| Author |
Message |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 2903
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 16, 2006 - 12:42 pm: |     |
Yesterday I visited the Presbyterian Church of America. Every one was so friendsly, but what I want to write about was the sermon. It was about the foot washing ceremony. It was something I had never heard. What the pastor said was that the foot washing ceremony pointed to the cross. He based it on John 13:1-17. I did not take good notes but this is what I have. There are three things God is communicating to us. The first is love. He loved his disciples so much that he washed their feet. In those days the people wore sandals and not only did they walk through dust, but also through animal and human excrement on the roads, so their feet were really dirty. Jesus washed all this from their feet.
It points to the cleansing that we receive from the blood of Jesus Christ.
It points to community-humility, service self giving love that God has for us and in turn we give to others.
I would like to have better notes.
It was a sermon I have never heard the likes of.
Just wanted to share it with you.
And Stan, The PCA is a very Biblical church from my one visit. I intend to visit again.
Diana |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 840
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, October 16, 2006 - 6:33 pm: | |
Diana,
My wife and I have started to attend Grace Chapel near our home, a PCA church. It is only six years old--a church plant. However, it is now a sister church instead of merely a daughter church to the larger PCA church downtown. What is so unique about Grace Chapel (www.gracechapelpca.com) is that two to three hundred college students attend this church weekly. These young people are a part of the Reformed University Fellowship Chapter at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It is so refreshing to see these young people on fire for Christ. Perhaps we can find the fountain of youth in our mature age (smile).
The Grace Chapel pastor, Mike Hsu, had Dr. R. C. Sproul for a Sunday School teacher while in the seminary in Orlando. This youthful pastor really preaches great sermons. They have lots of excellent books, pamphlets, and even theological term papers available in the lobby. The books are obtained wholesale and are sold without any markup. The PCA worship service is very meaningful. Interestingly, because this is a youth-filled church, the music is mostly contemporary. However, their contemporary music is devoid of hip-swinging, footstomping, and dancing in the aisles.
Dennis Fischer |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 20
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, October 16, 2006 - 6:54 pm: | |
We had a foot washing once in our church about 30 years ago and it really had a humbling effect on me, not in washing some elseís feet but in someone washing my feet. I think from that experience I realized how Peter felt when he did not want Jesus to wash his feet. I think the foot washing incident in the Bible fit perfectly with the statement Jesus made in Mark 10:44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
Anyway I will never forget the lesson on serving another. Jesus poured out his days in serving, I am afraid I fall far short in that area. I think many a church folk are willing to serve where they are comfortable and get praise for their work such as Deacon, Preaching, Sunday school teacher and those are commendable things, in Matt. 22:1-14 though the Bible gives us a good look and what the true Kingdom of God is like if one reads the scripture with emphasis on the word servant.
Possibly the hardest thing to put down is pride of life but in order become one of Gods true servants we must put it down, once Peter really got the picture he was willing that Jesus wash his head also, do we want Jesus enough to say, my feet and my head also? The lessons Peter learned in his time with Jesus, I am sure helped to enable him to go meekly to his death on the cross also, we learn to love the Lord more as we learn to serve others.
Thank you very much for sharing, it taken me back to that experience and I am more determined to stuff my own will down and concentrate on becoming a servant for him.
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Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 2156
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, October 16, 2006 - 8:07 pm: | |
Diana,
Thanks for the report! You make me happy tonight, as Marti and I also have found a home at our PCA church. Even though I don't agree on every point of theology, the people are friendly. There is a special reverence that I never sensed at an SDA church or at many other non-SDA churches, and GRACE is what the conservative Presbyterian faith is based on. Their doctrine is the closest to what I consider Biblical truth, but again there is no perfect church.
Dennis, I am also excited about your church PCA experience. The Reformed faith is making a comeback in today's world, and that is exciting.
Stan |
Jwd
Registered user
Username: Jwd
Post Number: 250
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - 2:18 pm: | |
Diana, Dennis and River, (with whom I am not acquainted)....actually not that well acquainted with Dennis and Diana either. I would like to comment. I'm not sure if the comment should focus on the "Ordinance of Foot Washing" as it is called within Adventism, or the PCA Church.
I will join Stan in feeling joy at hearing the positive blessing Dennis and Diana received from worshiping in a PCA congregation. I may type a copy of the order of service in the small Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) Bonnie and I have attended for over a year now to give a glimpse of what their interpretation of Scripturally defined worship consists of.
You cannot escape the focus: WORSHIP of the Eternal God. They don't want even any announcements to be included during the actual worship service. I'd like for you all to take a look at the order of service in this small PCA church we attend........which meets, by the way, in a chapel room, rented from one central SDA Church...in a separate wing of the church plant from their main sanctuary. I'm glad for this. It's very small. I counted 28 in attendance last Sunday.
As for foot washing. I was brought into SADventism when I was around 8 years of age, when Calvin Osborn, brother of John Osborn, then a licensed minister held a public series of meetings. Mom was convinced by the artful presentation of proof texting. Cal ended up marrying one of the gals in our local Dayton, Ohio church. Back to foot washing. Needless to say I've practiced it throughout my 56 or so years within Adventism.
