Connell Church of the Nazarene

As we have been adventuring through the Bible together it has been difficult to preach all the sermons that are available in each book of the Bible. Recently, having preached from Numbers it was difficult to narrow the message down to just one major focus and ignore so much of the great material in the rest of the book. I was particularly impressed by a familiar portion of the book that I was forced to exclude from my sermon. At the end of Numbers 6 the Lord gives instructions to the priests of Israel. The instruction is to bless the people of Israel with a specific blessing, and by pronouncing this blessing on the people the Lord says the priests will put the name of the Lord upon the people of Israel, and He will bless them.

My mind wandered immediately to the New Testament theme of the priesthood of all believers as I considered this passage. Peter says, in 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” In this passage Peter is encouraging gentile Christians to be so holy they look marvelous to the world around them, and he gives them the responsibility of being royal priests, mediating between God and the world. Peter’s understanding was that priests were models of holiness to everyone they came into contact with. Priests were the ones who mediated between God and people, but they were so holy in their own right that a person would feel closer to God by just having a conversation on the street with a priest.

I believe these words from Peter are for Christians today. We are called to be priests, so holy that people feel like they are encountering God when they hang out with us. I also believe the Lord a major expectation for the priests in Numbers 6 when he tells them to bless others. Christians should be about blessing others, and as it turns out Numbers 6 offers us a great example of the type of blessing we should give:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

And the promise comes with this blessing from the Lord himself: “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

I recently had the opportunity to hear General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene Dr. Jerry Porter speak on being a contagious Christians. He spoke about the importance of the church being made up of people who are constantly being infected with the virus of passionate Christianity, and are going out into the world infecting others with their virus. In order to this Christians must be constantly filled with the virus, getting new fresh doses of the virus all the time, but also getting close enough to those who aren’t infected regularly enough to infect them with the disease. Dr. Porter’s encouragement was for Christians to be passionate about their faith, loving the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength; and passionate about other people, loving their neighbor as themselves. It was sounded pretty Biblical to me.

As a local church of the Nazarene, this is our hope, that we can be a church that loves God so passionately that it drives us to show our love for our neighbors in practical ways. We don’t always do it perfectly, in fact we don’t always do it at all, but this is our target. If you’re reading this and you aren’t a part of our church, we would love to have you come and join us as we attempt to love God so much that it changes the way we treat other people.

With the new year comes a few changes at the website for our church. This year as we read through the Bible in a year as a congregation, we be using http://connellNazareneBible2010.wordpress.com for our primary devotional site. This site (http://connellNazarene.com) will remain our primary website and will be used for communicating upcoming events and important church information and audio sermons that are uploaded.

I encourage you to bounce over to this year’s devotional website, bookmark it, and read the Bible with us this year.

I pray regularly for those who use our daily devotionals. I hope that this year you will make time to join us in our journey through the Bible. More importantly, I hope this year is a year of radical growth in God’s love for you.

Blessings,

Pastor Paul

Opening Prayer: Almighty God, I ask that You walk with me to the end of this year, pulling me closer to You, and pouring Your grace upon me. Amen.

Read: Psalm 65

Read: Ephesians 4:17-32

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself.

Hymn: “For the Beauty of the Earth”
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on earth, and friends above;
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thyself, best gift divine,
To the world so freely given;
For that great, great love of Thine,
Pease on earth and joy in heaven;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

Closing Prayer: Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

Opening Prayer: Almighty God, I ask that You walk with me to the end of this year, pulling me closer to You, and pouring Your grace upon me. Amen.

Read: Psalm 65

Read:2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself.

Hymn: “For the Beauty of the Earth”
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on earth, and friends above;
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thyself, best gift divine,
To the world so freely given;
For that great, great love of Thine,
Pease on earth and joy in heaven;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

Closing Prayer: Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

Opening Prayer: Almighty God, I ask that You walk with me to the end of this year, pulling me closer to You, and pouring Your grace upon me. Amen.

Read: Psalm 65

Read: Galatians 3:23-4:7

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself.

Hymn: “For the Beauty of the Earth”
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light,
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on earth, and friends above;
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thyself, best gift divine,
To the world so freely given;
For that great, great love of Thine,
Pease on earth and joy in heaven;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

Closing Prayer: Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.