TITLES OF GOD: JEHOVAH-HOSEENU, THE LORD OUR MAKER
DR. JIM DIXON
PSALM 95:6-7
DECEMBER 17, 1989
Dr. Henry Falls was a Scottish missionary to Japan in the 19th century, and as he shared the gospel of Jesus Christ for the Japanese people, he made an amazing discovery. He noticed that the Japanese people used fingerprints for signatures upon documents. And as he examined these fingerprints, he discovered that no two fingerprints were alike. And it was Dr. Henry Falls, along with Sir William Herschel of England, who made this discovery known to the world that no two human beings have the same fingerprints. Everyone is unique. Some people have spiral fingerprints, some looped, some arched, but all different.
Last year, more than 142 million babies were born on planet earth. Some of them identical twins, and yet none of them had the same fingerprints. All unique, more than 5 billion people on the earth today. Billions more have lived and died in the ages past. But you see, your fingerprints are unique. In all the world, no one has your fingerprints. No one ever has. No one ever will. Unique.
And you see, that’s how God created us and that’s how God wants us. He wants us all to be different. He wants us all to be unique. He delights in the fact that we are different physically. And not only physically, we are different from one another mentally and emotionally. And we have different abilities. We have different gifts. We have different personalities. No one has your personality in all the world, and you are special to God.
But you see, there’s one sense in which God does want us to be the same. He doesn’t want clones, but there is one sense in which he wants us to be the same. He wants us all to be like his Son, Jesus Christ. He wants us all to share the character of his Son, Jesus Christ, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. He wants these Christlike qualities to characterize every single person on the face of this planet. But you see, the problem is none of us have the character of Jesus Christ, but God offers to transform us. He offers to shape us and to mold us into the likeness of his son. And it is in this sense that he has called Jehovah-Hoseenu, the Lord our maker, the Lord who molds us and shapes us and transforms us.
You see this word “hoseenu” comes from the Hebrew word “asah.” It doesn’t mean to create. The Hebrew word “bara” means to create. The Hebrew word “bara” means to take nothing and bring into existence something, to create out of nothing “exnihilo”, that is bara creation. But, you see, the word “hoseenu”, the word “asah” means rather to take what already exists, what already has been created, and to mold it and to shape it, to transform it. Jehovah-Hoseenu. God wants to transform you. In order for God to do that, there must be two realities in your life. First of all, you must have the power of God. You can’t be transformed without the power of God.
Now, I know all of you have heard of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828, one of the most famous writers in the history of the world. He of course wrote War in Peace, considered the greatest Russian work of realistic fiction. He also wrote Anna Karenina, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest love stories ever written. Tolstoy literally had everything this world had to offer going for him. He was wealthy, he was of the nobility. He was a Russian count, count Tolstoy, had great wealth, had incredible talent, had a wonderful wife. He had 13 children. He had power, he had prominence, he had position everything this world seems to want. And yet Tolstoy was disillusioned. He couldn’t find meaning, and he couldn’t find purpose in life. So much so that by the age of 51, in the year 1879, Tolstoy actually contemplated suicide. But you see, it was in that year that Tolstoy made a discovery. He decided that he could find meaning. He decided he could find purpose if only he could become like Christ. Tolstoy concluded in that year, 1879, that he would resolve to be like Jesus Christ. And he believed that if he could attain the character of Christ, if he could be truly loving, if he could even love his enemies, if he could be selfless, if he could attain to fidelity and sacrifice, if these things characterized his life, he would have meaning and he would have purpose.
Now, you see, Tolstoy didn’t believe in Christ, not in the Christian sense. He didn’t believe Christ was alive. He didn’t believe Christ had risen from the dead. He didn’t believe Christ was deity. But he did believe that when Christ lived, he had been the greatest teacher the world had ever known. He believed that Christ taught the supreme example of moral and ethical values and provided the supreme example of moral and ethical values. And he believed that if he could attain to these moral and ethical values, if he could attain to this Christ-like spirit, he would have meaning and purpose in life.
