Acts 2:1-4; 14-17; John 15:26-16:15 Spirit at Work

 

Can you imagine being in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost? Pentecost is already a great festival, called the Feast of Weeks that’s connected with the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It’s a harvest festival, a first fruits festival, reminding Israel that God demands from them the first fruits of their crops as a sign that it all belongs to God, but it’s also an act of trust that God will provide for his people. This is a festival that calls Israel to remember the poor and provide opportunities for them to participate in the harvest too, Leviticus 23:22, ^“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.”

Jesus left ten day earlier and the disciples are all gathered together; their Lord no longer with them, likely wondering what exactly is next for them? Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem for the gift that God has promised, that in a few days they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. But what does that mean or look like? So, they wait. Then the Holy Spirit comes, with the sound of a freight train laying on its horn in the middle of the night, filling the house with the noise of its arrival! In this moment, the world is changed, the Spirit’s on the move, and he’s making his people his home. No more temples. The Holy Spirit enters into each of them and they begin to speak in tongues, everyone can understand and hear the Gospel news in their own language; there’s no being silent with the Holy Spirit blowing into the world, something for us to remember today!

Peter tells the people that what God promised through the prophet Joel has come true, “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” This is a time of hope, a time God is revealing himself in powerful ways. God’s entering into a deeper, more intimate way of relating to his people by sending his Spirit to make our hearts its home!

Who is this Spirit that is being poured out on all people? The Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 53 asks us, “What do you believe concerning "the Holy Spirit?” The pastor and the scholar answer us, “First, he, as well as the Father and the Son, is eternal God. Second, he has been given to me personally, so that, by true faith, he makes me share in Christ and all his blessings, comforts me, and remains with me forever.” Jesus talks about who the Holy Spirit is in John. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Advocate, which comes from the Greek word parakletos which can be translated as Helper, Counselor, Encourager, or Mediator; all things that an advocate does for others.

At the beginning of chapter 15, Jesus taught the disciples that they need to remain closely connected to him, that he is the vine and they are the branches that get their life from him. Reverend Patrick Keen writes, “In chapter 15, Jesus reminds them of their and our connectedness with him and to God through him. "I am the true vine. My Father is the gardener." He tells them that the world will hate them because the world hates him. The world hates the truth and Jesus is the truth and it is the Spirit of Truth that is being promised to be poured out upon humanity. Truth that exposes sin and evil. Truth that calls for accountability and responsibility. Truth that beckons God's people to faith and faithfulness.” The Holy Spirit keeps us connected to Jesus; calling us to faith in Jesus. He warns that the disciples are going to get kicked out of the synagogue, may even get killed, and people will believe that they’re doing a good thing for God. The Holy Spirit’s given to help them, and us in the church to stay true to Jesus, to remain strong in our faith in Jesus even when the world might hate us for following Jesus.

The church is a fascinating creation of Jesus. It’s a group of people called by God from all kinds of backgrounds and brought into one family. The Catechism talks about the church in Q&A 54 as part of the work of the Holy Spirit, “I believe that the Son of God through his Spirit and Word, out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life and united in true faith. And of this community I am and always will be a living member.” Jesus says it’s good that he’s leaving because when he returns to heaven, he’s going to send them the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth who will keep pointing them to Jesus, who he is and what he’s done through his sacrifice on the cross for our sins.

I’m always fascinated by Jesus’ description of what the Holy Spirit’s going to do. We often turn straight to verses 12 through 15 where the Spirit guides us into all truth, reminding us that if we’re looking for truth, looking for what reality really looks like, we need to look to Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life. Jesus is sending the Holy Spirit to testify about him so that the disciples, and now us, can testify to the world about who Jesus is. We have this fascination with the Spirit telling us what is yet to come; we’re so eager to know what’s coming that we sometimes forget to keep our eyes, ears, and hearts open to who Jesus is calling us to be, to the opportunities to share the gospel, to bring shalom and advance the kingdom of heaven right now. There’s a bit of escapism in many Christians, wanting to focus on heaven and what we get by going there, instead of our responsibilities in the here and now. Jesus reminds us that the Spirit will “glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” This is important, the Spirit comes to work in us and through us to glorify Jesus. Do you take time to reflect on the person you are becoming, the things you do and say, and ask yourself, “Is Jesus being glorified, is he being honoured through me?”

The work of the Spirit that fascinates me the most is what Jesus says before these verses, “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” The Spirit has come and he reveals people’s sins and teaches them the ways of God through the presence and teaching of the church.

