Gods Tattoo - Edwin Bontrager

Good morning, greetings to the brothers and sisters gathered together at Halsey Men of

Nite Church. The service thus far, especially the Sunday school period, gave

in my mind a picture of a local body of believers, A gathering here

of real people, living real lives, having real experiences, some happy,

high lifting, some experiences discouraging, painful, regretful, Real people experiencing difficulties,

sometimes personal in mind and heart in material, but real people seeking God's

way, seeking God's solutions. Well, a local body needs interchange. We

had that this morning, interchange of ideas. Interchange that requires voices, requires

belief, requires faith, requires a look at issues and elements of life well

interesting too interesting to listen, interesting to participate, and there does need to

be voices. A bit of introduction to the message first. The purpose of

this message is to, I would say, having listened to what we've heard

so far, to continue on with an encouragement to appreciate, what to think

about, contemplate and appreciate what you and I as Christians mean to Almighty God,

what we mean to him. That's what I wish to share this morning

about and to remind you, encourage you and myself in our world today we

see a lot of tattoos. Seems like it's a has really has really increased

in my lifetime, and so today it's not just a little mark or picture

somewhere. It's what's often called body art and covers a large part of the

body, almost like clothes. Well, it wasn't always like that when I

was a child. Why you see a tattoo, it was usually just a

little thing. It wasn't on women with little thing on the arm of a

man, And often it represented affection, maybe a cupid heart on the arm

and a name or initials by it represented commitment and affection. And to those

of you who enjoy Norman rockwell, why I remember that one of his paintings

of a sailor getting a tattoo on his arm of a girl's name underneath probably

four or five others that were crossed out. Well, there's no promiscuity like

that with God. God is constant with his affection. In Josiah two Versus

nineteen and twenty, we read, and I will betroth thee unto me forever.

Yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment,

and in loving kindness, and in mercies, I will even betroth thee unto

me in faithfulness, And thou shalt know the Lord, turning your bibles if

you care to to Isaiah forty nine. Isaiah forty nine, in verse sixteen,

I've entitled my message this morning God's tattoo. And in a way I'm

a little reluctant to use a title like that because of what tattoos have come

to be in our world today. But to have something indelible when I worked

in a hospital almost sixty years ago, why sometimes people came in, men

came am in for tattoo removal. Would be tough to do that today,

probably with often what we see today. Why you take it to the grave,

all right, Isaiah forty nine, in verse sixteen, words of the

Lord. Here behold, I have graven THEE upon the palms of my hands.

Thy walls are continually before me, especially that first part. I have

graven THEE upon upon the palms of my hands. So graven would give us

the idea it's permanent, it's there, it's it's an established gesture of identity

on the part of in this case, Almighty God, and it's to represent

affection and commitment to people. And so in this case, of course,

it's it's to God's people, the Jews of the Old the Old Covenant.

But God remains stead fast in his covenant, even towards those people who abandon

him, who left him for the distractions of life and committed spiritual adultery,

forgot him. That's interesting in relation to the scripture that we looked at this

morning in Sunday School about forgetting and God wishes for us to remember. Yes,

there's some things we need to forget. There are some things we need

to remember. And I think that life, my life as an old person,

reminds me more often of the things that I've been forgiven because I'm constantly

aware of my humanity. That doesn't stop. My humanity calls attention to the

fact that I am both capable and sometimes prone to that which would say that

I have forgotten temporarily what I've been forgiven of all Right, going on here,

I'd like to look at some verses that would tell us about God's affection.

First of all, from the Old Testament, God's affection to people in

the Old Testament and Jeremiah thirty one thirty two, we read God said I

took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

Took them by the hand in Exodus nineteen four, I bear you on eagles

wings and brought you unto myself Hosei eleven one. When Israel was a child,

then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. Zechariah two

eight. He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye, talking

about affection and commitment by God himself some seventy two fourteen, precious shall their

blood be in his sight? Of blood. In the Old Covenant especially it

referenced life, the life of a person of life is in the blood,

and so that was precious to God. Isaiah forty three four thou wast precious

in my sight, and of course that familiar one in Isaiah forty one ten.

