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Clyde Raynard - April 27, 2025 - The Glory of His Grace - Ephesians 1:4-6 Part 1 of Ephesians – What your calling is. (Who you are in Christ) Our Motivation for A Worthy Walk – Ch 1-3 Part 2 of Ephesians – How to Walk Worthy. (Walking as Christ would walk) The Manner of A Worthy Walk – Ch 4-6 Our Motivation for A Worthy Walk The Father's Plan 1:1-6 Verse 3 – To Bless Us (The Extensiveness of His Blessing) The Praiseworthy God - “Blessed” (eulogetos) Rev. 4:13-14 The Personal God - “God AND Father…” John 20:17 The Prodigal God – EVERY spiritual Blessing Not “A” spiritual blessing Not “SOME” spiritual blessings Not “MANY” spiritual blessings But, EVERY spiritual blessing! In Christ (The Ground of His Blessing) The Father's Plan 1:1-6 2 Thes. 2:13 Acts 16:31 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10 John 3:16-18 Acts 17:39 Acts 20:20-21 We are saved by freely trusting Christ as our Saviour. John 6:37 Is it the Sovereignty of God at work, or the Free will of man? YES! Perplexing Things in The Bible – “By-Faith Understandings” aka: the IHNI File The Hypostatic Union of Christ The Trinity of God The Sovereignty of God and The Free Will of Man Simple Proof For Sovereignty and Free Will In Salvation Statements Reasons God Sovereignly chose us to be saved Eph 1:4, 1 Thess. 2:13, Etc. Sinners must trust Christ as Saviour Acts 16:31, John 3:16, Etc. God sovereignly chooses us AND we freely trust Him. GSS - God Says So Bug-Busters Choose a Side - (Sovereignty! or Free Will!) or Choose to Submit - Listen to God and believe ALL that He says. (Even if you can't fully explain or understand it.) Does This Railroad Lead to Heaven God's “Railway to Heaven” runs on two tracks – His Sovereignty and our free will. Eliminate or emphasize either one and you have a train wreck Ephesians 1:4 “…just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” What did God do? “…He Chose us…”! When did He do this? “…before the foundation of the world…” Why did He do this? “…that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”
When God created Adam, he didn't place him in the Garden of Eden for an extended vacation – No! God created A JOB for him. In Genesis 2 it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to WORK it and TAKE CARE of it… and the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them...” Of course, God could've easily named the animals He created, but instead He CHOSE to invite Adam into the work He was doing. In the same way, God has created a job for you, and has invited you to work TOGETHER with Him in it! Because when we work in partnership with God, our jobs become more than just hustle… they become holy. How can you invite God into your work today?
"He Chose... poorly." - Adam Kohlstrom by CSBC
Beskrivelse: Hvordan kan man inkludere Jesus som en del af hverdagen? Hvad er pointen med kirken?? Er man en 'dårlig kristen', hvis man ikke går i kirke eller læse i Bibelen eller sådan noget? Vi begynder samtalen her. Medvirkende: Maysie Keye (afd.-leder for Teens) og Heidi Axelsen (bestyrelsesformand i SABUS).AnbefalingerBøger: The Life You've Always Wanted – John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk On Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat – John Ortberg, Seeing Through New Eyes – Ty Gibson, He Chose the Nails – Max Lucado, Decisive Encounters – Roberto Badenas, Mere Christianity – C.S Lewis, The Table I Long For – Shawn Brace, Practicing The Way – John Mark Comer, What We Believe - Seth J Pierce Forfattere: John Ortberg, Joyce Meyer, Max Lucado, Brené Brown, Timothy Keller, Liz Curtis Higgs, Phillip Yancey, Ann Voskamp, C.S Lewis, Mark Finley, Morris Venden, David Asscherick, Ty Gibson, Shawn Brace, Nathan Brown, John Mark Comer, Pavel Goia, Seth J Pierce Film: War Room, Courageous, God's Not Dead 1, 2, 3, 4, I Can Only Imagine, Overcomer, Soul Surfer, One Night With the King, The Star, The Prince of Egypt, Joseph the King of Dreams Serier: The Chosen Podcast: Bible Books in 30 mins, Practicing The Way – John Mark Comer App: Storyline
For believers in Yeshua who observe the Shabbat, we are reminded frequently…make that every week…that most of the world has not chosen to honor the Seventh Day as His chosen day. For many, they've simply not been taught about it. For others, they've been taught incorrectly. For others, they know, and they don't choose to honor it. It's a matter of choice. Our choices reflect both what we 1) understand and/or 2) prefer In the internet age, we are harassed multiple times per day to “rate” a product or a service. With a greedy disregard for the value of a purchaser's time, the vendor expects to take a minute, five minutes, or even longer, for the purchaser to fill out surveys and questionnaires on preferences in order to help the seller adjust products and selling techniques to make more money. Shouldn't they be paying us? I don't work for free in my secular job, only in ministry. You probably don't either. There is rarely an offer of more than a trinket of thanks in return for our valuable time, but sometimes we give it to them because we are flattered that someone would want to know what we think or we have an opportunity to vent even though a real human being is not likely to see or care what we write. In that sense, the business takes our money, takes uncompensated time, and then largely ignores the specific concern and buries it in a mass of number data. What a deal! The process depends upon what we choose. Why did we choose that product? That company? That day? That salesperson? Now here's the question: Because we chose that particular product from that particular company on that particular day from that particular salesperson, does it mean we HATED every other choice? Of course not. We simply did our shopping and research (hopefully), and we preferred one over the others. Choice. We found the right thing for us personally. Unfortunately, many approach Shabbat and the Word with a similar mindset. They see it as a personal choice of what best suits them rather than a process of learning what their Creator has chosen and mirroring His choices. Esau is a great example of one who knew what to do, yet chose differently. This is why Esau, Edom, “The Red One” represents the untamed appetites of the soul: appetite, emotion, desire, and intellect. It is a tremendous life force designed by the Creator, yet in its design, the spirit of a man was chosen to rule over it. It doesn't mean Elohim hates the soul in an emotional sense: quite the contrary! He loves us so much that He sent His Son to save our rowdy souls. The spirit of a man comes from above, from Elohim Himself. He wants that Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) to rule over the soul. He CHOSE that modality. • The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob's brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” (Mal 1:1-3) It can be confusing when reading Scripture to understand being “chosen.” In context, it can simply mean preferring one over the other, not hating the one who was not chosen. Because we associate hate with an extreme emotion, we lose the grasp that what is chosen is loved in the sense of preference and precedence in certain matters, and what is hated is what is ranked beneath it in certain mattters. In our culture, we rarely use “hate” if the feeling of loathing and disgust is not attached to it. Herein lies the problem. The human experience is only a parable of reality, which is found in our Creator. Our experience of emotion, desire, and intellect only mirrors His, but His is perfect. When we see love and hate only as strong emotions, then we can miss the nuances of Scripture where He is teaching us the importance of good choice...
When God created Adam, he didn't place him in the Garden of Eden for an extended vacation – No! God created A JOB for him. In Genesis 2 it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to WORK it and TAKE CARE of it… and the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them...” Of course, God could've easily named the animals He created, but instead He CHOSE to invite Adam into the work He was doing. In the same way, God has created a job for you, and has invited you to work TOGETHER with Him in it! Because when we work in partnership with God, our jobs become more than just hustle… they become holy. How can you invite God into your work today?
(Bilingual) このメッセージではモンティー牧師が「クリスマス：神様の完全な計画 」について以下の３つのポイントから話します。In this message Ps Monty talks about ”Christmas: God's master plan” in these 3 points:1. 王であったにもか関わらず、謙遜な始まりを選んでくれたAlthough He was King, He Chose a Humble Beginning 2. 全ての人たちのためのお祝いThe Celebration was for all People3.彼は成長し、私のために十字架にかかってくれたHe Grew Up and Went to the Cross for Me. Connect with us:Web: mylifehouse.comInstagram: instagram.com/lifehouseglobal/Facebook: facebook.com/lifehouseglobalVideo Messages: ビデオメッセージ: youtube.com/LifehouseTokyoOther Podcasts:Want to listen to our messages in other languages?Lifehouse Messages (English): https://lifehousemessages.captivate.fm/listenLifehouse Hong Kong (Cantonese & English): https://lifehousehongkong.captivate.fm/listen
Often we hide what we are struggling with, and hidden illnesses like anxiety, depression, migraines, Hashimoto's and Fibromyalgia are not easily seen by others. As Moms, we tend to believe we are letting our families down when we aren't the “perfect” mom. In Today's conversation with author, speaker and pastors wife, Dena Dyer we uncover how her chronic illness exposed her mask of self sufficiency. How she has removed that mask, surrendered to God's will for her life and allowed His truth to remind her He CHOSE her as the Mom to her boys. He has chosen YOU! To Connect with Dena: Website: Website~Instagram ~ Facebook New Book: 5-Minute Bible Study Connect with Courtney: Website~Instagram~Facebook
LFHHM Sunday Broadcast, “HE Chose to Pay the Price .” Thank you for joining Sister Ann Moals and the Laborer's for HIS Harvest Ministries friends. Don't forget to visit our website for great discipleship resources at www.lfhhm.org. Prayer for Salvation Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55IF3uAd2nY Featured references: Genesis 3:1-24, Luke 24:36-53 “Road to Salvation” Pamphlet – https://www.laborersforhisharvest.org/discipleship-resources.html Donate your love gift. - https://www.laborersforhisharvest.org/donate.html
As we celebrate Holy Week, let's remember together with joy the provision of our Good Shepherd, who voluntarily sacrificed His life on earth simply out of love for us. (John 10:11-21) **** Welcome to Walking in the Word, the biblical teaching arm of the Women World Leaders podcast. My name is Julie Jenkins and I am so glad you have joined us today as we delve into scripture together. As I record this, it is Holy Week – the week that Christians all over the world intentionally remember, commemorate, and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All that we are, our lives, and our futures are owed to God's amazing grace and the events we celebrate this week. As I grow, definitely older and hopefully wiser, I become more in awe of Jesus' death and resurrection and all that they mean for us. I pray that you intentionally take the opportunity this week to reflect on where you are in your walk with Jesus. I pray that you ask Him what He wants you to learn today. I say “today,” because, in this life, it is simply impossible for us to learn and know everything about God. But when we ask Him to show us what He wants us to learn today, we can trust that He will guide us – and give us the nuggets of wisdom that we need to live a productive and joyful life for Him. Because you are listening to this podcast, it is clear that you are listening to God. You are willingly working to grow in Him and follow Him obediently. And I want to share a feeling I have deep in my heart that He wants you to know right now: your efforts are making your God smile. He knows your days are not always easy. He knows it isn't always convenient for you to still your thoughts and focus on Him. He sees you. He loves you. And He is cheering you on. So even as you reflect this week on Jesus, know that you are in the forefront of HIS mind at EVERY moment! You don't have to take my word for it…because He tells us this Himself in the Bible. Today's teaching comes from John, chapter 10, verses 11-21. As we study together, I know you will get a deeper understanding of what it means to be a sheep under the care of THE good Shepherd. Before we dive in, let's pray… Dear Most Holy God, thank you doesn't ever seem enough, but it especially doesn't seem enough during this – the holiest of weeks. We offer you full reign over our spirits as we take time out to intentionally hear from you as we open your Word. Open our minds and hearts so that we may fully understand what you want us to know today. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Last week as we studied together, Jesus declared Himself the gate. This was in reference to the then widely understood care of sheep. The person who acted as a gate in the sheepfold was fully in charge of allowing only the sheep's caretakers in and keeping the thieves and robbers out. We learned that Jesus, our gate, is our protector, always keeping watch over us. Jesus stands alert, ready to keep intruders from our lives. Our responsibility is to always turn to Him as our authoritative source. This teaching came on the heels of the Pharisees throwing the man Jesus had healed, the one who had been blind from birth, out of the temple for boldly speaking the truth about the man Jesus, who healed him, and declaring that Jesus must be from God because no one else could miraculously heal as He had. In today's teaching, we learn more about Jesus as He shares that not only is He the gate, but He is also THE Good Shepherd. Let's begin in John 10:11 from the New Living Translation: 11 “I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. 12 A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don't belong to him and he isn't their Shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. 13 The hired hand runs away because he's working only for the money and doesn't really care about the sheep. Jesus is the good Shepherd. The fact that He declares Himself THE Good Shepherd and not A Good Shepherd underscores that He is uniquely qualified and capable. There are no other shepherds like Him. And as He declares himself the GOOD Shephered…let's see what He means by using the word “good.” Of course, Jesus IS morally good…we know He never sinned. But good means so much more than that – it means that Jesus is the beautiful Shepherd; He possesses all we can imagine that is right for the job of protecting and caring for the sheep - He is loving, attentive, smart, powerful, and gracious. He is THE GOOD Shepherd, unlike any we have ever known or will ever know. Jesus contrasts Himself to a hired hand, who runs when he sees a wolf coming, abandoning the sheep as he looks out for himself. Can you relate? As Christians, we are all shepherds of someone – we all have sheep to lead. We may have children, lead ministries, or have others who look up to us in our personal life, on social media, or in our workplaces. Think about who you have been called to shepherd. Now…think about HOW you shepherd them. Are you willing to put YOUR life on the line for those you lead? I often hear people bail on their responsibilities, saying something like, “I don't get paid enough to do that.” Or, “When push comes to shove, I need to look out for number one.” I'm not here to cast judgment; if I were, I would be pointing the finger at myself. But when we think about it – who in their right mind gives up EVERYTHING for the good of someone else? And, let's be clear, that OUR Shepherd, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, not only sacrifices for those who are sweet and kind and productive, but He sacrifices everything for ALL of us…no matter our demeanor, our sin, or our nasty attitude. Jesus, your Good Shepherd, counts you worth His while to give up everything. Yes…that makes Him unique. And that should humble and awe us. Jesus continues, saying not only will He ALWAYS be there to lead, guide, and protect us, but He always do this while FULLY RECOGNIZING who we are – faults and all…Verse 14… 14 “I am the good Shepherd; I know my own sheep, Jesus KNOWS you! And, yet, Jesus LOVES you! Intellectually, we understand the concept of unconditional love. But I don't think there is a human alive who can fully comprehend the depths of unconditional love. I love my husband and my kids, but there are days…okay…I won't go there. Suffice it to say, I am not spiritually mature enough to fully harness the power of love that God has gifted me. But I try every day. I confess every day. And I THANK God EVERY DAY that despite MY faults and intentional sin, He still hasn't given up on me. And He never will. He IS MY Good Shepherd. Jesus continues, and this next line gives me hope… I know my own sheep, and they know me, Jesus tells me that the longer I trust Him, hang around Him, and yield to Him…I will learn to know Him better! Praise God! Have you ever met someone you just really want to be like? My daughter is a fashionista. She dresses to the nines on a strict budget – I want to be like her. And do you know what? When I hang around her, I up my game. Kimberly Hobbs is one of the most gracious and loving people I know. And because I work with her day in and day out, I have learned to be more gracious and loving. When we spend time with others, we become more like them. And when we hang around with Jesus – THE GOOD Shepherd – we WILL come to know Him more and we will up our game – becoming more like Him. And if you thought THAT takeaway was thrilling…just listen to this next one…Jesus says… I know my own sheep, and they know me, 15 just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. Believer…Jesus knows you and promises that you will know Him JUST AS He knows God and God knows Him. Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit – are three peas in a pod! They are BFF's forever…and Jesus, seemingly nonchalantly, invites us to their party. Does that not blow you away?? AND…not only does Jesus invite you to His party…as the Good Shepherd…He will give HIS LIFE so that you can come!! …verse 15 So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. NOBODY made Jesus die. Yes, He was killed, but He could've jumped down from that cross at any moment. Jesus CHOSE to GIVE His life…as our Good Shepherd…so that we could be freed from the thieves and robbers – so that we can leave behind all the turmoil that sin causes us in our lives…so that we can strip off our dirty old clothes and put on robes of righteousness and enter into the greatest party ever – the one that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are hosting! And even though YOU will be the honored guest…you will REJOICE that ALL of the SHEEP that the Good Shepherd has called and who have responded…will ALSO be honored guests. Jesus says… 16 I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one Shepherd. Our good Shepherd – Jesus Christ – is gathering His sheep. He was as Jesus spoke these words in real time and He continues to today. He began with His sheep of Israel – His chosen nation. But then He proclaimed that there is only one flock – and He is the ONE, true Shepherd. There are indeed other sheep. Sheep who look different than us but have the same Shepherd we do. And if Jesus loves those sheep enough to die for THEM, is it too much to ask that we love them enough to work with them in unity? Let's reflect together on Jesus' next words… 17 “The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. 18 No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.” THAT is what we remember this Holy Week! Our Good Shepherd has offered us freedom by choosing to lay down His life. He alone has the authority and power to lay down His life and to take it back up again. Jesus CHOSE to die for you and me. He CHOSE to endure the pain and suffering so that we could be relieved of the eternal pain and suffering we are owed. Jesus was not a martyr, He died a death of substitution, so we wouldn't have to. We truly have a reason to celebrate and to fall on our knees in awe and thanks to our Good Shepherd. As you walk through this week, will you remember Jesus' sacrifice? Will you quiet your soul and block out the noise around you to listen to His voice? Will you strive to learn more about who He is? Will you strive to become more LIKE Him? Verse 19… 19 When he said these things, the people[a] were again divided in their opinions about him. 20 Some said, “He's demon possessed and out of his mind. Why listen to a man like that?” 21 Others said, “This doesn't sound like a man possessed by a demon! Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” Let's pray… Most Holy God…most loving Jesus…you alone can open the eyes of the blind. Yet you alone can do so much more. Thank you for opening our eyes just a little wider today. Thank you for allowing us to see a little more of your heart. God, we know that if we saw the whole scope of who you are, we would be struck dumb…we simply couldn't handle the glory! But despite the vast expanse between your glory and our dirty rags, you love us. Thank you for making a way for us where no other way was possible. Thank you for inviting us into your kingdom, to celebrate at YOUR party. Thank you for allowing us to know you so personally. We love you and we commit ourselves to growing more in your likeness every day. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
He Chose the Nails
Kingda Ka Matt 27:35-39 #Nightlight #RTTBROS So Jesus himself swung the hammer. The same hand that stilled the seas stills your guilt. The same hand that cleansed the Temple cleanses your heart. The hand is the hand of God. The nail is the nail of God. And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for you. Max Lucado, He Chose the Nails Our Podcast, Blog and YouTube Links https://linktr.ee/rttbros Be sure to Like, Share, Follow and subscribe it helps get the word out. RSS feed https://anchor.fm/s/127be410/podcast/rss https://linktr.ee/rttbros
He Chose the Nails
When God created Adam, he didn't place him in the Garden of Eden for an extended vacation – No! God created A JOB for him. In Genesis 2 it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to WORK it and TAKE CARE of it… and the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them...” Of course, God could've easily named the animals He created, but instead He CHOSE to invite Adam into the work He was doing. In the same way, God has created a job for you, and has invited you to work TOGETHER with Him in it! Because when we work in partnership with God, our jobs become more than just hustle… they become holy. How can you invite God into your work today?
Simon, a seasoned fisherman, was not doing it. He was not being successful. He was not catching anything. When Simon was Disengaged, Discouraged, Disappointed, Jesus chose…HE CHOSE…. to sit in Simon's boat. Jesus stepped in when Simon was at his lowest point. If we know we need to go out further and deeper, but everything we've tried is failing, we simply can't muster what it takes to do the next thing. We can't possibly gather enough courage to take another step to go out further and deeper to where the fish are. Stay Regular!
Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh North Sermons - Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh North
Introduction: When we're rocked by change, God steadies us because (James 1:17-18)... He is Good . (Jas 1:17a) Numbers 23:19 - "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind." Deuteronomy 32:4 - "The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he." He is Unchanging . (Jas 1:17b) Romans 8:28 - "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." When we're rocked by change, God steadies us because... He Chose you. (Jas 1:18) Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANKHint: Highlight blanks above for answers! Small Group DiscussionRead James 1:17-18What was your big take-away from this passage / message?How have you handled unexpected change in the past? How can you handle it in light of your relationship with Jesus?Why is it so important that we serve and know an unchanging God?What are some ways you can avoid being overwhelmed or anxious about change in life?BreakoutPray for one another.
Have you ever wondered why the cross of Christ is the symbol of our faith? In this episode, Max looks at the profound simplicity of the cross and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why the cross of Christ is the symbol of our faith? In this episode, Max looks at the profound simplicity of the cross and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why the cross of Christ is the symbol of our faith? In this episode, Max looks at the profound simplicity of the cross and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In the concluding measure of Jesus' earthly composition, we hear the sounds of a thirsty man. In this episode, Max looks at the final act of Christ's life and what it means for our relationship with him today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In the concluding measure of Jesus' earthly composition, we hear the sounds of a thirsty man. In this episode, Max looks at the final act of Christ's life and what it means for our relationship with him today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In the concluding measure of Jesus' earthly composition, we hear the sounds of a thirsty man. In this episode, Max looks at the final act of Christ's life and what it means for our relationship with him today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…"James 2:13This week we will be looking at the word that Pastor Louis Els shared on Resurrection Sunday on ‘Living Hope'.Firstly, it is important to call to remembrance what this significant weekend means for us as Christians. Without this weekend, we wouldn't have the freedom and victory we now have. But because of this weekend and what Jesus did for us on the cross, we can live with hope. We no longer need to be influenced by our circumstances or how we feel, but we can rely fully on Jesus, and through Him, we can receive the hope for tomorrow, the hope for the future, and we can be hope carriers. Secondly, we need to recognise that Jesus willingly, intentionally and lovingly, laid down His life. He CHOSE to do it - for YOU. We no longer have to live in bondage, fear, or confusion, but we can place our trust in Him. Finally, we need to check where we are getting our hope from and whether our lives are being influenced by it. Are we really placing our trust in God, or has it become a cliché or religious saying? We need to get to the place where we can acknowledge that we can't do it on our own, and fully surrender to Jesus. We need to allow Him, who is our stronghold of Hope, to shower us with mercy and grace. Do you find yourself saying that you trust God and believe, but still make your own plans?Are you having conversations in your head where the enemy is taking advantage of you?Are there any areas in your life that you need to surrender to God again?
Today's Battle Drill Devotional: The Cross is God's Promise to Love You Forever Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. (Matthew 27:50) Read Matthew 27:45-56. I continue to be perplexed by the fact that Christianity is symbolised by the cross, an instrument of execution. Can you imagine if our churches and corps had an electric chair on the wall at the front? Or if we wore a hangman's noose around our necks. Or maybe the representation of a gun in our logos? So why is the cross the symbol of our faith? Because it represents where God's love intersects with his holiness. The cross is where God's truth and justice meets his grace and mercy. By placing our sin on his Son, God was able to forgive us without lowering his standards. John tells us that God's love is wide enough to include the whole world (John 3:16). That includes you and me. But often we think there must be a limit to God's love. Surely it must end somewhere. But the Bible is full of people who hit rock bottom but never found the end of God's love. And neither will you. The cross proclaims that God will love you forever. No wonder they call today Good Friday! THINK IT OVER Think about the following: Have you ever felt you must have reached the limit of God's love for you? What happened? These devotionals rely heavily on the book, He Chose the Nails by Max Lucado. © 2000 Max Lucado. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
When God created Adam, he didn't place him in the Garden of Eden for an extended vacation – No! God created A JOB for him. In Genesis 2 it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to WORK it and TAKE CARE of it… and the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them...” Of course, God could've easily named the animals He created, but instead He CHOSE to invite Adam into the work He was doing. In the same way, God has created a job for you, and has invited you to work TOGETHER with Him in it! Because when we work in partnership with God, our jobs become more than just hustle… they become holy. How can you invite God into your work today? Inspired from - www.iwork4him.com/podcast/2019/2/entrepreneurship-for-the-kingdom
In this special Good Friday episode, Max reflects on the awful sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and remembers his love for us as well. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In this special Good Friday episode, Max reflects on the awful sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and remembers his love for us as well. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In this special Good Friday episode, Max reflects on the awful sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and remembers his love for us as well. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Spitting isn't intended to hurt the body, it's intended to degrade the soul. Who would draw pleasure from spitting on a half-dead man? In this episode, Max looks at this often overlooked moment during Jesus' crucifixion and how it applies to us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Spitting isn't intended to hurt the body, it's intended to degrade the soul. Who would draw pleasure from spitting on a half-dead man? In this episode, Max looks at this often overlooked moment during Jesus' crucifixion and how it applies to us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Spitting isn't intended to hurt the body, it's intended to degrade the soul. Who would draw pleasure from spitting on a half-dead man? In this episode, Max looks at this often overlooked moment during Jesus' crucifixion and how it applies to us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why the cross of Christ is the symbol of our faith? In this episode, Max looks at the profound simplicity of the cross and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why the cross of Christ is the symbol of our faith? In this episode, Max looks at the profound simplicity of the cross and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why the cross of Christ is the symbol of our faith? In this episode, Max looks at the profound simplicity of the cross and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In the concluding measure of Jesus' earthly composition, we hear the sounds of a thirsty man. In this episode, Max looks at the final act of Christ's life and what it means for our relationship with him today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In the concluding measure of Jesus' earthly composition, we hear the sounds of a thirsty man. In this episode, Max looks at the final act of Christ's life and what it means for our relationship with him today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In the concluding measure of Jesus' earthly composition, we hear the sounds of a thirsty man. In this episode, Max looks at the final act of Christ's life and what it means for our relationship with him today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
That which once separated you from God has now been removed. In this epsidode, Max looks at the promise given through Jesus' torn flesh. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
That which once separated you from God has now been removed. In this epsidode, Max looks at the promise given through Jesus' torn flesh. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
That which once separated you from God has now been removed. In this epsidode, Max looks at the promise given through Jesus' torn flesh. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Next week we'll return to some faith re-building topics such as sin, grace, and ecumenism but before we enter into the story of Jesus's death and resurrection this Triduum, let's take a look at our own stories, the below-the-surface things that we and God are writing together in the story of our souls. Here are some resources I hope will help you to know and understand your own story, and some that will help you enter into the Passion story of Jesus: 1. Journal or meditation prompts: If I could write a title for the chapter of life I'm currently on, what would it be called? What do my early chapters have to say about my story? If I were writing my autobiography, what would it be called? At the heart of it, just between me and Jesus, what are illustrative words that describe my story? As I consider the Passion of Jesus, where do I see myself in His story? 2. Story of a Soul: the Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux 3. Biblical account from the book of Matthew: Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection 4. He Chose the Nails, by Max Lucado 5. Good Friday: The Meaning of the Cross, a video by Fr. Mike Schmitz and Ascension Presents 6. The Story and Character, pieces I've written in past years on how to find yourself in the Passion Narrative. 7. How He Loves Us, cover by Sarah Reeves 8. Receiving the Passion story through a different lens is a good way to find yourself in it. For me, Jesus Christ Superstar can always help me do just that. 9. I Am Because You Are, by Amanda Lindsey Cook
In this episode, Max shares a beautiful message that comes through the robe Christ wore as he walked to the cross. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In this episode, Max shares a beautiful message that comes through the robe Christ wore as he walked to the cross. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
In this episode, Max shares a beautiful message that comes through the robe Christ wore as he walked to the cross. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why there were two crosses next to Christ? In this episode, Max looks at the crosses on each side of Jesus and shares how they are symbolic of one of God's greatest gifts to us. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why there were two crosses next to Christ? In this episode, Max looks at the crosses on each side of Jesus and shares how they are symbolic of one of God's greatest gifts to us. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Have you ever wondered why there were two crosses next to Christ? In this episode, Max looks at the crosses on each side of Jesus and shares how they are symbolic of one of God's greatest gifts to us. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
There is no language God will not speak. In this episode, Max looks at the ways in which you can hear from God amid the day-to-day drama of your life. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
There is no language God will not speak. In this episode, Max looks at the ways in which you can hear from God amid the day-to-day drama of your life. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
There is no language God will not speak. In this episode, Max looks at the ways in which you can hear from God amid the day-to-day drama of your life. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
The framer of our destiny knows that sometimes we miss the signs-perhaps that's why he gives us so many. In this episode, Max looks at a literal sign on the cross and what that means for those who read its words and understand its message. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
The framer of our destiny knows that sometimes we miss the signs-perhaps that's why he gives us so many. In this episode, Max looks at a literal sign on the cross and what that means for those who read its words and understand its message. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Between his hand and the wood, Jesus saw something being nailed to the cross that caused him to not resist. In this episode, Max helps us see through the eyes of Jesus as they nailed him to the cross-and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
Between his hand and the wood, Jesus saw something being nailed to the cross that caused him to not resist. In this episode, Max helps us see through the eyes of Jesus as they nailed him to the cross-and what it means for us today. For a deeper look at the hope we have because of the cross of Christ, Max's book 'He Chose the Nails' is available from your favorite online bookseller. To learn more, visit: MaxLucado.com
You did not Choose God; He CHOSE you! You did not Save yourself; He SAVED you! You do not Keep yourself; He KEEPS you! You are not Holding onto God; He is HOLDING you!
