Jesus of Nazareth: Atonement

Good morning!  Today, we will have a time of communion where we take the bread and the cup and remember our Lord Jesus.  But, before we do, we are going to continue in our current series, Sound Doctrine.   We have a very fitting subject for today as we continue to talk about Jesus our Savior.  We are going to talk about the Atonement.  It is through the Atonement that we are reconciled to God, so it is a pretty cool thing and a very big deal and one of the main things to reflect on when we take communion.  We don’t have so much time today, so let’s pray and jump right in to the topic.

Lord Jesus, we thank You that you came and lived a sinless life, that You sacrificed Yourself and allowed Yourself to be killed on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.  Please help us right now to reflect on the amazing work that You accomplished to make things right between us and God.  Teach us we pray.  Amen.

Let’s start at the top.  What is atonement?

Receiving

Luke 7:41-47, 8:16-18

“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” –Luke 7:41-47

Loving comes through receiving.  We are a “pull myself up by my own bootstraps” society in America.  Our society takes pride in being able to come back from adversity, to overcome failure, to resuscitate an economy, to fight back our enemies and to invent a greater future.  We are very self-reliant.  

Come!

Revelation 22:7-21

I am blessed to come to the end of Revelation with you today and wrap up this amazing book. I looked back to see that my last message was 3½ months ago in Chapter 8. We have actually been pondering this book together for exactly 5 months now. And it has been a wonderful journey, hasn’t it? We have seen vivid depictions of God’s judgment on evil, exalted visions of heaven, words of hope and words of warning. Last week Carl talked about the glory of the new Jerusalem, the “place prepared for us” that Jesus referred to in John 14. This is exciting stuff: the dazzling city of light, no more tears or pain, dwelling with God forever. What a blessed hope we have! This world is not all there is; death is not the end; one day everything will make sense.

Made White With Blood

Revelation 7

So, where are we at this point in the story?  In Revelation 1-3, John has a vision of Jesus.  Then we read about the letters that were to be sent to the seven churches.  Then John shares another vision in Revelation 4:1 which says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’”  

Whereas the first 3 chapters talk about something in the present during John’s time, he seems to switch his focus to some future time.  “The voice” told him that something would take place “after this.”  We don’t really know how far in the future he’s talking about yet.  We just know that God is about to share prophecy about some future events.  In Revelation 4, God gives us a picture of what worship is like or what it will be like in heaven. 

Cut Free: Psalm 129

Welcome! We are continuing our series on the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. Today’s passage is Psalm 129, and before we dig into the Psalm in earnest, I do want to say a little about it and about others like it. Psalm 129 is an example of what is called an imprecatory psalm. The word imprecatory comes from the Latin word imprecatio which means to pray against. In imprecatory psalms the psalmist prays against his enemies, asking God for various bad things to happen to them. Some other psalms that are imprecatory in nature are Psalms 7, 35, 59, 69, 83, 109, 137, and 139. Some of the things the psalmists say include bring their violence to an end, may they be disgraced and put to shame, may they be like chaff before the wind, consume them in wrath, may they be blotted out, pursue them with Your tempest, and may their descendants be cut off. These are harsh words! What are we to make of them?

Thrones: Psalm 122

Welcome! Today we will continue our look into the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134, today focusing on Psalm 122. We will also remember the Lord together with the bread and the cup, and following that we will gather in a circle and whoever wishes can share what the Lord has been teaching them.

When I was a child, one of the highlights of the year was when we as a family would get in the car and drive from our home in Pasadena, California northward to the resort called Mammoth Lakes, a town in the Sierra Mountains at about 9000 feet above sea level. The drive, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 miles, took about 7 hours, accounting for stops. Now in Pasadena, it almost never snows – maybe once every 30 years the snow might stick around for an hour or so. We lived in a subdivision at the foot of the mountains north of Pasadena.  There was one mountain immediately in front of us that was lower than the ones behind it,  We were so close to it that this lower mountain blocked the view of the larger ones (the frequent smog sometimes blocked the view of them all). Anyway, that lower mountain got a dusting of snow from time to time, but it wouldn’t stick around very long and didn’t look very impressive even when it did.

