The Promise of the Holy Spirit!

  John 14:26 (NAS95)

Reader: Acts 2:1-13.

It’s Pentecost Sunday and today we are going to learn about the importance of not only the historical event of Pentecost as just read in Acts 2, but also of the ongoing promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ gave us.

The play of the week is “The Promise of the Holy Spirit!” The memory verse for this promise is John 14:26,

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

I want you to listen to Jesus’ clear teaching on the Holy Spirit so that you can hear this promise in the fullness of Jesus’ teaching. From John 14:16-31 Jesus taught,

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.”

Jesus gave us this clear teaching, along with other teachings, on the Holy Spirit. From Acts 1:4-5, immediately before His ascension to the right hand of the Father (please listen to last week’s sermon if you have not yet listened to that important teaching on the Ascension of Jesus Christ), Jesus promised that His followers would be baptized in the Spirit:

“Gathering them together, [Jesus] commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”

This is not the first time the followers of Jesus heard this invitation to be baptized in the Spirit because the baptism of the Spirit is not a secondary event to salvation itself, it is the very nature of salvation itself—the Spirit of God is our inheritance—the presence and power of God dwelling in us, the Giver of new life transforming us into a Temple of the Holy Spirit and inviting us into the eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by allowing us to participate in His divine nature. This is what it means to have salvation and it should never be reduced to some secondary work of sanctification in our lives. The Son removed our sins from us through His sacrificial death on the Cross so that God could live in us through His Spirit!

From the beginning of the New Testament, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was distinguished apart from the baptism of John. John the Baptist’s baptism was a means of preparation for the coming of the Lord, a purification of oneself in preparation for the coming of the Lord in Christ Jesus. Listen to John the Baptist make this distinction in Matthew 3:11,

“As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (cf. Mark 1:7-8 & Luke 3:16).

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the baptism of Jesus, which is the only form of New Covenant baptism that Jesus commanded His disciples to conduct immediately before His ascension to the right hand of the Father when He gave us the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20:

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This issue is often confused by people misapplying the early church history book of Acts. The early church leaders dealt with this confusion, making a distinction between the baptism of John and the baptism in Jesus’ name. Acts 11:15-18 is a powerful illustration of the importance of understanding how yoked our justification in Christ is with the baptism of the Spirit. Listen to Peter give a first-hand witness of the work of the Spirit after Pentecost and in the early church among non-Jewish people, called Gentiles:

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”

Pentecost is both a one-time historical event recorded in Acts 2 and the beginning of the age of the Church—the promised fulfillment of Jesus Christ who fulfilled the Old and ushered in the New Covenant, to which the baptism of the Spirit is a fulfillment of God’s promise to His people from Joel 2:28-32:

It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as the Lord has said, Even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

We will be in the age of Pentecost until we experience the fulfillment of God’s Word and the return of Jesus.

Until that Day, we are to walk in the Spirit. As we learned last week, the ministry of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, right now, is to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father until He returns. Simultaneously, the Father and Son have baptized us with the Spirit so that our eternity would be secured and we would carry in our very person the same anointing that the Messiah Himself had: the Spirit of the Living God! The same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives in you and me—the Resurrection power of God is in us!

Paul teaches us in Galatians 5:16-26 what it means to live our lives in the Spirit:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

When the power of the risen Christ comes upon the Church of Jesus Christ through the promised coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is keeping His promise to His followers that He will always be with us and that we will become like Him. Jesus’ ascension did not leave us alone in this world. He promised to not leave us as orphans and He kept His word!

God came upon His church at Pentecost in a new and different way than Jesus’ incarnation at Christmas. We don’t live in the age of Christmas where Jesus’ uniquely incarnated God’s Presence on earth; rather, we live in the age of Pentecost where God now incarnates in each of us through His Spirit living in us. Jesus has ascended and will come again, but until that time, the Spirit of the Living God indwells the Church of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of the words of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ and the earliest church teachings.

God is with us! We are not left as orphans! The promise of the Holy Spirit is ours in His fullness!

“This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”

God is with us through His presence and power living in us! May God be exalted in and through His Church!

As we move to prepare ourselves to respond to this message and invite the Spirit of the Living God to move upon us and work in our hearts and minds, allow me to pray over you the ancient prayer of the Apostle Paul from Ephesians 3:14-21:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

You can listen to this message from Pastor Jerry here:

Or you can watch the video by clicking Here.

The Promise of Intercession!

Romans 8:34b (NAS95)

Read: Acts 1:1-11.

Where is Jesus? Right now, where is Jesus and in what state does He exist and what is He doing? Has Jesus returned to a pre-incarnate Spirit-state? Does He live in your heart? For that matter, where and what is Heaven and what would it even mean if Jesus was there right now?

“Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”

In Tuesday’s daily devotional phone call based on Genesis 31 I asked if God still intervenes for His people today as we saw Him do over and over again in the Bible. The answer is a resounding yes—absolutely! The primary way God does it is through today’s promise: God’s intervention is through Jesus’ intercession and that is only possible because of the ascension!

Right now, Jesus is at the right hand of God, in the throne room of Heaven, praying for you! Ascension Day is the crowning event of the ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but is often hidden in the shadow of our proclamation of His crucifixion and resurrection.

We skip over the triumphant reality of Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of the Father, yet we declare His imminent return in the second coming of Jesus Christ. We leave the “where is He now” and “what is He doing in this present age” kind of unclear. Right now, at the right hand of God, Jesus is praying for you! Here is another way of talking about this: The Holy Spirit, who dwells in you, and Jesus, who is at the right of the Father in Heaven, are speaking with one another and with the Father about you. God exists in a perfect relationship with perfect communication for His glory and our good, for eternity.

Today, I want to teach you the importance of Jesus’ ascension so that you can live with even greater confidence in your daily prayer life and the promises of God for His intervention in your life.

“And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God.”

“So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.”

“By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

On the fortieth day after Easter, Jesus ascended (bodily rose, “taken up in glory”) to heaven before His disciples’ very eyes. Jesus did not leave behind his physical body, resurrected in the flesh, glorified in the Spirit, so that He could take His place at the right hand of the Father. No, very importantly, Jesus in His glorified and resurrected flesh, is now at the right hand of God, praying for us!

The ascension is filled with theological significance and practical implications for our faith and practice.

First, for our faith in Jesus and His Kingdom rule, Jesus’ ascension demonstrates the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy—Jesus’ rule will never end. Listen to the ancient prophecy of Daniel 7:13-14:

I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

Hebrews 1:1-4 affirms Jesus’ fulfillment of this prophecy:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.

What does it mean that Jesus “sat down at the right hand”? It means that Jesus has the respect and authority of the Sovereign! To be at the right hand is to be the trusted agent of the will of the King. Heaven is the control room of creation from which the Sovereign Creator rules over all things in heaven and earth. Do you know the awesome news? God’s control room is one day coming to earth in the New Heaven & Earth.

Jesus has the authority of Heaven in earthly and heavenly affairs. From 1 Peter 3:22, Peter declares that Jesus “is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him” (cf. Ephesians 1:18-23; Philippians 2:9-11).

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Our relationship with God and our work for Jesus in His Church rest in His rightful authority, not in the authority of any man or denomination. Living and working under rightful authority (headship) is an essential reality and one that God cares very deeply about—not just for His Son, but for all of His children and all of creation, for all time.

Are you living under the authority of Jesus Christ? How far reaching are the implications to your answer?

Second, Jesus’s ascension to the right hand of God is a guarantee of our own bodily resurrection. Our hope is not simply in this life, but for eternal life; Jesus’ resurrection and ascension are essential to our hope and critical to our understanding of this body and its future, along with all creation, in the New Heaven & Earth.

All who are in Christ Jesus are promised participants in His ascension. Paul states this in Ephesians 2:4-7,

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.”

We are no longer bound to this earth, our place in Heaven is already being prepared for us. Speaking of His own future ascension in John 14:1-3, Jesus taught us how this is important for all those who follow Him:

Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

These are the comforting words of Jesus Christ, made possible through His ascension. We can share these words with others because we know Jesus is alive, ascended to the right hand of God, in a place of authority.

Third, Jesus’ ascension means that the One who rules with such great authority from Heaven, prays for us based on His firsthand human experience of temptation and suffering upon the earth.

We don’t have a distant God, but a personal One. The Bible teaches us this in Hebrews 4:14-16,

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus prays for us continually and His prayers are effective, not only because of Jesus’ authority, but also because of the intimate knowledge of Jesus’ experiences as a person who walked on the earth!

So don’t feel guilty and heavy-burdened if your prayer life is lacking, just remember to never stop starting in your conversation with Jesus, who is already praying for you. What a powerful truth that fuels my prayer life with desire to be with this God who loves me and gave Himself for me. In fact, our very prayer lives are empowered by the presence of God in us, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We are joining in the conversation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Prayer is sharing in God’s eternal community.

“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

In conclusion and in preparation for next Sunday’s celebration of Pentecost Sunday, with the ascension of Jesus Christ, the stage is set for the miracle of Pentecost, when the power of the risen Christ comes upon the Church of Jesus Christ through the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is keeping His promise to His followers that He will always be with us. Jesus’ ascension does not leave us alone in this world.

“This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”

God is with us through His presence and power living in us! May God be exalted in and through His Church!

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

The Promise of Comfort!

Isaiah 66:13a (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

“As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.”

To comfort means to alleviate sorrow; to relieve distress; to give emotional strength to. To comfort someone is an activity of love from one person to another. I want you to hang on to this definition and understanding of comfort because while this is a divine promise of God, it is one that God incarnates to us and then between us, from one person to another!

A prime example of this is found in motherhood! The love of a mother is great and we celebrate such a love on this day—Mother’s Day! A special, heart-felt blessing over all of our moms.

PRAY OVER AND BLESS ALL THE MOMS, COMFORT THOSE WHO WANTED TO BE MOMS AND FOR THOSE WHO ARE TRYING, CALL FORTH SPIRITUAL MOTHERHOOD THROUGH MENTORSHIP/ADOPTION/FOSTER CARE, AND GRIEVE FOR THOSE MOMS WHO ARE NO LONGER WITH US OR WHO WERE ABSENT.

While we could spend this entire service testifying to the great comfort and sacrificial love of many women as moms, I want to return our eyes to God, the author of all comfort, who loves us with a perfect love.  

In Isaiah 49:15-16a, God says His love is more powerful than even that of a mother’s love for her children: “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands…”

Can you imagine that? What love! What compassion!

I hope it is not lost on you that Isaiah, the prophet who was used by God to clearly communicate the coming Messiah, was also the prophet who spoke so convincingly of God’s comfort. Listen to two samples:

“But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.”

This is the gospel ministry of Jesus Christ through men and women, alike. We are to extend to one another the same nurture and love, the same compassion and mercy, the same gentleness and grace as a mother to her child.

We are to do for others what the three persons of the Triune God has done for us!

This is the love that God first gave us and this is the love that will transform the world.

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

The Promise of Being Discipled

Mark 1:17 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’”

You are invited!

Everything pertaining to life and godliness, to wholeness and holiness, comes down to hearing this invitation. Not just a once-upon-a-time invitation commonly called justification or being saved, but the every-day-every-moment invitations which are the call of the Spirit for our sanctification.

Our responsibility is to listen for the call of Jesus to “Follow Me” and then respond with integrity.  

The promise of being discipled is a promise that you never again have to do life by yourself. Jesus is inviting you to do life with Him, for eternity, which, oh by the way, includes every day of this life.

You are invited!

The life of a Christian is a lifestyle defined and determined by the response to this invitation—an invitation that is ongoing in the Christian’s life. Salvation is an all-encompassing reality—it may begin with your initial acceptance of this invitation and end with the fulfillment of it, but it also shapes your daily life.

Are you hearing God’s invitations in your everyday life to follow Him and become like Him in everything you do?

“For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

That is a promise! Salvation is an ongoing work and your part is to respond to the invitation to follow Jesus and trust that He will keep His promises. This is the life of believing God!