We have a Father like no other, but only “in Christ.” In Christ, He Chose and Predestined Us When did He choose and predestine us? Before the foundation of the world Before Genesis 1 Before Adam and Eve Before the Fall Before Abraham...
Wisdom Clinic: The Person And The Power Of Wisdom January 24, 2021 Session 3 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 – 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Ephesians 3:10 Christ; the Personification of Wisdom; the True Gate to God’s Wisdom. (Colossians 2:3) The Cross: God’s Wisdom and Power To draw us back to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:18) To “expunge our” sins from the record! (2 Corinthians 5:19) To break sin and the flesh and the devil’s rights over us, His Church! (Romans 6:3-14) Romans 5:10 How to Receive Admit, Profess “I Was There” (Romans 6:3ff; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1-3) Ask for Greater Revelation of His representation of me/you! He Saw me; He Loved me; He Chose me; He Called me; He Represents me! (Ephesians 1:3-7; Colossians 3:1-3) “We believe, therefore we speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13)
Weekly Challenge So in response to this message, and as noted within the message. Here are some applications to preparing for Easter: Lent in 2020 begins on February 26. Depending on what tradition you follow it is either 40 days or 46 days. The main reason and point of Lent is to prepare your heart for the Celebration of Easter, and to give more attention to the life, death and resurrection of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. There are so many ways to participate in the practice of Lent. Actively doing things helps to prepare your heart. Here are some ideas: Fasting from food, from a certain activity, or media activity in order to give more time to focus on prayer and reflection. Maybe fasting one day a week, or one meal a week or any variation. If fasting is new to you, don’t go all out, start small. Devotional & Bible Reading Guides to focus on the Easter Season Devotional guide from Pastor Curt Erb (at the Welcome Centre) or see attachment above. Find online many devotional guides that can be emailed daily to you. The Daily Bread Devotional is available at the Welcome Centre Reading one or two of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John): read one chapter per day. Reading some good books that talk about Jesus and his life, death and resurrection. Below is a small list of some good books. If you have read them before, maybe read them again. Max Lucado “No Wonder they call Him Savior” “He Chose the Nails” “Six Hours One Friday” “And the Angels Were Silent: The Final week of Jesus” Philip Yancey “The Jesus I Never Knew” Leith Anderson “Jesus: An Intimate Portrait” Watching some good movies on the Life of Christ The Jesus Film (1979) The Passion (with caution due to the graphic nature of movie. I do not recommend children nor Junior High students to watch at all.) Son of God (2014) Risen (2016) (some caution due to some violence) Be sure to check out our Church Library, there are many great books and movies, and especially for children. If you are not sure about any of the suggestions above, just give any of our pastors a call and we can help you. The point is being intentional about your relationship with Jesus, using this season. Here’s to Happy Easter!
Ephesians 1:3-6We have turned Christianity into a ME THING: I get to go to Heaven, I get to be with Jesus, I get to walk the streets of gold,I get to reunite with lost loved ones, etc. Our Faith is not about us and it is ALL about Him! He CHOSE us…in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be HOLY and BLAMELESS…before Him. You will note that all three Persons of the Godhead are involved in our salvation: As far as God the Father is concerned, salvation BEGAN when He chose you IN Christ BEFORE the Foundation of the world…but that alone did not save you; As far as God the Son is concerned, salvation was PURCHASED when He DIED on the cross and ROSE from the dead…but that alone did not save you; as far as God the Spirit is concerned, salvation is COMPLETED when you YEILD to His conviction and RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior. What BEGAN before the FOUNDATION of the WORLD was FULFILLED in time present, and WILL CONTINUE for all eternity and NOTHING….i repeat NOTHING…can separate you from the Love of God!
Ephesians 1:3-6 We have turned Christianity into a ME THING: I get to go to Heaven, I get to be with Jesus, I get to walk the streets of gold, I get to reunite with lost loved ones, etc. Our Faith is not about us and it is ALL about Him! He CHOSE us…in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be HOLY and BLAMELESS…before Him. You will note that all three Persons of the Godhead are involved in our salvation: As far as God the Father is concerned, salvation BEGAN when He chose you IN Christ BEFORE the Foundation of the world…but that alone did not save you; As far as God the Son is concerned, salvation was PURCHASED when He DIED on the cross and ROSE from the dead…but that alone did not save you; as far as God the Spirit is concerned, salvation is COMPLETED when you YEILD to His conviction and RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior. What BEGAN before the FOUNDATION of the WORLD was FULFILLED in time present, and WILL CONTINUE for all eternity and NOTHING….i repeat NOTHING…can separate you from the Love of God!
Two kingdoms are at war. FORTUNATELY, you're right in the middle of it. You know why? You're the manner by which God has CHOSEN to win that war. He CHOSE you. He loves you that much. He BELIEVES IN YOU that much. And if you believe in Him, and you love Him, obedience will follow. In John 14:15 when Jesus says "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," was He saying "if you love me, you better prove it by being obedient?" NO! Obedience naturally follows love. And it is in obedience that we win the war by the power of His love. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Enjoy this Good Friday message from Pastor Richard Ishmael entitled "He Chose a Cross". We know you will be encouraged! Please like, share and subscribe to our podcast. Also don't forget to visit us at www.ChurchCityUSA.com
He Chose the Nails series - Dr. Chris Kneen, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Dr. Chris Kneen, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Ryan Woodring, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Jacob Bear Juhnke, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Dr. Chris Kneen, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Ryan Woodring, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Dr. Chris Kneen, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Dr. Chris Kneen, speaker
He Chose the Nails series - Miranda Mueller, speaker
You can find encouragement in many different places and today ours comes from Melissa Johnson! Our very 1st guest is a veteran homeschool mom with over 24 years of experience. She helps us to remember that God is in control and that He CHOSE us to be the parents for our children. He is there to guide us and give us a helping hand whenever we simply ask. Homeschooling can be overwhelming, but as in all areas of life God will send people to encourage, uplift, and remind us of what is important. Laura and Tiffany gained a lot of insight and refreshment from Melissa this week and we hope you do too!
There will always be so many things vying for our time and attention. Solitude is not a popular concept these days but even Jesus "withdrew to lonely places," to pray. He knew where His strength came from and He CHOSE to spend time alone with God in prayer, plugged into His power source. Tune in to hear more about what it looks like to "Keep Choosing Him," by living with "Surrendered Time." Scripture for this message: Luke 4:42 Luke 5:15-16 Hebrews 12:2 Psalm 46:10
During Holy Week of this Lenten season, join us as we reflect on Jesus' final days on earth. Adapted from Max Lucado's book, He Chose the Nails, let us fall deeper in love with a Savior who so willingly died to set us free.
O GIVE thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has delivered from the hand of the enemy.(Psalm 107:1-2)PRAISE THE Lord! (Hallelujah!) O give thanks to the Lord, for He is Good; for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever! [I Chron. 16:34] (Psalm 106:1)Listen, God Knows you thoroughly and completely. He has examined your heart and know everything about you. He knows when I sit down or stand up. Be knows my thoughts even when I'm far away. He sees yiu when you travel and when you rest at home. He knows everything I you do. He knows what you are going to say even before you say it. He goes before you and follow you. He places His Hand of Blessing on your head. You can never escape from His Spirit! You Can Never get away from His Presence! (Psalms 139:1-5, 7)God is with you! He never leaves you nor for section, he will not, he will not, he will not in any way let you down, or lacks his hold on you. For you are His Workmanship created in Christ Jesus. He chose you before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love, knowing you would trust and believe in Jesus Christ his son. (Hebrews 13:5, Ephesians 2:10, Ephesians 1:6-8)In this world you many times question whether you should be transparent with people, whether they will look down on you when they come to know you or even reject you.I have Good News! God Who Sent His Son from Heaven to Earth to Die for You, and Further to Be Raised Again and Seated at His Own Right Hand, He Loves you. The God Who Created All Things Including ou, Loves you.There is never a reason to question, God's Great, Magnificent, Infinite, Transcending, and Indy Come Unconditional Love for you. Because even when you didn't love Him, He Loved you.This is REAL LOVE – not that you loved God, but that He loved you and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away your sins. (1 John 4:10)People may exalt themselves above you and look down on you or even reject you, but God came down to lift you up from the Marri Clay of the world's rejection, to be seated in the heavenly places with Him, by Virtue of You Being in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6).In This World around You May Sometimes Keep others at a safe distance, only disclosing the parts of yourself you think are acceptable. However, even though this way of interacting with others tends to feel safer, it leads to isolation and loneliness.God who created you, He knows you Fully and you can Completely Trust in Him, ask Him to Cause the Right People to Come across Your Path; Whom He Has Given a Heart of His True Love, to Love you and Accept you: Just the Way You Are. Then be thankful that God knows who you need and what you need in your life.God does not require you to be cleaned up acceptable in his side before He Loved You. God Chose to Love You in Your Worst Condition, so You Can Be an Example of His Greatest Goodness in the ages to come. (Ephesians 2:7)God sees you. There is nothing you can hide from Him! He Absolutely Knows Everything about you. And the Truth is there is NOTHING that can separate you from His Love. And there's nothing you can do to Earn His Love. (Romans 8:37, Ephesians 2:8-9)God Loves you! He formed your inward parts; hHe knitted you together in your mother's womb. So, Looked at Him and Confess and Praise Him for you are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Him.You Are His Workmanship created in Christ Jesus, whom He Chose to Be His Child. Your Frame Has Never Been Hidden from Him, for He Is the One Who Formed You in Secret and Intricately and Curiously Created You. His Eyes saw your substance still Unformed, and in his book All the Days of Your Life Were Written for Ever They Took Shape, When As yet There Was None of them.Oh how precious are God's Thoughts About you! How Vast the some of them! (Psalms 40:5) if you could count them, they would be more Vast and more in number than the sand; you can never count the end of them for all eternity. (Psalm 139:12-18)God is telling you that He is thinking about you all the time. God is a 24/7 God, he is always thinking about you think about how great love he has toward you that he thinks about you all the time.Yes, the LORD KEEPS you in His Thoughts All the Time. (Psalms 40:17) you have the benefit of knowing that God is thinking about you at this very moment… And he will enable you to do greater and mighty things then you can even, think, hope, ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)The truth is, there's nothing you can do to get God from thinking about you, because you are His – bought with the Blood of Jesus Christ – You Are Accepted and Treasured for Ever by God.You can approach God confidently as his dear child, knowing that he has a perfect understanding of you and everything that concerns you. You have boldness and access with confidence His Throne of Grace. So Tell Him Your Troubles Candidly; He Already Knows about the. And You Will Find That He Will Give You Mercy for Your Failures, and Good Help in His Perfect Timing by His Grace. (Hebrews 4:16)
God has a Blueprint, a pattern of God for you Life. God takes your former life and redeems it to use for His purposes, just as He planned before the beginning of the world. God in His great love for you, He Chose you for Himself as his own in Christ Jesus before the foundation the world, that you should be holy and consecrated and set apart for Him, and Blameless in His Sight, Even above Reproach, before Him in Love.Yes God Created and Purposed You from the Beginning to Be What You Would Become. He Planned in Love for You to Be Adopted, Revealed As His Own Child through Christ Jesus, in Accordance with the Purpose of His Will, Because It Pleased Him It Was His Kind Intention to Do so. He did this that you might be the praise of His Glorious Grace, Favor and Mercy; Which He so freely bestowed upon you in Christ Jesus his beloved son. (Ephesians 1:4-6) So when God selected an old shepherd tending his flock by a mountain and saw a desert Bush on fire, which did not burn. God would use that shepherd named Moses, to become the shepherd of the children of Israel, the shepherd of God's sheep,. God would use him to Shepard the flock of Israel through the same wilderness. You see the same pattern when Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, when he noticed two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, throwing a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, Come after Me, be My disciples–letting Me be your Guide, follow Me. And going on further from there He noticed two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets and putting them right; and He called them. At once they left the boat and their father and joined Jesus as disciples sided with His party and followed Him. (Matthew 4:18-22) When Jesus called them they were fishermen were casting their nets into the water, having no idea that they would be no one-day be known as some of the most famous and influential people who ever walked the earth… The disciples left their nets and became His disciples, sided with His party and followed Him. The fishermen were Peter and Andrew his brother, and two other brothers James and John the sons of Zebedee in the former lives. Just as God had planned, that they were to become fishers of men. Each of these former lives corresponded with their reading lives. And so it is for all of God's children. And so it is for you!When you look back at your life, you will find that God has imprinted the purpose of your redeemed life in your former life. Just as you find Moses in the wilderness and fishermen casting their net and in the boat; you will find that God has embedded the seeds of his purposes in you from the beginning to be used for his glory.God is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end he sees all things at the same time. He didn't discover your life then decide what he would use it for. He built into the bands, the abilities and talents need to for feel your redeemed life to glorify God just as he had purposed from the beginning as you would one day become.When you look back you will find that your life is a shadow of what you will become, who God has made you to be. For you are God's Own handiwork, His workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew of the Spirit of God that you may do those good works which God planned beforehand for you, taking pass which he prepared ahead of time, that you should walk in them living the good life which he prearranged and made ready for you to live. (Ephesians 2:10)But when He, Who had chosen and set me apart even before I was born and had called me by His grace, His undeserved favor and blessing, saw fit and was pleased [Isa. 49:1; Jer. 1:5]Galatians 1:15 Just ad the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, Before I formed you in the womb I knew and] approved of you as My chosen instrument, and before you were born I separated and set you apart, consecrating you; and I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. [Exod. 33:12; Isa. 49:1, 5; Rom. 8:29] (Jeremiah 1:4-5)God has came and made His home in you, as a born again child of the Living God. Your body is the Temple of the Living God. (2 Corinthians 6:16)When you commit your way to the Lord, rolling off and handed him each care of your burdens on him; trusting in him and relying on him and being confident, that he who began a good work in you will continue l it until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, developing that good work and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.Philippians 1:6 . (Psalm 37:5, Philippians 1:6)And your life will become that of a shepherd who became a deliver, a fisherman became an apostle… All that you were created and called and informed to become, God planned from the beginning.Look back at your life. See what God has been preparing you for and has plans for you to. Asking right now Lord what steps would you have me to take today differ feel all that you have called me to be in Jesus Name. Amen
