... Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all...." It is God ™s will that we drop our masks ... . (5) We know God's love is real. We can see His heart break on the hill of Calvary. He is our Mentor. He is our Mediator. FINALLY, HE IS OUR MASTER. Abraham Lincoln went down to the slave block to buy back a slave girl. As the slave girl looked at the ...
... , we're driven to the edges, to the very margins of sacrificial love, where we lay down our preferences, lay down our rights, so that others may know the meaning of God's love. The kind of mediation to which God calls his disciples is reflected in this story by homiletics professor Ron Allen. "When I was about eight," he writes, "I was with some neighborhood kids. We were building a dam across a drainage ditch down the block. A new kid came up, looked me full in ...
... friends declare that there is but one God. Our Jewish friends declare that there is but one God. Most thinking people in the world today declare that there is but one God, but it is the unique claim of the people called Christians that there is but one mediator between God and human beings, the man Jesus. Again, this was no frivolous claim. Most of the early Christians had been Jews. The God they worshiped was a God of power, majesty and strength. To look upon God was to die. To even touch the things of God ...
... Moses, his life was spared in infancy. Like Moses, he was a powerful intercessor for his people, speaking with God face to face and reflecting the divine glory. Like Moses, he was a mighty prophet in word and deed who revealed God's will and purpose. Christ was a mediator of the covenant and leader of the people. Jesus had a job to do and he got it done. He directed the activities of that band of followers. He did not begin the day by asking the disciples each morning, "Where shall we go today?" He was in ...
... that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions so that we may all lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity ... For there is one God, there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all. — 1 Timothy 2:1-2, 5-6a In these brief verses from the epistle to Timothy two principles for practical Christian living are made abundantly clear: 1) We ...
... when we are emotionally and personally involved. Passion can cloud perspective. The more assertive we are by nature the harder it becomes to admit we are wrong. So many of us hold on to trivial truth long after the point has been made. Mediation is hard work. Mediators need the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the perseverance of Paul, and the hide of a rhinoceros. The Church has a role. Taking it to the church is more than turning prayer meetings into gossip sessions and the parking lot into ...
... certain way rather than leaving it up to me to define it for them. I was not to choose whether this was for me but rather I would be chosen. So it is that the job description of the high priest is laid out, the duties and responsibility outlined — to mediate, to serve, and to understand that he was chosen for this most important of jobs. But like the days of our flesh, the days of the earthly high priesthood will soon come to an end. Who will then step in to fulfill that role and will they be up to ...
... be off when speaking to God. As noted above, this is not the case. Moses seems to wear the veil when he is not functioning as mediator, but then we are not told why or what this might mean. What we can focus on, first of all, is that the people had a ... the majesty of God, we need to remind ourselves that God does not leave himself without witness. Moses is presented here as the mediator between God and the people. This apparently happened on a regular basis. There is no suggestion in the text that there was a ...
... !" they cry, "Nor let that ran- somed sinner die." And still our High Priest continues to refresh us at his table as we partake of the bread and wine of holy communion. There, again, we find forgiveness for our sins. No other priest, no other mediator, offers so much to those who are so unworthy. Alexander Whyte, that prince of preachers in St. George's Church, Edinburgh, in the early years of this century, once told of attending a service of holy communion conducted by John Duncan, the well-known Scottish ...
... did Moses become the prophetic model? It all began when God made an appearance on Mount Sinai. It was such an awesome and terrifying sight that the people begged Moses not to require them to come near the mountain. They implored Moses to serve as their mediator, stand before God, and convey God's words to them. Recently, a friend of mine was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area when a tornado hit downtown Fort Worth, Arlington, and other areas of the Metroplex. Those who witnessed the tornadoes said they had never ...
... and God's workers. He rebelled against the prophetic message of the Word and the priestly ministry of the workers. But again, keep in mind Moses and Aaron were a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses was the mediator on the mountain. Aaron was the mediator in the ministry. They both represented the one who would be the great mediator, the Lord Jesus. Korah had looked at them and said, "You are no better than I am. I have just as much authority as you do. I don't need you any more than you need me." When a ...
... . He stands between sinful man and holy God. As sinless man he takes the hand of God; and as saving God, He takes the hand of man and joins the two together and becomes our Mediator. "For there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5) His middle name is Christ. The name Christ literally means "Anointed One." Christ is His holy name. As Christ He is our Messiah. The Jesus of the New Testament is the Messiah of the Old Testament. You see, ...
