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ONE GOD - MANY NAMES / ONE SON - MANY PATHS / ONE TRUTH - MANY FAITHS |
April Church Service 4-22-2011: Opening prayer:
Our God, we trust in your power to create, to sustain, to enable. But we could not trust if we did not know that you are always near. Be with us, Lord, as we are here to worship you. Enable us to bring all that we are to you, so that we might experience your touch upon all aspects of our life. Our God who is greater than the most powerful forces in this world, enable us to be still and know that you are God.
Opening song: Jesus, What a Beautiful Name,
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Point to Ponder:
God’s Unconditional Love for His Sheep (This is an excerpt from an article entitled “The Lord Is My Shepherd” written by Gregg Albrecht for the Plain Truth Ministries Weekly Update April 18, 2011) You may have heard the story about the man who arrived in heaven and was directed to God’s office for judgment. One wall of God’s office was a huge plate glass window looking down on earth. The earth was beautiful, with its oceans and mountains. When the man arrived God was not in the office, so he looked out the window for a few minutes, and then began to look around the office. There was a pair of glasses on God’s desk. No one was around, so the man picked them up and looked out the window at the earth again. This time he saw violence, poverty and sickness instead of beauty and tranquility. Then he heard a deep voice behind him say, “Take off my glasses.” The man immediately took off the glasses. Then God, with a more gentle voice said, “What did you see?” The man said, “I saw greed, hate, evil and sin!” God asked, “And did you feel any love or compassion?” The man said, “No. I would destroy the whole planet without having any regrets after seeing what is really going on.” “That’s why you can’t use my glasses,” God said. “You may not see what I see unless you can feel what I feel.” God loves us in spite of the fact that he sees us as we are. He doesn’t love us because of what we are or what we do. He loves us in spite of our sins -- sins that he sees and knows. And, he loves us too much to leave us where we are. He is our Shepherd, and guides us away from the corruption and sin that defines our world.
General Announcements:
Our Prayer Warriors have been activated. If you would like to be a Prayer Warrior please join our prayer group . If you are in need of prayer please fill out the form on our website. For both see our webpage: http://www.churchofinterfaithchristians.org/prayerwarriors/
Our Weekly Messages will now become our Monthly Messages to be published on the fourth Friday of each month and additional publications to be made for Holy Day/Holidays. The format for our messages is changing as well. You are looking at the new format to be used for now and hopefully upgraded to more video and audio in the future.
Weekly Message: Let Us Celebrate This is the time of year most Christians commemorate the death of our Lord and Savior, remembering the sacrifice He has made for us and celebrating his resurrection. Depending on your background you may all ready be in the midst of your celebration having started last Sunday before Passover and continuing for eight days or you may be getting ready to celebrate this weekend culminating in Easter Sunday. Whatever your traditions be sure to savor the moments past and present. Our family started their celebration last Sunday, April 17 by partaking of the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. While we may remember the Lord more often during the year at regular communions, this annual celebration is so very special. As Christ and His disciples were gathered together the evening before the Jewish Passover and before their Festival of Unleavened Bread, Christ instituted a new celebration. It includes washing each other’s feet and partaking of the bread and wine representing the body and blood of Christ. While any may participate in the foot washing the partaking of the bread and wine is for adult believers only. The Lord’s Supper or Last Supper as it is sometimes referred to is a New Testament celebration. It is a quiet celebration. We gather after sunset, bringing with us our Bible and a plastic tub and bath towel. We each seat quietly and read Luke chapter 22 and John chapter 13. The service starts with a simple prayer and the first step we do is the foot washing. John 13:4-17 speaks of the foot washing. Let us be reminded: A true follower of Jesus Christ does not serve by seeking power and authority. Rather, he serves with humility and selflessness—and then God will reward him with power and authority. Serving the needs of others means sacrificing one’s time and energy, as Jesus did in healing the sick, freeing people from demon possession, and preaching good news of the kingdom of God, day after day, city after city. And sometimes serving the needs of others means laying down one’s life (John 15:13-14), as Jesus would do for humanity—past, present and future—on the stake. This lesson in service and humility perfectly introduced what Christ was about to do next: institute