“A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.”

You are to learn all that Jesus Christ wants you to learn because we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2)!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

You are to do all that Jesus wants you to do because as a fisher of people you are taking on Jesus’ mission to make disciples of all nations—His ambassador; His witness; His light in the darkness!

The promise of being discipled is the promise of becoming like Jesus Christ in your very character—gentle and humble in heart—and conformed to His Image as God intended you from the beginning. Paul said in Romans 8:29-30, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

You are to become all Jesus wants you to be! You are a redeemed Image Bearer of God!

The promise of being discipled is the promise of the Holy Spirit producing fruit on your branch and demonstrating to the world that you are His and represent Him. Jesus said in John 15:8-11,

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

You are the dwelling place of God on this earth—a temple of the Holy Spirit—and a holy priesthood mediating God’s presence. Until He makes all things new, you are His new creation upon this earth.

All of these are the promises of being discipled—the work of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

With all of these promises of God, you only have one calling—one praxis that you are responsible for in this great exchange! We call it living by faith!

“His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence”

Now that you know what God has promised to do with you and in you and for you, let’s now focus on the invitation of this promise: You are invited to trust God by following Jesus!

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus’ invitations to “Follow Me” and to “Come to Me” are the same call with the same promise of God. The Greek word δεῦτε is a translation of the important Hebrew word הלך (hālakh). For the Jewish people, this Hebrew word took on the meaning of habitually practicing or walking in a certain lifestyle as the way of fulfilling God’s invitation of covenant relationship.

Listen to how this concept is built into the covenant call of Isaiah 2:1-5:

The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths’ [italics added]. For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war. Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the Lord [italics added].

Based on Jesus’ word choice, this invitation to “Follow” or “Come” is not a one-time action, but an ongoing journey of following Jesus through the “habitual practice” of His way of life. This is a word the Jewish rabbis used when inviting students to learn their teaching of Torah and walk in their way of fulfilling the Mosaic Law. Jesus was being very intentional in His invitation; He was essentially saying—I am the way!

This was unmistakable to His original audience, which is why Jesus was so controversial! But such nuances are easily missed by us today: Jesus was directly aligning Himself to the ancient promises of Yahweh’s redeemed rule over all nations and the Messiah’s eternal reign over all of God’s creation.

“All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

You are invited! Yes, this is an invitation that each of must decide how we will respond once and for all, but it also an invitation for each and every moment of our everyday lives. This is the way!

In Christ’s mind, the mind of God, your invitation to salvation, “Follow Me,” comes with everything you need for life and godliness, wholeness and holiness. It includes your call to not only becoming like Him, but to also partner with Him in the mission of Jesus Christ. Because there is only one invitation, one calling, and it is for each of us to answer. It is the invitation to faith, trusting that He will do the rest so that you can find rest for your soul.

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

“The Promise of Joy”

John 15:9-17 (NLT)

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.

This Week’s Memory verse: John 15:11:

INTRODUCTION:

Minister and author Samuel D. Gordon says joy is defined as:

“distinctly a Christian word and a Christian thing. It is the reverse of happiness. Happiness is the result of what happens of an agreeable sort. Joy has its springs deep down inside. And that spring never runs dry, to matter what happens. Only Jesus gives that joy. He had joy, singing its music within, even under the shadow of the cross.” (from his ‘Quiet Talks’ series of books)

I. I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy Joy Down in My Heart!

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (ESV)

^“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”

~Be Alert

~Be faithful

~Be a mature adult

~Be strong

~Be loving (do all in love…EVERYTHING)

Motivational speaker and author Jim Rohn made this statement regarding love and joy and how they work together:

“Nothing can bring more joy to life than beautifully fulfilling relationships.”

II. The Joy Source

John 15:11

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

But also demonstrates who is our source.

“The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.”

“Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon

WHY? So it would be a testimony to others who are watching!

III. Is Joy conditional?

“ Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”

(ESV) says to “count it all joy…when trials come~grumblings, murmuring, sarcasm?

Shannon, Kenny & Kenton Rose. One of my ‘kids’ in youth group and close with whole family. (Easter 2021)

Her momma wrote: Don’t think for one second that because she is sweet and compassionate that she is weak. Oh No! This girl can break a horse, train a dog, drive a boat, pull a four horse trailer and back it up wherever it needs to go. She can load and unload 50 bales of hay without complaint….She is strong and she is a fighter… She recently received a diagnosis of metastatic cancer in her breast, ovary, and a 5.9cm tumor in the bone of her shoulder. She is currently having a bone scan to see if the cancer has “camped” anywhere else. During this most devastating news, she has maintained her resolve to do whatever it takes to be victorious in this journey.

She has not let this diagnosis steal her joy. She was asked to be a part of a clinical trial study at Duke Cancer Institute that is showing great promise.

Quote from Kenny when I told him our church would be praying: Ken, Thank you buddy! We are giving this to God daily and trusting in him for healing! Thank you for the prayers! I’m believing that this will become a beautiful story to help someone down the road!

They are facing this trial knowing that through it all, God will be glorified.

“And Nehemiah continued, “Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!”

Nehemiah was there to encourage the people.

Not to be a ‘Debbie Downer’ or a ‘Negative Nancy’

Recently while listening to KLOVE radio, the hosts of the afternoon show were talking about having a good time, laughing and enjoying time together when someone came in and they were in a bad mood. They had a choice to let that person influence them, or they could try to encourage and boost the spirits of that person.

“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”

CONCLUSION:

God’s Word tells us in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing can separate us from His love, but He still gives us the choice in what we are going to do with it. What are you going to choose to do with it?

We are told that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45), so are your words reflecting His love for Him and for others?

Child’s song: Jesus and Others and You

In this self-centered, me first, and what’s in it for me world we live in, it is our job to shine the light of God’s love and joy. They have to see the hope, the grace and the mercy that flows out of God’s love. And it must be shown in the way we live our lives. We can say it all we want, but unless we show it in our actions, all we are is noise makers.

“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”

So as the worship team comes, we are going to open up the altars.

• Maybe you have lost your joy. Jesus wants to meet you here and restore the joy of your salvation (process we have to work on daily…justification, sanctification, glorification)
• Maybe you are feeling weak from all the things the world has been throwing at you lately. Jesus wants to meet you here and let you know that His Joy will be your strength as you cast all your cares on Him.
• Maybe the devil has put a cork in your fountain of joy by filling your mind with distractions and lies. Jesus wants you to let go and let God do the work in you!

“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.”

He is calling forth a team to go out and share this message of joy that this world so desperately needs!

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

The Promise of Transformation!

Romans 12:1-2 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

The play of the week is “The Promise of Transformation!” The memory verse for this promise is Romans 12:1-2, when Paul calls the church to respond to the gospel presentation of the first 11 chapters:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Today’s promise is directly connected to the Easter promise of John 11:25-26, “The Promise of Resurrection and Life!” and an essential follow up to last week’s promise from 2 Corinthians 5:17, “The Promise of a New Beginning!” As we walk through the Easter Season we are invited to not only believe our own message, but to live in the power of our hope! We are invited to live as the new creation of God, as the Holy Spirit transforms us through the renewal of our minds.

Last week we learned that as the “new creation” in Christ, we are to be compelled by God’s love—this is God’s “good and acceptable and perfect” will for our lives! Being made mature in God’s love—conformed to the image of Jesus—is the goal of the God-ordained transformation process, that you are compelled by love “so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Paul emphasized in 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 that this can only happen through the Holy Spirit:

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

To be transformed by the renewal of your mind is to have “the mind of Christ” and to appraise spiritually all things—to not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but to pray heaven to earth and work towards this prayer being answered in and through you. Thy will be done! This is a person’s ability to discern God’s will, “that which is good and acceptable and perfect,” as promised in Romans 12:2.

Discernment is the fruit of a person’s spiritual formation; which is the Holy Spirit’s work to transform you by the renewal of your mind as you learn how to be like Jesus by spending time with Him and His people through the spiritual disciplines of Christian discipleship and the spiritual practices of Christian community.  

With that said, we need to be very clear about a specific word in today’s promise: “Prove.” Prove is not an invitation to live your life in insecurity and fear; like one child on the playground saying to another, “prove it!” or like me saying to myself, “I have to prove to others (or to myself) that I belong to God, that I really am a Christian.” Prove, by this thought process, is opposed to grace and of the flesh!

That is not how Paul used the word “prove.” It’s not the pressure cooker of performance! Paul said in Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not [based on your religious performance], but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” If you are a new creation, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you and where Jesus reigns, there is righteousness, peace, and joy!

Spiritual disciplines in your personal life and spiritual practices in our community life are not performance; they are the unforced rhythms of grace in the easy yoke of Jesus. They are us walking in the character of Jesus Christ—gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:29). The practices of faith, personally and in community, are the means by which we learn to work from grace and allow Him to carry our burdens.

“Prove” in Romans 12:2 means that God’s work of transformation in you will demonstrate who you are by your new life of love through your union with Jesus Christ, or as Paul said it, your giving of yourself to God as “a living and holy sacrifice” in response to His gospel invitation to Himself. Because of His mercy…

A new creation is obvious for all to see, like a light in a dark room, like spring flowers after winter, like a butterfly bursting forth as something completely new! New Creation makes the mystery of the resurrection visible for all to see that the Kingdom of God has come upon us.

Jesus is making all things new—can you see that in me?

The Greek word μεταμορφόω, translated “transformed” in Romans 12:2, is where we get the English word metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is “the process by which a caterpillar enters into the darkness of the cocoon in order to emerge, eventually, changed almost beyond recognition.”[1] This is the transformation—you become a new creature—from caterpillar to butterfly via the tomb!

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”

We have no life of our own! We must be infused, like life flowing through the vine into the branches.

Just think of Jesus’ teaching from John 15, that He is the vine and we are the branches and any branch that abides in Him will bear much fruit, but apart from Him you can do nothing. Listen to Jesus’ words from John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” You bear fruit because you abide in the Vine. That’s the Spirit flowing through the vine into you and forming you.  

The fruit demonstrates your abiding in Jesus—your infused life! He proves His life through you! You are called to submit to Him and allow Him to do what He does best—He makes all things new!

Neither Jesus in John 15, nor Paul in Romans 12, are inviting you to live an insecure life of trying to earn God’s favor. Not all! Nothing like that! Rather, you are invited to rest in Him and trust that He will demonstrate His love in and through you.

God is in the process of transforming you from the inside out so don’t manage bad fruit; rather, get to the root and invite the Holy Spirit to renew your mind in the places you are not experiencing Christ’s righteousness, peace, or joy.

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.”

God’s will for each of us is to become a mature disciple of Jesus Christ—the transformation of our souls as yokefellows of Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of the Father. This is our spiritual service of worship; our acceptable response to God’s mercy!

We participate in this process through our personal faith practices, called spiritual disciplines, and our community faith practices. It is in these unforced rhythms of grace that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we represent Christ to the world as His Imager Bearers!

Donald Whitney states that the ultimate goal of these rhythms of grace is to transform us:

God has given us the Spiritual Disciplines as a means of receiving His grace and growing in Godliness. By them we place ourselves before God for Him to work in us. The Spiritual Disciplines are also like channels of God’s transforming grace. As we place ourselves in them to seek communion with Christ, His grace flows to us and we are changed.^[2]

His grace flows to us and we are changed.

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52).

The Kingdom has come and the Kingdom is coming! Hallelujah! Come Lord Jesus and receive your bride unto yourself, holy and blameless, sanctified by your great love and prepared for your glory (Ephesians 5:25-27).

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms, 12.

[2] Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 7.

The Promise of a New Beginning!

2 Corinthians 5:14-21 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

He is risen! My savior lives!

The play of the week is “The Promise of a New Beginning!” The memory verse for this promise is 2 Corinthians 5:17, when Paul victoriously proclaims,

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

This is the promise of spring! Even after the worst of winters, the spring brings new life! As the saying goes, “April showers. May flowers.” The same is true for even the worst of sinners! When God’s grace rains down on you and your respond in faith, then the Lord Jesus Christ will reign in you and He will bring new life because Jesus’ kingdom is about resurrection power—making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, this promise is the good fruit of those who are “in Christ”!