Shawn Stevenson, host of The Model Health podcast said, "In the lab, they found anti-depressants in the New York City water system." Anti-depressants! Ok, no problem. I'll drink tap water. Save on therapy costs. In NYC everyone has to go to therapy. It's a requirement. "This week my therapist said..." "There's also these other chemicals in water.." and he was about to list them for me. "No no no," I said. "Shhhh!" I put my hands on my ears. "I'm good. Don't need to know more." Shawn is obsessed with health. Every week he interviews the best people in the world on health. He's interviewed hundreds. And now I get to ask him for this BEST advice. Don't abuse what he tells you, James! Shawn was 200lbs overweight. He could barely get from room to room before collapsing with exhaustion and pain. He was diagnosed with an incurable spinal condition called degenerative disc disease. His spine was deteriorating to nothing. The way an old person leans over and over until they collapse dead. "You have the spine of an 80 year old," the doctor told him. "The doctors told me to wear a back brace. I kept getting worse. The doctors kept telling me nothing could be done. I was losing hope. Losing the will to live." So he chose himself. He CHOSE his health. He studied every aspect of health. He created the #1 podcast on health, The Model Health Show. He read everything he could. He changed his diet. His doctors told him don't bother. He exercised. His doctors said it won't help. "You're going to die of this." --- When he came on my podcast, he looked like a man in perfect health. He was muscular, glowed with health, had energy. He was something maybe I will never say. "I'm feeling great every day," he told me. And then he started dropping the most amazing health tips on me. I felt overwhelmed. Do I have the discipline to do all of this? I've had many health experts on my podcast. If you don't have physical health, it's 1000 times harder to be a success. The body feeds the mind and the heart. The body reduces stress. The body contains the basics for everything you want to do in life. You are alive in your whole body. Not just your brain. Not just in your bank account. The entire body has to be nourished and loved. For some strange reason he asked me to be on his show as well. I was really grateful he wanted to talk to me about how my own lifestyle improved my health. But more importantly, he came on my show and I was able to drill HIM with questions. Not that all doctors are bad. But I couldn't believe some of the things Shawn had to tell me. I list some of them on this infographic. I already thought I knew things about sleep, water, movement, exercise. I thought I already knew things about how health worked. About how health led to success. But he broke it down one step further. I needed that. I now live by it (we actually recorded this podcast about two months ago) and the results have given me enough energy to create new opportunities in my life that I would not have been able to do before. I have a formula now: 1% more health equals 100 more possible opportunities. Shawn! I'm grateful you broke your stupid hip when you were 20 and got Spinal Degenerative Whatever and gained 5000 pounds. I'm grateful the doctors told you you were going to rot and die. I'm so happy you collapsed, half dead, under the weight of your own bloated body. I'm really happy you almost died. Just don't do it again. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My...
Shawn Stevenson, host of The Model Health podcast said, "In the lab, they found anti-depressants in the New York City water system." Anti-depressants! Ok, no problem. I'll drink tap water. Save on therapy costs. In NYC everyone has to go to therapy. It's a requirement. "This week my therapist said..." "There's also these other chemicals in water.." and he was about to list them for me. "No no no," I said. "Shhhh!" I put my hands on my ears. "I'm good. Don't need to know more." Shawn is obsessed with health. Every week he interviews the best people in the world on health. He's interviewed hundreds. And now I get to ask him for this BEST advice. Don't abuse what he tells you, James! Shawn was 200lbs overweight. He could barely get from room to room before collapsing with exhaustion and pain. He was diagnosed with an incurable spinal condition called degenerative disc disease. His spine was deteriorating to nothing. The way an old person leans over and over until they collapse dead. "You have the spine of an 80 year old," the doctor told him. "The doctors told me to wear a back brace. I kept getting worse. The doctors kept telling me nothing could be done. I was losing hope. Losing the will to live." So he chose himself. He CHOSE his health. He studied every aspect of health. He created the #1 podcast on health, The Model Health Show. He read everything he could. He changed his diet. His doctors told him don't bother. He exercised. His doctors said it won't help. "You're going to die of this." --- When he came on my podcast, he looked like a man in perfect health. He was muscular, glowed with health, had energy. He was something maybe I will never say. "I'm feeling great every day," he told me. And then he started dropping the most amazing health tips on me. I felt overwhelmed. Do I have the discipline to do all of this? I've had many health experts on my podcast. If you don't have physical health, it's 1000 times harder to be a success. The body feeds the mind and the heart. The body reduces stress. The body contains the basics for everything you want to do in life. You are alive in your whole body. Not just your brain. Not just in your bank account. The entire body has to be nourished and loved. For some strange reason he asked me to be on his show as well. I was really grateful he wanted to talk to me about how my own lifestyle improved my health. But more importantly, he came on my show and I was able to drill HIM with questions. Not that all doctors are bad. But I couldn't believe some of the things Shawn had to tell me. I list some of them on this infographic. I already thought I knew things about sleep, water, movement, exercise. I thought I already knew things about how health worked. About how health led to success. But he broke it down one step further. I needed that. I now live by it (we actually recorded this podcast about two months ago) and the results have given me enough energy to create new opportunities in my life that I would not have been able to do before. I have a formula now: 1% more health equals 100 more possible opportunities. Shawn! I'm grateful you broke your stupid hip when you were 20 and got Spinal Degenerative Whatever and gained 5000 pounds. I'm grateful the doctors told you you were going to rot and die. I'm so happy you collapsed, half dead, under the weight of your own bloated body. I'm really happy you almost died. Just don't do it again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
sermon transcript Introduction Well, Christmas is a time of journey, it is a time of moving around from place to place, many of you are going to be traveling this week, I know of some of you who have traveled to get here, to be with family, and maybe you are guests or visitors. And so we know this a time of moving around, a time in which people move. They travel to be with family, they're willing to pay elevated air fares or to bear the traffic around urban centers. They're willing to just get in a car packed up with all kinds of gifts or whatever and drive long distances to be with family, and just to sit and to enjoy that family time together. I picture in my mind's eye: a crackling fire in the hearth, that we haven't had one in years but I just love that picture and the tree right there, hopefully not too close to the fire, but just the enjoyment of being with family and friends, it's a time of moving around. I also picture sometimes, this is a time of the year after Christmas in which people go to missions, conferences, I know a year ago we went to the cross-conference and traveling through the hills of West Virginia or Western North Carolina, seeing the snow and all that. It's a great time. A time of movement. Christmas has always been associated with journeys, if you look at the very beginning, in Luke chapter 2, when Caesar Augustus issued his decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And that meant movement. It meant populations moving around within Palestine, as each of the Jews went to their home area to their tribal - their place of tribal ancestry - and they would go there to register, and we know that that's what moved Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem, where the prophecy had said that the Christ was to be born. After Jesus was born, shepherds moved a very short distance from the hills outside of Bethlehem to see this incredible thing that the angel had told him about as the angel descended, and who told them, "'Today in the town of David, a Savior is born to you, who is Christ the Lord.'" And so they said, "Come, let's go see what the angel has told us about." And they left the sheep and went to see, and it was just what the Lord had told them would happen. And of course, we know the story of the Magi, we don't know how far they traveled, but they moved from distant lands and they were following a supernatural light, a star that moved and was able to stop over at the place where the child lay, and they traveled from their great distances because of the birth of Christ. And these long journeys were caused by the coming of Christ into the world. And so people since that time have been traveling also, because Christ came into the world. The entrance of Christ into our sin cursed world, result in massive movements of people, providentially. God has been moving people around to achieve His sovereign goals. I think especially of missionaries who have left their own homes and have gone long, long distances to bring the news of Christ, the coming of Christ and of his birth, of His death and resurrection, to those who have never heard his name. John Paton was a missionary from Scotland in the 19th century. He traveled probably farther than any missionary in history, I don't know that this is true, but I can't think of anyone that traveled farther. From Glasgow, Scotland to Tana in the New Hebrides Islands in the South Pacific. A distance of 9987 miles as the crow flies. Don Richardson, who wrote the missions book, Peace Child, traveled from Calgary, Alberta to Papua New Guinea, a distance of 6167 Miles. William Carey, for him, the distance from London to Serampore, India was 4934 miles as the crow flies, but he had to actually navigate around Africa to get there, an additional 5000 miles. So many people have traveled long distances to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have never heard his name. In 1993, Christie and I boarded a plane with Nathaniel and Jenny. Our two children that were alive at that time - please don't think we left the other three behind, they just weren't born yet, they were in the mind of God. But we took those two and they came with us to Japan, and for us that distance was over 7000 miles and our desire was to bring Christ to what was at that time the largest unreached people group in the world, the Japanese, that they would hear the gospel. Yet I would say that of all of these journeys, no journey is as vast and immeasurable, even indeed infinite as the journey traveled by Christ Himself, in the text that we're going to look at today, in Philippians Chapter 2, it's an infinite journey. The coming of Christ from Heaven to Earth, to the cross, to the grave. No one has traveled so far. Look again at the words of Philippians 2, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." So in this Christmas sermon, we're going to trace out the words from the words of the text, Christ's stunning and amazing journey. Where Christ began in divine and heavenly glory, how Christ traveled downward into human form, how He traveled further downward to human humility, how Christ traveled infinitely downward at the cross. How then God exalted Christ upward in resurrection glory. How God exalted Christ even further to heavenly glory at His right hand. And now, how God through the Spirit has been exalting Christ to worldwide glory, that's the journey we're going to follow. Down and back up again. Where Christ Began: Divine and Heavenly Glory Before the Incarnation, Jesus Existed Eternally in Heavenly Glory And so we're going to start with where Christ began, divine and heavenly glory. Look at verse 6, "Who being in very nature God, speaking of Christ, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped." Some of the translations have, "Did not think it robbery to be considered equal with God." So before the incarnation, Jesus existed eternally in heavenly glory, He was not created by God the Father. He was eternally begotten as God the Son and received from Him equal glory and equal worship from the heavenly angels. Now, as we've been studying in the book of Isaiah, we realize that He does not share His glory with any created being. Remember how we saw in Isaiah 42:8, The Lord says this, "'I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.'" There is an infinite gap between God as the creator and all created beings, the creature. A.W. Tozer put it this way In his classic Knowledge of the Holy, he said, "We must not think of God as the highest in an ever ascending order of beings starting with the single cell and going on from there to the fish, to the bird, to the animal, to man, to angel, to cherub, to God. This would be to grant God eminence, even pre-eminence, but that is not enough. We must grant him transcendence in the fullest sense of the word. Forever, God stands apart. In light, unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel, is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite." End quote. In that quote from Tozer, there is 1 Timothy six, 15 and 16, which says, "God, the Blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who dwells in unapproachable light whom no one ever has seen or can see." That's God. But Jesus shared God's glory equally. He shared his position in the universe as Almighty God equally. We know that, because as his work was nearing an end the night before He was crucified, He asked in John 17:5, "'Father glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began,'" which would be infinitely bold for him to ask if He were not almighty God. Christ Equally God, Equally Glorious, Equally Worshipped So Christ was equally God, equally glorious, equally worshipped. It was not robbery, as one of the translations has, for him to be considered equally God. Another way to look at it is He didn't think it was something He had to grab hold of, to be God or something to hold on to, all the trappings of divine glory. There's different ways to look at that. But He didn't consider it robbery to be considered equally God. It was not arrogance, it was not idolatry, it was not presumption, it was not wickedness. In Isaiah 6, in the call of Isaiah, we have these unforgettable words. "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. And above Him were seraphim, each with six wings. And with two wings, they covered their faces. And with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another. 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.'" Now, in John 12, the apostle John says, Isaiah spoke about Jesus's glory because he saw him. He saw Jesus's glory and spoke about Him. He said, Jesus's glory, so I think his definitely having in mind Isaiah 6. And so he sees Christ in throne before the incarnation. Jesus's glory was so brilliant before his incarnation that the holy angels couldn't bear to look on him. They'd never committed any sin, they were holy and pure, morally perfect and yet, they're covering their faces. Because Christ dwelt an unapproachable light. 100 million angels, Daniel 7, gives us the implication of a 100 million angels worshipping Christ. That's hard to even fathom what that would have looked like. And so Jesus did not think it robbery to be counted equal with God, it was not robbery to be as divine as God the Father, as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, holy, righteous, just, loving, wrathful, eternal. All the attributes you can think of when you think about God, they are equally true of Christ before his incarnation. It was not robbery to be as glorious as the Father. He was as brilliant, as radiant, as terrifying to the holy angels, as was God the Father. And it was not robbery to be worshipped like God the Father, there was nothing wrong and everything right for the son being worshipped by those 100 million angels. The Downward Journey: To Earth, to Servanthood, to the Cross The Father Sent Him and He Obeyed That's where Jesus was when he began his downward journey - the pinnacle of glory, the pinnacle of deity and worship - but then the downward journey begins, to earth, to servanthood and to the cross. First, we must understand the Father sent Him and he obeyed. 