Maurice preached last week.  If you haven’t listened yet be sure to check it out.  It’s really good.  Prior to that we were looking at the Christian faith and what it looks like in our day to day lives.  Basically, now that we’ve believed on the Lord Jesus, what now?  What does our Christianity look like.

One of the primary aspects of the Christian faith is worship.  Worship can be a loaded term in modern Christianity.  It’s been said we’re made for worship.  Usually what people mean by that is we’ll be singing songs for all eternity.  We can certainly sing songs.  No one likes praise music more than I do.  But we’ve made worship more about singing songs and adulation than participation and contemplation.  You can worship silently without uttering a sound.  

When I talk about worship I’m not talking about music although you can have music.  You can also have music while you are worshipping but worship is not the 30 min to an hour we have in our church services called praise and worship.  Worship is about communion with God.  It’s about participating in the divine nature and the uncreated grace that emanates from the divine nature.  It’s about being strengthened to endure in the faith.  

Jesus says in John 4:23, the hour comes, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  

Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at Jacobs well.  She tells Jesus her ancestors worshipped God in the mountains, and she says the jews say Jerusalem is the place people ought to worship.  Jesus famously responds by saying the hour is coming where the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.  

We worship the Father in Spirit and in truth through Jesus.  Jesus is the truth and he was raised a life giving Spirit.  His flesh is meat indeed.  Jesus said unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have no life in us.  He also said no one comes to the Father except through him.  Its through the flesh of the Son we have communion with the Father and the divine nature.  The letter to the Hebrews says … consider Jesus; looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of faith.  Jesus authored the faith that draws us to the Father by partaking with us in flesh and blood and offering his broken body to the Father on the cross.  And he perfects that faith in us as we continue looking to him.  The Father, Son, and Spirit set their glory before us through the flesh of the Son, and that glory gives us respect for the recompense of the reward the Father gives us; drawing us away from looking to the creature for the nutrients of life, and drawing us to the Father.  

Christian worship is looking to Jesus.  It’s to contemplate and consider the body of Christ …. It’s through the remembrance of the Lords body we are drawn into communion with the Father and His divine nature.  1st John begins by saying that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.  Thats talking about Christ coming in the flesh.  Christ is the Word of Life.  John was discerning the Lord’s body when he said truly our fellowship is with the Son and through the Son with the Father.  John is talking about worship.  He’s saying he has communion with the Father and the divine nature through the humanity of the Son who shares with the Father in the divine nature.  John was discerning/considering the Lord’s body when he said what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the Sons of God.  John discerned the Lords body and he discerned the Father gave us His divine nature as a gift through the flesh of the eternal Son. 

In the Old Covenant the Jewish people gathered in Jerusalem for worship.  The woman at the well told Jesus the Jews say people should worship in Jerusalem because the temple was in Jerusalem.  The temple was the centerpiece of worship in the old covenant.  The temple was the dwelling place of God.  It was God tabernacling with them.  It’s the place where the presence of God would be made manifest. 

The temple was thought to be a portal through which the divine or heavenly would invade the creaturely or earthy.  It was the place where heaven and earth were joined together.  It was even called heaven and earth.  The temple is where God and man had communion with one another.  There was an altar in the temple and on the altar was the offering of the lamb.  The lamb was roasted over fire so the people could eat the flesh of the lamb.  Eating the meat was how you shared in the sacrifice and in the communion of God.  

There were certain things involved in the temple worship.  Besides the altar and the offering, there were ordinances and feast days and sabbaths and holy days and incense, and washings, and clothings and show bread.  Those things were for a testimony of what God had done to serve them with life, and they also prophesied of the good thing that would later come when Christ was manifest in the flesh.  They were given to stir the people up by way of remembrance.  It was through those things the people had communion with the work of God, and His uncreated grace.  It wasn’t by the things themselves, it was through the remembrance of Gods work.  God gave the statutes and judgments in the law to set his glory before them, so they could be shut up in the faith, and participate in the divine nature through remembrance of Him and His work.  Thats what Deuteronomy 28 is talking about when it says the people will not perish from off the land, and will be blessed going in and going out if they keep the statutes and judgments.  Keeping the statutes and judgments was about remembering God, so you don’t forget ….