And for the last 31 years of Tolstoy’s life, that was his sole purpose. For the final 31 years, he left his nobility. He adopted the life of a peasant. He went out to live among the masses. He sought to adopt a selfless love, to be a person totally characterized by love and sacrifice, fidelity, selflessness. And he taught the world in all of his writings to seek this same character, the character of Christ. And he believed that if the world could only do this, the world would be wonderful. 31 years later, Leo Tolstoy was absolutely disillusioned, more disillusioned than ever he had been in his life because he had utterly failed. And he knew it. He knew that while he had sought the love of Christ, he did not love. He didn’t even love all of his friends, let alone love his enemies. He knew he wasn’t selfless in honest self-appraisal. He knew he wasn’t selfless. He knew he wasn’t truly faithful, and he wasn’t truly sacrificial in life. He knew he had failed to attain Christlikeness, and he left his home in the year 1910, at the age of 82, wandered into a lonely train station, and there all by himself, he died.
But you see, in that final year of his life, Leo Tolstoy had arrived at a great truth. Man doesn’t have the power. Man doesn’t have the power to become like Christ. You don’t have the power. You might say, well, I’m going to be like Christ. But the reality is you don’t have the power and you’ll fail. You need God’s power. Only by God’s power can we be transformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ.
In the year 1833, Charles Darwin made a journey to the South Sea Islands. In that year, 1833, Charles Darwin saw a group of tribal people. He marveled when he saw them, they were unkept. Their hair was long, they were wild, they were savage, they were cannibals. They ate other human beings, and they were violent, and there was no kindness in them. And he marveled when he saw them, that man could be so savage. And in later years, in Darwin’s writings, he said that he really believed that on those South Sea Islands, he had discovered the missing link, that human, semi-quasi human form that was somewhere between animal and man. He believed these tribal people actually represented the missing link. And he wrote these things in his writings and he said he longed to go back to the South Sea Islands once again and examine those people more closely. Well, 44 years later he did.
In the year 1877, he went back to those same tribal people in the South Sea Islands. And he was stunned, stunned to see that they had been totally transformed. They were not the same anymore. They were no longer unkept. They were no longer cannibals, no longer savage, no longer uncivilized. They had kindness, even hospitality to strangers. And there was compassion in their hearts. And he marveled. And he discovered that a missionary, a missionary named Reverend John Paton of the London Missionary Society, had gone there to the South Sea Islands and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ. Charles Darwin learned that these people had actually in masse embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and their lives had been transformed. He didn’t understand. He wrote that he did not understand. He didn’t understand this transformation, but he was impressed, so impressed. He gave a very large gift to the London Missionary Society. But he never understood. To his death, he never understood, he was a theist. Darwin believed in the existence of God. And on his deathbed, he cried out for the mercy of God upon his soul. But he never embraced Christ. He never understood the transforming power of Christ. Jehovah-Hoseenu, the Lord our maker. He wants to make you. He wants to transform you by his power.
Well, James and John were of course two of the 12 disciples of our Lord. If you study their lives, you can’t help but be fascinated. In the beginning, when Christ first called them, they were not very Christ-like. James and John were, I suppose, like most people in this world. And they had a lot of flaws. And Christ called them “boanerges” which means “sons of thunder.” Theologians debate, why did Jesus call James and John “sons of thunder” and most have decided that James and John must have been volatile in their personalities with predispositions towards temper and anger. And we see this early in their life as Jesus goes into a Galilean village and the people refuse to believe. And James and John then come up to Christ, and they’re indignant and they’re enraged, and they ask Christ to call down fire from heaven and destroy the village and kill all the people. That’s how they thought – “boanerges” – sons of thunder.
And that wasn’t their only problem. They were also arrogant. They were filled with pride, and they came up to the Lord and they asked if in the coming world, one might sit on his right hand and the other on the left, they wanted to have the second and third most powerful positions in the cosmos. How’s that for arrogance? But you see, Christ transformed them. He said to them that he had come not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. He said, “He who would be the greatest among you must be your servant. He who would be the greatest must be slave of all.”
