Eternal

This week we begin worship with:

John 17:24
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

In this verse we hear our Lord Jesus Christ pray to His Heavenly Father. He expresses His “desire” and His will is that we be together. 

Where will this be?  When will this be?  These are questions that leap to our minds from our place in history, which is not the case with our Lord.

John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

This glory-filled place is eternal.

Perfect

This week we begin worship with:

2 Corinthians 5:20-21
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is not the active voice saying “reconcile yourself to God”. This is the passive voice saying “be reconciled to God”. It is so easy to misread into this verse that the command “implore you”, somehow makes us the actor. 

Omitted from order of worship is the first portion of the verse, which identifies Paul and his companions as ambassadors of Christ. They are delivering an offer of peace through exchange.

The deal exchanges sin for righteousness and thus reconciles (katallassō).  

Note too we are not receiving, but rather becoming and not righteous, but rather righteousness. We are not receiving a one time opportunity to clean up our act, which we will inevitably mess up. We are being offered a permanent peace treaty.

Acceptable

 This week we begin worship with:

Colossians 1:21-23

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard,

From alienated apallotrioō) to reconciled (apokatallassō).

From our mind (dianoia) to his body of flesh (sōma sarx).  Paul specifically uses both body and flesh.

The first half of the book of Romans, the mind and the “flesh” were at odds:

Romans 8:3-4

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

But after the reconciliation today’s call-to-worship describes, Romans goes on to describe a new kind of worship using our “bodies”:

Romans 12:1-2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Again, our call to worship says we are made “holy and blameless” through this reconciliation. Indeed so, for only as such we become an acceptable “living sacrifice”.

Reign

This week we begin worship with:

Romans 6:9-11

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ ended the absolute reign of death.  That reign began with the sin of one man Adam and ended with the righteousness of another our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:17

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

But that gift of righteousness has brought us not simply to life, but to a place of authority!  We must daily “consider” (logizomai) ourselves alive for God’s purpose and with dominion over sin.  

So, rather than abdicate, let’s reign.

Condemned

 This week we begin worship with:

Matthew 26:63-64

And the high priest said to [Jesus], “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

After failing to find false testimony about Jesus, the high priest asks the question “Are you the Christ”?

Jesus answers formally so that there would be no mistake.  Mark records it simply as “I am” (Mark 14:62), but Matthew records the formal phrase here that validates the assertion made by the high priest.  Jesus attested to exactly what the High Priest said.

It was this answer that condemned Jesus to the cross.