Seven
Mission Goals for 2007
1.
An active youth ministry in place by the end of the year
2.
Hosting a quarterly Friends and Family Sunday (where we
invite non-believing family and friends to church)
3.
100% parish participation in the Franklin Graham festival
(i.e. everyone gets trained and brings a non-believing friend
to the festival itself)
4.
The vestry is seeking100% participation in Bible Study.
5
At least 30 new believers by this time next year.
6.
An active discipling program by the end of the year with
at least 4 leaders in discipling relationships.
7.
gathering at least 100 people for worship every Sunday.
Dear
Good Shepherd,
Two
weeks ago, I introduced a new written series of essays on
the 39 Articles
of Religion that will help you become more familiar
with the foundational confession, or faith statement, of
the Anglican Communion. That series continues this morning
with this essay on the Second Article of Religion.
Who
is the Son: Part 2 of a series of essays on the Articles
of Religion
by
the Rev. Matt Kennedy
Article
II: Of the Word or Son of God, which was made very Man
The
Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting
of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance
with the Father, took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed
Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect
Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined
together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is
one Christ, very God, and very Man; who truly suffered,
was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile His Father
to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt,
but also for all actual sins of men.
The
second article has to do with the person and work of Jesus
Christ. The Article begins with the usually insignificant
word “the.” But, in this case the “the” is a vital one.
Christ is not “a” son of the Father. He is not simply one
more created being within the realm of created beings. He
is unique and singular. He is “the” Son of the Father and
to the extent that any one of us may be regarded as children,
sons and daughters of God, it is in and through him alone.
I am “a” son of God but not by natural birth or by right
but by gracious adoption in and through “the” Son Jesus
Christ.
It
is one of the more difficult truths of the scriptures that
human beings are not children of God by virtue of birth.
We are certainly all his “creatures,” created in his image
and likeness. But we are not, by nature, members of the
Father's household. Humanity
has collectively and individually rejected the Father. We
have taken our inheritance and spent it on wild living.
We are born in and, by nature, choose to remain in the pigsty.
As
Paul says in Romans 3:10-18:
“None
is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no
one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together
they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues
to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their
mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their
feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are
ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have
not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their
eyes.”
Many
read this and react defensively or dismissively. “This doesn't
apply to me!” they might say. And yet, God has rendered
his perfect judgment:
“For
there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:22-23)
Who
are we to argue? This is why Paul writes:
“For
by works of the law no human being will be justified
in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
(3:19-20)
And
yet despite our guilt and rebellion, the Father's offer
of sonship/daughterhood remains open and free for all who
are willing to repent, receive, and surrender to “the” Son,
Jesus Christ. You may, in other words, become “a” son through
faith in “the” Son. As John puts it:
"But
to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become children of God, who were
born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the
will of man, but of God.”(John 1:12-13)
Our
adoption into the household of God is, then, through the
one and only Son of the Father, the only rightful heir and
Lord, Jesus Christ.
The
Son is described in the second article as “the Word of the
Father.” The Son is the “Word.”
The
word “Word” comes from the Greek term “Logos.” Logos, in
Greek thought, refers not simply to the spoken word but
to the ordering or organizing framework of all that is.
The Logos is the founding principle of the universal order.
Within
a Christian context, the Word, the Logos, takes on both
a personal and a divine sense. Indeed, John tells us that
the Word is not just a “thing” or a “principle” for framing
the created order. The Word is God himself.
1:1 In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through him, and without him
was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was
life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome
it.” (John 1:1-5)
The
Word of the Father then is not an “it” but a “who.” God
made all things through his Son who is the Divine and Personal
Word. Creation was the work of God alone, but it was a shared
work. God the Father determined to create through God the
Son. In Genesis 1:26 God said: “Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness."
The "us" points both to the plurality or trinity
of Persons in the Godhead and the cooperative work of Father,
Son and Holy Spirit in creation.
It
is important, before moving on to discuss the word "begotten",
to make a distinction between “being” and “role.” When the
Father sends his Son or when the Son and the Father together
send the Spirit we, as creatures, as those who receive these
gracious gifts, often make analogies to describe the inter-Personal
relationships revealed in these acts. These analogies, though
they generally reflect human relationships, are quite often
true and founded scripturally. The Father “sends” the Son.
The Son is “obedient” to the Father. These are not simply
a figures of speech. They are biblically true.
