God’s word is a gift and daily reading is a blessing – although we often struggle with it as a chore. Below are four steps to help you get the most out of devotional time. I suggest setting apart 15 minutes a day to read and starting with one chapter daily. The goal is not information but transformation – don’t read for quantity but quality of understanding. In order to do this…
- Pray
- Clear yourself of sin and any agenda you might have. Don’t read to prove yourself right, read to right yourself before God.
- Fill yourself with the Spirit. Redirect your thoughts towards Christ, invite the Spirit’s presence and guidance as you read scripture.
- Read
- Be intentional, read slowly (maybe out loud). As you read expect God to reveal something to you.
- Read minimally – mass consumption forces us to skip. Don’t read 10 chapters in one day and miss the point of all ten, rather read 1-2 chapters and truly digest them.
- Meditate/Memorize
- Meditate on the principle of what the text has taught you. Ask God to show you how to live this out today.
- Memorize the scripture that encapsulates the principle.
- Live it out
- Ask God to help you apply the truth of scripture to your life.
- Live with pause in your life to examine your actions in light of that passage.
Here’s a primer to start with daily Bible reading, I suggest the following schedule…
- Sunday – Haggai 1
- Monday – Haggai 2
- Tuesday – 1 Thessalonians 1
- Wednesday – 1 Thessalonians 2
- Thursday – 1 Thessalonians 3
- Friday – 1 Thessalonians 4
- Saturday – 1 Thessalonians 5
Today we start fully exploring our new mission, prior to this we’ve been laying the foundation. Our mission starts in God’s personal nature and is realized when we connect with him in a saving relationship.
Our mission fully realized is: We exist to love God through worship, love the church through fellowship, love the world through evangelism and love the broken through compassion.
1. Meaning of Worship
- Hebrew for worship literally: fall down (prostrate), be weighted down.
- It seems to me that we have misunderstood God and worship. Many people seem to come to church on Sunday go through spiritual withdrawal throughout the week and pop in a worship track to get them through.
- We’ve come to God like a giant teddy bear, cuddling up for some spiritual warmth. But the truth is that when God is revealed to his people, particularly in the Old Testament they were afraid.
- Being weighted down is the natural response in God’s presence, becoming weak in the knees. This is clearly seen in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3 which shows that the Israelites were totally incapacitated by God’s presence and were unable to do anything but worship.
- Worship continues with much of the same idea into the New Testament although there is less fear and more emotion with the Greek understanding.
- Greek predominantly meant: meaning to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand, also to bow, literally to kiss towards.
- Look at the beautiful picture and literal portrayal of worship in Luke 7:36-50.
- Here in this passage we see the culmination of this truth, this woman comes to Jesus, is weighted down with his glory and begins to weep at his feet, kissing them. Worship at its best.
- In both of these definitions worship is sacrifice.
- Both of these definitions require sacrifice – deep personal sacrifice. The woman’s hair represents a total humiliation before people, completely undignified.
- What is our worship today? What is our sacrifice? It is an hour on Sunday – given to praise. It is a commitment to honesty even at the cost of business dealings. It is a check given to the church. It is an hour in the nursery so others can worship.
2. Mode of Worship
- How is it that we offer this worship? In the Old Testament the mode of worship was so complicated that an army of full-time employees called priests were utilized to ensure the proper mode of worship.
- In John 4:1-42 Jesus cuts through all of this and reveals the that the mode of worship is to be both in…
- Spirit
- Worshipping God happens in the Spirit and is not confined to a place or time, neither this mountain nor Jerusalem.
- Worship is laying down everything before God and in return God lifts us up to his vantage point and shows us things from his perspective.
- When we worship in Spirit we see a connection and clarity. (Acts 13:2)
- Truth
- Romans 1:20-25 makes it clear that we can inappropriately give our worship to something else. False worship lays out the ugliness of our life and turns our life toward the debase.
- What makes true worship is a true object of worship. We must be clear that we worship God, why we worship him. We must consecrate ourselves for this task and focus on his worth.
3. Model of Worship
- Romans 12:1-8 makes it clear that worship is any sacrifice dedicated to God alone. Worship is the engine that drives all other relationships and is found in all other relationships.
- We need both a lifestyle of worship and pure worship to keep our lives strong. Like in a marriage Jenny and I go out 75% of the time with our kids, but we need that 25% of our time alone to strengthen that bond.
