The Sanctity of Human Life
Genesis 1:26-27
This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the morning service on January 18, 2009. On Sanctity of Life Sunday, Pastor Chris addressed abortion and racism.
Archive for January, 2009
Participate and Pray
To the Saints at Immanuel
Please keep a close eye on the announcements over the next few weeks as we have several events upcoming. Plan to participate in whatever way you can! Church is the fellowship of believers united in the body of Christ to glorify God by working for his kingdom. You cannot do this if you do not participate. For many of you, poor health prevents you from participating as much as you would like. We know your heart and desire is to serve the Lord. God knows it as well. Continue to support the work of the church through your prayers and through the telephone. You can always call others with an encouraging word and all of us always need prayer.
Prayer is vital to the ministry of the church but it is often neglected. All believers need to be active in prayer. Believers whose health prevents them from other activities can use their situation as an opportunity to devote more time to prayer. Pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for the lost. Pray for the ministries of the church. And pray Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
January 14, 2009
There were 24 at our January luncheon meeting this past Tuesday. Our Bible study was taken from Psalm 146 and 147. Both of these Psalms were words of praise to the Lord. Of course Bob helped us draw deeper meaning from the written Word.
Our program guest was Dorothy Lumley. She shared her experiences of the many mission trips she had made with her church family of St. Andrew Baptist. She has made trips to Mexico, Brazil, and Africa in the last five years and she is ready to go again in 2009. Her program was enjoyed by all.
We would like to make our February meeting a churchwide event. We plan to combine our meeting and the annual Valentine Banquet. Ladies, please let Joyce or myself know if you will decorate a table in the Valentine theme. The date is February 13th at 6:00 pm. More information will follow soon.
Please remember to be involved in all Immanuel has planned for us.
Apologetics: What About Suffering?
Job 2:9-10
This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the evening service on January 11, 2009. In this message we look at the Christian response to suffering.
Praise to our God for His Blessing in Christ
Ephesians 1:3
This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the morning service on January 11, 2009. Continuing our series in Ephesians, Pastor Chris looks at Paul’s praise to God the Father.
Last week we looked at Ephesians 1:1-2 where we learned some things about Paul, the author of this letter, and some things about the Christians he was writing to. Today we move into a section of praise. Our focus this morning is on just one verse but we will soon start to pick up the pace, moving a little more quickly through the letter.
Our passage today, Ephesians 1:3, introduces a section of praise. It was common for Paul’s letters to begin with praise but this section is a little unique for being the longest and perhaps the most enthusiastic expression of praise found in Paul’s writings. It goes from verse 3 to verse 14 and in the Greek this whole section makes up one long sentence. Although our focus this morning is on verse 3 I would like us to start by reading the whole praise section, Ephesians 1:3-14.
Paul’s praise is enthusiastic, filled with exultation for what God has done. Paul goes on and on describing the gift of God in our salvation and the union we have with one another in Christ. Although we are still at the beginning of the doctrinal part of Paul’s letter and not yet to his instructions for living, we already start to see one aspect of what it means to live as a Christian. Paul is demonstrating for us what God seeks from those who are saved: praise and rejoicing.
By writing this Paul is showing us three ways that he has and is giving praise to God. One of those ways is obvious. The other two, perhaps not so obvious.
First, Paul is writing to a group of believers most of who came to Christ as a result of Paul’s ministry. Paul showed his praise to God by going out and sharing with others what God had done for him. We talk about the things we delight in and Paul delighted in God, delighted to spread the news about God and the gifts God has offered to mankind. What Paul received from God was worth talking about. For Paul, offering praise God was not just a matter of saying worshipful words, it was also a matter of putting praise into action by going out and drawing attention to the source of that praise, drawing people’s attention to God and what he has done.
We have used the football illustration before. If your football team does something spectacular, you want other people to know about it. You are excited. You talk about it. You spread the word. How many of you were tempted to come in here covered in blue and orange? We love to praise our team, our children, our job performance by talking to others about them. Paul loved to praise God by constantly telling others what God had done for him.
What does it say about us if we do not consider God’s gracious gift of salvation something worth talking about? Does it excite you, what God has done for you? Is it worth talking about? Will you praise him in this way?
The second way this passage shows Paul’s praise is through his continued edification of the believers. He had told them the good news of Jesus Christ, now he wanted to take them deep. He introduced them to God, now he wants them to know God fully. He wanted to help them grow in the faith. Ephesians is not a superficial book. For that matter, nothing in the Bible is superficial! Paul did not want to see superficial Christians breathing mostly empty words of praise to a God they had met but knew nothing about. We are often too willing to let our knowledge of God stop at a superficial level. But Paul saw in God depths and majesty that drew him deeper in his knowledge of God. He studied God’s revelation of himself in Scripture and through the Holy Spirit gave to the believers new revelation about God.