Are you “in Christ”? Are you walking in a personal relationship with Him?

As you heard from the scripture reading this morning, this memory verse is a part of larger passage about how and why we have received the promise of a new beginning. Let’s find our answers from God’s Word.  

“For the love of Christ compels us…”

“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.”

Are you abiding in Christ or abiding in death? The simple test is always found in one word: LOVE!

Who or what directs your path? What compels you to act and constrains you to not act? What sets your agenda and what gives you the motivation to get it done? How do you make decisions?

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”

This is the mystery of the resurrection—life comes from death! As Jesus said in John 12:24-26,

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

We are unwilling to begin a new life when we remain codependent with the old man—you can’t keep the old man on life support just in case Jesus doesn’t work for you! Paul knew this intimately as a former religious leader. He had to die to religion in order to be born again to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

You can’t live the old life and experience the promise of a new beginning at the same time. Beauty comes from ashes—that’s a promise!

Maybe you are hanging on to some hurt, habit, or hang up, an addiction or secret sin, or maybe you are not willing to die to religion in order to be born again through personal relationship…

Are you living a co-dependent life with your old self? You don’t need the old anymore. You can experience satisfaction and joy in your new life; you can feel accomplished and successful in Christ alone; you can know who you are and have a unique identity in your life.

What must you crucify so that you are living as the new creation Jesus Christ says you are?

“Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.”

“the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

We live by faith in the Son of God who loved me! This faith becomes our power source because of God’s Holy Spirit living in us—given to us by the Father and Son to fulfill God’s purposes for our lives.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

How do we become the righteousness of God in Christ?

You have been regenerated (born again!) by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God has given you the gift of His righteousness—His presence in you. Holiness is Christ in you! What comes out of you is determined by who lives in you. The tree is known by its fruit! You are already a new creation, a new person, as Paul says, the old has gone, behold, the new has come. This is the new beginning of being “in Christ”!

Jesus took your sin upon Himself and filled you with His right standing with God so you can live in Him. Listen to Romans 6:4-11 explains this as he teaches us about the ancient practice of baptism:

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Why has God done this?

There is a reason God has commanded us to walk in this way, in the promise of a new beginning!

For God’s glory, we are created in Christ Jesus to be signposts of His new creation! We are not yet in the New Heaven and New Earth, that is at the end of all things when Christs makes all things new (Revelation 21:5), but we are to point people to the new creation!

“For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

As a part of His new creation, Jesus has invited you into the mission of Jesus. Listen to our last two verses of our scripture lesson, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20,

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

If you are in Christ, you are on mission!

No additional call to ministry required because you are immediately a “minister of reconciliation.” When God calls you to Himself, He calls you to His plans and purposes for creating you (Ephesians 2:10).

You are a signpost of the New Heaven and New Earth! You are already a new creation, reconciled to God through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ! This is the reality of your baptism of the Holy Spirit—you are infused with the Light of God, His Holy Spirit, immersed in God for the world to see!

“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Now, as a new creation, chosen by God, reconciled by the Son and empowered by the Holy Spirit, compelled by His love go in grace as ambassadors for Christ—signposts of the new creation!

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

“The Promise of Resurrection and Life!”

John 11:1-46 (NAS95)

Happy Easter ~ He is Risen!

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

Easter is the perfect Sunday for a series about living a victorious life because this is the day we celebrate the greatest victory ever—Jesus’s victory over death and His promise to us that, we too, will join with Him in His resurrection.

The play of the week is the “Promise of Resurrection and Life!” The memory verse for this promise is John 11:25-26, when Jesus proclaims,

“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

This is a precious and magnificent promise ~ He is Risen!

1. The Promise of Resurrection and Life is for You

Have you ever felt like you were in a pretty bad situation and could not see nor imagine what God was possibly doing to bring the promise of resurrection and life out of the situation?

Can you imagine how Jesus’ followers must have felt on the Friday of His crucifixion? Their expectations, hopes, and dreams were shattered—life was not working out the way they thought it was supposed to…

Have you ever been there: Expectations crushed under the weight of reality; Hopes shattered like a glass of milk knocked of the dinner table; and Dreams dashed against the rocks of life’s storms?

How could anything good come out of Jesus’ suffering and death?

This the promise of resurrection and life ~ He is Risen!  

Jesus responded to Marth and Mary’s discouragement with these words in verse 40, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

They thought Jesus was late in His arrival, but here is the good news: God is never late! I’m not sure if you caught this when Katie read the story, but did you hear what Jesus said in verses 14-15 before He went to see Lazarus, three days after he was informed of Lazarus’ sickness: “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.”

No matter the circumstance or how pungent the smell of death and decay you may be experiencing in your life, if Jesus says it’s time to go and open up the tomb so that you can come out of that circumstance, then it is time to trust that God may have a better plan in mind than what you can imagine. As Jesus said in verse 40, then “you will see the glory of God!”

Can you imagine this truth in your circumstances and relationships, at work or at home, in our church or community, in our nation and the nations?

This is Jesus’ promise of resurrection and life ~ He is Risen!

Jesus calls Lazarus out and we see the reality of Jesus’ promise of resurrection and life, but by God’s providence the work for the community of God’s people is not done yet!

2. Jesus invites you to participate in the promise of resurrection and life!

Listen to what Jesus says in verse 44 to the community who witnessed His miracle: “The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”

Did you hear it? Jesus says to you, “Unbind them and let them go!”

When Jesus began His ministry that would lead Him to the Cross of Calvary, He did so by proclaiming that He was the One who would fulfill God’s promises. Listen to Jesus in Luke 4:17-21,

And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to [Jesus]. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

On this Easter Sunday, I am proclaiming to you that Jesus has not only fulfilled the promise of resurrection and life through His atoning sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary and His victorious resurrection from the empty tomb, but that Jesus is now inviting each one of you to carry on His work of bringing resurrection and life to your family and neighborhood, school or workplace, church or civic group or club, community or state, nation, and the nations.

Jesus is inviting you to walk in His fulfillment of that ancient book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon [YOU], Because He anointed [you] to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent [you] to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Jesus said from the beginning of this story in John 11:4, just as God has proclaimed from the very beginning of the story of this sin-sick world, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”

How are we to participate in the promise of resurrection and life?

Jesus says that this sin-sick world is not to end in death, but all things will be made new for the glory of God and by this the Son of God will be glorified by it! We, His Church, are to work for this glory by doing what Jesus told the first witnesses of the promise of resurrection and life: “unbind them and let them go!”

We are to believe our own Easter Story!

We are to unbind the captives, set free the oppressed, give sight to the blind, and preach the gospel to the poor in word and deed. We are to let them go!

How are you invited to live out this promise in the personal and public arenas of your life?

As our memory verse proclaims in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

This is the promise of Jesus Christ, who is the Resurrection and the Life ~ He is Risen!

Right now, we are going to respond and this is a sacred moment, an altar call: “Do you believe this?”

That is not my question to you; this is God’s question to you. Jesus is asking you: “Do you believe [that I am the resurrection and the life]?”

“Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done.”

Some believed…

God has brought you to the empty tomb of Jesus Christ on this Easter Sunday: Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, crucified on the Cross of Calvary for the forgiveness of your sin, dead and buried for three days, resurrected from the dead and alive as “the first fruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20) for all who will inherit His eternal life?

This is the promise of the One how has defeated death once and for all ~ He is Risen!

“Do you believe this?”

This is the promise of the First Fruits of the Resurrection and the Life ~ He is Risen!

“Do you believe this?”

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

The Promise of Passover – A Reason to Party!

Exodus 6:7a

Nearly three years ago a popular evangelical pastor told his church that people were turning away from God because of the Old Testament. He said, “The church needed to unhitch from the Old Testament.”[1]

Fourteen years ago, another group of Christians began a movement called “Red-Letter Christianity” – where they focus only on the red letters (the words of Jesus) and pay very little attention to the black letters (the rest of scripture). On the web page for www.redletterchristians.org, one of their stated values says that “Jesus is the lens through which we understand the Bible …”[2]

I disagree with both of these positions. I believe that people are turning away from Christianity, not because they understand and reject the difficult portions of the Old Testament, but because they have failed to understand it in the first place. I believe that the Word of God, including both the Old and New Testaments, is the only lens through which we can truly understand Jesus and his mission. It’s the only lens through which we can understand the character of God.

Saying that we are only going to focus on the actual words of Jesus, is like saying, “The only part of my house I like is the second floor. The first floor is okay, I hardly spend any time in the basement, and I’ve never even seen the foundation and footers. … I think I’m going to detach the second floor and remove the first floor, basement, and foundation.” Any builder or architect knows that even if you could accomplish that feat, your second floor would lose its structural integrity and eventually collapse. And the church has tried this before.

In the early 1900’s, many in the German church decided to remove the “Hebrew Scriptures” from the Bible and the result helped create the environment that nurtured Nazism and culminated in the horrors of WWI and WWII.[3]

Now, I get it. Some stuff in the Bible is hard to understand. Given what most people think they know about the Old Testament, the God of the Old Testament seems angry and punitive. The Old Testament is difficult to understand in places. There are portions of the Old Testament that seem unloving, cruel, and many times just bizarre. My theology professor says, “In the Bible, if it’s weird it’s important.”

We don’t need to jettison the Old Testament and all of its strangeness from the church. What I hope to show you today, is that instead of avoiding the Old Testament, we need to spend more time studying it. We need to dig in and when we do, we’ll discover unexpected gems hiding in the pages of the first 39 books of scripture. I think you’ll be surprised by what we find!

Three times a year, the people of Israel were to travel, from wherever they were, to Jerusalem to have a party! (Deuteronomy 16:1-17; Exodus 23:14-17; Exodus 34:18-24; Leviticus 23:4-44)

The first party is Passover/Pesach – Feast of Unleavened Bread – It is a time to remember the Exodus – It also foreshadowed what was going to happen on the day we call Good Friday. Today we’re going to look at Passover and the leadup to the Exodus.

The second party (50 days after Passover) is Pentecost/Shavuot – Feast of Weeks – Pentecost is a Greek word that means fifty days. Shavuot is the Hebrew word that means “weeks” (7 Sevens plus One = 50 days). It’s a time to remember when the law descended from Mt. Sanai and the Nation of Israel was born. It is also the culmination of the First Fruits harvest. Pentecost foreshadowed the second significant event in the life of the church – the day that the Holy Spirit descended on all believers and the church was born.

The third party is the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles)/Sukkot – Feast of Ingathering – This is a time to remember how God protected and provided for the children of Israel during the wilderness wanderings before they entered the promised land and is also the celebration of the final agricultural harvest. I believe this will be the next significant spiritual event in the life of the church. It will be the celebration after the second coming of Christ when we celebrate how God provided for us during our time on THIS earth before we enter his promised rest, and also a celebration of the final spiritual harvest.

Unfortunately, we don’t have time today to talk about all three of these parties, so we’ll focus on the first one – the Passover/Pesach – Feast of Unleavened Bread.

A 30,000 Ft. Review:

But to get there, we’re going to take the next few minutes in a quick 30,000 ft review of scripture.

This review is going to go fast, so we can get to the Passover/Exodus story, but we need to do this review so that we can understand the truths we will find in the Passover. We are going to see how the Passover story, foreshadows Jesus’ ultimate mission, and we are going to discover one of the core characteristics of God that’s true in both Old AND New Testaments.

Abram, who was renamed Abraham, fathered Isaac, who fathered Jacob, and God had face-to-face interaction with each of them. God promised each of them that he would bless their offspring and through them he would bless the world. Jacob was renamed Israel and had twelve sons. Joseph was one of those sons, and ten of his brothers, who were jealous of Joseph and contemplating murder, decided to sell Joseph into slavery. Pastor Jerry talked about his story last week. Joseph ended up in Egypt, and through a series of events, orchestrated by God, became the second most powerful person in Egypt. God warned Pharaoh through Joseph that a seven-year-famine was coming, and Egypt, under Joseph’s leadership stored up grain during the next seven fertile years.

