Sabbath Worship 12/02/2017

In case you missed it - here is Sabbath Worship Service from 12/2/17

Thanks Pastor Tom for bringing this message!

Services 10-15-17

Sunday School:

Worship Service

GRACE, Our Ladies Retreat 2017

If you weren't able to join us in person, don't miss out! All of our broadcasts over FaceBook Live this weekend are also available on YouTube. I hope this weekend is as much of a blessing for all of you that it was for me.

Grace the Great Equalizer

The Story of Sarah

Grace that Overflows

Grace in Times of Loss

Grace in Times of Trial, Testimony by Mandy Wingate

Special Music by Mandy Wingate (Sorry, I was a little slow getting the video started!)

A Call to Grace, Testimony by Jennifer Moodie

We LOVED these videos by Michael Jr. (Christian comedian). To visit his YouTube channel, click here, and to find out about a Michael Jr. Comedy Event near you, click here.

From the Merton Bobo Archives: Joseph's Schooling

The note below was written by my Dad on November 19, 2010, many years before He went home to be with the LORD (for those of you unchurched people, that's the religious talk way of saying, he passed away). He published it on FaceBook originally, and I am taking the time now to send it around again this time via blog post. My Dad loved the LORD more than anything in the world (which is saying something, because he really loved his family a lot!). He had so much to teach and sadly, and I'm ashamed to admit I didn't always listen as I should. But that is one failing I don't have to regret. So much of his teaching lives on, and we can learn and grow from it still. So without further ado... 

Joseph's Schooling

November 19, 2010 at 2:57pm

Today's triennial Torah Portion is Genesis 39

Joseph has in the past had a prophecy concerning his future in which his brothers and his father and his mother would bow down to him.  His brothers and his father had initiated him into his schooling at that time by his brothers anger at him for his prophecies.  His father had kept what Joseph said in his heart but was angry with him.  (Genesis 37.)

The 2nd part of his schooling was when his brothers sold him into slavery.  Now YHWH had a great job for Joseph but Joseph was not ready.  He is in school as he travelled to Egypt as a slave.

This brings us to today's Triennial Torah Portion. 

We have the 3rd part of Joseph's schooling in chapter 39: 1-6,  Joseph is sold to Potipher.  If you will notice however, this is the important part: YHWH is preparing Joseph for a great work and so he must endure by patience which comes from faith and hope as he learns what he needs to know to do the great work.  Notice that even as a slave, YHWH is with Joseph.  Notice YHWH blesses Joseph even as a slave.  Our testings may seem hard but we must keep trusting the Creator for  we can be blessed in the middle of out testings even as the Master prepares  us for greater works in the future.

The 4th part of Joseph's schooling (Genesis 39: 7-23) comes when he is tempted by Potipher's wife and then falsely accused and thrown in the King's prison.  Most followers of the Creator maybe would begin to doubt. But notice Joseph is not alone for YHWH was still with him.  Who would believe the place of communion with the Creator would be the prison of the King of Egypt.  If Joseph was anywhere else he would not have been where YHWH wanted him.  Once again he is blessed by the Creator.  "Now no testing at this time seems pleasant but in the future it yields the fruit of righteousness."  Hang in there when HaShem is teaching you, there are greater works ahead.

In His Name,

Merton

An Eyeball On Jesus

By M.E. Bobo

I stink at mowing the lawn. Everything about it is aggravating to me, and my only goal is that when I'm done mowing most of the grass be shorter. Now true gardeners and landscapers would NEVER leave a lawn looking the way I do. Mostly because I can't walk in a straight line to save my life. It's not my fault. The first step to walking straight is walking, and as anyone can tell you, I'm not good at that. A friend of mine recently told me that if I wanted straight lines when mowing my lawn then what I needed to do was pick a spot on the other side of the lawn. I should walk toward it. The key point however (and this really stuck with me) was that he said to pick a point, and DON'T take your eyeball off it! Do that and you'll be fine.

To my surprise, when I followed this one simple instruction I walked in a straight line. Even when the lawn dipped or I met with a hole. My line remained straight. As long as I kept my eyeball glued to that one spot on the other side of the lawn. Of course it makes sense when you think about it. My body moved in whatever direction I fixed my gazed on.

No wonder God tells us to keep our eyes on Him!.

Just imagine how different Peter's story would have been if he hadn't looked away from Jesus. And remember that while he did - he walked on water!

"Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (From Matthew 14)

When Jesus is our focal point - we perform miracles. And this is not limited to Peter alone.

We often go through life with our eyes scattered, looking at every circumstance close to us. And let's face it - there are a lot of scary circumstances: addiction, illness, poverty, lost job or relationship, or death. Even good circumstances can distract us from looking to Jesus for direction in our life's decisions. As a result, the track we leave is just a mess. We follow the direction of our gaze right into doubt, foolishness, and terrible decisions wreaking havoc all over the path we make. If we would just keep our eyes glued to Jesus, we would always move right towards Him. I know it isn't easy, to walk that straight and narrow. But one thing I can say for sure - I've never regretted a moment that I trusted God. I can't say that about anything else.

