Oak Hill Baptist Church

If God seems far away, guess who moved?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “Since the days of your fathers, you have turned from my statutes; you have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Armies.” Malachi 3:7 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “If God seems far away, guess who moved?”

Malachi was the last of the Biblical writers we know as “The Minor Prophets”. With this short book, God closed the Old Testament. That then ushered the people of God into what is called the “intertestamental period”, also known as “The four hundred years of silence”. It’s the four hundred years between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. During those four hundred years there were no prophets of God working among His people and there were no new messages from God. For all intents and purposes, God had gone silent.

The book of Malachi was intended to be one final prophetic warning to the people as God tried to call their attention to how far they had drifted from Him. However, in Malachi 3:7 God made it clear that despite their long history of disobeying Him, He was still ready to reestablish a close relationship with them if they would just repent and return to Him. Jesus would paint this same word picture in His parable of the Prodigal Son.

The phrase “return to me and I will return to you” was actually a metaphor describing the broken relationship between God and His people. It wasn’t that God was no longer present. As we learned yesterday in our discussion about the Omnipresence of God, He is everywhere all the time. There is no place that God is not. Likewise, when we read in the Bible of God threatening to withdraw His presence from disobedient people, it means that the relationship will be broken and they will no longer sense His presence or experience His blessings.

So, because the people in Malachi’s day had moved away from God in their hearts, they were no longer in a close relationship with Him. They couldn’t sense His presence and they weren’t experiencing His blessings. But that could change. God was ready and willing. If they would return their hearts to Him, the relationship would be reestablished. “Return to me and I will return to you.”

The same is true for us. God wants to be in a close relationship with each of us. He wants us to be vitally aware of His presence and He wants us to be living a life that He can bless. He is right here, He is willing, and He is waiting.

If you’re not experiencing that close relationship, if it seems as if God is not close and not blessing, guess whose fault it is? It’s yours. The good news is that God’s invitation is also a promise: return to Him and He will return to you. The relationship can be reestablished and renewed. You moved, He didn’t. Now it’s time to move back to Him.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

God is not far off

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “… he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being …” Acts 17:27-28 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God is not far off”

Acts 17:16-34 is a fascinating passage of scripture which records Paul’s encounter with the scholars and philosophers of Athens. It tells us much, not just about those men in Athens in that day, but about humans in general down through the ages. And it also reveals an essential understanding about God.

In verses 22-23 Paul noted that the people of Athens were very religious. Everywhere he looked there were shrines and idols to a plethora of gods and goddesses. There was even one to “An Unknown God”. They had created that altar to cover themselves just in case they had somehow missed a god they weren’t aware of. This fascination with spiritual things was completely consistent with human nature in all cultures. As we’ve learned previously, and as Solomon taught in Ecclesiastes 3:11, God created human beings with an awareness of eternity in our hearts. All people have an inborn understanding that there is a spiritual realm, God does exist, and there is more than just this life.

In verses 24-28 Paul then goes on to explain what theologians have since come to call the Omnipresence of God. “Omnipresence” is a fifty-cent theological term which simply means that God is everywhere, all the time. There is no place that God is not.

This is what Paul meant when he said to them, “… he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” This is also the truth King David was reflecting on in Psalm 139:7-10 when he wrote, “Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me.” Through the prophet Jeremiah God Himself declared in Jeremiah 23:24, “Can a person hide in secret places where I cannot see him? – the Lord’s declaration – “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?”

This is something that’s true about God and which we need to remember. All too often we think of Him as “the God in heaven”, as if He’s far off in some distant place. No, He’s actually right here with us. He’s closer than we realize. In fact, we’re never out of His presence.

The reason we can and should interact with God as if He’s sitting in the chair next to us is because He is. He’s even closer than that. We’re surrounded by His presence; we exist in His presence; we are never out of His presence. He’s not some far-off God, He is right here with us.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

God will never let you go

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:28-30 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God will never let you go.”

There’s an old one-liner regarding the issue of eternal security (also known as “the security of the believer”), it goes, “Once saved, always saved”. It means that once you have placed your faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins you are saved for all eternity and from that point on nothing can separate you from God. This is something a lot of people wonder and worry about, “Are there circumstances that can cause me to lose my salvation?”

