Come Let Us Worship And Bow Down — Randy Krahn

Good morning. Let's have a little prayer. Lord Jesus, grateful for today. Today is a day that you've made, Lord. We rejoice. We choose to rejoice and be glad in it. Grateful for opportunity to be together again.

Come, Holy Spirit, and work in our midst and open up our hearts and our ears to receive the truth of your word, whatever that might be. I pray, Father, for an anointed word that would minister to each one listening.

Come, Lord Jesus, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I was meditating this morning on the word, and I was thinking of what the Holy Spirit was speaking to my heart, and I found myself just desiring to worship.

Worshiping and Bowing Before the Lord

There's a scripture that comes to mind that says, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our maker, for he is our God, and we are the sheep of his pasture. I was in prayer, pacing around in my bedroom, as I sometimes do, and the Holy Spirit just impressed on me that I need to kneel and bow down.

And I thought of Daniel, who knelt three times a day and worshiped God in front of this window. He wasn't too busy to do that, and he was in charge of many things, more things than we're in charge of.

And I want to be a man known as a worshiper of God. I want to be one who loves God, who loves Jesus. In order for that to happen, we need to invest. A lot of us have different investments. We have our RSPs, or we have our stocks, or we have property, or we have rental incomes.

Investing in Knowing God and Thirsting for Righteousness

But we have to invest in that which is eternal. We have to invest in knowing God. I was reading a scripture this morning from Psalm 63. Let's turn to Psalm 63. I was thinking of the Beatitudes along with this passage, and one of the verses from Matthew 5, verse 6 says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

A lot of us seek to attain to righteousness by our doing, but Christ is the end of the law of righteousness of our own efforts. But the righteousness of faith, that is what we ought to desire, to know God, to find God through the righteousness of faith.

And I think of this Psalm as I was reading this morning, Oh God, you are my God. You know, a lot of us, we spend all of our time trying to attain to things. Trying to find happiness in things. Trying to find a security in money, or in our bank accounts, or in our families, or in some other things.

And David's sharing here. I believe it's David. Yes. And he says, Oh God, you are my God. And I want to encourage you. Don't seek after things. Don't seek after money. Seek after Jesus. When you get into situations, and we all have them, and we have to work, and we have to do these different things during the day.

Throughout the day, reflect on Jesus. Think on Jesus often. Call on his name often. Ask for help often. As a child would ask their parents for help often. Know that Jesus is longing for us to reach out to ask him for help.

Calling on God Early in Times of Need

He says, call on me, and I will answer you, and show you great and awesome things which you do not know. And as long as we are needy, and contrite, and look to him, we can find salvation in every situation.

Salvation is not a time when we just prayed a prayer, got baptized, and signed up the church registry, and agreed to give 10 percent tithe, and now we're good Christians, and we should live such. That's not what God is asking of us.

He says, call on me, and I will answer thee, and show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not. O God, you are my God. What's the next part? Early will I seek you. A lot of times, as brother shared, when the ships go way up, and the ships go way down, and we're overwhelmed, and we're swamped, and we've tried to figure things out, and realize that our problem is too great for us, then men begin to call on the name of the Lord.

But people who know their God, people who've come to trust in Jesus, early will I seek after thee. I'll seek you early. I won't wait until I'm at wit's end. I'll call on your name early when I realize, okay, I need to go to the one who's able to help me, and I will lean on God, my rock, and my salvation.

I will put my trust in God. Why wait until we're so thoroughly discouraged, or so thoroughly downcast, before we put our hope in God? Let's learn to call on his name early in the morning, early when we get into the day, so that we have hope, so that we're not swamped with the death that comes over us from time to time, because we don't know what to do.

We don't know where to go. The answer lies in faith in Jesus Christ. Simple, childlike faith. Oh God, you are my God. Early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, God, in a dry and thirsty land where there's no water.

Can you say that your soul thirsts for God? I remember there was a time in my life when my soul thirsted for money, when my soul thirsted for property, when my soul thirsted for every other thing that was in the world, and then the Lord began to bring about a dramatic change in my life, and I got born again, gloriously born again, and I would wake up early in the morning before I went to work, and my soul would thirst for God.

Returning to First Love

It's called first love, people. When you have such a love for Jesus, my soul longs to know God, and this is where we ought to live, and if we've lost our first love, then he says, repent of these things and return to where you left it.