So let's get to walkin'. And keep those eyeballs glued on Jesus!

Bridezilla

By Gayle Johnson Bragg

For the last 2 months, my family has been under severe spiritual attack. I mean severe. Every day something new happens. Even when something good happens, it is immediately replaced by another spiritual hit. 

It all started when I began teaching spiritual warfare in Sunday school. At first, everything was going ok. A few flaming arrows, but nothing severe. Then everything changed. The hits came daily when I started binding the strong men listed in the Bible. And they were enough to start ripping the very fabric of my family. The one place of spiritual refuge I had was inside my church. 

But then, even that changed. The attacks started coming from inside the church. The very people I turned to for support started ripping the already fragile fabric of my family. You see, after 2 months of constant warfare, the behavior of my grandchildren started changing. They were feeling the stress too, and especially for an already hyperactive 3 year old, his behavior became worse. Instead of volunteering to help with him, we were attacked for his behavior. 

Now, I'm one who believes that a child needs to LEARN to behave in church. They can't learn that in the nursery. Going to the nursery for bad behavior is a reward. What he learns is, if I act badly in church, I get to go play. Wrong message. 

The hits also included attacks on my husband's character. Undeserved attacks. Because the attacker didn't bother to find out the truth. They just attacked. See Satan working there? I do. 

I have a strong faith in God, and He has granted me wisdom, knowledge and discernment because I ask for them daily. I KNOW what is going on. Satan comes only to kill, steal and destroy. (John 10:10) He wants to kill my faith, steal my joy and destroy my family AND my church. 

I have seen SO MANY people wounded by the Bridezilla of the church.   The attitude that some people are just not worthy of the Grace of God is prevalent in the Bride of Christ, that the victim is more worthy than the offender of God's grace and mercy. When did we forget that we are ambassadors of Christ? (2 Cor. 5:20) We SAY we follow Christ, but did we forget that where He leads is to the sick and hurting, not to the "Religious" people?  (Mat. 9:10-13) Did we forget that Jesus hung out with the sinners, not the saints? You know who He hung out with, the tax collectors and prostitutes, the very bottom of the social ladder. He called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers".  (Read everything Jesus said about the Pharisees in Mat. 23: 13-39). And don't forget who screamed out "Crucify him!"  That was the religious people, not the sinners He came to save. (Mark 15:9-14)

So, what have I learned from these attacks? I AM the one who judges others, even when I don't know their story. I AM the one who thinks God's grace and mercy are only for the "religious".  I AM the one who shouted "Crucify him!"  I AM the one who held the nail.  I AM Bridezilla. 

God make me Holy because You are Holy. 

“You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.”

‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭20:26‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Don't be a Bridezilla. Be Christ like. 

Don't treat God so casual

Our goal is to look at both perspectives that God intentionally shares with us because He wants us to know these things about himself. 

This week we are going to look at the tabernacle the temporary place of worship, and How he prescribed his people come into his presence, in the coming weeks we will look at the temple and God instructions for coming to him and then we will begin to explore various characters in the narrative of Scripture and how they came into the presence of God. 

For example, Priests who mishandled fire, Jesus telling the disciples to let the children come to him because we are all to seek after him like a child does, Uzzah who touched the arc of the covenant and was struck dead, or when God tells Moses to take off his sandal's because he is on holy ground, or the throne room of God in Revelation where angels perpetually sing Holy Holy Holy is the Lord almighty, or how about the woman who washes Jesus feet with her tears.

But this morning I want to start with the word AWE In a moment I am going to show you some breathtaking pics of nature

Because many times we will see something and be filled with AWE/Wonder>>captivate you, stop you in your tracks, they arrest you into being still and receiving the awesome beauty….which leads you to being in awe of the one who created it all!

So let me show you a handful of pictures here.  Joe please pause on each slide for 10 seconds or so to let folks soak in the scene and the beauty of the Solar poetry of a Sunrise/Sunset; the peace and stillness of winter, or the majesty of the mountains

The word translated as “awe” throughout the Bible is the Hebrew word “yirah” which also means respect, reverence and worship. 

But “yirah” also means fear.  Some of you may have grown up thinking to “fear the Lord” meant being scared of Him…but when we experience things like these sunsets or mountains or wintery bliss, we do not experience fear.  

We feel awe and reverence.  We feel “yirah”. 

Having this type awe and reverence for God will motivate you to do His will and Scripture tells us in Proverbs 9:10 that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”.

So lets dig into what the OT has to say about the example of the Tabernacle as as way to understand his presence and the expected reverence.

So Israel is fresh out of slavery in Egypt and has no idea how to be a country a community and God drops the 10 commandments on them (see Exodus 20) He covenants with them so that they understand how to maintain a society or a country.

