Don’t Underestimate God

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine you are praying. Would you be praying to God or to Jesus? What kinds of images go through your mind?

Recently a lady in my Bible study group spoke of a man who struggled with believing God could be powerful because when he tried to imagine God, all he saw was a paper Jesus on a flannel board from his childhood memories. How could a God like that, he reasoned, help anyone? Could he really perform miracles?

Today is Transfiguration Sunday. The Scripture in Mark 9 show us Peter, James, and John as they were privileged to witness the dynamic vision of the transfigured Jesus, so different from what they were accustomed to. Jesus’ clothes became radiant before them, intensely white, and Jesus stood talking with Moses and Elijah.

Matthew 17 also relates the account of Jesus’ transfiguration and includes that his face glowed, and his garments were as white as the light. In this account, Peter, James, and John fell face down when God spoke saying, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

Can you imagine how those three disciples’ minds must have been stretched? Suddenly and vividly, it became obvious to them that Jesus was so much more than the man they thought they knew, the man they walked and talked with every day.

My take-away from these passages today is to recognize how much bigger Jesus and God the Father are than what we might tend to think. “Bigger than life,” is an expression that might come to mind, but certainly is not adequate to describe Jesus, the Son of God.

I can in no way completely capture the fullness of God or Christ in today’s brief message, though I hope to stretch our minds just a little. The thought of preparing this message has been very intimidating to me because I need this mind stretching as much as anyone.

The descriptions of Christ in the book of Revelation blow my mind. I had been told that Revelation was full of symbolism, and nobody could understand it. So, I didn’t read it for myself until a few years ago. I still don’t claim to understand it well, but this is a message God gave us. Furthermore, this book comes with a promise to bless those who hear it. We can glean from it if we are willing to search. Many people today are realizing that much of what is happening in this increasingly troubled world falls right in line with the prophesies found throughout the Bible and in Revelation.

So how is Jesus pictured in Revelation 1:13-16? It is beyond anything I remember from early Bible teaching. Jesus is described as “one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.”

Wow! And that is Jesus! Imagine what John must have thought, knowing he had walked and talked with him as a best friend in his younger years.

Revelation 5 gives us another picture of Jesus, “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”

I had to make a quick search to understand the seven spirits and the seven horns, and the best I could come up with was that the seven spirits represented the wholeness or completeness of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the seven horns represent perfect strength, and the seven eyes represent his ability to see anything anywhere. The number seven is used repeatedly in the Bible to represent completeness and perfection.

We must be willing and ready to see Jesus outside his human skin as well as inside it. We are comfortable with him in his skin and that is a good thing because we can walk with him and talk with him as a fellow human being, but that’s only half of who he is, and the smaller half at that. It is the deity of who he is, the One that created this universe and beyond and who holds it all together even today that needs to expand our minds.

And Christ rules—not only all the physical things he created, but he is over all his heavenly created beings as well. Spiritual warfare is in his hands. He is the mighty God who can bring order back into this world. And we desperately need this order.

God has his warring angels and beings who will fight on our behalf when the circumstances call for it. Jesus said he could have called legions of angels to bring him down off the cross. It was for our benefit that he chose not to call them.

You may recall the account of Elisha and his servant when they were besieged within a city by the army of King of Aram with their horses and chariots. When Elisha’s servant was overwhelmed with fear, Elisha told him “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed that the servant’s eyes would be opened so he could see that the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around and ready to defend them.

It may also help us to stretch our minds around God’s overwhelming awesomeness by considering the names for him as found in the Bible. The list is long, but here are a few:

• • • Holy – Our God is first and foremost a holy God
    • Elohim – Creator God
    • El Shaddai – Almighty and All Sufficient God
    • El Olam – Eternal God
    • I am who I am – The LORD
    • Yaweh – The LORD
    • Yahweh Jireh – The LORD will provide
    • Yaweh Rapha – The LORD who heals
    • Yahweh Sabaoth – The LORD of Hosts
    • Yahweh Rohi, The LORD is my Shepherd
    • Immanuel – God with us (Jesus)
    • Adonai – Lord (as in master, a more personal God)

The Bible is filled with miracles, and God is a miracle performing God. One of my favorite accounts in the Bible comes from Exodus. God led Moses and the Israelites with one miracle after another. The plagues on Egypt, parting of the Red Sea, rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and bringing them through the desert for 40 years—to name just a few.

Never, NEVER, let anyone convince you that these are myths created in the minds of cave men telling stories around their campfires. The evidence surrounding the real Mt. Sinai has been discovered in the mountains and stones of Saudia Arabia. It would take another sermon to go into the details but suffice it to say that the evidence is literally laid in stone on the grounds in that area. Anyone who sees it and denies that it is real is simply exercising their will to reject God’s Word, while denying their own eyes and intellect.

God’s Word is rich and full. Sadly, Satan has his outspoken naysayers who want to pick and choose what they believe. They dismiss much of the Old Testament as myths, ignoring the evidence that continues to be discovered and that verifies the scriptures. When they do this, they make their Bibles flat — as flat as if they had driven a steam roller over it. They squeeze it dry removing all the life from it. But no matter how hard they try to crush it, God’s Word is still God’s Word, and those words have not left the pages. These naysayers only crush their own souls. The life is in God’s Word forever and ever for anyone willing to look. God is eternal, and his words are eternal.

How we envision God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit has everything to do with our ability to pray with confidence and faith. James 1:6 says, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” Let us do everything we can to see God and Christ in their fullness and glory.

When you pray, enter his gates with praise and thanksgiving, and never allow yourself to think you are praying to a wimpy God. We have a God, who is beyond anything we can ever imagine. You can trust him with your troubles and concerns. Bring them to God in prayer and expect him to bless you richly. Pray for this world and the mess it is in. Never give up praying because God is who he says he is. The name he gave to Moses was I Am who I Am! God is not to be questioned or underestimated. One of my favorite names for God is the God who sees me. Give him what is troubling you and trust him to handle it. He loves you and cares for you.

Photo credit: https://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/gnpi-057-transfiguration/

(This is a sermon prepared to be delivered in three small churches in SC on Feb 11, 2024.)