The Church Must Effect Its Own Moral Standard, by John.

The Church Must Effect Its Own Moral Standard
I Corinthians 5:1-13

1. The first big sin in the Corinthian Church was division fostered and sustained by pride.
2. The second big sin of the C Ch was retention of an unworthy church member w/o any effort at correcting the situation.
3. We constantly face problems raised by all sorts of sins.
(1) If we try to work on having a pure church from the negative side (which is talked about in this chapter), we run the risk of becoming witch-hunters.
(2) If we let close our eyes to obvious sins, we are blind and become weak, unspiritual. Old joke about preaching against alcohol, dancing, smoking, chewing, and dipping snuff. “Gone to meddling now!”
(3) Where we start and stop in dealing with all sin is a constant concern to us.
4. Paul tells us a good part of what we need to know right here. Some other passages need to be added to get the whole picture.
5. The Church Must Effect Its Own Moral Standards.

I. The Church must deal with sins flaunted in public. (5:1-5)

1. V1, An instance of incest (porneia) is openly practiced in the church. (explain).
2. V 2, They were proud! (pephusiomenoi) puffed up one over the other.
(1) That means they were glad they had proof that they were better than that sinner!
(2) Doesn’t that remind you of the position of the Pharisee and the publican Jesus told about in Lk 18:9 ff?
(3) They should have urged him to cease, desist and repent. Their last resort was to vote him out of the
fellowship!
3. Paul believed they should have gotten angry with this man! No way! Anger has no place here.
(1) He believed they should have grieved over the man, and because they didn’t do something!
(2) You never help a sinner by patting him on the back and telling him he has done the best he could, and you never help a sinner by looking down your nose as if you are better than he is!
(3) It may seem harsh, and it is, but Paul suggested strongly that they should have put him out of the fellowship!
a. The sin is flagrant! Overt! Public!
b. The man has taken his father’s wife to live with him! (probably a second, or third wife, not his mother). His father was probably a member also.
4. vv. 4,5, indicate what should happen now.
(1) Paul already knew God’s will on this, and they did not need to pray about it any more.
(2) With Paul present or absent, the only possible solution was to put the man out of the church’s fellowship.
(3) Many un-biblical things have been practiced by people thinking they were doing God’s will.
a. Shunning is an example of people’s attempt to follow this order of Paul’s.
b. Putting a person out of the church is tantamount to handing them “over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the
Lord.” V. 5c. It must be an act of love and compassion, not condemnation.
5. Expulsion is the last straw, so to speak. This sin had been going on a long time, and the people involved had not repented!
6. We tend to forget that God’s laws are good for us! Satan’s ways destroy our flesh, and they do make our time here actually a physical disaster!
7. At this point, I think it is necessary to say this man was not the only sinner in that church! All of the members were sinners! Just like all of us are sinners!
8. We need to remember that James says, (James 2:10), “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” James 2. 11 compares adultery with murder, either one makes us a lawbreaker!
8. I Co 5: 7 reminds us, Jesus has already been sacrificed for all of us.

II. Purity is a goal every Christian and Church should strive to achieve. Vv. 6-8.

1. Boasting that we are better than someone else is never acceptable to the Lord. V 6. (ill. The Pharisee and Publican, Lk 18:9-14)
(1) The right way to go is to correct the wrong in Christian Love!
a. Gal. 6:1 says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” (If you are guilty yourself, you can’t correct someone else!)
b. In Mt 18:15-18, Jesus gives four procedures for reconciliation. (read).
(2) V 8, Malice and wickedness must be left out! (That’s a negative way of saying, Correct people in the Spirit of love and humility!}
2. Sin grows like a prairie fire! Ill. In Liberal some kids set a grass fire. People saw them doing it. There was a high wind. They tried to put the fire out, but didn’t get it done until it had burned a house trailer down.Sin is like that.
3. To be people of God, the old life of sin must be left behind! V. 7a.
4. Christ our passover was sacrificed for us. (Exo 12:21-23.)
(1) Firstborn were all spared judgment.
(2) The firstborn must now judge themselves! Most of them died in the wilderness without ever seeing the Promised Land because they were disobedient!
(3) I Pet 4:16,17 says judgment must begin at the house of God!
5. V 8, His Church must stand in sincerity and truth!

