Introduction and Prayer

Take a copy of the scriptures now and turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 12. I’ll read the first two verses. Yeah. There’s two verses. Romans 12, starting at verse 1. Please give your full attention. This is the reading of God. Actually, let’s pray before we hear the word read and preached. Ask the Lord’s blessing upon those very things. Let’s pray.

Our great God and Heavenly Father, we do thank you again that you have given us this, your written word. And we do pray at this time, Lord, as we hear it read and preached, that you would illumine our minds and our hearts. Help us, Lord, to understand and to believe and to trust you as you speak to us. Help us as we hear and learn, as the Word is preached. And we thank you, Heavenly Father, that the Spirit uses the preaching and the teaching of this Word, your Word, to encourage us and to sustain our lives. For this we give you our thanks. And we ask now, Heavenly Father, that you would give to us a great delight in you. and a hunger and a longing to hear from and to be grown by you. Lord, we ask that you would arrest our attention, that we would indeed give our worship and our focus and our love and our attention to you at this time. We pray, Lord, that you would suppress all those things that would harass us and swirl around in our minds and distract us, Lord, and that you would give us focus and that we would indeed be captivated by what you tell us from this word. We do pray, Lord, You would let the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing to you. This is our prayer, Heavenly Father, and we ask it in Jesus’ name. And all God’s people said, amen, amen.

Scripture Reading: Romans 12:1-2

Romans chapter twelve, starting at verse one. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. By testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So for the reading of God’s word, may he add his blessing upon it at this time.

Is There a Biblical Pattern of Worship?

I wonder if you’ve ever Asked or wonder to yourself if there is a pattern of worship found in scripture. Every year we’d like to, at the beginning or the end, the transition of years to reorient ourselves as we have these last couple of weeks. and again this morning, to true things, to needful things, things that are foundational that sometimes we forget or we take for granted. But I wonder if you were asked that about worship, right? If someone were to ask you about the biblical pattern of worship, what would you tell them? Is there a pattern of worship found in the pages of Holy Scripture where we can direct them to give an answer?

Worship is an amazing and glorious gift from God to his people. It is the center of our lives as God’s people. It is a glorious foretaste that God gives us of what we’ll be doing for all eternity, worshiping our Lord. So it’s important that we have some grasp on what we’re doing here.

This morning we’re gonna look at, indeed, the divine pattern of biblical liturgy, or the divine pattern of worship, gospel worship, I’m sure that you’re aware that for many, when they hear the word liturgy, what happens? They immediately think of things like the Episcopal Church, or the Roman Catholic Church, or maybe even Lutheranism. It’s a dirty word for many in our day and age. But what is it? Why use this word, that word, liturgy? The word merely comes from the word Latria, which means service. It’s descriptive of the work of the priests in the Old Testament. Romans 12.1 uses this word, a reasonable service or worship, Latria, it’s service on God’s behalf. Every church, despite what they may say, has a liturgy. It’s merely what is done in worship, right? It’s their liturgy. It’s become a bad word, a dirty word for many in broader evangelicalism, as well as some traditions that are fixed on certain times or geographies, or some with reactionary impulse towards anything that’s done or anything that’s not novel.

But many churches, who have a purposeful liturgy are simply deliberate or thoughtful about what they’re doing, about the order of their service. But what should determine our liturgy, our worship? And the answer, of course, must be, it always must be, it’s the Word of God. The Word of God. What is New Covenant worship, though? What does it look like? What is it supposed to be? Is there a pattern of worship in the Bible, or is it merely silent and up for grabs, as so many would contend today? What is New Covenant worship? What is its pattern?

New Covenant Worship Is Covenantal

The Pattern at Sinai

We’re going to look at a number of things that worship is from Scripture, from the pages of God’s Holy Word. The first thing we see is that New Covenant worship is covenantal. It’s covenantal. God always deals with man by way of covenant. We think of Adam or Abraham or the Davidic covenant, and on and on. Indeed, man is created in covenant. with God and even for us, right? The New Testament means the new covenant, the new covenant church. Think about how God assembled the old covenant people. And we can see clues there, instructions for even us.