A lot of times our first love has been left someplace. It doesn't say it was lost. It says you've left it. It's like a wallet that you've misplaced. This last week, I misplaced my wallet, and I was in my truck, and I was going to pick up some gravel, and I thought, I don't have my wallet, and I thought, where am I going to go?

I started checking coats, and I started checking drawers, and then I called my wife, asked for help. She says, I found it. Well, where did I leave it while you left it in such and such a place? Oh, that's right.

Some of us have left our first love. We've come to a situation. We've said, okay, I'm serving Jesus now. Now it's time for me to get a wife, and we begin on a pursuit to go and get after a wife so that we can be happy, and we forget about Jesus.

We ask Jesus to provide for us something natural, and some of us, we start following Jesus and say, okay, now it's time for me to get on with my career, and we say, okay, Jesus, you have to help me in this natural desire I have to have a good career, and we kind of think that Jesus is coming alongside of us, but He is not holding first rank.

We're asking Jesus to come along with us to bring about the desired goal. Some of us say it's time for us to get into business, and we say, Jesus, you're going to help us, and we ask Jesus to help us, and then we pierce ourselves through with many sorrows, and all these pursuits for things, for lands, for property, for houses, for wives, for pleasures, and we're asking Jesus to come along with us, and our love for Jesus waxes cold.

We've gotten everything upside down. We've gotten our priorities wrong. We've not waited on God. We've ran ahead of God. Rather than thirsting for Jesus, rather than waiting on Him to answer us, and to show us His direction, things that are too great for us, we become impatient, and we take matters into our own hands.

Abraham, Faith, and the Covenant Promise

I think of our beloved Abraham, who was then Abram, and God came to him, and he saw a love of Abram in Abram for God. He saw a faith in Abram that he was willing to leave his family. He was willing to leave his property.

He was willing to go where God would lead him, and he made his mistakes along the way, and God came to him at the appointed time, and He said, Abram, I want you to go and gather some animals, and take some heifers, and get some birds, and some other things, and He says, I want you to make a special preparation.

I'm going to meet with you, Abram, because I want to make a covenant with you. He saw something of genuine faith in Abram, and he was going to make a covenant with Abram, and then he put Abram into a deep sleep as Abram was chasing the birds away from the sacrifice while he was waiting on his God, and it became very dark, and he fell into a sleep, and then God came, and He walked in the midst of the pieces.

It was what God did. It wasn't what Abraham could do, and He spoke to Abraham, and He said, surely, blessing, I'm going to bless you, and your descendants will be as the stars in the heavens, and as the sand of the seashore, and there's going to be 400 years that they're going to be in bondage, and I'm going to bring them back to this place, and I'm going to give them this land, and you no longer.

He made a covenant with him, and He confirmed it to him a little while longer. He said, no longer are you Abram, but I'm going to call you Abraham, and no longer am I going to call your wife Sarah. Sarah, I'm going to call her Sarah, because God was all about covenant, and when He enters into covenant with us, it says in the new covenant, He's going to give us a new name, which no one knows except the one who receives it, and He gave Abram a new name, and He took of his name Abram, and He took of his name Yahweh, and He said, we're going to become one.

You're going to be the Abraham of the God of Yahweh, and God Himself said, I am going to be known as the God of Abraham, and the name He took part of Yahweh, and He took Abram, and He made Abraham, and He put His name in the midst of Abram's name.

This is a picture of someone becoming born again in the new covenant. This is a picture of God coming and dwelling in us and among us. He said, I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and He took Sarai, and He said, no longer will she be called Sarai, but she's going to be called Sarah, and Sarai took on part of God's name, Yahweh, and she became Sarah, the mother of the men of faith, the Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, not Hagar, which is in bondage with her children, but the Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, but Abram becoming impatient in the promises of God.

His wife came to him one day and said, you see, we have no children, we have no blessing, let's make this thing happen. I have this servant, her name is Hagar, and she can raise a son for us, and we'll take her son if you just take her to be your wife, and now you will have two wives, and she'll have a son, and she will be the offspring that God has promised, and it seemed a fantastic idea to Abraham, and he took Hagar to be his wife because Sarah, his wife, said to do it, and it seemed an opportunity to fulfill the purpose and the call of God, and she conceived and gave birth to a son, and they called his name Ishmael, Ishmael, and it was said that he would be a wild man, and that he would dwell in the midst of his brethren, and that he would be like a thorn in their flesh.