Conclusion:

1. Discipline must be done with fidelity, vv 9-13.
2. V. 10, There is no way we can avoid the world while we live in it.We have to deal with it.
3. We must not tolerate flagrant sin, much less be proud that we are better than someone else!
(1) V. 11.Our reaction to sin must be love and helpfulness.
(2) Our tesponsibility is to restore the sinner to God’s good grace!
(3) Never anger! Never punishment for punishment’s sake!
4. After all is done that can be done, the final step is not shunning, but ostracism. We are to treat that brother or sister as a lost person! Remember those four steps Jesus gave us in Matthew 18:
(1) Go to your brother alone.
(2) Take witnesses with you.
(3) Take it to the church.
(4) Treat your brother or sister as a lost person! Love them back into the way of the Lord!
5. There is a difference between the judgment of God, and the judgment Christians must do.
(1) We must judge people in the church, v 12, (krino) to maintain the purity of the church. A pure church has a good witness to the world!
(2) God judges those without, v. 13, and that judgment must not fall on the church!


ECC 4/24/2005

Is God Interested in You by John.

Is God Interested in you?
(People, I usually deal with one portion of Scripture, but today I am using the form called “homily.” The structure of the message will be similar to Peter’s in Acts.)
1. The majority of people in this country believe in some sort of god.
2. Lost people have many beliefs.
(1) They may believe in some established religious false god, such as Allah, Ahura Mazda, or the Earth Mother. Some have derived their beliefs from eastern religions. ill. Shirley McLaine is a celebrity. BTW, you want to know how to get a your book published? Become a celebrity or a sport’s hero! Shirley wrote a New Age book, “Out on a limb.” In it she told how she came to believe in reincarnation. She wrote another book titled, “Dancing in the Light.” Apparently, she felt what she had to say was something brand new, but it wasn’t, and it’s not. Hinduism and Buddhism have preached the same ideas for many, many centuries. Tina Turner apparently has gone along with the same thing, and these two have made a real impact on the beliefs of America’s college community. Dr. F LaGard Smith of Pepperdine University wrote an answer to Shirley’s book. It’s called, “Out on a Broken Limb.” He recognized Satan’s handwork from the beginning. After all, if Satan can get people to buy into something that merely resembles Christianity, he has done his job! New Age says that there is a resurrection. If you are good, you come back to a new life on earth that’s better. If you are bad, you come back to a new life that’s worse. That’s why many of the people in India sweep the sidewalks. They are afraid one of the ants or bugs may actually be an ancestor who was so bad he returned to a lower form of life!
(2) You see, mankind has always made gods that pleased them, and they have patterned their life-styles to allow them to do what they wanted!
(3) Some believe in a nebulous god. Perhaps just a benevolent force that is the ultimate cause of everything. (That is called Deism.)
3. Christians all believe in the one true God.
(1) The church saves no one.
(2) Some people who claim to be Christian have fooled themselves.
a. I remember a mother in my home church when I was a boy who gushed with joy because when someone asked her son what he believed, and he quoted the Apostle’s Creed!
b. It is a good creed, but I am sure Satan can quote it in the original Greek, and he is not a Christian!
c. It’s not words we repeat that save us! It’s Jesus!
2. Several weeks ago, someone caused me to think they did not know whether God was interested in them, or cared about them. That led me to ask: “Is God interested in you?” I want us to see what the Bible tells us about that. First, let’s lay a background for our answer.

