Reynolda Church: Audio Podcast

In contrast to Nike’s famous slogan, the Biblical invitation to us begins with just “be” it. Just be who you are created to be. God is, first and fundamentally, the One who IS and thus, we are invited to “BE.” Today’s message brings a deep exposition and exploration of the covenantal name, “Yahweh.” It’s a message that invites believers to live in the present by contemplating the very name of God. He is the “I am” – not “I was” or “I will one day become”. The great “I Am” is the One is “is”; He is defined by His moment-by-moment existence. We, made in His image, are likewise invited to define our lives not by what we “do” but who we “are”. It’s a message that calls worshipers to remember themselves as human beings not “human doings.”

Christ is our Sabbath. Therefore, today is the day of promised rest. The more we rest from our labor for love, the more we can labor with love.

“Inspire” means literally “to breathe in.” The breath (“ruach”) of God hovered over the face of the deep. Before He uttered a word of creative force, God breathed deeply. He “hovered” or “brooded” over the face of the waters. God’s Spirit is His breath; His breath is His Spirit. His Word is full of His breath – His Spirit. God’s presence is issued and received like a deep breath. When Jesus issued the Holy Spirit to the disciples He symbolically breathed on them. Deep calls unto deep. The more deeply we “breathe” in God’s life, the more deeply we know His goodness. The more we take in His Word, the more we are “inspired.”

God didn’t wait until He had finished His creation before celebrated the goodness of it. Each day, the Lord paused and declared, “That’s good!” He was, in essence, saying: “I haven’t finished and it will be even better, but what I’ve done so far is good and worthy of celebration.” Too often in life we postpone the celebration until we feel like we’ve completed it or made it perfect. But God invites us into a lifestyle of celebrating every step of the way. God wants His goodness celebrated moment by moment not just when the miracle has been completed!

The famous text invites us to fresh awakenings every day. It is no mere child’s ditty; it is the deep, rich theology of Christ’s atoning work that empowers us to be glad in each day. This day has cause for rejoicing because God, in Christ, has opened to us the “gates of righteousness”. Because Christ was the rejected stone, He has become our cornerstone. He has become “my salvation” and, therefore, all the “saved” can awaken to God’s grace each moment of each day.

In an increasingly distracted, crazy-busy world, God invites us to learn how to live in the moment and savor His goodness. In a culture that pushes us to wolf down activities (and even relationships) so we can get to the next thing, God invites us to notice Him in the present and to enjoy Him minute by minute. Beset by the regrets of yesterday and worried about the events of tomorrow, too many of us miss the only day we actually have – today. This is the day that the Lord has made – not yesterday or tomorrow – but this day. “The Savor Blessing” doesn’t promise to solve the chaos of our modern calendars or magically set people free from the tyranny of technology. Instead, this New Year we invite worshipers into the mystery and delight of becoming aware of God’s goodness in the midst of every day life.

In years past, the Lord heard the cry of His people in their Egyptian bondage. He delivered them from a tyrannical Pharaoh by opening a sea that gave safe passage to the Hebrews and swallowed up the evil Egyptian army. He is a God who can make a way where there seems to be no way! In Isaiah 43, we hear God’s promise to deliver His people again – this time, it will be from Babylonian captivity. He won’t deliver them by parting a sea, but by making “a way in the wilderness”. He is the God who can make rivers run in the wilderness and flowers bloom in the desert! The exiled Hebrews were like most people of modernity – their minds were either preoccupied with the past and how things used to be or with the future and how things might one day be. The season of Hebrew slavery in Egypt was tragic and painful. The miracle of the Red Sea was victorious and exhilarating. But all that’s over: “remember not the former things.” And the future? God will take care of it – He can bring us out of any wilderness. What matters

It seemed like a reasonable question. After all he angel of the Lord had just made a ridiculous promise. His wife would have a baby - how could that be! He simply asked, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” The angel simply told him to “fear not.” Zechariah stood in a place of fear and dread. Just on this side of a veiled Holy of Holies where payment for sin must be made. Yet, the Christmas promise proclaimed by the angel was why the angel felt so confident in telling him to fear not. The angel knew that if Zechariah, in his mandatory silence, could just see beyond the veil of the Temple he would see that the very thing that was the source of his fear was actually the solution - Jesus would lay himself on the mercy seat. It was not only the promise of peace of earth, but also peace with God.

