Oak Hill Baptist Church

The Promise is for Everyone

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness … For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:2; 6 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The Promise is for Everyone”

I’m a dispensationalist and I suspect you are too. Dispensationalism is a theological term that maintains that over the course of human history God has progressively revealed Himself to humans in greater and more obvious ways.

At one time, His presence was evident primarily only through creation. But then in the times of Abraham and Lot God started to get personal with a few special people. Then in the times of Moses He went even further and began communicating with an entire nation of people through spokesmen, signs, miracles, and even the written word. In the days of Jesus, He was actually physically present among us in a human body. Then on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to live in the hearts of the followers of Jesus, and that’s where we are today.

The incarnation of Jesus brought the world into an entirely new dispensation, or era, of human history. God would now begin to interact with the human race in a way that was personal and revealing far beyond anything He had ever done previously in history. It’s a promise He had made almost immediately after sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15), and it’s one He repeated numerous times, in many ways, and through multiple spokespersons all throughout the Old Testament, right up until the time of the incarnation.

But here’s the thing: The Promise was for everyone. It wasn’t just for the Jews. When Isaiah said in Isaiah 9:6 a child will be born “for us”, he was referring to the human race. Jesus is for everyone. That’s why in John 3:16 John told us that God so loved “the world” that He sent His only Son …”

Going back to our devotion from yesterday regarding Jesus being the light of the world, people all around you are stumbling in spiritual darkness. They are confused, lost, hurting, and struggling. They need to know about Jesus. They need to experience the light in the darkness that we talked about yesterday. Jesus came for such people. The promise of the Messiah is for them.

Christmas is the perfect time to share Jesus with others. The promise is for everyone. I encourage you to talk to someone about Jesus today.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Light in the darkness

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.” Isaiah 9:2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Light in the darkness”

Alaska is a beautiful place. I’ve been there and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Someday I want to go back. However, despite the natural beauty of the land, Alaska is also a place of stark and even dangerous contrasts. It is known as both the land of light and the land of darkness. Because it is located so far north, Alaska spends the summers in perpetual light, and the winters in deep, deep darkness. Winter darkness can extend for twenty hours per day, with only a dim grey the other times.

Those long winters spent in gloomy darkness produce feelings of isolation, fear, and depression for many people. The suicide rate among members of the military stationed in Alaska almost doubles during the winter months. The summer months however (when I was there), have the opposite effect. Living in perpetual light lifts people’s spirits and results in Alaska being thought of as a beautiful place, and it is a major tourist destination.

What’s true of natural light and darkness is also true of spiritual light and darkness. People trapped in spiritual darkness are distraught and miserable. Spiritual darkness is heavy and gloomy. It produces despair and hopelessness. But as Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 9:2, the coming Messiah would bring spiritual light into the world. And sure enough, once He was here Jesus declared Himself to be that spiritual light that the world had been longing for (John 8:12).

An entirely new degree of spiritual light entered the world through the physical presence of Jesus, and then through the spiritual presence of the Holy Spirit living in the hearts of the followers of Jesus after Him. God’s presence in the world, through His Son and then through His Spirit, offers us a degree of spiritual light that simply did not exist in the world before the incarnation of Christ.

One of the reasons we celebrate Christmas is to refocus us on the reality of the presence of God with us – first physically in the person of the Son of God, and then spiritually through the Spirit of God in our hearts. The lights of Christmas should serve to remind us of the spiritual light that chases away the darkness and brings vison, perspective, hope and healing.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Are you missing Christmas?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:4-7 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Are you missing Christmas?”

This past week I committed what is sometimes considered a “foo-poo” (faux pas) for a Pastor. A faux pas can be something that is considered embarrassing or tasteless in a social situation, but it can also be an action that is considered by some to be inappropriate or flat out wrong. My pastoral foo-poo was that I cancelled some church activities for last weekend (I know, I know, you’re gasping in astonished disappointment, but hear me out).

