A Promised Reunion
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
We are made to be in God’s presence. To be a true image of Him. And to follow His perfect ways.
But we none of that. We’ve rebelled. Rebellion lead to death and brokenness. Have you felt that?
God has given us Good News, a promise, and a path to return to that blessed state. What we lost in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve first sinned, God has for us a Promised Reunion. Can I tell you about it this morning?
Pray
Review: Deliverance - Provision - Memorial - Sacrifice - Community With God - Community With People - Reunion
Review: Deliverance - Provision - Memorial - Sacrifice - Community With God - Community With People - Reunion
This is the seventh week in a row we are reflecting on and celebrating the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a ceremony Jesus commanded that we observe to remind us that He offered His body to be killed for a sacrifice for our guilt under God; that His life and blood were poured out that we might live.
We have reflected how the actual death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus provides deliverance and provision; How it causes us to reflect on What He has done for us, and about the sacrifice He gave. We have seen how when we take time to observe this ceremony, we are drawn to reflect on and strive towards a common community with God and with all people.
And today we will lean into the promise that God will place us who place their faith in Jesus as our only hope of forgiveness into His presence. But there is only one way into the presence of God. And that is through humbly expressing our inability to access His presence ourselves. Let me illustrate.
Frank Lloyd Wright was an american architect. He didn’t design buildings, he designed experiences for the people who entered his spaces. One of his most famous experiential tools is called “compression and release.” By creating a deliberately small space through which one must pass before reaching a larger space, he caused a temporary sense of tension, followed by the feeling of freedom.
https://elizabethmurphyhouse.com/2018/12/10/compress-release-repeat/
I’ve had the pleasure to visit one Frank Lloyd Wright House in Springfield, IL. It was great, and I definitely experienced that compression and release. It was very cool!
The Lord’s Supper is that. It’s the Compression of surrender, of need, of dependence, of gratitude, of humility. We don’t have right to enter God’s presence because of the ceremony of the Lord’s Supper. But we do when we acknowledge and have faith in what the Lord’s Supper represents.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
This is likely the earliest recorded confession of faith in the church. It anchors our faith in what Jesus HAS DONE. It expresses clearly the core purpose of Jesus, and the central required belief for salvation. And it’s exactly what the Lord’s Supper calls us to rehearse.
The way we celebrate the Lord’s Supper today is by taking a small piece of of unleavened bread and a small cup of grape juice. These represent the body of Jesus that killed by crucifixion. The juice represents the blood of Jesus that poured out of His body - His life that drained to pay for our guilt.
Why does this ceremony call us to remember His death and not His victory? Because we don’t need to be constantly reminded of that great release of entering the presence of the glorious God of the Universe. We need to be constantly reminded of that only doorway into His presence - the compression of Jesus’ death and burial.
It’s through the process of our hearts being brought into community with Jesus’ heart of humility in His physical body that we will share with Him in that new glorious life and body.
Our tendency is to think we can make our way on our own. Do we trust in God, or in our own ability?
10 The name of the Lord is like a strong tower; the righteous person runs to it and is set safely on high. 11 The wealth of a rich person is like a strong city, and it is like a high wall in his imagination. 12 Before destruction the heart of a person is proud, but humility comes before honor.
What lifts us up? What sets you ‘on high’? The call today is to come humbly to God, that He might lift us up.proc
Reunion: Death to Life
Reunion: Death to Life
The natural state of humanity is death. We all rebel against God. We all are prone to sin. The love of God seems foolish to us. And so our guilt before God leaves us in spiritual death, unable to redeem ourselves.
But if there is no hope in our own efforts, there is in Jesus.
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Verse 19 is key. We follow Christ for hope in this life. But we also follow Christ for hope in death. Paul will later talk about Jesus delivering the Kingdom to God. That Kingdom is the people who trust in Him now, and it’s is those some people in God’s presence for eternity.
Salvation is both now and then. Hope in life is now and then. In Christ, we can live in victory over death, even as the burden of the sins of this world continues to press on us.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
Reunion: Resurrected Body
Reunion: Resurrected Body
What good is an old self in a new home? Zombie movies might be entertaining, but dead bodies are not fitting for presenting to the Father of Light. His word spoke all things into existence. We might hold on to the things we have now because they are all we’ve known for comfort.
But there is a far better hope in God. Thought we might speak about a new life in Christ now as a Spiritual transformation, there is a real tangible one to come. If we hold as true that Jesus was body transformed from His body of death to a glorified one - different, yet the same - then it is in that same manner we too sill be transformed.