I. In the Bible, Who does God say He is?

1. Let’s go to the Old Testament first, to Genesis 1:1-3.
(1) The Bible starts with the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Then in v. 2, it goes on to say that “the Spirit of God moved across the face of the waters.”
a. The Hebrew word “bereshith” literally means “To the head of all things.”
b. God created everything out of nothing. Theologians use the Latin, ex nihilo, to say the same thing. As far as we know, no matter existed before God created the heavens and the earth! He is the Creator! ill. We know that parallel lines never meet, but if we look down the highway or a railroad track, in the distance they seem to meet. Artists call that “the vanishing point.” Evolutionary scientists theorize how human beings began, and eventually they reach a vanishing point beyond which they cannot go. They have to ask themselves, where did this matter, this stuff, come from? The answer is God is behind the vanishing point!
(2) The word translated “God” here is “elohim.” In Hebrew. It is plural, but it is followed here by a singular verb. That validates our trinitarian view of God, that there is only one God, but three persons.
(3) In fact, all three persons of the Godhead are in Genesis1: 1-3. God Almighty v1. God the Holy Spirit v2. And God the Son, the Word of God, in v 3. Remember John 1:1? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
(4) When God spoke to Moses (Exodus 3:14), He told Moses to tell the people that His name is “Yaweh,” and as nearly as we can translate that, it is “I am who I am.”
(5) This is who God says He is in the Old Testament.
2. Now let’s take a look into the New Testament where most of what we learn about the Father comes from Jesus.
(1) He is our Heavenly Father. (The Lord’s prayer, Mt 6:9-13, Lk 11:2-4)
(2) He Loves us. (John 3:16)
(3) He keeps His promises. (James 1:17 says that there is no variableness, no shadow of turning with God! He is always the same. We can depend on Him to always keeps His promises!
(4) He gives us eternal life. (It’s a promise, but the moment we receive it, it becomes a present reality!
(5) He, Jesus, is going to come again and receive us to Himself, another promise.
(6) We can’t cover everything the Bible says about who God is, but these are some very important things we should know and remember.

II. What does God say about us?

1. First, we were created in His image! (We are not sure what this means.)
2. Second, we fell from the position of grace Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden of Eden.
3. We need to know that we all have sinned, and none of us has measured up to what God expects of us. Romans 3:23. (ill. Alistair Begg preaching on the radio last week said, If you knew me like God knows me, you’d never speak to me again! And God loves me anyway. (Those are not his exact words because my memory is far from perfect, but that is the sense of what he said, and I agreed with him. If any of us knew any other one of us like God does, we would be horrified! But God sees us as we are, and He loves us anyway!
4. We need to know that the price for any and all sins we have committed is eternal death! Romans 6:23.
5. We need to know the average life-span of all human beings is seventy years. Psalm 90:10 says, “The length of our days is seventy years--or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
6. We need to know God made us to spend eternity in heaven with Him, but that He sets the guidelines of who does and who does not. Romans 10:9,10. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” BTW v 13 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ill. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, and one thief said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus said, (my ts) “Amen! Today, I say to you, you with me will be in the paradise!” (Note “the.” Jesus spoke of God’s specific paradise, not just a nice garden somewhere!)
7. John 5:24 says, Amen! Amen! I say unto you that whoever hears my word and believes on the One Who sent me, has eternal life, and shall not ever be condemned, but is immediately passed from death to life! (my paraphrase)
6. We need to be saved because we sin, Jesus died to pay for our sins, and the way to heaven is open for you right now!

III. Now let’s answer our question.

1. Yes, God cares about every one of us. He loves us like no one in this world can love! Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father.” (Mt 10:29, Gk for last three words)
2. God created you, and He loves you like no other can!
3. All that we know about God is also about us.
(1) He loves us!
(2) He provides life for us!
(3) He wants to adopt us as His Own children! (And He has already done that for all of us who already trust Jesus! Romans 8: 16,17 tells us, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” [Notice that “the?” We aren’t just someone related to God! We are THE children.])
4. Ephesians 1:13, 14, “We are sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” (God’s Spirit will never leave us until He delivers us into the presence of the Heavenly Father!
5. The question we started with today was: “Is God interested in you?” Let’s answer it directly. YES! He sent His Son Jesus to die in your place for your sins! Doesn’t that tell you how much He cares for you?
(2) Let’s ask another question, Will God save you? The answer is...Yes! He will save you no matter what you’ve done! or what you are doing!
(3) Let’s consider still another question, What if I sin again? Will I be lost? Will I have to be saved again?
The answer is NO! Surely you can’t believe that God would send His Own Son to die for your sins, and then say that wasn’t enough, can you? You can’t possibly believe that God will go back on His Word when He says you’ve met His conditions and you are saved, can you?
6. Listen, people! The most serious thing you’ve ever thought about is what we are talking about right now. Our Great, Almighty, Heavenly Father offers to adopt you as His Own child!
7. Accept Him as your Father! Accept Jesus as your Savior! Let God the Holy Spirit come into your life and seal your life so that you cannot go anywhere when you die, except to God Himself?

