Posted by David on March 22, 1998 under Bulletin Articles
“Hindsight” is incredibly accurate. Last week a group of us were enjoying each other’s company. As is typically, we were sharing “tales from our pasts.” One person shared an incident that occurred about thirty years ago. A sale provided him with some uncommitted funds. A gifted businessman asked him, “What do you plan to do with that money?” He replied, “I have no plans for it.” The businessman strongly urged him to invest the money in a new company–Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, he just deposited it in a bank. Laughingly, he wondered what that investment would be worth today had he made it. Hindsight!
Every congregation looks back over a history of great decisions, mediocre decisions, and poor decisions. Rarely is it immediately evident that a decision was great, mediocre, or poor. Some great decisions “at the moment of deciding” prove to be poor decisions in time. Some poor decisions “at the moment of deciding” prove to be fortunate decisions in time. In most decisions, we make what we believe to be the wisest decision at that moment.
Our “wise decisions at that moment” are subject to many influences. Are we addressing “now” realities? Are we considering the future? What do we want to accomplish? How do we view our purpose? How do we define our objective? Are we exercising responsible stewardship? Of course, our answers are subjective. Personal perspectives, experiences, concerns, and value systems form the foundation of our decisions. No process can eliminate the subjective element.
We approach many decisions that will affect our future. May each of us add these to the questions we ask and answer. Will this minister to the families within the congregation? Will this strengthen the fellowship of God’s family? Will this increase the potential for outreach and influence in our community? Will this promote growth in ways that can increase our outreach and influence in the world? Will this allow God’s Spirit to be more active in the life of the congregation? Will this make our ministries more like Jesus’ ministry?
Will these questions remove the subjective element from our decisions? No. Will they lead us all to the same conclusions? No. Will they give us all the same focus? No. Will they guarantee that we will make the wisest choice? No.
Then why consider them? They will bring each of us closer to the heart that Jesus wants us to have. Our best decisions always come from Christ-centered, good hearts.
Posted by David on March 15, 1998 under Sermons
Through much of this century, one of the common topics of discussion in the church has been what is right. Countless sermons have been preached on what is right. We could not estimate the number of arguments that produced confrontations about what is and is not right. Many debates were conducted to defend what was right.
Any in depth discussion of the concept of “right” is lengthy and complicated. However, we commonly approach our concepts of “right” as though “right” is simple and easy to discuss. To the person defending what he is convinced is “right,” “right” is always simple.
Our human concerns about “being right” commonly focus on what is correct. “Right” is centered in correctness–correct organization, correct teachings, correct practices, correct information, correct positions, correct reasoning, and correct conclusions. In our devotion to correctness, we defend right organization, right teachings, right practices, right information, right positions, right reasoning, and right conclusions. This concept focuses on “right” as compared to “wrong.”
So, from human perspectives, the discussion of what is right is a simple discussion. We often think it is as simple as opposing and rejecting what is wrong.
God’s concern about “right” does not focus on correctness. God’s concern about “right” focuses on much more important, much more serious than our human preoccupation with correctness. God’s basic concern regarding “right” involves guilt. Specifically, it involves human guilt.
While Christians are commonly concerned about correctness, God is concerned about human guilt.
- God is right; that is fundamental to God being righteous.
- His rightness and his righteousness are affirmed by the fact that God is free from all evil.
- No form of evil is in or associated with God.
- God is not right because of His power; God is right because there is no evil in God.
- Because we misuse our wills, all people are evil.
- Certainly, evil exists in people in different degrees and different forms; but all people have an enormous amount of evil in them.
- But no person who possesses and uses his will is free from evil.
- Therefore, all people have guilt.
- Therein lies God’s basic problem in His association with people.
- God is totally free from all evil.
- All people have evil.
- Because people are evil, they have guilt.
- So how can a God who is right because He is free from evil associate with people who are guilty because they are incapable of being free from evil?
- This is the basic work of justification: making people who have guilt “right” before the God who is free from evil.
- For God to make a person “right,” God has to destroy the person’s guilt.
- How does God destroy guilt when people are guilty?
- This is the condensed version of what God does to make guilty people right:
- God placed all evil committed (and to be committed) by people in the body of Jesus as Jesus died.
- In that act, God made Jesus to be sin.
- Every person who will trust and accept what God did in Jesus as he died is forgiven.
- Forgiveness provided through Jesus’ blood literally destroys the sin.
- By destroying the sin, God destroys the guilt.
- Because the evil and the guilt of the forgiven person is destroyed, the person is right before God because he or she has been forgiven.
- Every person needs this solution to guilt.
- God’s primary concern in our becoming “right” centers in words and concepts that declare the destruction of our guilt.
- We are cleansed from our sins; they are washed away by the blood of Jesus.
- We are purified, made free of sin, through the blood of Jesus.
- We received atonement through Jesus’ blood; the function of atonement is to remove sin.
- By using the innocent blood of Jesus, God:
- Redeems us–frees us from Satan by purchasing us for Himself.
- Sanctifies us–sets us apart from evil for himself.
- Justifies us–makes us right; looks at us as though the evil did not occur.
- We are right because our guilt and evil have been destroyed in Christ.
- We focus on correctness, the issue of right versus wrong.
- God focuses the destruction of evil in us; the issue of guilt versus forgiveness.
- God justifies us by destroying our guilt.
- I want to share some things with you from the book of Romans (and we could share the same things from the book of Galatians).
- I have a very specific objective tonight.
- We are not trying to do an in depth study of these scriptures.
- I am encouraging you to deepen your understanding of justification in Christ.
- In the letter called Romans, you encounter the same problem that you encounter in many of the New Testament writings: the enormous misunderstanding that existed between Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians.
- In the first two chapters of Romans Paul demonstrated that every person needs a means to be right before God that does not depend on human achievement.
- Paul did a fascinating job of showing that humans cannot make themselves right before God.
- We cannot make ourselves right by morals or by keeping laws.
- Every human attempt to do so is based on human achievement, and all attempts result in our becoming extremely wicked or very judgmental.
- The first scripture I call to your attention is Romans 3:19-25. Please take a Bible and read the verses as I paraphrase the central thoughts of the verses.
- Many Jewish Christians were deeply offended by the true teaching that all people are saved by God’s grace.
- “We have known the living God for 1400 years, and we had God’s law all that time.”
- “If now God saves people by grace, what was the purpose of all that? It is not fair. Being God’s people all those years means nothing.”
- Verse 19: The primary purpose of God’s law was to make every person accountable before God. The focus of law is accountability, not forgiveness.
- Verse 20: No one can be made right before God through law; law can only make us aware of the evil in us.
- Verse 21: God created a means for people to be “right before God” that has nothing to do with law; in fact, the law itself declared that God would do this.
- Verse 22: This new means of being right before God came into existence through Christ, and every person who trusts Christ can receive it.
- Verse 23: Every person has failed God, every person is guilty of evil, so every person needs this new means of being “right before God.”
- Verse 24: This new means of being right before God perfectly expresses God’s grace through the redemption that is possible in Christ to justify any person–make any person right before God.
- Verse 25: That is precisely why God sent Jesus–Jesus came to die in our place so his blood and our faith in him could make us right before God.
- The second scripture I call to your attention is Romans 4:1-8. Paul was still talking to the Jews attempting to help them understand.
- Verse 1: The beginning of the Jewish nation was Abraham: why was Abraham right before God?
- Verse 2: If Abraham was right before God (justified) because of his acts of obedience, then he had reason to take credit for his righteousness.
- Verse 3: But Genesis 15:6 states that God considered Abraham to be righteous because of his faith.
- Verse 4: If a person is right before God because of his deeds, then he earned righteousness; it is not the gift of God’s grace.