Jesus spoke to this in John 10:28. A very high price was paid by God for you. Jesus died on the cross for you; the Holy Spirit then spent years pursuing you and drawing you to Jesus; finally, you placed your faith in Christ and were adopted into the Father’s heavenly family. After going to such great extremes and so much effort to make you His own, there’s no way the Father is going to let you go once you are His. There are other consequences we suffer as a result of sinning, but losing your salvation is not one of them.

This is an important understanding for all Christians. This is something we need to know about God. It reveals an essential element of His character and how He feels about us. Too many Christians wonder if they can sin their way out of salvation. Well, you can’t.

There’s an entire body of Biblical literature that teaches the doctrine of eternal security, John 10:28-30 is part of it. There are many more passages as well, too many to cite this morning in this devotional, but here are a few more:

“I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you many know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13) If you believe, then you can know you are saved.

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Do you believe? Then you have eternal life.

“Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24) If you hear and believe, you have eternal life.

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. (Romans 8:38-39) If you have come to the Father through the Son, then nothing in all creation can ever separate you from Him.

Once you are His, God will never let you go. This is an important truth about Him that we need to remember.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Like Father, like Son

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does the same things.” John 5:19 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Like Father, like Son”

The term “Like father; like son” is used to explain how it is that sons often mirror their fathers in appearance, mannerisms, hobbies, and professions. But that’s also true of children in general, boys and girls alike. Children are heavily influenced by their parents and often end up becoming very much like their parents.

In John 5:19 Jesus told us that during His ministry years He did nothing on His own but rather, He represented the Father and did only what the Father wanted done. The Amplified Bible is a little more helpful in it’s translation of this verse, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself (of His own accord) …

Okay, that’s helpful: “of His own accord …” He did nothing of His own accord but rather, He did what the Father wanted done in any situation. In other words, Jesus was doing exactly what the Father would be doing if the Father was there Himself doing it. “Like Father; like Son”.

This brings us back to the lesson we learned in previous devotionals that if you want to know God, study Jesus. So, if you want to know how God feels about hardened sinners, read the story of Jesus reaching out to and calling the tax collectors Matthew (Matthew 9:9-13) and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). If you want to know if God will forgive someone guilty of terrible sins, read the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), or the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4-42). If you want to know what God is thinking when you have strayed from Him but have now repented, read the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). In all of those cases Jesus is showing us the exact feelings and responses of our Father in heaven.

When He was here on earth Jesus did what the Father would have done had He been here dealing with the same situation. Like Father, like Son.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

God wants you; do you want Him?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name …” John 1:12 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God wants you; do you want Him?”

An interesting and insightful aspect of the Christmas story is that as the Christ child, God revealed Himself to those who were ready and willing to receive Him. Mary and Joseph first (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38); then the shepherds in the field at night (Luke 2:8-20); then Simeon and Anna in the temple eight days later (Luke 2:21-38); then at some time later, the wise men from the east (Matthew 2:1-12) (You can listen to the sermon for December 19^th on the Oak Hill Baptist Church website for a fuller explanation regarding the timeline of when the wise men had their encounter with the Christ child).

There may have been others that the Bible doesn’t tell us about, but the individuals the Scripture does call out by name all had one thing in common, their hearts were open and they willingly accepted the truth that this was the Messiah, the Savior of the world. As a result, each of these people had a personal encounter with God that changed them forever.

This is one of the great truths of Christmas. Jesus has done His part. He came to earth; He lived among us; He died on the cross for our sins; He arose from the grave, thereby defeating death; He ascended back into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father; and on the day of Pentecost, He sent the Holy Spirit to live in the hearts of His followers. Jesus has done His part. Now it’s up to each individual to open His or Her heart and embrace Him as Savior and Lord.

The story of Christmas proves that God wants you. The question now remains, “Do you want Him”? If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to open your heart to Him right now. Let this Christmas day, 2021, be the day of your salvation.

My family and I wish you and yours a happy and blessed Christmas.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Jesus is for everyone

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “But the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the city of David a Savior is born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Jesus is for everyone”

During his decades of ministry Billy Graham came to know many famous people, including the movie director Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, who was a pioneer in the early days of Hollywood during the silent film era, not only made some of the first movies ever, but he made the first movie about Jesus. The title was “The King of Kings” and it was a silent film.