Christmas is always the busiest time of the year. There are decorations to hang, gifts to purchase, cards to send, parties to go to – and that’s just the short list. We’re all busy. Maybe too busy. Last weekend, on the schedule at Oak Hill Baptist, there was a men’s pancake breakfast; a Christmas party for disadvantaged children at a Christian camp we partner with; help a church family move into a new house; a surprise birthday party for someone; Sunday school and worship on Sunday morning; the annual church Christmas party after the service; a Christmas concert in the afternoon; and the Sunday evening Bible study after that. All over the course of just two days!

Whew! Too much! That’s ten pounds of stuff in a five-pound bag. We were splitting the seams! So, I cancelled the men’s breakfast and the Sunday evening Bible study (I make no excuses and I offer no apologies. And honestly, our folks were fine with it. I think they were even glad I did it).

In the Christmas story depicted in Luke chapter two, we find Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem to participate in the mandatory census. The entire nation would have been traveling at that time, all of them headed to their ancestral homes, as ordered by Caesar Augustus. That’s why there was no room of them in the inn, and that’s why Jesus ended up being born in a manger instead of in a hotel room.

If you read the story, you find that there would have been crowds of people milling about in that town as Jesus was being born, but the only ones who noticed and appreciated what was happening were the shepherds. Everyone else missed it, even though it was happening right there where they were. Why? Why did they miss it? Were they a bunch of pagans immersed in sinful debauchery? Probably not. Most of them were observant Jews who loved God and did their best to live good lives. But still, they missed the birth of Jesus! Why did that happen? Probably because they were busy and distracted and therefore weren’t paying much attention. They missed the first Christmas because they were too busy with other concerns and activities.

Let that not be true of us. Let’s not get so busy with Christmas, that we miss Christmas. It’s okay, even good, to cancel a few things so you can truly savor and enjoy the ones that truly matter. My question for you this morning is, “How busy are you?” Are you so busy celebrating Christmas, that you just might be missing Christmas?

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Are you seeing Him?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “…we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” 2 Peter 1:16 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Are you seeing Him?”

I love the story Max Lucado tells in the introduction to his book, “God Came Near”. Bob Edens was blind. For fifty-one years he couldn’t see a thing. His was a dark world which he navigated by touch and sound. But then, he could see. Modern medical science discovered that Bob’s condition could be repaired, and a skilled surgeon was able to perform a complicated operation that gave him sight.

Bob was overwhelmed to suddenly be able to see things that had been around him all the time but which He hadn’t been able to see before. He said he was amazed to discover that yellow was so yellow, and that red was so vibrant. He was in awe of the moon and the stars in the night sky. He was fascinated by sunrises and sunsets, and by the vapor trail left by a jet plane streaking across the sky. He said, “I’m amazed at how wonderful everything is.”

But as Max pointed out, Bob Edens isn’t the only one who has spent a lifetime near something without seeing it. So have all of us. We’ve spent a lifetime in the presence of God without really seeing Him. And what a wonder it would be if our eyes were suddenly opened, if we could in fact see His glory, His splendor, the wonder of all that is God.

But wait, as we learned in yesterday’s devotional, to some degree God has made that possible. That is what the incarnation is all about and this is why, as we learned yesterday, if we want to know God, we have to study Jesus – because Jesus is God in a human body.

Our problem is that when we read the Gospels most of us aren’t really doing so with the intent of seeing God. Too often we approach our reading as an intellectual exercise rather than as a moment of eye-opening revelation. We’re taking in information and increasing our Biblical knowledge, but without realizing that we’re actually seeing the person of God right there on the pages of the Bible.

In 2 Peter 1:16 Peter declared the he and the others had been eyewitnesses to His majesty. They saw God in Jesus. We can as well. If we will approach the Gospels in that way, we’ll discover that the veil separating the physical from the spiritual is pulled back a little bit, and we are able to see God. There He is, right there on the page, pictured for us in a way we can easily relate to. Are you seeing Him?

