SEPTEMBER 6
Song testimony:
The first version was put together when we were infants and while it was received well by many congregation members, the senior leader was not willing to have the son used regularly as he felt the use of terms such as “Kiss the Son’’ were not the kind of lyrics that were appropriate for worship music. This is an interesting decision when we consider that Jesus said Mary (who kissed his feet in worship) was to be remembered wherever the gospel is preached!!! The "Kiss the Son lest he be angry" lyric is actually Biblical, see Psalm 2:12 .
The song concept and lyrics come from our Dad, Phil Smith, and we wholeheartedly acknowledge that a key factor in our decisions to live for Jesus is very much influenced by the worship lifestyle we have witnessed in our Dad and Mum. Responding to authority with affection and engaging with God face to face have been central to that lifestyle
So here now is our version of the once rejected song. Our prayer is that it will inspire people from every race to take hold of the gift of grace paid for by Jesus on the cross and know what it is to be accepted by God, the ultimate authority, in a relationship that is full of responding with affection.
People and people groups
Supernatural destinies in the making rather than statistical observations and political persuasions
Face to Face - Responding to Authority w/ Affection
Psalm 2
A picture of God’s ultimate authority and His call to the rulers and people of the nations to respond to His ultimate authority with affection.
As expressed in communion by Esther Melody, the Cross itself is the ultimate demonstration of responding to authority with affection. To fully comprehend this kind of laying down of our lives as an expression of affection, important to realize that such expressions are not based on how we feel, in fact, in the case of the cross it was totally against how Jesus felt. Secondly, the affection that was being expressed is not motivated by ‘what’s in it for us’, rather it’s all about ‘what’s in it for others
State of the heart
Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts
Matthew 7:3-5 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Count it all joy
James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds
Jesus demonstrates great composure as He goes through the unjust pre Calvary sham trial (Luke 23)
Being smitten by the righteous, take it as a kindness
Psalm 141:5 Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.
(Proverbs 27:6, 1 Corinthians 6:7 - why don’t you just suffer wrong)
1 Sam 8-2 Sam 1 - king Saul and David when your God appointed predecessor becomes your personal oppressor on your journey to becoming God’s anointed successor
Matthew 5:23-24 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 18:15-18 15 “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector 18 “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Collosians 1:19-20 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
1 Timothy 5:19 Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.
Galatians 2:11-21 Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; 12for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. 14But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? 15We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. 17“But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! 18For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Acts 15 - collaborative leadership
Key of David:
Let’s get fied - rectified, justified, sanctified, glorified, undignified
Isaiah 22:22 The key of the house of David
I will lay on his shoulder;
So he shall open, and no one shall shut;
And he shall shut, and no one shall open.
Revelation 3:7-8 "“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”: “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.
Hebrews 12:18-24 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and [h]darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned [i]or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the [j]general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
B.I.D Biblically Informed Decision
1. Are you a new creation?
2. Do you want to grow in your affection toward authority