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OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL MINISTRY

Highland Laker Kids are discovering this summer all the fun involved with being one of "God's Secret Agents". Please join us as we discover interesting people from the bible, learn some great, positive values and enjoy making creative crafts. Most of all -- the kids just have a lot of fun and get to hang out with other kids!

Summer Sermon Series
ON HOLY GROUNDS:
Examining Controversial Issues Biblically
Starting Sunday, July 4


PASTOR'S VACATION

Pastor Ron and his family will be away July 26 to August 10. Pastor Ron is a native of Nova Scotia and will be visiting there for the first time in 20 years. Please keep the Mahlers in prayer as they travel, and that the family would have a great time seeing all the sights (and eating lots of fish!)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A message from Pastor Ron

"What’s going on in Genesis 15, and what does it have to do with you and me?"
God made a promise to His people of Israel many years ago – a "covenant" – that He intended on keeping. This covenant has been called in scholarly circles as the three-part, or "tri-partite formula of promise": "I will be your God, you will be my people, and I shall dwell in the midst of you". The nature of a "covenant" in Old Testament times, that is, to "cut a covenant" – in the Near East – would involve taking an animal/s, sacrificing it, cutting it in half – and separating the two halves of the animal so as to make an aisle in the middle. The parties involved in the covenant would then ceremonially walk between the pieces – and for all intents and purposes, would be saying: "If I fail to obey this agreement I am making, may what happened to these animals happen to me!"
In Genesis 15, God asks Abraham to prepare a sacrifice for Him and to set up the animals so as to arrange a covenant ceremony - in order to "seal the deal" of the covenant He made with Abraham. Yet you notice in this same passage – that two interesting things happen. First, with the sun "setting," Abraham goes into a deep sleep and is surrounded with a "dreadful darkness." Why would this happen? I mean, God is ready to seal the deal as it were with His servant, and Abraham, packs it in for the night? What is going on there? Then, secondly, only God is mentioned as having moved through the aisle of the sacrificed animals. Why did things end up like this? Why would God not follow the cultural custom set up for covenant making, where all parties involved in the making of a covenant were to go through the aisle? Well, the message is this: By God, and God alone, going through the aisle as a "torch" – the Lord was obligating Himself only in the covenant. Abraham is off the hook! We can think of it this way, when God’s people were in slavery in Egypt – God raised up Moses to lead them out – and it was in the "Exodus" that "Yahweh" meaning: "the God who was there....." opened the jaws of the Red Sea allowing the Israelites to escape the chariots of Pharaoh – while bringing the waves and water down over the Egyptians.
What was the motivation for God to bring this about? We find it in Exodus 2:24: "God heard their groaning and remembered His covenant." The Hebrew word for "remember" - zekar – means: "to call to mind and to act." When God remembers His promises, His covenant He has made with His people, He acts in some way. For instance, scripture shows us that when God recalls His promises, it means He forgives, delivers, redeems and endures. In short: He acts! What were Jesus’ words in the "Last Supper" (Passover meal) scene in the gospels? Jesus told His disciples: "Do this in remembrance of me." That is, we are to call to mind what Jesus did for us, and respond appropriately. How do we do that? We do it by realizing that we are all powerless to save ourselves from our sin. We constantly need His grace and mercy. We needed Jesus to act on the cross for us. He did! He remembered us at Calvary and willingly died for each one of us - as if we were the only sinful person who had ever lived. That is why the Gospel is referred to as the "good news." Likewise, the Israelites were powerless to free themselves from Pharaoh’s oppression of them as a nation. They could do nothing to keep up their end of the "bargain" – in terms of the covenant they were in with the Lord. They needed God "Yahweh" to be "there" for them, and to act on their behalf. He did!
With God, it is all about grace, not merit. What I mean is this: as Israel could do nothing to salvage themselves from Egypt, so we can do nothing to gain salvation, heaven and eternal life without the help of Jesus Christ. Only God went through the centre aisle of the sacrificed animals in order to show Abraham – and us today – Abraham’s "seed," that He, alone, is the covenant keeper of the covenant He made with us. He will not forsake it. It is a unilateral covenant - in that it does not depend on what we do to keep it. You know why? Because we can’t! So, get over yourself! Stop trying so hard to earn your way to salvation. Go and sleep on it, as Abraham would have to, and remember that God already acted in history for you. He walked through the "aisle" all the way to the cross in the form of His Son. All you have to do is remember this and act accordingly. Ask Jesus into your heart and life today as your personal Saviour. Don’t waste the covenant He cut with you a long time ago – start enjoying and living in light of it! Thank you Walter Kaiser for your passion for the Old Testament, and for your inspiration!