We don’t know much about James’ life. We know he was, at least by tradition, the first of the 12, to experience martyrdom. We know quite a bit about the life of John. It is said he was the only of the 12 disciples, the only one not to be martyred. And he lived a long life. And John, you see, became known not only as the “beloved disciple” but “the disciple who loved.” His whole life was transformed. And he became the supreme example of love among the disciples. And you can’t read the gospel of John, you can’t read the letters of II, II, III John without seeing the incredible love that just shines from Christ through him to us, transformed by the power of God, Jehovah-Hoseenu, and he wants to transform you.
Well, in the year 1464, there lived a man named Agostino d’Antonio. Agostino d’Antonio, in that very year, 1464, found a block of stone, a crude block of marble. And he was a sculptor. He decided he was going to take this crude block of marble and mold it, sculpt it, shape it, form something wonderful. But the block was so hard, so crude, he gave up. From the time that followed, there were other sculptors who saw this massive block of marble and tried to do something with it. And they all gave up. And the great block of stone spent 40 years on a rubbish pile in Florence, Italy.
And in the year 1504, another man saw that block of stone, a man you’ve all heard of, a man named Michelangelo. And he took that same block of marble, that Agostino d’Antonio had rejected. Michelangelo took that same block of marble. And from that block of stone, that crude block, he sculpted the Statue of David, one of the greatest sculptures in the world.
Now, when we think of Michelangelo as an artist, perhaps most of us think of his paintings like the Sistine Chapel or The Last Judgment. But of course, he was a great sculptor. More than 40 different sculptures he worked on, some uncompleted, many completed, and works of great beauty. But he had that ability. He had the ability to see a crude block of marble. And by the power of his hands, he knew he could transform it. Transform it into something absolutely wonderful. And that is how Jesus Christ sees each and every one of you. He really does. He looks at you, he looks at me, crude blocks of stone, and he sees something wonderful just waiting to be released by the power of his hands, transforming power. He wants to make something absolutely wonderful of you.
And the Bible says in II Corinthians chapter three, verse 16, “We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord are being changed, transformed from one degree of glory to another. All of this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Jehovah-Hoseenu, the transformer.
Well, before we move to our second point, I want to make this observation. The tragedy today is many Christians are not transformed. Surely you know this, you’ve probably noticed many Christians, perhaps most Christians not transformed. We just don’t seem to acquire the character of Jesus Christ. And there’s little to distinguish us from the rest of humanity. God’s power is available, but somehow it never seemed to be appropriated. There are Christians, people who have actually accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, and the Holy Spirit of God has come to dwell within them. And the power of the Spirit, the power of God, Jehovah-Hoseenu, is there for transformation. And yet very little transformation takes place.
Well, that leads us to our second teaching this morning. Because you see, in order to be transformed, there needs to be a second reality in our life. In order to be transformed, we not only need the power of God, but God needs our effort. We need God’s power. He needs our effort. That might not sound right to you. Maybe you want to give God all the praise and you want to give God all the glory. But you see, biblically, God wants you to know you have to make an effort. And it would be nice if we could just sit around, passive lumps of clay, and he would mold us and shape us. But it just doesn’t work like that.
And there’s a fascinating passage of scripture in the book of II Peter, the first chapter where the apostle Peter says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” His power, divine power, grants godliness to us, the character of Christ. But then Peter follows that up with this statement. Therefore, he says, “Make every effort, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love.” Make every effort. And the Greek word there, “spoudazo”, this word means to strain, to race, to struggle towards the goal of godliness. His divine power must be combined with our every effort.
See, when I was in college, I decided to lift weights. In my freshman year, I decided to lift weights for, for two reasons. One, I was an ectomorph and I wanted to be a mesomorph. Secondly, I competed in track and field, and I threw the javelin, and I wanted to throw the javelin further. So, I took weight training. And my weight training instructor was named Jerry Hune. Jerry Hune was massive. He looked like Michelangelo had chiseled him.
