|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||
Commentary on "The Sabbath and Worship"
Day 2: Sunday, July 10, 2011 - Creation and Redemption: The Foundation of Worship
Redemption Through Creation...or New Creation?
The quarterly wants us to keep looking back to creation because of what the 4th Commandment says of course. The seventh day which never did have a listed end was designed for a day of REST. Not a day of worship actually and that when I first realized it came as a surprise even though it's listed right in the text there in Genesis. I suppose then that I'm not at all surprised that we have to enter into the true Sabbath Rest of resting in the finished work of our creator by RESTING.
New Creation is the only way to become a Child of God and enter into the true Sabbath Rest, and when you look into the state of mankind Biblically we find that it is only by an act of God that we can ever be saved.
The Bible states that we are Born DEAD in OUR SINS, the bit of God's eternal Spirit that is in us is DEAD and for all intents and purposes, if you are not Born again you are Dead in your sins right now. Your Spirit is dead. You are not standing proudly above your sins because you are the same as Christ, Christ was the only person who was born of the Holy Spirit. God in Man. He was born with His Spirit Alive and was sinless and incapable of sin- wholly unlike us.
While we are Dead in OUR SINS God draws us to His Son and His sacrifice on the Cross. He does this through the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit reaches us even though we are DEAD in OUR SINS. He also uses the Ten Commandments as a mirror to show us how utterly impossible it is for us to even conceive of keeping the Ten Commandments.
God gives us the FAITH to believe in the gift of the Sons sacrifice on the Cross. God gives us the Faith because until we're Born Again as Jeremiah puts it in paraphrase: our hearts are deceitfully wicked how deep and unfathomable is that wickedness.
Because of this FAITH given to us by God we BELIEVE on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, REPENT of our SINS, and ENTER HIS REST. God GIVES us right then and there the GIFT of Eternal life, by God's Grace through Our Faith which He Gave us.
We become a NEW CREATION. His HOLY SPIRIT fills and seals us for Heaven, and brings our Dead Spirit to Life. His Spirit communes with Our Spirit revealing that we are now Children of God. Only now are we capable of worshiping Him in Spirit and in truth.
Do you see just how much of a miracle becoming a New Creation, a Child of God is?
We're Dead in our Sins, God finds us. He draws us to Himself (Christ on the Cross) through the Holy Spirit and the Mirror of the Law we cannot keep). He gives us Faith to Believe. By Grace through Faith (both things again from God given to us) we Believe on Christ sacrifice on the Cross and God gives us Eternal Life, The Holy Spirit to live in us, bring to life our Spirit, and to seal us for Heaven with the Seal of God.
All we did was wake up, realize that we had no hope of Keeping the Law or ever being sinless, and Repented and accepted the Gift of Christ's death on the cross in our place.
We are a New Creation living in and Old and Dying one.
If this has happened to us then we are Resting in Christ. Should we not also be worshiping Him in amazement and not the Day he Represents and fulfills?
Paul through the Holy Spirit certainly agrees:
But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world. For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation. Galatians 6:14-15
He's not boasting on or in a DAY he's boasting in the Finished Work of Christ Jesus.
To conclude today's teaching I'd like to make note of something in the note on the bottom of the Sunday portion of the lesson study. It states how important it must be (creation and a weekly Sabbath) if God is asking us to devote 1/7th of our entire lives to Him. In essence it's saying wow look at us we're devoting 1/7th of our entire lives to God, look what we're doing for God.
Look back up to earlier in this lesson. Who did the lions share of the work> Who did the majority of the heavy lifting? God.
Brothers and Sisters in light of that He's not asking any of us to devote 1/7th of our lifetimes to Him, God wants our entire life to be a loving devotion to Him. He is calling us to enter into a current and future rest, a Personal Relationship with Him, a total devotion and trust to Him.
24/7/365- for Eternity and Forever. Starting now. 100 Percent, God doesn't accept the Co-Pilot position.
Isn't it simply common sense that if and when we Become a New Creation we should continually worship our Savior in wonderment for all that He did for us? Wouldn't it be the most obvious thing to enter into a total, head over heels, all the time relationship with the person who saved us from certain doom?
Shouldn't we worship our Savior and not the day he fulfilled. Yes, we should and we should do it now.
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised July 5, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
Official Adventist Resources
Standard Edition Study Guide Week 3
Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 3
Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Wk 3
Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings
Please Support This Project