Come Let Us Go Up

Micah 4:1-13

Welcome! Today we will have a shorter message followed by a time of communion and then a sharing time. We have been studying the book of Micah over the past several weeks, and this week we will explore one of my favorite chapters, Chapter 4.  This chapter is in many ways a break from the first three chapters, which are prophecy and judgement against the people of Israel and Judah. In Chapter 1, Micah, speaking the words of the Lord, pronounces the coming destruction and laments that it is to be. In Chapters 2 and 3, Micah explains further the reasons for the coming destruction; in Chapter 2 the focus is on the acts of the people, on the Israelite society, and in Chapter 3 the focus is primarily on the actions of the leaders of the people. The foretold destruction did come to pass; first, the northern kingdom (Israel) fell to the Assyrians, and later, the southern kingdom (Judah) fell to the Babylonians.

But Micah Chapter 4 looks beyond these events into what was for Micah’s hearers a distant future. Micah wrote this before Christ came and died for our sins and rose from the dead. What future is Micah writing about? Well, I think the things he says don’t find their ultimate completion until Christ’s return, “soon and very soon,” as the song we sang puts it, but there is a degree to which these things are to be for us now as well. The Kingdom of God is coming, but the Kingdom of God is here. It is both “now” and “not yet.” Let’s look at the first several verses.

We Love Because...

I John 4:16-19

Welcome! Today is the last Sunday of the month, and in addition to a shorter message, we will spend time remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup, and we will also have a time of sharing with one another what the Lord has been teaching us and doing among us.

Last week John Farmer began by talking about the theme of light in I John, and he gave a personal illustration involving stumbling around in the darkness. I have an illustration as well – this past summer we visited the Stumphouse Tunnel along with Issaqueena Falls. If you’ve never been there, bring flashlights. The purpose of the tunnel was to provide a shorter railway path from South Carolina to Tennessee. Excavation on the tunnel began in the 1850s but it was not completed because of excessive cost. The tunnel was used to grow Clemson blue cheese from the 1950s through the 1970s; the moist, dark environment made it perfect for this. 

I Write To You!

 I John 2:12-14

Welcome! Today we continue our series in I John, and we will also spend time remembering the Lord’s sacrifice for us by partaking of the bread and the cup. Following this we will have a time in which anyone who wishes can share what the Lord has been teaching them, or how He is using them, as well as to request prayer, and we will close in prayer together.

It is easy to get lost in the details of the first parts of I John, to go along for the ride, so to speak, focusing on the individual turns and bumps in the road and lose sight of where it is we are going. And if we are not careful, our taking a limited number of verses to study from I John each week can exacerbate this tendency. For this reason, today I wanted to explore the big picture of where John has been going. And in fact, I think this is the reason for the very verses John writes that we will look at today!

Victory/Our Glorious Captain

Welcome! Today we conclude our series called Facing Your Enemy; today’s message is entitled Our Glorious Captain. Throughout this series we have explored the Bible’s military analogies to our roles and positions as Christian soldiers, looking at the battles we face, both from within and without, battles for our hearts, battles for our desires, battles for what we are to do while we remain on this earth. We are called “soldiers” on multiple occasions in Scripture, and part of our role as soldiers is to spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ far and wide, being Christ’s hands and legs and mouth as we proclaim the salvation that is only found in Christ. 

Our roles on this earth include being godly parents, being godly spouses, being godly singles, being people who seek to remain pure and undefiled in this world, being people who seek to share the knowledge of Christ’s love all around us, being people who seek to work with other believers to demonstrate Christ’s love in “body life,” and so much more. All of this, even in an earlier age, could make one quite busy; in our modern times, with all the modern demands on our time, all of this can seem to be quite exhausting. 

Pain in Disappointment

Welcome! Today we finish our “painful” series. I am really thankful for Brian’s, Fred’s and John’s teachings in the series, as there have been things in each that have helped me and made me think and pray differently. Today we talk about pain in disappointment.

All of us experience disappointment; it is a part of life. In the early parts of life, our disappointments often focus on specific actions and events. Let me give you an example from my life. As you all know, I play piano. I began taking lessons when I was five, and continued to take lessons all through my growing up years. As a teenager, I began to enter piano competitions. One of my keenest disappointments I remember at this time was practicing like crazy before a competition, and then, during the competition, playing my pieces well, even perhaps the best I had ever played them. Then we all had to leave the room while the judges deliberated, and when we were told to come back I was nervous, far more nervous than I was when I played for the judges! First maybe they announced the honorable mentions – I was not included. I still had my hopes up; I thought I was at least in the top 5, although I kind of doubted I was the best. One or two just seemed pretty flawless, although maybe I was more musical. Then they announce 3rd place. Not me. I guess I managed to be 2nd, I thought. Then they announced 2nd. Not me. 

