Move Over

Are you too busy to recognize God? Too busy to pray? Too busy to let Jesus Christ be Lord of your life?


Scripture: John 1:9-13, Revelation 3:20

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Well, it’s your good friend, Bob Cook, wishing you all the best for today, or in the case of some of you who are just finishing a day and listening at night, may God give you rest and blessing through the night hours and wake you up to joy and peace in the morning. If you get drowsy while I’m speaking, go ahead, fall asleep. I’ve spoken in many people’s sleep, I assure you. [chuckle] Dr. Ironside used to say sometimes when he’s preaching, “If you feel sleepy while I’m preaching, take a little nap. You’ll feel better when you wake up.” [chuckle] He was a great one. Any of you old timers remember him? HA Ironside, for many years pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, my dear friend. Well, we’re looking at the gospel of John. “That was the true light,” John says of our Lord Jesus, “that lighteth every man that cometh in the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own creation, and His own people received him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”

“He was in the world.” Those few words speak of the miracle of the incarnation. Our Lord Jesus Christ coming down the stairways of the stars and taking on Him the human body and living among us. He was in the world, and the world by Him was made, and the world didn’t know Him. It’s a sad, it’s a sad, sad verse. I suppose numbers of you can approximate a little something about this when you remember what happened when you went back to someplace where you used to live. As a boy I lived in Toledo, Ohio, on the east side. I went to the last three years of high school there, sophomore, junior and senior, Morrison R. Waite High School on the east side. I had some friends there, I remember their names even today across the years. I wonder what ever became of Zar Haddad. His father was rich and had a business, and he always came to school dressed impeccably. Drove a nice car, which I envied, because I was riding a bicycle. [chuckle] I haven’t seen him since 1928. He may be dead by now.

Anyhow, you go back to a place where you used to live. I’ve done that on occasion. Nobody knows me. Nobody calls me up in the motel or the hotel. I can’t find anybody that I used to know. Some have moved and some have died. And the place is strange. I used to live here. I used to ride my bicycle down Nevada Street to Raymond Boulevard to Star Avenue and on over, take a little short cut that I had, on over to high school. Every day, my lunch and books in one hand and my violin case with the Wurlitzer violin that my father had bought me in the other. Holding on to the handle bars of that second hand bicycle that was second cousin to a Sherman tank. Oh, it was heavy. [chuckle] Everyday, for three years, and nobody knows me. That’s the feeling. [chuckle] You multiply that by a million, million, million, and you’ve got a little, little inkling of how our Lord Jesus felt. He made this whole world, and then He came down the journey from Heaven to earth to be born of the Virgin Mary, to grow up in Joseph’s carpenter shop, to walk the dusty roads of Galilee, and people didn’t know who it was.

The old Negro spiritual says, “We didn’t know who You was, sweet little Jesus boy. We didn’t know who You was.” That’s it. Now, aside from the feeling of sadness and wistful longing that comes when you think about something like this, what of it? Well, he gets down to the point in verse 12, and we won’t have time to get to it yet, except just to telegraph it to you. “In the world, the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came to His own creation, and His own people received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons, the children of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born of God.”

Now here’s the fact. Number one, our Lord Jesus Christ is God the Son. Number two, He made the journey from Heaven to earth by way of the virgin Mary, born without sin into Joseph’s home. Grew up in that home, trained no doubt in Joseph’s carpenter shop, knowing how to make furniture and how to build houses. Lived His life among us through those three years of ministry, and then died for us on Calvary’s cross. He was in the world. For the most part, people didn’t know Him. Now and then there was a flash of enlightenment. Simon Peter is saying, “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of God.” Our Savior said, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto you, but my Father which is in Heaven.” Some did, but not many. He went to His own creation, and His own people didn’t know Him, they didn’t receive Him.

One of the saddest things in all of Scripture is that simple statement of the Creator walking among us, rejected. So I have to remind you today that the same situation obviously applies in millions of hearts today. And it may well be, my friend, listening to this broadcast, it may well be that you’ve been among those who’ve kept the Savior out. You haven’t recognized Him. Maybe you never took time to think about Him. But He’s waiting for you to recognize Him and to receive Him. Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold I stand at the door… ” that’s the door of your heart and your life. “I stand at the door of your life and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me.” When you let the Lord Jesus in, He is your guest, but then all of a sudden He becomes your host, and He takes care of you. Marvelous little gem of truth there. But He’s waiting for you to recognize Him. Now the things that keep us from doing that, obviously, are simply neglect, thoughtlessness, love of this world and of the things it can provide, busyness. A man said to the king, “As thy servant was busy here and there, the man I was supposed to guard disappeared.” “As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone,” these are the exact words of the Scripture. Too busy to recognize God. Too busy to pray. Too busy to let Jesus Christ be Lord of your life.

I was in the pastorate for 18 years and in that connection, of course, made many calls upon people who are ill. I remember on one occasion I called on a man who had been a very successful, still was, a very successful businessman, but had never been able to get him to pay much attention to God. Now he’d been in the hospital for sometime, and he looked at me and he says, “Preacher, I guess God had to get me flat on my back so I could look up and spend some time with Him.” Well, that often happens. God lays us aside, not to torture us, not to hurt us, but just to get our attention. He was in the world, and the world had been made by Him, and the world didn’t know that God was walking among them. Sad. “But as many as received Him… ” See there’s the difference. Open your life and heart to the Lord Jesus today, will you?

We’ll talk about that 12th verse and what follows it in our next broadcast, but right now, listen to me. Do you want to pay any attention to God? Do you want to get in touch with Almighty God? The way to do it is through the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, “I am the way. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Peter, when he was preaching to the people in Jerusalem, said, “There’s none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” And Paul writing to Timothy said, “There’s one God and one mediator,” just one, “one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”

So if you wanna get to know God, you come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the one that makes God real to you. He said to the disciples, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Everything you need to know about God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you wanna pay any attention to Him? If you do… See I can’t argue you into it, nothing I say is gonna make your mood change, that’s for sure. But if you’re in a position now to pay some attention to God, if there is that longing in your heart for the fulfillment and the peace and joy that you know others possess, talk to Him, will you? Talk to God. Call on Him. He said, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” When you talk to your Heavenly Father, coming in Jesus’ name, and say, “Dear Father, forgive my sins and make me a child of God. By faith I open my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, make me Thy own. Live Thy life through me.” You pray that kind of a prayer, I can guarantee you the light will turn on, things will be different. Pay some attention to God, will you?

This doesn’t mean changing your religion. I’m not proselyting anybody this morning, or this evening as the case may be when you’re listening. What I am saying is, if you wanna pay some attention to God, the way to do it is to let Jesus Christ become Lord of your life. And when you let the Saviour in, then the blessed Holy Spirit comes in to dwell in your life and to reveal to you the very life of God, to guide you, to help you pray, to keep you in the times of temptation and testing. How wonderful God is when you start to pay some attention to Him. He was in the world, and the world had been made by Him, but the world knew Him not. Don’t let that be true of you. Pay some attention to God today. Let the Lord Jesus start to, really to control your life by His grace.

Dear Father, today, help us to make room for Thee in our lives, so we may have the light and the love and the power of God, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen. Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing.



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