- Verse 5: But if a person is right before God because he trusts God’s justification, then he is righteous because God made him righteous.
- Verse 6-8: This is not a new understanding; it is as old as King David who wrote in Psalms 32:1,2:
- Blessed is the person whose sins are covered through forgiveness;
- Blessed is the person that God refuses to hold accountable for his sin.
- The third scripture I ask you to examine is Romans 8:31-34.
- Being a Christian brought many hardships and suffering to those people.
- Paul wrote that no matter how much they suffered, they could be absolutely certain that God never stopped loving them or deserted them.
- Verse 31: God is greater than anything that exist; there is no enemy of the Christian that is greater than God.
- Verse 32: God proved that He will do everything necessary to secure our salvation when He allowed His own son to die for us.
- Verse 33: No one can use your guilt to separate you from God because it is God who justifies you. If God makes you right before Him, no one can make you wrong before Him.
- Verse 34: If God refuses to condemn you, you cannot be condemned. It cannot happen because Christ died and was resurrected to return to God and intercede for you.
- Romans 8 is the most powerful expression of the importance of justification for each of us.
- God destroyed our guilt when we surrendered in faith to Jesus Christ.
- Our guilt does not exist because we are justified; we are guilty, but God used Jesus to make us right before Him.
- Satan cannot accuse us as he accused Job because of what God does for us in Christ.
- Though we are not and never will be perfect, though we will always make mistakes, Satan cannot charge us or condemn us.
- Why? Because God justifies and Jesus intercedes.
- When Satan attempts to charge or condemn us, God’s response is simple: it never happened.
- This is only reason that God refuses to see our sins: God destroyed our sins and our guilt with forgiveness in Christ.
Never, never, never think that you are right before God because you are good or that you are obedient. If you want to know the reality of your guilt, ask Satan. If you want to know the proper consequences for the evil in your life, ask Satan. You are not right before God because you have not sinned. You are right before God because God destroys your sin. He forgives you. He justifies you.
If God has washed your sins away with baptism, stop worrying about guilt. Turn loose of it. Focus on serving God.
Have your sins been destroyed?
Have you discovered this freedom?
Have you given yourself to Christ?
Posted by David on under Sermons
A judge who had three cases scheduled for the day called his court room to order. The first case involved mean-spirited, destructive vandalism. The judge handled the case in highly questionable manner. He looked at the broken, grieving defendant and immediately declared, “I wish to see the defendant and the plaintiff in my chambers without counsel.” In chambers the defendant remorsefully acknowledged his guilt and his sorrow. The judge mediated a resolution. Then the judge reentered the courtroom and declared, “I rule that this alleged crime never occurred. Case dismissed.”
The second case involved a violent act of hatred. Again, the judge saw the broken, grieving defendant. Again he declared that he wanted to see the defendant and the plaintiff in chambers without counsel. Again the defendant remorsefully acknowledged his guilt and expressed his sorrow. Again the judge mediated a resolution. Then the judge reentered the court room and declared, “I rule that this alleged crime never occurred. Case dismissed.”
The third case involved a wanton act of disregard for human life. Again, the judge saw the broken, grieving defendant. Again, he declared that he wanted to see the defendant and the plaintiff in chambers without counsel. Again, the defendant remorsefully acknowledged his guilt and expressed his sorrow. Again, the judge mediated a solution. Then for a third time the judge entered the court room and declared, “I rule that this alleged crime never occurred. Case dismissed.”
The immediate outcry was loud and furious. How dare the judge ignore the law! How dare he disregard the rights of the victims! How dare he bypass the judicial process! How dare he conduct himself in such an outrageous manner! His behavior was inexcusable and indefensible! He was unfit to be a judge and should be removed from the bench at once!
And we joined in the outrage that demanded the judge be removed from the bench.
- How can we become “right” in God’s eyes?
- If you think about that seriously, it seems an impossibility.
- God is perfect; we are imperfect.
- God is sinless; we are sinful.
- Evil has never been a part of God; evil is always a part of us.
- How can the God who sees all deeds and knows all hearts ever look at us as though we were “right?”
- God knows everything each of us does.
- God knows everything each of us thinks.
- God sees and knows all evil in every person–even when we don’t!
- How can we be made “right” in God’s sight when we are powerless to eliminate all evil from our lives and our hearts?
- We are “made right” in God’s eyes when God justifies us.
- When God justifies us, God makes us right.
- God will justify any person who:
- Believes that Jesus is God’s Son.
- Trusts what God did through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
- In that faith responds to God by allowing God to place him or her in Christ.
- Incredibly, when God justifies us, He not only makes us right, but He also declares us to be right.
- One of the common failures of religious people is found in the fact that we want to make ourselves “right before God. “
- We do not want to trust God to make us right; we want to make ourselves right.
- We want to be confident of our salvation because we are “right;” we did the “right things;” and we made ourselves “right.”
- Ask a person who believes that he or she is right before God this question: “Why are you confident that you are ‘right before God?'”
- “I am right before God because of the commandments that I obeyed–obedience made me right.”
- “I am right before God because of my accurate knowledge and understanding–knowledge made me right before God.”
- “I am right before God because of the terrible sins that I do not commit–refusing to do terrible, evil things makes me right.”
- “I am right before God because I live a good life–a good life makes me right.”
- Are those things important? Absolutely! If I am a Christian:
- I must obey God.
- I must grow in my knowledge.
- I must refuse to do evil things.
- I must live a good life.
- But do those things–obedience, knowledge, avoiding terrible evil, and living a good life–make me “right before God?”
- No.
- Why? For this reason: when I am the most obedient me, the most knowledgeable me, best me that I can be, I still am not perfect, I still have evil in my heart, mind, and life.
- Only God can make me right; only God can justify me.
- Consider three examples that involve justification in the gospel of Luke.
- The first example is the incident that caused Jesus to give the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)
- An expert in the teachings we call the Old Testament came to test Jesus–this egotistical know-it-all came to prove that Jesus was a fraud.
- So he asked Jesus, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
- Jesus answered by asking, “You are the expert–you tell me.”
- Being a know-it-all, the expert could not keep his mouth shut.
- He answered, “Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself.”
- Jesus said, “You are correct. Do that and you will have eternal life.”
- Now the know-it-all was in a terrible situation–he just condemned himself.
- He had not loved his neighbor as himself.
- He put himself “on the hook” and needed to get himself “off the hook.”
- He wanted to justify himself–he wanted to make himself right.
- He was certain that he could use his knowledge to do that; ask Jesus for an answer that he could reject by using his knowledge.
- He asked, “Who is my neighbor?” He implied that he could not obey that commandment because the word “neighbor” could not be defined.
- That is when Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan.
- A man who was despised by the Jews saved the life of a Jew who had been robbed and beaten.
- This Samaritan made personal sacrifices to take care of the Jew.
- That was after two important Jewish religious leaders walked by the injured Jew and did nothing.
- Jesus asked the expert, “Which of these three people was his neighbor?”
- The expert said, “The man who showed him mercy.”
- Jesus said, “If you want to love your neighbor, go do what he did.”
- The expert tried to use his knowledge to justify himself, and he failed miserably.
- The second example is found in Luke 16:14,15 and involved the Pharisees.
- Jesus had given an unusual lesson on the necessity of using material things to achieve eternal purposes.
- It says that the Pharisees who loved money ridiculed Jesus.
- Jesus then made this statement: You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.
- Just like the religious expert, these Pharisees tried to justify themselves.
- They tried to make themselves right by using the opinions and conclusions of people.
- If the judgment and consensus of people said that they were right, that made them right.
- Religious human approval made people right.
- So, if I win the religious approval of other people, that makes me right.