Not
only did the human Jesus, God the Son, do what Adam failed
to do, but God the Son, prior to the incarnation, became
man by and through his willing submission to the will of
Father. He was his Father's Son and his obedient Servant.
But
while affirming that truth, we cannot lose sight of the
substantial equality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There
is a distinction in the roles the Persons take in creation,
redemption, and glorification, but there is no difference
in their essence or being. The Persons are of One Substance.
Humans
sometimes use terms like “obedience” in ways that point
to a basic inequality of being. An obedient dog for example
is obviously not equal in being to his master.
But
an obedient child (or a disobedient one) is as substantially
human as his parent. There is a distinction in role and
a real hierarchy or order, but there is not a distinction
in being. Both parent and child are fully human. This distinction
between being and role also lies behind the biblical distinction
between those in authority and those under authority. In
Romans 13 Paul commands all believers to submit to the “governing”
authorities.” This submission does not imply a superiority
of being. Those in authority are not higher beings than
those who are not in authority. Rather, they stand in and
fulfill an authoritative role.
Though
I already had a college degree, I experienced basic training
as an enlisted man. My drill sergeant did not have a high-school
diploma. He received a GED.
My
educational status and, most likely, socio-economic status,
were far higher than his. And yet his military rank was
such that when he ordered me to spend a full day on my knees
turning the pebbles on a pebble-parking lot from one side
to the other so that “they could get some sun,” I did what
he said.
In
one context my status was higher than his and yet in another,
his role was much more powerful than mine. But in both contexts
we remained “co-equal” in our humanity. The onlydifference
between us was the difference in our roles.
I
labor this point because it is a crucial one when considering
the relationships within the Godhead between the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The
Son is the Word “of” the Father. He is, the second article
goes on to say “begotten” of the Father. But this language,
language of “generation” and “sending,” does not in any
way suggest an inequality of being between the Father and
the Son. The word “begotten” is an old word that was once
commonly used to refer to the relationship between a human
father and his children. A mother “bears” her children.
A father “begets” them. The children are, in biblical terms,
his “seed”.
It
is in something akin to but not altogether like this sense
that the scriptures speak of the Son as the only “begotten”
Son of the Father. When applied to the Son of God, the word
“begotten” does not refer to temporal “origin.” The Father
did not “create” the Son. The Son, in his divine nature,
is not the “seed” of the Father. The Son has been the only
begotten Son from “everlasting” as the Article goes on to
say. Rather, “begotten” refers both to the likeness or sameness
of being between Father and Son in the same way that it
refers to the sameness of “seed” between human fathers and
sons and it refers to the eternal, loving, willful, “submission”
of the Son to the Father not in being but in role and purpose.
We
might also say that, in his human nature, Jesus was indeed
“begotten” of the Father in the sense that Jesus' mother
Mary conceived through the power of God without a human
father. But this human reference does not fully capture
the “everlasting” begotteness of the Son to which the second
article refers. The statement that “the Son is begotten
of the Father from everlasting” points to the inter-Personal
relationship between Father and Son within the Godhead.
The Son, to use creedal language, is eternally begotten
of the Father. He is eternally of one being with the Father
and eternally obedient to him with regard to role.
This
relationship is poignantly seen in Jesus' prayer on the
night before his death. Jesus prays to the Father:
“I
glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that
you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own
presence with the glory that I had with you before the world
existed.” (John 17:4-5)
The
loving, glorifying, obedience of the Son and the everlasting
equality of his being with the Father are both manifest
in this text.
The
second article goes on to explicitly affirm the divine nature
of the Son. He is the Word of the Father, eternally begotten.
He is “the very and eternal God”. To say that the Son is
“very” God is not to say that he is “quite” God or “very
much” like God. It is rather to say that he is the one and
only or the “true” God. He is the “very” God revealed in
the scriptures, “of one substance with the Father.”
We
have covered most of this in what has been said above with
regard to the equality of being between the Father and the
Son but one final thing must be noted before going on. The
word “substance” here is simply another way of saying “being”
or “essence.” It does not mean “material.” God is spirit,
not matter. He took on a body in Jesus Christ. But he took
on physicality without altering or transforming his substance.
The
Son, in other words, was not “transformed” into a human
being. He took on full humanity without losing or changing
the nature of his divinity. The One man, Jesus of Nazareth,
then, has two fully intact perfect natures: human and divine.