Fast forward to the New Covenant and the eternal Son coming in the flesh.  Gods no longer tabernacling with us.  He’s tabernacling in us; in our humanity.  The Word who is the Christ became flesh.  The one who created us joined himself to our humanity that we might have communion with his divinity through his flesh.  He partook with us in flesh and blood.  We’re no longer worshiping according to the shadow.  Our worship is through the substance that is Christ come in the flesh.  We worship through a temple not made with hands.  We worship through the temple the eternal Son built through his flesh ….

In the New Covenant we don’t have the works of the law to stir us up by way of remembrance.  We have the body of Christ.  It’s in the flesh of Christ we see the work of God.  The Father prepared a body for the Son, so the Son could perform a work in his flesh, through the eternal Spirit.  The body of Christ is where we see the work of God to condemn sin and death in the flesh.  The body of Christ is where see God pouring the divine nature out on all flesh.  We touch and handle and see the body of Christ through the Spirit of Faith.  Thats how we have communion with God and the uncreated grace; that’s how we have communion with the divine nature.  We’re intimate with the flesh of the Godman through the Holy Spirit.  We contemplate; we remember the Lord’s body.  

The altar we worship at is the cross.  The flesh of the Godman was prepared for us on the cross.  The flesh of the Son of God was offered to the Father, his body was deified in the fire of the divine nature.  The meat we eat is the deified flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We participate in the divine nature and the uncreated grace through the body of Jesus.  John 1:16 says, And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.  The fulness of Jesus is his divinity.  Paul says the fulness of deity dwells in Jesus bodily.  His fulness flows to us through his humanity.  His fulness flows through his humanity into ours; continuously pulsating his divine nature into our humanity, calling forth from the midst of us his uncreated grace.  Virtue flows from his flesh to our humanity.  It’s through the remembrance; the considering; the contemplating of the works we see in the flesh of the Godman Christ Jesus that we participate in the divine nature and the uncreated grace that emanates from him.  Its through remembrance we are kept in the faith; looking unto Jesus; considering his flesh and blood; discerning the divine nature thats been loosed in our humanity.  

Gal 3:23  But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 

In the old covenant the works of the law were given to shut the Israelites up in the faith until the seed to whom the promise was made would come.  The works of the law were given to stir the Israelites up by way of remembrance, setting the glory of God before their faces, giving them a single eye, keeping their faith towards God, keeping them from idol worship; keeping them from worshipping the creature, causing them to look to God for the nutrients of life.  

In the New Covenant Father, Son, and Holy Spirit set the divine nature/glory before us through the flesh of the Son.  That renews our minds.  It keeps us looking to the Father through the divinity that manifested in the flesh of the Son.  It forms within us the mind that was in Christ on the cross.  We’re made a living sacrifice.  As we look to the glory set before us through the deified flesh of Christ; it causes us to endure afflictions; it keeps us in the faith; it causes us to despise the shame that tries to come to us through the weakness and infirmities of these mortal bodies.  Its stirs us up by way of remembrance; the work of God becomes our daily bread; our communion is with the uncreated grace instead of the creature …. Our sight becomes single and fixed; looking to the glory set before us in the work of God to be our food for life …..

Moses endured in the faith because he saw him who was invisible on the mount.  He was kept from the temptation of the riches of Egypt by seeing him who was invisible on the mount.  He saw the glory that was to come in the flesh on the mount and that kept him from temptation.  It was only a shadow but Moses had communion with the divine nature and the uncreated grace by seeing the image of the invisible God coming in the flesh on the mount.  Thats why his face shined with the glory of God.  He saw the kingdom of God would be manifest in human flesh.  

Prayer