I have received blessings while participating. And I have participated on occasions when I personally questioned why we did it and wishing not to have to be bothered with all the work that went with it.
I hesitate to speak freely here, for my comments will, no doubt, sound very self-righteous and judgmental. Perhaps they are. Only God can judge. But I have nothing to hide now about that experience, so I'll say that I observed men participating who were exhibiting some of the most un-Christlike attitudes, anger and what surely must have been or close to hatred of other members, in the same room. So why participate?
It was said to also symbolically cleanse one before participating in the Lord's Supper which followed immediately. I admit to a certain beauty connected with it.....that of humility, of an indescribable brother-hood experience that was felt at times; but not always, as I have indicated.
I don't see anything wrong with practicing it.
But I do see it as an "add on" by mankind, since there is not a clear Scriptural mandate or command for observing it today in the Christan Church catholic.
There were always members who sat it out. I.E., did not participate and they still partook of the Lord's supper. No one judged those individuals. Some had physical reasons. I cannot judge what the various reasons were, but there were always quite a few who remained seated in the main sanctuary while the women and men separated into different Sabbath School rooms, or a fellowship hall, etc.
Back to the PCA. I join Stan in feeling that the Gospel message, centering upon Christ and the Atonement (the Cross) being supreme; the sacredness associated with their worship......they do seek to "worship" God, rather than simply "do church," ..... comes the closest to what our hearts understand to be God's truth for His elect today. I don't agree with all their minor points; but they themselves say they are minor and not points of fellowship or required for church membership. I am not focusing upon these and will give more personal study to them in the future, if only to satisfy my own understanding.
I have not found a church so dedicated to giving glory to Christ Jesus and the FATHER, and uplifting God's Word, the central emphasis upon Justification by faith alone, upon the ground for faith and practice being the Bible only, upon a salvation solely by God's sovereign grace, and a salvation through Christ alone as I have discovered in the PCA Church.
My heart thrills to be exposed to an apostolic faith which prompts me to want to make greater progress toward holiness. It feels very much to me, like I imagine early house meetings felt during the time immediately following Pentecost.
Soli Deo Gloria
Jess |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 4792
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - 4:29 pm: | |
Jess, I relate to your words about thrilling "to be exposed to an apostolic faith". It is overwhelming to me to be part of that original church begun at Pentecost, united with other Christ-followers the world over by the Holy Spirit. Jesus aloneóHe is all we need.
Colleen |
Jwd
Registered user
Username: Jwd
Post Number: 252
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, October 19, 2006 - 2:09 pm: | |
Amen! Colleen,
Do you also sense a different ..... ? "feeling" ?or a shift in consciousness toward all Christian believers the world over? I do. It's a real inner warmth, a sense of personal affection and identification with them as being ...now...FAMILY!I find my heart sensing a burden to pray for every missionary of every Christian denomination,of every congregation, of every professed Christian (God alone reads the heart to know who accept Him as Lord and who are merely surface-water-walking professors). But I feel a real kinship now with all Christians.
I'll tell you, still today, after many years, I feel a real sense of sadness and disgust and regret and even some self-directed real displeasure at myself for the prejudice I carried and sad-regret over the past reality of my "programming" due to Adventist training and education as it affected - rather impressively - my/our relationship with even our next door neighbors.
Not long after we moved to Salem, NJ, where I pastored the Salem / Vineland, NJ district of two churches, our next door neighbors invited us to attend a barbecue to "get acquainted." I declined? Are you already guessing what was my primary reason? I knew I could not eat the meat they would barbecue, and to explain why would have immediately identified ourselves as "weird" beyond explaination. So we declined. I am so ashamed - today - to even share that! Oh the depth of indroctrination which creates barriers of separation. How can it be? But it was and still is, I'm sure.
No way to shine out the beauty of Jesus, who would have jumped at the chance to accept their invitation and would have made such a joyous, positive impression, they would want to spend more time with Him from then on. I was a "church-follower," ignorant then, that as you say, "all I needed was all He alone provides." (my paraphrase of your comment.)
But the sad regrets and embarrasing memories are foot steps to the present joys of a living, vibrant, life-enhancing freedom in Christ today!
Praise His holy names, over and over again!
Jess |
Dd
Registered user
Username: Dd
Post Number: 754
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, October 19, 2006 - 2:39 pm: | |
Jess,
You may live with regret for the past, but for today God is redeeming your regrets through your love for Him to those you come in contact with! What a blessing you are to FAF and to me personally. Your love for Jesus today makes up for all bondage of yesterday!
Praising God for you and Bonnie Luv!
Denise |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 2917
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, October 19, 2006 - 5:07 pm: | |
Jess,
I really do identify with being "Family" now. We have joined God's family of believers and it never ceases to amaze me when ever I meet a Christian, no matter what church they attend. We have no problem talking about Jesus and what he is doing for us. What Joy!! What Love!! How AWESOME!!!
Diana |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 4813
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 20, 2006 - 12:20 am: | |
Jess, YES! That feeling of identification and connection with the entire body of Christ is astonishing.
What a privilege to be God's own children!
Colleen |
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