Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
Ruined and Restored - Week 2
Message by:
Pastor Terry Crawford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV
Jesus Ruined My Sacrifice
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NAS)
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Mercy Seat - sat on top of the ark of the Covenant (10 Commandment tablets, Aaron’s staff that budded and a gold jar of Manna )
Temple Veil - 4 inches thick, 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, weight - 4 tons (took 300 men to hold it)
Jesus’ death on the cross ruined…
The tainted sacrifice I bring.
Hebrews 10:11-12
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
1 John 2:1-2
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
The temporary reminder of my sin.
John 15:26
“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
The terrible wrath that was meant for me.
Isaiah 53:3-6
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Question:
Are you still trying to bring your own sacrifice instead of resting in Christ’s?
In other words, there will never come a time when Jesus' work of intercession will end. This means that all believers in Christ will never again come under the wrath of God, once they are IN Christ (Romans 8:1).
"Propitiation means the turning away of wrath by an offering. In relation to soteriology, propitiation means placating or satisfying the wrath of God by the atoning sacrifice of Christ."
In Rom. 3:25 and Heb. 9:5 the Greek word hilasterion (KJV, "mercy-seat") is used. It is the word employed by the Septuagint (LXX). translators in Ex. 25:17 and elsewhere as the equivalent for the Hebrew kapporeth, which means "covering," and is used of the lid of the ark of the covenant (Ex. 25:21; 30:6). Hilasterion came to denote not only the mercy-seat or lid of the ark, but also propitiation or reconciliation by blood. On the great day of atonement the high priest carried the blood of the sacrifice he offered for all the people within the veil and sprinkled with it the "mercy-seat," and so made propitiation.
Christ is called the "propitiation for our sins." Here a different Greek word is used, hilasmos. Christ is "the propitiation," because by his becoming our substitute and assuming our obligations he expiation our guilt, covering it by the vicarious punishment which he endured. (Compare Heb. 2:17, where the expression "make reconciliation" of the KJV is more correctly in the ASV "make propitiation").
Propitiation literally means to make favorable and specifically includes the idea of dealing with God’s wrath against sinners. Expiation literally means to make pious and implies either the removal or cleansing of sin.
The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means; but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that the object of expiation is sin, not God. One propitiates a person, and one expiates a problem. Christ's death was therefore both an expiation and a propitiation. By expiating (removing the problem of) sin God was made propitious (favorable) to us.
Matthew 27 - when Jesus died, after his last breath, the bible says the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Then the life’s blood of the spotless lamb, the perfect sacrifice was taken once and for all into the holy of holies and God’s wrath toward our sin was appeased. Propitiation to the fullest.
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Monday, April 7, 2014
Jesus Ruined My Religion Week 1
Jesus Ruined My Religion - “Ruined and Restored” Part 1
Message by:
Pastor Terry Crawford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV
When you hear the word “RELIGION”, what is your 1st impression or thought?
Religion - the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
Why I hate Religion but love Jesus.
Jesus came to ruin and restore us not start a different religion.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NAS)
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Ezekiel 36:26
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh
Jesus ruined my religion of…
Luke 11:37-52
When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces. “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.” One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. “Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your ancestors did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all. “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
Mark 7: 5-8
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
Legal living
James 1:26-27
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Look at Me
Loading and leaving
Galatians 6:1--2
Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Mark 7:5-8
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
The Key to Knowledge is TRUTH
John 8:32
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Question: Has your religion been ruined and restored?
Jefferson Bethke has recently published Jesus > Religion: Why He Is So Much Better Than Trying Harder, Doing More, and Being Good Enough. The book’s title and content are inspired by his spoken-word video, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,” which has been viewed 26 million times. Yes, 26 million.
“Initially, I blamed God for the pain in my life, but slowly I started to hear the whisper of his grace. I didn’t know it then, but God broke me to fix me because he loved me.” (6)
Jesus was a Jew who taught (mostly Jewish) people how to better understand and practice their Jewish faith. That’s what all that “You have heard it said…but I say…” talk was about. Which means Jesus literally spent his entire life learning, teaching, and practicing religion.
So, when you go around bashing religion and everyone who practices religion you’re also bashing Jesus. Because as much as you want to believe otherwise, he was a fairly devout religious person.
Practicing religion.
Can religion become an overbearing, legalistic, and oppressive monster? Absolutely. But as soon as you start talking about God and how you worship that God and how you want to live your life in relationship to or with that God, you’ve entered into the world of religion. And that’s ok. It doesn’t make you an evil pharisee. It makes you a normal, God loving person. In fact, it makes you a lot like Jesus of Nazareth.
So look, I know it makes for good rhetoric to trash religion and I know your heart is in the right place, but please stop. If not for me, then do it for yourself. Why? Because you know what you’re doing when you correct other people’s theology and tell them they just need to have a personal relationship with Jesus?
You’re practicing religion.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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