Invitation:
1. Let’s pray! We are going to invite you to publicly accept Christ as your Lord and Savior during our invitation song today. Let’s pray about that now.

Emmanuel Community Church 4/17/2005

Glory! Glory! Glory! by John

Glory! Glory! Glory!
John 17:1-10
1. I have a hard question for you, Christians! What do you do - what do you say - How do you live - That causes people to say from their hearts, “Praise the Lord!”
2. Did you know that the basic meaning of the word “Glory” signifies an opinion, estimate, and hence the honour resulting from a good opinion?” (quoted from Vines).
3. When God revealed Himself to the Israelites in the O.T., His glory shown to the people was called in Hebrew, “kabode!” It meant light so bright that a human being was in danger of death if he even saw it.
(1) There are a number of words ts glory, but this one is used often to describe the visual glory of the Lord.
(2) The glorious character of the Lord involves His revelation of Himself through His acts, His Person and particularly through His Son Jesus.
4. When people see what you do, hear what you say and see how you live, and they say, “Praise the Lord!” That’s great! God has revealed Himself through you, and you are bringing glory to God as you should!
5. Let’s examine glory as best we can. There are several kinds, or sources of glory.

I. First, God is already glorious.

1. He walked and talked with people in the early days of the human race. (It doesn’t make any difference whether that was 4,000 years ago, or 75,000 years ago. He did it! And that makes the difference.
(1) During that time, Adam, Eve, Cain, Seth and Enoch were among those first people who walked and talked with God.
(2) Later Abraham talked with God, and Lot was saved from destruction in Sodom by the angel of God!
(3) In Exodus, Moses met God at the burning bush and had nightly conferences with the Lord before the people of Israel were freed from Egypt.
2. Through all of these times, it is evident that God’s power was never even tested! He always was prepared, and He always accomplished exactly what He intended!
3. On the way to the Red Sea, God appeared lighting the way for the Israelites, and at the same time He appeared shrouding the Egyptians and made them wish they had never even heard of Him.
4. At the Red Sea God made the impossible possible for the Israelites, and He made the possible impossible for the Egyptians.
5. God has always been glorious, and He always will be!

II. God is glorified by others.

1. In Jn 17:5, Jesus says He glorified the Father by His obedient accomplishment of His Father’s will.
2. John 15:8 says, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” So we glorify the Father by trusting the Son and following Him!
3. All creation glorifies God Who spoke it into being! That’s true even of His enemies! We see them either changed, or utterly destroyed, and that too, is glorious!

III. Jesus, the Son, is glorified.

1. In Jn 17:5 Jesus glorified the Father, and now He asks that the Father glorify Him with the glory He had before the world began! And I want you to note that an integral part of that glory is the Son’s presence with His Father!
2. All of us who follow Jesus glorify Him!
3. God’s Spirit of Truth glorifies the Son, too. He does it by taking knowledge from Jesus and giving it to us! That glorifies God the Son! How does that make you feel about Bible study and preaching? It should help you see just how valuable it is!
4. Jesus is already glorified, and He is being glorified right now by every one of you who follow Him! Jn 17:24.

