SHEMA!
Tammuz/Av 5768 August 2008
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MA CHADASH? WHAT’S NEW?
Ann Arbor Art Fair
During
the third week of July, we expect that some of
us will put on “Jesus Made Me Kosher” t-shirts;
go to the Ann Arbor Art Fair (which attracts something
like 500,000 people); hand out 10,000 evangelistic
pamphlets telling the Good News about the only
Savior of mankind, who can rescue us from the
overwhelmingly powerful and destructive forces
of Satan, sin and death; talk to hundreds of people;
and impact tens of thousands of Jews and Gentiles.
Thank you for your financial and spiritual support,
which help make evangelistic outreaches like this
possible!
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TODAH RABAH! THANKS VERY MUCH!
One
reason we should give to support the works of
the Lord is because giving is part of God's nature.
Love and goodness are two of the attributes that
describe the nature of God. Love and goodness
both imply giving. For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life (John 3:16). It is God’s
nature to look outside of Himself and seek to
give. On the other hand, fallen human nature is
consumed with selfishness. It wants to take. When
we give out of love, we become more like God.
We become givers, not takers. Truly it is more
blessed to give than to receive. Congregation
Shema Yisrael is involved in expanding and nurturing
Messiah’s Holy Community. We say “todah rabah”
to those of you who lovingly give to help us do
what the Lord is asking us to do!
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BACK TO BASICS:
A SUMMARY OF ROMANS 1-11
PART 1
Rabbi
Paul’s letter written to the congregation of Jews
and Gentiles in the center of the ancient Roman
Empire contains some of the inspired rabbi’s most
important teachings. Everyone needs to understand
these basic truths. If there is anything you don’t
understand, or something that isn’t clear to you,
you need to study and learn until everything is
clear to you.
This
great letter can be organized into two parts.
The first part, Chapters 1 through 11, emphasizes
theological teaching; the second part, starting
with Chapter 12, focuses on the application of
the teaching - how we are to live in light of
the truths taught in the first part of the letter.
This month, I want to begin a summary of the first
11 chapters of this divinely inspired letter.
The
long-awaited Messiah has finally come! Yeshua
of Nazareth is the Anointed One - the final Prophet,
Priest and King. He is the Son of God, and He
entered into this world. He became a man. He was
born into a very special family - the Jewish royal
line - the family of King David. The Messiah died,
but death could not hold Him down! He was raised
from the dead. His resurrection proves that He
is God’s Special Son and mankind’s Lord and Savior.
Humanity
is in very serious trouble. Mankind is alienated
from God, who is the Source of Life and Blessing
and Meaning. Human beings can be divided into
two groups - Jews and Gentiles - and both have
sinned. Neither group has measured up to God’s
requirements; both have fallen short of honoring
Him the way they should.
We
Jews had the advantage of the special revelation
of God found in the Law, the Prophets and the
Writings, but we did not live up to God’s revelation.
The Gentiles did not have the written Word, but
the Creator did not leave them without any truth.
They had some knowledge about God’s existence
and some of His attributes, and they had moral
laws written on their hearts. They were given
a conscience to help them live according to the
knowledge they had. But the Gentiles, like the
Chosen People, also failed to live up to the truth
that they were given. They turned their backs
on the one true God, worshiped false gods, and
became morally, intellectually and spiritually
corrupt. All of humanity - both Jews and Gentiles
- have failed to live according to the light that
was given them. No one is righteous enough in
God’s sight to be accepted by Him.
Sin
is a powerful reality. It is a deadly force that
deceives, captures, enslaves and finally kills
us. Both Jews and Gentiles have sinned and are
unable to extricate themselves from sin’s deadly
power. But what we are totally incapable of doing
by ourselves and for ourselves - attaining salvation
and justification, becoming right with God, being
restored to eternal life - the merciful God has
accomplished for us! Salvation has been made available
to Jews and Gentiles and in the same way! Whenever
any human being hears the Good News about the
God of Israel and Israel’s Messiah - and when
that Good News is received with faith, believed
and acted on - the saving power of God is unleashed
to restore and redeem!
This
Good News has been ordained by the God of Israel
to go to the Jewish people first; to us first,
but it must also go to non-Jews everywhere. This
is the way Jewish people are saved from sin and
death. This is the way of atonement. This is the
way to have peace reestablished with God. Observing
the Torah in a legalistic way cannot save us.
Approaching the Word of God as a book of “do’s
and don’ts” won’t enable us to be saved. The focus
of the Torah is not about laws and law keeping.
It’s about reestablishing a right relationship
with God that was lost in Eden. It’s about the
principles of atonement through faith and sacrifice.
It’s about the coming of the Messiah, who makes
the ultimate sacrifice, and in whom we must place
our faith when He comes.
All
human efforts to save ourselves, to reconcile
ourselves to God, can never be enough. Our efforts
can never be adequate to atone. Human efforts,
even if those efforts are the commands of the
Torah, will never be enough to save us. Salvation
only comes to us as a free gift. It can’t be earned
by good deeds, hard work, our best efforts, our
most sincere religious endeavors, our prayers
or observing commands. Salvation is provided by
the good works of God the Father and Messiah the
Son. It is offered to us, and we can only be saved
by humbly recognizing and receiving this gracious
gift.