When the famine came, Egypt survived by using the grain they had stored up. The family of Israel also survived the famine by moving to Egypt.

Living In Egypt and Moses

Pharaoh then asked the Israelite midwifes to cause the Hebrew women to kill their male babies as they were being born. (Let’s not whitewash this – it was infanticide and there is some indication in the text that it was a command to abort the babies before they were born).

The midwives, fearing God, told Pharaoh that by the time they got to the women, the babies had already been born. Israel continued to multiply, so Pharaoh ordered the people of Egypt to throw every male Israelite baby into the Nile River to be killed – a genocide of a whole generation. (This was intentional. Israelite babies and toddlers either drowned or eaten by alligators.)

Now, during this time, a young Hebrew baby boy was born, but instead of being killed in the Nile, he was rescued by the daughter of Pharaoh. Though Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s household, he could not escape the ethnic and racial tensions in the culture. Moses, being immature but passionate about justice, killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite – and tried to cover up the murder.

Moses soon discovered the demand for justice works both ways, and Moses had to flee into the land of Midian. While Moses was in Midian, the Pharaoh whose house Moses grew up in died, and a son took his place and became the new Pharaoh.

Egypt’s Gods

In Egypt these transitions between Pharaohs were serious events. The Pharaoh was considered to be the son or Re (the Sun God) and also the incarnation of Horus (another Egyptian God). As the son of Re, Pharaoh’s job was to maintain the natural order – He was considered the source of all life. When one Pharaoh died, these supernatural duties were transferred to the next in line.

Egypt had several other gods as well and they each were supposedly responsible for geographic areas, or specific functions. The control of the Nile River was the job of the god Hapi. Hekhet, the goddess of fertility (she had the head of a frog) was married to Khnum the god who they believed shaped the bodies of humans inside the womb. Hekhet also protected the crocodiles who would control the multiplication of frogs. The god Khepre controlled the flying insects. Apis was one of the sacred bull gods whose job was to provide protection and fertility to the livestock. The goddess Sekhmet was responsible for epidemics, and was thought to be able to heal from plagues. Nut, Shu, and Tefnut were three heavenly deities thought to control the sky and the moisture in the atmosphere. Senehem was the god who was responsible for protection from ravaging pests like locust, and grasshoppers. And these were just a few of the pantheon of Egyptian deities.

The Israelites lived in the midst of this culture that worshiped, served, and sacrificed to these gods and goddesses. You need to remember that the stories of how a God in Canaan met with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob were the only connection the Israelites had to a deity of any kind. This was before the covenant at Mt. Sanai. This was before the Ten Commandments. It was before the Levitical priesthood – Israel had no lineage of priests – and there was no sacrificial system established to serve Yahweh.

Like I said, the idea that most people had was that gods and goddesses where either geographically bound (the god of the mountains, the god of the valleys, the god of the sea) or they were bound by their function (the god of thunder and storms, the god of fertility, the god of healing from diseases).

This was the culture within which Israel had spent 400 years. This was a culture that despised the Israelites. This was the culture that kept them captive and treated them cruelly. This is the culture that slaughtered their children, and yet the Egyptians could still sleep well at night.

The Cry

“During that long period of time [while Moses was in Midian] the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry – because of their slave labor – went up to God. God heard their groaning, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, God saw the Israelites, and God understood.…”

“Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2)

Just because the Israelites were the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of three men that Yahweh had talked with in Canaan more than 400 years earlier, doesn’t mean that he would or could intervene, … does it?

But God … the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob had made a promise – a covenant – with each of the forefathers. And that promise had something to do with these great-great-great-great-grandchildren.

God’s Reply

So, God got Moses’ attention by appearing in a bush that was on fire but wasn’t being consumed. God told Moses to go back to Egypt. God said, “I have heard the cry of my people, and I have seen what the Egyptians are doing to them.” Then God says, “Moses, I’m going to send you to Pharaoh, and you are going to bring my people out of Egypt.”

Well, Moses isn’t thrilled about going back to Egypt, and he even has to ask what God’s name was, but eventually Moses agrees after God sends Aaron, his older brother, with him.

Aaron and Moses talk with Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 5 (The Passover events are found in Exodus chapters 5 thru 12.). They ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go on a three-day journey so that they can worship Yahweh God. Pharaoh objects and tells Moses and Aaron to stop taking the people away from their work. Then Pharaoh orders the people back to work but tells them they have to collect their own straw to make bricks – it would no longer be provided.

The people get mad and take it out on Moses and Aaron. Then Moses complains to God and says basically, “I told you that you shouldn’t send me! Look at what’s happened to the people now!”

Moving on to Exodus 6 we read where God responded, and this is where we find our memory verse – our weekly promise. This is the Promise of Passover. This is the reason to party!

But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” [This is actually a play on one of Pharaoh’s other names which means ‘strong arm’]

2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, … 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am [Yahweh], and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am [Yahweh] your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am [Yahweh].’” 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

This was GREAT NEWS but the children of Israel didn’t listen – because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. Did you know that sometimes the bondage and brokenness in our lives, make it hard to believe that God WANTS to deliver us? He DOES! Did you know that God WANTS to keep his promise to you, even when you reject him? HE DOES! And Christians: don’t get mad at people who reject God – that’s the time to love them more. The last part of Romans 2:4b reminds us that it is “… God’s kindness [that] leads [us] to repentance.” Broken and enslaved people have a hard time believing God wants to deliver them – but he DOES!

And he won’t give up. He continues to be faithful to his promise – “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God” – That’s part of his character – it’s who he is. And this is your play of the week! It’s the thirteenth message and the eighth promise as we walk through a year of promises.

And here is where Yahweh God begins to go directly at the little-“g” god’s of Egypt using the Plagues. He does this, not only because He wants to deliver Israel from Egyptian enslavement, but He also wants to show that He is not geographically bound, and He wants to dispel this idea that there are other gods who rival Him. He has no rivals; he has no equals. Now and forever, HE is the God who reigns.

The Plagues

In the first plague, Yahweh goes after Hapi (the god of the Nile). God tells Moses to strike the water of the Nile and it turns to blood. Hapi is supposed to control the health of the Nile but is revealed as powerless. The Nile turning to blood recalls the lives of the innocent babies and toddlers that were sacrificed in the same river to this Egyptian god.

Now the hartumim were there – that’s their Hebrew title. Most translations call them Pharaoh’s magicians, but they were really “chief lector priests.” Lector priests recited spells and rites in temple ceremonies and funerals. Egyptian literature portrays them as wise men who can foresee the future, and who can perform miraculous feats, and possess secret knowledge. They also performed something called the “Opening of the Mouth ceremony” on household idols.

(The people in the Ancient Near East who worshiped idols and used household idols understood that the idols themselves were merely wood, or stone, or metal images. But they believed that a god or goddess would only establish a “presence” in the idol once a priest performed an “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony. Until that ceremony was performed, it was just a piece of wood, or stone, or metal.)

So, the hartumim, these Egyptian priests of Egyptian gods, were there and they could actually replicate what Moses did to the water (they could turn the water into blood too), but that was a problem. They weren’t reversing what Yahweh did through Moses, they were simply making it worse by echoing what Yahweh did!

Anyway, Pharaoh’s heart wasn’t moved and seven days later Yahweh sent the plague of frogs. Frogs were everywhere! In the Nile, on the land, in the cupboards, in the ovens, in the food. This was a direct attack on the deities Hekhet and Khnum. Again, the hartumim were also able to make frogs come out of the Nile but they weren’t reversing what Yahweh did through Moses, they were simply making it worse! And Pharaoh wasn’t moved.

Then God sent the third plague – Gnats. The hartumim – the Egyptian priests – tried to replicate what God did through Moses, but they could not. At this, they told Pharaoh, “The finger of a God is in this!” But Pharaoh wouldn’t listen.

After that the fourth plague came – the Flies. But here God began to differentiate. The flies would swarm only the Egyptian houses, and avoid the Israelite houses.

Have you ever tried to keep flies out of your house, car, or tent (or your face)? These flies were directed by Yahweh and only impacted the lives of the Egyptians, not the Israelites.

These third and fourth plagues were a direct attack on the Egyptian god in charge of flying insects – Khepre. Now, we usually miss that something else happened in these two plagues that caused the hartumim major problems. Because they couldn’t keep the gnats and flies away, these lector priests became ritually unclean. When you are ritually unclean, you cannot perform your duties in the temples or at events like funerals. The worship of all the Egyptian gods came to a standstill, and when people died, the funeral rituals couldn’t be performed.

But still, after each plague, Pharaoh would not budge.

The fifth plague was an attack on the Egyptian god Apis – it caused the Egyptian livestock to die. Think of that. There is a sudden shortage on hamburger! No bacon! No eggs! But the Israelites lost none of their livestock.

The sixth plague – the plague of boils was a direct attack on Sekhmet the Egyptian god thought to control pandemics and healing. At this point the hartumim (these priests of other gods) became totally incapacitated – scripture tells us they could not even stand before Moses. Yet Pharaoh remained defiant.

So, Yahweh sent hail like had never been seen before in Egypt. And he warned even the Egyptians, if you value your lives, take your remaining livestock, and any person you care about and find shelter. Any living thing left in the fields will die. Now, some of the Egyptians were becoming believers in the power of Yahweh. Those that did what God suggested saved all that they protected. Those that didn’t believe God lost everything.

After this seventh plague, that was a direct attack on belief in the sky deities of Egypt – Nut, Shu, and Tefnut, some people today start to feel sorry for the Egyptians. But remember, these were the people that were holding the Israelites in bondage. These were the slave holders. These were the people who gladly killed Israelite infants and toddlers, and yet God warned them ahead of time to seek shelter.

Even when you do horrible things, God doesn’t want you to suffer – he wants to protect you.

The eighth plague targeted Senehem. Massive swarms of locusts were sent to eat every remaining plant and tree that remained in Egypt. There were so many locusts they totally covered the ground and blotted out the sun. But Pharaoh remained defiant.

The ninth plague targeted Pharaoh himself, the supposed Son of Re – the Sun God – the greatest god in the Egyptian pantheon of gods. For three days darkness covered Egypt. It was a darkness that could be felt.

(By the way, remember the August 2017 solar eclipse? People wore those funny glasses, and used other contraptions to try to get a glimpse of the eclipse. You could actually feel the temperature drop! It got slightly darker, but you could still see the people around you. In April 2024 we will experience another solar eclipse in Indiana.) Let’s get back to Egypt and the ninth plague.

For three days darkness covered Egypt. It was a darkness that could be felt. It was so dark that the Bible says they couldn’t see each other. Nobody left their house. Re, the sun god, was not only defeated – nobody was sure that he was ever coming back. Would the Sun God ever mount his chariot and ride from east to west again? This was frightening! But not every place in Egypt was dark. The places where the Israelites lived experienced no darkness.

Still Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites, so Yahweh sent one final plague.

“The LORD said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” 3 And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.”

Before they ever fought the last battle, before the last plague even started, Yahweh told the Israelites to take the spoils of victory. Long before midnight, before the cries of mourning were heard throughout Egypt, before the Passover Lamb was slain, God told the Israelites to ask their neighbors for gold and silver jewelry. Before darkness fell on the firstborn in Egypt, Yahweh gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moses was no longer the outcast, the troubler. He was now “very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants AND in the sight of the people.”

The Israelites were acting like Super Bowl champs before time ran out in the fourth quarter. They were standing on God’s promise – I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. What the people didn’t realize is that God was already providing for them the resources they would need for building the tabernacle – a place where heaven meets earth, a place where God could dwell with his people. This was God’s desire from the beginning of creation.

The Passover

God gave them instructions on how to celebrate the Passover Meal. This would become an annual time of remembrance. A teaching tool for every generation to come. Thursday night we will experience a Passover Seder (online) to remember Jesus’ last supper on that first Holy Week. Jews all over the world celebrated Passover at sundown last night.

