Imagine this.  On a particular morning as you go to school or go to work or go out to take your morning walk a friend comes up to you and says, “I saw your name in the paper this morning!”  What is your reaction? 

If your reaction is like mine, you want to get to that article and find out what is written of you there.  What is it about?  Is the story accurate?  Did they spell your name right?  In such a public medium as the newspaper you want to know what is written of you. 

The Psalmist this morning wasn’t reading the morning newspaper when he came across his name.  He was reading something else.  By God’s grace, as the Psalmist was giving thanks to God for God’s deliverance for which he had waited patiently, he was granted a look in God’s book.  As he read he said (reading from the New Revised Standard Version):
          Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.  I delight to do your will, O my
          God; your law is within my heart.                        Psalm 40:7-8
Now imagine this.  God grants you a look in God’s book.  As you read along you find your name there.  What do you do?  What is your reaction?  If you are like the Psalmist, if your reaction is like mine, you want to know what is written of you. 

In the book of Psalms there are a few references to the book of God in addition to the one before us today.  I find the most instructive to be from the 139^th Psalm where the Psalmist describes how very well God knows him.  In verse 16 the Psalmist says to God
          Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.  In your book were written all the days that
          were formed for me when none of them as yet existed.            Psalm 139:16 

What is this book, this “scroll of the book” that the Psalmist talks about in which your name is written?  What kind of record does God keep there?  What is written of you? 

Well, first of all, contrary to what may be in the newspaper, you don’t have to worry whether the story is accurate or if your name is spelled right in this book.  This is God’s book and God gets it right every single time.   You can be sure that whatever is written of you there it is true, it is accurate, it describes you perfectly.  The Psalmist declares this confidence in the 139…
          O Lord, you have searched me and known me
          You know when I sit down and when I rise up
                   You discern my thoughts from far away
          You search out my path and my lying down
                   And are acquainted with all my ways…
          For it was you who formed my inward parts
                   You knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Psalm 139:1-3, 13
What is written of you there is really who you are. 

So if it is accurate and true because it is God’s book, after all, what kind of record does God keep there?  What is written of you? 

Sisters and brothers, if I know anything about the Bible or understand anything at all of the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I say to you this morning that God’s book is not a record of every wrong you’ve ever committed.  I believe one of the greatest injustices we do as people of God is to impose upon God our deepest human fears.  For too long the common understanding of God’s relationship to us has been of one who stands aloof keeping careful record of bad and good behavior.  The God of the Bible is not some kind of divine accountant who at the end of the day adds up the good and the bad columns under your name and only accepts you if you score higher in the good.  I have spent all of my ministry trying to dispel what appears to me to be our almost automatic understanding of God as a scorekeeper; a scorekeeper God who will only love us when the good in us outperforms the bad; a scorekeeper God who only loves winners. 

The Psalmist says
                 In your book were written all the days that were formed for me when none of them
                 as yet existed.                                                                             Psalm 40:7-8
God loved you before you were born.  Would you understand me when I say to you that God dreamed you up a long time ago?  God wrote about you way back when.  Out of that dream God loved you into existence.  God knows you so well.  God has a plan, a dream for your life alone.  God has a mission that only you can do.  That’s what’s in the book!  The scroll of the book is not a record of wrongs that require retribution.  The scroll of the book is an account of God’s fondest dream for one whom God loves very much. 

The Apostle Paul knew this about the church at Corinth.  The Corinthian Church, you remember, was splintered and divided by many loyalties.  Some of the people said, “I belong to Paul.”  Other said, “I belong to Apollos” or to Cephas or to Christ.  They sure didn’t get it right yet.  But as Paul began his letter to them which you heard read this morning can you not imagine that he first went to the scroll of the book turned over to section “C” until he found the Corinthians?  What he read there he shared with them at the very beginning of his letter.  You see, he didn’t find there a list of the wrongs the church had done, although there were many and he’ll tell them about all that later in his letter.  This is what he found in the book:
          To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ
          Jesus, called to be saints…I give thank to my God always for you because of the
          grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have
          been enriched in him…so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you
          wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.                                          1 Corinthians 1:1-2, 4-5, 7
Paul found an account right there in God’s book of God’s fondest dream for the people of the Church in Corinth whom God loved very much.  A people already blessed with everything they needed to realize the mission that God had already dreamed for them. 

So what is written of you in the scroll of the book?  It is what God saw in you so long ago.  It is the account of God’s fondest dream for one whom God loves very much.  It says there right after your name that you already have inside you everything you need to realize all that is written there about you—God already made you that way.  It’s in your heart—it really is who you are.  It’s all there in the book, if you just wait patiently for the Lord, as the Psalmist did, and listen, God will read it to you.  Listen and you’ll know the Psalmist’s joy as he says,
          Happy are those who make the Lord their trust
          Who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.     Psalm 40:4a 

One day John the Baptist saw Jesus coming and he said,
          There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world  Jn. 1:29
The very next day John was standing with two of his disciples and as he watched Jesus walk by John exclaimed,
          Look, there is the Lamb of God!                                                               Jn. 1:36
Andrew, one of John’s disciples then followed Jesus.  Andrew then went to his brother Simon and said to him,
          We have found the Messiah!                                  Jn. 1:41
Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus.  When Jesus looked at him, can you not almost imagine Jesus saying to him,
          Simon, Simon, yes, yes, I know you, I read about you…just a minute
Then can you imagine him opening the scroll of the book, turning to the section “S” until he came upon his name,
          Simon, yes, here you are.  Simon, son of John, isn’t it?  It says here God loves Simon
          very much.  He made you strong of conviction and of a very big heart.  And, yes, I can
          see this clearly; you are to be called Cephas, Peter.  Cephas, Peter, God has great and
          wonderful plans for you.
Later, you remember, Jesus reveals to Simon, Son of John, what his new name means:
         You are Peter, which means “Rock,” and on this rock I will build my
         church.                                                                                                           Mt. 16:18 

Now what in the world is written of you?  Don’t you want to know God’s fondest dream for you?  Don’t you want to know who you really are? 

What is written of you, South Roanoke Church?  Don’t you want to give yourself this year to live out God’s fondest dream for us right here, right now, as we have prayerfully discerned it and expressed it in our goals and priorities for ministry? 

What is written of you?  What is written of us?  You can be sure that whatever is written there it is true, it is accurate, it describes you perfectly.  What is written of you there is really who you are.  You already have everything you need.  It’s all right there, if you wait on the LORD and listen, God will read it to you. 

Don’t you want to know what is written of you?