I want to know that this is a picture of the sin nature in the new covenant. This Ishmael, this wild man, is a picture of the flesh that would torment us, and buffet us, and try to bring us down, and mock us, and say it's useless to serve God, and we are the ones who have to cast out this kind of put off the old man with his lusts, because this old man, this flesh nature, cannot be redeemed.

It can never be a part of God's purpose and plan for the people of God, and God visited Abraham in the process of time, and he said next year this time your wife is going to conceive, and she's going to have a son.

According to the promise, not according to the flesh, Abraham, according to the promise, not what you can do, not your way in figuring it all out, it's in my way through faith. Remember how you started, it's the way of faith.

Now I am going to come, now I am going to accomplish what I sent out to accomplish, that word that I spoke, and the Lord came with some angels, and they made a meal, and he spoke this thing, and Sarah laughed.

He said how can this thing be when I'm 90 years old. It's not what she could do, and it's not Abraham who was 99 what he could do. It's always about what God can do. That's why it's important. My God, you are my God.

Early I will seek you. My soul will continually thirst for you, not for the blessing, not for the opportunity, not for what I can get out of it, but for God himself, that Jesus himself would be your inheritance, that he would be your reward.

Abraham says what are you going to give me seeing I have no son? What will you bless me with? Surely blessing I'll bless you. I don't have a son. All the things that you're going to give me, who am I going to leave them to?

God brought about his promise in the process of time. He brought forth Isaac by faith. Ishmael came by works. It came by the works of the flesh. It came by the work of man, but Isaac came because of the promise, because God promised, and he said he would do it, and you know what?

It takes patience. Through patience and endurance we shall inherit the promises of God. Be patient and wait on God to bring things to pass. Don't go out and try to get ahead of God and try to bring something to pass that's not in his time.

Trusting God's Timing and Higher Ways

There's a scripture in Ecclesiastes that says, I think it's Ecclesiastes 10, he will make all things beautiful in his time, but we have to trust in God with all our heart and not leaning on our own wisdom and our own understanding.

In every one of our ways we have to acknowledge Jesus, your Lord in my life, and he will bring it to pass. I was praying this morning for my daughter, and I said, Lord, I don't see salvation coming to my daughter.

I'd like to see it in my day. I was praying for my son, and I said, Lord, make him a preacher. I'd like to see it in my day, and I got a revelation. If you want to see a preacher become a son, it's not going to happen until you pass, and I got, I got fear come on me.

I said, Lord, I don't want to pass. I have small children. Why do I, why does it have to be after I pass that he'll get serious about serving God? Why is it only then that he'll be raised up? It's not my ways, it's his ways.

His ways are higher as the heavens are over the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, declareth the Lord. You know, there's a lot of people who come to know about Jesus. They come to know about God.

They come to invite Jesus into their heart. They go and attend meetings. They come to regular service, but they've not known his ways. They've not come to know God. They've not come to thirst for God.

They've never known the love of God, which surpasses knowledge. I was reading something in Romans 9, and it says in verse 6, it's not that the word of God is ineffective. God's word is living. His word is powerful, and it's active, and it's sharp.

It can cut right to the quick, like a two-edged sword. It can get between bone and marrow. It can get between the spirit and the flesh. It can divide between soul and spirit, but he said, they're not all Israel who are of the children of Israel, and I'll paraphrase.

Not everybody in your fellowship gathering in your church is a Christian just because they say that they're Christian and they believe in Jesus. It says the demons even believe in God, and they tremble, and there's a lot of people today who don't tremble when the word of God is preached, but it's in Isaac that your seed shall be called.

That is, the children of Ishmael, the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. It's in the promise. It's in faith in Jesus Christ, the one who's born of the spirit. These are counted as the seed, and though as the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it's the remnant, the ones who believe through faith in Jesus Christ, they shall be saved.

In Isaac, your seed shall be blessed. To Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ, and Christ being in the loins of Abraham, manifested that we might come to believe that he is Christ, the Messiah, to whom shall we go.

Genuine Saving Faith in Jesus Christ

It's not enough for you to believe in Jesus to make mental ascent without genuine saving faith. Paul says in Romans 10, he says, oh I wish the prayer for my brethren that they might be saved, but they seek to attain to a righteousness according to the works of the law.

They seek to attain to a righteousness by their doing and not doing, by their obeying and not obeying, rather than looking to Jesus and being led by the spirit of God, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, and calling on the name of the Lord to be saved.

He said, if we confess the Lord Jesus with our mouth, that's good. Most people do that, but there's a second part that most people don't do. They believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead, not just mental ascent that God raised him from the dead.

