us an email sometime today? It would be nice to hear from you and learn how the Lord is using the program in your life this Christmas season.

You can also email Pastor Bill from our website at ccmarlton.org or just call us if that's preferred: 856-983-1662. Tomorrow, Pastor Bill Luebkemann will return to his study of the book of 1 Samuel. We hope you'll join us then.