Archive for the ‘Hope’ Tag
Our Father’s Hope For all: In Jesus’ Body Being His Church! Part 9
Part 9A:
Part 9B:
Full Message:
Main Bible Verse: Acts 2
Introduction:
The Father has poured out His Spirit upon all that all will receive Jesus as Lord, personally, receiving His invitation that He might indwell them. Jesus, in His Father’s mission continues to go out in the power of the Spirit, drawing every person, everywhere, to Himself, and with the special participation of believers, His Church! Jesus, through His Church, still has an earthly and historical Body unified in the Spirit that worships Him, witnesses to Him, and joins Him in the ministry of calling all to trust Him as Lord and Savior in Relationship!
Theological Theme:
Even In the middle of pandemic, prejudice, police brutality, panic and pandemonium, Grace and Peace is upon us from God our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus is the One Who baptizes in the Holy Spirit that we might participate with Him in His Life and relationship of Love with the Father! His is not just any old kind of love but Love as it has been revealed in the life, words and deeds of Jesus Christ as attested to in holy scripture. Jesus Christ is the Revelation of Who God is! Jesus Christ is the revelation of what it means to be a Real human being and, through His Holy Spirit, is intent to share his humanity with us that we might be more truly and fully human, glorifying our Father!
Christ Connection:
“The church is commanded to lift up its head in joy, for its ‘redemption is drawing near’ Meantime in all its waiting and expectation the church is commanded by its Lord to lift up its head in thanksgiving and joy, for its ‘redemption is drawing near’. The church of the risen Lord has no right to be a prophet of gloom or despair, for this world has been redeemed and sanctified by Christ and he will not let it go. The corruptible clay of our poor earth has been taken up in Jesus, is consecrated through his sacrifice and resurrection, and he will not allow it to sink back into corruption. Hence the whole creation groans and travails waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, looking forward with eager expectation to the hour of final liberation and renewal in the advent of its risen saviour.” – Thomas Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, page 348 (Chapter: The Nature of the Resurrection Event)
Missional Application:
“The church must learn to take into its mouth the good news of the resurrection and new creation, for that must be its primary note, one of limitless joy and thanksgiving. That is how the church began its mission at Pentecost where the dominant emphasis in all its preaching was the resurrection of the crucified Christ and the astounding fact that because of Christ the Spirit of God himself was poured out upon men and women. They knew that the last times had overtaken them and that they were caught up in the onward and outward thrust of the resurrection of Christ toward the new creation in which all nations and peoples and all times would be brought to share. The involvement of the church in the suffering of mankind must never be allowed to stifle that supreme note of resurrection triumph or to smother the eschatological joy at the astounding events that have broken into history and pledged for mankind the final day of regeneration.” – Thomas Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, page 348 (Chapter: The Nature of the Resurrection Event)
Photo Compliments: turnbacktogod.com
Our Father’s Hope For All: In Jesus’ Reconciliation! pt. 5
Part 5A:
Part 5B:
Full Message:
Main Bible Verse: 2 Corinthians 5: 1-21
Introduction:
Celebrating Jesus as Our Resurrection
“Our Father’s Hope For All” emphasizes what Jesus’ reconciliation is for all, what it accomplished for all and how we, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit shared with us, can participate in what Jesus has done for all to the glory of God our Father.
According to T.F. Torrance (1992): “As our Representative and Substitute, Jesus Christ is our human response to God.’- T.F. Torrance: Union with Christ through the Communion of the Spirit
Theological Theme:
God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, sent Jesus Christ to humanity so that whomever believes in him, trusts and receives Him, would not perish due to trusting in Jesus and in His power by The Holy Spirit. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” – John 3: 16
“God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.”- (T. F. Torrance, “The Mediation of Christ,” 94)
Christ Connection:
Jesus Christ is “The Center Of The Center (of everything in Creation).” He is the world’s Lord and Savior. When you want to understand the central purpose for everything, you must look to Jesus Christ because, apart from Him, we can’t know anything as it should be known. We can’t know His Father, and we can’t know anything about his Holy Spirit, and we can’t even really know anything about ourselves or Creation.
Jesus is the Mediator between God and man. He is the One who mediates our humanity to God and who mediates God to fallen man. In total dependence we look to Him, look at life through Him, and receive along with Him His Father in the Spirit. Empowered by Him we look with Him beyond our own self-centeredness first to his Father and then in that love to our neighbors – loving them as we love ourselves and with the very love with which Jesus has loved us.
What Jesus did and does as The Resurrection is so that we might have a share in HIS LIFE, HIs Resurrection.
A life first filled with Jesus’s relationship with His Father in the Spirit. And then a life filled with his love for everyone and everything else.
Our identity lies only in Jesus Christ who has taken up our cause, our humanity, our human nature and Who alone has put us right before God, sending His Spirit that we might trust Him as the one and only source of life. JESUS – the center and core of our personal identity!
We are being encouraged by Jesus Christ, The Resurrection, to receive our new humanity in these feeble bodies now, while also looking with hope to the complete renewal of our human bodies in the future at His return. We are encouraged by our Father to prepare for the resurrected life in which we will be even more gloriously and fully human, in a human body, just like Jesus.
Jesus judged sin in sinful flesh. He killed sin thoroughly and by his life, suffering, death and resurrection. On the third day he raised up a new human nature and a new body in His resurrection. It is a humanity that is totally responsive to The Father in The Holy Spirit. This is what it really means to be a human being; what Jesus did, how He lives and responds in His human flesh.