And he could bench press more than 500 pounds. And he knew just about everything there was to know about weight training. He knew how many repetitions you needed, how many sets exactly, the exercises that were right for you, and diets. He knew all about that too. And you could just tell him what you wanted. And he was the enabler. He had the ability to transform you physically. You could say, “Well, I want definition.” He’d say, “Where do you want definition?” He’d tell you exactly what to do. And you could say, “I want bulk.” And he could tell you exactly what to do. And you could say, “I want raw power.” And he’d say, “Here it is. Here’s what you do.” He was the transformer. The problem was you had to make an effort. Didn’t matter how enabling he was if you didn’t make an effort. And there were some guys that they just didn’t make an effort, and Jerry couldn’t do much for them. There were others who really wanted it, and they worked, and he transformed them.
See, God wants us to understand the same thing as true spiritually. How much do you want to be like Christ? Is it really important to you? Do you long for it?
You know, there’s a story that’s told. It comes from over 2000 years ago. It said that there was a man who came up to Socrates, the Greek philosopher, and he said, Socrates, “I want you to give me wisdom and goodness. I want you to change me. I want to be wise and good.” Socrates said, “Follow me.” And this man followed him, and they went down to this lake. Socrates said, “Get in the water, put your head under the water.” The man thought that was strange, but he went into the water and Socrates went with him, and he put his head under the water. And the moment he did that, Socrates reached down, pushed on the top of the man’s head and held him under the water. And Socrates continued to hold this guy under the water for what seemed to the man like an awfully long time. And the man began to struggle to get up, and Socrates wouldn’t let him up. He held his head under the water till the man was almost dead. And then it just said, Socrates lifted him out of the water, dragged him ashore, and he revived the man. When the man had fully recovered, Socrates said to him, “Well, when I held you under the water, what did you want more than anything in this world? What did you want?” The man said, “Air, I wanted air.” Socrates said, “Well, you see, when you want wisdom and goodness as much as you wanted air, then come back to me. I’ll be ready to change you.”
There’s a great truth in that. How much do you want, really want, to be like Jesus Christ? I mean, is it something that you think might be nice? Or do you really want it? Do you covet his character? Do you long to be like him? The Apostle Paul said he longed to put on Christ to be found like him. How much do you want it?
You know, I think if we asked most people who they felt modeled Christlikeness more than anyone else in our generation, I think most people would say Mother Teresa. And she does model Christlikeness, doesn’t she? I mean, you look at Mother Teresa and you see the love of Christ. You see the joy of Christ. You see the peace, the patience. You see the kindness of Christ, the goodness, the gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Have you ever seen Mother Teresa interviewed? Did you read her interview in Time Magazine a few weeks ago? I can tell you this. There’s a reason why she is so much like Christ. There’s a reason why her heart has been transformed. The reason is she longs to be like Jesus Christ more than anything in this world. She longs to be like Christ, the biggest desire in her heart, simply to be like Jesus.
Well, how about you? Are you struggling with temper? How much do you want to be rid of that? How about lust? Do you know? I mean, you look in your heart, you know you have a problem. How much do you want to be rid of it? Do you know you’re selfish? I mean, you look at yourself and you know you really are selfish. Do you want to change? Do you have bitterness? Do you have jealousy? How much do you want to change? See, maybe you don’t realize how important this is to God. He is Jehovah-Hoseenu. There’s a reason he wants to transform you. Nothing is more important to him than your character. If you don’t have the character of Christ, whatever abilities you have, you’ll just abuse. Nothing is more important than the character of Jesus Christ. If you have the character of Christ, you’ll change the world.
A lot of Christians think, well, you know, if I only knew what he wanted me to do. But what’s most important to him is not what he wants you to do. What’s most important to him is who he wants you to be. God wants you to be like his Son. And if you’re like Jesus Christ, and you have his character, and your life is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, if these characteristics are yours, it doesn’t matter what you do. You’ll transform the world by the power of God.
In conclusion, I’d like to share a little story, true story concerning a man named Jack Eckert. I shared this once at the eight o’clock service only some months ago. Jack Eckert is, of course, the owner of the Eckert drug chain. 1700 stores through parts of America, multimillionaire, extremely wealthy man. One day years ago, he was watching the William Buckley Show on TV. He apparently was, I won’t say it, I was going to say he has a hard time sleeping, but I did say it. Anyway, he was watching the William Buckley Show on TV, and William Buckley was interviewing Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson is of course, the man who once served in Richard Nixon’s cabinet…Watergate fame or infamy. Most of you, I assume, know that Chuck Colson later accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and he’s committed to Jesus Christ today.
