Christ our Hope Anglican Church Valparaiso

Part of the work of worship is to offer up sacrifices of thanksgiving, both in our weekly service with the liturgy, and throughout our daily life. In our times of trouble, God may seem to be quiet, but he is there asking us to reflect on our fears - are allowing our fears to toss us in the waves, or are we in fear and awe of God in his greatness and his promise of deliverance? All God’s people are a royal priesthood, therefore we are all called to lift up sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, together, as we serve God and care for one another.

Jesus told his disciples to cast out demons. Unclean spirits are real and desire to undo and thwart the healing work of God in our lives. As a priesthood of believers, we all can stand against the influence of demons, but, like all spiritual gifts, God has blessed some of his people with more gifting and discernment than others in this regard. As a community, we must spend time learning with Jesus and learning the work and character of the Holy Spirit, so we may more sharply recognize and renounce the work of oppressive, devouring demons.

The gift of the ascension is the infinite chasm between God and man bridged. It shows us a magnification of the fellowship that we lost in Eden. And yet, this is our hope: just as Jesus rises away from earth and into the place that God dwells, we too, following him, do not just re-enter Eden but enter into the throne room of God.

In his testimony to us of himself, the first thing we see God do is speak. In the world that we live in, words are imprecise descriptors of “the real stuff” like atoms and energy and space and time. But the Bible tells us something truer and deeper than that: words matter. When God speaks, He speaks with power and with authority. He speaks and kingdoms topple. He speaks and crops grow. He speaks and the universe is made.

Jesus upends the Pharisees accusations on the Sabbath: man was not made in order to satisfy God's expectations, God's expectations, commands, and laws were made to bless and ennoble us. There is no performative goodness that can increase our standing before God — we weren’t in fact made because he needed servants — and there is no goodness we can obtain for ourselves that is better than what he graciously offers. Jesus himself, the true King, the Son of God, came not to be served, but to serve, and to give himself as a ransom.

The gospel is not just that God did something for us (though he certainly did) — it’s that is did something IN us, and he’s still doing it. And that doing is a calling out of darkness and into light. It’s a reshaping of the ways we’ve become twisty so that we can be God-shaped image bearers again. And so that’s the gospel. That’s what God is doing in us and to us and for us and for Jesus. And yet the old ways, the broken ways are still right there before us. And so we have to choose, all the time, which scales will I use? Which path will I take?