Each family household was to take a one-year-old male lamb (or goat), without blemish, and at twilight they were to kill the lamb. They were to put some of the blood of the lamb on a hyssop plant, and “paint” it on the two doorposts on either side of the door, as well as over the top of the door. The blood of the Passover lamb would protect them.

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”

They were to roast the lamb on the fire and eat it all that night. They were to eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. If you couldn’t eat it all, you were to burn what you couldn’t eat before morning.

You were to eat the meal with your belt fastened, sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. In other words, be ready to move. Here’s a truth – When God delivers you from bondage – you need to be ready to leave. Don’t hang around that thing that enslaves you – get up and go – embrace your freedom!

No one was to go outside until morning. They were told that the Lord was passing through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the two doorposts and over the door Yahweh would protect them and not allow the destroyer to enter the house.

“At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. 31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!””

There’s More to Come

This is how the Exodus began. Ahead of them would lie the wonder of the pillars of fire and cloud. The miracle at the Red Sea. The bitter waters of Marah. The mana and the quail. The water from the rock.

They would fight their first battle before they ever got to Mt. Sanai. They would soon experience the thick cloud and the thunder and lightning on top of the mountain. Moses will climb the mountain and return with the Ten Commandments (the Ten Sayings). The Sanai Covenant with Israel will be established. The Nation of Israel will be born from the Children of Israel.

But during the Exodus, Yahweh proved faithful to his promise – “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God” before any of that had happened. God delivered them BEFORE they had a covenant relationship with him.

A Loving God Sends The Passover Lamb

And it foreshadowed how God would reveal himself in the New Testament. Jesus Christ would be sacrificed on Passover revealing that he was the true Passover Lamb. His sacrifice is what delivers each of us from the sin that enslaves us. The promise that drove Yahweh to deliver the people of Israel, is the same promise that motivates him to pursue us.

You see, the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. The promises he made to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob still hold true for us today. The God who used ten plagues to deliver the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of Israel, is the same loving and compassionate God that wept at Lazarus’s tomb before he raised him from the dead.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Before they knew how to worship him properly, before they understood what would be required to make them fit to represent God, before they understood their role as a Kingdom of Priests who were commissioned to restore this whole broken world to a right relationship with its Creator, while they were still in bondage, before they did anything to reach out to him, when they simply cried out because their suffering was too great to bear any longer, this God – Yahweh God said, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. And through you, I’m going to bless the whole world – even the people who would hold you captive and abuse you.”

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” – John 3:16-17 (ESV)

Our Response

Are you in bondage to something or someone? God wants to deliver you, today. You don’t need to get cleaned up to make that decision. You don’t need to know about the covenant or the commands of God. If you have rejected him your whole life, or if you’ve never even heard of him, he can still deliver you today.

He’s already done the hard part. God sent his son, to be the Passover Lamb, whose blood will protect you and deliver you. 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV) reads, “The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

Do you want to be delivered? You can do that today! Are you tired of pain and despair? He’s inviting you to the party! Are you ready to place the blood of the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, over the door of your life? He offers it free to you – He’s already paid the price. Place yourself on that first Passover night; how will you respond?

After the Response

The God who likes to party, is inviting you to the party. And the more we understand the parties He planned in the Old Testament (like Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot), the more we’ll understand His unchanging character. There are gems in the Old Testament just waiting to be explored! So don’t unhitch. Dive in!

A Party Within A Party

As I close, I want to tell you of one other aspect of the weeklong Passover Celebration that God planned even before the Exodus. The date of Passover is determined by the moon cycles and covers seven consecutive days, but it can start on any day of the week. During the seven days of celebrating the Passover there will always be a Sabbath (a weekly day of celebration). Now, the Sabbath is always on the seventh day of a normal week – Saturday.

In Leviticus 23:9-14 we read that something special (a party within a party) was supposed to happen one day after the Sabbath that occurred during Passover. The day after the Saturday Sabbath during Passover – on the first day of the week – they were supposed to begin celebrating the Feast of First Fruits. The celebration of First Fruits marked the first harvest of the year.

The Feast of First Fruits would culminate (over the next fifty days) in the next Pilgrimage Feast on the calendar called Pentecost – but that’s a story for another time. But during the seven days of Passover, they were supposed to begin celebrating the First Fruits on the day after the Sabbath day – on the first day of the week.

Do you remember what remarkable event happened on the day after the Sabbath during that first holy week? We’ll celebrate that event next Sunday. If you want a hint read 1 Corinthians 15:20.

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] CBN News, dated May 11, 2018, downloaded on March 8, 2021. “’Christians Need to Unhitch the Old Testament from Their Faith’: Andy Stanley’s Sermon Draws Backlash” https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/may/christians-need-to-unhitch-the-old-testament-from-their-faith-andy-stanleys-sermon-draws-social-media-backlash

[2] https://www.redletterchristians.org/mission-values/ downloaded on March 9, 2021. Under the “About Us” tab.

[3] Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg, “Babel und Bibel und Bias. How anti-Semitism distorted Friedrich Delitzsch’s scholarship” from the Bible Review, February 2002 Volume 18, Issue 1, Source URL (modified on 2015-11-05 20:45): https://www.baslibrary.org/bible-review/18/1/5

The Promise of Good Works!

Ephesians 2:10 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

The play of the week is the “Promise of Good Works!” The memory verse for this promise is Ephesians 2:10,

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Listen to the promise as part of Paul’s gospel presentation from Ephesians 2:1-10,

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

“nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”

You were saved by grace alone and the good news is that God’s grace never stands alone—grace always produces the results of God’s intention! You were saved by God’s good work so that you would live out your life of good works for His glory! As James said in James 2:14-16,

What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

What will be your life’s legacy? One of the most powerful testimonies about the promise of our good works is found in Revelation 14:12-13, which calls us to persevere in good works: 

Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”

Amazingly, this is the first time the Holy Spirit explicitly speaks in the Revelation of John and it is to those who are in union with Jesus, or as I like to say, are in the yoke of Jesus. There is a blessing for them; the second of the seven beatitudes of Revelation, reminiscent of Jesus’ beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount.

The promise of God is that upon death we will not only rest from our work, but that our good works will follow us. The key to the promise is ensuring that our efforts are in alignment with God’s grace. Paul speaks clearly about this in 1 Corinthians 3:8-15,

Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

In the easy yoke of Jesus Christ you will fulfill the purpose of your life by producing the good works God has prepared for you to do in your life. God’s word from 1 Corinthians 3:8-15 teaches us the importance of ensuring that our efforts are in alignment with God’s calling. That is what the yoke does—keeps us aligned!

Never forget that grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning. It is not your salvation which is at stake, that is secure in the promise of God’s love. It’s your experience of rest in this life! You are called to the family of God to represent the Father through your good works, so now walk in them and don’t waste another ounce of energy by doing it alone for nothing done alone will last (John 15:5). I join with Paul from Galatians 6:9 and pray for you, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

We see this so clearly demonstrated in Joseph’s life—he was abandoned and betrayed, falsely accused, thrown in prison, and forgotten about, but he never let go of the promise and he never stopped doing good works because of His relationship with God. No matter the circumstances Joseph stayed in the yoke!

The key to the promise of good works is not to focus on the work itself, but to focus on your union with Jesus—your relationship with the Father through the Son. The good works that are done while in the easy yoke of Jesus are promised to follow after you because these are the works done in agreement with God and by His power. This is the very reason Jesus came and died on the Cross—for relationship! Jesus didn’t die for workhorses, but for those who would “partake [partner with Him] in His divine nature” (2 Peter 1:2-4).

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

The Promise of Calling!

Ephesians 4:1-7 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

The play of the week is the “Promise of Calling!” The memory verse for this promise is Ephesians 4:1, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.”

The foundational truth for this promise of God is that we are each called by God. This sounds simple, but it addresses a huge misunderstanding in the traditional church that must be addressed—the calling of God is not limited to being a pastor or missionary. The calling of God is for every single believer in Jesus, because the calling of God is about the health and functionality of the entire Body of Christ.

In fact, spiritual leaders in the church are commanded to equip you to fulfill your calling. Listen to this truth taught in Ephesians 4:11-16, from the same chapter as today’s promise:

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

The truth of God’s Word is that the body of Christ will not mature until every single member of the body is walking in maturity—“in a manner worthy of the calling.” My call as a pastor and fellow elder in this church is not to have power over you, but to empower you in your calling—to live a mature life as a member of the Body of Christ! For you to be living the life of faith, hope, and love.

[So please call on me to help you; this is a relational process that I walk with you in the way, not a program to be managed or service to be lead! I desire to meet with you and help you find out where you are in your walk with Jesus and then help you, with the Holy Spirit as our guide, in taking next steps in this maturation process. This is the way! My call is to help you mature in your walk in the Way of Jesus.]

You have been chosen by God and called to be a member of the Body of Christ so that we, as one mature body, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which each of us have been called!

Paul said in Ephesians 4:4-6, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

Every believer is chosen and called to be a part of God’s victorious team—God’s family! This is a team sport that requires each of us to train ourselves according to the promise and then be a healthy, cooperative, functional member of God’s family. Why? So that the world may know that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior!

There are so many illustrations that come to mind from sports, family, politics, in fact, every arena of life experience. We all know how one person can change the functionality of an entire workplace or family or sports team—for good or bad. Just like if your toenail gets infected—it may be “just a toe” in your mind, but in functionality the whole body suffers and limps and loses its well-being. What if you have “just” one nerve misfiring? Is it just one nerve, really? No, it either hurts badly or a part of your body keep misfiring!

You are called to be a part of something bigger than you—the Body of Christ, but it is dependent on you being a healthy, functional member. The key is that every member of the Body has to submit to the headship of Jesus Christ! What does a team look like when every member is doing their own thing? What would it look like if you were walking down the street with each limb of your body doing its own thing?

Listen to Paul’s thoughts from Ephesians 4:1-3, so that we can learn about our calling as fellow members of Christ’s body: “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

The calling of God is first and foremost about your spiritual formation! Paul teaches us in Romans 8:28-30,

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. [What’s His purpose that we are called according to?] For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

God’s will for each of our lives is that we reflect Him—that we walk in a manner worthy of that calling—to be “conformed to the Image of His Son.” This is your first calling and every other call is secondary to this first calling! Your first calling is God’s preeminent purpose for your life: to walk with Him in a manner worthy of His calling—to walk in the way of Jesus Christ! Everything else flows from this center!

As John explains this in 1 John 2:5b-6, “By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

Let’s look at three practical applications of our walk with Jesus from Ephesians 4:1-3:

Surprise, surprise, Jesus described Himself this way first, as being “gentle and humble in heart” in Matthew 11:29 and that, in fact, is the yoke we are to take on ourselves—Christian discipleship is the spiritual formation of our lives and character, so that we walk in a manner worthy of our calling.

Paul explains in Philippians 2:5-8, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus is our example: we are to have the same attitude, but not necessarily take all the same actions: You do not need to die on a cross in order to be gentle and humble, but you do need to put aside our own selfish pride and vain ambition in order to serve others. Some examples of that are the following:

I combined these two because the tolerance that is being spoken of here is the ability to endure or bear something—patience under the weight of stress and anxiety. The application to this is simply stated, but difficult to live: show love by being patient with people, including yourself. Some things only happen through prayer and fasting! Get in the easy yoke of Jesus, learn to be gentle and humble in heart, and patiently love people so that you yourself will not be tempted to sin or fall away. Pray and fast through it!

As Paul said in Galatians 6:1-2, “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” And we learn from Jesus that the law of Christ is to love one another as Christ first loved us (John 13:34).

We have heard the call to diligence from the beginning of this sermon series (2 Peter 1). Every member of a Superbowl-winning NFL team is called to not only work hard as individuals, but also as a team—it’s both-and, individual training and team cooperation in order to live the Victory. This requires long-term diligence!