In the words of the second Article, the Son:
“took
Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance:
so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the
Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person,
never to be divided,”
The
Son's humanity was taken from his mother Mary. The man,
Jesus of Nazareth, was conceived, through the power of the
Holy Spirit, in Mary's womb and of Mary's flesh. He shared
her genes. He may have looked like her, smiled like her,
shared her eye-color, skin color, and hair color. He was
God the Son and he was the son of Mary.
We
need to be careful here to recognize what Jesus was not.
He was not a ghost or an apparition He had a real body.
Nor was he a “flesh puppet”. He was not an empty covering
of flesh fit over a divine being. Nor, finally, was Jesus
a “demi-god” or, as one of our parishioners once said, a
“were-God”…by which I beleive he meant something like a
werewolf. Jesus was not half man-half God. Jesus was fully
God, co-equal, co-eternal, and of one being or "substance"
with the Father. And he was a full man with a body, soul,
spirit, will and emotions.
But,
having said that, the article goes on to affirm that the
humanity of Jesus is not wholly like our humanity. Jesus'
human nature was “perfect” whereas ours is imperfect. The
book of Hebrews reveals that Jesus was like us in every
way yet without Sin.
"For
we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been
tempted as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15
Jesus
lived his entire life without committing a single sin. But
not only did he live without committng sin, Jesus, while
sharing our humanity, did not share in our sin nature, our
orientation toward sin. Jesus' humanity was like Adam's
humanity before Adam sinned. Adam was created in the image
of God. When he sinned, that image was twisted and marred.
It remains so in us. Humans were created with an “orientation”
toward God and away from ourselves. But when sin entered
the world, that orientation was twisted. Now all human beings
are born with an orientation away from God and toward the
self.
As
David laments, “I was a sinner from the moment my mother
conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)
David
does not mean that he was doing bad or evil things inside
his mother's womb. He does mean that from the very beginning
of life the inclination or impulse or orientation of every
human heart, mind, and soul, is toward evil. We are concieved
as rebels.
As
Paul writes to the Ephesians:
And
you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which
you once walked, following the course of this world, following
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now
at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out
the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with
which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” (Ephesians
2:1-5)
But
Jesus was not “by nature [a child] of wrath.” He was wholly
undefiled from conception to death and remains so today
in his resurrected body.
The
sinlessness of Christ is not just another ethereal theological
proposition. It is part and parcel of his saving work. God
the Son became man not only to die as our substitute, but
also to live as our representative. He lived the faithful
life Adam failed to live. He fulfilled the call and mission
Israel refused to fulfill. He daily trod the obedient path
in thought, word, and deed that you and I fail to tread.
When
new believers hear of Christ's sinlessness, they often shrug
and say to themselves, “Of course he could do all of this.
Jesus is God after all.” This response utterly misses the
point. First, Christ, the man, by his perfect faithfulness
undid or reversed Adam's faithlessness so that while we
are all by nature born under the curse of Adam and follow
in his footsteps, we are by grace through faith reborn under
the faithfulness or righteousness of Christ.
12 Therefore,
just as sin came into the world through one man, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men because all
sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the
law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no
law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over those whose sinning was not like the transgression
of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15 But
the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died
through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of
God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus
Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not
like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment
following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free
gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For
if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through
that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance
of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as
one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act
of righteousness leads to justification and life for
all men. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the
many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the
many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:12-19)
The
sinlessness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, is imputed
or credited to all who believe by the grace of God through
the instrument of faith. The perfect obedience of Jesus,
then, counts before the throne of God as your perfect obedience.
God in Jesus not only died in your place. He lived in your
place as well. We mustn't forget that.
The
second article goes on to affirm the scriptural record of
Christ's suffering, death and burial.
Jesus,
“truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried.” He did
not swoon or pass out or fall asleep. He suffered in the
body. He was hung on a cross. He truly died and was buried
in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. These are vital affirmations
in the face of so many contemporary attempts to explain
away the resurrection appearances of Christ by denying his
death. The Son truly died. He bore the full weight and penalty
of sin in his suffering and death and in so doing “reconciled
his Father to us.”
The
scriptural formulation reverses the one found in the Article.
We, says Paul, are reconciled to the Father not the Father
to us. But the present formulation is also true. As Paul
observes in Romans 1:18, God's wrath at sin is a present
reality. God is holy and just. He will punish sin and sinners
to the full extent of the law. The debt that we owe him
for the least of our sins is beyond our ability to pay.
We
cannot make up for the evil that we have done by doing good.