- But Jesus said there is a deadly flaw in that reasoning: the things that religiously impress people are the things that God despises.
- Commonly, that which wins people’s approval is offensive to God.
- Their attempt to justify themselves also miserably failed.
- The third example is found in Luke 18:9-14 and involved a guilty, greedy, dishonest Jew who collected taxes for the Romans.
- The parable was given to a specific group: people who trusted in themselves.
- These were religious people who were certain that they were right because they made themselves right.
- They also had zero respect for people who failed, who made mistakes.
- They looked with contempt at people who failed to measure up to their standards.
- This is what Jesus said to them:
- Two men went to the temple to pray, one was a Pharisee and one was a guilty, greedy, dishonest tax collector.
- Fact one: the temple was the holiest place on earth to pray, the place that let you come directly into God’s presence.
- Fact two: Jewish society considered the Pharisee to be the finest example of knowledge and devotion to God.
- Fact three: greedy, dishonest tax collectors were regarded to be among the most evil people in the nation.
- The Pharisee was sure that he was right–he thanked God that he was not like swindlers, unjust people, adulterers, or this tax collector.
- He recited his religious virtues.
- To express humility before God, he did not eat two days a week.
- He continually gave ten percent of everything he had to God.
- The guilty, greedy, dishonest tax collect was ashamed to raise his head.
- Filled with a sense of unworthiness, he stood back.
- He beat on his chest.
- All he prayed was, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
- Jesus said one of these men left the temple area justified.
- God made the tax collector right because he humbled himself.
- The person who believes that he makes himself right is arrogant.
- God rejects the arrogant and exalts the humble.
Does that seem right to you? Does it seem wrong that God refused to look at the classic religious type as “right” and that He made someone guilty of awful things to be “right?”
Did God do that because the religious people had knowledge, obeyed, and showed commitment to religious practices? No. Did God do that because a man was guilty of greed and dishonesty? No.
Any person who trusts in himself and believes that he makes himself right will not be justified. Any person who sees and acknowledges his own wickedness and turns to God, trusting God and not himself, will be justified.
How? God justifies a person by redeeming and forgiving. He frees the person from Satan and destroys the sin. Only because God redeems and forgives can the person be right. Our efforts to make ourselves right always fail. Faith in what God does for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus always succeeds.
This is what happens. When a believing, repentant sinner turns to God in the faith of surrender, the Great Judge takes the person with his or her guilt into his chambers. He uses the blood of Jesus to mediate a solution. Then he declares, “I rule that the evil never occurred. This person is now my child. Case dismissed.”
Why are you right?
I would have you obey God.
I would have you grow in your knowledge of the Bible.
I would have you refuse to do evil things.
I would have you live as good as you can live.
But always remember that you are [or can be] right before God
. . . only because of the Cross.
. . . only because of the blood of Christ.
. . . only because God cleansed you.
You will never be right because of what you have done.
Let God make you righteous before Him.
Let us know if we can help.
Posted by David on March 8, 1998 under Sermons
You send your son to a university that has an excellent academic reputation. For four years he is an exceptional student. He maintains a 3.9 grade point average. He is involved in the leadership of several campus organizations. He graduates with honors.
His academic success presents him with an excellent job opportunity. But there is an unusual requirement. As his father, you must write a cover letter for his job application. The first thing the potential employer will see and read when he receives your son’s application is your cover letter. The cover letter is to answer one question: “How do you want me to look at your son?”
What would you write in your cover letter? Would you write, “Look at him as the success that he is. You can see his ability and potential by looking at his grade point average, his course grades, and the honors he received. Consider him as the talented, successful person that he is.”
Or would you write, “Look at him as though he were a failure. Let him bear the responsibility for every person who attended the university and failed, or dropped out, or caused trouble. Consider him as though he were the worst student who ever attended that university.”
- The only person who did everything God wanted done exactly the way God wanted it done was Jesus.
- I wonder if the full truth of that statement has registered with any of us.
- No other human ever did that–not Peter, not John, not Paul, not any Christian.
- Isn’t that amazing!
- When we want to understand how God wants us to act, to think, and to feel, who do we listen to?
- Are we not more likely to discuss what Peter, or John, or Paul said than we are to consider what Jesus did or said?
- God accomplished something in Jesus that He accomplished in no one else.
- Speaking of Jesus, Peter wrote “. . . He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wounds you were healed” (I Peter 2:24).
- Our sins were placed on Jesus’ body as he died.
- Only because our sins were placed on Jesus can we be healed spiritually.
- Paul wrote of Jesus, “He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
- God made Jesus to be sin.
- We have the opportunity to become God’s righteousness only because God made Jesus sin.
- What ever does that mean? Our sins were placed on Jesus’ body? God made Jesus to be sin? What does that mean?
- As Jesus died on the cross, God placed all human evil on his body.
- Justice said, “Here are all the lies of liars and all the deceit of dishonest or weak people,” and God said, “Put them on Jesus.”
- “Here are all the evils produced by rapists, spouse abusers, child molesters, and murderers,” and God said, “Put them on Jesus.”
- “Here are all the evils associated with adultery, with fornication, with abortion, and with homosexuality,” and God said, “Put them on Jesus.”
- “Here are all the evils associated with stealing, with violence, and with all criminal acts,” and God said, “Put them on Jesus.”
- “Here are all the evils produced by hypocrisy, self-righteousness, pride, judgmental attitudes, conceit, prejudice, and self-justification,” and God said, “Put them on Jesus.”
- “Here are all the evils produced by mean spiritedness, gossip, selfishness, self-centeredness, jealousy, wrath, hate, anger, and contempt,” and God said, “Put it on Jesus.”
- “Here are all the evils created by promoting divisiveness, by being unloving, by encouraging strife and conflict, by wounding hearts and souls and minds,” and God said, “Put it on Jesus.”
- And God said, “Put all human evil on Jesus; spare none of it; put it on Jesus in full measure.”
- And, as Jesus died, God made him to be sin.
- God looked at Jesus as he died, and God saw evil covering his innocent Son.
- He saw all the evil of humanity covering His Son, and it was such a repulsive sight that it repelled God, and God turned away from His own Son.
- And Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
- God paid for the right to do incredible things for us because God allowed Jesus to be sin.
- For example, because God made Jesus to be sin, God can sanctify you and me.
- The word sanctify means “to make holy.”
- In making us holy, God sets us apart from that which is ungodly and evil.
- In making us holy, God also consecrates us to Himself; He claims us as His own.
- In a very real way, being sanctified means a change of ownership.
- We belonged to Satan.
- But God took us from Satan and set us apart for Himself.
- The concept of sanctification was so clearly understood in the first century that the common name for people who belonged to Christ was saints.
- The Bible writings called the gospels refer to people who followed Jesus as disciples.
- But the book of Acts and the epistles referred to baptized believers by the word “saints.”
- Fifty-six times those writings call baptized believers saints.
- It was the common name for people who belonged to Jesus Christ.
- Don’t you think that the name saints was wonderfully appropriate–the people God set apart for Himself?
- They were not called saints because they were morally perfect; they were called saints because they had been sanctified–set apart for God in Christ.
- If we had a better understanding of sanctification, we would have a better understanding of salvation.
- Sanctification never meant or indicated moral perfection.
- The sanctified, or saints, or Christians were not and are not morally perfect–or perfect in any other way.
- Listen to the way that Paul addressed the troubled congregation at Corinth: “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:2).
- The church in Corinth, the Christians there, had been sanctified.
- They were saints.
- It certainly was not because they were morally perfect; it was because they were in Christ.
- Later, Paul said to these saints, “I could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as men of flesh, as to babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
- They were not capable of eating solid spiritual food.
