Glad tidings of Good Things Part 3 – November 22nd 2011

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IMPACT SCHOOL OF MINISTRY NLRC PETALING JAYA

Notes for November 22^nd 2011

GRACE AND GREATER GRACE

THE PAST AND PRESENT GRACE OF GOD

The Old Testament revelation and the arrangements God made with His chosen people, the Jews were all of grace.  They were truly a people ‘graced’ by God.  All this grace came to them through Moses but in due time the greater grace came by Jesus Christ.  We are to live in that greater grace and not go back to the old grace.  This has been a perennial problem for the churches, drifting back to the old.

 

YESTERDAY’S MANNA

The story of the manna is a helpful picture of this.

1. God gives grace.  He gave the people manna (Exodus 16).
2. Enough for each day, if they tried to gather more for the day following it bred worms and stank.
3. We must not attempt to bring over the Old Covenant into our New Covenant day for it does not belong.
4. It was limited in duration, its ‘shelf life’ was until Jesus came and fulfilled all its demands and it fully passed away soon afterwards (Hebrews 8v13).
5. At least two epistles in the New Testament, Galatians and Hebrews are written to people who want to preserve the old manna.  In their estimation it was a safer covenant to live under, it had ‘walls,’ parameters, a code to live by, laws written down they must obey and rituals of worship that were neat and orderly.
6. When the going gets tough, as it had done for the Hebrew Christians they wanted to go back.
7. The Hebrews writer has two things to tell them, 1. Look unto Jesus and 2. Go forward (not back) keeping Him before your faces!

 

BOUNDARIES AND PARAMETERS

Remember two words Jesus used, they are FOLD and FLOCK  (John 10)

1. Everything in the Old Testament was related to one small flock (the Jews) that God called into the fold of His Old Covenant.
2. In those days folds were sometimes made of solid stone walls; sometimes of thorn bushes woven together.  So the law was like that to Israel.  It was safe, it kept them in, if they attempted to get out it pricked them.
3. The grace God gave was safe and good as long as they stayed within the fold.

 

THE DOORKEEPERS OF THE FOLD

Every fold was under the care of shepherds and doorkeepers and this was true of God’s flock of Jewish people, they were under the care of shepherd doorkeepers.

1. The PRIESTS were the first shepherd door keepers  (Malachi 2)
2. Throughout the Old Testament they were to teach people the law of God, reminding them always of His ways.
3. The priesthood failed in the days of Eli.  He died by a broken neck (1 Samuel 4).
4. The corrupted priesthood continued but the main keepers of the sheep were the PROPHETS, the first of this line was Samuel.
5. Samuel opened the way for a third line of shepherd keepers.  These were to look after the flock of God and keep it within God’s ways. These were the KINGS the first of whom Saul soon passed away whilst the true KINGLY line began with David with whom God made covenant that from his line the Savior would come.
6. On the occasions when PRIESTS, PROPHETS and KINGS worked in harmony together for the glory of God in the nation there was blessing for God’s people.  But when these failed the nation was spiritually bankrupt  (Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 34 for example)
7. God always had His true prophets calling the people to stay within the promises and blessings of the Old Covenant.  They were sometimes men from the priestly family as well as prophets!
8. Failure of the doorkeeper shepherds is a major revelation of the Old Testament.  Yet all the while God promised that He would raise up His own faithful King, Prophet, Priest.

 

THE GREATEST DOOR KEEPER OF ALL

John the Baptist ended the line of all these Old Testament men.  He was the greatest (Matthew 11v7-24).

1. He appears in the New Testament but belongs to the Old!
2. He dressed and lived like the great Elijah prophet.
3. He summarizes and embodies the Old Testament in the way he was conceived, the way he lived and ministered and died.
4. He was the result of God’s miraculous power but through two natural parents.  He lived in the wilderness and ministered there.
5. He was a lamp and not THE LIGHT (John 5v35).
6. He was ‘a voice’ and not ‘THE WORD’ (John 1v23).
7. He decreased and got out of the way (John 3v30).
8. He was beheaded in his death, head buried apart from body.
9. The least in the New Covenant is greater than him, the greatest of the Old!