Right now, we’re in the process of reflecting on the Healthy Sexuality Report as a church and a denomination. This report shows us how God created the world good and very good, but sin came into the world and brought brokenness into our relationships with God, each other, and ourselves and this brokenness often comes out in our sexuality and how we will look for our identity in these places instead of Jesus. The Spirit works through the church to show the world a healthier way of living together, a healthier place to look for our identity, one that looks first to Jesus. We look to Jesus and the Holy Spirit for our values, to shape our morality and character instead of our society, government, or other groups and organizations that tickle our ears with what we want to hear and believe.

The Spirit comes to show the world, through the church, right ways of living: with God, with each other, with ourselves and with creation. The Spirit reminds us of how Scripture calls us to live, who Jesus is calling us to be, and calling us to obedience to him. Jesus told us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus gives us his way so that we can experience life in the full, we can experience the joy and excitement that comes from living in good healthy relationships.

Throughout the history of the church, Jesus’ problem with his people has been our inability to fully believe in the power and ability of the Spirit to perform in our lives and our world. The Holy Spirit comes to us with power saying, "I am able. I Am is able. Able to do the impossible, to reach the unreachable. I Am is able!" Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to testify to us about Jesus so we can testify to the world. Who are you testifying to about Jesus?

 

 

Psalm 121; Matthew 16:13-28 On This Rock

 

The Apostle’s Creed spends a lot of time on Jesus, the core of it’s teaching is focused on Jesus, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.” Jesus is central to our faith.

Psalm 121 is a ‘pilgrimage psalm,’ a psalm that pilgrims to Jerusalem would sing as they climbed the road up to Jerusalem. As the pilgrims walked the road up the mountain, they would keep their eyes focused upwards so they could see Jerusalem and the temple as soon as possible. For the Jews, mountains were important places because that’s where God often appeared to his people; Mount Sinai and Horeb, Mount Carmel where Elijah went up against the prophets of Baal, and Mount Zion where Jerusalem is. Matthew sets Jesus’ greatest teachings on a mountainside in his Sermon on the Mount as a sign that Jesus is God. Mountains keep our eyes focused upwards, even beyond the top of the mountain into the heavens. There is something solid and permanent about mountains, which makes them a good example of strength.  

This is why the psalmist turns his eyes to the mountains when he’s looking for help. He’s looking for the God of Israel, Yahweh, the great ‘I Am,’ of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He turns to the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth, the one who watches over his people; a God who cares and acts to protect his people. There’s deep trust in the Lord, that he “will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life.” The Lord will keep us from harm, but not necessarily hard times; it’s in hard times that we lift up our eyes to the mountains, to the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. The eternal nature of hills and mountains reminds us, as the Heidelberg Catechism does in Q & A 35, “That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God… took to himself a truly human nature so that he could become David’s true descendant, like his brothers in every way except for sin.” Jesus is eternal.

Israel kept looking for the promised Messiah, the one who would come and lead them into freedom. But the messiah comes in humility and weakness at the foot of the mountain in Bethlehem. Jesus comes to save his people from their sin, not their Roman oppressors, to lead them back to God, and send us his Spirit. The Catechism, when asked why the Son of God is called Jesus, tells us, “Because he saves us from our sins. Salvation cannot be found in anyone else; it is futile to look for any salvation elsewhere.”

Today it’s easy to look back and, with the eyes the Holy Spirit gives us, see that Jesus is the Son of God. But it wasn’t so easy for Jesus’ disciples to see what we see. Because Jesus is so unique, both God and man, recognizing exactly who Jesus is doesn’t come easy. Israel expected the Messiah to be a king and warrior like King David. But Isaiah points to a different kind of a Messiah, but the disciples aren’t any different than many of us today, they see or hear what they want to see and hear when they read Scriptures or listen to the prophets.

Jesus is with his disciples and he’s done a lot of teaching, healing, and miracles. Now Jesus starts preparing them for his upcoming death. Jesus turns to his disciples and asks a pretty simple question, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” The title Jesus uses is a title the prophet Daniel uses to describe the coming Messiah. The disciples reply, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” It’s easy to see where the people are coming from. The Heidelberg Catechism also calls Jesus a prophet. When asked why Jesus is called Christ, the first part of question and answer 31 tells us, “Because he has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed by the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance.”

Now Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” Peter jumps in and tells Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Peter, and the others, see that Jesus is much more than a prophet, that he’s the promised Messiah they’ve been waiting for. They see this in terms of strength and power, mountain and Son of Man imagery, but they’re realizing that Jesus is truly from God.