Well, Jack Eckert was watching the William Buckley Show, and he was very interested in their conversation because William Buckley and Charles Colson were talking about the criminal justice system here in America and prison reform. And that’s a subject that Jack Eckert had a lot of interest in. And so, he resolved after listening to William Buckley, that he would call Chuck Colson and talk to him further on this subject of prison reform and the criminal justice system in America. So, he contacted Chuck Colson and invited Colson down to his house, and Colson came, and Colson flew around in Eckert’s private plane to various prisons in the south. And they examined the conditions there, and they talked about prison reform, and they became pretty good friends. And everywhere they went, Jack Eckert would introduce Chuck Colson saying, “This is my friend. His name is Chuck Colson. He’s a born-again Christian. I’m not. Sometimes I think I’d like to be.”
Well he introduced Colson this way a few times. And finally, Colson took Eckert aside and he said, “Listen, if you’d really like to be a Christian, I’d love to tell you how.” And through a process of time over the course of a year, Jack Eckert did become a Christian, and he embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life. When Eckert became a Christian, his life began to change from the inside out, he began to be transformed. And it wasn’t easy. He had the power of God, but it was a struggle, this transformation of his heart. He began to think differently and feel differently. He began to treat people differently and even view people differently.
And one day, Jack Eckert was walking in one of his stores and he saw Playboy and Penthouse magazines there. He’d seen them many times in his stores, and they’d never bothered him, but now, it bothered him, and he felt grieved in his spirit. And he felt Christ was saying to him, “Take those magazines out of your stores.” And he didn’t want to do this. He really struggled with this. Finally, he said, “Okay, Lord.” And he called his business manager, and he said, “I want Playboy and Penthouse removed from all 1700 stores.” His business manager was stunned, said, “You have got to be crazy, we make $3 million profit a year on Playboy and Penthouse in our 1700 stores.” Jack Eckert said, “I don’t care. Remove them.”
Well, it hit the media and the newspapers reported this, and there was a lot of favorable response. And pretty soon, Dart Drug and Revco removed Playboy and Penthouse from their stores. And then the chairman of the board of 7-Eleven, who was a friend of Jack Eckert, within a 12-month period, he was convicted, and he removed Playboy and Penthouse from all 5,000 7-Eleven stores. And in less than a 12-month period, 11,000 stores in the United States of America had removed Playboy and Penthouse and all because, you see, one man had allowed Jehovah-Hoseenu to transform him from the inside out. And when that happens, the world changes. When you really allow God to transform you, he begins to transform the world.
You see, during that same 12-month period, a congressional committee was meeting to discuss the whole issue of pornography and to discuss the possibility of establishing a law that would limit pornography in America. And they came to no conclusions that year. Even if they had established a law, the ACLU would’ve challenged them, and there would’ve been years of litigation.
Now, I have to say, I really believe that government needs to limit extreme freedoms for the sake of society. And I would love it, I would love it if this nation would establish a law limiting pornography, and that that law was understandable and enforceable. I would love that. But you see, even if such a law were established, it would not have anything to do with Playboy and Penthouse, but it would have only to do with so-called obscene pornography. And the reality is, and God wants us to understand that really, this world is changed simply by changed hearts. This world’s changed by you. And if he could just get ahold of you, if you would just give him your heart and you would receive his power, and you’d be willing to yield yourself with every effort, he not only will change you, he’ll change the world through you.
1 billion, 700 million people, men and women on this earth, claim to be Christians. Can you imagine what would happen if they would all say, “Jehovah-Hoseenu, transform me.” The world would be taken for Christ. “You are the potter. I am the clay. Mold me and make me. This is what I pray. Change my heart, oh God, make it ever new. Change my heart, oh God, let me be like you.” Jehovah-Hoseenu. Let’s close with a word of prayer.