Imagine a life without worry and fear! Because life feels uncertain and unpredictable, we spend an inordinate amount of mental energy thinking about all the things that can go wrong. But God has designed us mentally and spiritually to run on a different operating system. It’s called faith. Fear and faith are both forms of belief – fear believes something bad is going to happen while faith believes something good is going to happen.

Focus on the heart, the most important, aspect of God’s gift of peace to us – peace with God. Often people (including Christians) speak of peace only as it relates to friction among people, conflicts among nations. We also speak of peace in terms of personal serenity rather that angst of heart. While all the above is important, the most important peace we can ever receive is the assurance that we are not in conflict with God. We, who once were enemies, have been put at peace with God through Jesus Christ. It is in this glorious, cosmic sense that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He is the governing foundation of all peace. And, without deep assurance of peace with God, there can be no other forms of peace. This Christmas prophecy, the incarnation of Christ, and the epic story of the Gospel to lead worshipers into a deepening grasp of what it means to have peace with God.

The little town of Bethlehem was just six miles away, directly south of the city of Jerusalem and was home to one of the world’s oldest professions. Yes, it was home to a group of shepherds. It was here that the angels experienced something very unique. You see, nobody saw angels. There hadn't been any account of anybody seeing an angel in 500 years. And, all of sudden they are everywhere: Gabriel appears to Zachariah, then Mary, and now in a field full of teenagers while their flock by night. These dirty teenagers get a message from God for just the right season and for just the right people, and it changes everything. It is the goodness of the Gospel that calms our fears. Fear cannot survive in the light of the good news of great joy. How is it that we no longer a slave to fear – it is the goodness of the Gospel that calms our fears, a goodness that has left a blood-stained trail through human history.

As far as scholars know, Jubilee was never enacted in ancient Israel – until the coming of Jesus. The Levitical law of Jubilee was the most radical, pervasive sociological construct of freedom imaginable. Every seventh day and every seventh year, the people and the land rested. The year of Jubilee was after the 49th year – seven times seven years. It was the Sabbath of Sabbaths of Sabbaths. According to Levitical law, everything reset during the year of Jubilee. Slaves were to be set free. Land was to be returned to its original owners. And debts were to be cancelled. No longer bound by the slavery of their forebears, a new generation could walk into unprecedented freedom. Jubilee means a new start. In this final week of missions’ emphasis, we focus on freedom’s call to a new generation who can embrace their God-given destiny with the confidence that Jesus has become their jubilee.

The proclamation of the Gospel is a proclamation of Good News. And everything that makes the Good News good depends on grace. To a confused and disillusioned world, freedom’s calling us to set captives free by announcing the purity and power of the Gospel. Paul doesn’t hide his fury at the infiltration of legalism into the Galatian church. Drawing upon an ancient image from Genesis, the apostle presents an allegory about the conflict of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. When God’s promise of a son tarried, Abraham and Sarah decided to bring in their maidservant, Hagar, as a surrogate mother. The child she bore, Ishmael, symbolized the product of human effort. When God brought forth the promised miracle, the birth of Isaac, the son of the slave woman mocked the son of promise. Law hates grace. In her frustration, Sarah finally urged Abraham to “get rid of the slave woman and her son.” “Getting rid of the slave woman” means getting rid of every form of legalism so that the power of the Gospel can be re

The anointing of the Messiah is full of mercy for the disenfranchised. The Spirit of the Lord rested upon Jesus to bring good news to the poor. Freedom’s calling us to minister with empathy to the hurting. Week one of our mission’s emphasis invites us into fresh, deep compassion for people in need across the world.

The Gospel’s promise of freedom is not a move from slavery to independence; it is a move from slavery to fear into spiritual adoption and faith. This message builds closely on the previous week’s sermon about being a bondservant to righteousness by extending the image of liberation from bondage to the beautiful image of the adopted son. It is in this context, the picture of spiritual sonship, that Jesus assures “… if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

A message from Pastor Alan Wright at Reynolda Church from the series Unleashed (5 of 10).