- We’re married the entire time – but sometimes you need some special quiet time together. So it is with God, we must have acts of devotion for him and him alone to guard and keep our relationship.
- We honor Romans 12 when we bow in prayer, when we have hearts bowed to God, when our bowed hearts lead to other activities in Jesus’ name then we extend our worship into those activities. But not before that.
- Sunday morning should inspire us to meet God daily. Meeting God daily should lead us to serving God daily. Sunday guides our daily meetings and our daily meetings guide our daily lives.
- How do we get to this point? We need time of pure worship, pure undistracted unadulterated worship with God to give us perspective.
- A story that illustrates this is in Matthew 25:1-13. Ten bridesmaids are found, only five kept their lamps lit and were accepted. Worship is the filling of our lamp.
- Worship keeps our hearts lit with the light of Christ so that we can see what God’s will is. Worship is where we surrender everything to God and focus solely on him and it’s here that God lifts us up out of the everyday, giving us eternal perspective.
The best thing that could happen this morning is for you to start a conversation with God about salvation. This might mean that you realize you haven’t started a relationship with Jesus Christ and speak with God about it. Perhaps you need to reexamine your thinking on a few key issues of salvation and you start talking to God about it. If you disagree hang on and finish it out, look up scripture and then let’s talk. You can do that through a comment on this post, email or phone call.
This morning our message is in two parts, the first part is foundational. I want to finish looking at the shema and look at a few key verses to understanding the physical in our saving relationship with God. Secondly, I want to look at how salvation happens.
1. Our response to God’s presence is love.
- We love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. (Mark 12:30)
- We talked about this last week when we looked at the shema and explored who God is and saw that God’s presence requires a response. The response is to love, but how do you love God? How do you start a relationship with God?
- The problem is that we’ve viewed salvation too long as a process not as a relationship. We get the formula to salvation wrong because it’s not a checklist but an organic relationship that grows. When we view it as a checklist it promotes external obedience, while a relationship brings about internal transformation. The shema gets at this interior matter when it commands us to “love.”
- How do you know someone loves you? You can’t examine it, x-ray it, test it. You just know it! How do you love God? How do you start in the relationship?
- A few things come easy – mind. This maybe comes the easiest, we see God, realize that he is lovable and worthy of devotion. We see his attributes and are drawn to him.
- What follows the mind? Our heart. That’s a devotion, a commitment, a passion. Fierce loyalty – develops over time. As we know more about God we love him more with our hearts and are drawn to him – our desire increases to be in his presence.
- Our soul is more difficult to know and discern – but in quietness our soul can rest in God’s presence and we find a peace inside that previously did not exist. Psalm 131:1-2 celebrates a soul stilled and quieted before God. Our soul draws us, everything to God.
- Strength represent the physical – meaning what we do matters.
- For too long we have allowed secular philosophy, Greek philosophy in particular tell us that the physical is insignificant. We have believed that God is spiritual and all that is good is spiritual – nothing physical has any importance.
- So we have sterilized our faith of all the physical – but this isn’t what God intended. God creates physical beings – man woman, tells us there will be a new earth and new heaven. So often when God talks about blessing he talks about physical blessings – peace, wealth, health, family.
- Not only that but he has related with us through the physical: circumcision, sacrifice, baptism. The written word, the spoken word.
Baptism is the consummation of our relationship.
- Physical is important – this is why scripture values the act of baptism.
- This analogy to marriage is necessary, it’s almost as though God gave us marriage as a giant object lesson and parenting as a way to show his love to us.
- 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
- Ephesians 5:25-26, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind-yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. “
- Communion is the continual wedding feast.
- Matthew 26:29, “I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
But we don’t just jump into the baptismal, there are some steps that lead up to it. Again this is not a checklist you must accomplish; it’s more like a natural law. Scientists describe gravity they do not govern it. Here I will try to describe this relationship as it normally progresses, not dictate it to you.
What I’m about to describe answers the question, “How do I get saved?” but the better question is “How do I enter a relationship with God?” Because when you do that you discover life and life eternal.
As we saw in the previous passages we will blur the lines between a love that grows into a marriage and love that grows into a saving relationship with God. So, I’ll be using personal examples from my own marriage and relationship to help us understand God’s love. We do this because salvation is so natural; we have made it complicated and awkward with prescribed prayers and rituals. I can think back to sitting in other churches and at events where if you want to get saved everyone bows their head, closes their eyes and then prays a prayer, after that with everyone’s head bowed you raise your hand, then if you raised your hand you come forward but this time open your eyes. You come forward, do the hokey-pokey turn yourself around and return to your seat. What relationship starts like that?