Jesus tells Peter that on this rock he is going to build his church: on Peter's confession, but also on Peter, who is renamed rock and becomes one of the main leaders in the early church, on Peter’s work, life, and ongoing witness to Jesus. The church is also built on Jesus who is the cornerstone of the church. The church is built on strength, the strength of the confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God; it’s built on the work and faithfulness of followers of God who are willing to die for their confession that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is our Messiah.

This question reverberates down to us today, “Who do you say Jesus is?”. C.S Lewis in Mere Christianity wrote “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.”

Isaiah introduces us to a Messiah who’s going to come as a servant. In Isaiah 42 the servant is concerned about justice, not power, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.” This is a servant king who is concerned about justice for the weak, the poor, and the broken. Isaiah tells us the sign of the Messiah will be that the blind will see, the lame will walk, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. When John the Baptist asks Jesus if he’s really the Messiah, Jesus points to the healing ministry he’s doing to reassure John that he is the promised Messiah.

I respect our government because God tells me to, but I sometimes wonder if the poor, the suffering, or even justice is the most important goal for most governments anymore. The Messiah brings justice for those who seldom experience real justice because he has compassion on them. We see Isaiah’s compassionate servant in Jesus. Jesus offers compassion because that is who he is, and he acts on his compassion, offering hope to those seeking justice, healing and wholeness.

In Isaiah 52 and 53 we get a shocking picture of who the Messiah is. He’s a suffering servant; despised and rejected, pierced for our sin and crushed for our rebellion. The Messiah Isaiah reveals to us is one who willingly sacrifices himself for the very people who despise and reject him. This is Jesus’ strength; his love, compassion and sacrificial life for others. When I’m honest with myself, I have to confess that I often reject my own cross because I don’t want to suffer, even after he suffered for me. I don’t always care most for the people that Jesus seems to care the most about, the oppressed, the broken, the poor, widows, orphans, or strangers.

Zechariah echoes Isaiah, “They will look on me, the one who they have pierced,” and goes on to describe the coming Messiah who “will cleanse the people from their sin and impurity as the Good Shepherd who is struck down.” Daniel speaks of the Messiah as one who is cut off and will have nothing, adding to the image of a Messiah who more servant than royal king. This is a Messiah that no one notices if they’re not looking. Jesus left heaven for you, he suffered his whole life on your behalf, he died for you so that your sins might be forgiven, he was even buried and went to hell for you, and he was raised from the dead so that you can also experience eternal life with God.

Jesus willingly died in your place; Jesus calls us to “deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him.” We are his church, called out to be his witness to the world, called to make disciples, inviting others to follow Jesus with us.

 

Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 8:1-17 Our Eternal Papa

 

This morning we’re beginning a new series based on the Apostle’s Creed. We will reflect on the three persons of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the work of the Spirit. We will be using the Bible and the Heidelberg Catechism to guide us in understanding this beloved Creed that unites churches from many different traditions and ethnic backgrounds into something much bigger than denominations and cultural groups by reminding us that Jesus’ body is much greater than our human limitations on understanding who God is and who we are as followers of Jesus.

The Apostle’s Creed is the shortest of the three creeds we have embraced as Reformed churches. The very first established creed that was accepted throughout the church as a whole was the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed was established by the ecumenical church in 325 A.D. The first recorded copy of the Apostles Creed appears about 340 A.D. It was not written by the apostles, even though one church legend has it that each of the apostles contributed one statement about God and the church and that became the Apostle’s Creed. It is an early creed, a simplified statement of the basics of the Christian faith and is representative of apostolic teaching. It was often used in the early church as a confession of faith during baptisms.

The creed begins, “I believe in God, the Father, Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Moses’ meeting with God in the wilderness while he was watching over his father-in-law’s sheep reveals a powerful God who cares about his people and who comes to his people in their distress. Israel has been made slaves to Egypt and Egypt is a cruel slave master. Just before God meets Moses, we read, “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” God now connects with Moses, calling Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery into a land flowing with milk and honey.

Moses has his doubts, asking, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Moses may doubt himself, but he grew up in the palace of Pharoah, trained and educated in the ways of Egypt, trained to lead. God’s been at work to provide for and save his people already at Moses’ birth, arranging for Pharoah’s daughter to find him in the river and adopt him as her own child, giving us hints at the creed’s confession of God being almighty. It also points us to how God is providing for his people long before they even realize it. The Catechism talks about how God provides in question and answer 27, “The almighty and ever present power of God by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.” We follow an almighty God, the one who has all power in his hands. There’s a great divide between God and his creatures; any power the creatures have comes from God, and is miniscule compared to God’s. God uses his power for his people and his plans to redeem and renew creation after the fall into sin.