- Among their many spiritual problems were jealousy and strife.
- Obviously, they were not morally perfect or spiritually mature, but they were sanctified.
- God sanctified the Christians at Corinth when they were baptized into Christ.
- An act of God sanctified them.
- Still later Paul informed them that unrighteous people will not inherit God’s kingdom.
- He listed some unrighteous people who belonged to Satan, who had not been sanctified–he named fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, idol worshippers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, people who were verbal abusers, and swindlers.
- Then he said, “Such were some of you.”
- Why were they no longer unrighteous people? Because they had become morally perfect? If you have read 1 Corinthians, you know that is not true.
- Then why were they no longer the unrighteous? This is Paul’s explanation: “but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).
- They had been sanctified, they had been set apart for God, they had been made holy, and they needed to learn and understand what that meant.
- They were people in transition.
- They had been ungodly people.
- God sanctified them.
- Now they needed to learn and understand what it meant to be set apart to be God’s people.
- They were not sanctified because they achieved perfection; they were sanctified because they were in Christ.
- God did for them what they could not do for themselves.
- But they needed to understand what God did for them in Christ.
- And they needed to commit themselves to living like people who were set apart for God.
- When we enter Christ, God sanctifies us–He sets us apart from evil for Himself.
- Because we are sanctified by God, we belong to God, not to Satan.
- Rarely does a person comprehend what God does for him when he is baptized into Christ.
- Even though most people do not comprehend sanctification, it still happens when the person is placed in Christ.
- At that point the learning and understanding should begin.
- At that point the life transition should begin.
- Wednesday morning when we learned of Lou Porter’s accidental death, many of us went into shock.
- Lou was a quiet, gentle spirit who touched more lives than we can imagine with her faith and her service.
- I thank God that this congregation has been blessed from its beginning through her life.
- Lou was an exceptionally kind, thoughtful person.
- If Lou could give us a message this morning, one of the things she would tell us would be this: “Please learn this lesson now: we are not saved because were are good; we are saved because we are in Christ.
- “We seek to be good people because we have been saved.”
- “But we are saved because we are in Christ.”
- “We are saved because God sanctified us.”
Every single person in Christ is saved. Why? Because God sanctified every person who enters Christ. By what right does God do that? By the right God gained when he placed all sin on the body of Jesus and made Jesus to be sin.
Every one of us who accepts sanctification in Jesus must do something. Every one of us must learn and accept the responsibility of being set apart for God.
Incredible, wonderful news, best in the history of the world:
No matter what you have done, God can sanctify you. There is no human evil that God cannot save you from if you understand that He made Jesus to be sin. Share in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus through baptism.
If God sets you apart for Himself, He expects you to then live as if you belong to Him and not behave as if you are Satan’s.
Posted by David on March 1, 1998 under Sermons
Christians have an enormous tendency to forget that evil is a real, powerful, every day force or to believe that evil is not a real, powerful, every day force. And you say, “David, you have to be kidding. Everyone of us knows that evil is real. We see evil all around us every day. We see evil destroying people every day. I can’t believe that you would suggest that any of us don’t think evil is real.”
Would you focus on a specific perspective? To many Christians, evil is the great beast that makes war against us. But the war is mostly mental stuff. That war mostly has to do with minds and emotions. We tend to think of evil is not solid or real. Just change the way people think and it goes away.
We tend to see evil as a benign force. It only troubles people if they chase it. Evil is really not that aggressive. Again, it is more philosophical and theological than real.
Then we hear that thirty-nine people living in another country are arrested for studying the Bible in a private home. Evil attacked. We don’t think so much of this evil being specific people or specific places. We think of it as this world wide, faceless force that exists everywhere that happened to cause problems in this situation.
And we are committed to opposing evil in the world. Our God hates evil. Our God allowed His Son to die to rescue people from evil. So we call out to God to defeat the evil. We take what initiative’s are available to us to defeat the evil. It is not bad people that we are opposing. It is not a government that we are opposing. It is evil.
So we pray, as we should. And we write letters to the ambassador, as I think is good and appropriate. And we pray and we write in hope, maybe even in expectation. When good people appeal to our good God in the desire for good things to happen, we do so in hope and expectation.
Then we learn that thirteen people are facing prison sentences that could run as long as five years. And we learn about the tragedy that these individuals and their families will experience. And we realized that the situation may not be resolved in a way that will rescue these people. And we are stunned. That is not supposed to happen. The evil is real in ways that we do not often consider.
- I think that this is highly probable: it is easier for a person to be a Christian in the USA today than it has ever been in the history of Christianity.
- Again, many of my Christian brothers and sisters might strongly object.
- “No, David, it was much easier to be a Christian back in the 1950’s than it is today.”
- Personally, I disagree–and I confess that is just my opinion.
- We lived in greater isolation in the 1950’s–we were far more likely to be surrounded by people who shared our thoughts and values.
- So the decision was made with greater ease and less need for change.
- In fact, there were times that the decision was simple and uncomplicated–it involved little more than your desire.
- We don’t live in isolation today–we live right in the middle of the real world at home, at school, and on the job.
- And it is a evil, complicated, real world.
- And the decision to be a Christian is not simple; it commonly involves much more than a simple personal desire.
- The decision is not as simply made today, but there is more spiritual opportunity than has ever existed.
- The Bible translated in ways that we can study and understand has never been more accessible to any generation.
- Written literature that exists to increase our understanding of Christian living and Christian commitment has never been more extensive.
- The applications of spiritual principles to the real problems of life have never been more abundant.
- We have extensive information available to us in audio and video form.
- What is available to us through computer technology is dumbfounding.
- It has never been easier for any people anywhere in the world in any age to learn, understand, and apply the messages of Jesus Christ.
- Let me verify those truths in a very practical way.
- How many times have you said or heard someone say, “I wish I had know that 40 years ago!”
- I would hesitate to guess how many times I have heard that statement.
- The truth is this: we did not know or understand most of that information 40 years ago.
- This incredible opportunity that surrounds us, this opportunity that we take for granted, has also created a illusion.
- The illusion is that we can control evil.
- We not only think that we can control evil in our society, but we also think that we can exercise control over evil virtually anywhere in the world.
- We have become so comfortable with the conclusion that evil can be controlled that we are shocked when a situation occurs wherein we are powerless to control evil.
- We have created a serious spiritual danger for ourselves.
- We reason that if we have enough faith that we should be able to either defeat evil or control evil.
- Thus, when a circumstance arises when we can neither defeat or control evil, it very easily becomes a faith issue.
- We conclude that the reason evil is not defeated is because our faith is defective.
- I want you to consider some key examples from the Bible that suggest two things: (1) evil is real and powerful and (2) people cannot control evil even when they have great faith.
- Example number one: Joseph (Genesis 37,39-41)
- Before Joseph was sold into slavery, he was a bratty, obnoxious teenager.
- After Joseph was sold into slavery, he became a man who had an impressive value system and great faith.
- Joseph learned very quickly that evil is real.
- His brothers sold him into slavery.
- As a slave, his owner’s wife tried to seduce him.
- When he rejected her advances, she falsely accused him and framed him.
- His owner believed the lies of his wife and threw Joseph in jail.
- In jail his kindness and trustworthiness was forgotten.
- Joseph lived for years suffering from horrible injustices because evil was real.
- Example number two: Peter.
- Peter was an outspoken, aggressive disciple.
- Once he dared rebuke Jesus because he was convinced that Jesus had made a terrible mistake.
- Once he declared that Moses and Elijah were equal in significance with Jesus.
- Once he said nothing could cause him to desert Jesus.
- Three times he declared to Jesus’ enemies that he had never met or known Jesus.