2. We build a relationship with God like any other we… (Acts 2)
- Meet
- This is the step we have bypassed, we jump right into the commitment. You don’t ask someone to marry you on the first date. Even in arranged marriages there is some dialogue that happens prior between the two families. We must meet God and God’s family – the church.
- Too often we get stuck in this phase because it’s fun, we like the church, we love the idea of God but we’re afraid to make a commitment. The problem is that in the dating phase there is no relationship.
- In Acts 2 we see Peter introduce Jesus to the crowds in the temple and they meet Jesus.
- Make a commitment
- After the crowds meet Jesus they realize something more is required. They essentially ask, “What saves us? ” Again this is a bad question – but a common question. This question says, “What must I do?” The right question is, “How do I start a relationship with God?”
- Last week we met a God who is perfect and loving, who desires to spend eternity with us and all we can ask is, “What can I do to be saved?” When we ask this we sell God short and ourselves.
- The relationship with God is what brings salvation; there is no relationship without a commitment. It’s here that we say, I want to love you for a lifetime. We call it engagement. In the spiritual realm it’s repentance and faith.
- Repentance is the step of faith, not a step to faith. Repentance moves us from disbelief to belief, from disobedience to obedience. Just as in a marriage, we come clean of our pasts and it’s accepted into the vows and grace of marital love. We don’t just marry the present and future of someone, but their past as well.
- No hand raising, here we ask you to confess your love for God before the congregation. Simply state, “Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.” We do this publicly because our love is public. Matthew 10:32 tells us that whoever acknowledges Christ before others, Christ will acknowledge before God in heaven.
- Marry
- Commitment grows and is finalized in the act of marriage.
- Originally I wanted this to be “consummate” but didn’t necessarily like the sound. But it’s true that just like the consummation of the marriage is the physical and final sealing so it is with baptism.
- Consummation is more than a physical act we see in 1 Corinthians 6:15-16 that the physical act of sex is a spiritually binding act – maybe you didn’t know that from watching TV.
- It’s not just the physical it’s the spiritual also. There’s a word for this and its sacrament. A sacrament is a physical act with a spiritual significance. We’re a bit afraid of that word because more liturgical and traditional churches use it and have expanded it beyond scripture. But in it’s base form a sacrament is something physical that has a spiritual significance. Circumcision is such an act and baptism is also such an act.
- Celebrate
- When the wedding is finalized and the spiritual bond is there we celebrate.
- In Jewish wedding tradition after the ceremony the bride and groom would go into a tent, while family and friends waited nearby. Once the marriage was consummated he would come out of the tent and proudly proclaim – “I’ve have consummated the marriage.” The crowd would applaud and the party would start.
- So to it is with Christ. Once the act of baptism takes place we seal our relationship and the celebration ensues.
- Our life should be a life filled with joy! This joy and celebration is powered by the Holy Spirit! Prior to knowing God we had no relationship with the Spirit, once we come to know God and have a relationship with him the Holy Spirit comes and fills every believer. He is your relationship coach if you will – helping you to know what pleases God and will bless your relationship.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” – Deuteronomy 6:4-5, NIV
This is the very first Christian “mission statement” and actually it predates Christianity, it’s found in the Originl Testament. This passage of scripture is referred to as the shema. Here Israel is commanded to “hear,” that word in Hebrew is Shema.
So why have we made an “improvement”? After all if this statement was good enough for our ancient Jewish forefathers and good enough for Jesus, why isn’t it good enough for us? Because like the lawyer in Luke 10, we want to get off easy – without too much work. We ask along with the lawyer, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In Luke, Jesus turns the question back on the lawyer and we see that we knew the answer already. But, to save face and hopefully some time and effort the lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” In response to his question Jesus gives us the parable of the “Good Samaritan.” And in response to our question we have helped to clarify who is my neighbor – and it’s everyone.
But, before we can get there we must start at the beginning, we must start with God. Today, we will not look at us so much as we will be looking at God. Who is God? Does he even want a relationship with us? How do we know? I want to introduce you to God. Now obviously the depth of the introduction compared with the depth of his infinite character will be a bit shallow, but I believe that in the next few minutes we can come to know the God of the universe with a fair amount of reliability.