IV. We are being glorified. Too.

1. You should have already realized that God’s glory preceded our creation, and Jesus shared that glory with His Father.
2. I always thought of glory as that bright physically active light that the Israelites saw at Mount Sinai, but that is like looking at the tip of an iceberg without realizing that there is far more ice under water than on top!
3. As far as we are concerned, we are glorified by God’s gift of adoption.
(1) We are saved by the shed blood of His Son Jesus Who died for our sins! Who arose to give us life eternal!
(2) He made us the children of God, sons and daughters!
(3) The Father sent His Spirit to seal us to the day of redemption, to guide us into the deepest truths and to be with us so that we never are alone!
(4) We are also glorified when we glorify Jesus! Because it is God’s Spirit within us that does all the work!
(5) Hoyt Lemon, when he was pastor of First Southern Baptist in Arkansas City, KS, told of being in a home for a meal. It was so dirty that he could not eat. The milk was fresh from the cow and cold, so he just drank that. His hostess offered to get him some more, and he told her to keep her seat, and he would go get it himself. In the fridge was a huge pan of milk with a dipper, and several dead flies floating around in it! He thought that was horrible, but I thought it was a good illustration: Most people think that in heaven we will be like those flies, and of no value! Just little black specks in the pure presence of our Father! But we won’t be! We are already inhabited by His Spirit. We are His messengers now! We are already washed white as driven snow! We are already sons and daughters of God! We will be completely glorified in glory! Amen?
4. Christians, we have nothing to fear when we get there, and we have nothing to fear now!
5. That means we should visualize ourselves as we are, the children of God!
6. It means we should live glorified lives on earth, and that we should actively seek to glorify our Father and our Savior by the way we live, by what we do, by what we say, and by who we appear to be to other people!

Conclusion:

1. Our first responsibility in life is to seek forgiveness for our sins and be saved by Jesus!
2. Our second is to lead others to do the same thing!
3. Our third is to so live that other people will glorify God because of us!
4. Have you trusted Jesus?
5. Are you leading others to Him?
6. Does your life show others that you believe in and belong to God?

ECC 4/10/2005

How Long, How Long? (JamesBS09, by John

HOW LONG, HOW LONG? (JamesBS09)
James 5: 1-20

1. Have you ever done a day’s work expecting to be paid at the end, only to find the boss wasn’t there to do it?
(1) This portion of James opens with a statement about men who became rich by sinful means.
(2) They got rich by not keeping their words. They thrived on other people’s poverty and need!
(3) We think this present time is the only time in history when such things happened. It’s not.
2. James says if you get rich like that, your riches rot, get moth-eaten and rust.
(1) On top of that, they don’t just disappear.
(2) They become a witness to God against you!
3. By the way, some people say the Bible can’t be true because only iron rusts, gold and silver don’t, and our text says they do!
(1) In our language that is true, but remember this was translated from Greek.
(2) As nearly as I can translate vv.2,3, they say, “Your riches have putrefied and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have been poisoned, and their venom will eat your flesh as fire.” (Vines: rust).
(3) The little word ios is used in v 3 in two forms. Counting both forms, it is used only four times in the NT.
(4) In Romans 3:13 can you imagine Paul quoting from Psalm 140: 3 saying, “The rust of asps is under their lips.”
(5) Can you imagine James 3:8 saying, “But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly rust.” (That’s why I used poisoned and venom!)
4. The kind of churlish treatment given by undeservedly rich bosses, rulers, or government causes all of us to cry out How Long, How Long?
5. James answers that with four definite injunctions.

I. BE PATIENT.

1. Jame’s word here is makrothumos, which means long wrath, or long fierceness.
(1) It does not mean that we are to be passive.
(2) It doesn’t mean “que sera sera” or “kismet,” or “It’s fate!
(3) It does mean, don’t lose hope; Don’t give up! Do wait for God to work!
2. James illustrates this with the farmer planting seed.
(1) He plows, plants, waits for the rains, cultivates, and in due time, the right time, he harvests!
(2) There is nothing weak or namdy-pamdy about that kind of patience!
3. We have every reason to expect a harvest for our willing, expectant waiting.
(1) God keeps His promises.
(2) He has given us many injunctions, but one stands out above all the rest right here, and that’s the second of the four injunctions.