Fear thou not, for I am with thee be not dismayed, for

I am thy God. I will strengthen thee Yea, I will help thee

Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. That's

the God, that's the commitment, that's the words of commitment of the God

who in the Old Covenant said I've graven your names on my palms on my

hand, palms on my hand. And so though this is an Old Testament

text, I think that the feelings that God expressed us there certainly carry over

into his New Testament. Saints believers in the New Covenant, the New Testament,

following that new and living way through the blood of Jesus that was shed

to make permanent reconciliation, permanent atonement for you and me to accept and live

from. It's a result of his agopy love that was based not on whether

I would respond or not. It was based on his plan and was based

on his volition to carry it out, carry out his plan for people to

benefit people eternally. Well, what about God's New Testament affection? What do

we read there? Thought about first of all, to a person to marry

In Luke one twenty eight, when he said the Angel, the Angel as

a conveyor of message from God to Mary said hail thou, that are highly

favored. The Lord is with thee. It was that expression of of regard,

affection and favor that was to a person. Well, what about to

a people Jesus? In John one twelve, we have the record there of

of John the writer, as many as received him to them, gave he

power or authorization to become the sons of God, even to them that believe

on his name. Yes, God's promises are personal, but this is a

very general one to all persons. Who would accept, who would receive,

who would welcome, who would who would take that offer from Almighty God,

so to a person, to people a gift. In a Roman twenty three,

the end of the verse as the gift of God is eternal life through

Jesus Christ, our Lord. That, of course, follows the fact that

there's other consequences to the wages of sin is death. So God deals with

gifts instead of wages. We're thankful for that, aren't we, Because we

could never earn it, could never merit it, could never be good enough,

could never accomplish enough, could never offer enough to get the kind of

benefit that God offers to us, that of eternal life. Well in a

new nature. That gift of eternal life also has to do with the new

nature Second Corinthians five seventeen. If any man be in Christ, he is

a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are

become new and Second Corinthians three eighteen. But we all with open face beholding

as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same

image, from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord

changed into the same image, from glory to glory. Someone has said,

from one glorious experience to another. Well, yes, there are glorious experiences.

Sometimes I've found that some of the experiences that don't seem so glorious have

been effective in that changing, that developing, that adding, like we talked

about a while ago, adding and changing and drawing higher. Well, God

wants it to be glorious, and he promises that it will be glorious if

we if we let it be that new nature. Well, God's New Covenant

New Testament affection also include the gift of his spirit Acts to seventeen. And

it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will

pour out of my spirit upon all flesh. We know that happened at specifically

at Penny Coost, but it also happens, if that's a good word to

in the experiences of you and me as we yield ourselves to God, as

we come to that new birth experience, and then as we go on in

needing some more knowledge, some more revelation, if you please, some more

help to understand what life's about and how God's word applies to where I am

right now in my life, the experience that I'm in right now, in

any particular day, in any particular activity, any particular pursuit or hobby or

occupation or association, all those things come into the picture. Well. God's

keeping power is another part of this evidence and expression of affection and commitment by

Almighty God to you and me as New Testament Christians first Peter one five says,

who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to

be revealed in the last time. I think the term salvation there is not

referring so much to the new birth experience, as it is that whole life

of being saved and being possessed by God and living for God, and that

ends or culminates in the final passing into eternity future in heaven and the presence

of God. And so I think about how that for God to take human

beings, for God to take human beings and declare their names indelibly etched on

his hand, takes a lot of love for me. For him to do

that takes power, takes miracles for that to happen. Doesn't it for us

our names to be graven on his poems? We read about God's hands in

the scripture what he does, but to think about, at least from human

perspective, every time those hands move, and I'm relating to it as from

the human perspective, from a vantage point as a person, every time those

hands move, God's hands moves, He's conscious of your life and my life.

