Beth Moore - Substance and Shadow - Part 4
Isaiah 49:2 says this: "He made my words like a sharp sword. He hid me in the shadow of his hand. He made me like a sharpened arrow. He hid me in his quiver". Isaiah 51:16: "I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand in order to plant the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, 'You are my people.' To his people, he says, 'I have held you in and covered you in the shadow of my hand.'"
All right, do your precious hand, just cup it like this. And now cup it until you can see and any way you have to turn it to get it with the light, make a shadow in it. You see it? And so this picture is I'm gonna set you right there. So where have we gone? The shadow of the Almighty, the shadow of his wing, and now, see, right there, "Get right in the shadow of my hand and I will cover you there". It's the most beautiful picture of being held. Of being held. I want you to think now for the next couple of minutes about the actual physical posture of being a Jesus follower.
"Follow me," he says, "and I will make you fishers of men". I like it. I don't know, it makes me laugh every, I laugh at the dumbest things. I have the sense of humor of a 10-year-old boy, not even a girl. Ten-year-old boy. But when it says, when some of the newer translations say, "Follow me and I will make you catch men," I'm always like, "I know that there are a lot of women that go, 'That is my life verse.'" Yeah, but anyway, this makes me laugh. But when we think about, when he says, "Follow me, come and see," think about that, because what are we doing when we follow Jesus? We are dwelling in the shadow of the Almighty. Can somebody get that with me?
That if I follow... now, if I'm in front of him, I'm not being led by the Spirit. I'm trying to lead the Spirit and I'm gonna tell you, I was talking to my team yesterday, I always do some kind of... or usually do some kind of a little devotional when we get started on Friday night before we pray together as a team. And I was telling them that I was fixating for a few moments on that wonderful verse in Galatians chapter 5 that says that if we live in the Spirit, we must also keep step with the Spirit. And I said, you know, so often we're running so far ahead of him. And that the reason why we live in so much anxiety and stress is because we are running way ahead of God and we're hoping he's coming.
Our anxiety is because, you know, I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but I sure hope he's coming. I've called Jesus, "Come and follow me," and so I'm way out here and I am running full steam. And what we've done is that we are outpacing the Spirit. And so our supply of the fruit of the Spirit, think of it like this because this is the picture we drew last night. I think of it. If you've ever had surgery, if you've ever been in the hospital, then you know what it's like to be hooked up to an IV. And if you've had surgery, one of the things they want you doing pretty quickly is you're up on your feet and you're walking and you walk around with this rolling thing that has your IV on it and it's in your vein.
And so, you know, you don't want to leave it behind and get way ahead of it, why? Because it's gonna hurt, number one. Number two, you're gonna pull it out and you're no longer, that's what we do. We'll get so far from the resource and that's our IV, that Holy Spirit power in us. That's what brings forth the fruit of the Spirit. So we're following him, we're following him, we're following him, we're following and in that shadow, here's the beauty of it. Psalm 139:11-12: "If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night' even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you".
I just think this is a marvelous thought, that in our darkest times, even when we are in the black of night. Keith and I were in Angola doing food relief, a number of years ago, and there weren't very many of us. It was a very small team and we were staying, Keith and I were staying where the rest of the team, they tried to put us in, you know, they felt like we might not be ready for tents, like the rest of them. So they put us in what you would think of as kind of a motor hotel there. And our bathroom door wouldn't shut. Well, I don't know how to explain this to you that I had been married by that time for some 30 years. I am modest. I was just, I don't know what to do with the bathroom door that will not shut. I mean, I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm not using it. I'm not, I don't know, I know that that's weird, but I'm just, So there was a bathroom downstairs on the first floor.
So it was two stories down on the first floor. It was at night. And I thought I'm gonna go downstairs. And so I said, I told, "I'll be right back". And so I go down there and I go into the lobby and there is a little bathroom there and I get into it and there is a blackout. I don't know if you have ever been in a citywide blackout. It is the scariest thing you have ever felt. I could not see to even get, I was feeling my way out of the stall and feeling my way to the sink and feeling my way to the door. I opened the door to come out. Still, I could see absolutely nothing. All I could do was hear men talking in a language that I could not understand.
And then I was scared to death to make myself known. And I did not, I didn't know where the stairs were. I knew nothing, absolutely nothing. And I'm standing there and I know I've said so much about being scared. I really don't run scared. But when I'm scared, I'm really scared and I mean, I was just shaking like this and I thought, "I don't have any idea what to do. I don't have any idea what to do". And I hear this voice, "'Elizabeth! Baby, I'm coming. I'm coming.'" "Now," he said, "here's what I need you to do. I need you to call out my name, so that I know where you are". And I couldn't even say it. I just was going, "Uhh". He said, "Keep doing it". "Uhhh".