the annual foot washing service. Jesus rose from the dinner table and put aside His outer garments. Then, as His disciples looked on, He took a towel and tied it around Himself, assuming the dress of a servant. Next, He poured water into a basin, stooped down to His knees and began to wash the disciples’ feet, afterward wiping them dry with the towel He had around His waist. In Jesus’ time, people wore open sandals, which collected dirt and dust throughout the day. It was a custom for hosts to have a servant wash the feet of houseguests. This lowly service, which fulfilled a genuine need, was far from being glamorous or high-profile. It required physically lowering oneself to his knees to serve the lowest part of the body. As one washes the feet of another person, thoughts of vanity and self-promotion are deflated; he spiritually takes on the humble attitude of a servant, focusing on others, not the self, “esteem[ing] others better than themselves” and “look[ing] not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil. 2:3-4). Many of us continue with these customs today for this is a time of humility not a time to exalt one’s self. Arranged ahead of time in the room we meet in will be a source of water. Here at home the kitchen is close by but for larger groups meeting in rooms and halls it may be that several barrels need to be set up and filled with water. At the time of the service, men will pair off with men and women with women. Rows of chairs are set up on both sides of the room with the back of the chairs facing the center of the room. Participants pass by the water source and a small amount of water is poured into their tubs. One person will place his tub under the seat and turn and sit down. The other person places his tub in front of the person who is seated. The person who is seated places their feet in the tub of water in front of them and the other gently washes with water and dries with a towel and then the participants switch tubs and positions and repeat the washing. It is not about clean feet any more. You can be assured that most everyone washes their feet well before going to a modern day foot washing. (Although I can tell you of the year 1979 when our home was hit by a tornado earlier in the evening before sundown and having lost most of our clothing and being covered by mud and grass we came to Passover to our church family who not only washed our feet but lovingly took care of us and our children.) After the foot washing participants return to their seats by way of the water disposal barrel or sink pouring out their foot washing water. After the foot washing service, Jesus said to His disciples, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me ‘Master’ and ‘Lord,’ and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. A servant is not greater than his lord—and neither is He [Jesus] who is sent greater than He [God the Father] who sent Him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them” (John 13:12-17). In humbly serving the needs of others—without exalting the self or seeking to fulfill selfish ambition—Jesus Christ set the high standard all Christians are to follow. Now the rest of the ceremony you may know about by having participated in various forms of communion in the past. Continuing with Christ and His disciples: Redirecting their minds to thoughts of serving others, Jesus, after Judas Iscariot had departed (John 13:18-32), was now ready to institute new Passover symbols. He took unleavened bread, prayed over it, and then broke it into several bite-sized pieces, which He distributed among the eleven remaining disciples. Christ said to them, “Take, eat; this is My body, which is given for you: This do in remembrance of Me” (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19). Jesus then took a cup of wine, said a blessing over it, and passed it to His disciples. “All of you drink of it,” He said, “for this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:23-24; Luke 22:20). “In remembrance”—in recollection; Christ was instituting an annual reminder of the New Covenant Passover—a “memorial” service observed in memory of Jesus Christ’s death. A memorial service that was to be observed annually before the Jewish Passover. For Christians, “Christ [is their] Passover, sacrificed for [them]” (I Cor. 5:7). As the true “Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36), Jesus was sacrificed on the same day as the physical Jewish Passover sacrificial lambs were killed: the 14th of Abib. Therefore, Christians are to observe the death of their Passover Lamb annually on Abib 14, not “between the two evenings” at the end of the day, but at the beginning, on the anniversary of “the same night in which [Jesus] was betrayed” (I Cor. 11:23). Remember the Jewish day began and ended at sunset (even). By reading about Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread in the Jewish Scriptures and our Old Testament as well as the passages we have mentioned here in the New Testament we get a much clearer picture of the far reaching intent of Christ’s sacrifice. Many Christians today follow their Lord’s Supper with a special Night to Be Remembered and then