- Years later after he had served as an apostle in the church for a long time, he made another very hurtful mistake–he refused to have fellowship with Christians who were not Jews.
- Peter found out how real evil is.
- Example three: Jesus, the only sinless person who ever lived.
- Jesus never suffered any form of pain or hurt because of evil he had committed.
- No suffering occurred in Jesus’ life as a consequence of ungodliness.
- However, Jesus experienced enormous suffering.
- Jesus suffered not because he was evil, but because evil was real.
- In the course of his ministry he was verbally attacked, ridiculed, condemned, and subjected to numerous forms of injustice.
- In the last 24 hours of his life:
- He was betrayed.
- He was abandoned by his best friends.
- He was subjected to enormous humiliation and deliberate injustice.
- He was innocent but convicted as though he were a criminal.
- He was tortured.
- He was executed in one of the most painful forms of death ever invented.
- All of that happened to God’s own Son because evil is real.
- Example four: Paul.
- Before he became a Christian, Paul was a very religious, very sincere, very mistaken, very violent man.
- Paul was a powerful instrument of evil, and evil used him effectively.
- However, Paul did not have the slightest idea that evil was using him–he was totally convinced that he served God.
- After Paul became a Christian, his life was a constant experience of suffering and imprisonment.
- Listen to Paul’s own list of things that happened to him as a Christian (2 Corinthians 11:23-28).
- Numerous times he was whipped, and no one bothered to count the number of lashes he received.
- Often he was close to dying.
- Five times the Jews beat him with 39 lashes, the recognized legal limit.
- Three times he was beaten with rods.
- Once he was stoned.
- Three times he was shipwrecked, and one of those times he spend a day and a night on board the wrecked ship.
- He listed 8 different forms of danger that threatened to kill him.
- He talked about the physical sufferings produced by hunger, thirst, cold, and exposure.
- He mentioned the stress and struggles he endured from churches.
- And we can add to that list at least three times that he was in jail or prison, and the fact that he was executed.
- Paul knew that evil was real.
- I want to share something that you may disagree with; as I have often told you, it is perfectly okay for you to disagree with me.
- Something increasingly distresses me in the church.
- It distresses me that Christians spend so much time, energy, and effort fighting each other because we disagree.
- It distresses me that we devote so much time and energy fighting other people who are seeking to do good, often good that we have never tried to do.
- It distresses me that use so little effort, energy, and time to fighting evil.
- At times it seems that we are more likely to oppose good than we are to oppose evil.
- As I said last Sunday evening, God works in an astounding number of ways in our world, and many are ways that we never recognize, never know.
- God surely uses hundreds of thousands of different people and hundreds of thousands of different ways to work His countless purposes in this world.
- I certainly do not expect everyone to have my focus or my objectives–that could not accomplish all of God’s objectives.
- But this is where I am.
- It is the objective of many Christians to develop the means and approaches to control evil in our society, and I certainly believe God can and does use Christians who have that objective.
- My passion, my desire is not focused in the mission to control evil.
- My passion is to reach out to the people who are attracted to evil–in and out of the church.
- My passion is to use Jesus to rescue people who have been trapped in evil–in and out of the church.
- My passion focuses on deliverance in Jesus Christ, not on the control of evil.
- Whenever any congregation develops into a godly spiritual family that seeks to rescue people from the reality of evil, I believe that God will use that congregation powerfully.
- When we redirect our energies away from fighting among ourselves and fighting those who seek to do good, and direct those energies to fighting the reality of evil, God will use us more powerfully than we have ever been used.
- We will help Christ rescue more lives than we have ever helped rescue.
- And we ourselves will more be alive in Jesus Christ than we ever have been.
It has never been necessary for godly people to control evil for God to use them powerfully. Joseph, Peter, Jesus, and Paul powerfully testify that this is true.
If your focus is to let Christ live in you, don’t think that there is something wrong with your faith or that God has failed when you find you cannot control evil. God will accomplish His intended purposes through you if you surrender to Him. Evil can never destroy your soul if you are alive in Christ. Will you come to the Savior?
Posted by David on under Sermons
For generations one of the most familiar themes in our worship through song has been redemption. Are these words familiar to you?
| Redeemed how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. |
I know that my Redeemer lives, And ever prays for me. |
Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever, He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood. |
At least 80% of you recognize those songs. May I ask some questions? What is a redeemer? What does redemption mean? Why is redemption wonderful?
- The concept of redemption is found throughout the Bible.
- The Old Testament stresses the concept of redemption. Consider some brief examples.
- Consider Exodus 21:28-30.
- If your ox gored someone to death, the ox is killed and you are punished.
- If you were warned that the ox was dangerous and the ox killed someone, the ox was killed and you were executed.
- However, if the victim’s family accepted a money settlement, you can be redeemed–when you paid the settlement the execution was canceled.
- Consider Leviticus 25:47-52.
- If poverty was destroying you, you could sell yourself into slavery.
- If you sold yourself into slavery, you could be redeemed at any time.
- When a blood relative paid your owner the price of your freedom, and you were released from your slavery.
- However, Numbers 35:30-34 states that a murderer could not be redeemed; a murderer must be executed.
- In the Old Testament concept of redemption, two facts are obvious.
- Fact one: Redemption released a person from punishment or slavery.
- Fact two: one single, powerful, effective means of redemption did not exist; nothing could redeem all people from every form of punishment and slavery.
- What about the concept of redemption in the first century world? What did people know and understand about redemption in the first century world?
- The every day need for redemption was well understood.
- The actual meaning of the Greek words translated “redeemed” literally meant “the price of release;” the basic New Testament meaning was “to buy with a price.”
- Redemption was used in two common ways in their every day world.
- It was the price you paid to release something used as a pledge or put in pawn.
- It was the price paid to liberate a slave, to purchase freedom.
- Let me make the every day reality of redemption very vivid.
- Situation one had to do with prisoners of war.
- Wars were often financed through selling the prisoners into slavery. These prisoners of war were slaves the rest of their lives.
- Some times slave merchants followed the army to buy the prisoners.
- Commonly soldiers came from free families and often were educated.
- A prisoner of war sold into slavery had only one hope of ever being free again: only by being redeemed could he be free.
- Only if a family member could afford to buy him out of slavery would he be freed.
- There are actual records of prisoners of war committing suicide because they knew no one could afford to buy them out of slavery, and they had rather die than be a slave.
- Situation two had to do with a common slave.
- A common slave’s only hope for freedom was buying his freedom.
- A slave would never have enough money at any one time to buy his freedom.
- But there was a way that he might buy his freedom.
- He could go to a temple and arrange to make deposits at that temple.
- Then he would make any small amount anytime he could make it.
- It would take years and years of tiny deposits, but if he made deposits long enough, one day he would have enough to buy his freedom.
- He would take his owner to the temple, a priest would pay the owner the price of his freedom, and he was no longer a slave.
- That was his day of redemption; he was “free of all men.”
- But there was only one way that could happen: by redemption.
- Redemption was the price of deliverance.
- It was the only way that a person could be freed from barbarian slavery.
- Keep slavery and redemption clearly in mind and listen:
- Spiritually, every person was a slave.
- Paul said in Galatians 3:13 that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.
- He said in Titus 2:14 that Christ redeemed us from all iniquity.
- Every person was a slave either because of law or by the evil he committed.
- The law condemned anyone who disobeyed the law, and every Jew disobeyed the law.
- Every person, Jew and non-Jew, was guilty of evil.
- So either by disobeying the law, or by wickedness, or by both, every person was a spiritual slave.
- Jesus paid the price of redemption for every person; every person who disobeyed the law, and every person who was guilty of evil.
- Only because Jesus paid the price of redemption could any spiritual slave be released from his slavery.