Pointing to Christ in Living and Dying

2 Kings 13:14-21

Welcome! Today we come to the end of our series on Elisha. Throughout the series we have mentioned that the story of Elisha’s life serves as a kind of foreshadowing of the life of Jesus. Now that we have been through most of the events of Elisha’s life, I want to briefly discuss these similarities together. For me it is quite a striking picture.

I want to start by summarizing similarities between Elijah the Tishbite and John the Baptist. We can say that Elijah was a “forerunner” for Elisha, and John was a forerunner for Jesus. The New Testament writers clearly understood this; in Matthew 11:13-15 and Matthew 17:10-13, John is called “the Elijah to come.” You can also read a prophecy pointing from Elijah to a future person who is very like him. People at the time of the gospels knew of this prophecy, and many wondered whether John the Baptist actually was Elijah. Where is this prophecy? Significantly, it is in the very last verses of the Old Testament, in Malachi 4:5-6. Talk of the Elijah to come closes the Old Testament, and talk of the new Elijah who has come is one of the first topics of each of the gospels. 

Speaking Judgement

2 Kings 2:23-25 

Good morning! Today our main passage is just three verses of scripture, one briefly recorded event in the life of Elisha, as a part of our series on Elisha. Following a discussion of this passage, we will spend time remembering our Lord Jesus through the bread and cup, and then we will have our monthly sharing time, an opportunity for all of us to share what the Lord has been teaching us and helping us to do in this past month.

Today’s passage is considered a “hard” passage by many people – hard to understand, hard to reconcile with our understanding of God, hard to square with general things we might say about the overall message of Scripture – and because of this, one might be tempted to kind of “tack it on” at the end of another message on a longer section of Scripture about Elisha and only gloss over this passage, claiming that time limits a more detailed discussion.

I didn’t want us to do this, because I really believe 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which states that all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. I really like how this is worded in the New Living Translation, going back to verse 15:

Everything Changes

John 20:1-31

I said it earlier, I will say it again.  He is risen.  (He is risen, indeed.)  Yes, indeed.  What a glorious thought to consider.  It was not that our lives were bought in exchange for Jesus’ existence.  Yes, He suffered and He died.  He experienced the excruciating physical pain.  Even more painful, He experienced separation from the Father.  But because He was the pure and spotless, holy sacrifice, He overcame death.  He is not in the tomb.  He is not there.  He is no longer dead.  He has risen just as He said.

And now, everything changes. 

When God revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel, he praised God saying,

“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.  He changes times and seasons …”  Daniel 2:20-21

Out of the Slimy Pit

Psalm 40

Welcome! Today is the last Sunday of the month, so we will have a shorter message followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup and then a sharing time, in which anyone can share what the Lord has been teaching them. Throughout this year, we have been reflecting on various psalms in preparation for our communion times, and today we will look at Psalm 40. This psalm is one of the many psalms written by David, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit to use the exact words and ideas that he wrote.

I think this particular psalm also fits in beautifully with the series we have been going through and are still in the midst of, Law and Grace, which began by giving a 30,000-feet-in-the-air view of the Old Testament Law as revealed in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and which in the last few weeks has been contrasting this to the grace of Christ that is found in Galatians. And so as we go through Psalm 40, I will point out the parallel threads that run there and here. 

I Am Bowed Down

Psalm 38
 
Let’s pray before we look into Psalm 38,

Lord Jesus, thank you for including Psalm 38 in Your Word.  Sometimes we do feel far away from You.  We allow our sin to separate us from You.  We desire to draw near to You.  I pray that You would speak to us this morning.  Teach us to enjoy sweet fellowship with You.  We ask this now in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

I happened to give the message on Psalm 16 back in January.  I remember I complimented David for setting the example of not dwelling on his circumstances.  In the first verse of Psalm 16, David cries out to the Lord to keep him safe, but from there on, David praises God.  It is a good thing to “rejoice always.”  That is a clear exhortation from Philippians 4.

