Fulfillment?

Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1

       I remember as if it were yesterday, fifteen years ago, my first Fall in West Virginia. It was Thanksgiving Day, American Thanksgiving that is. Open season on deer happens the week of Thanksgiving down there. I had a friend from seminary up and we decided we were going to do a 10-mile run. I thought maybe we’d take a forestry service road up a ridge about 4 miles and then drop down to the Greenbrier River and the rail trail that runs alongside it and come on back to town. Well, we got up on top of the mountain and started to hear gun shots and that’s when it occurred to me that we were out in the woods during deer season in West Virginia wearing white shirts and…no orange. But, I thought we’d be okay as long as we talked loudly so that we didn’t sound like white-tailed deer. All was well until we came upon the little tent city up on top that mountain. That and the gun shots had me thinking this just might be somebody’s still and this might be my last day. Moonshine and deer hunting are a lethal combination. So, I figured I’d better go see if anybody was home and let them know we were there. As I walked up to the tents in my shorts and white shirt I was greeted by a man whom I later found out was Mr. Buck Turner—Pocahontas County’s self-professed biggest liar as well as probably its most helpful man. Buck didn’t say anything at first. He just give me this look of “You’re not from around here, are you?” It was obvious that he thought my friend and I had to be the two dumbest human beings alive to be wearing white t-shirts and shorts out in the woods in the first week of hunting season in West Virginia. In a conversation a few years later Buck confirmed to me that's exactly what he was thinking.

      “You’re not from around here, are you?” If I had to sum up what it is like to be a follower of Jesus Christ, I think that phrase just about does it. We’re not from around here. As Paul writes, our citizenship is in the heavenlies and from there we expect a saviour, Christ Jesus, to return to transform us and all the creation to fully reflect the glory of the Triune God of grace and this waiting, though transformative now, has implications for how we live our lives until then. It should open our eyes a bit that humiliation is the word that Paul uses to describe our life as it is now in Chirst Jesus. For, we are to pattern our lives after the way of the cross, after Jesus way of laying down his life for love of others and that is humiliating by the standards of the world.

      This way of the cross does not fit in the world we live in, especially today. Self-fulfillment seems to be the goal of Western Culture. We admire those who say they are happy and who have the courage to make their own happiness their goal and pursue it even if it means not being at the top of the food chain. For example, when someone decides to change their career to what they want to do to make them happy even if it means less money, we applaud them. If someone does that and gets rich, you better believe there’s book tour in it. It used to be that moving up the ladder was the way to go. Now it’s simply a matter of finding the ladder that makes us most happy. People are also getting more spiritual today in the hopes that they will feel more fulfilled and happy. We’ve realized that there is more to life than just the god we’ve made of our consumeristic bellies. But, even this spiritual seeking at times can be at odds with the cross. I’ve come across many a disillusioned Christian wanting to live in the fullness of the Spirit, raptured in God’s love in a life where nothing but blessing is supposed to abound only to find that this so-called fulfillment does not show up quite in the way they want it to. They get disillusioned because they are not getting what they want out of the Trinity as far as fulfillment goes. The way of the cross calls us to learn to be fulfilled simply with participating in communion with and in the loving communion of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Letting go of the things of this world to find the life that is hidden with Christ Jesus within the life of the Trinity Christ can be quite disillusioning at times.

      In all honesty and I don't think that it's depression talking (though it is mid-February in Owen Sound, Onatario), the last time I checked my self doesn’t know how to be fulfilled no matter what I do with it. All I can do is take Jesus' suggestion to take up my cross and follow and see what happens from there. The way of the cross requires us to seek what our Lord says is our fulfillment which is himself given to us in the Holy Spirit who leads us to live as Jesus did and does. Therefore, I don’t think self-fulfillment is an attainable possibility in this life. Those who claim they’ve found it I think have more or less isolated themselves mentally, emotionally, and physically from the real world. Disengaged with the world and themselves.

