"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)

 

The burial of Christ after His death was extremely important for two reasons: First, it assures us that His death was a physical death and that His resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Secondly, His burial--like His death and resurrection--has profound doctrinal and practical significance for the believer's individual life.

 

All this is pictured, as our text points out, by the ordinance of baptism, displaying symbolically the death of Christ for sin and the death of the believer to sin, then the burial of the corruptible body of flesh (which, for all but Christ, returns to dust in accordance with God's primeval curse). And finally, the resurrection, demonstrating Christ's eternal victory over sin and death, and, in the case of the believer, the beginning of the new life in Christ.

"To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." (Ephesians 1:6)

 

This wonderful verse assures that all who have been saved by God's grace have been "accepted" by the Lord. However, this is not just a marginal acceptability. The Greek word occurs only one other time in the New Testament, and there it appears in the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary. "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women". That is, we are not merely accepted; we are highly favored by God!

 

This is not because of our own personal merits, of course. It is because God sees us as in His Son; He loves us because He loves Him, and we are in Him.

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required." (Psalm 40:6)

 

  Psalm 40 is primarily a Messianic psalm speaking mainly about the work of Christ is evident from its quotation as such in. The psalm is prophesying particularly of His incarnation, as He says: "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me" .

 

Burnt offerings and sin offerings had indeed been required from God's people under the law, but these were not an end in themselves. These sacrifices were meaningless unless they were offered out of a willing heart, obedient expressions of submission to a forgiving God.

 

That was the implication of the "opened ear," a symbolic expression indicating one's willingness thenceforth to hear only the voice of his master and to submit to His will in all things.

"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me." (Hebrews 10:5)

The author of Hebrews had just pointed out that, despite all the animal sacrifices offered up by the people of Israel over the centuries, "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins". That would require the once-for-all offering of "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world".

But that perfect Lamb could be none other than God Himself, in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. No ordinary man, however powerful or wise or morally upright he might be, could ever accomplish such a mighty task. Neither could an angel remove human sin from the world. Only God could do that, but He must also be a man in order to pay the death penalty for man's sins, then also defeat death and live forever with those who would receive Him as Savior. He must be both eternal God and perfect man.

For this mission, He must have a human body, but it must be a very special body, with no genetically inherited mutational blemishes and no inherited Adamic sin nature. Thus His great testimony: "A body hast thou prepared me."

The Greek word for "prepared" is a strong word, connoting something like "made perfect" in most of its occurrences. It is used only one other time in Hebrews, in the very next chapter. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God"

"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:11)

The unique phrase "fruits of righteousness" has many supporting teachings, the most famous of which is where the Lord Jesus compares Himself to a "vine" and we who are His adopted sons and daughters to "branches".

Paul reminded the Philippian church that the fruits ultimately result from Jesus Christ, just as Jesus illustrated. We "cannot bear fruit" by ourselves. Not only does our very life come from God, but the ability to produce godly fruit can only come through and by God.

Isaiah noted that all of our self-produced righteous deeds are like "filthy rags"

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:9)

 

There is a popular Christian song whose chorus ends with these words: "You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart." This may sound spiritual, but this is not how we know He lives! We are saved because of the objective fact that He died for our sins and then rose bodily from the tomb, triumphant over sin, death, the curse, and Satan, alive in His glorified body, for evermore. It is this which we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips. For Him to rise bodily from the grave means that He is nothing less than God, the very Creator Himself. It is only because of who He is that He could do what He did, and this is what we must believe in our hearts.

 

There are people who believe that Buddha lives in their hearts, or the spirit of "the gods" indwells their hearts, or even that "the Christ" is in their hearts, but "the heart is deceitful above all things" . We can believe many things, and feel many things that are not so. We know Jesus Christ is a living Savior, not because we feel His presence in our hearts, but because He rose from the grave on the third day and "shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days"

"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight." (Acts 20:7)

 

Given the fact that everything about God's Word was specifically inspired by its Author, it is appropriate that this important phrase, "the first day of the week," occurs exactly eight times in the Bible.  All stress the fact that it was on this day that the greatest event in history (since the creation) had taken place. The creation of the universe had taken place on the first day of the week, and now its Creator had conquered sin and death itself on that day. In the Bible, of course, the number "seven" represents completeness, so "eight" represents a new beginning--a new creation, a resurrection.

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." (Romans 1:4)

The opening verses of Paul's epistle to the Romans stressed that the gospel of Christ was actually the fulfillment of that "which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures". This promise was centered in God's eternal Son who had promised to redeem the world from sin and death.