By the time Billy Graham knew him, Cecil B. DeMille was a very old man and the art of movie-making had advanced far beyond silent films. Not only had sound long since been added, but so had color. Billy asked DeMille why he had never reproduced his greatest film, “The King of Kings” with sound so people could hear the words of Jesus. DeMille responded, “I will never be able to do it, because if I gave Jesus a southern accent, the northerners would not think of Him as their Christ. If I gave Him a foreign accent, the Americans and the British would not think of Him as their Christ. As it is, people of all nations, from ever race, creed, clan, can accept Him as their Christ.”

While history has proven that DeMille was wrong about the danger of adding a voice to the character of Jesus in a movie, his point is still well-taken. Jesus is for everyone, and Cecil B. DeMille didn’t want to do or say anything that would take away from that important truth. He is not a white Jesus, or a black Jesus, or an American Jesus, or a European Jesus. He is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to us from heaven to live among us and to one day pay the penalty for our sins. As the angel said to the shepherds in Luke 2:10-11 (above), this is good news of great joy for “all” the people. Jesus is for everyone. That means that Jesus is for you. He is yours if you want Him. God sent Him not just to save the world, but to save you. The Incarnation is personal for each of us.

Tonight, at Oak Hill Baptist Church, we will celebrate the great truth of the Incarnation with a Christmas Eve candlelight service at 5:00 Central time. We hope you will join us in person. But if you can’t, then I encourage you to join us online as we also livestream the service on our Facebook page.

Jesus is for everyone, and that includes you.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

God’s love is beyond measure

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “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.” John 3:16 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “God’s love is beyond measure”

John 3:16 is probably the best-known verse in the Bible. It’s certainly the most repeated. Even non-Christians have heard it and seen it repeatedly. In fact, I think for some people, even for many Christians, the verse is so familiar that it has almost become too familiar, to the point that we take it for granted and don’t give serious thought to what it means and what it tells us about God.

It begins with the phrase that God so loved “the world” … That term was not meant to describe the world as a planet but the world as in the people who make up the world. God loves the people who live here. All the people who live here. As 2 Peter 3:9 makes very clear, it is God’s will that none should perish, He wants all to come to faith in Christ. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

The verse also reveals that His love for us is so complete, so over-whelming, that Jesus came to earth on a rescue mission to seek and to save those who are lost (all of us), and to bring us to the Father in heaven who loves us that much. The rest of the verse then explains that whoever will believe this to be true and place their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, will have eternal life. This is what God wants more than anything. It’s His most earnest desire, for people to be saved and to spend eternity with Him.

This is something people need to know about God. People need to understand the scope, the depth, the overwhelming magnitude of His love for us. And it’s up to us, those who have already accepted the invitation of John 3:16 and who are now experiencing that great love of the Father, it’s up to us to tell others about it.

That is what we will be doing on Christmas Eve at Oak Hill Baptist here in Crossville, TN. At 5:00 on Christmas Eve we will hold a Christmas Eve candlelight service to celebrate the great love of the Father as demonstrated by the Incarnation of Christ. We invite you to join us. And if you cannot be here in person, then join us for the livestream on our Facebook page beginning at 5:00 Central time.

God’s love for us is beyond measure. The Incarnation proves it.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

The Incarnation is a bridge to so much more

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you did not know.” Jeremiah 33:3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The Incarnation is a bridge to so much more”

Jeremiah 33:3 is a revealing Old Testament passage which teaches us a lot. First, we read that God wants us seek Him and to call out to Him. Second, we discover that when we do, He will answer us. And third, as a reward for desiring, seeking, and calling out to Him, He will reveal to us deep spiritual truths that we did not know before we came seeking and calling.

It has always been God’s desire for His people to know Him, and He has always provided ways for that to happen. That’s been true in many varied ways down throughout the course of human history, and it’s especially true now, in the New Testament Age. Through the person of Jesus Christ, God has shown Himself to us to in a way in which we can immediately relate to and understand. He then used that human body of Jesus to live-out His attributes on the human stage for us to see.