      Jesus does not call us to fulfill our lives. He calls us to lay them down and serve one another in love and humility and this entails dying to this quest for self-fulfillment. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German martyr, wrote in his book The Cost of Discipleship as the Nazi Party was rising to power in Germany, "when Christ calls a man he bids him come and die." In place of self-fulfillment Jesus promises that he himself will be our fullness and he will be with us and in him we will find rest, joy, contentment, and peace and to that I would add primarily in our relationships with him and with others. Jesus' kingdom of which we are now citizens is present most powerfully in the relationships we have that are founded upon him and lived out according to his cross. Our rest is in the rest we share with others in him. Our joy and contentment are in the joy and contentment we share with others in him. Our peace is in the peace we have with others in him. Thus, any taste of fulfillment we are going to find in this life is not going to be found in “me and my fulfillment”. Rather, we find it in the communion of love we share with one another through serving one another, building one another up, sharing our lives with one another - in him.

      If there is anything that I have thus far learned in life worth noting it is that in this way of humiliation there is a transformation wrought in us by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ imparting to us the love of the Father through the communion of the Holy Spirit that we share with the Trinity and one another. Fulfillment in life as much as we can experience it is most fully present when we take the risk of friendship rooted in the compassionate servitude that Jesus calls us to. The secret is that we do not seek our own self-fulfillment, but rather serve others as Christ leads them to their own fulfillment in him.

      Paul presents himself as someone worth taking a look at when talking about what it is to have a fulfilling life in Christ. I would like to read to you from Philippians some of the passages where Paul talks about what motivates him. Paul was a devout man who sought more than anything else to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. He was a good example of someone who strove to be the best he could but found that the best he could be in a career of a Pharisee actually hurt people and indeed paled in comparison to Christ and his cross and so he left it all behind. He writes in chapter 3: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ ... that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

      Paul paints a picture of life being a forward moving progression of getting to know Jesus Christ mainly through suffering with him for love of others and therein discovering what it is to live with Christ in his resurrection which is the miraculous power of self-emptying love. For his pursuit of Christ Paul spent a good many days in prison and being beaten for his faith. Nevertheless, no matter his situation he learned to be content. He writes: “I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”

      Paul knew that everyday he had in this world was a gift and that Christ Jesus would give him the strength to live it to its fullest for and in Jesus Christ. It did not matter to Paul whether he had plenty or rather he was in need. He knew the Trinity loved him and he wanted nothing more than that. Paul was a saint worth imitating. I invite you to give it a try and you just may find the life you’re looking for. Amen.

A Heartfelt Confession

Text: Romans 10:8-13

           We don’t hide what’s in our hearts very well. What we believe and feel deep down will in one way or another come out in our outward expressions. Believe it or not people are an easy read if you just watch them for a while. If we do try to hide what’s in there as if to play a bluff in the great poker game of life, it will affect our sense of integrity to the point of where we begin to feel like we are living a lie and it becomes destructive. So it is best we just be open with what’s in there difficult though that may be.

           Another thing worth saying is that when we do act upon what is in our heart what comes forth in our outward expressions, in our words might I say, it sets in motion a chain of events that is so often irrevocable. This may be why we are so reluctant with trying to be open with what’s truly deep within us. For, when we open up, reality for us will change. Our words, our actions are powerful things for in them we posses the capability literally to change the course of history. So, if you think you are insignificant in the course of things, think again. It is an awesome thing that history is shaped to a large extent by the outward expressions of the hearts of people. Then to think that the Trinity works in and through this chaos to bring his gracious will about is an even greater mystery.

           When Paul here writes, quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” he is reflecting upon this powerful relationship between what’s in the heart and how it comes forth in our outward expressions with the ability to alter history. Except in this case he is talking about the Word of God, the outward expression of the heart of the Trinity which has ultimate sway on our lives and history by creating faith in us and more importantly by transforming our hearts with the power of Jesus Christ’s resurrection to reflect his own. This Word is the Trinity expressing his powerful, gracious love—his heart—into the human heart and thereby altering human history to sway our course towards the final day when his steadfast love and faithfulness put an end to the chaotic mess created by our acting out the self-bentness of our own hearts; the day when the heart of humanity and the heart of the Trinity are one. From his heart the Trinity spoke the Word of creation that brought everything into existence and gives us life. From his heart the Trinity spoke the Word of grace in Jesus Christ by him united himself to humanity, took upon himself the consequence of our self-bentness, suffered, died, and went to hell for us, and was raised from death, victorious over it, and now he reigns in power for us at the right hand of the Father. The Trinity continues to speak that Word today through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts and guides our outward expressions to be expressions of the loving heart of the Trinity.

