Our World Belongs to God 22

On Sunday Fellowship will share the Lord's Supper in a live Zoom session. We are glad that we can do this live and together, even though apart.  Please prepare ahead of time with bread and juice/wine at home. For online security reasons, the time of sharing the Lord's Supper will be password protected. If you are not a member of Fellowship Church and, as a confessing believer of Jesus Christ as Lord, you are still welcome to join us.  Please contact me at mark_broadus@fellowshipchurchto.org with your request to participate.

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We do not present our supplication before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name!” (Daniel 9:18-19).

Today we conclude the week of looking at God's redemptive plan for humanity in "Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony." 

Paragraphs 1-6: Preamble (April 11-29)
Paragraphs 7-12: Creation (April 30-May 8)
Paragraphs 13-17: Fall (May 11-15)
Paragraphs 18-22: Redemption (May 18-22)

Paragraph 22 (Today)
When Israel spurned God's love—
lusting after other gods,
trusting in power and wealth,
and hurting the weak—
God scattered them among the nations,
yet kept a faithful remnant
and promised them the Messiah:
a prophet to speak good news,
a king to crush evil and rule the earth with justice,
a priest to be sacrificed for sinners.
God promised to forgive their sins
and give them a new heart and a new spirit,
moving them to walk in his ways.

[For the scattering, see 2 Chronicles 36 and Isaiah 10:1-11; for the promises, see Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 31, and Ezekiel 36.]

Is it just me, or when you read today's paragraph in that light, does your heart feel pricked?  Let's face it, these descriptions of the people of the Old Testament—"lusting after other gods, trusting in power and wealth, and hurting the weak"—could just as well be a description of our world today. Yet God keeps to his faithful plan. God did send Jesus as prophet, priest and king. God does forgive our sins, give us a new heart and spirit, and move us to walk in his ways. 

A call to repentance is very much a part of redemption.  That was the consistent message of the prophets, very much including those during and after the exile, right up through John the Baptist.  Sometimes as people of God, we need to stop and repent of having bought into the world's ways.  I recall, way back on March 17, one of the long time members of Fellowship wrote, "I wonder, if Jesus was still on earth would he stop this virus, or is this a call to the world to repent?"  That is where I have been brought to today (I guess it just takes me longer than it does others to get to this point.).

As we prepare to look next week at the place of Jesus in God's redemptive plan, may this song, "Lesser Loves" by Bifrost Arts, lead you into a prayer of repentance.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.

Go with this blessing:  Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Pastor Mark

 

 

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