Minnie B. Lowry 1889
1 All around is bright and fair,
While we work for Jesus;
Joy and peace are everywhere,
While we work for Jesus.
Refrain:
Come, O come, this cheerful, happy day;
Come, O come, to Sunday School away.
2 Every face with pleasure beams,
While we work for Jesus;
Every heart with rapture teems,
While we work for Jesus. [Refrain]
3 Nearer seem the realms above,
While we work for Jesus;
Dearer seems our Saviour’s love,
While we work for Jesus. [Refrain]
by Leanne Guenther and Sharla Guenther
Today we are going to talk about angels. Where have you heard of angels before? What do you think they look like? Hopefully by the end of today’s class you will know more about angels and why they are here to help us.
The most important thing to know about angels is that God made them. He sends angels to help and deliver messages to us. The word angel actually means God’s messenger.
Some of the angels in the Bible that sent messages are: the angels that announced Jesus birth, they were at the tomb to tell Mary and Martha that Jesus was alive, and the angel, Gabriel, that told Mary she would have a son. There are many more places where angels gave messages but these stories you probably know the best.
Angels also protect us when we’re in trouble. Remember Daniel in the Lion’s Den? An angel came and shut the mouths of the lions. What about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? An angel was standing with them in the fiery furnace to keep them safe.
So you can see angels are important, but they’re not more important than God, they serve God. Angels are actually like us in some ways. Angels can chose to follow God or not. Most of the angels chose to follow God and work for him and some of the angels went to work for the devil instead.
It’s good to know there is a devil, just because he sometimes tries to trick us into thinking that bad things are fun or good. Keep in mind, God and his angels are much more powerful than the devil, after all the devil was an angel, but he began to think he was better than God. So God sent him out of heaven.
Angels are also like us because they worship God, but they do this continually, that means they never stop. In Revelation 4:8 (NIV) it says, “Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.'”
Another way angels are like us, is that they don’t know everything God knows. The Bible says that not even the angels know when he is going to come and take us to heaven (Matt.24:36).
Angels are very different than us in some ways too. They live in heaven with God so they certainly know more about God than we do, and just being in God’s presence probably gives them the special glow or brightness they seem to have.
Angels can be visible and invisible. They were seen at Jesus tomb and in the sky to the shepherds, but they can be invisible too helping us when we don’t even know it.
The Bible also says that angels never die in Luke 20:36. So you can see that angels are a little higher than us, but lower than God. God is very strict in saying that we should not worship angels or see them as more important than him. Remember that God made angels and He is the only one we should pray to, but its certainly okay to thank God for angels and to pray for them if you want.
You might wonder what angels look like. Well, there is no clear answer to this. When people saw angels in Bible times they were often afraid at first (imagine if you saw an angel all of a sudden). I think its okay to imagine angels as friendly, beautiful creatures that help us.
Some people like to believe that we each have our own guardian angel, an angel that watches and takes care of us at all times. While we do know that there are many angels, the Bible says there are, “thousand upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand” (Rev. 5:11, NIV). The Bible doesn’t seem to say anywhere that we each have a guardian angel. If you think about it, we don’t need a guardian angel, angels can’t be everywhere and know everything like God, and He is always with us.
There are also different ranks of angels, or they have different jobs. Some of the angels talked about in the Bible are Michael an archangel which means the prince of angels, and Gabriel is another angel named in the Bible and he was the angel that told Mary she would have a baby and to name him Jesus.
Angels also have been mentioned in different groups. Some are called chief princes, cherubim or seraphim. They all seem to be important to God and all seem to have specific duties that they do.
One of the best things about angels is that whenever someone becomes a Christian they sing and rejoice, in other words they have a big party! One day we can look forward to singing to God with the angels someday in heaven.
So you see, angels are important and they’re very real. God uses them to give us messages, to help and encourage us, and they will announce his second coming.
Romans 15:13- May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It was my observation, if John had aggressively declared that love is only what God is, we would be compelled to say God is what love is (see 1 John 4:8). If love is equal to God, then the God we have defined leaves little space for any other attributes, He becomes a man-made deity. He no longer is Elohim. Let us open the aperture of thought to a larger f-stop. When we examine God’s other attributes, we can learn more accurately about His love. For example, if God is self-existent, then love has no beginning; if Elohim is eternal, love has no end; if the Logos is infinite, he has no boundaries for his love; if he is holy, he is pure in love; if He is immense, His love is incomprehensible. Now we can say his love is like a sea with no end, and we bend in silence at his grace and grandeur (see Psalms 36:5-9).
Psalms 104:30-35 says — When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works—he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord. (NIV). Selah.
If we know God, we are compelled to try to speak of His love and grace. Try we must, but none of us do it very well. There are no words in my vocabulary to properly define the formidable and wonder-filled attributes of God. Children reach toward a star hoping to grab the light. Their outstretched arm points towards the love of God. This is the best we can do – encourage others to look up.
