“Jesus says that we are to do this in remembrance of him. We remember so that we do not forget. But remembering in the Bible is much more profound than that. By remembering we are actually taking part in the giving and receiving of the gospel. The past becomes a reality in the present. Jesus himself is with us offering himself and we are with him in receiving him by faith. It is symbolism, but it is pointing to something that is very real and very present.”
A Summary of the Joseph Story
Read: Genesis 50:15-21
“Now this idea of God overriding evil and bringing good out of evil is a very important theme in the Bible. In God’s plan for the salvation of the world he is going to do that again and again. He uses evil in many ways to bring good as he did with Joseph and his brothers. The most important instance of this idea is the death of Jesus. Those who killed Jesus meant evil. The death of Jesus was a monstrous injustice. And yet it was also part of God’s plan for the salvation of his people and the renewal of the whole creation.”
Some Now, Then All
Read: Psalm 130
“Who is this God? He’s not a God who’s soft on sin. Absolutely not! He will by no means clear the guilty, but he’s a God of grace! A God who loves to forgive, who delights in compassion, a God who will forgive iniquity, and transgression, and sin, however you’ve disobeyed and sinned against God. He’s willing to forgive!”
The Sure Foundation of the Lord
Read: Psalm 127
“The success of our building, our watching and our sleeping is conditional on what the Lord has already accomplished. We must base our activities, the Bible is saying, on what God has already accomplished. The Lord must first build, he must first watch, and he must first grant rest, or our efforts are always futile. That’s the point of a condition clause like this, it’s always futile unless it is in the Lord. It is always futile, our efforts, all of them. It is a universal statement. Think about that. Everything that we do, every activity that we put our hand to, if it is not done in the Lord, will always, always, always be ultimately futile.”
The Burial of Jacob (2)
Read: Genesis 49:28 - 50:14
“It is sinful to seek to be honored as the real focus of the honor. It is right to desire to be honored in such a way that the ultimate honor is directed at God. ”
Sermon Series: The Life of Joseph
Truths of the Reformation (10) Union With Christ
Read: Ephesians 4:1-16
“Separation between God and man is the reason for all that is wrong in the world and all that is wrong in our lives and the reason for that separation is sin. The biblical teaching about union with Christ is how that separation is overcome; it is about how we can have a close and intimate relationship with God. Union has to do with being united. It has to do with being one. And being one with God is at the heart of having a good life. It is at the heart of all blessing. This is what it means to be saved.”
Sermon Series: Truths of the Reformation
Death and Burial: Jacob and Joseph
“None of us knows when we will die. For some of us it is years in the future. For others of us the time is much shorter. But for all of us it is part of our future. We will all die. But the whole Bible is about a glorious future for the people of God and a glorious place where believers will spend eternity with God.”
Sermon Series: The Life of Joseph
Truths of the Reformation (9) The Holy Spirit
Read: 1 Corinthians 2
“What this means is that while accepting the Bible as God’s Word is something that we do with our minds, it is more fundamentally something that the Holy Spirit works in us. And the result of the Holy Spirit’s work is not simply an intellectual persuasion, but an inner spiritual perception of the glory of God as revealed in the Scriptures and an inner spiritual perception of the authority of God speaking in the Scriptures.”
Jacob Blesses Joseph (2)
Read: Genesis 49:22-26
“The message of the story is that God is working, directing all that happens, but that his presence and his involvement in Joseph’s life is largely hidden. God is working behind the scenes.
And that is the case in our lives as well. God directs our lives. We know that from the Bible. But God’s presence is usually not obvious. We do not see God. We know that he is at work directing our lives and the whole of history because the Bible tells us so. We only know that he is at work in our lives and in history by faith – faith in the words that God speaks to us in the Bible.”
“If one member suffers, all suffer together.”
Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
“The Bible has lots of commands and exhortations to believers. Obedience is automatic in the sense that it always follows from true faith. It is it not automatic in the sense that it just happens without any effort on our part.
And so it is here, when it comes to this principle of the whole body suffering when one part suffers. In one sense it is automatic because that is what it means to be a body. And yet we are also exhorted to weep with those who weep.”