Sunday March 26, 2023

Call To Worship: 5th Sunday of Lent

John 11:17-44

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Songs:

All Creatures of Our God & King

Verse 1

All creatures of our God and King

Lift up your voice and with us sing

O praise Him alleluia

Thou burning sun with golden beam

Thou silver moon with softer gleam

O praise Him O praise Him

Alleluia alleluia alleluia

Verse 2

Thou rushing wind that art so strong

Ye clouds that sail in Heav'n along

O praise Him alleluia

Thou rising moon in praise rejoice

Ye lights of evening find a voice

O praise Him O praise Him

Alleluia alleluia alleluia

Verse 3

Let all things their Creator bless

And worship Him in humbleness

O praise Him alleluia

Praise praise the Father praise the Son

And praise the Spirit three in One

O praise Him O praise Him

Alleluia alleluia alleluia

Before the Throne of God

Verse 1

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea

A great High Priest whose name is Love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heav'n He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

Verse 2

When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within

Upward I look and see Him there

Who made an end to all my sin

Because the sinless Saviour died

My sinful soul is counted free

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

Verse 3

Behold Him there the risen Lamb

My perfect spotless righteousness

The great unchangeable I Am

The King of glory and of grace

One with Himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Saviour and my God

Verse 4

I bow before the cross of Christ

And marvel at this love divine

God's perfect Son was sacrificed

To make me righteous in God's eyes

This river's depths I cannot know

But I can glory in its flood

The Lord Most High has bowed down low

And poured on me His glorious love

Great Are you Lord

Verse 1

You give life You are love

You bring light to the darkness

You give hope

You restore ev'ry heart that is broken

And great are You Lord

Chorus 1

It's Your breath in our lungs

So we pour out our praise

We pour out our praise

It's Your breath in our lungs

So we pour out our praise to You only

Misc 1

(Bridge)

And all the earth will shout Your praise

Our hearts will cry these bones will sing

Great are You Lord

Teaching: “Seeking God’s Kingdom First: Prophets”

Seeking God’s Kingdom First: Role of the Prophets

2 Kings 17:13, ““Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law that I commanded your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

There is one final piece of Kingdom roles we are looking at this morning.

We have looked at Priests, Judges, and Kings
This morning we are looking at the role of the prophet in God’s Kingdom.

Prophets are not “future predictors”

They were people who stood before the people of God and spoke a message to those people from God.
“Prophecies” were messages from God spoken to his people through a human prophet that usually contained a few key elements…

Accusation:

Israel has broken the covenant
Worshiped other gods
Allowed social injustice
Moved to idolatry
The accusations were not laid on Israel alone
Minor Prophets accused the rest of the nations of injustice, cruelty, and arrogance.

Call for Repentance:

“Turning away” from whatever they were accused of and back toward God.

Announcement of God

If you turn away from the accusation here is what will happen
If you continue in your ways then here is what will happen.

The final part of the Prophetic Message is where people tend to think of “predicting the future”

God says, if you don’t stop acting “this” way then you will be “sent into the exile.”
If you have kids then you understand this not about predicting the future.

If you clean your room then “this” will happen
If you don’t then “this” will happen.

Prophecies in scripture have often been used to attempt to predict future events or actions of God.

Particularly regarding the end times.
Revelation is not a book meant to be used by people to try to “read the times” in order to predict when the end of the world will happen.

The point of prophets and prophecies is not for us to use their words to try to read our times to determine future events.

The prophets were moments where God was reaching out to his people in that time to draw them back into relationship with him.

Even Messianic prophecies were not intended to be used by people to try to decipher when the Messiah would come.

Rather those were meant to be messages of hope, to remind people that a time would come when the true Priest King would come and heal the wounds of all people and create everlasting access to the fullness of God.

Isaiah 8:12, “Do not call Conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears or be in dread.”
Prophecies were specific to the people they were spoken to.

And much of what they spoke can and should be a framework for God’s people throughout time.
But we have to remember that these were spoken to people at that time. And they were not meant to be used by Christians in 2023 to find the secret hidden messages of God.

Who are the Biblical Prophets? And what are we supposed to learn from them?

Countless prophets are in scripture.
The Prophets were a system of accountability for the Kings of Israel.

They would call out the wickedness of kings and call them back into covenant relationship with God.

The prophets were the bridge between the past story of God’s covenant with Israel and the future story of God’s redemptive plan for the world.

But their main role was to call people back into covenant relationship with God whenever they found themselves outside that relationship.

Moses was the archetypical prophet

1st divine spokesman sent to Israel
1st figure to mediate between God and Israel who also established the covenant between God and his people.
Intercedes for Israel when the violate the covenant relationship
Deut. 34:10 says, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”

What was the Covenant Story they held?

God is the creator and king whose image bearers rebelled and corrupted God’s good world. We saw that in the creation Story in Genesis 1-3.
In the covenant with Abraham, God said he would use Abraham’s family to restore his divine blessing to all nations.
Then in the covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai, God calls Israel to become a kingdom of priests to the nations by following the laws of the covenant.
In the covenant with Israel’s priesthood, the tribe of Levi, God would provide a perpetual priesthood through the line of Aaron who would intercede on Israel’s behalf and atone for their covenant failings.
In the covenant with Israel’s monarchy, God would raise up a king from the line of David who would bring God’s Kingdom and blessing to all the nations.
Eventually a new covenant would be established through the Messiah who would transform the hearts of humanity so they could truly love and follow God.

3 main things we begin to see when we read the prophets:

God Loves Justice:

Israel is called to a higher standard of Justice than the nations

God really doesn’t like evil

God’s ultimate desire is for his goodness to saturate all of creation. Evil disrupts that intention.

God has hope for the world.

The prophetic messages contain images of both now and future hope and restoration for God’s people and for the entire world.

What does this have to do with us?

Misconception that prophets are simply supposed to tell the world how bad they are.

This is wrong

Prophets started by holding their OWN people accountable to covenant living.
For us we have the same 3 main takeaways that we see in the prophets.

First, we remind one another that God loves Justice and we, as his people, are called to a higher standard of justice, specifically toward the earth and the marginalized.
Second, we remind one another that God does not like evil. What does this mean?

God longs for his goodness to saturate the earth. Resisting evil means pursuing what is TOV (good).
It’s not about keeping a list of what NOT to do.
It’s about pursuing goodness for all people.

Finally, we are people who speak hope to the world.

The role of the prophet is not about being the bearer of bad news.
We are the bearers of the Good News. Of Jesus.

Communion:

God loves Justice and wants us to pursue goodness in the world. What does it mean for you to pursue justice and goodness in the world around you?
what does it mean for a church to pursue justice and goodness?
How can we be people of hope in Seattle in 2023?

Benediction:

Our Father in heaven,

May your name be revered as holy.

May your kingdom come.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

May the strength of God pilot us;

May the wisdom of God instruct us,

May the hand of God protect us,

May the word of God direct us.

Be always ours this day and for evermore.

Amen

Jared KingMarch 25, 2023