II. LOOK EXPECTANTLY TO THE PAROUSIA OF THE LORD!

1. Jesus is coming again!
2. My wife was reading the Commission magazine about all the trouble people are having in South Africa. She said, “Nobody can tell me we aren’t already in the tribulation!”
3. You may disagree with her about the last days, but you have to agree that the Bible says Jesus is coming again, and we are to be watching expectantly for Him!
4. It also says, and James says here, He’s coming soon!
5. When He comes, He will judge the world!
(1) Remember 4:12 says, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy.”
6. The third injunction is:

III. PRACTICE PERSONAL PIETY.

1. Knowing His judgment of all mankind is near, we must not complain against one another!
2. We need to take the prophets as our example. They showed us how to bear suffering and to wait as long as necessary for God to vindicate them!
3. Job was one of those prophets, and although he lost a lot, God blessed Him with much more! We can safely expect the same kind of mercy and compassion from the Lord. He never changes!
4. We should let our yeses and noes stand by themselves without any kind of swearing! (Isn’t it a shame we live in an age when only a man’s signature is his bond? And that’s no good either if he can afford a good lawyer!)
5. Piety is not wearing a holy face. It’s not bowing and scaping. It is being obedient to the Lord! Treating our brethren with love and compassion. Patterning our lives after the prophets. Making our word our bond! And keeping our language clean!
6. The fourth injunction is:

IV. PRAY OFTEN!

1. When I first began to pray on my own, I couldn’t see how anyone could pray for an hour, much less four hours like Suzanna Wesley did every day!
2. I still think long prayers are like long sermons. They are no good if they are actually short ones stretched out!
3. We should pray a lot of long prayers full of meaty things.
(1) James says we should pray about our suffering and the suffering of other brethren.
(2) He also says we should sing praises to God when we are cheerful! (That’s praying, too.)
(3) We are to call for prayer when we are sick, and we are to pray for others when they are sick!
a. A prayer of faith will raise the sick up.
b. If he has committed sins, they will be forgiven. (That means a person will change while we are praying for him!)
c. We are to confess our sins to one another (in God’s hearing, I think).
d. Spiritual healing will certainly occur and physical healing may occur also.
e. We should pray for spiritual changes in our physical world and nation!
aa. That’s what Elijah did.
bb. We should, too.
f. All in the same breath, James talks about the blessedness of turning a stray back into the right path. I take it that means we are to pray for the right things to say to people! I do that all the time!
4. I don’t think we have any idea just what great power God has given us in prayer! But James just gave us six things we can utilize that will prove that power!

CONCLUSION:

1. There are, and always will be, people who have some control over us. They may treat us unjustly. Whenever we are persecuted, we’ll wonder How long! How long do I have to keep on like this?
2. The answers are:
(1) Have patience, Jesus is coming.
(2) He will judge the world!
(3) Live a pious life patterned after the prophets.
(4) Keep in constant touch with the Lord through prayer.
(5) Don’t even think about giving up!
3. Be a positive influence on the lives of other people about you. Turn strays back into the path of righteousness!
4. Of course, you have to know Jesus, or none of these things will be possible. Do you know Him?

Emmanuel 2/22/1987
Emmanuel 11/6/1988 (Only used intro.)
ECC 4/3/2005

Easter 2005

Easter March 27, 2005
John 20:1-31 (read as a Scripture lesson during song service.)

1. If you read all four accounts of the resurrection, you will find some very pointed differences. Unbelievers are satisfied that they contradict each other, and that they prove the Bible is unreliable.
2. Let me give you two things to consider.
(1) If you have a group of people look on almost any scene and then let each individual tell you what they saw, you will get the same kind of variety that appears here in these four reports.
(2) That does not point to their inaccuracy, but rather to their reality! It gives you a much fuller picture.
(3) Don’t you know that if Christians, during the 2000 plus years that have passed, thought this was a contradiction, someone would have tried to change what the Bible says?
3. No one has tried because all of us recognize the fine, exact hand of the Lord our God in what is said in these four accounts.
4. The important facts of the resurrection are:
(1) Jesus, the sinless Son of God, allowed Himself to die at the hands of sinful men.
(2) He died to make atonement for our sins so that we can be one with our Heavenly Father.
(3) He tasted death so that we would never have to face it ourselves.
(4) On the first day of the week, He arose and opened the way for every one of us to also rise! We have eternal life because He gives it to us without charge!
5. I want us to look at several things concerning the resurrection we may not have thought about, but which we certainly should think about and know!