- No spiritual slave could free himself.
- In 1 Peter 1:18, Peter soberly reminded Christians, the redeemed, that the price God paid for their redemption was not money, was not silver or gold.
- God, not a relative, paid that price.
- The price God paid was the innocent blood of His own Son.
- Think about the connection between slavery, consequences, and redemption; as you think, listen to these verses.
- Romans 3:24–Christians are “justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
- God destroys our sins through the redemption that is in Christ.
- That redemption is a gift; it is God’s gift to us.
- That gift exists because God is good.
- 1 Corinthians 1:30–“By his (God’s) doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.”
- By God’s doing you are in Christ.
- You accepted Christ, but you did not place yourself in Christ–God did that.
- God made Jesus wisdom to us.
- God made Jesus the power to make us right before God.
- God made Jesus the power to make us pure.
- God gave Jesus as the price that freed us from our guiltiness.
- Ephesians 1:7–“In him (Christ) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace…”
- There was only one price that could redeem us from spiritual slavery: the innocent blood of Jesus.
- Without that blood, we are forever slaves, not only in this world but also in eternity.
- In eternity, instead of being God’s sons and daughters at home with Him, we would be Satan’s slaves in hell.
- Only because of Jesus’ blood can we be forgiven.
- Only because God was good enough to pay the price can we be redeemed.
- Colossians 1:13,14–God delivered us from darkness, and God placed us in the kingdom of his beloved son “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
- God took us out of the slavery of evil and God placed us in the freedom that exists in Jesus’ kingdom.
- God did that by paying the price of our redemption.
- The price of redemption gave us God’s forgiveness.
- Now, does this verse have greater meaning to you?
- In 1 Corinthians 6:19,20, Paul told the Christians in Corinth that Christians will not engage in sexual evil ; they will not justify sexual evil. He explained it in this way: don’t you understand that you do not belong to yourselves? “You were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
- God bought me out of my slavery with Jesus’ blood.
- I entered that slavery through my own failure and evil.
- When I accept God’s redemption and continue to live and act like a slave, I insult God and abuse His goodness.
- Listen again to this statement from Jesus in Matthew 20:28.
- He was explaining why he came to earth.
- He said, “The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
- He came to pay the price of redemption; he came to release us from slavery.
- This is redemption’s incredible blessing: redemption releases you from all the spiritual punishment, all the spiritual slavery, all the spiritual obligation, and all the spiritual liability that exists because of your evil.
- Because of God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ blood, if you are in Christ, all your sin is totally, completely, forever destroyed.
- If you live in Christ, the evil you that has been a part of you no longer exists.
- You were Satan’s slave; now you are God’s son or daughter.
- All spiritual consequence and guilt has been destroyed in Jesus’ blood.
- Because God redeemed you, you are under no spiritual obligation to evil; you have no spiritual liability for forgiven evil.
- In Christ you are released from your slavery, released from the slavery that you could not escape.
- That is one of the incredible, glorious mysteries of our salvation.
Someone says, “David, I don’t like all this slave talk. I am not and never have been a slave. I am saved because of what I have done. I was baptized and I come to church. That saves me.”
I am sorry that you think that way. I am sorry for two reasons. First, you deceive yourself if you think you have never been Satan’s slave. Second, if you have never known your slavery, you have never experienced the joy of one of God’s greatest blessings. You cannot know or enjoy freedom until you know and accept your slavery.
Only two kinds of people do not rejoice in God’s redemption in Jesus Christ. The first are those who do not know their own sinfulness. The second are those who have never looked into hell.
The person who has seen his sins and looked into hell never stops rejoicing. He understands what God did when God redeemed him. She understands what God did when God redeemed her.
The greatest tragedy is one who is a slave to sin and never recognizes it.
Are you free? Have you accepted the price that has been paid for your freedom? Would you be free? The price has been paid by the innocent blood of Jesus. Enter Christ by being baptized into His death that His blood may destroy your sin.
Posted by Roy on February 22, 1998 under Articles
The Psalmist said, “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:104).
Today, there is a tendency to play down sin. Here are some examples:
- Homosexuality is referred to as an “alternative life style.”
- Legalized abortion, in my opinion, is the greatest catastrophe in America since we became a nation. Millions of unborn babies are murdered annually, all because we do not realize how much God hates sin.
How much God hates sin can be seen in the punishment of sin in the past. In the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15-19):
- The serpent – condemned to destruction.
- The woman – condemned to submission and pain.
- The man – condemned to toil and tears.
- All men – condemned to death (1 Corinthians 15:22).
The Flood: In Genesis 6, we see the condition of man’s heart, that it was evil continually.
- God’s solution – the flood. He will destroy mankind along with the creatures. Why? All because of sin; God hates sin.
Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19).
- These cities were destroyed along with their inhabitants because of the sin of sodomy (homosexuality) and other sins (Ezekiel 16:49).
Many other examples could be cited, but these are enough to show that God hates sin, and that he punishes it without mercy when men continue in it. We can see how much God hates sin by the future punishment he has promised to the wicked. Please read 2 Peter 2:4-9).
We can see how much God hates sin by looking at what he has done to redeem us from it. He sent his Son to earth to die on a cross to condemn sin and to make us righteous (Rom. 8:3-4). He sent his Son to save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). He made his Son, who knew no sin, to be sin that we might be made righteous (2 Cor. 5:21). He sent his son to bear our sins in his body that we might be dead to sin (1 Peter 2:24).
These passages not only teach now much God hates sin but also how much he loves us. God hates sin so much that he commands that we turn from it. He loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us (John 3:16).
Let us, “Hate every false way.” This is possible only by loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Posted by David on under Sermons
This evening I am speaking specifically to and about godly Christians. I am talking about Christians who live spiritual lives, who have a godly focus in life, who are committed, who serve, and who willingly make sacrifices of faith in Jesus Christ. I am speaking about people who have a godly passion and are committed to that passion. It is my daily goal to be such a person.
Godly people with a spiritual passion can and do make mistakes. We do not hesitate to admit that. While we are committed to being genuine, we do not claim to be perfect.
I want to focus on a common mistake made by godly people with a passion. I freely confess that I know that I have made this mistake many, many times. It is not a mistake born of evil, but a mistake born of devotion and commitment.
This mistake finds its moment of conception when this progression of thoughts begins. “I have made a serious study of the Bible, and my study continues. I have confidence in my understanding of God’s will. I have confidence in my understanding of God’s priorities. I am certain that my godly passion rises from God’s priorities. God’s priorities are my priorities. God’s values are my values. My concern finds its balance in God’s concern.”
The mistake: I conclude, “My godly passion is God’s most important work.”
May I make a personal confession to you? I think it is impossible for David Chadwell to think like God thinks. I certainly can understand God’s revelation and let it direct my life. However, I now realize that there is a vast difference between understanding God’s revelation and thinking God’s thoughts. No matter how studious and committed I am, I doubt that it is possible for me to understand God’s priorities, God’s values, or God’s balance. God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and God’s ways are not my ways–and never will be. There is no way that my human mind will ever climb to the lowest level of God’s mind.
- In the context of this discussion, God does something very basic that godly humans cannot do.
- In this context, what is it that?
- God continually maintains multiple concerns and multiple initiatives without experiencing conflict.
- Those multiple concerns and initiatives always encompass two things simultaneously.
- They encompass every concern God has for our world.
- They encompass every objective God has in His spiritual kingdom.
- From our human perspective, those concerns and initiatives differ radically because they simultaneously occur in different parts of our world.
- For example:
- Is God actively concerned about what is happening in communist China? Absolutely.
- Is God actively concerned about what is happening in Eastern Europe? Absolutely.
