Part Of The Family

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much and hello again dear radio friend, how in the world are you? Doing alright? Well if you happen to have struck a day when things aren’t going to well look up and just say, “Lord Jesus see me through this”. The keyword is “through.” “When thou passest through the waters they shall not overflow thee, yea that I walk through the valley I will fear no evil.” God brings you through, Hallelujah, look up, trust Him, and believe God for His Almighty power in your life this minute and throughout the hours that lie ahead. He will never fail you. Bless your heart.

Well it’s your friend, Dr. Cook, and I’m speaking with you from the little room at the end of hall on the second floor of the big white house. Nice to be back with you. Look will you please at Ephesians 1:3. “Blessed” says Paul, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.” “Blessed”, said he “be the God and Father by Lord Jesus Christ”. Now this type of benediction is address not to people but to God, bless the Lord all my soul and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name, Psalm 103 speaks about that.

We read of the prophets blessing the Lord, we read of various Old Testaments saints blessing God. What do we mean by that? Well it seems to be an expression of worship, adoration, and praise all wrapped up together. Take for instance, the verse that I quoted from the Psalms. Let me turn to that as I turn the pages of my big chain reference Bible here, that I use in these broadcast. Psalm 103. Let me turn to that with you and just see what the meaning of bless the Lord really is, shall we? “Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless His Holy Name”, what does it mean?

First of all it’s a realization that God is holy, verse 1. Second is a realization that God is a God of giving, and loving, and providing, forget not all his benefits, verse 2. Third, it’s a realization that God is the God of forgiveness. When you make a list of your sins, this is a good thing to do, Charles G. Finney used to advise, great revivalist of another century. The founder of Oberlin College , a great revivalist, Charles G. Finney, used to advise his young friends to make a list of their sins periodically and then bring them to the Lord and confess them and believe Him for His forgiveness. I tell you that’s therapeutic action that you will never forget once you do it. He forgiveth it says, He’s the forgiving God. When you bless the Lord you realize that He is the God of forgiveness, “Who heals all my diseases” He’s the healing Lord. He’s the God who made the body and who is able to heal it.

He is the protecting Lord, verse 4, “He redeemeth thy life from distruction”. How many times you would have been killed in an accident of some sort or would have succumbed to some illness, hath not God in His mercy and love protected you, “Redeemth thy life from distraction”. He’s a God who piles blessing upon blessing, “crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies”. He is the God who gives you renewed energy, “thy youth has renewed like the eagles.” Oh, what a listing of things that God does for us and the reality of what He is to us. And so when you say Bless the Lord you’re actually wrapping up in one word package, the consciousness that God is Holy, that God is a giving God, that God is a forgiving God, that God is a healing God, that God is a protecting God, that God piles blessing upon blessing, that God gives you good things, that God gives you renewed energy, and that God is the God of justice, He executed righteousness and judgment. Bless the Lord oh my soul, what a wonderful God we have. Amen. “Blessed be, God”, he said, “and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now, Paul uses a compound sentence construction there, he calls the Almighty, he calls him “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. He is God but he also is the “one who so love the word, John 3:16 that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. The significance of this expression, dear friend, is found in the realization that you and I never could know God were it not for His gift to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Savior said one day “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me”.

No man knoweth the Father, save the son, and he to whom the son will reveal him, he said in another place. The only way that you will get to know God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when Paul wraps up all of these concepts in a word of benediction and says, “Blessed be God” he also realizes that there’s only one way that you and I would know anything about this God whom we are blessing where it not for the Lord Jesus Christ.

A young man of my acquaintance found a way to be present at a national political convention. As a matter of fact it was the Republican National Convention. Now this young man didn’t have any particular contacts, but his ambition was somehow to achieve a relationship that would allow him to be up toward the front of the convention and perhaps even to be on the platform in some capacity somehow. He made friends with the son of one of the officials who was in charge. And the son of the official who was in charge introduced my young friend to his father, and as a result this enterprising young man was stationed at the corner of the platform in a very responsible position throughout all of the convention. What he couldn’t accomplish on his own, he accomplished because he got acquainted with the son of the top official. Well, that happens every day.

Had you ever stop to think if the fact that what you and I sometimes say cynically is not what you know but who you know, could very well apply beloved in this matter of knowing God. Some of my listeners this moment, are very well educated in religious terms. You can talk about God, you can even argue about Him successfully, but my dear friend you’ll never know Him until you get acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only son. “No man said he cometh to the Father but by me”. Do you know Him? Well I trust that you do, how do you get acquainted with Jesus, you let him in to your life, he says, “Be hold I stand at the door” that’s the door of your life, it sometime say the door of your heart.

He says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come into him and sup with him and he with me. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. Talk to Him, open the door of your life to Him. By faith invite Jesus in to your heart life this minute if you’ve never done it before invite Him in, He promises to come in to your life when you invite Him and you then become a child of God. You’ll get to know the Father, you’ll be able to say Abba Father, Papa God, why, because the Bible says, “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His son into our heart crying, Abba Father.”

The Spirit of belonging to God is real in your life when you trust and commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, Do it today if you haven’t and dear believer friend, renew if you will today the thrill of the blessing of committing your life with all of its situations and all of the variations of circumstance that may be yours committed to the Savior, and know then all of the richness of those concepts that we read in 103rd Psalm, where you as well can say “Bless the Lord oh my soul”.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh by the way He’s the Lord Jesus. That is to say not only Savior, not only great teacher, not only a two centuries or many centuries ahead of His time, not only the wonder worker, not only the miracle worker, He is the Lord from Heaven. I sincerely doubt that there can be any continuing relationship between a human being and Jesus without this factor which we call the Lordship of Christ “that if thou shall confess with thy mouth, Jesus as Lord”, says Paul in Romans 10.

The first words out of Saul of Tarsus’ mouth when he was met by the risen Jesus while Saul was traveling on the road to Damascus he said, “Who art thou Lord”, and his second question was, “Lord what wilt thou have me to do”? No longer now the downtrodden and rejected Jesus, your Savior and mine, is the risen ascended glorified Lord of Glory, He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you made Him your Lord, really? Is He Lord of your life, have you acknowledged Him as the one who owns you, and who has the right to give the orders in your life. Oh, I pray that that maybe so for every one of us, He is the Lord from heaven, the Lord Jesus, own Him as such, and love and serve Him in that relationship today and every day.

Dear Father today, may we truly bless the Lord with our worship and with our obedience through Jesus Christ I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!