With Him

This week we begin worship with:

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Our Lord Jesus Christ “died for us”.

We no longer must fear the “king of terrors” (Job 18:14).  Instead, our physical death will be as if sleeping (katheudō).  From which we will be called to life, much like Lazarus:

John 11:11

After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.”

John 11:43

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”

Why did Christ die for us?  

So that we “might live with him”.  This is His desire.  This is His identity.  He is called Immanuel (ʿimmānû'ēl):

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Work

This week we start worship with:

John 6:35

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."

This event comes after the feeding of the Five Thousand, when Jesus blessed the lunch of a little boy and multiplied it until all were fed . . . and twelve baskets were left over. 

Intrigued by a free source of food that did not require the work of neither milling and baking, nor the planting and harvesting, the crowd sought out and found Jesus, who had left that area by walking on the water. 

When they found Him, Jesus told them:

John 6:27

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

Intrigued further, and being already burdened by the Law, they asked:

John 6:28
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

To which He replied by dropping the “s”:

John 6:29

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Faith in Him is the only necessary work.  They continued to press him to repeat the sign of manna which Moses performed. To which he replied with today’s verse, that He was indeed the bread of life.

Let’s eat. 

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.

Sing

This week we begin worship with:

Revelation 15:3

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!

The song of Moses in Exodus 15:1-21 does not contain this text.  But both songs are sung after the strong hand of God has redeemed His people and destroyed the enemy.

This then is the second verse written by the Lamb and when sung together it gives a picture of the steadfast love of our God over the generations.

This is not sung by angels  This is sung by the redeemed.  And I dare say Miriam may be leading us!

Exodus 15:20-21

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them:

“Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Resolute

This morning we begin worship with:

Joshua 1:8-9

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

This is a command that is a series of commands to a newly appointed Joshua. And the command to Joshua was to follow another list of commands. That is the Book of the Law.  In other words he got his”Marching Orders”.

Some take the words prosperous (ṣālēaḥ) and success śāḵal) to mean a life without problems filled with affluence and obedient children. No, there words are associated with success on the battlefield and in administering justice.  These words come after bloodshed and crime.  During all of which we should be resolute. 

First

Today we begin our worship with:

1 John 4:18-19a

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

While hate is the opposite of love, it is fear that actively opposes it.  The degree to which we can love is determined by our level of fear.  Many stories are told of parents overcoming fear to rescue a beloved child.

But while love is attempting to cast out (ballō) fear, fear is actively holding on to (echō) punishment.  To love we must understand that we ourselves are loved and will not be punished.

1 John 4:16-17

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

Redeemed, we must let go of that fear of punishment, then it will be hard to punish others by withholding our love.  So it is true that:

1 John 4:19b
We love because he first loved us.

 

 

 

 

 

Everything!

 This week we begin worship with:

Hebrews 1:1-2

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Most of us have sections of the Bible where the pages are still new and the gilding is still on the edge.  In a sword drill, if they call out a minor prophet, we have to use the table of contents and have to peel the pages apart.  However, the Hebrews to whom the letter was written, received God’s Word through the prophets.  If they could, that would be the scrolls that would be dog-eared, highlighted, and falling out of the binding.

But in this, the very first verses of this book, the author introduces them instead to the creator and heir of all things.  He is responsible for everything from the Day of Creation(Genesis 2:4-25) to what is called the Great Day (Revelation 16:14), the Day of Wrath (Romans 2:5), and the Day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).  Everything!

He is why our Bibles fall open to the Gospels.