To do this, He must become a man, "made of the seed of David according to the flesh", yet He also must be sinless in both nature and practice before He could become God's perfect sacrifice for sin. He must be perfect man--man as God intended man to be. He must be a "second Adam," created without sin, yet He must not fail as did the first Adam, being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin"

"And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." (Exodus 19:19)

 

This is the first reference to trumpets in the Bible, and it is significant that the "voice" of the trumpet was coming not from man, but from God. The setting was the awesome scene at Mount Sinai, when the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments for His people.

 

The last reference in the Old Testament to trumpets again refers to God's trumpet. "And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south" .

 

The trumpet, as used in Israel (Hebrew shofar), was made of ram's horns and was used on many important occasions. One of the most notable was when the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land at Jericho. "So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and . . . the wall fell down flat, . . . and they took the city". 

"Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations." (Deuteronomy 7:9)

 

Moses knew Israel would tend to succumb to various temptations in the Promised Land, and encouraged them not only to obey God's law, but to use temptations as an opportunity for growth in character. Standing on the border, he proposed three "when . . . then" situations and exhorted the people to decide in advance how they would react.

 

"When the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land . . . to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, . . . Then beware lest thou forget the LORD" . Moses knew that a satisfied people, recipients of easy wealth, would forget the Lord. The remedy: "Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name", and "ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God".

 

Next, "when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies . . . which the LORD our God hath commanded you?", the fathers were to instruct them with: "The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand". "And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive".

 

God also knows our tendencies to compromise, and "when the LORD thy God . . . hath cast out many nations before thee, . . . thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; . . . Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; . . . For they will turn away thy son from following me"

We must be "rooted and grounded in love" (Ephesians 3:17), speak "the truth in love", and always be conscious of our relationships so that we "increase" the "edifying of itself in love".

 

Finally, there is this over arching statement: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." No word can describe our Heavenly Father better than to say He is love, for His love is perfect, it is not , nor proud but forgiving and long suffer.  Tell me as a Christ how much of this do you we in body in our daily lives, in the work place, with our friends and family members?  Are we the reason the world does not know the Father as love?  Is that because we ourselves do not know love or understand it.  Paul tells without love we are nothing, like a plant needs water and sun light to grow, humans need to be loved and we need to also give love.


Heavenly Father grant each of us your perfect love that we might walk in and not forfill the lust of the flesh and desires of our sin nature but be a perfect reflection of our Heavenly Father's love for the world to see.

"And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment." (Philippians 1:9)

 

Paul's longing for the Philippian church is eloquently expressed in his prayer for their maturation in the faith. It begins simply with a prayer for their growing love--love that will "abound yet more and more."  Essentially, the prayer is that their love would never stop increasing.The focus of the ever-increasing love, however, is not emotive reactions or depth of feeling. It is a nonstop, ever-growing love for "knowledge" and "judgment." And as one might expect, the Holy Spirit's choice of words is important.

"Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." (Luke 24:39)

 

One of the speculations of modern liberals who deny the resurrection is that the disciples saw some kind of apparition, or even were having hallucinations, when they "thought" they saw Jesus alive after His death. But a supposed "hallucination" is never seen by an entire group of people at the same time, as Jesus was seen, again and again.

 

Jesus Himself answers those who say it was a "spiritual" resurrection. His spirit never died, so His spirit could not be resurrected. At first the disciples did, indeed, think they were seeing His "ghost," but then He showed them the scars of the spikes that had pierced His hands and feet, and He also ate part of a fish and a honeycomb before them

"Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Psalm 16:11)

 

The 16th Psalm contains the Bible's first reference to the resurrected Christ at the "right hand" of His heavenly Father, and this is important, for there are 20 other such references that follow this one. "The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool"

"Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace." (Philippians 1:7)

 

This testimony of the apostle Paul was followed by another: "I am set for the defense of the gospel". In both he is stressing the vital importance of defending the gospel. In the one he states his firm determination to defend the gospel; in the other, he reminds his fellow Christians that they also are participants in its defense.

 

These facts are sufficient to show that the gospel does need defending by those who embrace it. The word "defense" is the Greek apologia, from which we derive our word "apologetics." It is a courtroom term, referring to the formal, carefully structured defense presented on behalf of a defendant by an attorney. In context, it speaks of a careful, scientific presentation of arguments defending the gospel from its enemies.

 

The saving gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, encompassing His great works of creation, incarnation, atoning death, victorious resurrection, and coming kingdom, was under serious attack in Paul's day, as it is today. We urgently need to be prepared to give an effective apologetic wherever and whenever needed.

 

Peter also urged the importance of such preparedness: "Be ready always to give an answer |same word, apologia| to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear"

"And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place." (Acts 1:24-25)

 

The last three words of this passage have profound significance. Although Judas had walked with Christ and the other apostles for three years, he was out of place there all that time. It took the traumatic events of the final week of Jesus' ministry to reveal his true character.

