Legacy

Re:Verse passage – 1 Chronicles 28:1-10 (day five)  

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.”

David’s time on earth is coming to a close. As he thinks back on his life and looks forward to Solomon’s reign, David wisely points his son to seek and serve the Living God. What will be the legacy advice we leave (verbally or behaviorally) to our children?  Trust me, they are watching and listening (learning) from an early age. Will it be about finances? Relationships? Work ethic? Priorities? Successes? Failures?

David charges Solomon (and us) that the best and most important legacy we can leave our children and the next generation is a vibrant faith and intimate fellowship with God.  So we all need to ask… are our children and those of the next generation learning (from what they see and hear in our lives) that faith in God is our most treasured possession?  Are we intentionally encouraging them to seek and serve God? That, is a legacy that will last through the generations.

The Name of the Lord

Re:Verse passage – 1 Chronicles 28:1-10  (day four)

From the beginning of time, the name of the Lord had been holy.  Following man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the birth of Seth, men began to call on the name of the Lord.  (Genesis 4:26) Following the flood and when God made His covenant with Abraham, men called upon the name of the Lord.  All through Scripture, the name of the Lord was revered and holy.  Now when David seeks to build the temple, God preserves His holy name.  His name will not be associated with the shedding of man’s blood.

Does God’s name cause you to reverence Him?  Do you prepare your heart to come into His presence?  We are not to casually or lightly approach His throne.  Care must be taken not to presume upon His grace and promises.  We are not to demand His response.  The love of God compels us to reverence His name…our God is a Holy God!

Ground

Re:Verse passage – 1 Chronicles 28:1-10 (day three)

“Now…in the hearing of our God, observe and seek after all the commandments.”

Every stab at enlightenment, every utopian dream, every attempt at higher thought has tried and failed to find a foundation besides God that will support its system of ethics or its theory of the good. One can appeal to empathy, to economics, to enterprise, to eloquence. All these and more have had their turn as the ultimate basis of a new and better way of life. And they’ve all ended up on the ash heap of history. David rightly appealed to God as the ground of all that is good. In the New Testament, Gamaliel echoed his words: “If [it] is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is of God, you will not be able to stop [it].” If we haven’t learned that by now, when?

Constant Vigilance

Re:Verse passage – 1 Chronicles 28:1-10 (day two) 

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” vs. 9

You have been singled out, chosen for a high honor, and given esteem; seems like you’ve got it made, right? Solomon need only think on his father, David, or the great Patriarchs like Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and all the others to realize to be chosen is not to be free from temptation and trial. The Lord had clearly selected Solomon to build his Temple, but that selection also came with the burden to continue to seek after the Lord in all things. Failure to do so had consequences.

Have you even reached a point where you could truly feel the pleasure of the Lord? What happened next? Our call is to constantly take up our cross. Let us remember the great favor the Lord has shown us, but continue to persevere in what he has called us to. Constant vigilance.

Monday Re:Verse Blog – 3/1/2021

Re:Verse passage – 1 Chronicles 28:1-10 (day one)

Join us as Senior Pastor Chris Johnson, Associate Pastor Aaron Hufty and Associate Pastor Bryan Richardson walk us through 1 Chronicles 28:1-10 in our NEW Spring Sermon Series: “SOLOMON” Building A Place of Worship.

Resurrection

Re:Verse passage – Mark 3:31-35 (day seven)

This passage is one of the greatest proofs of the resurrection of Jesus found in Scripture. Help me connect these dots:

“Your brothers are outside looking for You.” Mark 3:32

“For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” John 7:5

“James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” James 1:1

How does James (presumed to be James the brother of Jesus) go from thinking his brother is insane to calling himself a “servant” to his “Lord Jesus.” Extra-biblical sources tell us that James goes on to become the leader of the church in Jerusalem and eventually a martyr for Christ. How is this possible if just a few weeks before Jesus died, James didn’t believe? Something extraordinary must have happened to prove to James that Jesus is Lord.

Answer: The Resurrection! If Jesus hadn’t returned from the dead, do you really think his non-believeing brother would go to his death claiming that Christ is risen?!

He is risen indeed!

Rebirth

Re:Verse passage – Mark 3:31-35 (day six)

“…no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” -Jesus, John 3:5

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. It’s no wonder then the same must be true of us if we are to be his brothers and sisters. It’s always been faith over flesh. Faith in Jesus begets spiritual rebirth, hardwired with a new spiritual DNA. Soon enough, we can’t help but look like family.

Family of God

Re:Verse passage – Mark 3:31-35 (day five)

“For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”  When Jesus proclaimed “the Kingdom of God is at hand” in Mark chapter 1, He was announcing that life would look and feel different as a citizen of this new kingdom. Being a citizen of God’s Kingdom would affect everything. Priorities, practices, prejudices, and now relationships were being redefined by love, service, grace, and obedience. Life in God’s Kingdom was/is larger and longer that people recognize.  It is fitting that Jesus reshapes they way we should think and feel about other believers too- family.  Vulnerability, forgiveness, sacrifice, accountability, and obedience all are distinguishing marks of the members in the “family of God”.

True Colors

Re:Verse passage – Mark 3:31-35 (day four)

There will always be someone ‘outside’…someone close to you, related to you, or thrown together with you through circumstances…that will be set on distracting or diverting you from obedience to what God wants you to do.  They may make a frontal assault or present as a caring companion offering a common sense approach.  Even more insidious an enemy though is sin.

Sin masquerades as a harmless distraction that can do us no harm.  (Picture trying to run a race when you are entangled in a fishing net.)  In fact, we must recognize sin as a subtle and pervasive enemy that seeks to rob us of spiritual power and victory.  If we call our sin a weakness or bad habit instead of confronting it for what it really is, we can never have victory.  Hebrews 12:1 warns us to throw off the sin that so easily entangles us.  Thank God there is no sin that entangles us that God’s grace does not abound more!  (Romans 5:20)

Need

Re:Verse passage – Mark 3:31-35 (day three)

“Who are my mother and my brothers?”

Did Jesus need the intimacy of family – mother, brother, sister, father? To feel uncomfortable with that question is to recognize that we have deemed need a weakness, a frailty, a liability. But is it? Consider the kind of person for whom fellowship is not an integral part of that person’s being. That person would most certainly not be God, for God is revealed in the scriptures as an eternal fellowship of three persons. Moreover, the only way God is presented to us in the Bible is as a creator seeking fellowship with the created. To distill a “pure” form of God who exists apart from his desire to live with human beings is to suggest a God who doesn’t actually exist. We need fellowship’s intimacy not because we’re weak, but because we bear God’s image.