I. Jesus’ purpose in coming to earth was to give us life.

1. Jesus told the Pharisees and His disciples; “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” That was His purpose for living among men for 33 years!
2. Let’s look back at 9:40,41 to see who He was talking to (the Pharisees).
(1) They knew they were already alive! But I believe they understood Jesus.
(2) They knew He was talking about eternity. They already had physical life, and they were aware physical life was not enough to satisfy any man, woman, or child!
3. Remember when Lazarus died, Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:25,26)
4. What did He mean?
(1) He meant that Lazarus, who had been dead three days, was about to walk out of his grave alive!
(2) He meant that if Martha believed in Him, and she was alive, that she would never die!
(3) Jesus came to give life, and He gave it to believers who were already physically dead, and to believers still alive, and to believers yet to be born!
(4) Jesus was talking about both earthly life and eternal life! I hope you have both! Do you?
5. Before we are finished here today, I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to allow Jesus to fulfill His purpose in coming to earth.
6. He wants to give you eternal life, and He will!

II. There were things Jesus had to do before He died.

1. He had to be born without sin. Many, many theologians have concluded that was the reason He had no earthly father. He would inherit original sin from a father.
2. I personally believe He had no earthly father because God wanted to be sure that that there would be absolutely no reason for anyone to doubt that Jesus was His only begotten Son!
3. Jesus had to face Satan and prove to be sinless! And He did.
4. Jesus had to give the Jews every opportunity to change their ways, to see that they had taken a wrong turn, and to give them their promised Messiah. He did that. They as a nation failed the test. John told us in 1:12 that to all those who even believed on His name, “he gave the right to become children of God.”
5. He had to share His gift of salvation with all people, not just Israelites.

III. His death took away believer’s sins. His resurrection opened the way to eternal life.

1. There are five strong arguments as to how Jesus’ death took care of all sinners’ sins. We don’t need to consider any of them right now. We just need to know that His death took care of our sins.
2. I cannot say that we receive eternal life automatically.
(1) Our part is to admit to God that we have sinned in the past, and we are presently sinners.
(2) Then we must give ourselves into the loving hands of Jesus! God does it all, but we must come to Him!
3. Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote in Ephesians 2:8-10, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
4. I Corinthians 15:20 says, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Jesus became the first one from earth to enter heaven under the New Covenant because death could not hold the Son of God.
5. He opened the way for us!
(1) That was what the tearing in two of the veil in the temple meant. The Holy of Holies is open now to everyone who believes in Jesus and meets God’s conditions to become His child!
(2) Heaven is the next stop for every child of God who leaves this earth!
6. I promised I would tell you exactly what you need to do to allow Jesus to fulfill His purpose in your life.

Conclusion:

1. He has already done everything needed to take you to heaven.
2. Now it’s a matter of your wanting to go there enough to give you life into His keeping.
3. The process is simple:
(1) You need to realize you have sinned and are a sinner now.
(2) Next you tell Jesus you are a sinner and ask His forgiveness.
(3) Next you accept Him as the Lord of your life, and the moment you do, He will become your Savior.
4. Are you ready to do that? Jesus arose from the dead to show us the truth about life! He ascended into heaven and assumed His rightful place with His Father. From there He intercedes for us when Satan accuses us. I can picture in my mind the Lord Jesus saying, “Father, John House is a sinner, but He trusted me for His salvation, and I gave it to Him.” And I know the Father will receive me to Himself just like He has all the Christians that have gone on before me. You will have that same assurance when you give yourself to Jesus.

Pray with me...

Emmanuel, 3/27/2005