seven days of eating unleavened bread symbolizing putting ‘sin’ out of their lives. This also follows the traditions of the Jews. “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.” – Leviticus 23:5-6 Why Unleavened Bread? In the Bible, leaven symbolizes sin. Just as “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (I Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9), sin always leads to more sins, until it permeates an entire person. And, just as leaven expands, or “puffs up,” bread dough much larger than its original size, sin—such as vanity and pride—“puffs up” a person’s view of himself. For this reason, “All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes” (Prov. 16:2). When leaven enlarges dough, it produces bread riddled with empty pockets of air. Similarly are the lives of men, all of whom have sinned (Rom. 3:23). They appear smooth, self-confident, sometimes even “larger than life,” but within they are vain—empty. Jesus Christ, as a physical human being, was different. He “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” (Phil. 2:7-8). Like unleavened bread, Jesus was “flat”—humble, not puffed up with a self-image of vanity, pride and self-importance. Void of the “malice and wickedness” of this world, Christ was—and is—“the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (I Cor. 5:8). Why “Broken” Bread? The small, broken pieces of unleavened bread we are to eat at the Lord’s Supper or Last Supper service symbolize Jesus’ “broken” body. Consider all the abuses and torment Jesus took upon His body because all human beings have broken God’s physical laws. For the past 6,000 years, men have judged for themselves right from wrong, without seeking instruction and direction from God. Consequently, mankind has reaped sicknesses, diseases, cancers, syndromes, deformities—physical penalties derived from breaking God’s commandments, statutes, judgments and overarching principles of living the right way. Through Jesus’ “broken” body, we can be healed: “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed” (I Pet. 2:24). Yet none of Christ’s bones were broken. His body, though it severely suffered, remained as one. And so does Christ’s spiritual Body, for “He is the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:18). Jesus Christ “lives in” all Christians through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, making them all part of the one “Body” of Christ—the undivided Church of God (Gal. 2:20). “Ratified in Blood” The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins (Heb. 10:4). Another, far greater, blood sacrifice was needed: “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:13-14). Jesus was perfect in all His ways—“a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Pet. 1:19). It took the sacrifice of a flawless, sinless life to redeem the “blemished” and “spotted” lives of men. To fulfill this purpose, innocent blood had to be shed: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11). The Old Covenant served as a type for the New Covenant, which is also ratified in blood (Heb. 9:20), but it is a “better covenant [testament, compact, contract], which was established upon better promises” (Heb. 8:6; also read verses 7-13). The “blood of the [new] covenant” delivers Christians from their ultimate enemies: sin and death. This is why Jesus said, “Whoever eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, has eternal life” (John 6:53-56). Just as God delivered Israel from slavery so that they might “serve” Him (Ex. 3:12; 8:1, 20), He is delivering Christians from spiritual slavery to sin, so that they might “serve [God] without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.” It amazes me that many Christians have partaken of the Lord’s Supper or Communion every week for many years and never known the full meaning of what they do. It is a fascinating and wonderful story especially when we put the parts together that we glean from both Jews and Christians. I expect as the last days are upon us that there will be additional meanings added from the truths that have come down through other nationalities and ethnic groups. Maybe this is the way all will be revealed! Blessings, Reverend Sharra
Meditative Healing Moment with background music: Stephen Halpern's Legacy
Closing song: God Will Make A Way,
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Closing prayer:
Eternal God, our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and our end, we have come to you seeking answers. In your time, you created all things, and wove into their fabric a yearning for our fulfillment in you. It is this yearning within us which has pulled us here this day and time. Take these moments, O Lord of time and space, and complete them in us, through your Holy Spirit. May our labor bring forth a new creation in you. This is your hour, Christ Jesus, help us to make the most of each precious moment. For in your name we have come, and read, and prayed. Go with each of us now, filling us with your spirit guiding us in the choices we must make, freeing us from our limits in health, love and prosperity. Amen
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