Going back to football, you can usually tell the person who is a hard core fan. This is the guy who can tell you every stat about every player on the team. He can tell you every good play made by the coach – and every bad play. He knows the team because he delights in the team. Do you delight in God? Do you know God? In 2 Peter 3:18 Peter instructs the believers: grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We do this not out of duty or obligation but because we delight in him and want to know more about that which we delight in. If you struggle to delight in God, do not despair but study and learn and grow all the more and pray that in the process God would show you new depths of love for him.
Did you notice that this passage is theology in the form of praise? Paul does not separate his knowledge of God from his praises to God. How he praises God comes from what he knows about God. Praise that is worthy of our Lord will be rooted in knowledge of God. It will display an understanding of God’s character and nature and will offer meaningful thanks to God for his work on our behalf.
So much of what passes for worship these days displays very little understanding of God, very little of the depth of his character and the goodness of his love for us. For example, it is not enough to always sing about God’s love if we do not sing of what that love is. This is one thing I love about many of the old hymns. They go beyond surface level expressions of praise and actually go into detail as to why God is being praised. The hymn Amazing Grace doesn’t just tell us that God has amazing grace, it also tells us why we think his grace is so amazing. There is a lot of new worship music today that has this same sort of depth, but much more that lacks it. Too many churches and too many Christians are worshiping God with empty words and hollow songs that sound like praise but have little content. Paul’s praise in this passage dives into the depths of God’s righteous character and sovereign mercy and explains in detail why God is worthy to be praised. Our praise should do the same.
The third way this passage shows praise is the most obvious: the passage itself is a verbal, enthusiastic display of rejoicing. Paul does not hide his enthusiasm, and his enthusiasm is rooted in what God has done for us. His praise shows us how we ought to be praising God.
In verse 3 Paul sets the parameters for who receives praise. God is the source of blessing so God is the object of his praise. We talked at Thanksgiving that it is not enough to be a generally thankful person, your thanks must have God as its object. Your praise should also have God as its object. Praise and worship means making much of God. Exalting him. Glorifying him – which means drawing attention to him and highlighting his character. This is part of the reason you need to know more about him in order to worship him. How can you magnify the majesty of his character and nature and divine acts if you only know him and his acts on a surface level? Know God, and make him known. Make him known through your praise and worship of him.
What Paul is doing in verses 3-14 is similar to an Old Testament type of praise known as the berakah. A short example is found in Psalm 68:19: Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. What distinguishes Paul’s praise from Old Testament praise is that it includes revelation about God that was not available to Old Testament saints. The new part here is that Paul is not just praising God but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is praising God, with that praise focused on God the Father.
In the New Testament we learn that ours is a trinitarian God. He is one while being three. I have promised you this before, but someday we will have a sermon just on the trinity. Right now let’s look briefly at the Father and the Son.
Jesus Christ, fully God, the Son of God. Throughout the gospel of John we find John stressing the son-ship of Jesus. Jesus is the eternal Son of God. We see this from the very beginning of John:
John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
And a little later:
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Son, who displays the glory of the Father, took on flesh and dwelt among us. It is interesting that while God is one and three, the attention in the trinity is on the Father. Jesus came to show the Father and the work of reuniting lost humanity with God is specifically so that we too can be children of the Father. In verse 2 Paul spoke of God our Father showing that Jesus did accomplish the goal of making us the children of God. God is our Father because of what was done through his eternal Son, Jesus Christ. Thus Ephesians 1:5 says we are sons because of adoption through Jesus Christ.
Are your prayers and praise trinitarian? Do you pray to the Father as Jesus prayed to the Father? I don’t think it wrong if our prayers focus on the Son or the Holy Spirit – at times I believe they should! – but most of my prayers are directed to the Father, following the example of Jesus who taught us to pray in this way: our Father in Heaven…
Also don’t miss what Paul says about Jesus. In verse 2 we read of our Father. The our in verse 3 is our Lord Jesus Christ. We are reminded that Jesus is to be Lord of our lives. Follow him, be obedient to him, submit to him, be formed in his likeness. One reason for this is that we are to display in our lives the glory and light of God. Jesus came, as we saw, showing the glory of the Father. When we live as he lived we will reflect that glory.
After declaring the Father blessed Paul goes on to give the reason for his praise. This is what fills the rest of this passage through verse 14. God willing, we will begin looking at the content of his reason for praise in two weeks. But before going into specific acts of God Paul gives the general reason for his praise: God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. There are three points to this: God has blessed us; he has blessed us in Christ; and he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
First, God has blessed us. We talked about this a bit last time – all that we receive by the Lord we receive from his grace. The blessing Paul has in mind here is our salvation. We do not deserve mercy and grace and blessing from God. We are, all of us, worthy of his just judgment but instead he gave us Christ and gives us himself. We praise him because he has done something magnificent for us which we did not deserve.
