SET PRAYER

Psalm 104:24-34

24 O Lord, how manifold are your works!
    In wisdom have you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
25 Here is the sea, great and wide,
    which teems with creatures innumerable,
    living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships,
    and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

27 These all look to you,
    to give them their food in due season.
28 When you give it to them, they gather it up;
    when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
    when you take away their breath, they die
    and return to their dust.
30 When you send forth your Spirit,[b] they are created,
    and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works,
32 who looks on the earth and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains and they smoke!
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.

Closing Prayer for LG gathering

reading for: Tuesday Night, 31 May

John 14:8-11, (25-27)

• READ

  This passage reveals the intimacy of Jesus’ relationship with God the Father and what this means for Jesus’ followers. So, when Philip asks for Him to show them the Father, what Philip gets in response is a speech on the relationship between the Father and the Son, and this leads to the promise of the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the Godhead, who manifests Jesus’ presence when he has ascended.

  The passage opens with Philip’s prompting to “show us the Father.” It comes after a statement of Jesus about his ultimate destiny (going to the Father) and his desire to take the disciples with him, “so that where I am, there you may be also” (14:3). Thomas then interrupts Jesus after he says, “You know the way to the place where I am going,” by asking, “How can we know the way?” (14:5). To this, Jesus replies, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”. This describes the effects of Jesus’ coming and presence on his community of followers, even after his death.

  The intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father acts as window for us into how Jesus faithfully represents the desires and activity of the Father on earth. This is how we as His Body are to see, relate and work with the Father in our world.  

  The main focus of the paragraph beginning with verse 18 is the continuing divine presence in the life of the followers of Jesus. Jesus is present, through the Holy Spirit (v26) to the disciples who love and keep his commandments (v21).

  It is significant that the Holy Spirit’s work is to bring to ‘remembrance’ all that Christ has said to them. The Psalmist in 102:2 admonishes that we should ‘forget NOT all his benefits’, while in Psalm 76:3 he remembers God and rejoices. The Early Church Fathers taught that when we remember God, we also remember his covenants and commands. The remembrance of God also safeguards the believer against foreign evil thoughts as well as provides him with a source of intense joy.

• REFLECT

  “From forgetfulness we fall into negligence, and from negligence into misplaced desires” (Hesychius the Priest).

  “The mind that rejects the remembrance of God succumbs either to anger or to lust.” (Macarius)

  Can you recall of instances in your life where your thoughts and desires went awry when you forgot the Lord? What about moments in your life where the Holy Spirit prompted and led you to remember your calling and your place as a son or daughter of God and you were able to overcome the desires of your sinful nature? Place yourself before God in gratitude and prayer.

reading for: Wednesday Night, 1 June

Acts 2:1-21

• READ

  On Pentecost, the awesome power of God is revealed seven weeks after the death and resurrection of Jesus. A terrified and mournful band of eleven gathered in the home of one of the disciples. They came together as the group with whom Jesus had had intimate time; this is the group who lived everyday life with Jesus. Although they were dispersed, they decided to gather early in the morning to worship.

  They wanted to support each other because they were a religious minority and lived a faith that the majority in Galilee did not. As the eleven worshiped, there was a noise so loud that it could not be ignored. The Holy Spirit had come as Jesus had promised, and it was an experience of the whole person rather than something to be understood by just the mind. All of the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. Not one was excluded.

  The feast of Weeks, Shavuot—or Pentecost, is the third of the three great festivals of Judaism (Deut. 16). Shavuot was a joyful festival, in which the firstfruits of the harvest would have been given to God. The timing of the story may have reminded Luke’s readers of Jesus’ declaration that “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2). It may also have connected them to the Joel passage that Peter later quotes, where the outpouring of the spirit is understood as the harvest: “the threshing floors shall be full of grain” (Joel 2:24a). More importantly, Shavuot is the celebration of the giving of the Torah, in particular the Ten Commandments, from Sinai. Luke is likely making a parallel here: Just as for Jews the exodus revelation signals the birth of the chosen people of God, for Christians the Pentecost narrative in Luke, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, signals the birth of the church.

  In quoting Joel, Peter is therefore announcing the end of this present age and the beginning of the age to come, the age of the reign of God. For Peter—and for Luke, who tells his story—the unusual tongues of fire and speaking in tongues are signs that God’s reign is immanent, that God will ultimately redeem God’s people.

• REFLECT

  Are you baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you pray in the Spirit or just with your mind? In what circumstances would praying in tongues be beneficial? And for whom?

reading for: Thursday Night, 2 June

Romans 8:14-17

• READ

  In these four verses, the Apostle Paul builds upon ‘life’ as he has been discussing in v1-13, with the wonderful and comforting truth that Christians have been adopted into God’s own family. Being a child of God explains both why God’s Spirit confers life on us (v13-14) and why it can be said that we are heirs with a glorious prospect for the future (v17-18).

