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Day 22, Sunday (March 31) - Living into His Name
Posted on: March 31, 2019
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
A PRESENT AND ACTIVE SAVIOR
Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. Past, present and future. Jesus who came to us in flesh and blood died once for all upon the cross to atone for our sins. Jesus who died is now, right now, risen and ascended. He actively mediates between the Father and us, Christ’s brothers and sisters. He applies the work he accomplished in the past to us in the present.
This Jesus who died once and lives now is not finished with this world. He will come again. He will set all things right. He will complete in us the process of becoming conformed to his image.
This week we study names of Jesus related to his present ministry among us that is based on what he has accomplished in the past and what we anticipate he will do in the future. We will see how active Jesus is among us today.
So our mosaic depicts the risen Jesus walking with two disciples on Easter Sunday along the Emmaus Road. It all looks so normal! Traveling companions on the way from one place to another. Jesus addressing people amidst ordinary life. But Luke tells us that something extraordinary was happening: “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24: 27).
Don’t you wish you were part of that Bible study? Well, you are! By his Holy Spirit through his church, Jesus still teaches us who he is as his Word is read and interpreted. He is still with us on every daily path. He still walks through the world toward Home.
The New Covenant
Day 22 Sunday
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EXPLORE THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
For us there is one God, the Father,
from whom are all things and for whom we exist,
and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom are all things and through whom we exist (1 Corinthians 8: 6).
EXODUS 24: 7-8
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
MARK 14: 24
And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”
ISAIAH 42: 6-7
“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
JEREMIAH 31: 31, 33
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”
LUKE 22: 20
“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
CONSIDER
A covenant is a binding agreement between people. In Scripture, a covenant expresses the LORD’s commitment to us and the response he requires. After the Exodus, the LORD gave the commandments to his people through Moses on Mt. Sinai. Their agreement to his Word was sealed through blood. Moses threw the blood on the people (!) as he declared, “This is the blood of the covenant.”
Jesus echoed these words in the Upper Room when he lifted the third cup of wine at the Passover meal and declared “This is my blood of the covenant.” A new deal was being made. New terms for the relationship between God and his people.
Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah in which the LORD said of his special Servant King: “I will give you as a covenant to the people.” He also fulfilled the prophecy spoken through Jeremiah in which the LORD promised that the new covenant would be written not on tablets of stone but within the human heart.
The new covenant is Jesus himself. He fulfilled the binding terms from both God’s side and our side. He kept the covenant from the depths of his heart and in all his faithful actions. So Jesus is the “place” where we meet and enter renewed relationship with the Father. If you are in Jesus, you are in the new covenant. If this is true, what would it mean to your life today?
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PRAY THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
Begin with the Jesus Prayer. Pray it reflectively several times, for yourself or on behalf of another.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Then pray the day’s prayer slowly and repeatedly for at least a minute (that’s about seven times). Allow the prayer to take you into the meaning of the day’s facet of Jesus’ name. Pray it for yourself and/or on behalf of another. Take your time and trust this process!
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the new covenant between God and man,
sealed in blood. In you, God and man meet, and are reconciled.
Graft me into this promise!
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LIVE INTO THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
He has granted to us his precious and very great promises,
so that through them you might become partakers of his divine
nature . . . For this very reason, supplement your faith with
virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness,
brotherly affection and love (2 Peter 1: 4-7).
HEBREWS 8: 6, 10
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.”
CONSIDER
The longing inside us to keep covenant with our God is evidence of the work of the Spirit in our hearts. Now we are people in conflict. For we have still the sinful, selfish nature of the old self residing next to the Spirit of the new covenant. Can you feel your longing for the day when only the new heart for God remains? Invite the Holy Spirit to work more deeply within you today.
Close by praying this beautiful benediction from Hebrews 13. Pray it first for yourself, then for someone you love:
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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