We have to know the playbook (the Bible), train ourselves with all diligence (a wholehearted commitment to our Christian discipleship), listen to our Coach (Jesus is Head so pray and fast!), and work as one team (a healthy member of Jesus’ body submits to His headship and mutually submits to one another!).

You are called to be a part of something bigger than you! Are you all in? Are you committed and submitted?

I ask you again: What does a team look like when every member is doing their own thing? What would it look like if you were walking down the street with every limb of your body doing its own thing?

With those images in mind, listen again to Ephesians 4:1-7 so that your memory verse will have the persevering power to help you live the promise of God’s calling:

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

You can listen to the message here:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

“The Promise of Faith!”

Romans 12:3 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. Never forget, the victory is ours in Christ Jesus and we are invited to play like a championship team, today. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

The play of the week is the “Promise of Faith!” Let’s walk through the 4 steps of living like a champion by learning how to live according to the Victory of the promises of God.

STEP #1: Know God’s playbook! The memory verse for this promise is Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

Step #1  Faith is a gift!

Hebrews 11:1-3 defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Hebrews 11 illustrates faith in people’s lives through stories of real people in real history with real faith. Mark it now and read it later.

Historically, the church has defined faith as, “an aptitude (not a one-off, but a gift by which to live)… In faith is God, ‘communicating Himself to the soul’” (Iain Matthews, The Impact of God, 103-4).

Faith is not only God’s gift of communicating Himself to humanity, but it is also His gift of our aptitude to grasp and interact with Him and His invitations to us, thus allowing for a relationship, now and eternally. Remember, relationships require the ability to communicate with one another—faith makes this possible.

The good seed of faith has been sown into the field of your soul! What are you supposed to do with your allotment of seed? Cultivate it into your “heart, soul, and mind” so that you love God with all of who you are and are becoming; hence, obeying Jesus’ Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22:37-38).

STEP #2: Faith is a gift that must be grown.

A friend commented to me about this process of cultivating the soil,

Cultivating the soil “looks like” having sound judgment. We cannot take for granted the gift of faith, assuming it will grow simply because we made a profession of faith. That would be “thinking more highly” than we ought of ourselves. In using sound judgment, we create an environment full of people, habits, and disciplines that becomes our “trellis.” We weed out (pun intended) that which does not strengthen the trellis.

We develop faith habits by building a trellis for our allotment of seeds to grow on! Because we don’t want our faith to be hidden in the field, but to mature and bear fruit, we build a trellis which is a framework by which a fruit tree or vine is supported so that it bears much fruit.

From John 15:5, Jesus promised us about our Christian life, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Faith is a gift of God intended to be grown through relationship with Jesus so that we can bear much fruit!

The trellis is the image of the ancient church practice of having a “rule of life”—not “rules for life”, but a “rule” or as the ancients would have heard that word: a trellis of life. The trellis support a loving relationship that already exists; it flows from love. Just like the rhythms of love in friendship or marriage or parenting.

Here are two practical applications of the trellis that I am building in my life. Each of these is what is called a keystone habit, which means it is a habit that shapes/holds together all other habits:

The truth of step #2 is that faith is a gift that must be grown. The reason for doing this is step #3.

STEP #3: Faith is a gift that must be grown for the purpose of loving your neighbor.

Remember, that earlier in the sermon I referenced the Greatest Commandment, but listen to all of Jesus’ words from Matthew 22:37-39 because it’s really the Greatest Commandments: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Jim Elliot, modern martyr of the faith, said it this way, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Just as in Jim Elliot’s life where his very blood became the necessary seed in the ground by which an entire lost people group would come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ, so our gifts of faith are to love people with the love of God and provide for them the means of receiving faith themselves!

To learn more about the Jim Elliot story, you can watch the 2005 movie End of the Spear or you can watch the 2013 Voice of the Martyrs Torchlighters video on RightNow Media called “The Jim Elliot Story”. FBC provides this vast library of Christian resources to you for free. Talk to Pastor Ken if you need help.

Jesus taught us this about faith in His parable from Matthew 13:31-32, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

How can your faith bring refreshment to others, just as the mustard seed became a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches?

Here are three practical applications in real and relevant situations that you may face in your daily life:

Take a step of faith and return to the sound wisdom of Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment [sober, sincere, lens of humility], as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

You cannot think soberly about yourself when you are intoxicated by everything that is clamoring for your attention (time and money) and, ultimately, your identity. To return to a right view of God, yourself, and others you need to remember that faith is a gift that must be cultivated, so that love of God may grow and bear the fruit of love of neighbor.

STEP #4: Faith is witnessed through our fellowship!

Paul teaches from Romans 12:4-5, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

As the seed grows, it sends out roots! Our roots are intertwined so that we are better together! You are not a single tree, facing the world and all of its problems alone. You are part of something much bigger, from which God is growing us to bear the fruit of the tree of life, so that many may come and find rest in Jesus.

How will the watching world know we are growing in our faith? Jesus taught us this important truth of why we gather as the people of God in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is the good fruit of our faith—this is the promise of God!

The Promise of Grace!

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl.

Never forget, the victory is ours in Christ Jesus and we are invited to play like a championship team, today. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

The play of the week is the “Promise of Grace!” and the memory verse for this promise is 2 Corinthians 12:9a,

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

STEP #1: Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God. Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, the Bible passage from which our memory verse is found. It is important to keep it in context.

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! [Paul is referencing verses 1-6 after describing and defending his ministry in chapters 10-11] Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. [Paul then continues to describe the authenticity of Christian ministry—the charis of God, not the charisma of man!]

Grace is the essential power source of the Christian life. Grace is the “divine power” referenced in the foundational scripture of this entire sermon series, listen again to 2 Peter 1:2-4,

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Just as we learned that covenant is the framework of the promises, so grace is the power of all the promises.

STEP #2: It is not enough to know this truth about God’s grace, we must experience it for ourselves and train it into our deepest places. If we don’t learn grace, we will simply live out of our own natural strengths and not out of our weakness. Listen again to 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and its counter-cultural reality.

From What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey famously wrote, “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”

This is God’s perfect love expressed to us through grace. Listen to Paul in Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

This teaches us that our status before a holy God is not dependent on our works, but because of God’s perfect love made visible to us in Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary and extended to us by grace through faith.

We see grace clearly in key elements of Paul’s gospel presentation in his letter to the Romans:

Romans 3:23-24,

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Do you see how God expresses His grace to us in these passages?

We move this from our head into our hearts when we learn to receive this free gift of God’s love and stop working for God’s approval. Get off the performance treadmill because there is nothing you can do to make God love you more and there is nothing you can do to make God love you less. It’s all grace!

STEP #3: Grace is not just a reality that we must move from our head to our hearts, it’s the play we are to play in both the private and public arenas of our lives. How would the Coach [Coach = God!] have us run the play of grace in our everyday lives?

Grace is often pigeonholed by Philip Yancey’s above definition, because as helpful as it is, it is not complete. Grace is more than a statement of our status before God (our positional holiness), grace is the means by which we live out and make visible our salvation (our personal holiness). Grace is the presence of God in us (through the indwelling Holy Spirit!) to walk in the good works of our salvation. Reference back to Ephesians 2:8-10 and highlight how verse 10 manifests through the same grace that saves in verse 8.

“to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.”

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (cf. Philippians 2:12-13).

Grace is the promise of God that determines both your position before Him and your power to live out your faith and make Him known. There are no Christians and there is no Christian life or witness without grace!

STEP #4: It is God’s grace that makes us members of His body, the family of God, the Church. Grace is how we experience God in union with Christ and how express God’s life to the world through our ministry!

I conclude with Paul’s teaching for the church about the promise of grace from Ephesians 3:14-19:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

May you now receive and walk in the grace of God so freely lavished upon you for the glory of God. Amen.

“The Promise of a Covenant”

Genesis 9:12-13

INTRODUCTION:

JEREMIAH 31:31-34

1) If we are to know the playbook, we have to read it and follow the instructions for ourselves.

*The Bible… “What is this?” (The Bible) “What are you supposed to do with it?” (Read it!)

O.T…“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8

N.T…“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15

2) If we are to train to be in shape, we have to set up reminders.

• I am a list maker!
• I use my phone to set up reminders of upcoming meetings and events.

O.T…“Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.”    Proverbs 6:21-22   (This echoes Deuteronomy 6:7; 11:19)

N.T… “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”     2 Timothy 3:14-17

3) Listen to the Coach, because communication is key!

O.T… “You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.”    Deuteronomy 5:32-33

N.T… “And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”    Luke 1:38

4) If we are to work as a team, we need to show everyone Who’s team we are playing on!

Children’s song: “When we all work together”

O.T… “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”     2 Chronicles 7:14

N.T… “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”     Colossians 3:16

O.T… “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.”      Joshua 24:14

N.T…“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”      1 Peter 3:15

Benediction:

Paul writes in Romans 15:5-6: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Resource:

Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!”

“The Promise of Security!”

Romans 8:37-39 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the Victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. Never forget, the Superbowl celebration is in our future and we are invited to play like a championship team, today.

Through January, we established the foundation for this series by teaching through 2 Peter 1. Then, last week, I taught the first promise of the series—the promise of forgiveness and its corresponding memory verse of 1 John 1:9. Today, I will teach you the promise of security from Romans 8:37-39.

Never forget the larger vision of why we are learning these lessons: We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

STEP #1:  Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God. Our promise for this week comes from Romans 8:37-39, with emphasis upon our memory verse for the week, verses 38-39:

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Please memorize our play of the week because there is great reward from God in doing so. By focusing your mind, you will saturate your heart, and in doing so join with King David’s testimony from Psalm 19:7-11:

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward [emphasis added].

Friends, we must do more memorize Romans 8:38-39. The promise of security was given to us to become our assurance of salvation, which then dictates how we live our lives—how we think and feel!

An example of this is found in the everyday practice of parenting. Whether the child feels secure or insecure in his or her parents’ love will determine and shape the child’s ability to trust his or her parents and respond to their discipline and instruction. But not only the parents—all authority figures through the child’s life.

How much more with God and how we view our Heavenly Father and learn the promise of His security!

STEP #2:   Train in godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God. Now we are going to learn how to apply this promise to ourselves. For the promise of security this is called “assurance.”

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Eternal life is just that—eternal, which means lasting or forever; it endures! It’s not temporary life, insecure life, intermittent life, or potentially eternal life if you do everything right and be a good boy or girl.

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

You live like a champion because you are secure in God’s perfect love and that security is unthreatened by God’s creation! Never forget that “there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

It is so important that you know this—God’s love is secure! God is never insecure and He is never threatened by any created thing, including you and your insecurities and fears! Never forget that your death has been swallowed by His life, your fear has been cast out by His love, and your condemnation is forever gone! As Paul said in Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

With that context in place and explanation in mind, listen again to Romans 8:38-39, our memory verse for this week,

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Step #1 is knowing the promise (head) and step #2 is learning to live with it as an assurance (heart). This is God’s covenant faithfulness us, which then invites us to be faithful to others. Let’s check out Step #3.

STEP #3:   We are invited to learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time. God has secured us in His love so that we can be safe people to shine His light as the beloved of God.

We live in an insecure, divided, fearful, and hateful world. Do you believe that love works in the real world?

Please think about this question at the practical level of your everyday responsibility: Does love work?

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.”

Love that is given to another person is evidence of your faith in God and His power to forgive sins! Apart from love, is there any evidence we can offer beyond our addiction to words and arguments with them?

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

“We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”

This is the practical proof and this is the hardest work of being a Christian. Christianity is not a life of rules, does and don’t, religious activities, or intellectual beliefs. Christianity is about the God who is love saving us through His love for the sake of being love to the world!

If you are not loving, you are missing the whole point, because this is not just a play in the Playbook, this is God’s strategy of the whole Playbook. This is the banner over God’s Team—we are the beloved of God, chosen and called to show the world His love!

Start by loving those immediately around you and then those you encounter directly in your days. Yes, love moves us to the ends of the earth, but love must begin and end wherever you are.

And we gather as the Beloved of God to know this and to practice this. This moves us to the last step.