He's conscious of your personality. He's conscious of your commitments. He's conscious

of your determination, your aspirations, your desire to be his and to follow

him and to identify He's that whenever his hands move. Think, that's an

interesting thing for me to think about as a person, that I'm conscious of

my hands and when I look at them. Why there's things that I think

about. But I don't have any names tattooed or graven on my palms or

on my arms. But God says that he's He's said that's how he views

his people because we're special to him, not because of what we were or

what we could be of ourselves, but because of what he did to make

us special, and so then to name names for God to take people like

the apostle Paul or Onesimus, the runaway slave, or the Philippian jailer.

You know, we could go on and on with Bible names, to take

Peter, to take Abraham, to take Moses, to take Rahab, take

Ruth, and all those others, to take me, and to take you

and place us in a condition that he would want to have our names graven

on the palm of his hands, to declare that there were in his mind,

were in his heart, has to be, has to be His doings

were read in Revelation fifteen three. Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord

God Almighty? How how what other words could we use? What other words

would would take it? On such a high level, such an accomplishing,

such a enriching, such a condescending, if you please, from God's perspective,

to reach down to you and me, to take us and place us

in that kind of a relationship, that in that kind of a condition.

Well, Romans five eight says that God commendeth his love towards us in that

while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so this this

beginning, if you please, of of of esteem and value. That God

focused our our direction, my direction, your direction that started before I had

made any response to him, before I had accepted his love, before I

received his salvation in my life, started way before that. Because God had

a plan. God had a plan. So this this exhibition of his affection

commitment that I portrayed just briefly from the verses in the Old Testament that point

to pointed forwards to Christ, and so at the incarnation it focused on him.

Heaven couldn't keep quiet, and they said, here's here's a gift,

peace, joey hope. All those things came into focus as Christ made his

appearance. And then, of course, since then God's love is still directed

to us through the work of Christ that was both past and present. We're

talking about Jesus who said, my peace I leave with you, Jesus who

said abide with me, who said, have abundant life, he said,

sanctify them through thy truth. And he said he that followeth me shall not

welk in darkness. In the Colossians one fifteen we read about the Christ who

came in the image of the invisible God. Colossians one fifteen, who is

the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature? Firstborn?

There, I think, is talking about the status, the elevator status of

him. So this image, an image, of course, is an exact

lightness, an exact exact lightness that showed visibly what an invisible God was like.

We think, how could that be? Only through Christ? An image

resembles, reveals, and represents. So Jesus is the fullness and makes full

Colossians two, verses nine and ten. For in him dwelleth all the fullness

of the godhead, bodily and ye are complete in Him, which is the

head of all principality and power. So that completeness that Christ was and represented

then spreads or passes on into that the new creature concept that you and I

are when we become one in Christ with him, come one with him through

Christ fullness. This is the Christ that provided redemption currency. In First Peter

one, in verse eighteen, we read about that it's not was silver or

gold that wasn't the proper currency, that couldn't purchase, that couldn't be used

to purchase what needed to be to be acquired. Verse nineteen says, but

with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without

spot. That was the proper currency in Christ, provided that he was the

only one, and he was willing, not only willing, but able to

do it. And so he did means of reconciliation first Peter three eighteen.

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just, for the unjust,

that he might bring us to God. Well, the reason, the

reason that there need to be reconciliation was because of what we read in the

Old Testament that the soul that sinneth, it shall die. You know,

no ifs ands or buts. This brings this. The Old Law showed the

justice of God, the holiness of God, the requirements of God. Also

emphasized that you and I can't meet those requirements on our own. So the

Old Testament utilized the help of animal sacrifice animal blood to represent and said that

was until the completeness the real would come in. So through Jesus we have

that means of reconciliation through His blood. Well, lest we think that because

we are indelibly engraved on God's palms, that we are therefore eternally secure,

why we can note some other verses to help us through that. In in

Collaussians, we read Collausitions one twenty three, if ye continue in the faith,

grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the

gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is

under heaven. Whereof I Paul and made a minister. So there's a continuing

to do, continuing to do James one twenty two says, but be ye

doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. We heard

in our Sunday school discussion this morning about about works to all seven of the

churches. The message was I know your works, I know your works.

