Second Sunday after Epiphany: Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Old Testament Lesson

Genesis 9:1-17

God in this text makes a covenant with Noah.  First He gives them all the animals of the earth as meet for food, and I am very thankful for that.  Notice He also says that the animals will fear humans now, which I guess if he didn't do that, hunting would be much easier.  But, the big news of this text is one that we all know so well and one that we teach to our children and grandchildren.  The rainbow.  After the flood God promise not to flood the earth again. And while on some rainy weeks we many jokingly wonder about that, we know that we can trust God's promises.  That is one toe the amazing things about this text and all the Word. This God of all creation, this almighty and all powerful God makes promises to me and you. Promises that He will not leave, promises that He will not forsake.  Promises that He will be with us. Today, He promises not to flood the earth again and He has kept His promise.  Do you trust Him today.  He will not go back on His word.  Read His promises to us daily and trust in them.  He will not break the covenant He has made with us.

New Testament Lesson

Hebrews 5:7-14

A couple of things from this text.  First, notice Jesus was obedient.  He was the very son of God, fully human and fully God.  And He was obedient.  If Jesus Christ was obedient, how much more should we be obedient.  If He was willing to submit Himself to the will of the Fatter, how much more should we be willing to submit ourselves to the will of the Father.  I think often about Jesus going early to pray, and how essential that was to His ministry. Do we do likewise?  If He understood that importance of that relationship with God, shouldn't we?

Second, the text says that we need the meet of God, not just the milk.  I see it with my daughter. That child loves her milk.  Not too fond of real food.  The milk tastes good, and it does make you feel full. But her to grow, she needs real food, which is slowly like more and more.  As Christians we are the same. We must not the settle for the milk of the word, but must dig into the meat of the word.  We need to go deep and sea ch the word for yourself and make it our own.  Don't settle for just a surface knowledge of God's word, dig deeper every day. 

Gospel Lesson

John 3:16-21

We of course see the famous passage, John 3: 16, but I'd like to call your attention to one that gets passed over.  Verse 19 says, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil."  Folks loved there sin more than they loved Jesus Christ.  We think isn't that awful, how could they do that. But don't you and I do the same thing?  How often do we pick our sin or our will over His?  These folks were in darkness and they picked their darkness over the light of God.  We pick our judgement, we pick our condemnation We we pick sin over God that is what happens.  When we pick our darkness over the light of God, that is what happens. Today, what will you pick?  Will you love darkness over light, or will you be obedience the light of God that came to save you and me.