STEP #4:   Work together as one team—we are members of God’s family—His Church, the Body of Christ.

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

How is our church family to attain the unity that Jesus prays for? It only happens through the vow of stability in our faith community that comes through the promise of security! Just like in marriage, the only way to thrive is to not have to focus on surviving. It is in the promise of security that the abundant life can happen!

What does this practically look like in the private and public arenas of our lives? The praxis of the promise of security is found in 1 Corinthians 12:27, 12:31—13:13. I’m going to end this teaching time by very clearly giving you the details of how to run this play from God’s playbook, by simply reading the Word of God:

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love [emphasis added].

Love is only possible with the promise of security. It is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22)! It is the evidence of God in us because God “sealed [us] in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13)!

Series: “Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!”

“The Promise of Forgiveness!”

1 John 1:5-10 (NASB95)

We have finished our study of 2 Peter 1, which is the foundation for this entire series. If you missed those foundational five sermons during the month of January, then please go to our webpage and you can either read the manuscripts on the blog or listen to and/or watch the messages through an audio or video file.

Today, we start looking at the individual promises—the plays in God’s Playbook—and learn how to apply them to our lives so that we can live the victorious life and play like champions!

Never forget the larger vision of why we are learning these lessons: We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

We are starting with the promise that, in many ways, is the greatest evidence of our Christianity: nothing demonstrates to us and the world the tangible reality of Jesus Christ crucified, risen and coming again more than our ability to forgive as we have first been forgiven (Colossians 3:13; Ephesians 4:32).

Now, let’s start our study of the plays in God’s Playbook by walking through the 4 steps of how to live like a champion in both the private and public arenas of our lives, starting with the promise of forgiveness:

STEP #1: Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God.

⁵This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. ⁶If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; ⁷but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

Remember, knowing is more than memorizing; it is a call to internalizing it. That requires us to meditate upon it or hide God’s Word in our hearts (Psalm 119:11) so that the Word is in us and we are in the Word. We master when we memorize; it masters us when we internalize. Joshua was commanded in Joshua 1:7-9,

Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

STEP #2: Train in godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God.

To truly understand the importance of training ourselves in godliness according to this teaching, we need to go back to our theme passage for this sermon series. Peter teaches us the importance of receiving Christ’s forgiveness for ourselves in 2 Peter 1:5-10, with emphasis added to verse 9:

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;

Our scripture lesson in 1 John 1:5-10 is very clear and I’ll help you apply it with 1-2-3-LIVE IN GRACE!

“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This “1-2-3-Live in Grace! “ application of 1 John 1:5-10 is essential to the promise of forgiveness. Only God’s love is perfect; therefore, we must live in a forgiving love that is anchored on His perfect love!

STEP #3: We are invited to learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time.

Jesus is very clear about the urgency of forgiveness. In Matthew 6:12, Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s prayer: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (cf. 2 Corinthians 2:10-11).

What a wonderful invitation from our Lord and Savior! But the disciples were confused by this, so listen to this exchange between Peter and Jesus in Matthew 18:21-35, as Jesus makes the application very clear:

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. “When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. “But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. “So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ “And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. “But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ “So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ “But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. “So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. “Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ‘Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ “And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

What is the right play to run in both the private and public arenas of our lives: FORGIVE! Every time!! Because this is the sign and wonder of the resurrection in you and through you! This is our mission as the people of God and that leads us to step #4.

STEP #4: Work together as one team—we are members of God’s family—His Church.

I close our time together with Jesus’ words from Matthew 5:22-24, as an invitation to each of us today, because we can’t make visible to the world our Victory if we don’t run the plays together as one team:

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, “You good-for-nothing,” shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, “You fool,” shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

We are one team! We each have been chosen by God and called to be on the field together, but how can we play as one team if we aren’t willing to practice together the most fundamental play in the Playbook? What would it look like to the world watching the Superbowl if the players were fighting one another on the sidelines or arguing with the QB and one another in huddle? As Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

“Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!”

“The Promise of Being Established in God’s Word!”

2 Peter 1:12-21 (NAS95)

In the first four weeks of this series, we have learned how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the Victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. As God’s athletes we must do four things to live like champions:

(1) Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God.

(2) Train ourselves for godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God.

(3) Learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time.

(4) Work together as one team—we are members of God’s family—His Church.

Never forget, the Superbowl celebration is in our future and we are invited to play like a championship team.

This is our last foundational message for this series as we finish our study of 2 Peter 1. Today, we are focusing on the last verses of this chapter to learn that we can trust God’s playbook. Starting next Sunday, we are going to start looking at the individual promises—the plays in God’s Playbook—and learn how to apply them to our lives so that we can live the victorious life and play like champions!

Listen to Peter’s words from 2 Peter 1:12–21,

¹²Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. ¹³I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, ¹⁴knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. ¹⁵And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind. ¹⁶For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. ¹⁷For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”— ¹⁸and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. ¹⁹So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. ²⁰But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, ²¹for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

The heart of today’s message is to reinforce the bedrock of the promises of God as being God’s spoken Word to us. As the last verses, 2 Peter 1:20-21, say as of first importance, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

We believe the Bible is God-breathed (inspired) as Paul teaches in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Furthermore, we can trust that what we have in the four Gospel narratives are the true historical accounts of Jesus Christ, the living Word. Peter, a disciple of Jesus Christ, makes significant claims of this first-hand witness to their historicity in today’s scripture. Listen again to verses 16-18:

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”—and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Luke further emphasizes the accuracy of the Gospels as theologically-motivated historical accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry in Luke 1:1-4, the prelude of his Gospel:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

As a final point of the importance of the Word of God, Peter states in verse 19, “So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.”

John, another first-hand witness of Jesus, discussed Jesus with the same imagery in John 1:1-4,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

If the first big step of living the victorious life is to know God’s playbook, then this message is intended to give us a conviction that as we learn to listen to God’s voice we will trust the Bible as His playbook. When God calls us into the game and directs us to play a certain play, we won’t question either the authenticity (that this is the Coach’s idea and not our own) or the efficacy of that play (that the play will accomplish that which the Coach intends for it to do).

We are invited to trust the Bible as God’s Playbook.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

Can you imagine the ridiculously chaotic game on the football field if the players started questioning the authenticity or efficacy of the play every huddle? In reality, there would be no game. There would be only internal confusion and fighting at every huddle (with no running of the plays; therefore, no victory!).

Is this an accurate image for the American church? We spend more time in our huddles “discussing” the authenticity and trustworthiness of the playbook and questioning the efficacy of the play themselves, that we never get on with the game to win the championships that is ours in Christ Jesus!

This series is intended to change that because every week we are going to learn a play and your assignment is to trust God’s playbook, training yourself in godliness, listen for the Coach’s voice, and then, out in both the private and public arenas of life, run the play—live like a champion based on the promises of God!

We are to build our lives and our game plan on the truth, from the Playbook!

Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.  

God has given us His Word and His Spirit to do what Peter promises in these verses. Here’s how it happens:

(1) His Word! We establish our lives on the Truth of God’s Word as handed down to us in the Bible.

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You. Blessed are You, O Lord; Teach me Your statutes.”

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

If you don’t feel connected to the team, stop making excuses and start showing up to the practices. The Coach has us at FBC sending every player plays from the Playbook every day on the phone at 10 am; we are inviting you to the team practice to learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice every Wednesday night at 6:15 pm; and we you are called to participate in weekly scrimmages every Sunday at 10:30 am.

But, the reality is that victorious living, while learned and practiced together, must be lived every day out there. The Christian life was never to be one big holy huddle, but a rhythm of gathering and scattering, so that we run the right play in the everyday circumstances and challenges of our communities.

(2) His Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the one who stirs us up and calls the play for the Coach in the midst of our ever present circumstance and challenges. God has given us the Word and He calls us to the right play!

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you (e.g. Luke 12:11-12).

As we learn the Playbook and listen to our Coach’s Voice, then we will live like champions in both the public and private arenas of life and make His Victory visible. Paul taught us in Philippians 2:12-16,

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain (cf. Matthew 5:14-16 & 1 Peter 2:9-12).

2021 Series: “Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!”

“The Promise of Eternity!”

2 Peter 1:10-11 (NAS95)

In the first three weeks of this series, we have learned how to live like a champion by learning how to live in the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. As God’s athletes we must do four things to live like champions:

(1) Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God.

(2) Train ourselves for godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God.

(3) Learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time.

(4) Work together as one team—we are members of God’s family—His Church.

Never forget, the Superbowl celebration is in our future and we are invited to play like a championship team.

This truth is our emphasis for today’s foundational teaching on the promises of God: we have the promise of eternity. This is an overarching truth for living a victorious life because this is the foundation of all our hope.

“Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”

Today, we are going to cultivate our hope in Jesus so that we may live by faith and not by sight, as Paul commands us in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10,

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

In light of this truth, how then shall we live? As we examine 2 Peter 1:10-11, we observe the progression of Peter’s thinking.

First, we, the “brethren”, the members of Christ’s body, are to “be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you…” This is in the imperative form meaning it is a command—Be diligent to not forget “[your] purification from [your] former sins” (2 Peter 1:9), by remembering your calling!  

In other words, using our metaphor of being a part of a Superbowl winning football team, you need to be diligent in knowing that you have been called to the team by the Coach because He chose you. The original language is saying, “to make this a permanent experience” or to be diligent in “securing” this truth in you.

Jesus has unapologetically told you this truth in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”

You have been handpicked to be a part of God’s team! How can you be “all the more diligent” to know this?

Through your effectiveness and fruitfulness “in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8). It is through fruit bearing that we are certain of God’s choosing. As Jesus said in John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10).

As a “partaker of the divine nature” you are sharing in His nature, a partner of God in His purposes and plans. Jesus spoke this to an agricultural community in not only those words of being a fruit-bearing branch abiding in the vine, but also in words of a being fruit-bearing trees in Matthew 12:33-37,

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

You produce (manifest and so prove to be) according to your kind—as Peter states in 2 Peter 1:4, if you are sharing in the divine nature of God, then you have escaped the corruption of this world (cf. Romans 12:1-2).

Earlier in John 8:31-32 Jesus made it very clear what that meant to those who believed in Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Did you hear that, His abiding truth will MAKE you free! You have escaped! Now escape…

There is something very beautiful in the original language of 2 Peter 1:10 here; the verb for “to make” is in the middle voice. Listen to this quote from a Greek Grammar book, “the middle voice signifies that the subject performs the action of the verb and participates somehow in the results.”^[1] You both perform the action of making certain and participate in the certainty of God’s action to secure you as His own.

As Peter says in 2 Peter 1:10, “for as long as you practice these things [the virtues of 2 Peter 1:5-7], you will never stumble.” The promises of God come with daily invitations to practice what you believe; to put into practice the faith you have received. You are saved by faith alone, absolutely, but faith never stands alone! You are known by the works of your faith, as James stated in James 1:22-25,

But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

The logic of scripture is irrefutable as James’ words harken us back to last week’s sermon when Peter said in 2 Peter 1:8-9, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”

So, we are to build our lives on the words of Jesus. We are to practice “these things” so that we will never stumble. This is the promise of Jesus Christ as the benediction of Jude 24-25 proclaims the power of God through Jesus Christ, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

John says something strikingly similar in 1 John 3:1-3, which pulls together this whole sermon:

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

Both of these scriptures bring us back to Peter’s logic in 2 Peter 1:11, “for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”

I love the visual of this promise regarding eternal life: the entrance into the eternal kingdom will be abundantly supplied to you. How is that possible?

Jesus taught us very clearly about the entrance (or gate) to life in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

How is the entrance abundantly supplied, yet the gate be small and the way be narrow?

These two truths are brought into perfect unity through the exclusive means of Jesus Christ, as He said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

The hope of entering the eternal dominion and authority of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is abundantly supplied to us through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is in Christ alone! Jesus is the most inclusive exclusive entry point into eternal life. Jesus gives us His abundant life with the Father! Apart from Him, there is no entry way—He is the only mediator of the covenant between God and humanity.