Torrance (1986) writes: “Jesus Christ… embodies in himself what he mediates, for what he mediates and what he is are one and the same. He himself in the wholeness of his Person, Word and Act, is the content and reality of divine Reconciliation. He is the Propitiation for our sins; he is our Redemption; he is our Justification. It is in this identity between Mediator and Mediation that the living heart of the Gospel is to be found.” (pp. 475, 476)
Missional Application:
Every human everywhere has a great need for The Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the actual bond of love between the Father and the Son through whom it is possible for us to share in the love of the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is also God of God and He is the One who makes Jesus and The Father known to us. He is the One who enables each person and all of us to trust Jesus. He is the One who empowers us to live with Jesus and to love our neighbors. In this time period where we can’t see Jesus, Jesus sends his Spirit to us to be an Advocate for us, to teach us what Jesus is doing so we can participate with Jesus, share in His power, and live transformed. We not only receive the Spirit personally, but encourage everyone else to do the same, for God desires all to be saved and to share in his love and life!
Conclusion:
When we declare that ALL are included, we are affirming:
Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of ALL humanity.
Jesus Christ died to redeem ALL. He has atoned for the sin of EVERY single person. Through what He did God reconciled ALL people to Himself in Christ.
Jesus Christ is The Mediator between God and humanity.
Jesus Christ has made ALL His own by virtue of His redeeming work. He is for ALL and against NONE.
Jesus is The Judge of ALL so that none might experience the condemnation. His saving is done on behalf of ALL and that work includes His Holy and righteous responses to The Father in The Spirit. Responses characterized by repentance, faith, hope, love, praise, prayer, worship and obedience.
Jesus is in Himself EVERYONE’S justification and sanctification.
Jesus is EVERYONE’S substitute and representative.
Jesus is EVERYONE’S hope and life including eternal life.
Jesus is EVERYONE’S profit, priest and king.
ALL PEOPLE have been included in God’s love and life in and through Jesus Christ by The Holy Spirit.
Photo Compliments: https://myktis.com/
Our Father’s Hope For All: In The Resurrection Relationship! pt 4
Part 4A:
Part 4B:
Full Message:
Main Bible Verse: 1 Corinthians 15: 1-34
Introduction:
God The Father so loved the world that He gave His Son to us as Jesus (God in the flesh) that whoever believes in Jesus (The God Man) by the power of The Holy Spirit will not perish but will have eternal life. God’s life – the Life He talks about by which we will not perish but live and thrive – is life knowing The Father, and Son intimately in The Holy Spirit. That is Who and what Life and Resurrection is and is about.
Theological Theme:
All truly are included in God’s [Father, Son and Spirit] love and life. It doesn’t have so much to do with a decision we make but has something to do with a decision God made prior to any decision we can make and which is the basis for our decision. That decision is the Person of Jesus Christ, Who is God for us from within our humanity. The gospel is not primarily about us receiving God into our life. The gospel is primarily about the tremendous grace of God, through Jesus, receiving us into His life.
Largely it is relationship with The Father, Son and Holy Spirit by Whom you are guided about how you think about life, what you do, what you receive, and what you reject.
Christ Connection:
Resurrection means relationship with Christ and being reconciled to the Father in and through Jesus Christ. Being reconciled means being in relationship with The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Forgiveness means reconciliation with God and it means the restoration of relationship with God. Forgiveness of sin doesn’t just mean that sin ends but salvation means that we are saved INTO the restoration of relationship with God, where new relationship begins!
Missional Application:
God the Father Himself IS your Salvation. Sharing with Jesus in His relationship with His Father IS Salvation. Sharing friendship with Jesus IS Salvation. Intimacy with The Holy Spirit IS Salvation. The Holy Spirit comes upon you to reveal Christ to you, to mediate Christ to you. You respond by receiving and believing what The Holy Spirit has to say and, as God directs, witnessing to others about Him.
Photo Compliments: YouTube
Jesus The Savior Is Crucified!
Audio – Part 1a: 20 min
Audio – Part 1b: 21 min
Audio – Full Message:
Bible Verses: Matthew 27:11-51
The crucifixion of Jesus was brutal and unjust, and yet, He willingly laid His life down in obedience to the Father and for the salvation of sinners. As the substitute sacrifice, Jesus died in our place and on our behalf. As the crucified King, He demonstrated the true wisdom and power of God. And as the forsaken Son, He endured the punishment of our sin, absorbing all of our transgressions and putting them to death so we could become the righteousness of God in Him.
Theological Theme:
Jesus is the King who willingly took upon Himself the judgment for sin.
Christ Connection:
Unjustly condemned to death, Jesus willingly took up His cross and suffered the judgment our sins deserve. At the moment He died, the curtain in the temple sanctuary was torn in two, signifying the truth that sinners have access to God through the blood of Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus is the center of history, revealing God’s holiness and justice, our sinfulness and unrighteousness, and Christ’s humility and love.
Christ Our Substitute “At the heart of the atonement is Jesus Christ substituting Himself for sinners as He died on the cross. This truth is seen against the backdrop of the Old Testament sacrificial system, which provided a picture of humanity’s need for sin to be covered and guilt to be removed by an innocent sacrifice. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with humankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross, He made provision for the redemption of humanity from sin.” – The Gospel Project
Missional Application:
God the Father calls us to proclaim by the Spirit not only that Jesus died on the cross but also why He died and what it reveals about the Father’s heart and his going to the uttermost that we might be saved and participate in his love!
“He lost his own life in order to gain life for all; he preferred to be conquered in himself in order to be the victor in everyone.” – Maximus of Turin (circa 380-465)
Photo Compliments: media.istockphoto.com