[Please note that the bold portions correspond with the blanks and sentences contained in the Operation Identity workbook. This sermon is found on page seven.]
1. God’s Nature Is Personal (Trinity)
- We know this because he has existed as a personable entity since eternity. This personal nature starts within the Trinity. Perfect community in the Trinity, God can relate to us because for eternity He has related to the Trinity.
- God’s initial dealings with mankind are very personal walking and talking with man in the garden, speaking to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses.
- This is further attested to by the prophets where God has chosen to be known as “the God of his people.” (Jeremiah 24:7) He is defined by his actions of grace and love towards those who are his. He desires to call us as “his own” and for us to call him “ours.”
- God’s gift is revelation – his introduction!
- He manifests his grace and love primarily through his own revelation of himself. Realize that we would never have imagined God – thought God up – invented God.
- God revealed himself to us; we distorted that image – that’s why there is a plurality of poor god choices in the world.
- There are three particularly strong revelations in history and scripture that each reveal something unique about God…
- Creation revealed God’s presence,
- Romans 1:19-20, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse;”
- God’s presence has been revealed in Creation, but merely recognizing his existence is insufficient to save. Like with any personality we must not merely know of them if we are to be in a relationship with them. We must have a more intimate knowledge – so to it is with God.
- The Law revealed God’s perfection,
- Galatians 3:24, “Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.”
- The NASB translates “disciplinarian” as “tutor” this word is used of a slave whose job it was to take children to school and back.
- The law took us to the truth in Christ. Along the way it taught the three most important truths from the Old Testament about God, which are: First, that God was holy and desired righteousness. Second, that we could not be holy in and of ourselves – we couldn’t come to God. Finally, through the sacrificial system that we didn’t have to pay for our sins – something or someone could take our place.
- Christ revealed God’s passion.
- If the law revealed the mind of God then the New Testament shows his heart most clearly. John 3:16, “”For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
- 1 Timothy 2:4 is crystal clear in this when it says that God desires that “everyone” would be saved. God may be perfect, but he is also perfectly loving and earnest to save.
- God’s love in Christ has been revealed on the cross and will be fully revealed on the last day when heaven and earth are no more. Until then he reveals himself to humanity through the church which is called his body – this is a serious task, one we will talk about in a few weeks.
2. God’s Existence Is Perfect (Unity)
- God’s nature is personal, that’s who he is. But, there’s a deeper framework supporting everything about God . The shema reveals this when it says, “God is One.” Oneness is a sense of completeness, a sense of unity. It tells us that while the God may have three distinct personages: Father, Son, Spirit, they are still one.
- It also tells us that God is all sufficient, he needs nothing and no one. He lives in perfect contentedness and community inside of the Trinity. But the community in the trinity is perfected in its unity. Some have said that God created us because he was lonely, not really. He may have desired us – but he was completely sufficient and content without us.
- He is a creator – he needs to create. But realize that Jesus Christ is the eternally begotten son. He is a lover – he needs to love. There is shared love between the Godhead – it is out of that love that creation is born. He creates and he loves – for no other reason than that he made us, because he wanted to and he wanted to love us! That’s it!
- When is it time to have children in a marriage, when there’s more than enough love! Not when things are difficult – they won’t make marriage better. But when the love overflows and the love overflowed from the relationship of the Trinity creating us.
3. God’s Presence Requires A Response (Community)
- We could talk now through eternity about God and still not cover it all but at some point we must respond. If God is relational and God is perfect, that means a perfect God wants to love you and be in a relationship with you then – this truth requires a response!
- I didn’t know everything about my wife when I married her – I’m still learning, but at some point in our relationship a response was required.
- The rest of the five weeks we will talk about our response – we call it Christianity. Christianity is our response to God’s love and it includes…
- Love God (Weeks 2 & 3)
- Our response to God’s revelation is love, love for God. This love is all consuming involving all of us, heart, soul, mind and strength.
- This is the truth found in the shema “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
- We start to love God by accepting his gift of salvation in Christ. This week you can accept that gift, next week we will talk at length about it. What does it mean to be saved? How do I connect with God? Or start a relationship with him. But you don’t have to wait for that, accept his love today.
- Love People (Weeks 4-6)
- “Love your neighbor as yourself” This is the addition that Christ makes to the shema his clarification if you will.
- This final portion shows that our relationship with God is to be manifested outwards as well as upwards.
