Jonny,Ian, Mark and Amanda provided the music today.
Ian led us in worship and Yvette brought us the Word.
Yvette showed a couple of videos that gave us an insight into how long people in China have to wait for a Bible and some of the lengths that have to go to in order to get something that we simply take for granted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkXDcdMNE-I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSnnkWpBC58
Yvette brought the message today from Hebrews. In Chapter 1 God spoke to us. The Son here is the exact representation of God and the Son is set higher than the angels.
Chapter 2 verse 5
At present we do not see everything that God has made . We see Jesus instead as the author of our salvation. Jesus is not aftraid to call his brothers.
Hebrews doesn’t follow the same pattern as Paul’s normal letters. Whoever wrote it is writing to faltering Christians who are struggling. They are starting to worship angels. Angels are not there to be worshipped they are there to worship God. We need to remember that Peter refused to be worshipped. He turns people rightly to God instead.
Yvette posed the question “Does God need our worship is he in need of an ego boost? “. Of course not, but remember how people who fall in love are? They take about the other person even when we pleaded for them to shut up.
Worship strengthens us, brings us into obedience,
The more Yvette read this passage, the more excited she got. God meets with us in the midst of struggle. It’s difficult , even if all you can do is cry and you can’t find the words to express what is on your heart, God will take those prayers of tears.
Worship makes our God bigger, breaks chains, frees people.
We encounter Jesus in prayer and worship. We worship in spirit and in truth. We can’t fool God by going through the motions. God sees through that . It must be Christ centred, a lifestyle, if we pray unceasingly shouldn’t we also worship unceasingly. We need to love the unloveable, even if we’re the only one doing it. It’s also about repentance . We need to approach him in the right way. You can’t know God without the Word in the bible.
Don’t forget that you need to spend time with Him not just do things for Him
God has chosen to speak to us directly, through us recognising Jesus, not through his intermediary prophets.
We wouldn’t be able to hear God speaking to us if it wasn’t through the sacrifice on the cross. Jesus the author of salvation calls us brothers and sisters and that’s something to be excited about. Jesus through his sacrifice and suffering can identify with everything we go through. God knows what we do yet he still makes us stewards of his creation.
Despite all our flaws and sons and mistakes God still chooses to love us, we can call him Father and we feel his presence, Jesus is our best friend and we will always have him as the source of our hope. We know that he is coming back, we trust in God . He is the author of our salvation. Nothing lasts forever. Thing of Daniel, Paul and Silas, freed and unharmed. This is what worship does . We have to have God at the centre of our lives.