God bless,
Pastor Jim

If you want to know God, study Jesus

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “He is the image of the invisible God …” Colossians 1:15 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “If you want to know God, study Jesus”

The Amplified Bible is a specialized translation of the Bible which uses all the English words necessary to capture the full meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek words. That sometimes makes for awkward and wordy sentence structure in English, but it does provide the full range of meaning from the original languages. Colossians 1:15 in the Amplified Bible reads, “He is the exact living image (the essential manifestation) of the unseen God (the visible representation of the invisible) …”

In yesterday’s devotional I noted that one of the reasons for the incarnation, one of the reasons God came to us and lived among us, as one of us, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, was because that’s how we could most easily relate to Him. Remember the lesson from Henry Blackaby in the Experiencing God Bible study, “One of the greatest truths in all of Scripture is that God wants to be known by His people.”

God wants us to know Him. He wants us to understand what He is like and He wants us to be in a close and comfortable relationship with Him. We are to be in awe of Him, that’s true. And we are to worship Him in all of His majesty, that’s true too. But over and over again in Scripture He expresses His tender love for us, and His concern for us, and His great mercy and compassion towards us. He even teaches us to think of Him as our “Abba”, which is an Aramaic word of endearment used between a child and a father. It essentially means “Papa” or “Daddy”. God wants us to be on those familiar terms with Him.

But it’s hard to relate to Him in that way if we think of Him just as a spirit. So, He showed Himself to us in a way that we can easily relate to. He showed Himself to us in the human body of Jesus. In Colossians 1:15 Paul tells us that Jesus is “the exact” representation of the Father. So, if you want to know what the Father is like, watch and listen to Jesus. Hear His words of love. Watch His acts of compassion. See His tears for the lost and hurting. Observe as He patiently and lovingly draws people to Himself. That’s God revealing Himself and His nature to us through the physical person of Jesus of Nazareth.

It has often and correctly been said, “If you want to know God, study Jesus, because Jesus is God.” That’s what we get when we study the Gospels, and that’s why the reality of the incarnation is so important.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

God wants to be known

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God …” Exodus 6:7 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God wants to be known”

I’ve mentioned before that one of the most helpful and transformative studies I have ever participated in occurred early in my life as Christian and it was “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God” by Henry Blackaby. Over the last thirty years or so, I’ve gone back to that study multiple times. In fact, for my personal Bible study time in 2023 I will be working through “The Experiencing God Study Bible”. Every chapter of both the Old and New Testaments is filled with lots of commentary notes, sidebars, insights, and life lessons taken from the original Experiencing God Bible study (I was so eager to get started that I’ve cheated and begun it a month early).

One statement from that original study which captured my attention and then my heart was this: “One of the greatest truths in all of Scripture is that God wants to be known by His people.” I was intrigued by the thought that God “wants” to be known by me, and that He has gone to incredible lengths to make Himself known to me. I have now spent more than thirty years since then getting to know Him.

The words we read in Exodus 6:7, were spoken by God to and about the nation of Israel. He was about to deliver them from captivity in Egypt and He would then go to progressively greater and greater lengths to reveal Himself to them, so that they could know Him and have a deep relationship with Him. God did that for them, but He also did it for Himself. Remember, God wants to be known by His people.

That was true for them back then and it’s just as true for us today. God wants you to know Him. That’s so true that He initiated the relationship by reaching out to you, wooing you, and drawing you to Himself.

God’s desire for us to know Him and to be in a deep and intimate relationship with Him is so strong, that it’s one of the reasons for the incarnation. God came to us in the person of Jesus first and foremost to rescue us from our sins, that’s true. But He also came in the person of Jesus as part of His ongoing efforts to make Himself known to us, and it is through the person of Jesus that we can most easily relate to Him. We’ll explore that important truth in greater detail in the days to come.

One of the greatest truths in the Bible is that God wants to be known by us. The question is, do you want to know Him as much as He wants to be known by you?