1 Peter 1:20 says that "He was chosen before the creation of the world" to be our savior. The father sent him from his side into the world 40 times in John's Gospel. It is said of Jesus that the Father sent Him. He is the sent one. Again and again in John's gospel, it stresses this, that the Father sent Him. For example, John 6:38 and 39, "'For I have come down from heaven. Jesus said, not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me, and this is the will of Him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day.'" Friends, by the way, John 6:38, 39 too are the most encouraging verses in the whole Bible. The Father sent the Son into the world to save his children, and he will not stop until He raises you up on the final day. And isn't that encouraging? But again, clearly, the Father sent Him. Or again, John 8:42, he said, "'I came from God,'" this is Jesus speaking, I came from God and now I'm here. "'I have not come on my own, but He sent me.'" So it is clear that the Father sent Jesus on a mission into the world. The Father sent Jesus to become a baby. Jesus Chose to Become Human The father sent Jesus to seek and to save the lost, but Philippians 2 emphasizes Christ's own decision in the matter. His own will in the matter. In his pre-incarnate state, he chose to enter the world. He willed to do it. He was delighted to do it even. He chose to become a human being. Look again at verses five through seven, "Jesus: who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness." You see the willfulness of it, the choice of it on Jesus's part. He is choosing to do this, it was His will to leave heavenly glory, to make himself nothing. It was his will to become human, to be made in human likeness. And the phraseology here, he was in very nature, God, is the NIV's translation. He became in very nature, servant. I've meditated on it. He was as much servant as he ever was God. He didn't play at being a servant, act at it, he truly to his core was a servant. And the essence of that is he became human in order to do it. Once Made Human, He Chose a Downward Journey From There Now once made human, he chose a downward journey from there. God ordained for the birth of Jesus to be noteworthy in its humility and noteworthy in its poverty, actually. It was extremely poor, the circumstances of his birth. Unusually poor, very few babies in the world are born into as degrading circumstances as was the son of God. You know the story, of course, no room in the end, and so Jesus ends up being born in a stable, it might have been a cave outside Bethlehem, it might have been one of those barn type things that you look at. But it was a degrading situation, surrounded by animals. And then after His birth, He was wrapped in cloths by His mother Mary, who apparently, had no help at all. I'm not trying to be insulting to Joseph, but he was probably no help at all. There were no midwives, there were no nurses, there were no OB-GYN, there was no NICU standing by in case there was a problem with the baby, no one took his Apgar score, I don't think any of that happened. And then he's laid in a box of feeding trough for animals. I mean, you think of all the efforts made at Duke or at UNC to keep new-born babies free from any infections at all and free from viruses, and that's a laudable effort, and I know some of you are involved and I praise God for your work. And it's well done too because the infant mortality rates are - it's just a terrible tragedy, I get that. But none of that was there for Jesus, none of it. He's born into abject poverty. I mean, think about 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our lord Jesus, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor. So that you, through His poverty might become rich." So the vast majority of the world's population is poor, below a certain line of poverty, and Jesus, by being born in this way, identified with their poverty. Downward Further: Servant to All He willingly chose by his humble birth circumstances, but then once he became a man, he made more and more of the same kind of conscious choices. Verse 8 again, "Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient." He was obedient, he always did what the Father told him to do, He was constantly obedient. We talked about that last week with Isaiah 50. The Lord gave him an opened ear, and he was not rebellious, He didn't draw back, He did everything the Father commanded him to do. He humbled himself and served the father. And at the horizontal level, He humbled himself and served anyone and everyone who came to him for anything. I mean, do you read an account of someone coming to Jesus for something and not getting what they came from for? It's amazing how humble He was to people who came and needed something from him. Think about Matthew Chapter 8, "When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 'Lord', He said, 'My servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.' Jesus said to Him, 'I will go and heal him.'" Matthew chapter 9, the very next chapter, "…a ruler came and knelt before him and said, 'My daughter has just died, but come and put your hand on her and she will live.' Jesus got up and went with him." Matthew 14, "When Jesus heard [that John the Baptist had been executed], He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." All He wants to do is be alone and pray to his father. He was grieving. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering, and He was grieving over the death of John the Baptist, his friend. And so He just wanted to be alone, but the crowds wouldn't let him be alone. When He landed on the other side of the sea, a huge crowd was waiting for him. And when He saw them, “He had compassion on them and healed them” and taught them many things and fed them. And so He fulfilled his own words. Mark 9:35, "If anyone wants to be first, He must be very last and the servant of all." So, Jesus humbled himself and became obedient. But Jesus’ Obedience and His Humbling Went to the Infinite Level But Jesus's obedience and his humbling went to the infinite level. So let's finish the thought, "And being found in appearance as a man", Verse 8, "He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." The cross was His perfect act of submission and obedience to His Heavenly Father. He said, "The world must learn that I love the Father, and I do everything the Father has told me to do. Including dying." And so He said in Gethsemane, "'Not my will but yours be done.'" He drank the cup for us. Now, the cross was infinitely degrading to Jesus. You cannot measure it, you cannot understand how degrading it was. Isaiah 52:14, which God willing we'll get to soon, it says this, "Just as there were many who were appalled at Him, His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness." Now that's got to be talking about Jesus's death on the cross. And then in the very next chapter, Isaiah 53, it says, "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." No one can possibly imagine, fathom how infinitely degrading and humiliating it was for Jesus, the Son of God, the Holy Son of God, to bear our sins, our defilements, our iniquities, our wickedness on himself like swimming in a swamp of un-holiness covered with the muck of our lusts and murders, and thefts and blasphemes and corruptions. And then being justly with him as our substitute, crushed by God the Father, suffering the infinite wrath of God for us as our substitute. This was the very reason why He became human. This is why He took on a body that He might lay that body down in our place on the cross, that was the nadir, that was the bottom of this downward journey that we have been tracing out here in Philippians 2, from Heavenly glory to death, even death on a cross, and then to burial in the grave. The Upward Glory: Resurrection, Ascension, Enthronement God Glorified Jesus in His Resurrection But now, we begin the infinite upward journey as well. Resurrection, ascension, and enthronement. Look at Verse 9, "Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name." God the Father glorified Jesus in His bodily resurrection from the dead. At Christmas time, we celebrate the commitment of God the Son to be human, that is eternal, it's perpetual, he's still human. He took on a body because we humans, we have bodies. He died and laid that body down. God raised him from the dead in a resurrection body to show his perpetual commitment to Christ as human, as our mediator. And so, God glorified Jesus in His resurrection. Verse 4 of Romans Chapter 1 says, "Through the spirit of holiness, Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." So this, just glory as God raised Him from the dead. God Glorified Jesus in His Ascension And then God glorified Jesus in His Ascension to Heaven. I love that moment in Acts 1 verse 9, where Jesus after he'd spent 40 days with His disciples. Teaching them many things about the Kingdom of God took them out to the Mount of Olives. And it says in Acts 1:9, "He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight." I remember at one time, a number of years ago, one of my kids got one of those free balloons from Kroger and - a helium balloon - and it wasn't properly secured around the wrist. You know those moments. You ever seen that? And then off it goes, we step out, and it just goes, and I just stood there watching it go higher and higher and higher, thinking about the Ascension of Jesus Christ. It's funny my child wasn't thinking about the Ascension of Christ at that moment. It was a moment of great sadness and sorrow, but I was just thinking, what would it have been like to stand there on that hillside and see Jesus as He went higher and higher until finally, a cloud hid Him from their sight. It must have been an awesome sight. And you get the picture of the apostle just standing there staring and like the world. Their lives have ended. They're just there now. And they're immobile. And so God has to send an angel to say, "Come on, let's move along, now. Go back into Jerusalem. The Lord's going to come and give you the power of the Holy Spirit. Don't stand here waiting. He's coming back some day." But what an awesome glory that was to Jesus to ascend. But the book of Hebrews tells us that even the cloud hiding from the sight. That wasn't enough. Jesus, it says, "Has moved through the heavens," So you can imagine like circle upon circle of heavenly reality and exaltation and glory, and Jesus is going higher and higher and higher, even within the heavenly realms. God Glorified Jesus in His Enthronement at His Right Hand It says in Hebrews 4:14, "We have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, and then God glorified Jesus in His enthronement at His right hand." Mark 16:19 says, "After Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into Heaven and sat at the right hand of God." Psalm 110 verse 1, "The Lord said, to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." Ephesians 1:20-22 kind of captures all of this upward journey that we've just covered so quickly. Ephesians 1:20-22 says this, "That God raised him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." So that's the upward journey from the grave to a resurrection, to ascension, to sitting at the right hand of God over everything there is in the universe. “Therefore” Means the Humiliation Results in the Exaltation I also want you to notice the link between verse 8 and 9. By the word, therefore, the downward journey was the causal relationship to the upward exaltation. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. No one has humbled himself as much as Jesus, and therefore no one is as exalted as Jesus. There's a connection. Therefore God raised Him from the dead and seated him at His right hand. Therefore, He exalted him to the highest place. Jesus Given the Name that is Above Every Name: God There's a link there. And then it says, Jesus is given "the name that is above every name." Well, that simply is God, He's given the name God or any name that we could refer to God, God the Son, Almighty God, omnipotent, powerful ruler of Heaven and Earth, the one who sits in throne above the circle of the Earth and all its people are like grasshoppers. He is the sustainer of everything in the universe. He is the judge of all the Earth. Any title that could be given that's glorious. Jesus has those titles. Christmas Results in Greater Glory for Jesus Than if He’d Never Come And Christmas results in a greater glory to Jesus than He would have had if He had not come to Earth. He ends up with more glory because of what He did. Revelation 5:9, it says, "They sang a new song in Heaven, singing to Jesus, You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because you were slain and with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." They're celebrating his atoning work, and so He is in Heaven, and He is glorified and exalted. But there is a remaining glory yet for Jesus, and that is a worldwide worship. Look at Verses 9-11, "Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." The Remaining Glory: Worldwide Worship The Glory of Christ Has Been Spreading Since His Resurrection Now the glory of Christ has been spreading and increasing since His resurrection and ascension. It's been getting greater and greater every day, every single day. On the night of His resurrection, Jesus came to where his disciples were in the upper room where the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you," and they were stunned when they saw him and filled with joy, and He showed them His hands and His side. The marks of His atoning work. And again, He said to them, "'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so, I am sending you.' And then He breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" And with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the church started moving out, started that external journey that we talk about, just pouring out of the Upper Room to those thousands of pilgrims who had come there for the day of Pentecost and began preaching the Gospel beginning in Jerusalem, a church started there, it grew to 3000 baptized that first day, and it just continued to grow in Jerusalem. Persecution broke out, it spread throughout Judea and Samaria, and they preached the Gospel in that area. It was taken down to Ethiopia by that eunuch that Philip witnessed to out in the desert from Isaiah 53; we will get to all that. It spread to the Gentiles by Peter's witnessing to Cornelius and his family. It spread to Cypress and then throughout Asia Minor by Paul and Barnabas as they went on their first missionary journey. And then it spread across to Macedonia and Thessalonica, and down to Athens and Corinth by Paul and Silas as they were called there by the Holy Spirit. It was taken in chains by Paul to Rome, the center of the Roman Empire, but God's word was not chained, and a church was growing up there in Rome and spreading, and everyone in the Roman world heard about that. It continued to spread after the apostolic era through the Roman empire by the blood of martyrs, seed for the church, and our brothers and sisters willing to die for their faith so that the Gospel might spread and Christ might get more and more glory and honor. As the Gospel spread throughout the Roman world, it continued to spread through the barbarian tribes of Europe, it spread to Germania and Britannia, by early Roman missionaries continued little by little to conquer Europe, spread eastward to the vast rolling hills and valleys of Russia, the distant, mysterious kingdoms of India and China in those early centuries, under the Nestorian's, spread along the Silk Road into the steps of Central Asia. Explorers started taking banners of their Christian kings and queens to the New World, but genuine missionaries came too and started sharing the Gospel among those that were already living in the new world, and the Gospel continued to spread. The Name of Jesus is Greater and Greater with Every Day of Missions The last three centuries have seen an explosion of missions to India, Burma, China, distant islands of the South Pacific. After World War II, the unreached people groups began to be isolated and focused on, and more and more turning to the Gospel that they're hearing as this thing relentlessly spread. You know how it says, there's more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 who don't need to repent? Everyone person who turns to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit under the true Gospel, that's more glory for Jesus up in Heaven. Amen. That's awesome. And every saint that dies and is "absent from the body, present with the Lord" and sees his or her Lord face-to-face and is instantly transformed and made holy and perfect in every way, more glory for Jesus, and there is yet more glory to come, there's more and more work to be done. The Gospel is going to continue to spread. We're going to continue to evangelize right here in the Durham area and to be involved in missions to the ends of the Earth. And it's going really, really well. It's exciting, actually. This is a great time to be alive. I read an incredible article in World magazine written by David Garrison. The name of the article was the rising tide of Muslim converts to Christianity. And David Garrisons is an IMB missionary for 25 years, PhD from the University of Chicago. He's written a book called, A Wind in the House of Islam. A Wind in the House of Islam. He believes - and in that book, he does research and relates the results of his research - he believes, based on his research, that somewhere between two and seven million former Muslims have converted to Christianity in the past two decades. He says there's been lots of upheaval in the Muslim world, but some of that has actually loosened the grip of Islam on the hearts of people living in Muslim countries. Key example is Iran. Garrison says that The Ayatollah Khomeini has been one of the greatest evangelists for Christ that Iran has ever seen. He didn't mean to be that way, but that's been the outcome. What do I mean? What did Garrison mean? Well, because of his overwhelming dedication to enforce the Islam that is actually taught in the Quran, hear me carefully, it's not extreme Islam, it's genuine Islam, and he desired to enforce that in Iran, thousands and thousands of Iranians don't want any part of it. Don't want any part of it. They're leaving Islam in record numbers. Tens of thousands and probably hundreds of thousands in Iran are now brothers and sisters in Christ. And Jesus's glory has increased as a result of that. That's happening on a grand scale in many places. Garrison said this; there are movements of Muslims to Christ. And by that, I mean not just individuals, but movements of at least a thousand within a single community who have been baptized or 100 churches planted over the last two decades. Those are his criteria from one end of the Muslim world to the other, so from West Africa to Indonesia and everywhere in between. He said Muslims are having their sleep disturbed by visitations and by answered prayers as well. He said we've talked to a number of folks who just talked about how they tested God. They said, "If this is real, I'm just going to pray, and if you're really there, Lord, I want you to hear this." And Jesus began