Finally, that man comes and I feel him with the ends of my fingers and I just climbed him like a tree. I'm just, I just honestly, it was just like saved. Saved in the darkness. But do you know in all of that darkness, it was like the Lord was going, "Baby, it's like a light's on to me. You think you're in such darkness? But the light is on. If I am with you, the light is on. If it looks dark to you, it's just 'cause you're in my shadow, just because I got you in the hollow of my hand. That's right where you are, right where you are".
We do not begin to know what happened for us on the cross. Going to ask the Lord today to stretch our minds because we do not begin to understand what was happening in all of the heavenly realms when Jesus Christ went to the cross. I want you to try to gather this in with me from Colossians 2 because it's almost too much to bear. And I'm gonna get a verse ready to also read to you from Mark chapter 15. But you're sitting still in chapter 2 of Colossians.
I'll start at verse 6: "So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude. Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental spirits of the world, rather than Christ. For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority. You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, when you," in verse 12, "were buried with him in baptism," when you were buried with him in baptism, "in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead".
Verse 13: "And when you were stone cold dead in your sins," stone cold dead. When we get to where we can't recognize or we won't let anyone, we're so fragile that we will not let any of our Bible teachers or preachers talk to us about sin because they might hurt us, let me tell you something. Sin is what's gonna hurt us. Being in a bondage to some kind of sin that has us trapped. He's saying, "Don't let", he said, "I'm trying to get you to be free. Don't fall captive to these things. You've been filled with me". And I think it's making the connection that so much of our captivity, so much of our bondage, is because we just feel like we've got this empty vacuum inside of us. Are you kidding me?
You have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. Doesn't get better than Jesus. This is the holy Son of God, the one who spoke the worlds into orbit. This is your God. "When you were dead in your trespasses," when I was dead in my trespasses and in the uncircumcision of my flesh, "he made us alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses". Does it say "all our trespasses" or "some"? What's it say? Does it say "most" or does it say "all"? All our trespasses. Now, this is just like, what do we do with this? What do we even do with this? We believe it. Here's what he says. He says, you know what, I've already done it. Your part is to simply, by faith, believe it. That's your one part. Come and believe that this is what I have done for you.
He made us alive with him and forgave us all our... does it say "all our trespasses" or "some"? What's it say? Does it say "most" or does it say "all"? All our trespasses. Now, this is just like, what do we do with this? What do we even do with this? We believe it. Here's what he says. He says, you know what, I've already done it. Your part is to simply, by faith, believe it. That's your one part. Come and believe that this is what I have done for you. You see, this was my ticket out of bondage to sin. It truly was. It truly was. Is that it was like, you've got to step out and walk as one who believes that what God has said over you is true.
If you don't, you'll only think of yourself as that defeated person that is gonna cycle back into that ditch over and over again, until you believe, until you are able to make confession: This is who he is. This is what he says he can do. This is who I am. This is what he says I can do and his Word is alive and active in me, and I'm gonna believe him with everything I've got. That is what became a game-changer for me, is just believe him, believe him, believe that he has forgiven you.
It says in verse 14: "He erased the certificate of debt," what we owed, what we owed because of our trespasses and sins. "He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him".
Okay, listen carefully because this is so good. So they're in the darkness. Remember with me, this is where I want to read to you out of Mark. Remember with me that the Gospels tell us and this happens to be Mark's version, 15:33: "When it was noon", now, Jesus is on the cross, "When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon". So there's this darkness, everything goes dark. John will tell us the same thing. Everything goes dark and this is when Jesus is gonna cry out, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me"? At noon, darkness comes over the whole land.
Well, so it's the hour of darkness is what the Gospel of John would call it. So I just want you to picture with me because the devil has been working for this all this time, all this time, and all the powers and principalities of darkness, man finally, finally, finally, they've tempted Judas, they've gotten him to do what they wanted, they've had Christ betrayed by Judas and given to them. All the people are screaming, "Oh, give us Barabbas". So everybody's turning. Everything is going perfectly according to plan. So I want you to picture with me that the arena is filled with all the demonic powers and principalities. They've got their popcorn and their Coke, because this is fantastic. This is the show they've been waiting for since time began.
