So, for lack of additional stuff on my mind, I chose to share what I wrote about concerning fire, yesterday.
Before that I did as I seem to set out to do for a good number of weeks now – and that is, to give my remarks on the worship, and on the exhortations regarding Holy Communion and Offering.
I thought the team’s singing of Hillsong’s classic ‘All Things Are Possible’ was very timely, considering that traffic that day and the day before were significantly lighter compared to everyone’s expectations. Yesterday was the city’s annual Flower Festival main events, and everyone in the know thought those weren’t days to join in the celebration, but to stay home and to let the tourists have their way… and with that mentioned, that may just have been the main contributor to why I drove without a hitch both yesterday and today… truly, All Things Are Possible.
The man assigned to share on the Lord’s Supper pulled up Matthew 26:26-28:
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.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Considering this man was a very staunch attendee of our humble service, I was blessed to hear what he had to share before encouraging us to eat the bread, and drink the juice. Simply put, he shared that in the offering of the body of Christ He not only demonstrated His obedience to God, His Father… But by offering His entire body, He revealed His full willingness to obey.
And now that I’m thinking about it, what was the motivation behind His willingness? Well, the man continued by saying that in the shedding of Christ’s blood He ‘redeem(ed) us from sin’. And I thought that was just appropriate for the message I was about to share.
It just so happened that the man who would give an exhortation regarding Offering was the brother of the man who just spoke on Communion. He gave a simple testimony regarding how he and his wife were in ‘serious meetings’ at work as of late. What I gathered was while he was going to be let go, a couple of days later, when his wife was called to her own ‘serious meeting’ at the company she worked in… instead of getting the same awful news, her boss told her, yes, there were going to be layoffs, but he told her directly: ‘I will keep you.’
As a response I pointed out to everyone that we encourage each other to give the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:23-26) at the end of the service. And here we see just how it translates to real life: Just as a retained employee was told, ‘I will keep you’, so Christ, at the cross, was telling all of us His willingness, His obedience to keep us.
The mother of both brothers who just exhorted was faithfully with us at yesterday’s service, and I told her to take a bow – Her late husband was just heard in her son’s words.
With regards to my actual message, I think I covered everything I wanted to cover. I opened with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and segue’d to Acts 19:18-20, where the new believers in Ephesus took their books on magic arts together and burned them all in a bonfire worth fifty-thousand pieces of silver.
I spoke on how burning was a pretty special punishment in the books of the Law, covered in the first 5 books of the Bible. We’re used to reading of stoning and exile as common punishments, but burning was specific for idols, and those who practiced perversity and sexual immorality. I pointed out that, in terms of diet and nutrition, you put junk food away at the very least, but when you deal with poison, you need to utterly destroy it, just as these things and these sins need to be destroyed.
We talked about how fire was the main means of offering sacrifices.. and when it comes to the ultimate sacrifice, I presented the question: If the sacrifices of old were burned completely, then shouldn’t Christ have been burned instead of crucified?
This was where I told the congregation that Christ was not merely willing and obedient to destroy sin and be done with it, but by His complete and finished work, He demonstrated that He was not just out to destroy the power of sin; but in His resurrection, He made us new creations, and in His ascension, He filled us with the Holy Spirit.
Long story short, and I think I’ll mention this in my recap next week, fire represents the absolute holiness of God… and the Holy Spirit convicts us of it. If we pull up John’s account of Christ’s words, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of three things: of sin, because it does not believe in Christ, of righteousness, because we do not see Christ, and of judgment, because the evil one is not yet judged.
In the context of fire representative of God’s perfection and holiness, the world would burn because of its sin, the evil one will be thrown in to the lake of fire, but we who are in Christ may be burned, but we will never be consumed: This is because we have the Holy Spirit on us (as tongues of fire), and Christ WITH us, though we are on fire (as the burning bush) or surrounded by fire (as in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).
I concluded with the same story of Jesus and the leper, in Matthew 8:1-3… but this time I apologized because I jumped straight to where Jesus said, ‘I am willing, be cleansed’. I failed to mention that before Jesus replied to the leper, He held the leper’s hand – an act which would have made Him unclean!
But note that (and I’m sorry because I should have credited Joseph Prince here for pointing this out to me) it wasn’t Christ who became unclean, but the leper was the one who was made clean. On the same note, we bring the same Christ wherever we go. The fires of this world may rage, but we are burned at the very worst… but NEVER consumed.
The cleanliness we possess in Christ is greater than the uncleanness of this reality.
The fire of the Holy Spirit burns brighter than the world on fire.
I remember bringing that point home by just telling everyone that we may be ‘burned’ by all that’s been going on, through January and now February, but we shouldn’t forget that even in the trials, Christ is greater. Even in the fires, the Holy Spirit burns brighter.
Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. That didn’t come out in writing.
Later in the day, another brother of the two men who spoke reached out to me, appreciating how we got them not only to speak but to testify, in spite of their shy nature. Not one to stay silent, he also wanted to point out that Christ was not burned, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, where it states in chapter 53, something that we love to keep quoting: He was pierced for our iniquities, crushed for our transgressions, and by His stripes, we are healed.
Definitely going to share that next week.
Just wanted to share in reflection, and quite glad that I didn’t deviate too much from what I wrote. Although I guess if I did go off course completely, I’d still trust in the Lord to make that work for the good.
Now I’m not sure where I go from here, considering next Sunday is a new month. So far we’ve spoken extensively on Psalm 20, and how we place our trust in the Lord in all things. We explored a little bit on how, in love, Christ placed His trust in us by giving everything up on the cross. This is all from memory, so I could be a little off.
The last 2 Sundays we talked based on my readings on the Law, and how it’s beneficial to see it from the lens of the Gospel, as shared in the New Testament. We revisited the stringency of the Law, and how it points to our needing Christ as our Savior.
Yesterday we spoke on fire, its role in the Law, and then its role in our Salvation: We’re saved from the flames of this world, and saved by the fire of the Holy Spirit.
The themes of giving and taking are on my mind now… Let’s see where that goes.
God bless us all.
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