January 20, 2008
Scripture:
Scripture:
Can we turn to Philippians 2; our opening hymn said “O blessed Lord, what hast Thou done? How vast a ransom given? Thyself of God th’ eternal Son.” How profound this is; I’d like to read a few verses in Philippians 2: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (vv. 5–11). In v. 6, we read “in the form of God”; another translation says “continuing to exist as God.” He did not change. Also, He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Another translation says He “did not consider it an unlawful acquisition.” This has a reference to the Garden of Eden; they were tempted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so that they would be as God. That was an unlawful acquisition; but this is not. V. 7, He “made Himself of no reputation”; he “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form.” He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. What a ransom! As God, He emptied Himself; as man, He humbled Himself. V. 9, God has given him “the name,” the name of Jesus. God is satisfied with this Ransom: “Our Jesus hath done all things well.”
EG Hymn 308 – I love to hear the story,
Prayer
Grandpa has been talking about beginning of time; so I thought I would talk about the end of time. What would our lives be like without time? What makes time? It is the motion of the earth around the sun. But in Heaven, there will be no Sun; it is the Son of God that will give us light. To talk about the end of time, I’d like to show you a chart. These names are the names of the seven churches; you can read letters written to each of them of Revelation 2 & 3. These churches are all in the church age, and we are still in that time today, but we are almost at the end. You’ll notice that as we get closer to the end of this age, there has been declension; this is because the love of some had grown cold. This period will end as our hymn said; the Lord will come and take us to Heaven. I’d like to read a few verses on this topic.
John 14:3—The Lord has promised to come to take you, me, and of His own to Heaven. We’ve all known people who have said they are going to do things, and then don’t follow through; the Lord isn’t like that. His promises are rock solid. Read I Corinthians 15:23; those that are the Lord’s will go up to heaven with Him. Read vv. 51 & 52—isn’t this amazing! We will all be changed and go to meet the Lord. How fast will this happen? How fast can you wink? We—all Christians alive and all those who died throughout the whole church age—will all transverse the billions of light-years of space in a moment. Read Philippians 3:20 &
When I was in high school, I had a time table, a schedule. God has a time table for what will happen at the end of time, and we’ve looked at the first part. Next time, Lord willing, we will continue.
I Peter 4:1—7
Last week we talked about suffering and God’s purposes for it. Suffering is a vital part of the Christian’s life. One type of suffering comes from ceasing from sin. Our old nature will always want to sin, so to deny it will sometimes cause suffering. But if we conquer our old nature, will we have no more suffering? That is only one kind of suffering; if we do the Lord’s will, we will suffer in this world. We mentioned how Peter divides our lives in two: before and after we are saved. Many of us can’t remember life before we were saved, but these Jews would have. They had to change their lifestyles, since they had been practicing Judaism. But, to a degree, they had been living as Gentiles, as we see in v. 3. We may not identify with all the things in that list, but we have an old nature as they did, and we need to be wary of it. We need to be armed with an obedient mind (v.1).
V. 4—who are “they”? They are those who are not saved, who are still living in the way of the Gentiles. We talked about our mind and will, but we must also take into account the way what is in us comes out. We need to resist those temptations from our old nature to act in a way that would not please the Lord. That will bring suffering, because the people who we went with before we were saved will think we are strange, and begin to speak evil of us. (It is also interesting to note how perceptive unbelievers are to the wrongdoings of Christians; they know exactly how we should act and are quick to take note, although they would not act like that themselves.) They don’t understand us when we do right. And yet, they will be judged, v. 5. The quick and the dead will be judged. The quick are those who are alive, and going into the Millennium; they will be purged. The dead are those who have died and will be judged at the Great White Throne.
EG Hymn 370 – Yield not to temptation,
Prayer