God: Savior

Here in the South, a lot of people have grown up with some kind of connection with God, the Bible or the church.  You would think that means that most people here would be how we would describe as “saved” or a “Christian,” but there’s one question that stumps so many people.  It even stumps the most religious of people.  If you would have asked me that question before my sophomore year of college I wouldn’t have known how to answer it.  

I want to show what the Bible says about God being a Savior.  Then I will share the question that stumped me for a long time.  After that we will read some passages to discover what He saves us from.  Finally, I will share a story that demonstrates different ways people respond to the Savior.  

God: Creator

Welcome! Today is our second message on our series on worship entitled “Sing and Tremble.” Our focus today is on worshiping God as creator – the creator of the universe, creator of life, creator of you and me. Last week we talked about our title by focusing on God’s holiness, and how one proper response to God’s perfect holiness is in fact, to tremble: to remember that apart from Christ and what He has done for us on the cross, we would have no hope for reconciliation with God, that apart from Him we would stand condemned with no hope for forgiveness.

I am reminded of the account of the first sin, Adam’s fall, in Genesis 3. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, we have this passage:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” – Gen. 3:7-10

Worship: God & Us

Welcome! Today I am excited to begin with you a new series on worship. What exactly is worship? Is there a good definition? I am going to read one I have found and like. Unfortunately, it is quite long. This comes from D. A. Carson:

"Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because He is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the Fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provisions that God has graciously made. While all true worship is God-centered, Christian worship is no less Christ-centered. Empowered by the Spirit and in line with the stipulations of the new covenant, it manifests itself in all our living, finding its impulse in the gospel, which restores our relationship with our Redeemer-God and therefore also with our fellow image-bearers, our co-worshipers. Such worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and in action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship, which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers, who strive to align all the forms of their devout ascription of all worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecedent revelation and anticipate the consummation."

Indispensable and...

I Corinthians 12:12-31

We’re finishing our series titled Broken and Indispensable today.  We’re going to take a pause at this point in the book of I Corinthians, and we will come back to the last four chapters as a separate series starting in January.

Our passage for today is the second part of chapter 12.  Last week, Tim shared on that first portion regarding spiritual gifts.  The closing thought from last week’s passage was that different spiritual gifts are given to different individuals as determined by the Holy Spirit.  And so, we are each uniquely equipped for works of service.  Verse 7 said these gifts are “given for the common good.”  In other words, we should not use our gifts for our own benefit, but rather to benefit others. 

Today, we’re going to see that idea reinforced and talk about how God intends the body of Christ to fit together like a physical body.  These themes will also lead us to speak of the unity within the Body of Christ.

Different Kinds of Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

In our study of 1 Corinthians we have come across several issues where Paul has needed to correct the understanding or practices of the believers in Corinth. In the last chapter he addressed head coverings and the Lord’s Supper; in our passage for today he wants to teach the Corinthians more about the role of the Holy Spirit. Their understanding was limited to some degree. What does the Holy Spirit do? What is His job description? They probably knew God the Father as the Creator and Jesus as the Savior. It’s harder to identify the Holy Spirit with one main role.

If you look through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, you can actually find more than 50 types of things that the Holy Spirit does. He is instrumental in drawing us to God, in convicting us of sin, in regenerating us into new people, and in comforting, encouraging, directing, teaching, and empowering us day by day. In a couple of weeks we will be starting a new sermon series on worship, and one of the things we will talk about for sure is the essential role of the Holy Spirit in true worship.