Monday 23 November 2015

Exeter Temple Message notes: Sunday 1st November 2015
Theme: ‘Instruments in the hands of the Master"
Bible Reading: Various
1.      Weapons
“Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.”   Romans 6:13
 The picture Paul paints in the lead up to this verse is of a battle with Jesus winning the battle to free people who are held captive by sin and under the sentence of eternal death. Those who choose to trust Christ can be set free from a shameful past, they no longer face eternal separation from God, have hope of a future and no longer have to live chained to sinful patterns of behaviour.
  “All your life you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new Master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!”   (Romans 6:13 The Message)
 In the light of Christ’s victory sin no longer has any right to rule over our lives, so Paul says don’t let it.  Instead we need to give everything we are to God and then instead of being used for the wrong purposes we can be used for God’s glory as “instruments of righteousness”
The Greek word that Paul uses for instruments is HOPLON which in the context implies a tool or weapon used for military purposes. We are often urged to take up the weapons God has provided to fight against evil but here the idea is that God actually wants to use us as the weapon.
As weapons in his hands we are to be:
 A deterrent
It is not so much that the devil will be put off doing his work but that the people whom he seeks to control will see our example 
Available
We must be in use and readily available.
 Usable
The devil is going to laugh in our faces if we attempt to frighten him without the live ammunition of the Holy Spirit.    

2.      Vessels in his household                  
“In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared for any good work.” 2 Timothy 2: 20 & 21
 We can be assured that God has created us to be a utensil or vessel that has a specific purpose in the household of the saints; that is the Church. 
 “Each of us in some ways carries this haunting feeling inside of us that we
are worthless. Each of us at some point in our lives looks around at the competence of people in this world and compare ourselves to those around us and say there is no way that I could do that.  We regularly wrestle not with whether or not God has work to be done but whether or not God is right in asking us to do it.”   Kyle Hite
 Paul likens all Christians to earthenware dishes or clay pots. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us”.  2 Corinthians 4:7
 We need to be dedicated and clean. Most of us have some special dishes that we use only for special occasions. On other days we use our everyday plates, cups, saucers and glasses. But there are some vessels in our house that we wouldn’t use to serve food to our guests at all, e.g.  the dog bowl
or a children’s potty. Neither should we attempt to serve God with lives that are not completely cleansed and dedicated to Him for His use. We need to consecrate our lives to Him entirely.  In practical terms, that means that we decide to live purposefully to glorify God in all aspects of our lives. It means we will do our job for His glory. We will relate to our family for His glory. We will worship for His glory. We will work in the Corps and in the community for His glory.
That’s our part but God has His part.
 When we consecrate ourselves to God entirely, the Holy Spirit will come to fill us entirely, setting us apart and empowering us to live the life we have committed to living. We cannot be a useful vessel for God on our own.
We need the Spirit to give us the motivation and the ability to live for Him. He cleanses us, making us vessels fit for noble purposes.

3.      A Letter from God                
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called your out of darkness and into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 

“But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you - from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.” (1 Peter 2:9 The Message)

What kind of instrument is being referred to here is not clear except that it is one that carries a message.  In our modern times we have a thousand and one instruments through which messages are conveyed, from a postcard to the wonders of the internet.
 God reassured Ananias that Paul’s conversion to Christ was genuine. He told him; “This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.”  (Acts 9:15)
 Perhaps it was his own sense of calling to be the carrier of a message that led him to writes a source of inspiration to serve God.You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  (2 Corinthians 3:6)
 There are many kinds of letters. Dead letters are communications which due to a faulty address, cannot be delivered. Christians are meant to be living letters of Jesus Christ, bearing a message of good tidings of great joy unto all the world. A letter is written to be read. Every Christian should let his Christianity be visible before the world.
Let your light so shine that men may see your good works ... and glorify your father which is in heaven’. Matthew 5:15
 Those who are Christians in name only are simply forged documents designed to deceive and mislead.
 “A living letter is a mind through which Christ thanks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, a hand through which Christ helps”. George Mueller
 As Christians our message becomes illegible when we live contradictory lives. The message is obscured if we live one way at church and another way at home; if we live one way around our church family and another way around our friends. When our lives are inconsistent we send mixed messages to an already confused world. The Bible calls us to be steadfast, unmovable always abounding in the word of God.
 The Bible teaches us that the only cure for an illegible and contradictory message is a life of holiness.

God bless
Alan 





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