The Three Rewards of Faith: Grace, Love, and Fellowship 2022

 Dear BLCF Friends,

Important Notice: Due to the current explosion of infections of the Omicron Variant of the COVID-19 Virus and in order to minimize exposure to vulnerable members who depend on public transit to get to and from church on Boxing Day, December 26, 2021, we regretfully announce that BLCF Church Sunday Worship Service is suspended for the time being. Please monitor our social media for the date that BLCF will resume our Sunday Worship Services.

 

Please be advised that both the BLCF Café Community Dinner and the BLCF Wednesday Prayer Service will continue to remain closed effective March 16, 2020, and until further notice. We pray with the administration of sufficient COVID-19 vaccinations, and following the determination of Health Canada and other Health Authorities, that the danger of the Pandemic will have subsided sufficiently, to allow BLCF to safely reopen more of our worship and outreach activities without any concern of infection to the vulnerable within our community.

 

God's Blessings for this Christmas and for the 2022 New Year. May you, your family, and your friends have a safe and blessed Holiday Season throughout the New Year! Though we will be closed on December 26, I believe you would enjoy the lesson that I have prepared for that Sunday.

 

– Pastor Steve

Bloor Lansdowne Christian Fellowship – BLCF Church, 1307 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON.

Message for Sunday: 

‘The Three Rewards of Faith: Grace, Love and Fellowship’

© March 13, 2022, by Steve Mickelson

Based on a Message Previously Shared at BLCF on August 6, 2017

BLCF Bulletin August 6, 2017

Announcements and Call to Worship; Prayer                                                          

Opening Music Special: Cochren & Co - One Day (Lyrics) - https://youtu.be/LIWAoT9aX78

https://youtu.be/LIWAoT9aX78

Tithing and Prayer Requests: Hymn #572: Praise God; Prayers

Responsive Reading #640 (Redemption in Christ – Romans 5)                 

Message by Steve Mickelson:                                                                                               ‘                          The Three Rewards of Faith: Grace, Love, and Fellowship

Music Special: Lauren Daigle - We Believe (Acoustic) [Newsboys Cover] - https://youtu.be/DoPLgOwg4tY

https://youtu.be/DoPLgOwg4tY

Let us pray…

Welcome to BLCF’s Praise and Worship Service, on this the second Sunday of  March. I trust those who live in a Time Zone that observes Daylight Saving Time, that you remembers to adjust your clocks ahead last night!

For our lesson today, we will examine: ‘The Three Rewards of Faith: Grace, Love, and Fellowship’ .

Let us begin our lesson by examining what is meant by faith and how could we explain its presence? I found an interesting posting on the topic on the Web site, bibleinoneyear.org:

On Faith

John Paton (1824–1907), a Scot, had travelled to the New Hebrides (a group of islands in the south-west Pacific) determined to tell the tribal people about Jesus, but he struggled to find the right word for ‘faith’. One day, when his indigenous servant came in, Paton raised both feet off the floor, sat back in his chair and asked, ‘What am I doing now?’ In reply, the servant used a word that means, ‘to lean your whole weight upon’. This became the expression that Paton used. Faith is leaning our whole weight upon Jesus.

https://www.bibleinoneyear.org/bioy/commentary/2354

So we have a good working definition of faith, but what about the three rewards of faith that are the focus of today’s lesson: grace, love, and fellowship?

Music Special: This Is Amazing Grace - Phil Wickham (Lyrics) - https://youtu.be/SUglaJyobks

https://youtu.be/SUglaJyobks

Christian Grace

In 2 Timothy 2:1-7, e have a good description of grace, which is the first reward of our faith:

2 Timothy 2:1-7 (ESV): A Good Soldier of Christ Jesus

2 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, ² and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men and women, who will be able to teach others also. ³ Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴ No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. ⁵ An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. ⁶ It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. ⁷ Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

While there are three examples of the rewards of faith in everyday life, valid both today as well as in the time of Christ: a dedicated soldier, a winning athlete’s crown, and a productive farmer’s first share of the harvest.

In the same regard, as apostles or messengers of the Gospel of Christ, we are expected to bear witness of Jesus, so that others may become messengers and teachers of the Way of the Lord.

Music Special: Lauren Daigle ~ Love Like This (Lyrics)- https://youtu.be/U7eyU9EPGWo

https://youtu.be/U7eyU9EPGWo

Christian Love

But how does one best share the Gospel of Christ? Just as God gave us His only Son, Jesus, who demonstrated his love for humanity by surrendering his own life as the final sacrifice for the sins of the world, the best way to share the message of the Gospel is to share the love that God and His Son Jesus, demonstrated to us:

John 3:16-21 (ESV): For God So Loved the World

John 3:16-21 (ESV): For God So Loved the World

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world,^[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Footnotes: a. John 3:16 Or For this is how God loved the world

John 13:35 (ESV)

³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Music Special: Church (Take Me Back) Cochren & Co. Worship Video with lyrics https://youtu.be/ns8lIG6cLc8

https://youtu.be/ns8lIG6cLc8

Christian Fellowship

While we may take comfort in the unconditional love of our Father and His Son that we receive as our reward to faith, as a body of believers in the message of the Gospel of Christ we enjoy a fellowship with the Lord and each other, by way of the Holy Spirit, another gift which Jesus gives us as a reward to our faith and trust.

1 John 1:3 (ESV)

 ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, an expression of God’s love is not only a reward for our faith, His love is intertwined in the message of the Gospel of Christ, Jesus:

We may conclude that grace, love, and fellowship are the three rewards of faith in the message of the Gospel of Christ, there  is another reward to our receiving and sharing God’s New Covenant made manefest by His Son Christ, Jesus is the complete joy found in the fellowship we enjoy with our Father, His son and each other:

1 John 1:1-4 (ESV): The Word of Life

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And we are writing these things so that our^[a] joy may be complete.

Footnotes: a. 1 John 1:4 Some manuscripts your

Let us pray…

Closing Music Special: Word Of Life - [Lyric Video] Jeremy Camp - https://youtu.be/s6Q1KCI6teg

https://youtu.be/s6Q1KCI6teg

Benediction – (2 Corinthians 13:14):

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.