to reveal Himself through His faithfulness in amazing ways, and they realized that to follow Christ was not to follow a 2000-year-old dead prophet. It was to follow the living Lord. That, for them, was the turning point. Garrison said this, "I traveled more than a quarter of a million miles into the Muslim world, and in every corner I interviewed people, I would never have imagined I'm talking about Sheikhs and Imams and Mullahs, leaders in the Islamic community who gave testimony to having been baptized after having met Jesus and knowing that in doing so, they were saying, "I am willing to die because they knew very well that Islamic law did not allow for conversion from Islam to anything." "Over the next... The course of the next couple of years, as I began compiling lists," said Garrison, "What I discovered was that in the whole course of Muslim-Christian interaction, there have been 82 times, 82 movements of Muslims to Christ of at least a thousand baptisms or 100 church plants over the last two decades," 82 times. Now, here's what's striking, 69 of those have occurred since the year 2000, we're in the midst of the greatest turning of Muslims to Christ in history. I don't think the Church of Christ is aware of this. Now, even though it's minuscule, when you look at 1.6 billion Muslims, it's less than 1.5% of Muslims have been touched by the Gospel at all. Yet we're seeing 84% of all the movements that have ever happened in the history of missions right now among the Muslim world, and that's exciting. By the way, all of that's in a book written by David Garrison. It's on my desk, in my office. I will give that book after worship is over. I'm going to go to the back of the church to the first person that promises that they'll read it sometime in the next three months. I mean, all of it. If you make me a promise that you'll read the whole book, I'll give it to you for free. Moving on. Jesus Deserves to Be Worshipped and Glorified as God Jesus deserves to be worshipped and glorified as God. Verse 10:11, "At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Simply put, people are saved. They're saved from their sins when by the power of the Holy Spirit, under the hearing of the true Gospel, they confess the deity of Christ. And when they do, Christ's glory increases that much more. This human baby that we're celebrating at Christmas time recognizes fully God and their own savior by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christmas Leads to Missions! So, therefore, Christmas leads to Missions. Amen. It leads to missions. This is a completely appropriate emphasis of Southern Baptist churches across the nation. The Lottie Moon Offering $120,000 for our goal, 175 million nationwide, if you happen to have 175 million lying around somewhere, give it to The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering or less is fine to consider the widow who gave two copper coins, and we're told she gave more than anyone, whatever God calls you to do. But more than that, lay yourself on the line in 2015 to grow in your commitment to evangelism and missions. You're commitment to seeing Christ's glory expand more and more, that every knee would bow and every tongue would confess. That should be the passion of our hearts. Applications Celebrate with Great Joy! So some final applications, first just celebrate with great joy. Christmas time, enjoy yourselves in a Christian way, enjoy yourselves. Have a good time with your family. But let's be sure that we remember Him who gave everything that we might have all of these gifts. Let's make Him the center of our celebration. Amen. I know we mean to, but often we forget. We've got our own family traditions, etcetera. Don't forget. Don't forget, and I mean, just literally like the text says, bow your knees to Jesus, get down on your knees on Christmas morning, and thank Him for dying for you and rising again. Worship Him as God. I'm going to especially challenge fathers, okay? Lead your families on Christmas morning with the Bible, read scripture, Colossians 1, John 1, Hebrews 1, or the accounts that were so familiar with in Luke and Luke 2, and in Matthew 1 and 2. Focus on Christ and worship Him. Imitate Jesus’ Downward Humility Secondly, imitate Christ's downward journey in your own way. We cannot travel as far as he traveled, but the same downward upward journey is commended by Paul to all Christians in Philippians 2. That's the reason why he's even talking about it. He wanted the Philippian Christians to get along and to serve one another. And so take to heart what he says in Verses 2-5, "Be like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interest but also to the interest of others." Have this mind in you, which is also in Christ. Think like He did, who went that downward journey. Missions Thirdly, missions. The exaltation of Christ has continued now for 2000 years. God has sent people on long journeys to win the ends of the Earth. Ask God to make you more attentive than ever before to missions, learn more about it, ask him to give you a heart for missions, embrace church members who are serving overseas, who are presently there in the field now. It's actually pretty lonely to be on the field at Christmas time. It's a strange feeling. In Japan, they celebrated Christmas in a purely secular way. There was nothing Christian about it, in that way, similar to the US, but without churches and people assembling together. Other places, it's just another day. There's no difference at all. Pray for our brothers and sisters who are serving on the field. Young people, I just believe that God is going to be calling some of you to go and lay down your lives to the unreached people groups. I'm talking about high schoolers, college students. What is God doing with you? What is He calling you to be and to do? I just would love to see FBC as a launching pad for unreached people group missionaries. And so if you're young, you might be in elementary school and you just, your ears are perking up. You might be in middle school. You might be in high school, college, or just out of college. What do you want to do with your life? How do you want to sacrifice and serve? Could this be something God is calling you to do? Consider it. Come to Christ And then, finally, if I could just say if you're a visitor here, you were invited here, and you know you're on the outside looking in, and you've never given your life to Christ, today is the day for you. Repent and believe. Give your life to Christ, trust in Him. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for this time of celebration that we have, this time of year, in which we get to rejoice and delight in the gift of Jesus Christ for us. Closing Prayer Father, I pray that we would... That we would not think too highly of ourselves. As we're opening gifts, Lord help us to not feel I deserve this, or we deserve this. So Lord, help us to realize that you have lavished grace on us contrary to what we deserve. Thank you for Jesus, who is God in the flesh, and who gave Himself fully for us, and thank you for His bloodshed on the cross. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Why God Chose Mary, and why He Chose you
sermon transcript Introduction For those of you who don't know me, so my name is Andy Davis, I'm senior pastor of this church. At least I used to be, I haven't heard anything otherwise. I was gone all summer on sabbatical and delighted to be back and especially eager to preach this sermon to you. Especially eager. Paul said in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 2, which you had the privilege of hearing from the elders all summer and from our staff and just some great messages, how he said, “I resolve to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” And so we should do that in every text, whether from Isaiah, from the book of Genesis, from any book, we should, but it's especially easy when you're preaching from this text, which openly describes and depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and so I've been eager to preach this. Because the crucifixion of Christ, Christ's death on the cross, and his bodily resurrection is the central event of all history. I really take them together, I never separate them, I know it's appropriate from time to time to talk about the crucifixion or the resurrection, but they absolutely, completely go together. Christ was crucified and he was resurrected on the third day. And they go absolutely together. But today we're gonna have the privilege of looking at the cross, and I'm gonna say just at the beginning, you will see nothing in the cross, none of the glory, none of the truth, none of the love, none of the radiance, you'll see none of it if you have no faith, all of the things I'm going to preach today, you must perceive by faith and by faith alone. But the beauty of the gospel is that it has the power under the Holy Spirit to give you faith. The word of God has the power to birth faith inside your heart. So if you came in here today as an unbeliever, or perhaps you were invited, perhaps you haven't been to church in years, or ever, or maybe you go regularly, but you still know yourself to be lost, you're unconverted, my prayer for you and others’ prayer has been that you'll hear the gospel, you'll see with your mind's eye with the eye of faith, Christ crucified today. It says in Galatians, before your very eyes Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. And so I wanna do that today. But only by faith will you be able to see the truths that are just gonna stream from the text today that you heard Ashok read so beautifully. Now, it's a bit odd, this kind of interruption, I'm a verse-by-verse expositor, passage-by-passage expositor, and I'm just parachuting right in the middle of what could be seen to be a two-part sermon on the crucifixion of Christ from Matthew. That's really what it was, interrupted by months and months. But you folks have awesome memories, don't you? You know exactly what we were doing last time, ordinarily, I would say last week, but it's been months. But last time as we were looking at Matthew's gospel, Christ is on the cross, and we have the way that Matthew wrote the account, the human perspective on the cross, you have ground up and specifically that perspective of lost people looking at the cross and not seeing there what really was going on. Four different groups of people misinterpreting the cross, that was last time. Just by way of reminder, the soldiers who mocked Jesus in the Praetorium, and who put a purple robe on him, and put a crown of thorns on his head and mocked him and had no sense of his majesty and his glory. And then you had the Jews who were just walking by Golgotha, they're just walking by wherever they're going from one place to the other, seeing him there and hurling insults at him: “You, who were going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, then save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you're the son of God.” And then you had the religious leaders who were heaping insults on Jesus as you remember. “‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can't save himself! He is the king of Israel, so called. Let him come down now from the cross, and we'll believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him if he wants him, for he said, “I am the Son of God.”’” The mockery. Even the thieves on the cross, both of them mocked Jesus, though they were under the same sentence as he was, both of them heaped insults on him, until one of them was miraculously converted. And we'll see him in heaven. One of the most awesome and spectacular displays of grace in all of redemptive history, that thief on the cross, but still we have all of them misinterpreting the cross of Jesus Christ. They did not understand it, they did not see it properly. And so it is today, we live in a world of people who know some things about the cross of Christ, but misinterpret it, they don't understand it properly. They do not know who he was, and the significance of what he was doing, they don't know how they relate to it, all of it. The apostle Paul ran into this mockery, this sense of mocking when he was preaching the gospel in Athens on Mars Hill, you remember. And he was reasoning with the philosophers who were there in the Areopagus. And he reached the culmination of his gospel presentation there, speaking of Christ crucified and resurrected. And when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, they sneered, that's the world's reaction to it, the sneering of the world, the mockery of it. And for this reason, Paul wrote these words, 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” Amen? And that's what you're gonna get today from me, God willing, the message of the cross. He said further, “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” And so, throughout history, unbelievers have mocked the cross, they've sought to mythologize it as though it was a myth, others have somewhat as the expression goes, “damned by feigned praise,” some have found some positive attributes in the cross, short of a full understanding. And so they'll see in Jesus someone who laid down his life for a cause he really believed in, have you ever heard this kind of thing? And just showed a tremendous amount of love. Friends, without substitutionary atonement, there is no love at the cross, there's perhaps insanity, there's no love. Without Jesus as our sin bearer he's not displaying love, he's either a victim or some kind of odd insane person if he isn't dying in our place. And so, this is the approach that people like Mohandas Gandhi and others have taken, in seeing some value in the death of Christ short of understanding his deity, his incarnation, his full humanity, his substitutionary death. And so they wrongly interpret the cross of Christ. So where are we gonna get a true interpretation of the cross of Christ? How are we going to understand it properly? Well, I would contend from the text today: from the Father alone, ultimately. God the Father will interpret the cross for us today. Amen? He's going to tell us what to think about the cross. Now, William Cooper, a marvelous hymn writer from the 18th-19th century wrote a hymn called “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” and he was seeking to encourage people who were going through severe trials, they can't understand what God's doing. And he was a man who struggled with mental illness, with other things, and went through terrible trials. And yet his faith kept rising up again and again. And so God providentially can bring you through terrible trials, you've heard some of the things I've prayed for that are going on even in our congregation but there are others that are of different sorts. And so Cooper, trying to minister to people going through trials, says look, God moves in a mysterious way, his purposes to perform. We don't, and we're not able to understand always what he's doing. And he wrote these words, “Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.” Friends, there is no more mysterious way ever in redemptive history than the cross of Christ. It's the most mysterious thing God ever did. And so we need him to be his own interpreter today, alright? To tell us what to think about the cross. And he will. In our text today, we're gonna see how God acted as the interpreter of the cross in some astounding ways. We're gonna see an eerie, supernatural darkness that he caused to go over not just that region, but I think over perhaps the whole earth. There's some indications that it went as far as Rome. We're gonna see it in the detailed fulfilled prophecies that are there at the cross, we're gonna see in the significance of Christ's statement, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the significance of that. We're gonna see it in the tearing of the curtain from top to bottom. We're going to see the interpretation in this supernatural earthquake that rocked the earth, when Jesus died, and in the resuscitation, resurrection, of many holy people who came to life because Jesus died at that moment. And in all of these things, my desire is to point to the final verse of our text, in verse 54, how we have this centurion looking up and saying, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” I'm gonna actually improve a little bit on it, 'cause I think the centurion knows the truth of it now and in a very positive way, “Surely this man is the Son of God.” He was, he is, and he will be forever. And so my desire is to bring you to that point, I want all of this evidence, all of what God was doing at that time, to bring you to the point of intense strong faith. And I mean that whether you're a believer or not. If you've been a believer for decades, my desire is to make more intense and vivid than you've experienced in days, weeks, months, years, a sense of what Jesus was doing at the cross. What the Father wants you to think about the cross. It will do you good. Amen? It will do you so much good to be refreshed and renewed. But if on the other hand, you're an unbeliever, you walked in the building today as an unbeliever, my desire, I'll just lay my cards on the table, I want you to believe in Jesus for the salvation of your souls, that you would know eternal life through that. So let's get busy. Do you think I have any hope of getting through these seven points? I think I might just move this clock back here, wait a minute. I'm sorry, I'll just leave it. Jack, I left it, I didn't touch it, I just left it. It's just how it was. Let's start. The Father Withdraws the Daylight, for Sin Is Darkness (vs. 45) The Father withdraws the daylight, and what I'm gonna do in each of these, I'm gonna take something from the text and then I'm gonna put a kind of a spiritual interpretation on it, okay? That's what you have in your bullets in there, so the Father withdraws the daylight for sin is darkness. Verse 45, “from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, darkness came over all the land.” The Facts of the Darkness So what are the facts of the darkness? They're given right there, “from the sixth hour to the ninth hour,” that would be about from noon