           Have you ever wondered what that “sitting at the right hand of God the Father" is all about that we confess in the Apostles Creed and indeed, it is what is at the heart of what we confess when we say “Jesus is Lord?” It means first that Christ has really taken human life into the heart and life of the Trinity and this cannot do other than transform our self-bent hearts to be like Jesus' own. Just as the life of the Trinity entered into the life of humanity the moment Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb so also now in him, through his cross and resurrection and ascension, he has taken human life back into the life of the Trinity.

Now that’s pretty deep and abstract I know and doesn’t make much sense until you realize that it is real not only in heaven but also real to us here on earth from whom heaven is veiled through our union with the Trinity through Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit, our bit of grace. For Jesus to sit at the Father's right hand is for us by means of our union to him in the Holy Spirit to sit in the unmerited favour of the Father's blessing which is the Trinity’s very presence with us. It is to sit in the Father's presence in Christ by our union to him in the free gift of the Holy Spirit given to us on account of Jesus faithfulness and obedience and his alone. To sit in the Trinity’s presence is to sit in the creative Word of the Trinity’s own heart that saves us and that word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. It is the confession that “Jesus is Lord” that arises out of our own hearts as a result of the Trinity leading us to trust in him and his love for us.

           We cannot make the confession of Jesus’ Lordship unless we believe in our hearts that the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead. This believing isn’t something we just up and do. Faith comes about as a result of the Trinity being in relationship with us and therein proving to us his steadfast love and faithfulness. Then the Trinity seals faith upon our hearts by sending the Holy Spirit to live in us. The Holy Spirit's presence with us is the proof of the Trinity's love for us. It is his love, his self. The Holy Spirit's presence with and in us attests to us the ultimate proof of the Trinity’s love that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. It attests to the fact that the Trinity raised Jesus from the dead and that he now sits at the Father’s right hand reigning in power for us as the Lord of all creation. The Spirit testifies to us that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life for us. He is the loving presence of the Trinity’s own heart with us that speaks the word of new life into us and saves us now and for eternity. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to say with courage that Jesus Christ is “my” Lord. Therefore, we strive to serve him and not ourselves or any other idol. He is who lives in our hearts and makes our lives his own. Our lives are hidden with Christ Jesus in the life of the Trinity as Paul writes, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:3-4). We can no longer trust anything but him and we will be saved.

           The first question of the Heidelberg Catechism reads: What is your only comfort in life and in death? The answer is: “That I with body and soul, both in life and in death am not my own, but belong to my faithful saviour Jesus Christ; who with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.” I don’t think I can say it any better than that. That’s the Word of faith from the heart of the Trinity which changes our hearts so that his Word is our word. Amen.

God Can Be Known

Text: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

           The point of this passage is that the Trinity because of the love and will of the Father has made it so that we experience and participate by the Holy Spirit in his self-revelation in, through, and as Jesus Christ, a revelation that transforms us. Now I have the arduous task of telling you what that means. It first of all means that we can know the Trinity who is otherwise unknowable because he has revealed himself to us through and as Jesus Christ according to the gospel and because of that knowledge, the knowledge of personally knowing him, we somehow participate now in that self-revealing through the work of the Holy Spirit. To say that we can know the Trinity is a bold statement because we have all been enculturated by a philosophy of science that says everything that exists can be known and understood by us because we have the ability to know and understand and what we mean by knowable is that an object can be observed and measured or at least proven to exist by mathematical formula or by its effects on other things.

For example, this cookie is an object that we with our ability to know and understand things can know and understand. We can know and understand its ingredients right down to their sub-atomic make-up. We can know and understand the processes of chemical interactions that take place as it is transformed by heat from a doughy mixture of ingredients to what we call a cookie. We can know its smell and most importantly it’s taste. We can know it as intimately as taking it into ourselves by consuming and digesting it so that it becomes part of what we are. And finally, if it’s effect on us was profound enough, we could say it has become part of who we are because it has changed us. The cookie was so good I am now a cookie lover when before I was agnostic with respect to cookies. In the end there is something strangely sinister about this way of knowing and understanding; the object we want to know and understand sooner or later ceases to exist because in our wanting to know it we have consumed and destroyed it.

