The Mystery of Godliness (Cliff Vickery, 09/09/23)

Glad to be here today.

Want to thank you for the invitation to come,

and let's all worship together.

It was Thursday night,

a very eventful night in the life of Christ.

He would not sleep until he closed his eyes in death

on Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock.

He would be up all night and all the next day.

Events taking place,

there with his disciples wondering what he should say.

His thoughts all come together,

and God blesses in a special way as they listen.

And the portion we have in those words is in John 14, 15, 16, and 17.

A hundred and seventeen verses in those chapters.

To take the time to listen to what God was saying to his disciples,

he's saying to us.

When you put all that together,

and really read and listen to what we're reading too.

You know, we can know a Bible verse so well we don't think about what we're reading

or what we're saying.

For God so loved the world.

The biggest word is so.

For God so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son.

That whosoever would believe in him should not perish,

but have everlasting life.

What a verse.

Listen to all that it says.

God would send his only born son.

God wanted to save this world and save all of us.

The wages of sin is death.

God decides that he will become human,

that he can die for you,

that he can take your sins and pay the price,

and he would give you his life, eternal life.

What a thought.

Peter, sitting there with his disciples,

has washed their feet, surprised all of them.

They didn't expect anything like this would happen.

And as always, Peter becomes a part of the scene.

Thou shalt never wash my feet.

Jesus said to him,

If I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me in the kingdom.

Peter says, My head just washed me all over.

Just washing your feet will be enough.

Wash their feet, took his seat,

and he opens his mouth, and he says,

Let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me.

In my father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you,

and if I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself.

Those three verses, we know it all by heart.

Do we listen as we read?

That's a concern sometimes I have.

How many times are you mentioned in those chapters?

God talks about you, He talks about Himself.

As a matter of fact, 117 verses in those four chapters,

and the Father is mentioned 119 times,

the Holy Spirit is mentioned 30 times,

and Jesus is mentioned 282 times in those four chapters.

How many times are we mentioned in those four chapters?

I've counted them, 265 times.

Think of it.

The pronouns are so important.

Almost always we are the pronouns that He's talking about.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

What a statement. What an interest.

If you look at 1 John, the little epistle of John,

John 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1, it has 10 verses, 247 words.

God is mentioned 25 times, and you and I are mentioned 40 times.

What is God saying about us and to us in those chapters?

When you read, I would like to encourage you to read the Bible slowly

and see what's being said and how you're brought into the scriptures.

Jesus says, the words that I speak to you are spirit and life.

This book, when you read it, you're reading about the words of life.

God is talking to you.

He's talking to all of us in a very special way.

One verse that I love in the whole Bible,

to me is a very special verse, I'd like to share it with you.

You probably know it by heart.

Here's the way it begins.

I am crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless, I live.

Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

And the life that I now live in the flesh,

I live by the faith of Jesus Christ, His Son,

who loved me and gave Himself for me.

How many times are we mentioned in that verse?

I am crucified.

I, you're mentioned eight times in one verse.

What a verse.

There's another verse that's rather special to me

that I'd like to share with you.

He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,

that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

What a statement.

Look at all the information that is there.

Watch what He is saying.

He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,

that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

I think it's something that we need to realize in a very special way.

In chapter 14, well, let me come back and begin here,

chapter 14, verse 33.

Here Jesus is talking, and He says,

He taketh him, Peter, James, and John,

and began to be sore amazed and very heavy.

He's in the Garden of Gethsemane with the disciples.

And in Mark's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 33,

He take with Him Peter, James, and John,

and began to be sore amazed and very heavy.

Those old English words sometimes don't make a big impression on us

like they could.

To be sore amazed is horror stricken,

and very heavy is desperately depressed.

He said, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful unto death.

Teary ye here, and watch.

Gethsemane.

He went a little forward from them,

fell on the ground, and prayed that if it possible,

this hour might pass from him.

He says, here's what He says, Abba, Father,

all things are possible unto you.

Take away this cup from me.

Look at the struggle that Jesus is having in Gethsemane.

He's going to die.

He's going to become sin itself, your sins, and pay for your sins.

The word Abba means daddy.

This is the way He approaches His Heavenly Father.

Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee.

Just about.

Take away this cup from me.

Nevertheless, thy, listen to what He says,

thy will be, let me go back,

nevertheless not what I want, but what thou want.

Jesus suffered pain for us for our salvation.

The way this salvation all came together for us is that

it's in Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God

to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin,

espoused to a man named Joseph of the house of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary.

The angel came unto her and said,

Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women.

When she saw Him, she was troubled at His saying

and cast in her mind what manner of salutations this should be.