God bless,
Pastor Jim

It was a real incarnation

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” John 1:14 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “It was a real incarnation”

Right now, on Sunday nights at Oak Hill Baptist Church, our winter Bible study series is “Unshakable Hope: Building Our Lives on the Promises of God” by Max Lucado. It’s a DVD-based study that includes video clips, Bible study, and discussion groups. Each session examines a different promise from God and how that promise can become a foundation stone upon which we build a strong life of faith.

One of the promises we have examined and discussed is that we have a high priest (Jesus) who understands us because He was one of us. For a short time, God entered into our world in a human body and actually lived among us, as one of us. He experienced life exactly as any other human being would experience it. At different times He was a fetus in the womb, then a helpless infant, then a toddler, adolescent, teenager, and adult man. He got hungry and thirsty. He was alternately tired and well-rested. He had moments of great joy and others of great anguish. He rejoiced and He mourned, He laughed and He cried, He felt good and He felt pain. He also experienced great temptations.

For thirty-three years God was physically in the world in the body of a human being in the person of Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth. Theologians call this “the incarnation”. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, God took on what He did not previously possess – a human nature. He was still fully God but He was also fully human. For the time He was in that human body He voluntarily chose not to use or rely on His divine attributes and power. Those attributes and that power still existed (God cannot stop being God), but with the exception of those times that He used His power to perform miracles, He lived a fully human existence along with us. It was a real, full, complete, incarnation.

This truth has huge implications for us. The obvious one being that His birth led to His death, which led to His resurrection, and that made it possible for our sins to be forgiven. But there’s even more to it than that.

We’ll explore the implications of the incarnation in much greater detail in the days to come. For now, this morning, I encourage you to spend some time in prayer considering the great truth that God loves you so much, that He left heaven and came to earth to rescue you so He can one day bring you to heaven.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

The righteous will live by faith

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The righteous shall live by faith”

The dictionary tells us that faith is, “1. The complete trust or confidence in someone or something. 2. Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”

Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” Think about that. Faith is “the reality” of what is hoped for; and it is the “proof” of what is not seen. There’s that “spiritual apprehension” the dictionary was referring to. The faith God is calling for from His people is faith in a reality that we cannot see with our physical vision, and it is gained through spiritual apprehension (spiritual maturity). That’s how we come to appreciate the reality of it. In Romans 1:17 the Apostle Paul tells us that “the righteous shall live by faith.” There are dozens of other verses in the Bible which also teach that same important truth – God’s people are expected to live by faith.

This is the other reason I referred to in yesterday’s devotional about why God only shows Himself to us in indirect ways. It’s because He wants us to live by faith rather than by sight. Faith is a crucial element in our love for God. If God did show Himself to us in a direct way – if He did peel back the sky and poke His face through and speak to us directly face-to-face, we would no longer have to have faith in Him. We would now have direct physical proof and there would no longer be a need to believe in what is not seen, as Hebrews 11:1 calls for.

But that would also lessen or even eliminate our love for Him. If we had concrete proof like that; if we did gaze directly on His awesome majesty without it overwhelming us and causing us to drop dead on the spot; we would then obey God out of fear rather than free will. Our free will would have effectively been taken away from us because we would be completely and thoroughly intimidated into submission.

But that’s not the relationship God wants with us. He doesn’t desire submission out of fear, He desires relationship out of love. So, He appeals to that place in our hearts that Solomon wrote about in Ecclesiastes 3:11 (He has placed eternity in their hearts), and then He woos us and lures us with just enough evidence of His presence to stoke the flames of desire in our hearts, and to draw us deeper and deeper in our desire to know Him and to have a close relationship with Him.

Faith is a choice. It’s a decision to believe even though I don’t have direct, solid, concrete evidence, and even though I cannot fully grasp all the intricate details of God and of the spiritual dimension. I choose to believe anyway. That’s faith and that’s what God desires from us.