Good deeds do not erase bad ones anymore than not robbing
a bank in the future can make up for robbing one in the
present. Nor can we expect that our perfectly just God will
simply forgive us our sins any more than we would expect
the same of an imperfectly just human judge. God is eternally
at enmity with sin and sinners are eternally in his debt
and subject to his punishment.
But
God himself acted in Christ, on our behalf, to put an end
to this enmity by bearing in himself the full measure of
the Father's just and holy wrath at our sin. God exhausted
his eternal wrath on himself in Jesus Christ. The penalty
we could not pay because we are finite, God in Jesus Christ
paid because he is infinite. And once the just wrath of
God was exhausted on God in Christ, God the Father was “reconciled”
through the Son to all those who bend the knee and surrender
to Christ. There is, therefore, no condemnation for those
who are found in Christ, because Christ was condemned on
our behalf.
God
in Christ became the one and final “sacrifice” of atonement
to which the Old Testament law and prophets point. His death
effected our salvation by dealing with both the offense
of our “actual sins,” the sins we commit in thought word
and dead, and with the “original guilt” that we inherited
from Adam, the guilt that made us, as Paul wrote above,
“children of wrath.”
We
are then, in Christ, no longer children of wrath, but by
grace through faith, we have have been made sons and daughters
of the Father.
The
second article is a glorious one because it deals with our
Lord's identity and, secondly, his saving work. When we
read of Christ and his natures, his life and his passion,
his death and burial, it ought to evoke both awe and humility:
awe at the beauty and wonder of God and humility that he
would stoop to take on human nature and die for the sake
of those who so willingly and eagerly reject him.
UPDATE
CONTENTS
YOUTH MINISTRY
GOOD SHEPHERD LISTSERVE
LOTS OF EVANGELISM GOING ON (OPERATION ANDREW IS WORKING)
ONE MINISTRY/TASK PER PERSON
DATE TENTATIVELY SET FOR SUMMER ICE-CREAM SOCIAL
THANK YOU TO THE SUNDAY MORNING PRAYER GROUP
ADULT EDUCATION SERIES: HERESIES AND CULTS
BIBLE STUDIES
NEWS
YOUTH MINISTRY: Some have asked me to give
an update on the 7 parish goals listed above and I plan
to do that in next week’s Update. But for now, one
of the more significant goals very near being met is goal
number 1: establishing an active youth ministry. As you
know there are a lot of kids and students around Good Shepherd.
They need to know Christ, form relationships with other
Christians, develop a biblical way of looking at and living
in the world, to be prepared and trained to face life as
Christians. Unfortunately, outside of Sunday school, most
of our ministries are geared to address these needs on an
adult level. For that reason, the vestry has voted to hire
Micah Towery as our half-time youth minister. He will officially
begin this fall and will work primarily with senior and
junior high. His role is a little like mine but for a different
age group. Establishing a youth community is an important
ministry and mission and it can be difficult I ask for your
patience and your full support for Micah in every way. We’ll
be sending more information about Micah’s role and
his work in future Updates.
GOOD SHEPHERD LISTSERVE: I want to encourage
you to join the Good Shepherd list-serve. A list-serve is
a discussion forum that is generally carried forward by
email. Someone will open a topic by sending an article or
by posing a question to the list. All others subscribed
to the list recieve that article or question by email and
have the opportunity to address the topic and participate
in the general discussion simply by replying to the message.
Your response will automatically be sent to all who are
subscribed to the list.
Isaac Njuko, one of our newer members, hit on the idea of
setting up the list-serve for Good Shepherd after Christian
education one Sunday. He thought it would be a good way
to continue the interesting discussions we have there throughout
the week and a good way pare ourselves for future Christian
ed topic.
If you would like to be included on the discussion list,
please follow this link to subscribe:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/COT_GoodShepherd/join
LOTS OF EVANGELISM GOING ON
(OPERATION ANDREW IS WORKING): We've welcomed
a number of guests and several new members lately. Some
of them have commitments this summer that will take them
out of town but others do not. If you see people at coffee
hour who do not look familiar, remember to introduce yourself
and welcome them warmly. I've heard good reports from several
returning guests so far...that they have felt quite welcomed.
Thank you! And, let me say, you are doing a wonderful job
of inviting people to church. Let's continue to spread the
good news of God in Jesus Christ to our friends and neighbors
by sharing our faith personally. But if you are shy or nervous
or taking your first steps into the waters of evangelism,
inviting people to church where they will hear the gospel
is a great way to start.