           Well, so much for the cookie. When apply this philosophy of science to persons it begins to break down a bit. Rule number one: human persons are not objects to be known the way we know a cookie. To attempt such a thing would be, well, cannibalism. The human body can be known as an object, but the human person, the human being, is a mystery we cannot ultimately know. My wife Dana is not an object for me to observe, manipulate, or consume in my efforts to know and understand her. Dana is a thinking, feeling, and willing subject meaning she is a person. She is not the object of my desire, but rather the subject, the person, whom I desire to know. I can know thing’s about Dana; her likes, dislikes, and habits for example. But there is a limit to which I can know of her as a person. I cannot know what it is to be Dana. If I could, it would be evil. That would mean I could objectify, manipulate, and consume her at the core of her being. When we call a person evil it is because they attempt to do just that. We all feel very violated when we sense someone is trying to objectify us or manipulate us or consume us for their own ends.

Martin Buber, a Jewish biblical scholar and theologian from the early twentieth century wrote a book called I and Thou in which he says we cannot really know another person. We can only know the change that comes about in us from having encountered that person. I cannot know Dana as Dana is in her person, but I can know the change her person brings about in me in our relationship and that is if I’m willing to let her person have an effect on me. We as persons know one another by the way we have been changed by relating to one another. If my relationship with Dana has not changed me, then I have not let myself be vulnerable enough to let Dana truly be present in my life. She would be just an object in my life. Her thoughts, abilities, giftedness, love, support, and even her dysfunctions all have an effect on me that changes me. She does not do this intentionally for that would be manipulation. Thus, we can never know what it is like to be another person. We can only know the change a person has caused within us by means of a personal relationship.

Now let’s talk about knowing the Trinity. The Trinity is not knowable as an object. The Trinity never offers himself to us as an object to be known. The Trinity cannot be observed and manipulated. The Trinity cannot be seen or measured. The Trinity cannot be proven by reason or mathematics. The Trinity is not part of what makes things make sense nor is the Trinity a part of the equation of the Theory of Everything. The Trinity cannot be known by his actions nor the effect he has on things. The Trinity is utterly not knowable as an object.

The Trinity is even unknowable to us as a person except by his own self-revelation through a living personal relationship. Indeed, the Trinity is knowable because he reveals himself to us as subject, an "I". The Trinity is Person and what we know of the Trinity personally is the change that encountering him brings about in us. This entails that we must have an encounter with him. The Trinity does not have a physical presence that we can know other than as Jesus Christ God the Son incarnate who lived faithfully for us, was put to death by us for us, and was resurrected from the dead and sits as a human at the right hand of the Father; this Jesus risen and ascended makes himself known to us by the Holy Spirit. So, we say the Trinity is spirit, meaning a person to whom we can relate – not a force, not an essence, not an energy; but rather a person. Just like my being in relationship to Dana, we cannot know the Trinity apart from the Trinity’s revealing of himself, a revelation that we can only know because it renders a change in us. Let us now talk about this change, our personal knowledge of the Trinity and its effect on us.

Paul says here in verse six that the Trinity spoke and said “Let light shine out of darkness.” He is probably referring to the first day of creation when the Trinity said let there be light. Please capture that image. We would say that light shinning forth from darkness is impossible because there is nothing in darkness that can produce light both in a scientific terms and in a spiritual sense. But, the Trinity speaks the Word and it makes light shine forth from out of darkness. Now let us take that image of the Father speaking the Word and making light to shine forth from darkness and apply it to our hearts because he has spoken into our hearts the Word Jesus Christ by whom he has revealed himself and by whom he has saved us by giving us the Holy Spirit through the proclamation and hearing of the Gospel. The Word is spoken to us by the proclamation of the Gospel, the announcement of our salvation by Jesus Christ, a salvation that is made real in us by the Holy Spirit who is the Trinity’s personal self-revelation to us. By having met this Holy Spirit we are changed, saved. We encounter the Trinity in his very person and know the Trinity as the one who has rendered this saving change in us through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit in accordance to the gospel.