35 But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?” 36 What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first. 37 And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting.
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
If we desire to follow Jesus, we must see that what we have in the flesh - our bodies, possessions, abilities, time - are the expendable part. What comes later is the great increase. Don’t hold tightly to what we have now; what we let go now will be of no consequence to what we will gain.
Reunion: Imperishable Life
Reunion: Imperishable Life
When we traveled recently to South Asia to come along side our missionaries there, we had to have our passport. It was the most important document. When overseas, keeping that secure is paramount. Because it identifies you, proves what nation you are a citizen of, and displays your standing to be where you are.
Our passport to reunion with God is NOT the good things we do. If it was, it could be revoked with doing wrong. This is the system of every other religious system - does your good outweigh your bad acts? These are acts of the flesh, but these documents will not get you into the kingdom of God.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
How do we ‘put on the imperishable’? We put on Christ. We compress our claims of doing good, our evidence of acceptability, our ‘passport of good works’ must be burned.
This is what the Lord’s Supper calls us to, again and again. We are so quick to forget. We walk away and start to pull our the passport of self again. We need the reminder. If we are to see wonder of the release, we must place our hope in the compression of Jesus death. There is no other way.
The Reunion Starts Today!
The Reunion Starts Today!
God’s promise is bigger that great architecture. And His presence is unimaginably greater than a great room in an old house!
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Today is Pentecost. That’s a funny word, what does it mean? 50 days. It’s a term used for the older Jewish festival called the feast of weeks. It was the second of three national holidays. It celebrated the first harvest of the summer. The third holiday would celebrate the final harvest and the final atonement for God’s people.
These holidays are prophetic in nature. Jesus was crucified on the first holiday called passover. It celebrated God sparing His people from death. The Lord’s Supper is connected with Pentecost.
26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Jesus then, the very next day, performed the sacrifice he spoke of. Arrested, tried, sentenced, and killed - the punishment of the innocent for the guilt of rebels. Compression.
Buried for three days, He defeated death and rose from the grave. He then appeared to His disciples and gave them direction to wait in Jerusalem for a promised Helper. That Helper - the very Spirit of God - came to them on the day of Pentecost. The church began - the first harvest.
We live now between the first harvest and the promised coming of Christ. We have now the down-payment of God’s presence - the Holy Spirit. Oh but how we disregard the wonder and power and wisdom that is in us and with us! That we would seek to live under the daily direction and power of the Spirit we would understand that it is not an empty voucher, but real and profound and effective for hope and victory every day!
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We too often live in our own strength, not humbling ourselves to seek the direction of the One who lives within us. That promised reunion can start now - today. Not in full, but in power and in truth. If we would but be willing to enter the compression - the passageway of humility that Jesus gave us as an example. “Lord, I need you!” “Lord, I know I can not see or understand anything from outside your love, and truth, and wisdom. Teach me today!” “Oh Lord, Give me your direction. Show me how to love my neighbor. Teach me to pray.”
These are not meaningless and empty words.
Do you want to walk today in the joy of God’s presence? Humble yourself to feel and cry out your need of Him!
Do you need hope for dark and painful situations? Surrender your rights to be right; trust your good to the hands of a Father who loves you.
Do you face opposition at every turn? So did Jesus. I don’t say that to imply that we should just buck up. Or to stop whining. I say that because in Jesus we have victory! At the end of 1 cor 15, Paul draws a great divide between what is perishable, mortal, and dead. That is this life in the body. When we pick up pride and lean on our own confidence to ‘deal with it’ ourselves, these troubles are our burden to bear. But on the other side, Paul tells us of what is imperishable, immortal, and victorious. This is the great room, the release, available to us now.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
It’s not easy. We are reminded to be steadfast, immovable, and working. That work is the constant lowering of ourselves until we find we have put on Christ.
In submission, we have victory.
In humility we have hope.
In loving others first, we find the love of God.
There is the hope and promise of future glory. But a reunion with God is available today.
> Call for Salvation.
> Call for repentance.
> Call for prayer to love God more.
Pray
Notes
Notes
We will receive the blessing of complete presence with the Lord only when we have humbled ourselves in Jesus.
10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. 11 A rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination. 12 Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised A. Peter’s Exposition
Peter’s Exposition Fortunately, Peter’s sermon on that day (Acts 2:14–36) has preserved the apostolic understanding of the event. Most significant is his stress not on the Holy Spirit but on Jesus Christ, not so much on His earthly ministry and crucifixion as on His resurrection and exaltation as Lord and Christ.