When Moses asks what he should call God when he goes to the Israelites with God’s message, God tells him, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” In Biblical Hebrew there is no past, present, or future tense, so as one Hebrew scholar wrote, God is telling Moses, “I was who I was, I am who I am, and I will be who I will be,” indicating his power and eternity, that there is no one who is like Yahweh, like God. This is why the Catechism introduces us to God the Father in question and answer 26 by pointing to his timelessness, “the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence.”

Moses does finally go to Pharaoh and there’s this God battle between Pharaoh’s magicians and Moses where Moses’ God, Yahweh, “I Am” reveals his power over all Egypt’s gods, showing his power is infinitely greater than Pharaoh’s gods’ power. God gathers his people together and leads them safely into freedom from one of the most powerful nations in the world at that time, showing his mighty power over all gods and peoples. This is one of the main images of God in the Old Testament: Yahweh is creator, almighty, God of gods, and yet there are glimpses of God as more than simply almighty; we get glimpses that God is relationship focused. In Hosea, we see God comparing his relationship with Israel as a husband who marries an unfaithful wife, we also get father references to God in Jeremiah 31:9, “They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.” Isaiah 64:8 also uses the image of God as Father, “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

Israel’s relationship with God grows deeper, and over the centuries God reveals more and more about himself to his people. We call this progressive revelation; we know much more about who God is than Israel did in Biblical times, especially the Old Testament times, because of the gift of the Bible and Holy Spirit. It’s in the New Testament that we get a fuller picture of God as our Father, beginning with Jesus’ teachings, especially the invitation when we pray to God to call God, “Our Father who is in heaven…”

Then we come to Paul and Romans 8, a powerful chapter on who God is. It comes right after Paul’s been talking about our struggle with sin, confessing that even he does things he doesn’t want to do because they’re sins, and the things he wants to do, he doesn’t, sinning against God by failing to be who he’s called by God to be. We can all relate to Paul’s confession because we all too often find ourselves in exactly the same place. Paul knows he can’t place his hope for salvation in himself; he needs God so he reminds us that Jesus came to be a sin offering on the cross so we have forgiveness from our sins and are made right with God the Father. Jesus sends us the Spirit who governs our minds and lives in us, bringing peace and life, affirming that we are God’s chosen adopted children, that God is our father, “for those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God… the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, Abba, Father.”

As our Father, God does the father things; God provides for us, as we heard in the Catechism, all things come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand. God our father provides for our souls by giving us the Bible so that we can know God as father, but we also learn who we are as his chosen beloved ones. As a father, God protects us through the Holy Spirit from the power of Satan and evil. This doesn’t mean that horrible things don’t happen. God, through Jesus lets us know that he understands our pain and joins us in our pain and suffering by becoming human in Jesus, who goes to the cross and takes the punishment for our sin, and through the Holy Spirit’s presence who is within us, experiencing our pain and suffering and bringing our cries to God.

Our father disciplines us, not our favourite father thing, but God uses discipline to form us into who he has created us to be, he also allows the consequences of our actions and choices to play out, he doesn’t protect us from our own actions; this teaches us wisdom. God, as our father, challenges us to live up to his family name. God does this through Jesus’ teaching and preaching.

When we listen to what Jesus taught us about who we are called to be, when we hear Paul’s instructions on what it means to follow Jesus, we’re challenged to take good hard looks at who we are and how we carry our father’s name through life, how we’re witnesses to who God is as our father. I remember my own father, when I left home to strike out on my own, he told me, “Son, I don’t have a lot to give you, but I’ve worked hard all my life to keep our family name honourable, this is what I give you, a name you can be proud of; as you go, make sure that you keep it good for your kids.” God our father calls us to remember who we are, his children, precious and beloved, and to keep his name precious.

 

 

 

1 Chronicles 17:1-15 The Lord will Build Our House

We have come together this morning at the beginning of a new year to worship. New Years is a time to look forward, a time to hope and dream, a time to reset the things you need to reset, but also a time to build on what God has begun in the past year. The glass is always at least half full at this time of the year, even if it’s a cold glass. This morning we’re reflecting on King David and his desire to build a beautiful house for God. He has just brought the ark of the covenant, the ark built in the wilderness to hold the Ten Commandments, back to Jerusalem. The ark had two angels on the cover of the ark with wings that arched over the top and met over the ark, creating a symbolic place where God would meet his people while they journeyed to the Promised Land. When Israel wandered through the wilderness, the ark was housed in the tabernacle, a beautifully constructed tent that God himself designed.

