Abounding in a Hope, Gifted from the Father, Delivered by the Son, and Renewed in the Spirit

Bloor Lansdowne Christian Fellowship – BLCF Church               Message for Sunday:

‘Abounding in a Hope, Gifted from the Father, Delivered by the Son, and Renewed in the Spirit’

© December 3, 2017 by Steve Mickelson

BLCF Bulletin December 3, 2017

 Announcements and Call to Worship; Prayer                                                Opening Hymn #313: My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less; Choruses    Prayer and Tithing: Hymn #572: Praise God from Whom All Blessings      Responsive Reading #610: (Christ in Prophecy – Isaiah 11 and 42, Jeremiah 23, Malachi)                                                               Message by Steve Mickelson:                                                                              ‘Abounding in a Hope, Gifted from the Father, Delivered by the Son, and Renewed in the Spirit’

Let us pray…

Welcome to Bloor Lansdowne Christian Fellowship’s Praise and Worship Service on this, the first Sunday of December, which is both a Communion Sunday and the first Sunday of Advent.

This Sunday, is the first Sunday, where we lit a candle for the beginning of Advent. Advent occurs during the period, beginning the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day. The candle lit today is designated as the Candle of Hope. But what do we mean by hope? Let us check with one online dictionary’s definition of ‘hope’:

Hope – noun (Online dictionary) 

1. a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

“he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information”

synonyms:

aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, goal, design, plan

2.  archaic – a feeling of trust.

For the Christian believer, our hope is synonymous with trust, as we see in our Wikibits:

 Christian Hope: An excerpt article: Hope (virtue)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope is one of the three theological virtues of the Christian religion,^[48] alongside faith and love.^[49] “Hope” in the Holy Bible means “a strong and confident expectation” of future reward (see Titus 1:2). In modern terms, hope is akin to trust and a confident expectation”.^[50] Paul the Apostle argued that hope was a source of salvation for Christians: “For in hope we have been saved…if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it”^[50] (see Romans 8:25).

According to the Holman Bible Dictionary, hope is a “[t]rustful expectation…the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God’s guidance.^[51]In The Pilgrim’s Progress, it is Hopeful who comforts Christian in Doubting Castle; while conversely at the entrance to Dante’s Hell were the words, “Lay down all hope, you that go in by me”.^[52]

This brings us to our Scripture Verses, which when examined closely, show that the trust we have changes, as God implements His plan for the salvation of humanity from its judgement for sin. For some eight hundred years, the Children of Israel waited patiently for the advent of the Christ or Messiah, promised by God, Who spoke through the prophets, as we read in Psalm 71:4-6 (ESV)

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
    from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
⁵ For you, O Lord, are my hope,
    my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
⁶ Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
    you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

To those who waited in anticipation of the arrival of the Messiah, they had maintained a trust and patience for nearly 800 years, from the time of the first prophecy, to the day that he was born. We should remember over that the Jewish People would often exhibit an impatience having to wait on the Lord. You may recall how they lost patience with their leader, Moses, with their expectation for the Lord to provide them with water. Instead of impatience, they should have demonstrated more hope, trusting that God would provide for their needs in His time.

The Psalmist, best described the nature of the trust expected by the Father, in verse 5 of Psalm 71:

⁵ For you, O Lord, are my hope,
   my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

God expects to continuously demonstrate our faith and trust in Him, not solely at the time we expect an answer from Him. He does not provide us with ‘miracles on demand’.

We do see that after Jesus brings us the gift of salvation, by way of his sacrifice on the cross, the hopes of believers change from a faith in the arrival of our Messiah to a trust in the Lord’s gifts of salvation and resurrection to an eternal life, as we read in 1 Peter 1:3-5 (ESV):

Born Again to a Living Hope

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

While the People of Israel placed their hope, their trust, in the advent of the birth of Christ, Christians we place our hope, our trust, the gifts Christ has provided, sanctification and the Holy Spirit, as well as what the Lord promised, our own resurrection on the Day Christ returns.

The Lord’s New Covenant will be completed on the Day of Judgement, when Jesus returns. Until that day, we are to place our hope, our trust, focusing on what is Holy, which what is promised us on the day our Lord returns, 1 Peter 1:13 (ESV):

Called to Be Holy

¹³ Therefore, preparing your minds for action,^[a] and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.                