to 3 o'clock. So midday, brightness of the sun, the brightest part of the day, from that until the ninth hour, three hours later, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, darkness. Now, according to Mark 15:25, Jesus' crucifixion began at around 9:00 in the morning, so Jesus had been on the cross for hours when this eerie darkness began. What is the extent? Well, in the text, it says that “darkness came over the whole land.” The Greek word for land might be translated to “earth.” So you could see it this way: “the darkness came over the whole earth,” it's possible. Christian apologist Tertullian, writing in the second century, had this to say, called it a “cosmic” or a “world” event, this darkness. Evidently, it was visible in Rome and many other places around the Mediterranean. He challenged his non-Christian adversaries with these words, “At the moment of Christ's death, the light departed from the sun and the land was darkened at noon day, which wonder is related in your own annals and is preserved in your archives to this day.” The Greek writer, Phlegon, writing around that time, or writing in 137 AD reported that around that time, “The greatest eclipse of the sun occurred, it became night in the sixth hour of the day, noon, so that the stars even appeared in the heavens.” He wrote it was during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, there was “a complete solar eclipse,” he called it, at full moon, a “solar eclipse at full moon,” he said, “from the sixth to the ninth hour.” Eusebius, writing a little bit later in his history, he said, “A great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour that excelled every other that has ever been before it, turning the day into such darkness of night that the stars could be seen in the heavens, and the Earth moved in Bithynia toppling many buildings in the city of Nicaea.” Now, what was the nature of this darkness? We don't know, these accounts are not biblical, we don't have the idea of the stars but that probably was true. It was that dark. During the time of Moses and the Exodus, they spoke of “a darkness that could be felt.” Those words aren't used here, maybe that's so, but the cause of the darkness, well, the Gentile writer said it was a solar eclipse, but he said it happened during full moon, but that's astronomically impossible. Because the Jewish Feast of Passover occurs during full moon, solar eclipses can only happen during the new moon. Lunar eclipse would not have explained such a total failing of light implied by the Greek, nor would such a total darkening effect have lasted for three hours. So I think friends, this is a supernatural act of Almighty God. The sunlight streams across millions of miles of space to us like water flowing through a pipeline, and God just shut it down, and there was no sunlight, it seems, for a period of time. That's what it seems as you put all of these accounts together, a supernatural act of Almighty God. The Significance of the Darkness Why would he do it? Why would he do it? Well, you know God's first words in the Bible were, “Let there be light.” Those are the first things God says in the Bible, and “God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” So light then becomes in the scriptures a metaphor for God and his goodness, his holiness. 1 John 1:5, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” Now, on the fourth day of creation, God created the sun, the moon and the stars. He created the sun to shine on the earth, he gave light to the earth, and we know just from biology that that's essential, that photosynthesis is essential to all vegetative life and therefore to all animal life too. It's essential to life and so light is life for us as well. When Jesus entered the world in John chapter 1, it says in verse 4 and 5, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.” Jesus said, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Now, when Jesus entered the world, it was attended by supernatural light. You remember how the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds outside Bethlehem, and the glory of the Lord shone around, and so the night became like day at that point. So also we have this supernatural moving star that led the Magi on a journey and stopped over the place where the baby Jesus was, and so it was when Jesus entered the world, we have this supernatural light, it shouldn't surprise us then when Jesus leaves the world through death, we have darkness. Darkness. “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the earth.” But it goes deeper. The darkness becomes a symbol of Satan and his realm, a symbol of the darkness of Satan and of the entire earth that's under his power, his wicked realm. Jesus said in Luke 22:53, “But this is your hour now - the hour of darkness.” It's said, when Judas took the piece of bread in John 13, Satan entered into him. Jesus said, “what you're about to do, do quickly.” And he said, “and he went out, and it was night.” That's not just telling us the time of day, that's John saying this is the time of darkness. This is the time when darkness is ruling over the earth. Satan's kingdom is the dominion of darkness, and our battle, Ephesians 6, is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenly realms. And so while Jesus is hanging on the cross, God supernaturally blocked the sunlight to testify to Jesus as the light of the world, and Satan's dark realm. The Future of Darkness So what is the future of darkness? The future of darkness, judgment will come on the whole earth for its sins. There's something called the day of the Lord, and the day of the Lord is coming. And it says in Amos 5:20, “Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light - Pitch-darkness, without a ray of brightness?” That's Amos 5:20. So to some degree, you could argue that it was the day of the Lord then as Jesus was dying for his sheep, that that was our day of the Lord, and so there was a darkness and not light as Jesus was dying. And so the coming day of the Lord, the coming judgment day, is going to be also a day of darkness and not of light. In Isaiah 13, it says, “Behold the day of the Lord is coming - a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger - to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their sins.” Jesus in Matthew 24, talking about his second coming, he said, “Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.” Revelation 8:12, “The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon and the third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.” But even that's not the ultimate future of darkness, not at all, because the wicked, the unregenerate, the unsaved, the unbelievers are going to be cast out into utter darkness, outer darkness. Jesus said in Matthew 25:30, “thrown outside,” that's the word outside, “into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Conversely, the children of God, the believers will live in a realm of endless light, we ourselves will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, and there will be no sun or moon or stars or the light of the lamp, because the glory of God is going to radiate that whole world, and we will bask in its light forever and ever. And so the Father withdrew the light of the sun because sin is darkness. The Father Withdraws from the Son, for Sin Breaks Fellowship with God (vs. 46) Secondly, the father withdraws from the son himself, for sin breaks fellowship with God. Verse 46, “About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” Infinite Mystery in this Moment Here, at this moment, we are just stepping into sacred ground into infinite mystery, infinite mystery. I can't capture in words adequately, the infinite mystery of the Trinity, the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. It's an infinite mystery. But there's some things we have to say here. The Doctrine of the Trinity is infinitely mysterious. Then the Doctrine of the Incarnation, infinitely mysterious, and they come together at this moment. How can we comprehend the concept of the Trinity? Of one God and only one God, infinitely separate from his creation above all things, perfectly holy above everything he ever made? One God, but eternally existing in three persons the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. How can we understand these things? We can't fully grasp them, but we accept them. This is the orthodox doctrine we've been entrusted. And this one God, this triune God is eternal, he never changes. In his essential being, he never will change. He never has changed, he never will change. He cannot change. It's impossible. Dear friends, if the Trinity for a moment ceased to exist as such, the universe would stop existing, and the Father's love for the Son is perfect and unchangeable, he loves the son with a love we can't fathom. It's an intense love, the intensity of it is similar to the raging fire of the sun, that we see every day up in the sky, that's how much the Father loves the Son only infinitely more. Only By This Statement Can We See This Spiritual Reality Well, then what's going on here? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Well, now we have the Doctrine of the Incarnation. Jesus, 100 percent God, is also 100 percent human. 100 percent human. And as a human being, he was our sin bearer at this moment, He took on our sinfulness; while he was on the cross, he was completely sinful and wicked positionally, though he himself had committed no sin. And so Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It's a cry of loneliness, of isolation from Almighty God because of his role as our sin bearer, and it's a cry from the pit of hell, really. Total abandonment by God, and deeper, a wrath being poured out on Jesus. And so it says in Isaiah 53: 10, “It was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer.” And so he's experiencing hell on the cross. Jesus, the focus of the infinite wrath and power of God directed against sinners, and we have the abandonment of a sinner in hell pictured here, as he says “why have you forsaken me?” God-forsaken. God is the giver of every good gift there is, you know that, every good and perfect gift comes from God. Everything you enjoy in this life comes from God, whether you acknowledge him or not, all of them come from God. And in God alone is fullness of joy, perfection of joy. Psalm 16, “In your presence is the fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Earlier in that Psalm, in Psalm 16:2, it says, “You are my Lord.” “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord, apart from you, I have no good thing.’” That's hell, friends, hell. Apart from God, they have no good thing. So if you should ever meet a lost person, who says, “I'm eager to go to hell, that's where all my friends will be.” You should say probably with tears in your eyes, “I hope not. I hope all your friends won't be there, but if they're there, they won't be there as your friends. Friendship is a gift from God. That's what you're enjoying now, you won't enjoy friendship with anyone in hell. You'll be wailing and gnashing your teeth if that's where you go. Oh, flee the wrath to come. Flee the wrath to come.” The Sinlessness of Jesus … and the Substitution of Jesus Now, it's important for us to acknowledge Jesus was sinless, he didn't commit any sins. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth,” 1 Peter 2:22. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And this Isaiah 53, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought him peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” That's why that cry happened right here, that's it. He himself sinless, but perfectly sinful, in God's sight, positionally as our substitute. Without Understanding This, We Will Understand Nothing of the Cross Without understanding that, you will not understand the cross. Infinite God, perfect God, yes, but human. Perfectly holy in himself, but a substitute, the transfer of guilt. And without that, you can't understand the cross. So this sermon is an attempt at God's interpretation of the cross, it's even better, just read Romans 3. How about that? Romans 3:23-25 will give you God's interpretation of the cross: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a propitiation through faith in his blood.” That's God's interpretation of the cross, propitiation, the turning aside of God's wrath by the giving of a sacrifice. The Father Fulfills a Final Prophecy, for Christ Died According to Scripture (vs. 47-49) Thirdly, the Father fulfills a final prophecy, for Christ died according to the scriptures. “About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,’ which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of those standing there heard this, they said ‘He's calling Elijah.’ Immediately, one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and then offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, ‘Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him.’” Jesus was Quoting Psalm 22: The Clearest Depiction of Crucifixion in the Old Testament Well, as I preached often before from this pulpit, Jesus is clearly quoting Psalm 22 there. He's not just saying something that came to mind, he's quoting the first verse of Psalm 22. To some degree, not only was Jesus crying out of the emptiness of his heart, in his broken relationship with the Father as I just described a moment ago, but he was also saying “hey, watching world, read Psalm 22.” Because there it was clearly predicted that Jesus would die by crucifixion. Clearly predicted that Jesus would die by crucifixion, because it says in Psalm 22:16-18, “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones, people stare and gloat over me, they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” They have pierced my hands and my feet. I know of no other form of death by which anyone could die other than crucifixion, in which your hands and feet are pierced. Clearly, Psalm 22 predicting the death of Jesus on the cross, God the Father spoke that a thousand years, a thousand years before Jesus came through the prophet, through David, as he wrote that psalm. Isn't it fascinating that Matthew literally quotes what Jesus said? He tried in the Greek language to try to get the Aramaic into our ears. That's how important this was. “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” you can't really get it across in Greek or in English, but he wants us to hear that. So Also Jesus Drank According to Scripture Not only that, but there's a detail, there was this jar of wine vinegar there, and so they ran and got a sponge and filled it with wine vinegar and lifted it to his mouth for him to drink. This is also the fulfillment of prophecy, detailed prophecy, it's more highlighted in John's gospel, in John 19:28-29, later, it says there, “knowing that all was now completed, and so that the scripture would be fulfilled, he said ‘I thirst.’” I love this in John's gospel, “a jar of wine vinegar was there,” or we'll put it this way, “a jar of wine vinegar just happened to be there.” No, the Father put it there. I don't know what man or woman put it there, but it doesn't matter, the Father put it there. Why? So that he could fulfill the scripture. Why? So that you and I, reading it, could know that Jesus is the Christ and believing in him have eternal life. It's by the fulfillment of these detailed prophecies. What prophecy? Psalm 69:21, which says “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” The Misunderstanding by the Crowd Tiny detail, and yet these little details are so powerful in giving us a certitude of our faith. We can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Father put all this together. And yet the crowd misinterprets again. When he says “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” they think he's calling Elijah. Now, Elijah means “Yahweh is My God.” Eli is “my God, my God.” So it's there but they didn't hear it right. Please hear it right today. Jesus isn't calling Elijah there. And yet they're saying leave him alone, let's see if Elijah comes for him. The Father Receives His Son’s Spirit, for the Death Penalty Had to Be Paid (vs. 50) Fourth, the Father receives his son's spirit for the death penalty had to be paid. Verse 50, “When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.” Here… He Simply “Gave Up His Spirit”… He Chose to Die Exactly When He Did There it is, simply he gave up his spirit. You can't do that, neither can I. Jesus had a unique relationship with life and death, unlike anyone else that's ever lived. Now, it says “when Jesus had cried out in a loud voice,” it's Luke that tells us what he cried. He says in Luke 23:46, “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.” So he's very Father-centered, and he says, “Father, I am giving you now my spirit.” The removal of the spirit from the body is called death. So “into your hands, I'm giving you this death, I'm presenting to you this death.” Jesus was In Total Control of His Death Now, Jesus was in total control of this moment, absolute control of this moment. You are not, but he is. What do I mean by that? Well, Jesus said in John 10:18, “No one takes my life from me. But I lay it down freely of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back up again.” So in a kind of a mysterious way, the crucifixion didn't kill him, it didn't kill him. How long if Jesus had not willed to die, do you think Jesus could have lasted on the cross? He could still be there now if he wanted to, or they could shove as many spears into his side, they could shoot... I mean, if he didn't wanna die, he's not gonna die. He'll instantly heal himself all the time. It's just he doesn't... You can't kill him, he's almighty God. And if he wanted to stay on the cross, he would have. Actually, Pilate was surprised he was dead that quickly. Usually it'd take a long time, that's the whole point of crucifixion, it's just a very terrible way to die, and so in Mark 15:44, Pilate was surprised to hear he was already dead. So Jesus just dies. He just gives... Everything's finished, there's nothing at to do, and so he just dies, he gives up his spirit. “Into your hands I commit my