... special kind of Christian but about the laity, which is the Greek word for the "people." We're all God's laity. We're all summoned into God's service as well as into God's family. As God's people, we're all priests, which means we're all mediators between God and others. I had a Protestant friend who was married to a Roman Catholic, and he wouldn't worship with her. He also had given up worshiping in a Protestant church years before. He'd quote what he'd learned in Sunday school about the priesthood of all ...
... also helps us. When love seems too demanding, when we struggle to live out our true identity as beloved by God and loving others, we have an encourager and helper. When we lose our way and need to find it again, we have an advocate and mediator to comfort us and bring us home. When it comes to loving relationships today, many of us might think first of our biological families: mother and father, brother and sister, our spouse, our children. But Jesus himself remained single, and in his earthly ministry he ...
... the risen Lord meets us because he loves us, because he desires that we be strengthened, that we be upheld to be the servant people of God in the world. In our text the servant is to bring forth justice to the nations. The servant is to be the mediator between God and all the peoples of the earth. The servant is to manifest God's saving and sparing action to all people. In weakness, in silence, in binding up, in giving sight to the blind, in setting free the prisoner, in being a covenant to the people, this ...
... , their oldness is not mildewed oldness. It is an oldness like unto the oldness of a treasured piece that one finds tucked away in an attic. It is an oldness saturated with worth and value, its worth and value being resident in its power of mediation. Those words mediate to people the presence of the One to whom they point. Through them God becomes as real to us as he was to those who mouthed them hundreds of years ago. This is precisely why the Scriptures are important. This is why tradition is important ...
... is God in person. He brings God down to man’s comprehension. He becomes concrete and specific, a God who can be heard and touched. We need Jesus to reveal God the Father to us, or we would never truly know God. We love God, too, because Jesus is the mediator between this awesome God and man. God is too great to be approachable. Who can stand in God’s holy presence? Who dares to look at God? Who has the right words to say to God? It is utterly impossible for sinful man to get close to God. That is ...
... , his blessing, his help. We seek through prayer, and through prayer receive. We are told in 1 Timothy 2:5 that there is "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." We are told in Hebrews 7:25 that "he is able for all time to save ... for them." We are told in 1 John 2:1 that "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous." Mediator, Intercessor, Advocate - this means that he fulfills the role of attorney pleading our case before the throne of the heavenly King. Some ...
... scripture we hear a farewell address to the people, who were about to enter Canaan without him. In it Moses prepares the way for other prophets who will follow him, evidently on the assumption the people will continue to need that sometimes encouraging, sometimes prodding mediator between themselves and God: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb.... - Deuteronomy 18:15 And ...
... silence eternally shouts from two indelible tables containing ten statements, paraphrased into two: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and strength and mind; and love thy neighbor as thyself." Moses was the mediator of the covenant on Sinai. Christ was the mediator of the covenant on Calvary: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." The covenant was conceived in love, sealed in love, and sustained in love. "But," you may say, "the Ten Commandments were ...
... found itself. As it was, the people of Jerusalem found themselves at a crucial moment in their history. It must have been at least 800 years since their forefathers, released from bondage in Egypt, had received the covenant from God through the Mediator Moses at Mount Sinai. For forty years their ancestors were providently cared for in the wilderness and moved into the Promised Land of Canaan. They occupied, conquered, and settled that land and eventually created a glorious monarchy that thrived under the ...
... then we have a Great High Priest," the writer of Hebrews tells us, "who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession." That is the Christ we would see this morning. The Christ who is like us but is also our mediator and redeemer, who sits at the right hand of the Father. NOTICE, FIRST OF ALL, THAT CHRIST HAS WALKED WHERE WE WALK. We read, "For we have not a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as ...
... the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood . . .” This is that unshakable kingdom about which he writes. It is life in the presence of God, where there is no fear, but only joy. How do we find ourselves in such a place? There are two truths ...
... . The Church was patterned the same way. The laity were at the bottom, the bishops and pope were at the top, and God was above the pope. In both systems, if you were at a lower level, you had no access to the upper levels, except through a mediator. It was unthinkable that a serf would ever approach a king. So it was unthinkable that a common lay person would ever approach God without a priest. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers dismantled that system. It was in large part the reason for the ...
... be our own priest. We can speak and pray directly to God. But there is more than that in the term "priesthood of all believers." It also means that we are to be priests to our neighbors. Which meant that Luther believed that though you don't need a mediator to get to God, God needs you to get to someone else. I know a woman whose life had gone flat for her. She suffered terrible fits of despair from time to time. Finally under doctor's care she was hospitalized, from which there was some improvement, but ...