Sermon Notes, February 5, 2017
Rev.
Garry McGlinchy
Pastor
Garry continued his sermon series “Seven Hebrew Words Every Believer Should
Know.” Over the last few weeks we have
been talking about Hebrew words that every believer should know. We talked about hessed, God’s loving kindness; emunah,
meaning faith in action; and tefillah,
prayer that requires us to examine our hearts.
This week’s word is ruach,
meaning breath, wind, or spirit. . Looking at the Hebrew symbols for ruach, read from right to left, we see
·
resh-
head of man: meaning first, top, beginning
·
waw (vav)-tent
peg: meaning add, secure, hook
·
hhet
(chet)-tent wall: meaning outside, divine, half
The scripture
foundation is Genesis 2:1-9, where we see that after God created, He rested. We live in a society that is always on the
go. We are action oriented. There is always something to do, somewhere to
go, and very little time to rest! We see
here that the Creator Himself stopped and rested; He demonstrated the need for
us to rest. It is in these times of “catching
our breath” in resting that we are refreshed for times of service to Him. The fact that God blessed day 7 demonstrates
that this day is to be kept set apart and holy for His use! (Exodus 20:8)
We
also see in this passage that man was nothing more than an empty shell before
God breathed life into him. Verse 7 says
“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” ‘Dust’ and ‘ground’ imply that there was
nothing special about the overall chemical makeup of our bodies. The body is nothing more than a lifeless
shell until God awakens it with His “breath of life.” This helps us to understand that our life and
our worth comes directly from the Spirit of God. It’s His life-giving Spirit that fills us!
It’s
interesting that ruach is used to
describe wind. When you think about it,
wind follows a prescribed path wherever it goes. Even as the weather patterns change,
meteorologists are able to track the wind patterns that will take place. Isn’t that what happens when we are filled
with the Spirit? Is not the follower of
Christ guided by the Holy Spirit? John
14:26 says “But the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and
will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
So,
what are we to do with this information?
Since ruach can also mean
Spirit this means that we can only truly become living beings when we receive
the Holy Spirit. Now, I do not mean to
say that we are literally lifeless, but to say that when we receive the living
breath of God, His Holy Spirit, we are awakened to a new reality that is rooted
in the Kingdom of God. However, when we
turn our eyes to Jesus and surrender ourselves to receive His Holy Spirit, we
become living beings on a completely different level!
If
we are filled with the Holy Spirit we should begin to respond to the patterns
of this crazy world differently. This
means that no matter what is going on, we should find ways to turn everything
into songs of praise for Him. No matter
what is going on, good, bad or ugly, our response should result in PRAISE! This is the light that this post-Christian society
needs to see from God’s church. In this
negative, vile, messed-up, self-centered world that we live in one song of
praise is like that first ray of sunshine after a blizzard has blown through,
or a hurricane has ravaged the land. It brings
HOPE!
In
fact the scripture tells us that everything that has ruach, breath, should PRAISE THE LORD! (Psalm 150) Praise the Lord!
Inhale the Spirit; Exhale praise. Inhale the Spirit; Exhale praise. Inhale; exhale. This is the rhythm that we should all be
living in.
No comments:
Post a Comment