David’s firmly established himself as king over Israel and just finished building a palace for himself, but he’s now filled with a desire to build a place for the ark of the covenant that’s worthy of God. This is what kings did; once they were settled into power and taken care of themselves and their closest allies, they shifted their attention to honouring their god or gods by building spectacular temples. David’s no different, he wants to honour God by building a beautiful temple for the ark. The prophet Nathan gives David his blessing, “Whatever you have in mind, do it, for God is with you.”

We often have good intentions to do something great for God; we do the planning, find the resources, and get going on our plans only to find out that things don’t always work out the way we planned. Sometimes the biggest step we leave out is to actually spend time talking to and with God about our plans to see if that’s where God is actually leading us. David’s planning a great thing for God, but he doesn’t ask God what his plans are. So, God goes to the prophet Nathan and tells him, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

Imagine the disappointment David must have felt! God’s done so much for him, as we hear God tell Nathan, taking David from tending sheep to making him king over God’s people. Why not allow David to build a house for God? We don’t really get an answer to that question here, instead God turns the focus off of David building him a house to God creating a home for his people and building David’s house, “Now I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed…. I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you: when your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you… he is the one who will build a house for you.”

God’s priorities are often different from ours, as the writer of Chronicles reminds us. God’s all about his people, which is why he gave his people a whole way of living at Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments and various other laws that are given to shape them into a distinct people among the nations that reveal who God is. God chose David to create a place where Israel could find peace and build homes of their own; God focuses on his people over his own physical place. As we mentioned New Year’s Eve, as we look back through the pages of Scripture, we discover a God who is worthy of praise, a God whose greatness is more than we could ever imagine, we see a God always at work for his people; a God of mercy and grace.

Later on in chapter 28, we discover why God chose David’s son to build the temple instead of himself, David shares with his officials “Listen to me, my fellow Israelites, my people. I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to build it. But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood.’” There’s symbolism here that points to who God is, a God of peace. Jesus himself receives the title in Isaiah of Prince of Peace. God is a God who is working towards shalom, who is about building and creating, even while Jesus battles Satan and his forces that are aligned against the kingdom of heaven, Jesus fights in order to create peace and shalom for creation. God chooses a king of peace to build his home as a sign of the kind of God he is. So, David begins gathering the material needed to build the temple; he figures that even though he can’t build it, he can still do his part by making sure that everything’s ready for the next king to build the temple.

It makes me think of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” Now Paul’s criticizing the church in Corinth for quarrelling over who they were following, but his whole focus is on building the church with Jesus as the foundation. Just like David gets the big picture and works towards preparing for the temple, doing his part so his son can do his part of building the temple, Paul focuses on building the body of Jesus, the church, recognizing that we all play our roles in building the church and God brings it all together. Paul goes deeper in verse 16, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?”

As we look back through the pages of Scripture, we discover a God who is worthy of praise, a God whose greatness is more than we could ever imagine. We see a God working for his people, a God of mercy and grace. As we look ahead to 2022, God’s going to continue to be at work in and through Bethel. Seeds have been planted, some of them years and years ago by former pastors and leaders in Bethel, some more recently, and now it’s about watering and nourishing those seeds, even while we stay open to other seeds that the Holy Spirit may be planting in Bethel for future growth.

Part of our journey this year is going to be recognizing what the seeds are and how do we go about watering and nourishing them; some of them are things like mentoring and small groups, both of which are being prioritized as the pastoral elders will be contacting those who have expressed interest in small groups and forming at least two new groups. We’ve joined a cohort with a number of other churches in our classis that will be focusing on and learning more about mentoring and how it helps churches grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus, each other, and into the community.

As we move through, and hopefully out of this pandemic in 2022, one of the main focuses from council is the importance on fellowship and relationship building ministries in Bethel. And yet, even as we work on these things, we keep turning back to God, asking for the Holy Spirit to guide us. We will place a high focus on prayer for Bethel and for our community to determine the what and how of what Jesus is doing in building Bethel as a blessing to our city and the people in our neighbours and lives, inviting them to join us as we follow Jesus and shape our lives and hearts. Jesus builds the church through our faithfulness and obedience, so as we journey into the new year, may we commit ourselves to Jesus and who Jesus is calling us to become in 2022.