ONE MINISTRY/TASK PER PERSON: On that note, if
you are a member of Good Shepherd and not serving in any
other way, please do commit to help with one of the tasks
or ministries below. This will lift the burden from your
brothers and sisters who need a Sabbath
Acolytes (one Sunday a month)
Altar Guild
Nursery ( desperate need …especially for the 8:00am
service)
Sextant (cleaning duties with a team on a weekly rotation)
Shepherd's Bowl (on a team, one Thursday a month)
Teller (help count and record offerings after the 10:30am
service)
Lay Eucharistic Minister (help lead worship and distribute
communion)
Ushers & Greeters (should be once a month if everyone
shows up when assigned)
Readers (Approximately once a month at the 10:30am service)
ICE-CREAM SOCIAL DATE TENTATIVELY SET.
We’re looking at Friday evening August 24th
for the Ice Cream social. It will be outside and there will
be music and hopefully lots of people milling about. The
purpose of this event is both fellowship and evangelism.
So, be sure to invite your friends.
THANK YOU TO THE SUNDAY MORNING PRAYER GROUP: If
you are part of this prayer group, please know that God
has used you in a very significant way over the last month
to draw more and more people to himself during our worship.
If I preach with any effectiveness at all it is because
you are interceding on behalf of the Church. If there is
any true worship and fellowship at Good Shepherd, it is
because you gather faithfully and pray. Thank you so much.
I can feel the difference and I think you can too. If you
are interested in joining this prayer group, you are invited
to gather for prayer this Sunday between 10:15 and 10:30am
in the library to pray that God will be glorified, lives
changed, and believers fed and transformed. You have no
idea how much God works through your prayers. What is done
in that 15 minute period is vital to the worship of Good
Shepherd.
ADULT EDUCATION SERIES: HERESIES
AND CULTS: If you are interested in reading
more about Marcion and his eachings, here is a good and
easy to read article on the subject:
http://www.ntcanon.org/Marcion.shtml
We left off last week discussing the ways that Marcionism
has continued to plague Christianity.
Boiled down to its essence, Marcionism sets the believer
over the bible rather than the bible over believers.
When a person or an institution (even a church) deletes
or ignores or rationalizes away difficult or disagreeable
sections of the bible, he or she usurps God's authority.
God has given his Word, we must humbly receive it.
But this does leave us with a question. There are sections
of the scriptures, especially in the Old Testament that
we do not keep anymore...the ceremonial laws and dietary
restrictions for example...are we following Marcion? Or
are there biblical grounds that justify our failure to keep
kosher or to stone adulterers?
This Sunday, we'll briefly address that question and move
on to introduce Mormonism.
For some background information, you might want to take
a look at the following Church of Latter Day Saints (the
official name of the Mormon Church) website:
http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg
It is always best to begin studying a belief system by reading
what the adherents themselves write. Examine the site carefully
and come Sunday ready to discuss it.
BIBLE STUDIES: All the bible studies are
up and running this week.
HAVE YOU…. shared your
faith with a friend? The vestry has challenged all of us
to share our faith in Jesus Christ with at least one non-believer
each month.
Good News for the Week
18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I
have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works,
and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe
that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and
shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person,
that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham
our father justified by works when he offered up his son
Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along
with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23
and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham
believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and
he was called a friend of God. (James 2:18-23)
Don't
forget to....BRING A FRIEND TO CHURCH!
Daily Schedule for the week of Sunday July 8th, 2007
Monday:
pastor's day off
Tuesday
8:30 a.m. Morning Prayer
9:00 a.m. Tuesday Morning Bible Study
6:00 p.m. First Light Bible Study
Wednesday
8:30 a.m. Morning Prayer
Thursday
8:30 a.m. Morning Prayer
5:30 p.m. Shepherd's Bowl
6:30 p.m. New Beginners Bible Study
Friday
6:30 a.m. Men's Breakfast/Bible Study
8:30 a.m. Morning Prayer
Pastor's sermon prep day
Saturday:
10:00 a.m. Women's Bible Study
4:30
p.m. Hebrew Class
Sunday
July 15th, 2007 SUNDAY
MORNING WORSHIP (SEASON OF PENTECOST)
8:00am
Holy Communion II and Sermon
9:15-10:15
a.m. Christian Education for All Ages
10:15-10:30
a.m. Prayer in the Library
11:00am
Holy Communion II, music, and a sermon
God bless you all
In Christ,
Matt+
a