That seemed to be a strategic element in the evaluation and in the placement of

those people. So there is that for us to do that God doesn't do

for us. Of course, there is that which we can't do that God

does do for us. Jesus said in John fifteen fourteen, ye are my

friends, if ye do whatsoever I come, and you obedience. Not just

if it feels good it's okay, but if it matches up with what this

owner operators Manuel tells us is acceptable. And required, So what about response?

Then? That was that came to my mind and in this study for

myself. What's my response to all this, the facts that God has has

my name, if you please your name as a Christian on the palm of

his hands, what's my response to that? What does that mean to me?

What does it mean to me to know what I mean to God?

A couple of atheists. Here's here's the response of a couple of atheists.

One of them wrote to Anne Landers. Now some of you are too too

young to remember the Ann Landers and the dear Abbey. In the newspaper.

People could write in ask questions and these women would answer. An atheist wrote

to Anne Landers, resenting her references to God. He said, God's a

stranger to me, and I wish for it to stay that way. Well,

here's the response of another atheist, a man named James Proctor, and

I suppose this could be eighty or a hundred years ago. Apparently was a

well known atheist of his time. As he came to the end of his

life, he was poor and needy. One day was found dead in his

home. He was found dead. His cold hand held a poem that he

had written here's the poem. I have tried in vain a thousand ways,

my fears to quell, my hopes, to raise. But what I need,

the Bible says, is ever only Jesus. My soul is nigh,

my heart is steel. I cannot see, I cannot feel for light for

life. I must appeal in simple faith to Jesus. He died, he

lives, he reigns, He pleads, there's love in all his works and

deeds. There's all a guilty sinner needs forever more in Jesus. Though some

should sneer and some should blame, I'll go with all my guilt and shame.

I'll go to him because his name above all names is Jesus. So

apparently, this atheist, as his life, ebbed Away evidently came to the

right kind of knowledge and sought Jesus to take him from that oppression, that

bondage, that hopelessness that he had lived by and professed, take him to

something that would last, that would take him across that doorway of the unknown,

across that river, we often say, into eternity future, to face

an almighty God who would have the final say of destiny for that man and

for you and me. Also, let's take a look in closing in Hebrews

chapter four. There's some responses there that we would find direction I think to

be called to do. And there's four times in Hebrews four that we read

and in a directive that starts out with let us, there's four let us

as in Hebrews chapter four. So just briefly surveying those. The first one

occurs in Hebrews four, verse one, where he says let us, therefore

fear lester promise being left us of entering into his any of you should seem

to come short of it. Well, the word fear, as it's used

in the New Testament, from a Greek word that has quite a spectrum of

meaning, goes from fright to reverence. So there's quite a spectrum there,

And in this case, it's something we should be scared we're gonna miss.

I guess I'll just say it that way. What if there's a promise that

has a requirement to it in this book that I miss and will cost me

my spiritual fatality in due time, that's something to be scared about. So

that's something that I can do in response to what this study is where the

study has taken me already this morning and in previous times. And when we

think about our fear of God, odd which isn't the particular focus of this

verse. Yet to define that for myself? What does it mean to fear

God? When I when I'm thankful for the special relationship I have with God.