   

  To be led by the Spirit of God (v14) doesn’t mean that the Spirit is going to dictate our decision–making, but that we allow ourselves to be under the dominating influence of the Spirit (Gal. 5:18). Paul can claim that those so led by the Spirit are sons of God and so destined for life (v13) because sons of God is a biblical title for the people of God (see, e.g. Deut. 14:1; Is. 43:6; Rom. 9:26). But we must also recognize in the title an allusion to the sonship of Jesus himself (see vs 3 and 29); as verse 15 confirms, ‘Abba’ was Jesus’ own address to God (see Mk. 14:36), one that showed special intimacy. This same address that Jesus used is now one that Christians spontaneously ‘cry out’ when we approach God. It is the Spirit, again, who implants in us that sense of intimacy (v16) and abolishes, thereby, all bondage (to ‘the law of sin and death’, v 2) and all reason to fear (15a). The Spirit, thus, is the Spirit of sonship. ‘Sonship’ not only means that we are no longer orphans and adopt as children, but it also means that God has confer on us all the rights and privileges that belong to a natural child. This idea is rooted in the Bible’s picture of God as one who graciously chooses a people to be his very own (see 8:23; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5).

   

  Our adoption into God’s family, however amazing and comforting, is not the end of the story. For to be children is also to be heirs: to be still waiting for the full bestowment of all the rights and privileges conferred on us as God’s children (17; see especially Gal. 4:1-7). As the Son of God had to suffer before entering into his glory (1 Pet. 1:11), so we sons and daughters of God by adoption must also suffer ‘with him’ before sharing in his glory (see also Phil. 1:29; 3:20; 2 Cor. 1:5). Because we are joined to Christ, the servant of the Lord ‘despised and rejected by men’ (Is. 53:3), we can expect the path to our glorious inheritance to be strewn with difficulties and dangers.

• REFLECT

  In your LG, share with one another, moments where you’ve had your identity as a child of God challenged or shaken or circumstances and sufferings that have helped you grow in your understanding or assurance of your ‘sonship’ or ‘daughtership’ to God the Father. Pray for one another.

reading for: Friday Night, 3 June

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

The Song When Jesus Returns

• READ

  It may seem unusual to reflect on God’s work of creation, at Pentecost, because what does the Spirit being poured out, the church birthed, and God’s judgment at Babel overcome have to do with God’s work of creation? Furthermore, physical creation is not featured in Acts 2. Yet the psalmist’s reflections about God’s relationship to creation is reflected clearly in the church and its birth at Pentecost.

  In verse 24 the psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” Creation exhibits great biodiversity, which the psalmist describes in verse 25: “Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.” We see the wonder of creation throughout all creation itself because this abundance of creatures is an expression of, and testifies to, God’s wisdom. “In wisdom you have made them all,” the psalmist says (v. 24). This complexity and variety of life bears witness that God’s “understanding is unsearchable” (Isa. 40:28). Thus the diversity displayed in God’s manifold works is the revelation of God’s wisdom in creation. In the same way, the diversity manifested in the church serves the same purpose as in creation: to reveal the wisdom of God. In Ephesians 3, Gentiles are included with the Jews as “Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (v. 6). Paul explains this as “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known” (v 9–10). For Paul the church reveals God’s “manifold wisdom” by the diversity it displays. Christ’s call to preach the gospel “to all nations” (Mark 13:10) is also a call for the church to reflect the ethnic diversity found among the Gentiles. Since all revelation of God’s wisdom is grounded in the person of Christ (1 Cor. 1:24, Col. 2:3) it makes sense that the church as Christ’s body has the task to “make known” God’s manifold wisdom to the world.

  In verses 26 – 30, creation’s bearing witness to God’s wisdom through its diversity requires that God have a personal relationship with each of God’s creatures and we see God personally feeding the sea creatures by hand.

  These in turn respond to God, recognizing God’s provision and thus “look” to God “to give them their food.” They depend personally upon God in every way. When God hides His face, they are“dismayed” and when they die, it is because God takes away their breath; and when God’s Spirit is sent forth, “they are created.” The psalmist’s point is that their birth, death, and very existence are a result of God’s personal and sovereign action.

  Just as in Psalm 104, Pentecost manifests God’s personal and sovereign action. When God’s Spirit appears in Acts 2, the church is created. The third person of the Trinity is personally sent “from heaven” when “there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” Acts declares the Spirit rests “on each of them” appearing as “divided tongues as of fire” As a result, “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit,” speaking in the “native language” of every nation, testifying concerning “God’s deeds of power” in Christ (v 2–6, 22). This diversity displayed at the church’s birth occurs for one purpose: to preach the gospel to all nations and thereby participate in the personal and sovereign work of the Holy Spirit in bearing witness to Jesus Christ.

  Whenever God’s personal and sovereign nature and wisdom are made manifest, God’s glory is also in view. Creation’s manifold diversity requires the psalmist to extol the glory of God, because this diversity is an expression of God’s wisdom and therefore reveals God’s glory.

• REFLECT

  As with creation, the church was made for the glory of God. However, unlike creation the church will share personally in Christ’s glory (2 Thess. 2:14). This glory is complete not only when the church displays “the harvest of righteousness” (Phil. 1:11), but also when her people come “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). So important is this later point that Jesus declares in Matthew 24:14 that the new age will not commence until the gospel is preached “to all the nations.” As Pentecost reveals, the Great Commission is not an option, but a necessity.

  Are you continuing to remember and pray for the ‘assignment’ God gave to you at the start of the year? Share with your LG the person you have been praying for this week and support one another in fulfilling the command to make disciples. Glorify God and encourage one another with testimonies.