Remember in Exodus, the Israelites were assembled at the mountain and God makes a covenant with them. And how did God establish a pattern of worship on the mountain in Exodus in this event at Sinai? This is important for us. because the comparison is made in the book of Hebrews that that was a type, right? Exodus 20, when we look at that passage, what’s the pattern there? What’s the pattern of this type? And I encourage you later, I’m gonna reference a lot of passages this morning, and I encourage you to fill up your Lord’s day and fill up perhaps your week with these passages as you can reflect upon them and see this pattern there.

First, briefly, in the pattern, we see what God calls the people. God initiates the relationship always. He defines it and He calls the assembly. In Exodus 19, God has told them to get ready to meet with Him. God is Lord and He calls them to assembly. In verse 2, God, what next? He cleanses his people. He cleanses by delivering them from the old to the new situation. God cleanses them by deliverance. In that verse, Exodus 20 verse 2, he says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. This is redemptive history. This is what I did. You are my holy people now. He initiates the people in a relationship with him and he cleanses them so they can partake with him in the covenants. So he calls them and he cleanses them. And then next he gives his word, the law, to the people in verse 3. It says, therefore you shall have no other gods before me, and it goes on. And they are thereby consecrated as his people.

Communion and Commissioning

And then in Exodus 24, we have what? Remember, the 70 elders. At the conclusion of it all, the representatives, they went up and they ate with God. They communed with Him. They communed with Him in a meal. And if you’d like to turn to Exodus 24, I’m gonna read verses 9 to 11. Exodus 24, verses 9 to 11. And we see this, and we see the result of it, starting in verse 9.

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the 70 of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet, as it were, a pavement like sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief man of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. And the result of it all is what? There is peace. There’s peace between them.

And finally, we’d see if we continue in Exodus, as I encourage you to do later, contributions for the tabernacle were taken, and they are commissioned to build, concluding in what? In Exodus 39, 43, the benediction. And Moses blessed them, it says. God commissions Israel that they would be sent out in his name.

And we see a similar pattern in new covenant worship. It is covenantal. It’s covenantal.

New Covenant Worship Is Temple Worship

Secondly, we see New Covenant worship is temple worship, right? Not physical, out of place, with blood, but that was the picture of what was truly taking place. Moses is given a pattern. The temple has a pattern. It’s the same as the tabernacle. And what was that pattern? What was that blueprint that’s given? In Hebrews 8, 4 and 5, we see the pattern was that, it was a heavenly pattern. The priest served as a shadow of the real thing. We don’t go to the old, but to the true temple, because Jesus is the true temple. We come to worship, and when we come, we come in Christ. We belong to him. We are united to Jesus. And we don’t just come to the temple. We come as the temple, because God’s presence doesn’t just dwell in Christ, but in us, too, because we are in Christ, you see. You are now the temple. We assemble as the temple of God, Ephesians 2 tells us. You’re once estranged, far off people, not of the people of God, but you’ve been brought near, you’ve been made new to the holy dwelling of God. So new covenant worship is temple worship because you worship in Christ and you are the temple.

The Pattern in the Temple Dedication

Let’s see this pattern in the Old Testament. First, if we look at 2 Corinthians, I’m sorry, 2 Chronicles 5, at the completion of the temple on earth, let’s see what that looks like. Because of all the Old Testament, what they did and built was a pattern of the heavenly, and it was, as Hebrews tells us. Let’s look at the temple there and see the pattern revealed.

2 Chronicles 5, verses 2 to 5, God calls them to assemble. In verse 6, God cleanses them with sacrifices so that entrance can be made by the priests. And then in verses 7 and following, the priests enter into the presence, the very presence of God. The people sing praises outside, and they magnify his name as the cleansed people of God. And then in chapter 6 of 2 Chronicles, God preaches his word through the king, and the word of God comes to the people, and people respond with prayer and with song. God sends fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices, and they are taken up to him. And it’s God’s way of saying that he is there to commune with them, that he accepts their worship, their sacrifices.

You are in me, and I in you. And the people eat from the altar and take in the sacrifice, and God breathes in the smoke that goes up from the altar, and he takes in the sacrifice. And there’s communion between God and his people, and there’s communion. glorious communion, and God ultimately dismisses them and what? Commissions them to go back into the world for service to their homeland. Pattern has reverberations, has echoes into the New Testament, because all that was preparatory. Remember, that’s the structure of our Bibles, right? The canon is the preparatory word, and then the word, Jesus Christ and the Gospels, and then the explanatory word, explaining what happened. So this is the structure, this threefold pattern.