This saving change, which is our salvation, is nothing short of being a new creation according to the promise of the gospel. This saving change one could metaphorically say is to experience the first day of the New Creation. We know the Trinity by the saving change we experience having encountered Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit according the gospel. The change that we experience is that we now know ourselves to be the loved children of the Trinity even though we were dead in our sin. The Trinity has made light shine forth from the darkness of our dead hearts.

That is what Paul says is knowledge of the glory of the Trinity that we see in the face of Jesus Christ who’s glory shines to us through the gospel which is veiled to those who are perishing. When we see the word glory in the Bible think the personal presence of the Trinity. To have knowledge of the glory of the Trinity is to have knowledge of the personal saving presence of the Trinity as it shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ and touches us by means of the Holy Spirit saying the word of the Father “you are my beloved child whom I have made able to hear the Word of salvation that I have spoken to my creation as Jesus Christ, my Son, your Lord and Saviour.”

That saving change that happens in our hearts that comes about by encountering the love and faithfulness of the Father towards his children causes us to treat others with the same unconditional love by which we have been saved. Light shines forth from the darkness of our hearts so that when we relate to others the effect our persons have on others is part of how the Trinity saves them. The light of the Trinity shines forth from our hearts so that our personal presence proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to others. In my relationship with Dana, because she is a Spirit-filled Christian, her presence that changes me is part of the Trinity’s working to transform me as his child to be more the image of Christ. So it is with each of us. Friends, be aware that you are now part of the shinning of the Trinity’s saving light simply because he has saved you from the darkness of this world. You are part of the Trinity's saving “You are my beloved child” to every one you meet. Be ever so careful to let it shine. Amen.