Footnotes: a. 1 Peter 1:13 Greek girding up the loins of your mind        

We are fortunate that while we are expected to keep our hope in the fact that our resurrection has been granted through Christ, and we are expected not only to observe the Lord’s sacrifice regularly by way of Holy Communion, in anticipation of His return, but to do honoring Him with a spirit of joy and peace. We are expected, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to trust the Lord, by following His example, as we see in Romans 15:1-13 (ESV):

The Example of Christ

15 We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. ² Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. ³ For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”⁴ For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. ⁵ May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, ⁶ that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁷ Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

Christ the Hope of Jews and Gentiles

⁸ For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, ⁹ and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,
    and sing to your name.”

¹⁰ And again it is said,

“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”

¹¹ And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
    and let all the peoples extol him.”

¹² And again Isaiah says,

“The root of Jesse will come,
    even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
in him will the Gentiles hope.”

¹³ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

The best way to share the Gospel of Jesus is to allow the light of the Lord shine through us, so that we may bring hope to those who live in darkness, absent of the Holy Spirit, missing that joy and peace which comes only by faith in Christ Jesus.

Let us pray…

Communion: Responsive Reading #626 (The Last Supper – Mark 14)

Closing Hymn #308: My Hope Is in the Lord

Benediction (Romans 15:13):

 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.  

Expressions of the Soul through Songs of Gratitude and Joy

Bloor Lansdowne Christian Fellowship – BLCF Church Message for Sunday:

‘Expressions of the Soul through Songs of Gratitude and Joy’

© July 9, 2017 by Steve Mickelson

BLCF: Bulletin July 9, 2017

Announcements and Call to Worship; Prayer                                                         Opening Hymn #408: I Will Sing of My Redeemer; Choruses                               Prayer and Tithing Hymn #572: Praise God from Whom All Blessings             Responsive Reading #599: The Majesty of God (Psalms 24 and 97)           Message by Steve Mickelson: ‘Singing to Express the Joy of the Soul’            

Let us pray…

 Psalm 100:1-2 (ESV) His Steadfast Love Endures Forever

 A Psalm for giving thanks.

100 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
²     Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

This passage, from Psalm 100, encourages us to “make a joyful noise to the Lord”; and to ”serve the Lord with gladness”; and last but not least to ”come into his presence with singing.”  Each of these actions could be classified as expressions of praising and worshipping the Lord.

The main expressions of our Sunday Praise and Worship Service at BLCF include: prayer, song, and studying of the Word. When two or more members of the Body of Christ are gathered together in the name of the Lord, these expressions of worship are infused with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Other aspects include evangelism, fellowship, meditation, and celebration of the Gospel of Christ, Jesus.

For our lesson today, entitled: ‘Expressions of the Soul through Songs of Gratitude and Joy’, we will focus on the importance song in our Worship Service. But what was the importance of music and song to the worship in the Holy Temple? I found an answer to the question in what I refer to as the Wikibits, which yielded the following research results:

History of Music in the Biblical Period

– from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

 Knowledge of the biblical period is mostly from literary references in the Bible and post-biblical sources. Religion and music historian Herbert Lockyer, Jr. writes that “music, both vocal and instrumental, was well cultivated among the Hebrews, the New Testament Christians, and the Christian church through the centuries.”^[1] He adds that “a look at the Old Testament reveals how God’s ancient people were devoted to the study and practice of music, which holds a unique place in the historical and prophetic books, as well as the Psalter.”

A Psalter consists of the Book of Psalms used for liturgical or devotional portions of the worship service.

