COG 15: The Season of Power

God is omnipotent! That alone is worth celebrating, but there are so many powerful resources He’s given us that we could spend eternity praising Him for them. Join AMBrewster as he introduces the Season of Power and its glorious celebrations.

The Year Long Celebration of God is a family resource from Truth.Love.Parent., a ministry dedicated to rooting families in God and maturing families for God so they can harvest blessings from God.

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Episode Notes

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Transcript

Introduction

Welcome back to The Celebration of God podcast, I’m very exited to wrapping up our introductory material because that means we’ve laid a solid foundation and can move into the practical daily application of what we’ve learned.

The Celebration of God was created by Truth.Love.Parent. as a discipleship tool for Christian parents, and this podcast is an opportunity to introduce it to a wider Christian audience. 

Every born again believer is called to worship God and teach others to worship Him as well. Those are the two prongs of discipleship. We must first be a disciple, and then we can help others be a disciple as well.

And there are no Christians who are exempt from being disciples of Christ and leading others to the same.

So, The Celebration of God resource was designed to be a dynamic discipleship tool that utilizes the Bible, our holiday calendars, and the most average moments of the most normal days to better know, love, and serve God.

But if you happen to be a Christian parent, I would encourage you to check out TruthLoveParent.com because we have created hundreds of free resources to help equip you to be the dads and moms God called and created you to be.

And speaking of resources, you can access our free PDF notes and transcript at CelebrationOfGod.com.

Okay, let’s do a quick flyover of the Season of Power.

Topic

Trying to decide the best four character traits of God on which to focus during the four seasons was not easy.

He has so many communicable and uncommunicable attributes, and many people focus heavily on His Holiness and love, but how do you choose which ones are the “big ones”?

Well, they’re all infinite, they’re all big, and we had to make a decision.

So, we decided that everything amazing about God that flows toward us is ultimately a gift of grace and mercy. It was His mercy that kept Him from destroying mankind and His grace that motivated Him to formulate in eternity past His plan for salvation.

The Season of Life seemed an obvious choice since those three months are all about celebrating the spiritual life Jesus purchased on the cross, and all born again believers look forward to worshipping God for all eternity in never-ending light and life.

But what about our fourth season?

Well, we leaned heavily on the holidays already celebrated during summer, but we also realized that the new holidays we were going to introduce in August perfectly fit the theme of the season.

Lastly, as we considered the various facets of salvation, the answer for the the summer season became clear.

So, allow me to explain how the Four Seasons are designed to highlight a different aspect of our salvation, and then I’ll introduce the final season.

The Season of Mercy includes a lot of difficult Truth. The day of Atonement memorializes the Fall, Halloween reminds us of the consequences of sin, and even Veteran’s Day speaks to the sacrifice that true freedom requires.

So, the Season of Mercy is the perfect time to remind our congregations and children and ourselves that we desperately need Christ. We are born sinners, alienated from God, and worthy of eternal separation in the Lake of Fire. And even those of us who are born again and no longer fear death and hell — we still need Christ every single moment of every single day.

There will never come a time — this side of heaven — that we are not desperately in need. And that’s the salvation focus for Autumn, the Season of Mercy. We should all come out of that month reminded how much we need God.

Then comes the Season of Grace. And though it may seem normal to move from our need to our satisfaction of that need in salvation, the Season of Grace is very focused on Anticipation of the future when we will be able to enjoy our eternal state with God.

And so we spend a good portion of the Winter and part of Summer focusing on Glorification. Glorification is the divine work by which God will eternally remove the stain of sin from His followers. Genuinely born again believers will never have to be affected by or spend even a moment thinking about sin ever again!

When you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world to focus on glorification right after you understand your need. When we introduce the Gospel to people we should have two main goals. We want them to understand that they are sinners but that God wants to be their King for all eternity. The first accentuates their need and the second sets forth the glorious anticipation of eternity with God.

Those two realities should lead them to desire that which we celebrate during the Season of Life — justification. 

Justification is the momentary event where we confess that Jesus is Lord and He justifies us. God writes our name in the book of life and places upon us the positional righteousness of Christ. We’re not yet perfected — that will happen in the future when we’re glorified — but Jesus’ perfection has covered our sins like newly fallen snow covers the decomposing leaves.

The Season of Life is truly all about celebration of new life in Christ.

And then we have Summer, the Season of Power. What facet of salvation could possibly be left?

Those of you who know your Bible already have the answer. Though justification happened in a past moment and glorification will happen in a future moment, sanctification is the process that encompasses every moment in-between.
  