- Is God actively concerned about what is happening in the United States? Absolutely.
- Is God actively involved in all three arenas? Absolutely.
- Are God’s initiatives identical in all three arenas? If for just one hour God enabled us to see all the ways that He takes active initiatives in these arenas, It would astound us to see:
- How active God is.
- The diverse forms of God’s initiative in these very different situations.
- How radically different God’s initiatives are in these arenas.
- There is no place on this earth where God is not active, not taking initiative.
- Godly people make a serious mistake when we conclude God’s activity is limited to our initiatives and work.
- Humans cannot maintain multiple concerns and initiatives when we are addressing radically different needs and situations.
- An axiom: “He who involves himself in everything accomplishes nothing.”
- Why?
- Our energies are too divided.
- Our resources are too scattered.
- Our initiative is too fragmented.
- Commitment to too many pursuits results in ineffectiveness–we “spread ourselves too thin.”
- So we advise the “over committed,” decide what you want to do, focus on it, and accomplish something.
- For humans, diverse commitments in multiple initiatives creates conflicts of interests.
- In these matters, God is distinctively different.
- He is not bound by time, He cannot exhaust His resources, He cannot fragment His abilities, and He cannot exceed His energy.
- God sustains diverse commitments in multiple initiatives and never experiences a conflict of interest.
- Godly humans have always struggled to comprehend this truth about God.
- Let me give you three Bible examples.
- God told Israelite Jonah to preach the message of repentance to Assyria.
- Jonah could not comprehend that God was concerned about Assyria.
- To Jonah, concern for Assyria and concern for Israel was a definite divine conflict of interests.
- Assyria was a rising power in the region.
- They were a threat to Israel, and would eventually conquer and destroy the kingdom of Northern Israel.
- To Jonah, even if God could be at work in Assyria and Israel at the same time, it was totally undesirable.
- The prophet Habakkuk struggled to understand how God could use the very wicked Babylon to punish the much less wicked Judah.
- Surely Judah was guilty of evil and idolatry.
- But the wickedness of Babylon made Israel look righteous.
- From Judah’s perspective, that was a gross conflict of interest and a dreadful inconsistency.
- In the New Testament, how could God be working as hard to bring salvation to people who were not Jews as He was to people who were Jews?
- Paul dealt with the troubling question in Romans 11.
- The Jews were the descendants of Abraham, the people of God, the people with whom God had worked for generations.
- How could God actually reject them to create opportunity for peoples who had never been the people of God?
- Devout Jews could not comprehend how that God could even be equally interested in saving non-Jews.
- They certainly could not comprehend how that God was taking very different initiatives among both peoples at the same time.
- Consider the many godly passion within this congregation.
- One of God’s special blessings to West-Ark is found in the fact that we have many godly Christians who have different godly passions.
- Some have a passion for foreign missions.
- What a blessing!
- Guyana, Ethiopia, Laos, Romana, and peoples of other places live with a burning fire in these brothers and sisters’ hearts.
- And this congregation is richly blessed by their active godly passion.
- Some have a passion for local outreach.
- What a blessing!
- The needs of the homeless in our community burn within their hearts.
- The needs of the inner city burn within their hearts.
- The needs of the elderly burn within their hearts.
- The needs of children like those in the Madeira children’s home burn within their heart.
- And this congregation is richly blessed by their godly passion.
- Some have a passion for working with young people.
- What a blessing!
- They see the needs and the struggle of many teens.
- They know the confusion and the search for purpose.
- They know 45% of the teenagers that are raised in churches of Christ leave the church sometime after graduating from high school.
- They see the pain and the struggle right here right now.
- And a godly passion for our young people burns in their hearts.
- And this congregation will be increasingly blessed by their passion.
- Some have a passion for helping struggling marriages and strengthening existing marriages.
- What a blessing!
- They have heard, they have seen, and they know the reality of the situation.
- Marriage is experiencing serious problems even among Christians.
- There is so much pain, so much struggle, so much hurt, and so much failure.
- And it is passed from generation to generation.
- And these people have a godly passion to minister to the families.
- And this congregation will be increasingly blessed by their passion.
- That certainly is not all the godly passions in this congregation.
- There are also godly passions that burn within those who want to help people seeking recover; to help those who are in crisis; to help promote spiritual growth and maturity.
- And every godly passion that exists is a blessing to the congregation.
- Why do different godly people have different godly passions?
- A godly passion is created when a person of deep faith in Christ combines love for God with these things:
- A love for the people in need.
- A personal understanding of the need.
- A personal awareness of the pain and tragedy.
- A personal conviction that through Christ these people can be helped.
- All godly passions are rooted in faith in Jesus Christ and love for God.
- As a congregation, we must let God use all of our godly passions.
- We must not place our godly passions in positions of conflict and rivalry.
- We must never forget that our God is at work in countless ways that we never recognize.
- We must understand that God will use every godly passion we have in this congregation to achieve His purposes in Jesus Christ.
God is at work in thousands of ways that we never consider. Let’s not minimize or oppose the godly passion of others. Let’s encourage each other’s godly passion. Let’s generate and multiply passion for godly service and godly deeds. Let’s not worry about how God will use our passions. Let’s let God use them.
Let’s see what God does when He sets hearts on fire.
That passion begins in believing in the God who loves you enough that He let His Son die for you.
Posted by David on under Sermons
Answer three questions for me with a yes or a no. Are you superstitious? Yes or no. Should you be superstitious? Yes or no. Is being superstitious a weakness? Yes or no.
Let me anticipate two sequence of answers. Sequence # 1: are you superstitious? No. Should you be superstitious? No. Is being superstitious a weakness. Yes.
Sequence # 2: are you superstitious? Yes. Should you be superstitious? No. Is being superstitious a weakness? Yes.
If you consider yourself a Christian, whether you are or are not superstitious, you likely believe a person should not be superstitious because it is a weakness.
Why? Why do you believe superstition is a weakness? Do you believe superstition is a weakness because the powers attributed to superstition do not exist? Do you believe superstition is a weakness because it is based on fear? Do you believe superstition is a weakness because in our scientific age you believe everything has a “this world” cause-and-effect explanation?
- I am grateful to live in the age of science and technology.
- I truly appreciate the benefits science produces.
- I appreciate the incredible difference those benefits make in:
- My living standards.
- My work.
- My health.
- My total life environment.
- I literally cannot imagine what my life would be like without electricity, home appliances, pure water, safe food, modern medicine, the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, the computer, the fax machine, and the Internet.
- Yet, as a Christian, I grieve as I watch the philosophy of science alter faith.
- When I see Christians’ faith change because of the influence of science, my grief intensifies.
- How is faith changed by the philosophy of science?
- The philosophy of science affirms that all occurrences can be explained by understanding “this world” facts in cause-and-effect relationships.
- Inference number one: science deals with reality.
- Inference number two: the spiritual ignores, evades, or distorts reality.
- It is common in the church for many of us to use a scientific approach to faith.
- We affirm our faith in the creation, the miracles of the Old and New Testaments, the incarnation, the resurrection, and the return of Christ.
- We affirm our faith in the current existence of God.
- We affirm our faith in the current Lordship of Jesus Christ.
- We affirm our faith in the current existence of the Holy Spirit.
- Without hesitation we emphatically endorse as fact that God, God’s Son, and God’s Spirit were powerfully active and at work in creating salvation.
- We are very definite in our affirmations about what God did, but we are very hesitant in our affirmations about what God does.
- We question, challenge, or doubt any declaration that states specific ways that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are active and at work today.
- It is as though:
- Jesus died on the cross, and Jesus’ active work ended.
- God raised Jesus from the dead, and God’s active work ended.