We're told in Revelation 12 that, literally, the devil, the serpent, was waiting for that child to be born so that he could devour it. Just devour it. And they've done it, they've done it. He has been beaten nearly unrecognizable, nailed to the cross and taken his last breath. And there they are all gathered, big and boastful and proud. They have won. And suddenly... victory has happened. And, "Oh, Death, where is your sting"?
Do we understand that while they...God made sure they were gathered together to witness it, that he in that moment, I want you to just listen to it with me because I do this sometimes I try to listen to it because just, I don't know about you. I come from such a bad past. I just made so many mistakes, did so many foolish things. I can blame it all on my abuse, but I don't know who I would have been if I hadn't been abused. I might have been just exactly the same person, I don't know. But just so much to be ashamed of. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Just so much to be ashamed of.
And I love where the ESV says that God put them to open shame because I want to tell you how the devil works. What he does is that he tempts us in secret and then, so we fall for it and then he exposes us in the secret. It's maddening, maddening. He goes, "You know you want this. You know you want this. You know you want this. You know you want this". And then he is, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself"? It's like, you get me there and you shame me for it. All that shame since the garden. All that covering since the garden. And all of that code against you. Everything that says all you've done wrong, every commandment and code you've ever broken and ever will break on the cross... nailed down.
I want you to understand, it stayed there. When Joseph of Arimathea took the body down and took it into the tomb, stayed right there, permanent. I want you to also understand that on that cross, there was substance. It's a very interesting thing, and you and I have a hard time understanding it because, for most of us, it never occurs to us that Jesus didn't come in the flesh. It's just not our, it's not a going philosophy around us. But John in his first letter literally says, "Those who don't believe that Jesus has come in the flesh". He said it in his second letter too. I mean, they've got a spirit of Antichrist. It was very important to understand that that was the physical body of the Word made flesh.
That was his touchable, feel-able, bruisable body on that cross piled with the sins of mankind and everything that was against us, nailed to that cross. That is your victory. If we believed that, our lives would be different. Psalm 32 verse 1 says: "Happy is the one who knows his sin is forgiven". You know, one reason why we're not happier than we are is we do not believe we've been forgiven. One reason why we keep doing the same old thing is because we don't believe we've been forgiven. We believe it's all we'll ever be, it's all we'll ever do. What if that ended today? What if today you made the decision and I made a decision, a resolve, the relief.
You're wondering what point number five is and I'm gonna give it to you right now. Number five is this: The cross triumphed over every dark shadow. The cross triumphed over every dark shadow. So you can come out of the shadow of that shame. Quit living there in that shadow. Come on out. Come on out. We don't have to pretend like we've always had it together. I don't know about you but what God has put on me is I don't tell the graphics because then they get too much attention and everybody's mind goes there. But just to say, I've made every stupid decision you can possibly imagine.
But the one thing I want God to be able to say of me is what was said of Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15: "His grace to me was not in vain". That's what we can do. That's what we can do. Is I can't change any of that. That's all behind me. There's nothing I can do about it, but I can do this. His grace to me is not in vain. I will give him every breath of the rest of my life. His grace to me will not be in vain.
Now, I wanna say something to you. I just wonder today if there's anyone that has come to a place that maybe today you would want to make the decision: This is where I want to place my faith. There was a time and in some places this is still true, where it was so honorable to be called a Christian. But I want you to remember that in the very early New Testament days, in the early church, it was meant as an insult. It really was. It's why Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 4, it's why he said, "Do not be ashamed if you're called a Christian. But glorify God that you bear such a name".
It's been a long time since we felt ashamed, until recently. And we've seen so much upheaval and so much division and maybe been part of it. I don't, like, I have. Maybe just been in the big mess of it, in all the mud of it. And there are so many that are just walking away from it because they're just ashamed to be a Christian. Do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear such a name. Go ahead and take the shame when someone says that. But you know what you can do? You can prove their assumptions about you wrong.
Peter also says, and I'm gonna have to get it to come to my head. That, don't worry when people malign you for being a Christian. But let them see ultimately your good deeds and then they will glorify your God that is in heaven. That, you just keep, you bear the shame. If it's shameful to people around you that you bear the name "Christian," you bear it, you bear it and you do them good. You do them good. So that one day they will be able to say, "You know what? I thought they were crazy, but that person did me good. That person was good to me". Somewhere along the way they'll see, "You know, they don't seem nearly as ashamed of themselves as I feel like they should be," because we don't bear that shame.