Then notice in Exodus 23:20-23 READ…..I'm gonna drop this not push it meaning make note of this and go back and look for yourself because God was clearly stating my presence will be with you and you need to be careful to obey.  If you do so I will clear the way for you, where I guide you I will provide for you, but you cant mix it up with all these other Gods you gotta take following me seriously.

In chapter 24 Israel accepts and joins the Lord in this covenant.  Then in chapter 25 the Lord instructs Moses to take up a sacred offering i.e. the spoils of Egypt that God put in your pocket were put there because I now want you to use them to build a dwelling place for my presence.  So chapter 25 goes into incredible detail about the materials and the artisans required to construct this tabernacle.  As a recovering architect I clearly see the detailed construction documents for His house and the items that the what we used to call FF&E the furnishings, fixtures and equipment that are to go inside it.

Now you and I tend to want to skip over these meticulous details, but God is very specific about sizes, dimensions, materials and how things were to be used.  WHY?  Well because the tabernacle of Moses was the temporary place of worship.  The word tabernacle is a translation of the Hebrew mishkan, which means “dwelling-place.”

The overall shape of the tabernacle followed traditional structures of the time. It consisted of an outer court, approximately seventy-five feet wide by one hundred and fifty feet long, with a fifteen-foot by forty-five-foot structure in the back (Exodus 27:9–19).

The court walls consisted of linen curtains attached by bronze hooks to a series of pillars. The pillars were supported on the bottom by bronze sockets and possibly held in place with rope that attached to bronze rings. The gate, always facing east, was about thirty feet of blue, purple, and scarlet woven into a curtain of linen. The altar of burnt offering and the bronze laver that the priests purified themselves in sat in the courtyard.

The tent was divided into two rooms: the Holy Place, where the table of showbread, the golden lampstand, and the altar of incense sat; and the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed. The rooms were separated by a veil, similar to the entry screen, embroidered with cherubim and hung from four gold-covered acacia posts by gold clasps.

The purpose of the tabernacle was to provide a place where the people could properly worship God. Priests sacrificed animals on the altar in the outer court. The bread of the presence, the continually burning lampstand, and the offering of incense were all in the Holy Place. And once a year, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies as part of the ceremony of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). 

The phrase tent of meeting is used in the OT as the name of a place where God would meet with his people this is the place where the cloud and the pillar of fire would hover over and then begin to move which was their clue to pack up and follow him

As you can see this process for meeting with God was incredibly detailed including God being a fashion designer by outlining the garments the priests were to wear when coming into his presence. 

There are dedication or ordination ceremonies for the priests that included being consecrated and dressed at the entrance to the tabernacle, bull sacrifices at the altar and outside the camp, washing of hands/feet in the bronze laver before approaching the incense alter or they would die, daily/ongoing maintenance of the incense on the altar and oil in the lampstand and  anointing the tabernacle with oil and consecrating the utensils used so that they are holy and all that they touch become holy.

The lampstand was to be placed in the first section, called the Holy Place.  The lamp was to be tended by Aaron and his sons so that its light never went out. The lampstand was to give forth light day and night (Exodus 27:20–21). The lampstand’s being the only source of light points directly to Christ as being the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5). Jesus is the “true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9) and the only way anyone can come to the Father (John 14:6).

The bread of the Presence (also called the showbread or shewbread in some translations) was special bread always present on a table in the tabernacle (and later in the temple). Leviticus 24:5–7 describes this bread:

The Old Testament showbread placed on the table in the tabernacle provides a wonderful picture of Jesus, the Bread of Life. Jesus is holy before God, He provides true sustenance, and He is always present. “Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry’” (John 6:35).

The one time a year when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies was on the day of Atonement, which was when special sacrifices were conducted for the sins of the nation which culminated in the both the holy place and holy of holies being filled with incense (prayers of his people) and to shield the priest from the holy presence of God. 

The High Priest who had a rope tied around him would go into the holy of holies and sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the arc of the covenant, thereby covering the sins of the people.  The reason he has a rope around him is because if he were to to die form coming into the presence of the holiness of God they could pull the body out, because no-one else can go in.

No let’s zoom back out from the details upon details and the rules and pomp/circumstance of how God very clearly prescribes for his people to come into his presence at this time in his Story.

The first covenant had regulations for worship and the place of worship, but Jesus who is the mediator of the new covenant has become the high priest.  And I encourage you this week to go and read Hebrews 9 that shows that these important aspects of the Jewish law are no longer necessary since Christ has become the High Priest once and for all, he became the sacrifice that secured our redemption forever.

This being said, what would God have you and I understand about his holiness, about us coming into his presence? 

What Biblical principles in Exodus and the Tabernacle are transferable to us today?  Not as legalistic must do’s, but rather as markers that inform us about who this God is that we are approaching and worshiping?

Remember the point of this series is for us to better understand reverence for God, regardless where we are, so that we model that, teach this approach to God to our kids and to those who come to faith in Jesus and are learning how to walk with God.