He came into my heart, made me a new creature, and I'm

I'm I'm connected to him. And yet how though precious and personal and meaningful

that connection is. It's not like if I'm associating with Ernest Birkie, who

has been my friend for a long time, and we can we can tell

stories, we can laugh, we can slap each other on the back with

memories and enjoyments, and we can talk about things of life. But that's

different than my relationship with God. I don't walk beside him and slap him

on the back and laugh and and have a shallow It's not that kind of

thing. So my relationship with God, my fear of God, includes the

fact that God is high and the only reason that I can have a close

relationship with him is because He came down to where I was through Christ and

rescued me and took me in his arms and carried me into a much better

life than what I was headed for. All right, a little bit of

personal theology there. Let's go to verse eleven another, let us let us

labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same

example of unbelief. This caused attention to the children visual as they went from

Egypt to Canaan. And it took him forty years to get there because they

doubted God's promises. They were unbelieving, lacking faith in what God said he

would do, and it cost him forty years and the lives of what everyone

that was, what twenty years old and upward or forty years whichever it was,

cost of lives of all those people. So he's saying, let us

labor. Well, in the word labor again from the draft, from the

definition of the Greek, I found a speed, effort and promptness. Effort

also would mean to exert, to strive, to be zealous. So it's

it's something that grips you, is something that's there, it's something that's pulling

at you, something that's that's in your mind. Let's labor to enter into

that rest. So rest to those old people, old Testament people meant the

realization of God's promise to bring them into the land of Israel, into the

promised land. That was rest for us as we as we think of that

spiritually in our new Covenant relationship. Rest is a freedom from all that bondage

that Egypt represented. It's it's freedom from the power of Satan. And especially

it is rest and freedom to do what's right. It's not just to do

whatever we feel like or what we like to do. It's freedom to do

what's right. So that rest, he says, let's let's work at it.

Let's put some effort into it to get to that rest, so that

we don't so that we aren't a statistic like all those people in the Old

Testament were. We don't want to be that kind of statistics. Let's go

to verse fourteen. Seeing then, or because we have a great high priest

that's passed into the heavens, meaning that he finished his work, did what

his assignments were, and that's of course Jesus, son of God. Then

this one let us hold fast our profession. To hold fast here means to

seize, to maintain, and to retain. Let's hold fast our profession.

What is our profession. Well, first off, it's the confession of faith.

It's the conviction that believing in Jesus Christ as Savior and then accepting him

as Lord, that that is the only real foundation that will take us where

we ought to be during our time on earth and will also then enable us

to enter Heaven's gates one day. But some words that I wrote down to

expand in my mind what this profession ought to be or include. It's a

position, it's an application, and it's an interpretation, the position of being

in Christ. It's a coveted position, it's a special position. It's a

privileged position. Isn't it application? If my faith, my belief in Christ,

doesn't have an application of every in everyday living, why then it's not

what it ought to be. It's somehow separate from what life is and where

I am. An interpretation, my profession helps me to interpret my experiences of

life in a proper way, the way that God will want me to interpret

life. Knowing that God is in charge. God is the power, God

is the wisdom in my life must be. Verse sixteen is the fourth one.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of Grace that we may obtain

mercy and find grace to help in time of need. You ever need help

in life? I do, I do. I've walked a lot of years,

a lot of miles in life, still need help, still human.

So let's come boldly into the throne of grace. And coming boldly means to

approach with confidence, with frankness, with bluntness, and with assurance. Yes,

you can tell It's all right to tell God how you feel. It's

all right to tell God about what you've feel like you've done well in the

day, or what you've done un miserably in the day. That's all right,

God says, come boldly. You're welcome to come. You're welcome to

say it. Also come with the fact that I know you know that when

you come. Why God's there, He's welcoming. He's saying I love you,

I take you, I receive you, I bless you, I energize

you, I empower you. And we can use a lot of a lot

of more words there. Assurance. My sins are under the blood. I

want to I want to put them there when they occur. Now I can

have that assurance. I can't find assurance if there's things lurking, if there's

things continuing that I'm allowing to stay there in this heart of mine. That's

is a human heart, and it's often too conscious of distractions. So what's

what's your response this morning? I leave that question with you. What's your

response to the fact of what you mean to God and what he wishes to

have clear in your mind in my mind of what we mean to him.

Let's respond to that in our words, in our praise, in our singing,

but certainly in our living, in our honor to him, in how

we respond to the little things, the big things that occur each day,

and how we identify, how we identify that's what he wishes. Hey,

God, bless you.