“For we are God’s workmanship, created to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph.2:10 NIV).”

What I like about this verse is its no nonsense declaration of what God is up to, of how Jesus is our salvation, the way the Holy Spirit gives us direct access to the Father and our personal part and purpose in His plan.  He has invested His Son’s life in us.  It is the Cross that has brought us this realization and inclusion in His plan.  We are not only a…

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind (John 1:4 NIV).”

In a time when death seems to populate the media and we are bereft in our attempt to explain its preemptive suffering the good news that Jesus is ‘The Life’ is the message we need to bring to a distraught world.  It is also the message we need to reaffirm in our own consciousness.  The recent tragedy in Norway, the passing of an evangelical titan, John Stott, the dying friends and relatives amongst…

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen (2Peter 3:18 NIV).”

Now we want to look at knowledge and how to grow in the knowledge “of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

Knowledge in our secular evaluation is the accumulation of ideas, concepts, facts and the contextual structure that categorizes them into an orderly system.  It is simply the mental accumulation of experience.  But there…

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen (2Peter 3:18 NIV).”

We have been looking at glory as the final cover, the tent in which our eternity is lived.  In the meantime Peter calls us to grow in grace and grow in knowledge.  The aim here is to see Jesus as the object of glory.  It seems we can give God glory.  To grow in grace and knowledge of Him is to give Him glory. 

First, to grow…

“We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only Son…(Jn.1:14).”  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you…

We have talked about the 4^th Tent being the glory of God (Rev.7:14).”  And rightly so, it is the final tent, shelter, cover, for eternity.  Now when I say eternity I do not mean an endless succession of days, months, years and millennia.  When we come into the full presence of God there is no time because God is timeless.  We will simply be with Him in the fullness He intended for us, each of us.  Heb.13 gives us the same picture when referring to Jesus.  It says He is the same…

While we have identified three tents, those that the Lord created for this world, there is another one, a fourth one, mentioned in Revelation.  It is for the believers who have come into the Kingdom.  They “…are in front of the throne of God. They serve him day and night in his temple. The One who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them (Rev.7:15 NIV).”  Note the progression from the last three segments.  We go from the individual in a human body, to the gathered group of believers…

As we have said there are three tents, the individual physical body, the gathered believers and the Body of Christ.  This third tent transcends the other two and is the standard by which their authenticity is measured.  So whether it be a denomination, a prayer group, a house church or any gathering of believers its purpose, structure and activity find their definition in the Body of Christ as illustrated in Scripture.

In the last segment we looked at the conception of the…

So far we have looked at two tents, the individual believer and the gathered believers.  Now we want to look at the third tent, the universal Body of Christ.  It is here we find the standard by which the first and second are measured.

The place to start is Matthew 17:13-19 where Jesus asks Peter who the Son of Man is.  This is the critical passage that identifies God’s plan for those who believe in Him.  It not only describes the third tent but its fabric as well.  So let’s…

In our last segment we looked at the scriptural understanding of our physical bodies being ‘tents’ in which believers live temporarily in this world.  Just as the Hebrews moved through the wilderness in caravans and set up tents so today we are mobile tents set up in a secular wilderness in which the tent is not only the individual body but also our relationships with God and one another.  “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them (Mt.18:20 NIV).”

When the bodies…

“Given personal trust in Jesus and His daily plan of reliance on Him, it is the spiritual equipment we’ve been given that needs to be developed.”  That is our tents, meaning our bodies, our congregations and the universal Body of Christ (from last segment).”

In the NIV there are 346 references for ‘tent.’ 99% of them are found in the Old Testament. In each can be found something spiritually adaptable to our individuality.  That is the point of the Old Testament.  It lays the…

I don’t know how many of you have ever been camping in your travel but the experience is quite different from our everyday sleeping and eating in an already established house.  Some of our friends say their idea of camping is a Holiday Inn.  In other words there is a tremendous contrast between our age and the biblical age when traveling involved camping for anyone and everyone, without exception.  It was a major undertaking requiring exacting preparations.  The tent was the critical piece…

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (Jn.14:1-2 NIV).”

I’m looking at ‘the many rooms’ Jesus is preparing for us in the Kingdom.  That phrase carries the exciting experience of recognized uniqueness.  Every…

We have been dwelling on the subject of uniqueness.  What are the implications of uniqueness for each of us?  Let’s let the Scripture guide us here.  Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (Jn.13:34 NIV).”  The operative word here is ‘one.’  ‘One’ another has the connotation of uniqueness.  The love is the unique love of the ‘One’ God in Christ being extended through our uniqueness to the uniqueness of another ‘one. ‘  The…

If there is one insight that has struck me in the years of my life it is that Jesus is the most unique person to ever have graced this universe.  For some reason, and I can only say it is a Holy Spirit led reason on my part, this idea of the uniqueness of Jesus is absolutely essential for each of us to embrace if we expect to really understand who God is, who we are and why we are here.  To see the unique Jesus as one of a kind, special, an Only, penetratingly singular, disturbing yet…

What we need to grasp is the concept of uniqueness.  Every person born into this world is different, individual and unique.  Why?  Because Jesus is unique.  It is His uniqueness that is the pattern for every person born.  Remember, as we have mentioned before, that after He was resurrected Jesus told Mary Magdalene not to hold on to Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father and that He was going to ‘your Father and my Father.’  The Father is unique and the Holy Spirit is unique.  Yet…

What should we be looking for in a sermon?  What should we hope that a preacher does with his time in the pulpit?  What is the purpose of a sermon?   

Preaching is all about the elevation of God’s mind as seen in Jesus Christ.  Every Scripture passage is in someway a revelation of Jesus; His mind, His heart and His Spirit.  God has made Himself known in Jesus and Scripture is His heart, mind and Spirit at work.  To let the Scripture speak through the prompting of the Spirit…