And remember what Peter says in 1 Peter 2, verse 5, he says, you are being built up into a spiritual temple, a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. An amazing thing. And that word there for temple or dwelling, it’s bait or oikos, it’s temple, it’s a dwelling. If you live there, it’s a house. If a king lives there, it’s a palace. And if God lives there, it’s a temple. Peter says you’re being built up into a certain type of house. What kind of house is it? It’s a house where there is a royal priesthood, one where you may offer up spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ. He says they are living stones. They’ve been assembled, built into the temple. And God’s spirit is truly with you now. You’re before God’s throne. And it’s your duty, it’s your service, it’s your job now to offer up to him spiritual sacrifices.

And so we see this pattern of worship in the covenant and in the temple.

New Covenant Worship Is Sacrificial

We also see, thirdly, new covenant worship is worship based on sacrifices. It’s sacrificial worship. And it’s really strange for many people to hear worship is sacrificial. Because we read and we hear in Hebrews and see that Christ’s sacrifice was once and for all. And we believe and we confess it, and we should believe it. It’s true. And it truly is a gross offense to God to assert that Christ is re-sacrificed or re-presented as a sacrifice again and again and again and again. And so we think that because Christ is the once and for all sacrifice, that sacrifice is done away with. But is that the case? What does Paul say? We just read in Romans chapter 12. Certain types of sacrifice are over for sure, to be sure. There’s no more bloody animal sacrifice because that’s never what God intended anyway. It’s never what he wanted anyway. He says instead, you offer up what yourselves as a living sacrifice. You are here in the temple and sacrifices are to be brought. And what is the sacrifice? It’s you, it’s you, the worshiper, the believer in the living God. As Hebrews 13 says, said, the praise of your lips is a spiritual and reasonable sacrifice to give to God.

The Pattern in Levitical Sacrifices

So if New Testament worship is sacrificial worship, what is the pattern of the sacrifices? Can we learn a pattern that we see in Scripture in regard to the sacrifices? We’ve seen the pattern of the covenant and the pattern of the temple, but what’s the pattern of the Levitical sacrifice in the Old Testament, right? Again, the shadow of the reality. Our Old Testament reading, we read Leviticus 1 for a reason. Notice, we see the repetition here. The first thing in verse one and two, God calls the worshiper near, to draw near, and there to come in an appropriate way. God is the one who initiates. He’s the one who calls, and he tells them how sacrifices are to be given. The next thing we see is a confession of sin. The worshiper is to die in the animal that he brings, right, representatively. So as he’s entering into worship, the first thing that he does is bring the sacrifice and put his hands on its head, and it is accepted on his behalf as an expiation for him, as a cutting away of the enmity between God and man, representatively in that animal. He identifies himself with the sacrifice. He knows he is to be sacrificed for God.

Notice how Paul isn’t saying anything different. You are a living sacrifice. In Leviticus, they knew, and they said the same thing, but they did it via the animals, right, by way of these animals. They knew that because of sin, they were the ones who needed to be sacrificed. But they put their hands on the animal, and the animal substituted for them in their place. And the animal is put to death on his or her behalf, and he or she receives atonement from the animal’s death.

And the next thing that happens in this pattern of the sacrifices is that the animal is what? Cut up and prepared to be consumed by God. Verse six of Leviticus one, he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. And so the animal is prepared to be consumed by God for that communion with God. But first it is cut up, right? And this should, you know, It should raise your senses. It’s no accident. What does Hebrew say? It says the word of God is what? Living and active, sharper than what? Than a two-edged sword. And a two-edged sword is so sharp that it can divide between soul and spirit. And notice the language there. What else does it divide? Joint and marrow.

Paul uses terms of sacrifice. service language. Hebrews says that when you come unto the word of God, it does that to you. It cuts you off and prepares you to stand before God rightly. It exposes you for who you are, naked and bare before him. And why? So that you may commune with him and be at peace with him. And he shows you you are who you are and what is your response is to be obedience.

Leviticus 1 goes on in verses 7 to 9. It says the sacrifice is burned and is consumed, and see what it says, and it shall become a sweet-smelling aroma before the Lord. They’re burning the sacrifice so that I can get up to God. They know that God dwells in the heavens. and that this is but his footstool. And they burn that sacrifice to get it up to God. And again, what is the sacrifice? It’s the worshiper. It’s not the animal. The animal’s a substitute. It’s the worshiper. The worshiper is upon the idol. The worshiper is taken up into heaven because he’s been prepared rightly. And God breathes the worshiper in and is pleased. It is a sweet-smelling aroma to him. And then the worshiper is blessed and renewed.