The
Torah (the Teaching) can mean several things.
It can mean the entire first five books written
by Moses; the Torah, or Law, can also refer more
specifically to the Sinai Covenant, with its laws
and constitution. The Torah is always true, always
relevant, but the Sinai Covenant is no longer
in force for us. It is a broken covenant. Messiah
has made a New and Better Covenant with us. It
enables us to want to serve God with enthusiasm
and with joy from our hearts, and not in a legalistic,
letter-of-the-law kind of way.
The
way God always intended human beings to be saved,
reconciled to Himself, was by having faith - a
living and personal relationship with Him built
on love, trust and obedience. The Creator never
intended us to be reconciled to Himself on the
basis of doing laws or keeping commandments. With
the coming of the Messiah, our faith must be directed
to Yeshua, and His death, resurrection and ascension;
and the giving of His Spirit.
It
is through the work of this One Man and His great
and righteous acts that our sins can be overcome.
It is through God’s grace - His undeserved and
unearned help, based on the all-sufficient atonement
provided by God the Father and Messiah the Son,
and received through our faith, our trust in God,
our closeness to the Three-In-One God - that we
are reconciled to God. It is our responsiveness
to God - our willingness to do things the Lord’s
way and approach Him on His terms - that helps
make us right with God. Peace with the Holy
God, being reconciled to the God from whom humanity
is estranged, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
salvation, eternal life, having a sure hope, the
receiving of a great inheritance - all of this
comes to Jews and Gentiles by God’s grace through
our faith.
Father
Abraham is a good example of how people are made
right with the Creator. The first Jew was not
declared to be right with God by means of Abraham’s
own efforts or his keeping the laws of the Sinai
Covenant. Those laws had not yet been given. No,
the Torah tells us that Abraham believed the Lord
and the promises that the Lord made to him, and
from that moment forward the Lord considered him
to be in a right relationship with Him. From that
point on the Creator considered Abraham to be
righteous.
This
God-given justification, this new state of righteousness,
this declaration of approval and acceptance by
God to Abraham, was given to Abraham while he
was uncircumcised - technically while he was still
a Gentile. Only later did Abraham become a Jew.
This teaches us that this is the way the Lord
makes all human beings, Jews and Gentiles, to
become righteous, to be saved, to be forgiven,
to be atoned for. This is the way that God enables
Jews and Gentiles to participate in the resurrection
of the righteous, be welcomed into Heaven, and
experience eternal life in the new universe He
will create - the New Heavens, the New Earth and
the New Jerusalem.
Those
of us who have heard and accepted the truths that
make up the Good Message are not just declared
to be in a right relationship with God, but we
are undergoing a real transformation. We have
become new creatures. Part of us has died, and
something new is born. We are to think of ourselves
as new creatures with a new nature. We are to
think of ourselves as new creatures who are alive
to serve God, not ourselves, and to serve the
truth and to serve what is right. We are to consider
ourselves to have died to our old errors, our
old bad ways and selfishness because we have been
reborn. We are to consider ourselves to have died
to sin. We are no longer to serve sin. We are
not to allow sin to rule our bodies. We are to
resist living for our own selfish goals. The purpose
of our new life is to serve God first and foremost.
We
are to make a commitment to serve Him with the
totality of our being, with our lives and bodies.
We are to give the Lord our lives. We are to present
to Him our bodies.
We
were enslaved to the power of sin, but have been
set free from the terrible, enslaving and destroying
power of sin by a greater power! The Lord will
help us fulfill these new commitments to Him and
to right living because we have a new source of
power at work in us - the Spirit of God, who lives
in us in a new and greater way and will enable
us to overcome our sinful inclinations. The Third
Person of the Trinity will help us resist the
lusts of the flesh. He will help us resist the
desire to live for lesser, worldly goals. The
Spirit that produces life in us - new life, God’s
life, holy life, good life - is more powerful
than the forces of sin and death, and sets us
free from sin and death. The Spirit of God the
Father, who is also the Spirit of Messiah the
Son, now lives in us, giving us power and life
and setting us free, so that we can live the right
way, please God, and overcome Satan, sin and death.
We
are to be guided and directed by the Spirit into
right service, good living, right relationships
and spiritual goals.
Every
genuine believer should know that God the Father
is his Abba, his Daddy. He wants to have a close,
personal and intimate relationship with each one
of His precious children. In spite of our occasional
failures, our ups and downs, our mountains and
their valleys, the Spirit will communicate to
us that we belong to our Heavenly Father and He
belongs to us. The Spirit of our Daddy lives in
us and communicates to us and bears witness with
our spirit that we are children of God. The Spirit
of our Father enables us to know way down deep
that we belong to Him.
Shalom!
Rabbi Loren
SHEMA!
(Hear!)
is the newsletter of
Congregation Shema Yisrael
P.O. Box 804 Southfield MI 48037
Phone: 248-593-5150
Email: Shema777@aol.com
Website: www.shema.com
Services: Saturday 10:30 a.m.
Wednesday 7:00 p.m.
at the facilities of Bloomfield Hills Baptist
Church
3600 Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Hills
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