PREPARING SERVANTS FOR The Service Of The Kingdom BOOK 3 LOGIN TO FAITH PRESENTED AND COMPILED BY VIOLA YASSA Coptic Orthodox Church Diocese of Sydney Australia St Mark H H Pope Tawadros II The Evangelist 118th Pope of Alexandria H G Bishop Daniel Bishop of the Diocese of Sydney, Australia Book1 Pillar Of Service. This book identifies the basic biblical aspects of the Service and the spiritual elements required to build the character of the servant. It includes key themes relevant to the Service in general and to Sunday School in particular. Preparing Servants For The Service Of The Kingdom Book2 This is a course for Zoom Into The preparing servants and Heavenly Places. leaders for the service of the Lord. It includes a Our life in Church, comprehensive outline of which is the Body of the major Orthodox Christ, is a foretaste of heaven on earth. This doctrines based on the teaching of the Holy Bible, book explains how the the Tradition and the Christian servant can sayings of the Early be a living member of Fathers who rightly taught the Church. The Holy the Word of Truth. The Spirit uses living branches abiding in lessons illustrate vividly the application of the the True Vine Jesus Orthodox Faith in the Christ to do His work Church and in the Service. in the Church and in The course is divided into the world. three books: Book3 Login To Faith. The lessons in this book are designed to help prepare servants who are conversant with the biblical aspects of their Orthodox Faith so that they can pass it on to the people they serve. They also tackle some contemporary issues from a biblical perspective. Acknowledgement “But the people who know their God will be strong and do valiantly,”Dan11:32. We praise our Good Lord and thank Him for His great help throughout this work. Special thanks are given to the many God-loving people who were moved by the Spirit of the Lord to assist in the production of this book. May the Lord repay them hundred-fold and bless them Login To Faith “I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit…..As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me,” John15:1, 2, 4. Book3: Login To Faith CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 1 FAITH 2 1. The Divinity Of Jesus Christ 3 2. The Virgin Birth of Christ 8 3. Salvation 12 4. Faith to Believe 21 5. Christ is our Passover 25 6. Forgiveness 29 7. The Holy Cross 39 8. The Power and Offence Of The Cross 46 9. The Birth of Christ, A New Covenant 53 10. Second CoMing of Christ 60 11. Resurrection of the Dead and the Final JudgMent 67 12. St Mary in the Orthodox Concept 74 13. The Perpetual Virginity of St Mary 80 14. Angels 83 15. Satan 89 WORSHIP 98 16. Worship 99 17. Public Worship (The Holy Mass) 104 18. Praying with PsalMs 111 Book3: Login To Faith 19. Praise 117 20. Midnight Praise Explained 122 21. The Jesus Prayer 128 22. Donation – Giving 133 23. The Journey of Lent 138 24. The Lord's Day 143 FAITHFUL LIVING 148 25. We belong to God 149 26. A life of Obedience 154 27. Consecration 159 28. Growing in the Spirit 164 29. Sanctification 169 30. Spiritual Awakening 172 31. If I were God end All the Pain 176 32. Purity of Thought 181 33. World TeMpered Morality 189 34. HoMosexuality 195 35. Addiction 207 36. You Shall Not Murder 218 37. Christian View of IVF, Cloning and CreMation 225 38. Victorious Living 235 Login To Faith 1 Preface “The Lord has done great things with us; we are glad,” Psa126:3. Login to Faith is the third book of the course for preparing servants for the service of the Kingdom. It provides a comprehensive outline of the biblical aspects of the Orthodox Faith and their practical application in the life of the individual believer. It includes lessons that deal with contemporary issues such as homosexuality, different types of addiction, different types of killing and IVF, cloning and cremation from biblical and orthodox perspectives. The lessons were originally given in Sydney, Australia (1990-2010) to pre- servants classes in Druitt. To be well learnt and versed in the Orthodox faith is essential for the efficient and effective Service of . We hope these lessons assist individuals in strengthening their faith and help them in passing on to others the fundamentals of the Orthodox teachings that have been passed down to us by the Apostles and Early Fathers of our hurch. June 2013 AD Feast of the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven FAITH 2 Contents 1. The Divinity Of Jesus Christ 2. The Virgin Birth of Christ 3. Salvation 4. Faith to Believe 5. Christ is our Passover 6. Forgiveness 7. The Holy Cross 8. The Power and Offence Of The Cross 9. The Birth of Christ, A New Covenant 10. Second Coming of Christ 11. Resurrection of the Dead and Final Judgment 12. St Mary in the Orthodox Concept 13. The Perpetual Virginity of St Mary 14. Angels 15. Satan Login To Faith 3 1 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST Big Idea: Jesus Christ is no ordinary man. He is God made man. Bible Text: John10:24-38 and others. Bible Verse: 1Tim3:16, “And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh”. Students will Know: That Jesus is no ordinary man. That Jesus possessed the five natural attributes of God. That the five works of God are ascribed to Jesus. That Jesus claimed to be God (John10:30; John12:45; John8:18, 58). He was the great I AM in person (Exo3:14; Lev24:12-16). That belief in the deity of Christ is essential to salvation. Feel: Sure of their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour (Rom10:9). Capable of proving the divinity of Christ to others. Do: Thank God for His love and salvation. Be always ready to stand fast by their faith in the deity of Christ and explain it to others. Faith 1. The Divinity of Jesus Christ Login To Faith 4 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST As Christians we believe in the person of Christ. We believe that Jesus Christ is God made man, and that He is our Lord and Saviour. “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved,” Rom10:9. To believe in the deity of Christ is essential to salvation. To deny the deity of Christ is to rob mankind of a saviour and condemn us eternally. WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? Jesus was no ordinary man. Several hundred years before He was born, Isaiah the prophet said, “behold a virgin will be with child and bear a son,” Isa7:14. No other man in all history could say his mother was a virgin. The scriptures teach that He did not have a human father; if He did he would have inherited the sins and impurities that all men have, since “that which is born of the flesh is of the flesh,” John3:6. Since He was conceived not by natural means, but by the Holy Spirit, He stands as the one man who came forth pure from the hand of God. He was the only man since Adam who could stand before His fellow men and ask, “which of you convicts Me of sin,” John8:46. If we honestly probe our minds we have to admit that there are mysteries about the incarnation that none of us can ever understand. In fact St Paul speaks of God manifest in the flesh as a great “mystery”. In his letter to the Philippians St Paul explained the “Man who is God” by saying, “have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Jesus Christ who although He existed in the from of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men,” Phil 2:5-7. DIVINE ATTRIBUTES The uniqueness of Christ is that in His life on earth He displayed every known attribute or characteristic of deity. By definition the attributes of God are those distinguishing characteristics of the nature of God, which are inseparable from the idea of deity and which constitute the basis and grounds for His various manifestations to His creatures. First, God is Holy. In The Old Testament God is described as “holy in all Faith 1. The Divinity of Jesus Christ Login To Faith 5 His works,” Psa145:17. The prophet Isaiah in His vision of the Lord God declares, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts,” Isa6:3. In the New Testament Jesus Christ, “the holy child” (Luke1:35) and the sinless man (John8:46) possesses this unique attribute. Thus Jesus Christ had a characteristic that only God could possess. Secondly, God is Just. In order to guard His holiness, God must exercise justice. Jesus Christ was just. He exhibited this characteristic when He drove the racketeers out of the temple with a whip (John2:15). He is also described as just in forgiving us our sins (1John1:9).