We can look at the pattern of other offerings in Leviticus. They have a similar pattern. This pattern reminds us that if you’re going to offer a series of sacrifices to God, what is the first kind you’ll have to offer? It’s a sin offering because there’s a distance between you and God that must be bridged. There’s an enmity because of your sin. There’s estrangement. But that sin offering takes that away. And this is followed by the burnt offering. Of course, it’s an expression of the complete person being burned, now cleansed by the Lord. The burnt offering shows the person, just like that whole animal, is going to be sectioned out and offered to God. And they are to give their whole selves entirely to God, wholehearted, whole life sacrifice to Him. And I would ask, does that sound familiar? Maybe Romans 12, right? You are to present yourselves a living sacrifice. This is your reasonable service, worship, liturgy to God. And why? Because he forgave your sins. He showed you mercy.

And then next, lastly, the peace offering is given, which is an expression of thanksgiving, right? Eucharist, the word means thanksgiving. It’s another word for the Lord’s Supper. And that’s what it is, a meal of thanksgiving. It’s a thanksgiving and also a seal to them of covenant fellowship with the Lord because he is willing to eat a sacramental meal with them.

And there is this pattern once again.

New Covenant Worship Is Gospel Worship

We’ve seen the New Testament worship is covenantal, it is temple worship, it is sacrificial worship, and then finally we see it is certainly gospel worship. New Covenant worship is gospel worship. We are gathered here together through what? Through the gospel. We have believed that Jesus Christ has brought us together.

How does the gospel work? Do we just stroll up to God, just saunter on up in our own initiative? No, God calls the sinner. Romans 8 and 9 tells us he calls the sinner. He calls the sinner, and when he does, his heart is made new, and he confesses his sins, and he repents, and he believes the truth of the gospel. And then God makes a pronouncement about that sinner after he is converted. You are justified in my sight. You are holy. There’s no longer enmity between us by virtue of the work of Jesus Christ for you.

And after God has made the sinner holy, what is the sinner’s duty? To be changed and sanctified by God, by the Word of God, through the Spirit. And why does God do that? God does it to prepare them for glory, when he will commune with them forever and ever and ever. And in this lifetime, we get a foretaste of that, Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day, in the supper. In the Lord’s Supper, our communion with Him.

And the pattern, again, is there, you see, even in the gospel, God calls us, we give confession, God cleanses us, and He consecrates us to Himself, and then He communes with us, and then notice, He didn’t save you just for yourself. Rather, he sends you back into the world in his service, in his commission to you, to go and to be a blessing to the nations.

All of these things, the pattern of the Bible, inform our order of worship, our liturgy. God has given no other order. Not in the tabernacle, not in the temple, not in the sacrifices, the covenant, or in the gospel. It’s always the same order. And it must be. There’s a gospel logic to all of it. And that should be a clue to us that we should follow when we come to worship. It should be according to the pattern, the divine pattern of biblical liturgy.

Application to Our Liturgy

Call to Worship

That’s why our liturgy follows that same pattern. First God calls us into worship, just as he did on the mountain, in the sacrifices, in the temple worship, just as he called you in the gospel, he calls you So he calls you at the beginning of the service through his minister to come and worship in the appropriate manner. God calls us to worship. It’s a command, not an offer. God says, you come, come on my appointed day in my appointed way.

Cleansing and Confession

And then secondly, God cleanses us once he has called us. That’s why immediately after we’ve given praise that God has called us into his presence, we come with thanksgiving and we realize I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. Do you ever realize that? That as he shows his grace to you and you recognize the holiness of God, you should reflexively realize that you don’t belong. I don’t belong here. We’re not holy. We’re not fit to be in God’s presence. None of us are. And notice in the Bible, when people come before his presence, what do they do? Reflexively, they admit their unworthiness. Even we too do this. When we approach God in His infinite holiness, in His perfection and power and majesty, we should be overwhelmed.