 

JOHN BAPTIST THE DOOR OPENER (John 10)

1. He opened the door to the TRUE SHEPHERD JESUS.
2. Now the PRIEST, PROPHET AND KING was among the people and came to call them out of the Jewish fold.  His voice sounded and His sheep recognized Him and He led them out.
3. John Baptists joy was fulfilled, he was the friend of the bridegroom but now the Bridegroom had come for His bride!  This sums up what the rituals and the ways of the Old Testament really were (John 3v22-30).  They were not for the bride; she was to come into the bosom of her husband.
4. Now the sheep had to leave the life of parameters and walls and follow and keep close to their Shepherd.  Many might find this a disconcerting and even dangerous thing to do.
5. A flock has no parameters but it has a magnetic center, the Shepherd!
6. Easier to follow the safe rules of a denomination for instance.
7. Hear His voice, this has a mystic, spiritual quality, each lamb as an individual and all true sheep together are to make it their business to keep close to the Shepherd in their midst.
8. We cannot have greater grace without a measure of greater danger.  But we shall be kept safely; none shall pluck us out of His hand (John 10)!
9. JESUS is the Shepherd, priest, prophet and king to every one of His sheep.

 

BEHOLD!  JOHN’S FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

1. John’s ministry was to preach remission of sins and baptize those who repented for the remission of their sins.  They had to come out to him, not go to the temple as before although they could do that if they wished.
2. He said that the Lamb of God had now come.  He would TAKE AWAY the sin of the world, not simply forgive it.  This is surely greater grace (John 1v29)!
3. THE sin, one sin that underlies all sins is rebellion against God.  “I do not want the Lord to reign over my life.”  Jesus came to take it away out of human nature.  He died to remove it so that in the New Covenant those entering into it can experience freedom from a rebellious heart against God and delight to do His will as Jesus did.
4. THE LAMB Jesus does this work in us, by His presence.  It is not done by the experience itself, those are the mechanisms necessary that He come to us, live within us.  He Himself is the secret of living in victory and being changed.
5. The New Covenant is all about Jesus.  He must be in the interior of our life.  He alone takes away the power of habitual sin and quickens us to live a God pleasing life.  He plants His Life in us, and our life in Him.  This is the New Covenant in a ‘nut shell.’

 

A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE DEATH OF JOHN BAPTIST AND THAT OF JESUS

a.   In his death John was beheaded.  Body and head severed from each       other and buried separately.  No life from the head to the body.

b.   Jesus died without a bone broken and no severance between head       and body.

c.    Jesus gave His Spirit up to the Father.  In His resurrection He went

straight up through the grave clothes and the rock.  Head and body        together.

1. We are the body of Christ, not separated from our Head.  His resurrection is ours, His life is ours, and His destiny is ours.
2. The invisible church shares His life; each member is joined to the Head.  We can be members of a visible church, a visible ‘body’ but are we members of His invisible body?
3. The True church is the invisible body of Christ joined to its Head; it shares His mind, His conscience witnesses in theirs of sins forgiven and power to live to the glory of God.

 

PICTURE THE TABERNACLE AND THE TEMPLE

1. A vivid picture of the Head separated from His body, His people, the Jews and from the other nations too.
2. The Jews were near to Him, but not joined (Ephesians 2)
3. The Gentiles were far off from Him, not even near (Ephesians 2)
4. But now in Christ Jesus the veil is torn away.
5. In those Old Testament days God was behind the veil.
6. The Innermost room, the Holy of Holies was His dwelling place.
7. A select few entered the Holy Place regularly but the Holy of Holies just once a year, this shows the separation between Head and body.
8. Entering the tabernacle by the door the first piece of furniture was the brazen altar of sacrifice and the second piece visible to all was the laver full of water.
9. Entering the Holy Place there were three pieces of furniture, a lamp stand with seven branches, a table with twelve loaves of bread on it and an incense altar with red coals of fire upon it.  These were not visible to any others than the priests.
10. Then came the veil of separation within which was the ark and the cherubim and the glory of God’s presence.  All these hidden pieces were made of gold.

 

TURN THE TABERNACLE ON END AND THINK OF JESUS AT CALVARY

1. Look at His feet; they are like the brass altar of sacrifice.  He is the living sacrifice now  (Revelation 1v15).
2. Travel further in and see the laver with its mirror like water reflecting the shining sun blood red.  In these we see a picture of Jesus body with His side pierced out of which flowed blood and water.
3. Walk in further to the hidden part in the Holy Place, see there that He is the true Bread, the true Israel, He is the true Light shining and is the fragrant burning incense to His Father.  This second part of Him we see is His soul most beautiful and pleasing in the sight of His Father.
4. Now see the veil torn from top to bottom when He offered His blood unto death.  God was satisfied.  God and man are ‘oned’ in Jesus and united in His death.  There is no more veil; Head and body are joined.
5. The Old Testament was such grace from God, but the New Covenant in Jesus blood is greater grace indeed!