When we bless God, as Paul does here, it is a matter of praising him, elevating him, glorifying him. When God blesses us it is more in terms of giving us gifts such as salvation, eternal security, and a lasting hope in him. God’s blessing to us is not meant to draw attention to us but to lead us to draw attention to God. We will see more of this in the coming verses – you might grow tired of hearing me say it! – but three times in verses 3-14 we learn that God’s gifts to us are intended to cause us to glorify him. verse 6: to the praise of his glorious grace… verse 12: to the praise of his glory… and again in verse 14: to the praise of his glory. All of God’s blessings to us are meant to draw praise and adoration from us.
The second point Paul makes is that the Father blesses us in Christ. All of these blessings come only because of what Christ has done. Paul specifically has salvation in mind here, but every good gift of God – salvation to us, physical and material good to saved and unsaved – come only because of Christ. We don’t have time to unpack this in detail, but briefly every good ever experienced by man has come because of what Christ did on the cross. We know that salvation comes through the cross. But it’s not just salvation. Every good gift from above comes because of the work of Christ. We won’t take the time to look at it now but Paul’s point in Romans 3:21-26 is that even God’s patience with us, giving us another day to be saved, comes because of what Christ did on the cross. In Ephesians Paul praises God for those gifts we have received in Christ – from and through the grace of God given to us in the life and work of Jesus.
Finally, Paul says that God has blessed us with every Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. What are the spiritual blessings Paul has in mind? On the one hand, this is talking about spiritual things versus physical things. We have not been promised physical health or prosperity in this life but we have been promised an unending hope of life and glory and riches with Christ. But Paul has something more specific in mind. Spiritual blessings are those things coming to us from the Holy Spirit of God. This would cover all aspects of the Christian life, salvation to sanctification. We are saved when we are born again by the Holy Spirit and the process of being made holy is also done through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul tells us that the blessings from the Holy Spirit are sent to us by God the Father and through or in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the channel for all of God’s blessings to man and the Holy Spirit is the vehicle carrying and working in us God’s good purposes for us. This is one thing that demonstrates the unity of the trinity. Though three, they are united in purpose and work to bring salvation to man.
It is a little difficult to understand what Paul means by in the heavenly places. I think his meaning is that spiritual blessings – which normally belong to the spiritual, heavenly realm – are able to come to us now on earth through Jesus Christ. Heaven is something we look forward to. We long for the experience of Heaven when we will be in direct, unbroken contact with God, able to worship him without any taint of sin for all eternity. No pain, no suffering, no misery, no conflict between man and man or man and God. Peace and fellowship and love. That’s what we look forward to in Heaven. But we do not have to wait until Heaven for the full experience of these blessings. God in Christ extends to us here, now, the chance for peace with God and a life lived in relationship with him. We don’t wait for Heaven to be adopted as children of God. We don’t wait for Heaven to experience salvation. In Heaven we will know the full experience of these things, but these spiritual blessings, found in heavenly places, have been given to us even now through Jesus Christ.
All of this is in Christ. All from Christ. All through Christ. To experience these blessings you must be his. To know salvation requires faith in salvation’s source, Jesus Christ. If you have not yet come to Christ I want to challenge you to do so today. Salvation is a matter of a sinner being ripped from the clutches of Hell. It is a dead man being brought to life. A hopeless man brought into hope. The only way to find this rescue, this life, this hope, is in Jesus Christ. Come to Christ.
Blessed, indeed, be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places!
Fellowship Meal Survey
We are considering restarting our Wednesday evening fellowship meals but have some questions for you all to help in our planning. Please answer the following questions and return this to the church office or drop it in the offering plate on Sunday.
Would you attend the fellowship meals?
What start time would work well for you? 5:30?
What is the most you would be willing to pay?
Would you be willing to pay a different amount each week if that helped with food variety ($5 one week, $4 the next, etc)?
January 07, 2009
Our very first 2009 luncheon meeting will be Tuesday, January 13th at 10 am. You come – bring your Bible for Bible Study and a covered dish for lunch. Our program guest will be Dorothy Lumley and she will tell us about the mission trips she has taken.
We would like to make our February meeting a churchwide event. We plan to combine our meeting and the annual Valentine Banquet. Ladies, please let Joyce or myself know if you will decorate a table in the Valentine theme. We need this information ASAP – like the 11th or 13th of January. More information will follow soon.
As we begin this new year, please remember to be involved in all Immanuel has planned for us.
Martha
Youth Game Night
On Friday, January 16, 2009 we will have a youth game night at the youth house from 6:00 to 8:00 Youth are encouraged to come and bring friends for a time of snacks and games.
Adults are asked to bring snacks and we could use a few volunteers. Please see Nathan Creel if you can help out.
Apologetics: Is There a God?
Psalm 14:1
This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the evening service on January 04, 2009. The first of a new series on apologetics, believers are encouraged to consider how they know there is a God.
Adopt A Highway Trash Pickup
Meet at the church and be ready to leave by 7:00 am on Saturday, January 10 to help pick up trash along a stretch of Highway 98.