The Abiding Message (Zechariah 1:1-6; Jeremiah 25:1-14)
/God calls his people to repentance, with the promise of acceptance, warning them from history of the reality that perpetual disobedience ultimately meets with judgment.
God calls his people to repentance, with the promise of acceptance, warning them from history of the reality that perpetual disobedience ultimately meets with judgment.
As a prophet, Zechariah bears witness to Jesus Christ as Messiah, as the suffering priest who is crowned as the conquering king, and warns all who rebel against God that judgment is coming.
To rightly understand how to worship, we must remember what worship is - namely, a meeting and conversation with our Creator, in his heavenly home, as an anticipation of and participation in the Last Day.
As the worship service draws to a close, it climaxes in doxological praise and an authoritative pronouncement of blessing on behalf of the triune God.
The giving of offerings must be seen as an element of corporate worship, which determines when and how it is to be given.
In the New Covenant, giving is not regulated as it was under the Law, but is transformed in accord with the liberality and abundance of the gospel.
We give, not because the Lord is in need, but because he is worthy and it is the appropriate response of a grateful heart.
Through the Lord’s Supper, God seals the promises of the Covenant of Grace with his personal guarantee.
The Lord’s Supper is a sign of the Covenant of Grace signifying what Christ has accomplished through his life, death and resurrection.
The gospel comes with commands and must, therefore, not only be believed, but also obeyed by living a life that is conformed to the cross of Christ.
The Christian life is a life of faith and is, therefore, intimately tied to the preaching of the word of God from where faith comes.
Prayer, offered in response to the mercies of God, is a presenting of our requests before God as an act of worship and dependence.
Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin, leading you to repent and enter into worship in the grace of Christ and not your own righteousness.
In humility, God's people wait to be called into worship by the Sovereign Lord, who does so each Lord's Day, through his ministers.
Because worship is entering into the presence of the holy God who is a consuming fire, it is to be done with humility, reverence and awe.
What we will see is that Sunday (the first day of the week) is set aside for worship which is sacred time - time spent in the presence of the living God and is a participation the heavenly rest that will be ours in fullness in eternity.
In worship, God does not come into your presence, but brings you into his by the ministry of the Holy Spirit and because of calls you to abandon those earthly elements of worship that can be touched because they were but pictures of what you have in reality.
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