Born to Die...for Us

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14; Hebrews 2:10-18
          In the book of Ephesians Paul often speaks of the mystery of the Gospel or the mystery of the ages or the mystery of Christ or the mystery of God’s will.  A mystery to Paul would be something hidden that is being made known, revealed.  The mystery is that before God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created anything, it was his will to unite humanity to himself that we might be a praise to his glory which means to live worshipfully in and from his communion of love.  From the Book of Genesis we know that God, the Trinity created humanity in his image, which means that the nature of our life is our being bound together with relational bonds.  To be human is to be persons in community…the foundation of the image of God.  God’s will was, is, and always will be for human community to reflect the community of self-emptying love who is the life of the Trinity.   This reflection is the praise of God’s glory.
          Another way of thinking about this is to say that the Trinity set out to make humanity his corona in creation.  A corona is the crown of light that occurs around the moon during a solar eclipse.  When the moon moves directly between the sun and the earth, everything goes dark except for this crown of light encircling what looks like a big black hole.  The Trinity is unknowable like the blackness of that hole because he is not of this creation, but the Trinity wants humanity to be his shinning forth like that circle of light which coronates the moon during a total solar eclipse.  It is the Trinity's will from before all time to unite humanity to himself that we being in the image of God might truly be the visible corona of his glory.  Now here's the kicker, the heart of this mystery.  This means that it was God’s will from before all time for God the Son to incarnate himself as Jesus of Nazareth in order for humanity to share in the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by grace, as a blessed gift.
          To sum up so far, the Trinity for the sake of sharing himself brought this universe into existence to love it.  He created humans in his image in the hope of coronating his creation with the praise of his glory.  He would do this by God the Son becoming human himself and passing that glorified humanity onto us by giving us the Holy Spirit.  This is going to sound radical, but God the Son becoming human in Jesus Christ was not something the Trinity decided to do because humanity has sinned and fallen short of his glory.  The Trinity was going to include humanity in his communion anyway and that, my dear friends, is what Paul calls the mystery of the ages in Ephesians and to the praise of God the forgiveness of our sins, the healing of our brokenness, and the destruction of death in the end is the inevitable result of God the Son becoming human in Christ Jesus and uniting humanity to himself by the gift of the Holy Spirit.   In the inner life of the Trinity sin cannot be, brokenness cannot be, and death cannot be.  When those things come into contact with the life of the Trinity, they cease to be.  The Trinity's will to unite us to himself has always been.  What has changed is that because of our sin which brought death and its futility, God the Son incarnate would have to suffer death and all it’s futility in order to destroy it and the fear of it –the devil’s favorite tool.
          The Trinity's version of reality is that he, the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will shine forth his glory be making humanity his corona.  Therefore, what humanity would have been and we still will be, the reflection of the personal, communion of self-emptying love that the Trinity is.  Our version of reality is a bit different.  We live in a very troubled world.  The image of the Trinity in us is very broken.  Our created intent was for us to live in perfect harmony.  Yet, it is at the level of relationships that we are most greatly marred and broken.  Sin has utterly corrupted our capacity to be the image of the Trinity and thus, this creation now has for a crown something that more resembles a virus or a cancer; a humanity that brokers death.  The Bible’s claim for why there is death is that it is the result of our sin.  Paul describes human existence as slavery, slavery to the fear of death, a quite apt description.  Death ends our existence.  Knowing that this life won’t last forever provokes a small handful to make peace and the rest to indulgence.  It is no lie that the most grotesque and indeed evil atrocities done by humans have in one way or another been as a result of our fear of death.
          Our reality of sin and death is a slavery in which every one of us is both victim and perpetrator and it is futility and we have no innate means to escape it.  Nevertheless, this reality of futility and our inability to free ourselves from it is not why God the Son became human as Jesus Christ.  But, praise be to God it is by Jesus Christ that we are freed from it.  God the Son has become human as jesus of Nazareth, has taken on our flesh and blood that sins and dies, and by his death and resurrection the Trinity put death to death and destroyed Satan’s power to make us fear it.  Jesus Christ is the corona.  He has sanctified humanity, which means he’s made humanity holy in himself, which means we are now capable of living in our created purpose of being the corona provided we live in union with Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Father.
          Christ Jesus has set the entire human race free from its slavery to sin.  Therefore, we need not live as those who fear death anymore.   That is the hope that we have to proclaim.  We, like Christ Jesus, shall be raised from the dead because he lives in us.  Paul says we share the same blood and flesh with Jesus Christ just like families share the same flesh and blood.  If you pardon the analogy we have the same DNA, the Holy Spirit.  He is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters no matter who we are or what we have done or left undone.  So great and incomprehensible is the love of the Triune God of grace.
          The Trinity in his will to bring us to glory, to make us his corona, has made Jesus who is the author of our salvation perfect through suffering.  Jesus was made perfect through his sufferings…not just his last few hours, truly he was like us in every way and thus suffered just as we do in every way.  He knows our every weakness.  He knows what it is like to fear death.  His perfection is in that he did not renounce the Father's purpose for his life by succumbing to Satan’s tempting him to use his power to preserve his own life in avoidance of death.  That is the same temptation we face as we live in him.  We know him who is our purpose.  We are the children of God because he dwells in us we share the same flesh and blood with God the Son.  It is his glorified flesh and blood that we will receive when we too die.  We need not fear death. We’ve a glorious future, as we too shall be resurrected.  The Lord’s Supper is a ready analogy for this.  By partaking of the bread and the wine we share in his flesh and blood.  You may not think so highly of the meal as I do, but I would readily admit that when we partake of that meal together we are participating in Jesus Christ’s own worship of his father and that, my friends, that is the corona.  When we share the Lord’s Supper we are letting God’s glory shine forth.  We most certainly are becoming his corona.  Worship in heart, service, and voice in Christ as the result of being filled with the Spirit is the shinning forth of God’s glory and a small taste of our future.
          God’s creating purpose for us was, is, and always shall be to make us the praise of his glory, the coronation of creation.  The Son of God becoming human as Jesus Christ, his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven has accomplished this.  He shares it with us now by pouring his Spirit upon us, indeed he is with us sharing our flesh and blood and we his.  When Paul says that Jesus helps us to face temptation he means that Christ Jesus is in us covering us with his faithfulness and bringing us to worship.  With him in us we pass through death and have no reason to let ourselves be manipulated with the fear of death to act according to it.
          To say something practical here briefly, to live in the help of the Lord is as Isaiah wrote: “I will recount (remember) the gracious deeds of the LORD, the praiseworthy acts of the LORD, because of all that the LORD has done for us, and the great favour to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.  For he said, "Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely"; and he became their saviour in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old (63:7-9).”  To remember isn’t just to remember; it is to live in the memory.  Worship always living in the sure knowledge of the love, kindness, and blessing that the Lord has poured upon you in making you his children through Jesus Christ.  He was born to die for us.  He has set us free.  Worship and live in that freedom.  Amen.