Sanctification is the process by which we work in cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to be conformed to the image of Christ. And the months of June, July, and August are all about celebrating the Power God provides us to mature in Him.

I like that the first two minor holidays in June focus once more on family. We start off with International Children’s Day on the first Sunday in June and we follow it up with Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June.

I love that children represent a powerful energy and father’s should be an example of physical and spiritual strength in the family, so I think it’s cool the gift of children and fathers are celebrated during the Season of Power.

As I mentioned before, the American celebration of Independence is observed on July 4th, but every nation has their own independence day or founding day, and we believe that you should celebrate the freedom we have in Christ during your nation’s observance. Of course, you’re free to celebrate liberty in Christ whenever you want! 

Now, I need to introduce an important, somber point here. The Celebration of God is not a nationalistic, country-worshipping program. Am I thankful for my country? Yes, but I do not worship the United States of America, and no one else should either. We can be thankful for how God has worked in America, but our allegiance is to Him. Every nation of the world will one day melt away and there will be nothing but God and God alone. And all true Christ-followers will be glad that the stars and stripes will no longer mean anything to us. America will be forgotten to eternity because we will have something far greater to adore.

So, yes, though I enjoy participating in America’s Independence Day, I much prefer to focus on the God of independence. I want to guide my family to appreciate the dependence we have on our Creator and Savior that provides us freedom from sin and death.

It’s just like my family’s observation of Halloween. We want to walk out of that holiday with a more significant appreciation and love for God than anything else. The same is true for the 4th of July. Celebrate God’s work in America, don’t celebrate the United States.

Now, that takes us through July, but there are three more amazing holidays in August. Of course, hearing that may surprise you considering that August is the only month without an official American holiday or observance, but there happens to be an often unappreciated event on the fist Sunday of August as well as two brand new holidays created by TeamTLP and me.

The severely under appreciated holiday is Family Day. It’s a day families are encouraged to spend time together but forgo the purchase of gifts. It’s all about a quantity of quality time.

And, with the current trajectory of our world and its growing disdain for the family, I believe Grandparents Day, Mother’s Day, Children’s Day, Father’s Day, and Family Day are all extremely important events. 

The family and its members were the first human institution created by God. He ordained it thousands of years before He created a government, organized religion, or the church. 
Family is a really big deal, and we should put priority on celebrating God’s gift of and expectation for the family.

And then we have two more Celebration of God specific holidays. This brings the total of new holidays up to four. We had Creation Week and Stewardship Day, and in August we celebrate the Scripture and the Consummation.

I believe far too many people take the Bible for granted. But when you really stop to consider what it is, the massive weight of Its grandeur is staggering. God in His mercy and grace chose to communicate Himself to people who would otherwise not know Him. 

Yes, the creation clearly proves that a higher being must exist, but the Scriptures allow us to know Him personally. In it God unveils His character and His plan and gives us everything we need for life and godliness.

We celebrate the Bible every time we give it priority in our lives, and TeamTLP and I believe it’s important for us to dedicate at least one day of the year to purposefully praise God for giving us the Bible.

And then the final celebration of the year comes to us on the last Sunday in August. It’s a day we’re simply calling “The Consummation.”

In the same way we focus part of our celebration of Advent looking forward to Christ’s Second Coming, The Consummation is a time to celebrate God’s inauguration of eternity. From the observance of the End Time events through the Marriage Supper of the Lamb right into the daily worship and adoration of our King, the New Heaven and the New Earth are the two things toward which all Christians should be looking. The events of the End Times are the final prophecies to be completed, and we should gladly anticipate them as we imagine what it will be like to spend the rest of eternity with our Lord.

And that takes us to the end of The Season of Power and prepares us to start all over again celebrating Creation Week in the Season of Mercy.

Conclusion

This brief overview of the Four Seasons within The Celebration of God was designed to whet your appetite for a full year of repeatedly drawing our minds back to God and the miraculous things He’s done and will do.

It’s so easy to get distracted by the world and everything in it, but I’m looking forward to maturing in my ability to look past this life.

I want to be like Abraham who we’re told in Hebrews 11, “when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

I want to spend this year with my eyes constantly searching every moment and experience of my life for glimpses of that eternal city whose architect and builder is God. And I want to guide those whom God has put into my life to see the exact same thing.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets as we desire to equip as many of God’s people as possible, and join us next time as we finish our introductory material discussing Our Celebration Walls.