And yet, as much sense as that makes, and despite the great lengths God has already gone to in order to draw His children to Himself, He did more. There’s still the incarnation, and there’s still Pentecost, and that’s where we’re going to go now in our study of the awesome reality of the presence of God.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

You couldn’t handle it

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “You cannot see my face, for humans cannot see me and live… Here is a place near me. You are to stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen.” Exodus 33:20-23 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “You couldn’t handle it”

So far in our study about the awesome reality of the presence of God we’ve considered the truth that God is omnipresent – He is present everywhere, all the time. As King David made clear in the Psalms, and as the Apostle Paul explained in Romans Chapter one, the indirect evidence for God can be clearly seen in the creation itself. Creation is too marvelous, too miraculous, too complex and intricate, to be the result of anything other than the work of a Creator.

Additionally, we’ve learned that the evidence for God comes to us in thousands of indirect ways including things like the words of Scripture, the flight of a butterfly, the beauty of a flower, the miracle a baby, a miraculous healing, and so much more. We just have to be paying attention and we have to acknowledge that what we’re seeing is evidence of God.

But we also have to wonder why God is so constrained when revealing His presence. Why not show Himself to us plainly and directly rather than by sideways glances and brief flickers that disappear with the blink of an eye? He answered that question for Moses in Exodus 33:20, “…for humans cannot see me and live.”

The truth is that God is so powerful, so awesome, and so majestic, that our five human senses couldn’t handle His presence. It would overwhelm us and probably kill us. A sideways glance is about all we can stand. And still, every encounter like that which we read about in the Bible left the individuals involved either scared out of their wits, trembling and weak in the knees, or in some cases they fell down on the ground as if they were dead. A mere whiff of God is enough to send us reeling.

So, that’s one reason God obscures His presence and shows Himself to us in safer and less dramatic ways – it’s because we couldn’t handle being exposed to His full, direct, unobscured presence.

There’s also another reason, which we will discuss tomorrow. After that we will spend the rest of the month considering the awesome truth that beyond just those dim flickers and sideways glances of His presence, God did two additional things designed to help us see Him and get to know Him – the incarnation and Pentecost. But first, there’s that other reason …

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Christ plays in ten thousand places

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The awesome reality of the presence of God”

Our Bible verse for today: “…but the Lord was not in the wind … but the Lord was not in the earthquake … but the Lord was not in the fire … After the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper (and Elijah heard it).” 1 Kings 19:11;12;13

Our thought for today: “Christ plays in ten thousand places”

In 1 Kings 19 the Old Testament prophet Elijah was having a bad day. He was running for his life from the evil Queen Jezebel and he was exhausted, hungry, depressed, and ready to just lay down and die. Although the text doesn’t actually say it, Elijah was evidently unaware of God’s presence there in that moment with him. So, God sent an angel to open Elijah’s spiritual eyes to the reality of the situation.

Interestingly, God did not manifest His presence to Elijah in a dramatic and overt way. There was a fierce wind, but God wasn’t in the wind. There was a ground-shaking earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake. There was a raging fire, but God wasn’t in the fire. The storm and thunder and fire and shaking ground all helped to get Elijah’s attention, but it was only after he was paying attention that he was able to detect the subtle presence of the Lord in the stillness that followed, and by means of a soft whisper.

And so it is with us. Although we would love for God to peel back the sky, stick His face through, and say something audible in a loud clear voice, that’s just not the way He does it. Instead, God shows Himself to us in a thousand indirect ways – a word from Scripture that seems to jump off the page; a lyric in a song that speaks to our heart; the beauty of a sunrise or sunset; the giggle and laugh of a little baby; the warm smile and kind words of a friend.

The phrase “Christ plays in ten thousand places” was used originally in the poem, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” by the writer Gerard Manley Hopkins. He used the phrase to illustrate that God shows Himself to us in thousands of unexpected ways, but we have to be looking for Him and we have to pay attention to our surroundings. God makes His presence known to us in unique and unexpected ways.

If you’re looking for God you need to believe that He is there, but you will have to look closely and you will have to look for the indirect evidence. God plays in ten thousand times ten thousand places. He is everywhere, always, all the time, and He will make Himself known to you. But you do have to be paying attention and you will have to look closely.

God bless,
Pastor Jim