The Incarnation of Christ actually serves as a bridge to help us understand deeper spiritual realities that we could not fully comprehend or appreciate in other ways. It’s one thing for God to tell us in writing (the Bible) that He loves us, it’s another thing for Him to show us that love by suffering and dying to redeem us. It’s one thing for Him to tell us in writing that He cares for us and will provide for us, it’s another thing for us to see Him doing those things as Jesus, as He lived and moved among real people just like you and me.

When we embrace the reality of the Incarnation of Christ and understand that we’re seeing God in action as a result of it, that then becomes a spiritual bridge we pass over that leads us into a deeper knowledge of God and His ways, and it brings us more fully into relationship with Him.

I don’t think it can be said too often that if you want to know God you must study Jesus, because Jesus is God in a human body. The Incarnation is our bridge to understanding so much more about God.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

We don’t need idols

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them.” Exodus 20:3-5 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “We don’t need idols”

Right off the bat in the Ten Commandments God instructs us that we are not to create idols for ourselves that serve as gods, represent gods, or in any way supplant the One True God. But why would we be tempted to do so to begin with? What’s the attraction of an idol?

Although we can make an idol out of anything and give it the place and priority that essentially makes it a “god” in our lives, traditionally and historically an idol was something created by human hands to represent a deity, and it was then worshiped. The reason this has always been true is because as Solomon taught in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God has placed eternity in the heart of man.” In other words, God created human beings with an innate understanding that there is more than just this life; there is a spiritual world and there is a God; and we yearn to know that God and to have life after death. So, in an attempt to fulfill that yearning deep in the human heart, from the beginning of time humans have created idols to represent their understanding of God, and they then worshiped those idols.

To deal once and for all with this deep yearning in the human heart, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. This is what the Incarnation is all about. Immanuel, God with us. By showing Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, God addressed and resolved the human desire for idols which are intended to represent God, or a god. As A.W. Tozer noted in his book, “The Knowledge of the Holy”, “If we insist upon trying to imagine Him, we end with an idol.” That’s true because our imagination will naturally lead us to create a god for ourselves who satisfies our own ideas of what God should be like.

But Jesus changed all that. Through Jesus we see God as He wants to be seen. This is why deep and careful study of the Gospels is so vital to our spiritual growth. Again, quoting from Tozer, “The yearning to Know what cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep … the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source. How can this be realized? The answer of the Bible is simply “though Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Because of the Incarnation of Christ, we don’t need idols. If we want an image of God, we only need to look to Jesus.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Jesus is the exact expression of God

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature …” Hebrews 1:3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Jesus is the exact expression of God”

As we begin Christmas week and the celebration of the Incarnation, I want us to think more about how it is that Jesus is the exact expression of the nature of God. He was God in a human body, showing us the love, kindness, compassion, and mercy of God in a way we can easily understand and relate to. This was one of the things God accomplished while living among us as Jesus, and it’s vitally important that we learn to think of Him in that way.

To help us appreciate the importance of studying Jesus so we can know and understand God better, I’m going to continue sharing some thoughts from the book by A.W. Tozer “The Knowledge of the Holy”. Tozer was one of the many great Christian thinkers who reminded us that “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” One reason that is true is because “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” We’ve talked about this. What we believe to be true about God will play a big role in shaping our own character and personality. Because, “The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems.”

That’s true. Being in a healthy relationship with God cleans up a lot of problems in life. Therefore, “That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us.” It’s of immense importance to God too. That’s precisely why He wants us to see Him in the person of Jesus. And that being the case, as Tozer wrote, “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him.”

Yes, it is the responsibility of the Church to purify and elevate the way in which God is taught and presented so that Christians will come to a better understanding of who God is and what He is really like. This goes beyond simple discipleship and moves us into serious and deep spiritual growth. That was the object of our Christmas sermon yesterday at Oak Hill Baptist. It was about the theology of Christmas, and it was an attempt to paint the big picture of what God was doing for us by means of the Incarnation. If you would like to watch that sermon you can do so on our website (oakhillbaptist.net) or on our Facebook page.

In the days to come, as we prepare to celebrate the Incarnation, give some serious thought to what God was teaching us about Himself by coming to us in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

God bless,
Pastor Jim