Chapter 3, Verse 16 – The Saviour, the Scriptures, the Spirit

Here are some thoughts from three “3:16” verses – from John, 2 Timothy and Colossians. The first emphasizes the Saviour. The ministry is not about us. We’re only servants. It’s about Jesus. He is the Saviour. The second emphasizes the Scriptures. The ministry is not about what  “the minister” says to the people. It’s about what God says to all of us. The third emphasizes the Spirit. The ministry is not about the personality of the preacher. It’s about the presence of the Spirit. Let’s pray, for one another, that your faith will be centred on the Saviour, grounded in the Scriptures and empowered by the Spirit.

In The Valley (Isaiah 22:1-25)

Here, we read about ‘the Valley of Vision’ (1, 5). The Lord Himself is to be our Vision: ‘Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art, Thou my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping Thy presence my light’ (Church Hymnary, 87). Down in the valley, the mountain-top experience seems a long way off. What are we to do when everything seems to be hard-going? When there seems to be no way out of the valley, no way back to the mountain-top, we must keep on ‘looking to Jesus’ (Hebrews 12:1-2). In the ‘valley’, we must learn to say, ‘My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, nor even blessing, but Himself, my God’. Let your ‘valley’ become your ‘valley of vision’, the place where you are learning to ‘turn your eyes upon Jesus’ (Mission Praise, 470,712).

“All the people praised the Lord” (Ezra 3:11).

At the heart of God’s work, there is worship – ‘praising and giving thanks to the Lord.’ This is our first priority. We must not forget the Lord. We must remember that ‘He is good.’ We must remember that ‘His steadfast love endures for ever.’ Nothing can take the place of worship. This is where serving the Lord begins. It begins with worship. Without worship, we cannot serve the Lord. He must be at the centre of everything we do. This is what serving the Lord means – keeping Him at the centre of everything you do. We look for ‘more love’, ‘more power’, more of God’s blessing in our lives. We must give ourselves – more fully and more truly – to Him: ‘I will worship You with all of my heart… with all of my mind… with all of my strength’ (Songs of Fellowship, 392). The blessing will come down as the worship goes up!

Psalm 115

‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your Name be the glory because of Your love and faithfulness’ (1). God loves us. He loves us with a faithful love, ‘an everlasting love’, a ‘love that will not let us go’. His love ‘never comes to an end’. Nothing can separate us from His love (Jeremiah 31:3; Lamentations 3:22-23; Romans 8:38-39; Church Hymnary, 677). What have we done to deserve such love? Absolutely nothing! We are ‘sinners’. We do not deserve to be loved by God. We have done nothing to earn His love. Love begins with God. It comes from Him. How do we know that He loves us? Have we proved ourselves worthy of His love? No! – ‘God shows His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’. ‘To God be the glory!’ (Romans 5:8; Church Hymnary, 374).

Revelation 2-3

Every church in every nation and every generation has so much to learn from ‘what the Spirit says to the churches’ (2:7, 11, 17, 29). Christ is to be our ‘first love’. We are not to ‘abandon’Him. We are to ‘keep right on to the end of the road’- ‘faithful until death’ (2:4,10). We are to ‘remain true’ to Christ, pressing on with Him to a life of real spiritual growth (2:13,19). Let your commitment to Christ be very definite. He stands at the door of your heart. He says, ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens the door, I will come in…’ (3:20). He is waiting for you to open the door of your heart to Him. He waits with great patience. He keeps on knocking. He waits to hear your prayer: ‘Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay’. This must be your own prayer. No one else can pray this prayer for you. Open your heart to the Lord, and remember where your prayer really came from: ‘The Lord opened my heart…’ (Acts 16:14).

‘By grace you have been saved through faith… for good works’ (Ephesians 2:8-10).

God calls us to live a ‘holy’ life. We cannot make ourselves holy. We are spiritually ‘dead’. We need to be ‘made alive’ – by God. Holiness does not come from ourselves. It comes from the Lord. Long before we ever thought of loving Him – He loved us. Our love for Him is so changeable. His love for us is unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable. It is eternal. He loved us ‘before the foundation of the world’. He will love us ‘in the world to come’. This is the love of God, the love which inspires us and enables us to live a ‘holy’ life (Ephesians 2:1; 1:4; 2:7). When we realize the truth concerning ourselves – ‘nothing good dwells within me’ (Romans 7:18) – and God – He is ‘rich in mercy’ (Ephesians 2:4) – , we will ‘praise His glorious grace’ (Ephesians 1:6).

‘O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your Name… You have done marvellous things’ (Isaiah 25:1).

We remember what God has done for us. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour. We rejoice in Jesus Christ who died for us. We rejoice in Jesus Christ who rose again for us. We look forward to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. We look forward to the Day when ‘He will swallow up death for ever’. On that Day, ‘the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces’. On that Day, we will look back and say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him, and He saved us’. On that Day, we will ‘rejoice and be glad in His salvation’ (8-9). Here and now, let us learn to ‘trust in the Lord’. We can trust in Him ‘for ever’. He is ‘the everlasting Rock’- ‘the Rock of our salvation’ (4; Psalm 95:1).

Jesus Christ – The Rock Of Our Salvation

As well as Peter’s three denials, we have three wonderful statements which point us away from Peter, in his failure, to Christ, who is the Rock of our salvation.
(a) “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
(b) “This Jesus, God has raised up and “made both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:32, 36).
(c) “Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. To you who believe, He is precious” (1 Peter 2:4-7).
Praise God – Our faith is not built on shifting sand. It is built on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the risen Lord, the wonderful Saviour.