Last Sunday, Pastor Kyle continued preaching in our church’s sermon series through the Apostle Paul’s Epistle of 1 Corinthians. He stated that humanity has always been fascinated with the new and it is in our nature to look ahead to whatever is the newest, latest and greatest is in culture, society and life. But, have you noticed that everything that was once new and revolutionary, has a quick was of becoming normal, the norm and then the expectation and taken for granted in our lives. Some big examples would be electricity, light bulbs, refrigeration, clocks and watches, air-conditioning and heating, trains, planes and automobiles, the telegraph to telephone to Cell phones, the radio and television, printed media, records, tapes, disks and videos, cameras, satellites, Microwave, Cell towers and WiFi, robotics and computers, rubber, plastic and glass. We find hope in the new because variety is he spice of life and we love some new things and look to what is happening in the future in our lives ... up and ahead for what God has instore for us. Yet, we also find joy, peace and happiness in living the same comfortable routines in our daily life; there is something powerful in the same things that God has already placed in our lives.
1 Corinthians 10:1-4 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. “
There is also the power of the same grace of God that has existed throughout church history and celebrated through the act of Communion, the new work that Christ did on the Cross, which we remember and celebrate in His presence. The Apostle links the Exodus experience of baptism and the Lord’s Supper (same spiritual food and drink) together in Christ (the spiritual Rock). Their grace of God was the same as our grace of God. The foundation here is this: The same God who was at work in the Bible wants to do a new work in us today. The word “same” in this passage is the Greek word “autós”, meaning the same - it signifies nothing more than again. In baptism, the word “same is not used because Christ had not yet come into the world yet, so “baptized into Moses (their Leader from God)” saved through the Red Sea passing was a “similarity” with Christ’s baptism (our Lord God incarnate) saved through passing through the water (death to and old sinful life and raised to new godly life in Christ).
Yet, “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the [same] spiritual Rock … and the Rock was Christ” is our same spiritual connection through Jesus. In John 6:35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Paul connects the rock in the desert wilderness that gave the Israelites water to Christ. The drink that we use in a spiritual act of Communion today symbolizes the blood that Jesus spilled on the Cross for our salvation. It is the same God that is writing the same one big salvation story for all of history; in the lives of the Israelites, in the lives of the Corinthians in the first century A.D., and for us. It is the Providence of God. The spiritual food today is Christ, the Bread of Life, and the spiritual drink today is the Hoy Spirit, whose living water causes us to spiritually never ever thirst again. It is the same story across all time. The Bible is not just a bunch of words on the pages of a book. It is a living testament to the fact that immutable Creator God is alive, is on the throne of creation and active in life, wanting to do a new work in our life today.
Let's continue Pastor Kyle's message on the power of "same" in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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