I mentioned in my last post that I've been listening to a series of sermons entitled "Only the Lonely." It was a series of 4 sermons that were done in a month at The Village Church in Texas. I wanted to post a link to them here and recommend them... I actually got more out of reading the PDF file of the sermons than I did out of listening to them. The man who is speaking does a good job, but he really gets going at times and runs pretty fast through stuff -- I just found that I had more time to think about what was actually being said and make sense of it when I just read it. But both the PDF and audio files are available and that's nice. So here's the link...
...and the sermons are dated in the month of June '06. The titles are: 1)The Pain of Lonliness 2) The Joy of the Hiding Place 3) The Jewel of the Wilderness and 4) The Hope of the Exile
There are many excerpts that I could post, but here's a short one from The Jewel of the Wilderness that I think sums up what all 4 of the sermons are about:
"...I'm here to talk about how God can make this ugly thing called loneliness into something beautiful, a pathway to Him. And tonight, I'm going to seek to define the wilderness as the following: “The wilderness is that season of our lives where God, through our loneliness, teaches us that His will is to do something in us, not merely do something for us. That is, by walking by faith and not by sight, He works in us a stronger faith, leading to a deeper worship that results in a greater joy.”
The man who is preaching these sermons talks up front about how he felt as if he had been in a 'season of lonliness' for several months and that these sermons are basically about what he learned during that time. I guess that got my attention, because I feel like that is pretty much where I'm at right now -- and this definition of 'the wilderness' actually gave me some hope that there really is purpose in what's going on in my life at the moment. If I just listen to my emotions, it can feel like a pretty bad place -- but, these kinds of sermons serve as reminders to my faith that God is always at work... one last quote:
"In the midst of the hiding place (or the wilderness), regardless of the reason why we as human beings choose to hide, there suddenly comes the realization that nothing, and I mean nothing, can separate us from the love of God. And we learn, in that moment, that we are not, by nature, seekers of God -- our great God is a seeker of lost sheep. God was the one who initiated contact in these passages. They weren't looking for Him, they were looking to escape. He approached them, He came seeking after them, He chased after them, He initiated contact with them. And suddenly, the big God of the universe became small enough to be near with them, so that they could cry out, “the nearness of God is my good.” And suddenly, we see that the hiding place for us is a place that we think is a chance to run away from people and circumstances, but God sees it as a prime opportunity to encounter Him when we least expect it. And so God, the great God of the universe, in His great love for His children, decides that He is going to come and meet with them."
I am so grateful that God is willing to come and meet with me no matter where I am at... and that He's working in me a stronger faith that will lead to a deeper worship and a greater joy...
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