 

At death, each of us will go to his own place, whether heaven or hell. If a person has found the company of Bible-believing, Bible-living Christians uncomfortable in this life, and feels more at home with the Bible-doubting, God-ignoring majority, then his own place will surely be with them in the future life. Such a person would be more miserable in heaven than in "his own place." The tragic words of the Bible's final chapter are these: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still" 

"We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (2 Corinthians 4:2)

 

One of the most futile and foolish arguments of unbelievers is to accuse the New Testament writers of trying to foist off tales of a supernatural Christ on gullible people. The Scriptures written by these men, however, contain strong condemnations of all dishonesty and deceit, and it is impossible that they could simultaneously engage in such a gigantic conspiracy. Paul's claim in our text, for example, would be the worst sort of hypocrisy in such a case. Peter said: "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word". John warned: "All liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone".

 

But the clinching proof of their honesty and sincerity was their willingness to suffer for their testimony. Paul said: "Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace; And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day"

"I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever." (Psalm 45:17)

 

The 45th psalm is a beautiful Messianic psalm, speaking prophetically of the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the psalm is quoted by the writer of Hebrews, calling Him "God," and promising not only eternal remembrance, but also everlasting dominion: "But unto the Son, he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom".

 

But the writer also said He would be remembered in all generations. That has proved true, so far! As others have frequently noted, this man lived on earth only thirty-three years, never traveled more than a few miles from His home, never wrote a book, never raised an army, never ruled over so much as a village, let alone a kingdom, never married or had children, never enrolled for any formal education, and finally was executed as a criminal.

 

Yet He has, indeed, been remembered through all generations following His all-too-short career two thousand years ago--and remembered with love and deep reverence and gratitude by millions of people in all nations ever since. Furthermore, though He never wrote a book, others have written innumerable books about Him, while another psalmist assured us that His words would also be preserved "from this generation for ever" 

Which Jesus Do you serve????

Yes your right this one is a repeat and it I will continue to repeat this till i know that each of us has answered that question.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

 The call to imitate God is a call to separate ourselves from the world though we may be in but not of it  (Ephesians 4:17-19) and how we have been made new (Ephesians 4:20-24) and then gave us specific ways to do that (Ephesians4:25-32).

Our call is to live with the same love that Christ has demonstrated.  Jesus laying down his life for us, was first of all an expression of his love for his Father. Jesus did it, not only because of his love for us, but because first of all he loved the Father and this was  the Father’s will. This ‘life of love’ is not to be something we do to make ourselves feel good or appear good, it is to come out of and be an expression of our love for God Himself.  When John says, “We love because he first loved us,” (1 John 4:19). The first thing we need to do in the Christian life is become utterly convinced of God’s love.

On Sunday they raise their hands to heaven and declare that it is Jesus that they serve.

Then why do we look so much like the world?

Did you know that the wheat and the tare, the world can't tell which is which and quite frankly neither can I. So I pose the question again, which Jesus do you serve?

My Savior bleed and suffered and died and rose again for a sinner like me. My Savior, was a friend to friendless, He remembers the forgotten ones among us, Which Jesus do you follow?

 Which Jesus do you serve?

Is it this picture of the American dream that you chase after? Is the prince of this world who you serve or did you miss that part when you decided you want fortune and power?

If Jesus was here would you walk right by him or cross over to the other side of the street? 

Would you even recognize him or have time to speak to him?

Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a white complexion Michael Angelo version of Jesus ,is that the Jesus you serve? My Savior was battered and bruised for my sins, did you miss that part? Sometimes I ponder do we really understand what the price he paid for us?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they understand and they know My Savior. So which Jesus do we serve. is it the one whom we pray to bless us with great wealth? Or the Jesus who said

blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness?

 So who do you serve? The one whose promises are like shifting sand?

Marine says it God , then country and the marine Corp, what comes first for you?

My Jesus would he be accepted in your churches today? All bloody and bruised with no shoes on his feet, would we want him sitting next to us?  He was not rich he didn't have a pillow to lay his head upon. Today my Jesus would look like a homeless man or perhaps we would see him as mentally insane.

He spent His time with criminals and those that are considered the least among us. Did you know he had a heart for the poor, so which place would  He come to eat Sabbath meal at your house or among those that were forgotten by society?

Its time we decide which Jesus do we serve but I'm not sure we understand what that means to be like Christ,

Jesus said to live like HIM, love like HIM but then does that mean we must be willing to die for HIM as he died for you and I???

Can we be Imitators of Christ? Can we live like our Savior?  Which one do you want to be ? I turned on the TV set today and heard a man preaching Jesus wants to make you rich and that he never intended for us to be poor.  Is that the Jesus your seeking??? Heard a pastor say that his Jesus says that we should never be sad. Yet my Jesus wept when heard his good friend was dead. So which Jesus do you serve?  I know that I want to be more like my Savior and less like me.  I want to be an imitator of my Savior what about you????