But Psalm 38 is an anguished and even desperate plea.  So, if the right thing to do is to “rejoice always,” why did God allow Psalm 38?  I think it’s here in part because it is real, it is genuine, and it is honest.  We are told to cast our cares on him because he cares for us.  Sometimes our cares are so big that we can barely articulate them much less speak of them with praise.

That My Heart May Sing

Psalm 30

It’s easy to get sidetracked when you read the Bible.  You can study the Bible, memorize it, or learn everything about it in the original Hebrew or Greek.  You can systematically categorize every doctrine found in the passage and learn how to refute every objection that is brought up against it.  But we need to careful that we don’t forget the number one reason we read the Bible.  Jesus rebuked the Jews that had been persecuting Him by saying, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” John 5:39-40 (NIV ’84).

 In Jesus day there were people who had memorized the whole Old Testament.  They could recite the Bible forwards and backwards.  They could articulate their theology better than anyone else, and yet they only knew the Bible, they didn’t know God.  They thought they had eternal life because they had studied the Bible but they needed to know God in order to have eternal life.  So, our number one goal in reading the Bible is to know God.

As we read Psalm 30 I want you to take note of anything that you learned about God.  I want you to underline whatever grabs your attention.  You might find a verse that talks about what God is like.  You might find a verse that talks about what God has done or what He will do.  Just highlight anything that you can learn about God from this passage.

The Greatest Rescue

 Psalm 27

Welcome! Today, in addition to a short teaching, we will spend time remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup, as He instructed His disciples to do, and we will also have a sharing time where everyone is invited to share what the Lord has been teaching them and working around and through them in the past month. First, as we have been doing this year on communion Sundays, we will go through a Psalm together. Today we will look at Psalm 27.

Psalm 27 was written by David. David most likely wrote it reflecting on recent experiences he had gone through or was going through, especially including dealing with enemies, and although you may not have any earthly enemies you are dealing with, one of the wonderful things about the Psalms is how they find express truths packed with emotion that can be expressed by anyone, no matter what they are or are not going through. The Psalms speak to our heads through our hearts, and since the Lord wants us to worship Him with our entire hearts, souls, minds, and strength, it is good for us to not only read the Psalms, but agree with them, to say, “Yes, Lord, me too!” And this is what I would like us to do with Psalm 27 this morning. You may find some verses resonate with you more than others. If so, that’s great! Just make a note of what verses do speak to you, and use these as a basis for how you pray before we take communion. Here is how the Psalm begins:

Love and God

Welcome! This month we have been exploring some of what the Bible has to say about relationships, and so far we have talked about the nature of agape love, love in the context of the relationship between husband and wife, and love in the context of family. I wanted to start today with a video clip produced by the children of a pastor in one of our sister churches in Florida. This video was shown at one of the Faithwalkers conference teachings this past December. I think it is a great example of agape love in the context of the family.

The video can be found here.

For the sake of the recording, let me summarize what the video has shown. A family is sitting down to breakfast together, and they run out of orange juice right before a young boy can pour some for himself. His brother, also a young boy, offers to get him some, and goes to the refrigerator only to find that they don’t have any. He jumps up to grab a big hat, and then takes the hat and goes out the front door. The next thing you know, he is in some kind of shed up on a tractor and starts the tractor. He drives out to some orange trees, and pulls some oranges off of the tree, filling up his hat. He then restarts the tractor and goes back, brings the hat full of oranges into the house (losing a few along the way). Then he goes to his back porch and uses an electric juicer to juice the oranges until he has a cup of juice in a measuring cup. He takes the measuring cup to the kitchen and pours the juice into a cup, and then brings it cheerfully to his brother.

My Portion My Cup

Psalm 16

Today, we will take a step back from the series in the book of John. As you saw in your program and as we talked about last week, we will start a new series on relationships in February. But right now, we are going to turn our hearts to focus on God’s provision and prepare to take communion together.

The passage for today is chapter 16 from the book of Psalms. It is a beautiful psalm of trust and of testimony of what God has done for us. Because it is a personal prayer in the first person, I’d like for us to read the entire Psalm together out loud. The words are on the screen, so please direct your attention there and let’s read aloud together. Now since we all have to look up and keep our eyes open in order to read off the screen, I can’t ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes in prayer. But, I want you to read the psalm with a mindset and a heart attitude of prayer. Even though we are all together in a group, I want each person to read it with the frame of reference that you individually are speaking to God.

Let’s try this together. Psalm 16: