050306 Abraham
Abraham M2 Lying and Leaning
In the popular novel Life of Pi Canadian novelist Yann Martel tells the story of a young Indian boy growing up in South India in the 1970s. His father owns a zoo. With the increasing political turmoil in India, his family decides to emigrate to Canada. Like Noah, they travel on a ship to North America with their wild animals on board.The ship sinks in the Pacific and Pi finds himself the only human survivor onboard a life raft that contains 450 pound Bengal tiger. Pi ends up surviving for 227 days at sea.
The novel doesn’t explicit say this, but if wasn’t for the presence of the Bengali Tiger on board on the life boat, Pi would have likely died.
The threat of this 450 pound Benagli “saves” him--as Pi is forced to use all his knowledge of zoology and animal behavior to think, create boundaries, and survive.
Japanese restaurants need fresh fish because they love to eat fish raw. So trading companies will import live fish in tanks from North America. The fish, of course, have to be alive when they arrive in Japan. Typically, about half of the fish died by the time they arrived in Japan. But someone at a trading company said I have an idea. Let’s put an octopus in the tank with fish. The octopus is the enemy of the fish. Guess what happened? Some of the fish were eaten, but 70-80 percent ending up living. Because of presence of the octopus experience stress, became stronger and ended up have about 50% better chance of surviving.
There’s a something about facing challenges can enable us to survive and grow as human beings…
When God calls us to follow him, part of that journey will involve tests and hardships because God wants to us grow our character so we will be a blessing others… We’re going to focus on one of Abraham’s tests today… Abraham has traveled from Ur to Haran to Canaan…
Turn to Genesis 12:10-20
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
To set up the context, we in Genesis 12:1-3 we see that God has led Abraham out of Ur in Southern Iraq and Haran to a land he has promised to his offspring. Through this journey God says he will make Abraham name, i.e. character great and he will make him and his offspring a blessing to the nations.
God calls us to follow him in an in unknown land place. He wants to bless us and make our name and character great and part of the way he does this is by allowing us to go through certain tests and hardships. This morning, we’re going to see Abraham go through a test.
God leads Abraham out of Ur near the Persian Gulf in Southern Iraq and then Northwest to Haran and then toward the Mediterranean into the land of Canaan. But there is a famine in the land--so Abraham goes southwest to Egypt to find food.
In Egypt Abraham faces a difficult test.
Sometimes we assume that if we are in the “will of God” life will be easy for us, but here see that Abram is led by God our Ur and Haran to the land of Canaan (Palestine) and he is led into a famine Sometimes when follow God we are led into a famine… right into place of hardship… Abraham comes into Canaan and he faces a famine, he does what you and I might, he goes to find food somewhere else—he goes to different country, he goes to Egypt. Then he enters into a place of temptation. Now it’s debatable as to whether God led Abraham to Egypt, it looks went on his own, but God “allows” into Egypt. Some God’s a call will bring us into hardship and allow us in temptation.
If you read the great missionaries biographies like Hudson Taylor, a great English medical missionary to China, you’ll see that he was so clearly called to China, but he faced all kind of hardships and temptations and tests of faith.
So will we… but he does this to make our name great… so we will be a blessing.
As he’s about to enter into Egypt, Abraham’s senses that men will be attracted to his wife Sarah. His wife is 65’s, but she’s stunningly beautiful and sexually compelling. I know it’s a little hard to believe that at 65 without plastic surgery but she was. She had good genes and she probably ate well.
Abraham knows that if a powerful man was attracted to Sarah his wife, his life would be in danger. In this culture adultery would have been seen as much more serious than in our culture. For a man in this culture to sexually proposition a married woman would have been considered a very indecent proposal. The more honorable way in this culture to proceed would have been to kill the husband and make his illegible wife for him.
Abram doesn’t want to face this possibility of his being killed, so he says to Sarah his wife, Sarai, "Look. We both know that you're a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you they're going to say, "Aha! That's his wife!' and kill me. But they'll let you live. Do me a big favor: tell them you're my sister. Because of you, they'll welcome me and let me live."
Is this the truth? It’s a technical half-truth. Sarah was his half-sister, same father different mother, but it’s a half truth with the intent to deceive. A half truth with the intent to deceive is a lie.
Abraham is under real pressure here to lie.
Most of us probably have never had a real death threat. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a death threat hanging over you? Over the last few years, I’ve become acquainted with a man named Tom Dooley, a former NFL referee. Tom has refereed a Super Bowl. Last October Tom I was at Tom’s home for dinner with a small group. Tom was sharing how as an NFL referee he had received a phone from an anonymous caller saying he everything is going to go well for his family if such and such a team wins Sunday’s game. Then the anonymous caller mentioned his wife and children by name.
Tom immediately called NFL security and they arranged for a personal body guards for the family and police escorts wherever they went.
I asked Tom, “So what did you do?” Did you let this threat affect your calling the game?
If I knew that my wife and family might be killed, I’d be very tempted to help this person who had a betting interest in the game to win…
Abraham feels the pressure to lie because he might be killed if he’s tells… so he’s willing to throw his integrity to wind… I think we sympathize…
But, he’s also willing to throw his wife to “the wolves” in orders to protect himself. By telling Pharaoh that Sarah is his sister he willing to destroy her honor, her well-being safety, to save his skin… Not everyone is quite ready to sympathize with this…
Male commentators have called Abraham’s actions intriguing and unfortunate…
Female commentators have called his actions, brutal and despicable.
The female commentators are right!
Why does Abraham lie?
Why is he willing to sacrifice his wife’s safety and expose to the real possibility of adulterous relationship…
As we’ve said, he wants to save his skin.
Why do we lie? Why can are we tempted to let others take the “fall” for us? We lie because we want to save something… our skin, our reputation, our business, our interests…
Abraham lies, but the “sin beneath the sin” of Abraham’s lie is a failure to trust God, a failure to throw himself on God for protection.
Abraham isn’t just breaking some impersonal, abstract moral principle, but he’s failing to lean on God, failing to trust God, failing to throw himself on God.
If we lie the sin beneath our sin of lying is a failure to trust God, failure to throw ourselves on God.
Several months ago the Vancouver Sun carried an article on lying and according to this article in a typical 18 minute conversation a person lies 3 times.
They may not be Watergates-type lies, but they are half-truths or exaggerations.
Sometimes we lie in order to make ourselves look better or avoid a potential negative reaction from someone?
The sin behind that sin is a failure to trust God for our identity.
Recently, I faced 3 similar temptations in short period of time.
Sakiko discovered that we had an extra $100 dollars in our bank account. The temptation for me was to NOT bring that up that fact with the bank.
But I reasoned with bank the situation, if I don’t bring this up with the bank, it’s really not only sin against the bank so I much, but it’s a sin against God because I’m saying I can’t trust you for $100, I can trust to provide our financial needs.
As Sakiko getting ready to go bank to explain our situation, I thought this little like tithing, the first tenth is God’s, if were to withhold the first of my income which is God, what I’m really saying in my heart to God, Lord I can’t trust you to take care of my financial needs. In a similar way, if I don’t I’m not to willing give to the bank that is rightfully there’s, I’m saying to God in my heart God I don’t trust you to take care of my financial needs (BTW, if trusting God with your finances is a challenge for you I’d recommend you pick up Darrell’s message or cd Good News for Financial Stress in the foyer after the service. It’s a great message).
But think about all of our temptations: whether to lie, or to worry, or to use illegal drugs, with our resources—at the root of all these temptations is a failure to trust God.
Jesus taught that all the commands of God can be summed in the command to love and trust God and loving our neighbor.
God calls Abraham to a journey of TRUST.
Abraham call was not just to trust enough him to leave his hometown of Ur or Haran and following him into the unknown or just to trust for child and the land… But God wants Abraham to learn to trust God in all the areas of his life so he can make Abraham’s name and character great—so that he can be a blessing.
And God calls us to a journey of trust and will allow us to face various tests and challenges so our trust in God can grow so that he can make our name great and make us a blessing.
The question is will we lean on God or ourselves?
When we learn to trust God, we release an explosion of blessing in the world.
But when we don’t trust, we can release a kind of curse in our world.
What happened because Abraham failed to trust God in Egypt and lies about the identity of Sarah to Pharaoh?
Abraham compromises his own soul and relationship with God.
As result of Abraham’s sin of lying and trying engineer his own safety rather than trusting in God we see that for a long time Abraham doesn’t hear God’s voice, for a long time he doesn’t build altars and worship God.
The penalty for sin is usually not zap judgment, but more or whatever it is we chose… If we chose to not trust, the natural consequence is a growing distance from God…
But Abraham lack of trusting God affects not only him, but others around him.
Abraham lie to pharaoh puts his wife Sarah at risk. Pharaoh takes Sarah into his harem. Sarah could have been sexually defiled by pharaoh. No doubt their marriage is strained because of what happens. If you’re in bar with your wife or girlfriend and some buff dude starts hitting on her… and you say, “She’s my sister--go for it… it would strain on your relationship too.”
Because Abraham fails to trust God… not only does he put himself and wife at risk, but Pharaoh and the people in his household become seriously sick.
Our sins affect non only us but others: when a Father is violent, when a son or daughter uses illegal drugs affects, when a person breaks a promise these sins affect them but also people around them. A man named Randy wrote a letter to himself describing how he would hurt his wife, his children and many friends if he had an affair. And he would undermine his own efforts to help his dad to encourage his dad to come to God (as he his dad thinks Christians are hypocrites). Abraham sin affects those around him as do our sin.
Finally, Abraham endangers God’s plan to bless the world. God has promised to Abraham that he would bless the world through his offspring. The plan was to do that through Sarah’s child. By giving his wife away, Abraham was endangering the plan.
But, when we trust God, he makes our name great, our character great and we can be create an explosion of blessing in the world… When we fail to trust others can be hurt.
But Abraham fails God, but does God fail Abraham?
No, he intervenes.
He cause diseases to break out on pharaoh and his family. Pharoah realizes something is wrong, he discovers that Sarah is Abraham’s wife… he releases her. God intervenes and protects Sarah, brings her back to Abraham and through her Isaac is born and then Jacob is born to Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob has twelve sons would become the nation of Israel and years later one of Abraham and Sarah’s great, great, great children in born… the savior, his name Jesus Christ, the savior of the world..
When Abraham fails, not only does God not give up Abraham personally, but he does not give up on the purposes that he wants to achieve through Abraham and Sarah’s offspring.
2 Timothy 2:13 tells that even when we are faithless, God is faithful.
Our choices matter they really matter, but God is bigger than our choices…
The other day I was cleaning my files so as to free more space for a colleague and I came across a document that made me think what a self-centered jerk I had been during a certain time of my life. I was about with to throw away the document to make more space. But I thought this is a good reminder of what I was like and that God doesn’t give up on me! And he doesn’t give up on his purpose for me!
Like Abraham, we can fail, but God doesn’t fail us. In spite of our failures, God can redeem us and achieve his purposes in us. In spite of our failures, God can make our name and our character so that we will be blessing.
We see this in the ways God related to Abraham, but we see this most clearly in Christ.
When we wandered from God, leaned on ourselves… God became a person in Jesus Christ and came for us…
Isaiah 53:6 says
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
So we could be forgiven and restored into a relationship with.
Jesus lives the life of perfect trust in God, the life that God requires, then instead of receiving his just reward, he took the punishment for our failures to trust God on the cross... When we come to Jesus in our sins are paid for by his death, and 2) his
perfect life record is transferred to our account…
The Lord’s Supper…
On the night before Jesus went to the cross, he took bread and said, this broken for your, broken so that you can be made whole, then he took the wine, this is my blood spilled out for you. As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim my death until I come…
Abraham M2 Lying and Leaning
In the popular novel Life of Pi Canadian novelist Yann Martel tells the story of a young Indian boy growing up in South India in the 1970s. His father owns a zoo. With the increasing political turmoil in India, his family decides to emigrate to Canada. Like Noah, they travel on a ship to North America with their wild animals on board.The ship sinks in the Pacific and Pi finds himself the only human survivor onboard a life raft that contains 450 pound Bengal tiger. Pi ends up surviving for 227 days at sea.
The novel doesn’t explicit say this, but if wasn’t for the presence of the Bengali Tiger on board on the life boat, Pi would have likely died.
The threat of this 450 pound Benagli “saves” him--as Pi is forced to use all his knowledge of zoology and animal behavior to think, create boundaries, and survive.
Japanese restaurants need fresh fish because they love to eat fish raw. So trading companies will import live fish in tanks from North America. The fish, of course, have to be alive when they arrive in Japan. Typically, about half of the fish died by the time they arrived in Japan. But someone at a trading company said I have an idea. Let’s put an octopus in the tank with fish. The octopus is the enemy of the fish. Guess what happened? Some of the fish were eaten, but 70-80 percent ending up living. Because of presence of the octopus experience stress, became stronger and ended up have about 50% better chance of surviving.
There’s a something about facing challenges can enable us to survive and grow as human beings…
When God calls us to follow him, part of that journey will involve tests and hardships because God wants to us grow our character so we will be a blessing others… We’re going to focus on one of Abraham’s tests today… Abraham has traveled from Ur to Haran to Canaan…
Turn to Genesis 12:10-20
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
To set up the context, we in Genesis 12:1-3 we see that God has led Abraham out of Ur in Southern Iraq and Haran to a land he has promised to his offspring. Through this journey God says he will make Abraham name, i.e. character great and he will make him and his offspring a blessing to the nations.
God calls us to follow him in an in unknown land place. He wants to bless us and make our name and character great and part of the way he does this is by allowing us to go through certain tests and hardships. This morning, we’re going to see Abraham go through a test.
God leads Abraham out of Ur near the Persian Gulf in Southern Iraq and then Northwest to Haran and then toward the Mediterranean into the land of Canaan. But there is a famine in the land--so Abraham goes southwest to Egypt to find food.
In Egypt Abraham faces a difficult test.
Sometimes we assume that if we are in the “will of God” life will be easy for us, but here see that Abram is led by God our Ur and Haran to the land of Canaan (Palestine) and he is led into a famine Sometimes when follow God we are led into a famine… right into place of hardship… Abraham comes into Canaan and he faces a famine, he does what you and I might, he goes to find food somewhere else—he goes to different country, he goes to Egypt. Then he enters into a place of temptation. Now it’s debatable as to whether God led Abraham to Egypt, it looks went on his own, but God “allows” into Egypt. Some God’s a call will bring us into hardship and allow us in temptation.
If you read the great missionaries biographies like Hudson Taylor, a great English medical missionary to China, you’ll see that he was so clearly called to China, but he faced all kind of hardships and temptations and tests of faith.
So will we… but he does this to make our name great… so we will be a blessing.
As he’s about to enter into Egypt, Abraham’s senses that men will be attracted to his wife Sarah. His wife is 65’s, but she’s stunningly beautiful and sexually compelling. I know it’s a little hard to believe that at 65 without plastic surgery but she was. She had good genes and she probably ate well.
Abraham knows that if a powerful man was attracted to Sarah his wife, his life would be in danger. In this culture adultery would have been seen as much more serious than in our culture. For a man in this culture to sexually proposition a married woman would have been considered a very indecent proposal. The more honorable way in this culture to proceed would have been to kill the husband and make his illegible wife for him.
Abram doesn’t want to face this possibility of his being killed, so he says to Sarah his wife, Sarai, "Look. We both know that you're a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you they're going to say, "Aha! That's his wife!' and kill me. But they'll let you live. Do me a big favor: tell them you're my sister. Because of you, they'll welcome me and let me live."
Is this the truth? It’s a technical half-truth. Sarah was his half-sister, same father different mother, but it’s a half truth with the intent to deceive. A half truth with the intent to deceive is a lie.
Abraham is under real pressure here to lie.
Most of us probably have never had a real death threat. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a death threat hanging over you? Over the last few years, I’ve become acquainted with a man named Tom Dooley, a former NFL referee. Tom has refereed a Super Bowl. Last October Tom I was at Tom’s home for dinner with a small group. Tom was sharing how as an NFL referee he had received a phone from an anonymous caller saying he everything is going to go well for his family if such and such a team wins Sunday’s game. Then the anonymous caller mentioned his wife and children by name.
Tom immediately called NFL security and they arranged for a personal body guards for the family and police escorts wherever they went.
I asked Tom, “So what did you do?” Did you let this threat affect your calling the game?
If I knew that my wife and family might be killed, I’d be very tempted to help this person who had a betting interest in the game to win…
Abraham feels the pressure to lie because he might be killed if he’s tells… so he’s willing to throw his integrity to wind… I think we sympathize…
But, he’s also willing to throw his wife to “the wolves” in orders to protect himself. By telling Pharaoh that Sarah is his sister he willing to destroy her honor, her well-being safety, to save his skin… Not everyone is quite ready to sympathize with this…
Male commentators have called Abraham’s actions intriguing and unfortunate…
Female commentators have called his actions, brutal and despicable.
The female commentators are right!
Why does Abraham lie?
Why is he willing to sacrifice his wife’s safety and expose to the real possibility of adulterous relationship…
As we’ve said, he wants to save his skin.
Why do we lie? Why can are we tempted to let others take the “fall” for us? We lie because we want to save something… our skin, our reputation, our business, our interests…
Abraham lies, but the “sin beneath the sin” of Abraham’s lie is a failure to trust God, a failure to throw himself on God for protection.
Abraham isn’t just breaking some impersonal, abstract moral principle, but he’s failing to lean on God, failing to trust God, failing to throw himself on God.
If we lie the sin beneath our sin of lying is a failure to trust God, failure to throw ourselves on God.
Several months ago the Vancouver Sun carried an article on lying and according to this article in a typical 18 minute conversation a person lies 3 times.
They may not be Watergates-type lies, but they are half-truths or exaggerations.
Sometimes we lie in order to make ourselves look better or avoid a potential negative reaction from someone?
The sin behind that sin is a failure to trust God for our identity.
Recently, I faced 3 similar temptations in short period of time.
Sakiko discovered that we had an extra $100 dollars in our bank account. The temptation for me was to NOT bring that up that fact with the bank.
But I reasoned with bank the situation, if I don’t bring this up with the bank, it’s really not only sin against the bank so I much, but it’s a sin against God because I’m saying I can’t trust you for $100, I can trust to provide our financial needs.
As Sakiko getting ready to go bank to explain our situation, I thought this little like tithing, the first tenth is God’s, if were to withhold the first of my income which is God, what I’m really saying in my heart to God, Lord I can’t trust you to take care of my financial needs. In a similar way, if I don’t I’m not to willing give to the bank that is rightfully there’s, I’m saying to God in my heart God I don’t trust you to take care of my financial needs (BTW, if trusting God with your finances is a challenge for you I’d recommend you pick up Darrell’s message or cd Good News for Financial Stress in the foyer after the service. It’s a great message).
But think about all of our temptations: whether to lie, or to worry, or to use illegal drugs, with our resources—at the root of all these temptations is a failure to trust God.
Jesus taught that all the commands of God can be summed in the command to love and trust God and loving our neighbor.
God calls Abraham to a journey of TRUST.
Abraham call was not just to trust enough him to leave his hometown of Ur or Haran and following him into the unknown or just to trust for child and the land… But God wants Abraham to learn to trust God in all the areas of his life so he can make Abraham’s name and character great—so that he can be a blessing.
And God calls us to a journey of trust and will allow us to face various tests and challenges so our trust in God can grow so that he can make our name great and make us a blessing.
The question is will we lean on God or ourselves?
When we learn to trust God, we release an explosion of blessing in the world.
But when we don’t trust, we can release a kind of curse in our world.
What happened because Abraham failed to trust God in Egypt and lies about the identity of Sarah to Pharaoh?
Abraham compromises his own soul and relationship with God.
As result of Abraham’s sin of lying and trying engineer his own safety rather than trusting in God we see that for a long time Abraham doesn’t hear God’s voice, for a long time he doesn’t build altars and worship God.
The penalty for sin is usually not zap judgment, but more or whatever it is we chose… If we chose to not trust, the natural consequence is a growing distance from God…
But Abraham lack of trusting God affects not only him, but others around him.
Abraham lie to pharaoh puts his wife Sarah at risk. Pharaoh takes Sarah into his harem. Sarah could have been sexually defiled by pharaoh. No doubt their marriage is strained because of what happens. If you’re in bar with your wife or girlfriend and some buff dude starts hitting on her… and you say, “She’s my sister--go for it… it would strain on your relationship too.”
Because Abraham fails to trust God… not only does he put himself and wife at risk, but Pharaoh and the people in his household become seriously sick.
Our sins affect non only us but others: when a Father is violent, when a son or daughter uses illegal drugs affects, when a person breaks a promise these sins affect them but also people around them. A man named Randy wrote a letter to himself describing how he would hurt his wife, his children and many friends if he had an affair. And he would undermine his own efforts to help his dad to encourage his dad to come to God (as he his dad thinks Christians are hypocrites). Abraham sin affects those around him as do our sin.
Finally, Abraham endangers God’s plan to bless the world. God has promised to Abraham that he would bless the world through his offspring. The plan was to do that through Sarah’s child. By giving his wife away, Abraham was endangering the plan.
But, when we trust God, he makes our name great, our character great and we can be create an explosion of blessing in the world… When we fail to trust others can be hurt.
But Abraham fails God, but does God fail Abraham?
No, he intervenes.
He cause diseases to break out on pharaoh and his family. Pharoah realizes something is wrong, he discovers that Sarah is Abraham’s wife… he releases her. God intervenes and protects Sarah, brings her back to Abraham and through her Isaac is born and then Jacob is born to Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob has twelve sons would become the nation of Israel and years later one of Abraham and Sarah’s great, great, great children in born… the savior, his name Jesus Christ, the savior of the world..
When Abraham fails, not only does God not give up Abraham personally, but he does not give up on the purposes that he wants to achieve through Abraham and Sarah’s offspring.
2 Timothy 2:13 tells that even when we are faithless, God is faithful.
Our choices matter they really matter, but God is bigger than our choices…
The other day I was cleaning my files so as to free more space for a colleague and I came across a document that made me think what a self-centered jerk I had been during a certain time of my life. I was about with to throw away the document to make more space. But I thought this is a good reminder of what I was like and that God doesn’t give up on me! And he doesn’t give up on his purpose for me!
Like Abraham, we can fail, but God doesn’t fail us. In spite of our failures, God can redeem us and achieve his purposes in us. In spite of our failures, God can make our name and our character so that we will be blessing.
We see this in the ways God related to Abraham, but we see this most clearly in Christ.
When we wandered from God, leaned on ourselves… God became a person in Jesus Christ and came for us…
Isaiah 53:6 says
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
So we could be forgiven and restored into a relationship with.
Jesus lives the life of perfect trust in God, the life that God requires, then instead of receiving his just reward, he took the punishment for our failures to trust God on the cross... When we come to Jesus in our sins are paid for by his death, and 2) his
perfect life record is transferred to our account…
The Lord’s Supper…
On the night before Jesus went to the cross, he took bread and said, this broken for your, broken so that you can be made whole, then he took the wine, this is my blood spilled out for you. As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim my death until I come…
posted by Shigematsu at 9:51 PM
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