The music of religious ritual was first used by King David, and, according to the Larousse Encyclopedia of Music, he is credited with confirming the men of the Tribe of Levi as the “custodians of the music of the divine service.”^[2] Historian Irene Hesk notes that of the twenty-four books of the Old Testament, the 150 Psalms in the Book of Psalms ascribed to King David, have served as “the bedrock of Judeo-Christian hymnology,” concluding that “no other poetry has been set to music more often in Western civilization.”^[3]

The study of ancient musical instruments has been practiced for centuries with some researchers studying instruments from Israel/Palestine dating to the “biblical period.”^[4]:145 Archaeological and written data have demonstrated clearly that music was an integral part of daily life in ancient Israel/Palestine. Figurines and iconographic depictions show that people played chordophones and frame drums, and that the human voice was essential as women and men sang love songs along with laments for the deceased. Data also describes outdoor scenes of music and dancing in sometimes prophetic frenzies, often with carefully orchestrated and choreographed musicians and singers within specially built structures.^[4]:106

According to ancient music historian Theodore Burgh, “If we were able to step into the . . . biblical period, we would find a culture filled with music . . . where people used music in their daily lives.”^[4] “Such music was capable of expressing a great variety of moods and feelings or the broadly marked antitheses of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, faith and doubt. In fact, every shade and quality of sentiment are found in the wealth of songs and psalms and in the diverse melodies of the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_music_in_the_biblical_period

In many Christian Churches today, the Psalter has been expanded to include the Book of Praise or Hymnal Songbooks which contain songs inspired by the Book of Psalms, as well as other passages in both the Old and New Testaments.

And then we have choruses, composed by contemporary authors, with lyrics that are not just restricted to paraphrasing the Scriptures, but may include Spiritual feelings or emotions experienced by Christians. These Christian songs and ballads are often presented to the congregation by way of projectors and may be distributed by electronic sources.

While purists may complain that only the original Psalms should be used in Christian Worship Services, the modern Christian view which holds that every Christian is a vessel of God’s Holy Spirit, and that a modern Christian Chorus could be as much the product of Divine inspiration as were the Psalms.

We get an idea of the use of music and song in Temple Worship in a passage taken from the second Book of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 5:2-14 (ESV):

The Ark Brought to the Temple

 ² Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ houses of the people of Israel, in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. ³ And all the men of Israel assembled before the king at the feast that is in the seventh month. ⁴ And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. ⁵ And they brought up the ark, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the Levitical priests brought them up. ⁶ And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁷ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁸ The cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles. ⁹ And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the Holy Place before the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from outside. And they are^[a] there to this day. ¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of Egypt. ¹¹ And when the priests came out of the Holy Place (for all the priests who were present had consecrated themselves, without regard to their divisions, ¹² and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, their sons and kinsmen, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres, stood east of the altar with 120 priests who were trumpeters; ¹³ and it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord,

“For he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever,”

the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, ¹⁴ so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

Footnotes: a. 2 Chronicles 5:9 Hebrew it is

Did you notice that God’s presence, in the form of a cloud, arrived in the temple after the worshippers played the music and songs of praise and thanksgiving. For those of you who are connected to the Web, the cloud in the Temple describes the presence of God, not an online virtual storage place.

Even the angels gave vocal expressions of Praise and Joy when announcing the birth of the Christ child to the shepherds in the fields.

Getting back to the Choruses vs Psalm debate, we find that Christian believers are vessels filled with the Spirit or arks of the new Covenant, containing the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, encouraged to address “one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” as we see in Ephesians 5:17-21 (ESV):

¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,²⁰ giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

We are instructed to make melody from the heart, giving thanks to God the Father in name of, and with reverence to Christ, Jesus. This tradition of singing praises accompanied to music is in the same manner and tradition  not unlike that described in Psalm 98:1-7 (ESV):

Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord

A Psalm.

 98 Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
² The Lord has made known his salvation;
he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
³ He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

⁴ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
⁵ Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
⁶ With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

⁷ Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!

And the songs and music of praise is not restricted to sanctuary of God, but in the heavens as well, as we see in Psalm 150 (ESV) :

 Let Everything Praise the Lord

150 Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!^[a]
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!

³ Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
⁴ Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
⁵ Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!

Footnotes: a. Psalm 150:1 Hebrew expanse (compare Genesis 1:6–8)

We see that music and song should come from our heart or soul, where the indwelt Holy Spirit in each of us demonstrates the Godly virtues which allow us to  live peacefully by the Grace of God, through his son, Christ Jesus.

Let us pray…

Now, let us sing…

Closing Hymn #51: I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord

Benediction – (Colossians 3:12-17)

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.