And we think of someone like Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, not the worst sinner in Israel. What does he refer to as? The holy man of Israel. How did he respond to being in the presence of the Almighty God? He fell on his face. He fell on his face, and what does God do? After God calls Isaiah, he confesses. Then God sends the angel, remember the episode with the burning coal to cleanse his lips, to pardon his sins, and lets him come and fellowship before him. And then God gives him an assignment. Gives him an assignment and sends him out. He’s commissioned into the world to serve the Lord.

And there we see the same pattern over and over. You come into his presence every Lord’s Day at his call. And the first thing you should and must do and have to do is to praise him and to confess. We don’t go through the confession of sin because we want to be old-fashioned or we think it’s cool or it makes us feel better than others. I’ve had people come through and it’s very distasteful for them and they leave because they can’t bear hearing the law read and their sin exposed every Lord’s Day. But that’s precisely what we must do. We don’t do it for those reasons. It should expose who we are, week after week after week.

You may or not realize this, but there are people like that who’ve come and avoid and left churches like ours because of the confession of sin. It’s odd to them. It’s distasteful. Some people read it and they think, I can’t read this every week. I’m not that bad. I’ve sinned by what I’ve done and left undone, and my thoughts and words and deeds. This sounds pretty radical. I don’t want to hear that. I come here to feel good. They come here for me, right? Have you heard that? But we confess those things, why? Because they’re true. They’re true. That’s who we are before God and before His holy, perfect law. We don’t obey Him like we should.

But just as God showed mercy to Isaiah, He shows mercy to us, to you, dear Christian. And He cleanses you in Christ. Not only does he cleanse us, but he pronounces to us what? Verbally through the minister, you are clean, you are accepted in my sight. Come and worship, you’re free, you’re justified. There’s a gospel logic to our worship that follows this same pattern. And we are told again and again and again because we need to be told again who we are and how we are who we are. God is praised and magnified and he’s worshiped because of it.

And so we come at God’s call and we confess our sins because we need to be cleansed, even us who have the forgiveness of our sins in Christ. The gospel is not some once needed remedy. We do this every week because that is what we need to do every day. The gospel is for every moment of your life, brothers and sisters. You need to be converted and to be converted in some sense again and again and again, because we’re weak and foolish and feeble and forgetful of the truth, not only of our sin and its magnitude, but of the great mercy available to us and given to us in Christ.

We need to know Christ forgives sinners over and over again and again.

Consecration Through the Word

And after God has cleansed us, he consecrates us, right? Just like when his people covenanted with God on the mountain, that pattern, right? He gave them his law, his word like that.

After we have confessed our sins, we sit under the word of God and it does its work in us and on us and through us because we are now his holy people. And he’s going to tell us, now that I’ve forgiven and cleansed you, you are not to be like the world anymore. I’ve recreated you for good works in Christ, which I decreed beforehand that you should walk in them. Therefore, hear my word and believe and respond rightly to that word. be consecrated, be chopped up like that sacrifice. Let the word of God expose you for who you are. And we say, Lord, whatever you say, I will do. I am your servant, send me.

And after he has chopped us up with his word, and after he’s exposed our hearts, he expects a proper response. And that’s why after the preaching, we pray a congregational prayer, and we sing, and we confess our faith. And when we do, we are saying, We’ve heard your word, Lord, and we believe it. We believe it. We believe in you, the God that brought that word. We believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. We confess that, and we confess our faith, and we give our offerings, and we’re saying, our whole selves are now yours. We are living sacrifices for you. Take us.

Communion in the Lord’s Supper

And after we’ve responded to the word of God, he communes with us. He’s told us what He desires for us, that He’s forgiven us. And to that end, at the end of it, He comes down from on high, truly by the power of the Spirit, and He sits at table with us at the supper with us. And He feeds us the body and blood of His Son that we might live. We might live and be nourished and be strengthened. And He tells us at that table, everything is okay between me and you. I am at peace with you. I’m your father, you are my child, and I love you. And we have fellowship one with another, and we will forever and ever and ever have that fellowship, dear child. So if you doubt it in the middle of the week, doubt it no more, he tells us. I am your loving father, I’m willing to sit at the same table with you and call you my child.