- The Holy Spirit worked powerfully in the church of the first century, but as soon as the New Testament was written, His active work ended.
- While we do not hesitate to affirm God’s work from creation to the close of the New Testament, we question any suggestion that God works or intervenes in any direct manner today.
- So when we pray for the sick, we pray for God to bless the doctors.
- When we pray that God help in a crisis, we pray for God to bless the efforts being made.
- As a rule, when we ask God to act, we commonly limit God actions to physical cause and effect actions that we can explain.
- Many of us have reasoned ourselves into this corner: “If you can’t explain how God does it, then God does not do it.”
- Too often Christians exchange the mystery of God’s work for scientific cause-and-effect explanations.
- Paul clearly stated that an essential part of salvation involves mystery.
- For example:
- In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote to those Christians:
- 2:7–“…We speak God’s wisdom in a mystery…”
- 4:1–“Let a man regard us…as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.”
- 15:51–Jesus’ return involves a mystery.
- In Ephesians Paul associates mystery with Christ and our salvation six times.
- 3:4–By reading what Paul wrote, these Christians could understand Paul’s insight into the mystery of Christ.
- 5:32–The relationship between Christ and the church is a great mystery.
- In Colossians Paul associates mystery with Christ and our salvation four times.
- 1:26,27–The key element in the mystery of how God could save people who are not Jews is found in this statement: Christ in you, the hope of glory.
- Paul also wrote this statement in 1 Timothy 3:16–“By common confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit, beheld by angels, proclaimed among nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
- The reality of mystery in God’s salvation work includes at least two things.
- Mystery includes the fact that God planned and did things in ways that we could not know unless He revealed them .
- We would never have guessed or expected that God would create the means for saving people by:
- Letting His Son live a human existence.
- Allowing His Son to die for us.
- Conquering Satan through the suffering of His Son.
- Creating a spiritual kingdom that could exist on earth.
- Achieving spiritual victory by allowing Christ to live in us.
- If you and I were on a committee to create salvation, we would have suggested none of that.
- It is a mystery.
- Mystery includes the fact that we know what God did or does but cannot explain how God did or does it.
- God allowed a part of Himself to become a living, physical human.
- How did God do that?
- I don’t know; it is a mystery.
- Jesus literally lived a more demanding physical existence than any of us will ever live, yet he never sinned.
- How did Jesus do that?
- I don’t know; it is a mystery.
- God took the beaten, bruised, bloodless, spear lanced body of Jesus and resurrected that body to life.
- How did God do the impossible?
- I don’t know; it is a mystery.
- God allowed Jesus to appear in physical form in that body to many after the resurrection.
- How did God do that?
- I don’t know; it is a mystery.
- When I combine faith in Christ, repentance of my sins, and baptism, God uses the blood that Jesus spilled on the ground 2000 years ago to destroy all sin and all guilt in my life.
- How does God do that?
- I don’t know; it is a mystery.
- If I am in Christ, and if I have a heart ready to repent of evil, God uses that same blood to constantly cleanse me of the evil I know I did and of the evil I don’t know I do.
- How does God do that?
- I don’t know; it is a mystery.
- You believe in the mystery.
- Most of you never question the incarnation, Jesus’ sinless life, Jesus’ atoning death, Jesus’ resurrection, or Jesus’ resurrection appearances.
- You not only believe in them; you accept them as unquestionable facts.
- If anyone suggested that these things did not happen, you would be insulted and indignant.
- Oh yes, you believe in the mystery.
- But do you trust the mystery?
- Do you trust the mystery when you are baptized?
- Do you trust the mystery to cleanse you daily?
- Do you trust the mystery when you pray?
- Do you trust the mystery by knowing that Christ lives in you and the Spirit makes your body its temple?
- Do you trust the mystery with a confident understanding that God is working in your life in ways that cannot be explained to help you develop spiritual strength and maturity?
- Do you try to grow in faith without trusting the mystery?
- Faith exists as a result of two things: what the person does and what God does.
- No person has faith only through what he or she does.
- No person has faith only through what God does.
- Each believer grows in his or her faith because of what he or she does and because of what God does.
- One of the better known scriptures to us is Romans 12.
- The first two verses urge Christians to give their bodies to God and to renew their minds.
- Verse three urges them to humble themselves and to develop sound judgment “as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
- Verses 4 and 5 states that all of us with our individual differences compose a single body of Christ in which we all function in different ways.
- Verse 6 says we all have different gifts, that those gifts came from God’s grace, and that the size of our faith is one of those gifts.
- It is very important that you not misunderstand my point.
- Your faith is not 100% dependent on you.
- Your faith is not 100% dependent on God.
- Your faith is dependent on both you and God.
- You do not “just have it” and you are not “just denied it.”
- Just as you study, learn, understand, and trust in order for faith to exist, God is also at work in you developing and advancing your faith.
- How does God do that?
- I cannot explain how God does that anymore than I can explain how God raised Jesus from the dead.
- God does it; it is a part of the mystery.
Jesus did not retire when he ascended back into heaven. His work had begun, not ended. God did not retire when He resurrected Jesus. The primary work He planned for His kingdom on earth had begun, not ended. The Holy Spirit did not retire when the Bible was in written form. His work was far from complete.
From the moment that you became God’s son or daughter, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit began working in your life. Until you are at home with God, they will not stop working in your life. Until you are at home with God, Their work in your life is not complete. Let God complete His work in you. Love and serve him with all your being. And never stop trusting the reality of the mystery of God’s work.
Are you a Christian?
Do you really believe God created salvation as a result of Christ’s Resurrection?
“I am too evil. I have problems I can’t conquer. I’m beyond God’s help.” Have you said this or know someone who says this?
What will we tell such a person?
We understand that nobody is beyond the help of God. How? I don’t know. But I have seen people turn their lives around by giving it over to God. God does things in human life beyond explanation.
God can forgive. God can redirect in Jesus Christ.
You are not the exception.
We can’t explain it. We just know that it is true. Endorse the truth. Place your confidence in God. Place your trust in the mystery of the blood of the Savior. The Savior who died for you invites you to Him.
Posted by David on under Bulletin Articles
Lord, it is so easy to feel superior. What a temptation! I rarely recognize the feeling as one of superiority, but it is. I see others and silently say, “If he had faith, he would not struggle. If she loved God, she would not waiver. If he had a prayer life, he would be stronger. If she spent time studying the Bible, her doubts would disappear.”
Then, in the security of my self-confidence, I rejoice in the strength of my faith and the depth of my love. I smile when I consider my prayer life and my knowledge of Your word. I reassure myself by thinking of the many things I do for you.
Later, as I reflect on these times, an ugly awareness stares at me. I see the Pharisee who felt spiritually superior because he was not like the wicked tax collector.
Who am I to measure the faith or the love of another person? Is knowledge of Your word measured by the ability to dissect verses or by clinging to the message? Are the notable ways to serve Christ restricted to my list of godly works? Am I to forget that You were thrilled when a widow gave a penny? Or that You note the cup of cold water given in Jesus’ name?
My dark days descended on me. Desperate illness struck my family, and one that I loved died. Injustices destroyed my career. My dreams for my children turned into ashes. Neither time nor money permit me to serve You in the ways that I did.
Each day I know struggle and weakness. Evil mocks my strength. I wavier because my faith was in me, not You. And I am afraid as I learn to trust You instead of me. Suddenly, my Bible knowledge became “book knowledge.” In that moment I understood the difference between having Bible knowledge and laying a foundation upon the Rock.
Troubles easily become despair, and despair easily becomes hopelessness. What a temptation! Father, help me find courage in the cross! Help me find confidence in the resurrection! Help me find hope in Your forgiveness! Help me find assurance in Jesus’ return!