And the angel said unto her, Behold, thou shalt conceive

in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus.

He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest,

and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.

He shall reign over the house of Jacob and his kingdom.

There shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be,

seeing I know not a man?

This is an amazing miracle that is going to take place.

Someway, here's what the angel says.

The angel answered and said to her,

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.

The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.

Therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee

shall be called the Son of God.

What a statement.

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.

The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.

Therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee

shall be called the Son of God.

The heavenly name is Jesus.

What was Jesus' name in heaven

before he came to this world to save us?

It was Michael, Michael the archangel.

The heavenly name is Michael.

The earthly name as his savior is Jesus.

He's the one.

He's the one that did all that he did

to bring about salvation and blessings for us.

The Father took Jesus and made him sin for us.

He knew no sin that you and I might be made

the righteousness of God in him.

You can't get no better than that.

That is for sure.

Have you ever wondered what and how old Mary was

when the angel came to her?

Was she in her late teens or early 20s?

She was engaged.

She was going to be married.

And all of a sudden this angel comes to her

and says to her,

Mary, the angel says to her,

you're going to have a baby.

Watch and see.

The Highest will overshadow you.

You will bring forth his son.

You shall call his name Jesus.

The question I would like us to think about

just for a moment is what happened in heaven

for Michael to come and become Jesus?

That miracle we know nothing about.

The second member of the Godhead steps down

and becomes a part of the human race

and becomes that baby that is born into Bethlehem.

That's what gifts are all about

as far as Christmas is concerned.

God gave his only begotten son

that whosoever believes in him should not perish

but have everlasting life.

Jesus went to the cross.

He paid the price for our sins.

And he died on the cross.

And he, well, he hung there for six hours.

And finally he said, it is finished.

And he bowed his head and he died.

I've often wondered what he felt

in those hours on the cross,

bearing my sins and the sins of the whole world.

And he dies.

And he provides the gift for all of us

to have eternal life.

For God so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son.

God so loved your world

that he gave his only begotten son.

That whosoever believes in him should not perish

but have everlasting life.

We just don't realize.

There's a word in the Bible

and there's a phrase where it says,

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthanai.

It's found in Psalms chapter 122.

Psalms 122 · chapter mention

It's found in Mark's gospel in Matthew.

And it's also found what Jesus said.

He said it on the cross just before he died.

What do the words mean?

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthanai.

He repeated those words as he was just about to die.

What do those words mean?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Did Jesus die lost?

He paid the price.

The wages of sin is eternal death.

God experienced something that we have no comprehension.

What happened when he died?

It changed everything.

A new picture of God the universe had never seen.

You know, we don't realize how big God really is.

There's a telescope that circles the Earth

that's getting old now called the Hubble Space Telescope.

And the photographs that it takes,

to be able to photograph the full moon,

that telescope has to take 115 pictures

of that little full moon to get all the pictures in.

It's so powerful.

And when it takes pictures,

the average picture it gets of the universe,

a little tiny piece of the moon that small,

are over 3,000 galaxies.

And there's 100 billion suns in each galaxy.

From the horizon over here all the way across

to the horizon over here would take 360 full moons

to go one to the other.

The universe is incredibly big.

God is much bigger than we've ever, ever imagined.

But the most marvelous thing that he has ever done

is to die on the cross for us.

God is love.

And he loves you.

We don't want to disappoint him.

We want to know him as he wants us to know him,

to be understanding and filled with his spirit,

and when we open the Bible, we can sense God talking to us.

We sense his presence.

He says, the words that I speak to you, written in the book,

the words that I speak to you are very, very special.

They are spirit and they are life.

Listen when you read.

Watch out what's being said.

Let God guide your thoughts as you open the book.

And you will sense a new depth, a new understanding,

a new appreciation for who he is and what he has done for us.

There's another 316 in the Bible.

We know John 316, 1 Timothy 316.

Great is the mystery of godliness.

God was manifested in the flesh.

Justified in the spirit.

Seen of angels.

Believed on in the world.

And received up into glory.

Great is the mystery of godliness.

God is infinite.

Eternity.

How far does that go?

That we will never, never, never, never die.

The future is eternal for us through what God has done.

I want to encourage you to look at the Bible maybe in a little bit of a new way.

Listen to what the words are saying to us.

And God will speak and your heart will be touched.

You will sense his presence, his forgiveness, and his love for you

and for all the people that he died for.

It's a marvelous thing that heaven has done to bring to us the gift of salvation.

I appreciate being able to speak for a few moments with you this Sabbath morning.

God is good.

He loves us.

All of us heart, he loves us.