spirit. “ Just As Jesus Was In Total Control of His Birth Just as Jesus was in total control of his birth and neither were you. Neither were you. He said to Pilate, “For this reason I was born, and for this I entered the world, to testify to the truth.” None of us can talk like that. Why did you choose to be born and how did you make the choice on your parents? You may say why did I make the choice on that set of parents? And they may be saying the same thing about you. You folks had no choice in the matter, alright? You were given to each other as a gift from God, alright? But you didn't make any choice. Jesus chose to enter the world and he chose to leave it. Why? The Death Penalty Had to Be Paid… the Wages of Sin Why though, why? Why did he die? Well because from the very beginning in the garden of Eden, there's been a link between sin and death. As it says in Romans chapter 5, “Just as through one man, Adam, sin entered the world and death through sin.” Death is a penalty for sin, “the wages of sin is death.” We all deserve to die, we're guilty sinners, and we die because we're guilty, because we're sinners. That's why we die. But there's this death penalty that had to be paid. And there's a second death, we've already talked about it, hell is the second death, and Jesus came to pay that infinite final death penalty. He had to die. And so in effect, by saying, “Father into your hands I commit this death, I commit my spirit,” he's saying the penalty has been paid. The justice of the Father has been satisfied. The wrath of God is done. Into your hands I've paid the penalty now. They, my sheep don't need to die the second death. Praise God. The Father Tears the Curtain in the Temple, for the Way to God is Now Open (vs. 51) Fifth, the Father tears the curtain in the temple for the way to God is now open. Oh, that you would walk through it. That's my prayer that you would walk through that opening that Jesus has made for you now and not stay on the outside. Look at verse 51, “At that moment, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” The Tearing of the Curtain = Full Access to God That curtain we're told, separated the holy place from the most holy place, or as I love it in the King James, “the holy of holies,” the place that only the high priest could enter once a year and never without blood. The tearing of the curtain then represents free full access to the holy God of the universe. “From Top to Bottom” = Only God Can Remove This Barrier… Man Could Not And it's said here that it was torn in two from top to bottom. First of all, this was a substantial curtain. Indications are that it was 60 feet long and 30 feet high, that's a three-storied building. Four inches thick, made up of 72 squares sewn together, so heavy it took 300 men to lift it. It was a heavy thing. Heavy barrier, okay? And the fact that it was torn from top to bottom shows that this was an action of God, only God could remove this barrier. Now, I think there's only two ways we could know that it happened from top to bottom. If you came 20 minutes later and saw the thing rent asunder, you would think that someone did it, but they would have to have done it from bottom to top, right? Man does it from bottom to top. God does it from top to bottom, so there's only two ways we could know it: either God revealed it directly to Matthew as he wrote this gospel, and that's possible. Prophets get a lot of information directly, we'd have no other way of knowing, just God said it, that's possible. But I like it better that just like many of the gospel writers got their information from eyewitnesses, could there be eyewitnesses of that it was torn from top to bottom? Yes. Who would they be? Believing priests. In Acts chapter 6, it says many of the priests became obedient to the faith. So we have believing priests that were standing there and it's like, “Wow. Wow.” And it must have been loud too. What a rip. What a rip. And they're standing there and “Wow.” From top to bottom, it's a miracle. Old Covenant: “Do Not Come Any Closer” What did it represent? It represented the holy God saying to a sinful human race, the veil did, this far you may come but no further. I am a consuming fire and in all of your wickedness, if you come any closer, I will destroy you. It's what he said to Moses from the flames of the burning bush, you remember? First thing he said after “Moses! Moses!” Moses came over to look, the first thing he said is, “Do not come any closer.” That's the old covenant to me. No closer. New Covenant: “Let Us Draw Near to God” New covenant? You know, we have free access. We have free access. Hebrews 4:16. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Ephesians 3:12, “In him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” How sweet is that. How sweet is that. New and Living Way And again, Hebrews 10:19-22, “Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place through the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, opened for us through the curtain, that is his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Draw near to God in holiness. That's what he's saying. The Essence of Unbelieving Judaism: Sewing the Curtain Up, and Putting it Back Now, let me make just a brief aside here, the essence of unbelieving Judaism is that some priests sewed it back up and put it back up. The sacrificial system went on for decades after Jesus died. Somebody sewed it back up. How would you like to be the person that sewed that back up? How would you like to face God and give an explanation for that? And some time ago, I made this connection. You remember concerning marriage, Jesus said in Matthew 19, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” Well, let me tell you when it comes to this curtain, what God has ripped apart, let man not sew back up again. Jesus said concerning the Scribes and Pharisees, “You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves don't enter, nor will you allow those enter who are trying to.” They sewed it back up. God then just destroyed the whole thing, when the Romans burned the temple. Now it's gone, it's gone. What God shuts, no one can open. What God opens, no one can shut. Praise God for that. So we have free access to almighty God because of the death of Jesus. The Father Shakes the Earth, for There Will Be a New Heaven and Earth (vs. 51) Sixth, the Father shakes the earth, for there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Look at verse 51, “The earth shook and the rocks split.” Terrifying, Monstrously Huge Earthquake! Terrifying, monstrously huge earthquake. Some indications I’ve already given you that this was a worldwide earthquake, at least going as far as Bithynia, Nicaea and Rome. What does it signify? Well, it signifies that God is showing up. Again and again, when God shows up, he shakes the earth, he shakes the earth. Symbolic of the Physical Effects on the Earth of the Event of Jesus Death Think about Psalm 18:7-9, “The earth trembled and quaked and the foundations of the mountain shook; They trembled because God was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.” So God shows up there in Psalm 18 in wrath and anger, divine judgment, and the earth shakes. The earth also shook when God brought the Old Covenant to Mount Sinai, you remember it's the nation of Israel is around Mount Sinai. It says in Exodus 19:18, “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire.” So God descending, God descending. “The smoke bellowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.” So that's God shaking the earth with the establishment of the Old Covenant, now he shakes the earth with the establishment of the new covenant. How sweet is that? How powerful is that? And once more, God will return and shake the earth again. Amen. He's going to shake the earth again, the end of the world, the judgment, God will descend in wrath on this earth, this sin-cursed world. In Revelation 6, it says, “I watched as he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake." Revelation 16, “The Seventh Angel poured his bowl into the air and there was a severe earthquake, no earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the earthquake. The great city split into three parts and the cities of the nations collapsed. And God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. Every island fled away and the mountains were removed.” So that's God pouring out judgement and wrath on the Earth and removing them. Now, it says in Hebrews 12:26-27, “At that time, his voice shook the earth,” Sinai, “but now once more he has promised, ‘Once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.’ Now, the words ‘once more’ indicate the removal of what can be shaken - so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” Alright, what's gonna remain after he shakes the present heaven and earth? The new heaven and the new earth. So this was an earth-shaking experience, the death of Jesus, because it pointed to things that can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken will one day come. There will be a new heaven, and there will be a new earth. The Father Raises the Dead, for Christ is the Resurrection and Life (vs. 52-53) And then seventh, The Father raises the dead for Christ is the resurrection and the life. “The tombs broke open, the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life, they came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” This is the Greatest Result of All: Death Has Been Defeated for God’s People This is only found here in this gospel. It's not in Mark, Luke or John. It's an interesting detail here. Really, ultimately for us on the outside looking in, as we are on the outside, reading and trying to understand what happened with the death of Christ, this is the best part of all. This is Jesus bringing his resurrection victory to us. That's a foretaste here. It's a foretaste, just a foretaste. The whole sermon has been God's interpretation of Christ's crucifixion. In God's eyes the whole reason for Christ's death was that God's people might be forgiven of their sins and raised from the dead and live forever, that's the whole reason for all of it, and so this is indications of that purpose that God had, that interpretation of the cross. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, he who believes in him will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in him will never die. Resuscitation, Not Resurrection Now, I believe this was a resuscitation, not a resurrection. You know the difference? Well, the difference is resurrection, you're in your resurrection body and you'll never die again. This was like Lazarus being raised after four days. Does that make sense? Why do I say that? I think it's very important that I say this, 1 Corinthians 15:22-24, it speaks of Jesus “As in Adam, all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Listen, “But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come.” Do you see there's an order to things? Jesus is the firstfruits, and therefore he gets a resurrection body first. These guys, they just get resuscitated, they come back into the same life they had before. And they went and saw some of the people they knew before, how would you like to have received such a visit? You thought grandma was dead. You thought your husband was dead, you thought your wife was dead, they were dead, and we don't know how long they were dead, they might have been dead for years. I have no idea. It's amazing, we have no indications. With Lazarus we know how long it was, but these people just came and they appeared to many people, it says. Wow. Wow. Application: Follow the Centurion in Learning these Lessons (vs. 54) Testify to your Faith with the Centurion So what application do we take from all of this? I'm gonna wanna give you three. First is just right from the text, verse 54, “When the centurion and those who were with him who were guarding Jesus saw that the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the Son of God!’” So after all of this evidence, all these things going on... The centurion didn't have all that you guys have in this sermon here, he wasn't aware of the fulfilled prophecy, he wasn't aware of a lot of things, the significance of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But he's just looking at the physical stuff, the earthquake, the darkness and all that, watching how Jesus died, how he carried himself so differently. Maybe hearing him say, “Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.” And you know what, I think that really is the key moment there for the Centurion, but what do you call it when Jesus addresses God and asks him for something? Isn't that prayer? What's Jesus' batting average on prayer? What would you imagine? How much of what he asks the Father do you think he gets? I think 100 percent. What do you say? Batting, in the baseball terminology, a thousand, he's batting a thousand, right? He gets 100 percent of what he asks for. All of it. Alright? Did he get that? Did they get forgiven? These that were crucifying him? And you could say, “Well, maybe they just got forgiven for the crucifixion, but not for all the rest of their sins.” What good is that? That's of no use. Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. And the first indication of that is this Centurion speaking faith, surely He was not a righteous man or a good man, but here in Matthew, the Son of God, God the Son. I guess the best application for you is look at all of this evidence and come to the same conclusion, look, look with eyes of faith at the crucified and resurrected Christ and say, “Truly, you are the son of God,” and if you can make that confession your sins will all be forgiven, all of them. And if you made that confession years ago, your sins are all forgiven and they will be forgiven and you'll die forgiven and you'll go to heaven forgiven, so rejoice and be glad in that. But if you came in here and you're lost and you don't know him, I'm pleading with you, don't leave here unconverted, all you need to do is just call on the name of Jesus, just say “Jesus,” do in your heart right now. You don't have to speak any word, just say, “Jesus, save me, I wanna be saved. You know I'm a sinner, you know, I came here 'cause so and so invited me, but this is the gospel, I want to be forgiven. Forgive me, O Lord, because of the blood of Jesus.” Boldly Approach the Throne of Grace Secondly, if you have been a Christian for years and years, long time, can I just urge you go to Hebrews 4:16, and you don't have to turn there, but just listen. Again, I've already quoted it once, but I'll say it again, “Let us approach then the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” I prayed for people who are going through medical challenges, can I just urge you, approach the throne of grace every day. Ask that the Lord will sustain your faith. Feeding your faith. And if you are the spouse of someone who's facing such a challenge, go every day to the throne of grace, go right through that rent curtain, and go right into the presence of almighty God and get what you need. If you're a student beginning school, maybe you're a freshman, maybe it's your senior year, you don't know what kind of job opportunities. Go through the opening in the curtain to get from God the grace you need. If you're struggling with sin, you're struggling with temptations, you're struggling with who knows what? Addictions, whatever. Go through the rent curtain to the throne of grace and get what you need from it. Don’t Fear Death And then thirdly, if I can just say very tenderly, especially of those who are gonna feel this pretty acutely, don't fear death. Amen. Don't fear it, the sting of death has been removed forever by the events that we covered today. The Father has interpreted the cross to you today by the Spirit. Take these interpretations up, treasure them and walk in them. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for speaking now through your word and through the Spirit. O Lord, take these truths and press them into our hearts. May we live in them, Oh Lord, may we get strength by them. May we walk in them. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Click here (or right click and select "save as") to download "In God's Waiting Room"Click here to watch the serviceIn God's Waiting RoomGenesis 39:19 - 40:23Three ways Joseph COULD have responded.1. Anger and bitterness. He CHOSE to trust God and believe in His plan and His goodness to him.2. Manipulate his situation for his own good.3. Forsake God.The people who trust God's plan sees affliction and suffering as a time of spiritual growth. And this growth is because of a deep confidence in God and what He's doing to them and thru them.Good character rarely grows in an atmosphere of priviledge, it primarily develops in the dark “waiting rooms” of pain and suffering.So how did Joseph respond?1. Joseph trusted God's character. (39:21-23, 40:8)Hebrews 13:5.” I will never leave you, nor will I ever desert you.What did Joseph do in response to God‘s good character?A. He responded with faithfulness.Character is built when faithfulness grows.B. He responded by serving others.When you learn to trust in God's character, your character will grow as well.“When christians avoid suffering, they never develop character“. So how did Joseph respond?2. Joseph remembered God's promise. (40:8)Joseph's confidence in God was based in God's divine revelation.God is not slow, in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness (2 Peter 3:9).The watchword for us when we're hurting, or just waiting, isn't escape, it's Endurance.James 1 says, the testing of our faith produces endurance. Hebrews 12:11 says, all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.James 1 says, the testing of our faith produces endurance. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.3. Joseph recognized God's hand. (40:1-4, 8, 14, 15)God uses adversity as a tool to chisel away the areas of our lives that don't reflect his holy character that he desired for us to show. He is intent on developing your character, and not leaving you to stay the way he found you.
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