1 John 4: 13-18 says — This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so, we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (NIV).
I am not foolish enough to say – I know exactly what love is. But I can see many things that exhibit the notion of love. We can see love pours out goodwill towards other people. Love does not wish fear for others. John said there is no fear in love. Fear is a painful thing; it grips us and blinds us to a path towards safety. It persists and grows; it smashes our hope. Yet, the moment we encounter love, fear runs away. Fear is powerless over us; that is the impact of love. My mother is many things, but her love can arrest my fear.
Our world is full of trouble and enemies. A casual examination of the news suggests that our enemies’ resolve is strong, and trouble is inevitable. Soldiers are taught to focus on the endgame, get the job done, adapt to the situation and overcome the problem. Their answer to fear is to redirect their focus. Yet, I think, the effort to vanquish fear without addressing the cause is silly. Our heart is wise enough to know as long as we trust our plan to outmaneuver the enemy, we may have every good reason to be afraid; we may have overlooked something, may have failed to ask a question we did not know we needed to ask. But, in the end, we know that fear is a liar. We are wise to focus on love – the endgame.
This is what I know – God is a God who defines love, in the secret place of our heart, we lean on Jesus. Love is not the sum total of God; but it is an essential truth of his sovereignty. Our effort to adapt and overcome fear is nothing compared to his Love. His love casts away all fear. When we embrace God’s love and mercy – fear retreats into the shadows. Nothing can really hurt us, perhaps temporarily, but not forever. Love will win. I choose Jesus.
It has been my observation while reading scripture that word meanings matter. We rest our salvation on the twist of a phrase or a deeper understanding of a few terms. Words matter. I think it is useful to invest time in the meaning of terms we encounter in scripture if we are to have a reasonable chance of understanding the truth in Scriptures. Let us begin at the beginning. Our key words and terms gleaned from scripture should express God’s ideas, we are not idea creators, we are interpreters. The words, themselves should not be the endgame. We say that God is love; we say that God is light; or we say that Christ is truth; we are conveying a truth about God the Father and Jesus. Consider the implications of this example sentence — “My friend is patient.” By making this statement, we are not saying that the sum total of my friend is patience, i.e., patience and my friend are equal; we are merely saying our subject (my friend) exhibits a tremendous amount of patience. The term – is, are, and be all express a similar idea and are used in a similar way. Our subject (my friend) is more than just patience, but he is very patient. The differentiation is an important distinction, one that requires thought.
The attributes of God are collective, together they help us to know something about God and about how he will respond to things. If we impair the concept of personality in God and reduce His attributes to one, then, by inference, we are relegating that specific attribute as our God. We could say God is power. If we were defining God, with the notion that God equals power, would we not also have to say power is God? What if we said, God is mercy. Would we not also have to say mercy is God? When we start accidently limiting God by our terms, the God we have left is not the God of Abraham; He is not the God and Father of Jesus; He is not Elohim, the power behind the prophets and the apostles; He is not the Redeemer of his church, nor the God of the new covenant, and he is not the God of the universe..
Let us push a little deeper into the notion of God’s attributes. What we are talking about is quiescent attributes vs active attributes. Quiescent attributes define God’s essence. Active attributes define how God interacts all the time with the things around Him. Please understand, this differentiation of attributes is not an easy thing to discuss. Ask three people about this, you will get three different answers. In my view, the quiescent attributes of God are eternal, omniscience, indivisible, sovereign, holy, immutable, omnipotent, and infinite. The active attributes are love, knowledge, wisdom, truth, righteousness, goodness, grace, mercy, justice, and power.
Why does this matter – because when we limit our view of God to only one or two of these attributes, we render Elohim impotent – we limit his activities. If you were part of the community trying to negate the impact of God (progressive theologians), I think this would be a primary goal of this community – limit God’s sphere of operations. Negate the effect of as many active attributes as possible. Deny the existence of all quiescent attributes with a simple theorem – nothing stays true forever. Reduce God to a few active attributes, choose the attributes carefully and then lament of his inability to act or his inconsistent actions over time. This is the underlying goal of the liberal theologian.
When John says, ‘God is Love’, he is defining an essential, active attribute of God (see 1 John 4:8). Love as well as life reveals its presence by its actions. Love is a powerful characteristic of God but is not the sole attribute of God. Love is the underpinning for holiness, justice, faithfulness, mercy, kindness, and truth – to name a few. Because God is immutable, He acts consistently with love. He never stops being himself – ever. In context, John is saying, if we cannot or do not love the people around us, then we do not have God in us, for he loves the people around us – God is love, God is embodiment of the type of love we should and will have for others. IF WE ARE FILLED with God, He will exude from us, why? He is love. We cannot hold him back. Therefore, I choose Jesus.
Shalom Talk