Commissioning and Benediction

And then after that, finally, after we have sat and sucked with God, have been consecrated and cleansed and called by God. He commissions us. He sends us out with his blessing. He does all these things for us. He breaks down and builds us up in here. You know, that we might go out there as living sacrifices once again and give ourselves as Christ did, give our lives for the life of the world. But we won’t have the power to do that if we don’t know the gospel here in worship. And the only way we can give ourselves freely to those out there in his service, to those who are dying, those who hate us and are enemies of God, is if we have experienced the gospel here. And been told once again, this is all that I’ve done. This is all who you are. Only then can we say, I am yours. All that I am is yours. Take my life and let me give it to my family, to the world outside, to my vocation, all, all of it, dear Lord, that you might be glorified.

So God puts his name on us in the blessing and the benediction. And he sends us out and he says, now go serve me in the world. Go serve me in the world.

Worship as the Pattern of Christian Life

And do you see in all of this that the liturgy is really nothing less than the pattern of your whole life? It’s a reenactment, a dramatization of what has happened to you week after week after week, just like the Passover before. When they sat down for it, they weren’t just pretending. They were going through what was the reality of their life. It happened back then, and therefore, they would reenact and dramatize what happened so that they would know who they truly were. They were God’s people, God’s people who were delivered from Egypt, and he is for them. And you do that week after week after week in this building. You reenact what God has done for you. He has called you. He has cleansed you. He has consecrated you and communed with you. And He has commissioned you. That is your life. It’s your life on Sunday. It’s also your life on Monday through Saturday. It’s who you are. It’s your identity.

And if you learn this pattern, and it is ingrained to your core here through worship, that it will make sense to you on Monday morning when all of your sins come flooding back before you again, and you say, what do I do? And what do you do, brothers and sisters? What do you do? You say, God has called me out of darkness to live in light. So I’ll confess my sins and I’ll believe the gospel. I’ll believe what he says about me. and I’ll live under his word and I’ll commune with God day by day through prayer. And I’ll give myself to him as a living sacrifice to whatever he calls me to. That’s what you do. That’s what we do every day. This isn’t just for this hour, this is our life always. But in this hour, we, as an assembly, remember and we reenact and we dramatize the reality and the truth, and we do it in the very presence of the God who has done it on our behalf.

Notice again the words of Paul. You are to give a reasonable service, and you are to give yourself as a living sacrifice. This is very different than the trite statement. I go to worship at that church because I like this or that music style or how it makes me feel, what it does for me. What a difference between that. And I go to offer my reasonable service and to give myself wholly to God as a living sacrifice. And if you understand and get the depth and the weight and glory of what God is doing in worship, you will experience a taste of the heavenly reality week after week after week. Gloriously, praise God. And as you give yourself up, you see the paradox of the gospel, as it were. God will always give you more. It will be an experience, not because you had some inner deep feeling that the music moved you in the right way, but because you gave yourself up to God in his pattern and remembered the gospel and relived the gospel. And God was here to tell you that you are his and he is yours forever, forever. And that should give you enough power and strength and grace and peace to make it six more days until we visit again here and have a taste of our eternal rest one more time where we’ll be with Him forever and ever. And we will give ourselves to Him in sweet praise for the rest of our days.

This is our worship because this is our community life. Do you know what binds us together? It’s that God is called, cleansed, consecrated. That’s what made you one loaf and one body, as Paul says in the Corinthian letters. And so we go through this again, and we rehearse that again, and we remember who we are in Christ. And God re-communicates those realities to us to impress them upon us, and we know and should know beyond doubt as we walk out those doors that Christ has died and risen and lives for us and therefore we are at peace with God and can now live in this world and in the next for Him. Holy for Him. What a glorious Savior we have. What a glorious and gracious King who’s given us these very things. Remember this always, brothers and sisters. Remember and give praise as you live your lives whole-souled, completely for Him.

Do you think this would have an impact on your life? If we truly believe this, if we truly believe these things, would it impact your doubting and your frustration and your sorrow and your lack of peace in life? You better believe that it would, and it does. And I pray that we all would believe the Lord would help our unbelief, and we truly do live our lives holy, whole-souled for our great God and Savior. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we do praise you and thank you for, as mysterious as it is to our finite minds, that you’ve accomplished for us our salvation and our sure redemption, that all that needed to be done For us to be at peace with you has been done in Christ Jesus. Father, we pray that we would believe these things, Lord, that we would know that we have died to sin and been raised to walk in newness of life. And in knowing that and believing that and trusting it, it would truly pull us through our dark times, our times of sorrow, and our times of praise. Lord, help us never to forget these truths for our lives and for your glory. Continue to be with us, we pray. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.