13
May
2009
When Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord in the temple (Isaiah 6:1-13), we often ignore the circumstances of the event and lose ourselves in a contemplation of what it must have been like to be in such a manifestation of the presence of God. According to G.K. Beale’s analysis of Old Testament idolatry, God warned his people that they would become what they worshiped. As a result of worshipping the gods of the nations around them, Israel had become deaf and blind to the things of God (cf. Psalm 115:2-8), particularly to holiness and righteousness. They had learned to take God’s presence for granted, and no longer reflected his glory to the world as a witness of God’s redemptive compassion for all humanity. Indeed, the key element of this passage is that while in the presence of God, Isaiah realized his own sinful condition, and that of his people (Isa. 6:5). However, Isaiah was transformed by an act of cleansing from the presence of God and became an imager of God to Israel. Israel on the other hand continued in a spiritual insensitivity that reflected the lack of living attributes of the idols they chose to worship, unconnected to God and incapable of enjoying or appreciating his presence among them.
pastorpaul1957 
Uncategorized, Christian, Religion, Faith, Spirituality, Discipleship, Preaching, Sermons 
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13
May
2009
Willow Creek Church, along with 200 other churches, recently published findings from an extensive survey of congregants (80,000), which traced some of the dynamics of spiritual growth and the process of maturing as a Christian. Specifically they were able to identify four segments or levels of spiritual maturity in the church, Exploring Christ, Growing in Christ, Close to Christ and Christ-Centered Life. They based their assessment on the premise that spiritual growth is a process of increasing intimacy with God, under the Matthew 22:37-39 rubric. The upshot is that there is a shift in the role of the church between the earlier stags of growth and the later more mature levels. But in many cases the church has not reacted to this, and has elevated its role to the place of prime resourcer of personal spiritual growth at every stage in the Christian’s personal development. This is tantamount to church idolatry, especially when the shift to greater intimacy occurs more as a result of personal practices at these more mature levels, rather than what the church directly contributes. The church has in a sense inserted itself in the process where the Holy Spirit should be… and this can only be described as idolatry. The fall out is that while the church purports to want its people to grow, what it is actually doing has stunted and even arrested spiritual growth, by babying its people and failing to change roles to become the resourcer of ministry and service, by those who have grown past a direct dependency on the church for their personal spiritual growth.
pastorpaul1957 Uncategorized, Christian, Religion, Faith, Spirituality, Discipleship, Preaching, Sermons Comments (0) » |
12
May
2009
We are all some one’s baby. You have your mother’s mouth, your dad’s ears, your uncles eye’s. We all tend to share characteristics with the family, and even 2 hours after we are born everyone is speculating who we most look like! G. K. Beale says that God actually mocked Israel in Exodus 32:1-14, when they worship golden calf in the wilderness, saying that they had become stiff-necked like a obstinate animal who refused to obey its master’s promptings. Israel became wild, like a wild animal, and had to be re-domasticated by Moses! In other words, they became what they worshiped. One of the key indictments of Israel’s idolatry in the wilderness was that they had exchanged their glory for shame (Psalm 106:19-20). By this Beale says the scripture means not God, but the glory of God that they should be reflecting to this world. God had made them imagers of his glory and they had exchanged that for something dim and unimpressive, the attributes of a beast, an animal, a cow! When, because of the strain of this incident, Moses asked to see the glory of God, the Lord passed before him and the glory of God was described as… “The Lord, the Lord the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love, and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness and rebellion…” (Exodus 34:6-7). In other words the glory of God consists in the manifestation of his attributes, his holiness, his love, his righteousness, not just luminescence! The reflection of the glory of God Israel had exchanged, was to represent the attributes of a loving, holy and righteous God to a dying and sinful world.
pastorpaul1957 Uncategorized, Christian, Religion, Faith, Spirituality, Discipleship, Preaching, Sermons Comments (0) » |
12
May
2009
It’s a fair question, since most of us want to be remembered when we are gone. What is life all about anyway? It can’t be just be about what I can get out of it by way of fun and pleasure, because somehow that never lasts very long. I thought I had figured out that life is what I make of it, but life has a way of reducing me to the lowest common denominator, so that I become whatever I put my energy into!
G. K. Beale says we become what we worship, either for redemption or ruin! So if I make the stuff around me the focus of my life… I become shallow, miserable and dissatisfied, because it is never enough, and because none of it provides me with a sense of purpose, or the sense that I am leaving a meaningful legacy behind. When I am gone, there maybe nothing of substance left to show that I have been here. I will have become as empty as the stuff I worshiped! So why do I have this craving to matter, to be somebody, to leave something behind, to have had a purpose for my life? I mean it is eating me up!
In Genesis 1:26-31 the Bible gives us a clue… God created us to be imagers of his glory, to reflect his attributes in this world and serve his purpose through diligent obedience to his will. Actually he created me with a purpose for my life in mind!
pastorpaul1957 Uncategorized, Christian, Religion, Faith, Spirituality, Discipleship, Preaching, Sermons Comments (0) » |
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