They believe that God raised up Christ from the dead, and he is going to raise us up with Christ. So whatever situation you find yourself in, you call on Jesus for help because you believe that he's going to raise you up, that he is going to help you, that he is going to save you, that he is going to sustain you, and he is going to figure out a God bigger than all your problems and bigger than all your fears.

But how shall they call on him if they've not believed? And most people don't call on him. They might have a prayer, God if you can do anything, but then there is that Samaritan or a Phoenician woman who said, God if I can just get a crumb for my daughter.

Even the dogs get a crumb. God I know I'm not worthy, and I know that I don't deserve it, but you know what? Is there a crumb for me? Is there a crumb for me oh Lord? I believe there is a crumb for me, and at your word my daughter will be healed.

Covenant, the Flesh, and the Heavenly Jerusalem

I was thinking of a passage where I'm speaking about covenant. God is a covenant keeping God. He promised them that land in Israel, he's given them that land. Thousands and thousands of years later they have that land because God said it.

And if they take it away from them, it's still the land of God's people, whoever lives there. But we see there that the Jews, and we see there that the Arabs, Ishmael, they're living in that land, and it's a picture of what's going on inside of our hearts.

We're to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. We're to put off the old man with his lust. We need to do battle with the flesh, to make no provision for the flesh to obey in its lust. We can't allow the flesh nature, that spirit of Ishmael, to dominate this Jerusalem, because we will be the Jerusalem which now is in bondage with their children.

But now Jesus has come. He said, now I have come. And he wants to redeem us from every lawless deed and reconcile us to God in Christ, that we might be part of that heavenly Jerusalem, the Sarah, the mother of us all.

The heavenly Jerusalem, the one that it speaks about at the end of Hebrews in 12. Now we have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. If you're born again, if you're filled with the Spirit of God, and you've come to know Jesus, and Jesus knows your name, you're written in his book.

Like the rich man and the Lazarus, he didn't know the rich man's name nor acknowledge his name. He said, who are you and where have you come from? He says to them people in Matthew 7, Lord, Lord, he said, I don't know you, depart from me.

But then Lazarus, God knows his name. And a question for you this morning is, does God know your name? That's a fearful thing. It should put fear. It should send chills down our spine. Does God know my name?

And if he doesn't know, and you're not sure, if a little doubt comes to your mind, then it's good to get right with God. Some people say something sometimes. They say, you know when did you become a Christian?

Well, I've always been a Christian. I don't believe that. I remember when I was seven years old and I was at a church service and I had run away from home and I went and go hide in the hay because my dad was harsh on me.

And I would go and hide and I would have these suicidal thoughts come in my head at seven years old and wish that I would die because he didn't want to live there. And then I was listening to this Billy Graham video at seven years old.

It was called Run Away From Trouble. This boy ran away from home and it hit me in my heart. I realized that I was a sinner and I needed Jesus. I had a revelation at seven years old that I was no good and I was going to hell.

And Jesus came into my life and I prayed with that dad that was so hard on me and I accepted Christ into my life. And from that time, I used to play the piano a little bit and I would sing your loving kindness is better than life.

My lips shall praise thee, thus shall I bless thee from small. And it doesn't mean that I was faithful all the time. I fell away from the faith and the Lord brought me back at 30 years old. He had mercy on me and he had compassion and he remembered his covenant with me.

He's covenant keeping and he'll remember his covenant with you. David, I want to read a passage from 2 Samuel chapter 9. First, uh, 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter 9. Now David said, is there still anyone who is left of the house of Saul that I may show kindness to him for Jonathan's sake?

David, Mephibosheth, and Covenant Kindness

David made a covenant with Saul's son, Jonathan, and he loved them and they loved one another as brothers. They had a deep affection. They had a connection. And when they would make covenant, they would take some of their weapons and they would exchange weapons.

They would take some of their armor. They would exchange. It's kind of like the covenant of marriage, which we've come to just disregard as something that just can easily be annulled or, or dissolved.

But God said in his word, when God joins together, let not man separate. I'm against divorce. I'm for covenant. It says, when you make an oath and you say till death do his part to help me, God, that's what it means.

Our words have power and we bind ourselves to what God's word says. And when God makes a covenant with us, he keeps his end. And if he says that when Jonathan and David make a covenant and they say, listen, if you betray me to your dad and you turn your back on me, then make all the curses.

And he just lists off a whole bunch of curses. May they all come on you if you betray me and our covenant to be friends for life. Some people make blood covenant. That's a covenant that Jesus made with us.

A blood covenant can't be broken on his end. And then Jonathan would say, give him some of his armor and he would take some of his strength and they would exchange strength because armor is a sign of strength.

And then David would swear that he would be loyal to Jonathan, no matter what happens, that he would be faithful to his descendants, no matter what happens to his father Saul, that he would honor and protect his descendants who wouldn't wipe out his line.

And they would make this covenant. And now David is reminded after Saul and Jonathan have passed, is there anyone left from the house of Jonathan, a house of Saul, that I might show them kindness because of covenant.

And David said, is there still a man left that I might show kindness for Jonathan's sake. And there was a servant of the house of Saul, whose name was Ziba. So when they had called him to David, the king said to him, are you Ziba?

And he said, yes, at your service. And the king said, is there someone of the house of Saul to whom I might show kindness of God? And Ziba said to the king, there is a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet.

And when he was five years old, he fell when there was a war or something or something going on and he fell and he became lame in his feet. And so the king said to him, where is he? And Ziba said to the king, indeed, he is in the house of Mishkar.

And I'll go get him. And so the king went and sent him and brought him to the house. And his name was Mephibosheth. Now when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, here is the son of Saul who's lame in his feet.

He's a cripple. And he's absolutely, he doesn't know what's going to happen, whether he's going to get killed, because that's what usually happened is the descendants of the previous king, they just wipe them out so that nobody can rise up to be heir.

And he falls on his face and he lies prostrate, prostrated before David. And David said to him, are you Mephibosheth? And he said, yes, I am. Here's your servant. And David said to him, do not fear. We need to have the kind of fear of God, that when we get in the presence of God, we prostrate ourselves and lay before him and tremble, because he's the king of all creation.

And then you'll hear these words, do not fear. For I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan's sake, because of covenant. I will restore to you all the lands of Saul, your father, that's something, your grandfather.

And you shall eat bread at my table continually. I'm inviting you to come and sit with my children and my children's children. And you are going to now live here with me. And you are going to share my bread at my table.

And I'm going to treat you like my own son, because of my covenant with Jonathan. And he bowed himself and said, what is your servant that you should look upon such a dog as I? Brother Alim shared about this, the woman, the Phoenician woman.

And Jesus said, it's not good to take the children's bread and give it to little dogs. Jesus knew what he himself would do. And she said, yes, but the dogs get the crumbs that fall from the master's table.

Mephibosheth acknowledged himself. He's, he's like a dog, not just a dog, any dog. He's a dead dog. He said, why are you showing me kindness? He says, because I have a crumb for you and not just a crumb.

I have all of the riches that God has blessed me with. And I want to share them with you. Jesus, all the riches of the Godhead dwell in bodily form. And we're complete in Jesus Christ because of covenant.

He's grafted us into the divine. He has made us part of the body of Christ. He's calling us to become the bride of Christ. And all of the promises that were for Jesus to Abraham and to his seed are for us.

And if we come to him and say, Lord, who am I that you're mindful of me? Who am I that you care for me? He's going to feed us with the finest of wheat. He's going to give us of the best new wine that he saved for his own special treasures.

He's going to feed us with the fatness of the lamb that we would feed on him and be saved. And he's going to bring that kind of communion and that kind of fellowship into your life. If you will just remember that he is covenant keeping and his promises are everlasting to everlasting.

Returning to First Love and the Eternal Inheritance

God's word cannot be broken. And if you've made a promise to him and he's made a promise to you, keep your vows to God, go back to where you left that first love, repent of it and get back to a place where you seek God early.

And that thirst for God and that hunger for righteousness and that longing will be satisfied at the feet of Jesus. May you be encouraged and may you be strengthened to look to him and be saved because he is our hope and our joy and our peace and our all in all.

Look to him. Don't look to the things that are passing away. We have an eternal inheritance in the heavens. We have promises that God has prepared for us at home. This is not our home. We are pilgrims passing through.

And as we move and live and have our being and enjoy those things that he blesses us with, don't get your eyes on the one who's given us all things. Life is in Christ. He who has the son has the life.

He who hath not the son hath no life, but the wrath of God abides on him. The death abides on him. Let's get into the grace which is in Christ Jesus and make no provision for the flesh to obey it and its lusts.

Put to death the old man with his deeds and call on the name of the Lord early and often in Jesus name. Amen.