 
Jesus Christ returned to agricultural imagery to make this point very clear. Listen to John 10:1-10,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them. So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

FOOTNOTES:

“Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!”

The Promise of Effectiveness and Fruitfulness!

2 Peter 1:5-9 (NAS95)

(Matthew Hurst introduces a new song he wrote for this sermon series.)

In the first two weeks of this series, we have learned how to live like a champion by learning how to live in the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. In order for this to happen, every player on the team has to play like a champion.

That means, each player must do the following four things:

(1) Know the team’s playbook;

(2) Train to be in great shape;

(3) Listen to the coach; and

(4) Work together with all the other players as one team.

In the same way, as we learn the precious and magnificent promises of God so that we may become partakers of the divine nature to the glory of God, we must also do those same four things:

(1) Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God.

(2) Train ourselves for godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God.

(3) Learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time.

(4) Work together as members of God’s family—His Church.

Never forget, the Superbowl celebration is in our future and we are invited to play like a championship team. As you have heard me teach every week of this series, both your salvation and glorification are already finished in Jesus; now live accordingly—the Victory is yours, now live victoriously—live like a champion!

“train [discipline in NAS95] yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

This teaching is based on our ongoing study of Peter’s words from 2 Peter 1. Listen to 2 Peter 1:5-9,

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

“For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

This is a triple blessing—past justification (DONE!), future glorification (DONE!), and our present godliness or progressive sanctification, which is the intent of this passage (APPLY All DILIGENCE…).

“work out your salvation with fear and trembling; [Yes, we are to apply all diligence to our salvation, but listen to verse 13:] for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

To be very clear, our fellowship in God’s divine nature is a promise to take on God’s characteristics through our union with Jesus and fellowship with His Spirit. It is not a promise to become a god, rather, it’s a call to share in the eternal life of God (His immortality), as well as a partner with God in His mission on earth by taking on the character and life of Jesus (His morality).

“For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.” This is the invitation!

We are to be diligent in living our eternal life today by partaking in His divine nature. We are called to manifest the new morality of Jesus, in increasing measure (progressively more!), as we remember our past justification and our future glorification. These are done, the Victory is ours in Christ, now live like it!

In the words of Jesus from John 15:1-17, we are to bear His fruit because we are branches connected to His vine; therefore, demonstrating to the world by manifesting good fruit in this life that we truly are sharing in His divine nature. You will know the partners of God by their fruit—God’s trees are effective and fruitful!

“For if these qualities are yours and are increasing [abounding], they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”

Do you want to be effective and fruitful in living as a partner with God through Christ’s Victory?

Here’s a key—preach the gospel of Jesus to yourself every single day! Never forget that though you were once hell-bent, you are now heaven-bound! You were once dead in sin; you are now alive in Christ!

“applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.”

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

According to God’s Word from 2 Peter 1:5-7, we are to be diligent in the process of spiritual formation:

1) Faith supplies moral excellence.

“For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” Galatians 3:3 teaches us the role of the Spirit and not the flesh!

2) Moral excellence increases knowledge.

Moral excellence is the other side of the coin of partaking of the divine nature, for as Christ welcomed us in the eternal life of the Father, He could only do that by first removing our sin, this is our escape of the corruption that is in the world by lust (2 Peter 1:4).

“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”

3) Knowing Christ Jesus leads to self-control.

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline [sound mind].”

4) Self-control grows perseverance.

“Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

5) Perseverance is what trains us in godliness.

“We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

6) Godliness manifests in brotherly kindness (philadelphia).

“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

7) Brotherly kindness expresses God’s love (agape).

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is your way to effectiveness and fruitfulness—Train! We are each chosen and called members of the same team. For us to be effective and fruitful, we each must be diligent in our training in godliness, so that as we, His team, hear the Coach’s voice we can run the right play at the right time, according to His playbook, as the many unique members of His one unified body (Romans 12:4-5).

You can listen to the message here:

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Series:  Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!

“The Promise of Becoming Partakers of the Divine Nature!”

2 Peter 1:3-4 (NAS95)

That means, each player must do the following four things:

(1) Know the team’s playbook;

(2) Train to be in great shape;

(3) Listen to the coach; and

(4) Work together with all the other players as one team.

In the same way, as we learn the precious and magnificent promises of God so that we may become partakers of the divine nature to the glory of God, we must also do those same four things:

(1) Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God.

(2) Train ourselves for godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God.

(3) Learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time.

(4) Work together as members of God’s family—His Church.

Never forget, the championship celebration is in our future and we are invited to live like champions, as one team, today. Today, we are going to learn an overarching truth about the promises of God that will allow us to live like champions because we know that the Victory is already ours in Christ Jesus!

Listen to Peter’s words from our theme verses for this sermon series, 2 Peter 1:3-4,

Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

The promises of God are both a future-focused faith (hope) and a present practice of our faith (behavior). Partaking in God’s nature is both a promise of immortality (eternal life, salvation, saved, etc.), but also the life of a new morality (Christlikeness, godliness, righteousness, holiness, etc.).

“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”

Your submission to this ordinance is critical to your living a life of victory. By God’s grace, through faith, believers become partakers in the divine nature and now share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ; in other words, we live in the victory of this future hope and that allows us to persevere to the end and to live with hope in the face of the most difficult of situations. Because we are partaking of His victory and our baptism is a proclamation of our fellowship with God and our break of fellowship with the world and its corruption.

“in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

In order to learn how to live like champions, I need to define two terms from our 2 Peter 1:3-4 passage:

(1) Promise, as used by Peter in the original language, is focused on the content of what God has promised; there are precious and magnificent promises we are to know! That is the point of this entire sermon series—to take time to examine the promises of God and then apply them to our lives, so that we can live like champions, which is why we need to understand the second word: “partake” and the larger concept.

(2) Partakers of the divine nature. The best way to accurately understand this is to realize that the Greek word for “partaker” shares the same Greek root word as koinonia which means, “fellowship”. Partaking in the divine nature is NOT to become a god, but, rather, to have fellowship with God. Furthermore, to be God’s partners in His divine power to bring about His precious and magnificent promises through Jesus.

“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.”

Through His divine power, His precious and magnificent promises that were “granted to us”, which, according to the original language means that our status with God has been lavished upon us or bestowed by royalty. And it’s grammar (perfect participle) implies that this granting which was done in the past is still effective in the present and will continue to be so in the future. The promises are based on a past reality (justification) that will find fulfillment in the future (glorification), and is efficacious today (sanctification).

John made this very clear in 1 John 3:1,

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed [lavished] on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

We have a fellowship with God that will never end; eternal life starts at conversion through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, and your fellowship in the divine nature becomes more visible and effective as you grow in Christlikeness through the true knowledge of the Son of God and His precious and magnificent promises. This is God’s divine work in you; the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this!

Paul said something very similar in Philippians 1:6, 9-11,

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. … And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

A commentator explained,

God has given saving promises to his people, so that they will become like God. They will become like God and are becoming like God because they have escaped “the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” Once again, some scholars argue that believers will escape the corruption of the world at death or when the Lord returns. It is more likely, however, that Peter operated with an already-but-not-yet schema. Believers have already escaped the world’s corruption in that they belong to God, but the full realization of such a liberation will be theirs on the day of resurrection.[1]

This is the ethical reality of partaking in the divine nature. This is the praxis of the promise! Every promise of God comes with choices of how we are to live: the commissions and omissions of God’s promises!

“but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”

We no longer are to have fellowship with the corruption of this world caused by lust. That is our holy omission within the Great Commission! The key to this reality is that every ‘no’ you say to your lusts is so that you can experience the better ‘yes’ of partaking in God’s blessings in your everyday life.

The promise that we will partake of the divine nature is not only some heavenly-minded teaching that we get to go to heaven one day (yes, praise God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have escaped the mortality of this perishable body (1 Corinthians 15)), but partaking of the divine nature is also the taking on the life of Jesus Christ—the sharing in the moral qualities of who Jesus Christ was and joining Him in His mission on earth, of why He came and to what He rescued us for.

When you share the nature of something or someone, you take on their qualities and character. You become the fruit of that which you are grafted to. You are a branch upon the Vine that bears His fruit (John 15).

Peter taught us that we have everything we need, through His divine power, for godliness and life. That’s a promise about the precious and magnificent promises that have been lavished upon you through the Victory of Jesus Christ—IT IS DONE—the promise of resurrection (John 19:30) and consummation (Rev. 21:6), both of which are guaranteed to us through Jesus’s Victory—these are His promises!

The promises of God equip us with everything we need to live in victory. They are a both-and, for this life and the next, for salvation and sanctification, for heaven and earth!

The promises of God gives us the hope to keep the faith; and the faith to love; and the love to be like Jesus.

Allow me a closing illustration of how this works, using a common phrase from Christianity.

What would you think if I were to say to you or one of your loved ones after I visited with you, “May you rest in peace”?  It would be heard as a harbinger of death and not appreciated by you or anyone in the family.  

Honestly though, if we understood the promises of God, we should pray this for one another every night and every Sabbath day and even, if we are willing to learn, as we work hard in your day-to-day lives.

The rest that God promises is not just for heaven, but also for this life! I could make a convincing argument that the greatest evangelist witness we could display right now is to be peaceful and restful, inside and out.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Every precious and magnificent promise of Jesus comes with a praxis—it’s His yoke! We experience peace by learning to live in the yoke of Jesus, and the yoke is an agricultural metaphor for coming into the Christian life of discipleship, the life of obedience and submission to God, under the power of the Spirit.

“By the divine power evident in Christ’s life, death and resurrection he has called men and women to be Christians, and when they come to knowledge of Christ in Christian conversion they also receive through that knowledge the grace of Christ which will enable them to live a life of obedience to God.”[2]

“Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” (cf. 2 Cor. 13:14).

In other words, outside of the yoke of Jesus there is no peace because outside of His yoke there is no relationship with God …so, rest in peace; have fellowship with God; partake of Him and in His nature, walk as He walked, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. [&] “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

In conclusion, the promises of God teach us how to live faithfully on a day-to-day basis. This is the content of the promises of Jesus Christ—the same divine power that gives us hope of eternal life, once partaken of, henceforth, directs and empowers how we live today.

In fact, that is the exact intent of Peter who book ends his letter with this reality. Listen to 2 Peter 3:13-18, the last verse of Peter’s letter and our last scripture for today’s lesson:

But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Footnotes:

[1] Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, vol. 37, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003), 293–296.

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Victory Through the Promises of God!”

“The Promise of Precious and Magnificent Promises!”

2 Peter 1:1-4 (NAS95)

Communion Devotion:

In our lives we don’t speak readily of victory. It is too big a word for us. We have suffered too many defeats in our lives; victory has been thwarted again and again by too many weak hours, too many gross sins. But isn’t it true that the spirit within us yearns for this word, for the final victory over the sin and anxious fear of death in our lives? And now God’s word also says nothing to us about our victory; it doesn’t promise us that we will be victorious over sin and death from now own; rather, it says with all its might that someone has won this victory, and that this person, if we have him as Lord, will also win the victory over us. It is not we who are victorious, but Jesus.^[1]

The key to all of the promises of God are found in these words, “if we have him as Lord, [He] will also win the victory over us.” The Bible teaches us that the victory we have and the victory we live is a vicarious one. That means, it is a victory that is not of our own making or doing, but a victory that has been given to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is something we get to “partake” in or share.

All that we have is by God’s grace and that is what we remember and rely upon in our daily lives and that is why we regularly come to the Table of the Lord’s Supper: to remember the victory of Jesus Christ and to learn that we have nothing apart from Him and that in our daily lives we must “partake” of His victory.

This is the essence of our salvation and this is the purpose of communion: to remember God’s grace and to be reminded to live every day of our lives in God’s grace—as completely dependent on His gifts!

Let us now partake of the elements—the Bread of Life and the Cup of the New Covenant: Paul teaches us how we should participate at the Lord’s Table in 1 Corinthians 11:23-28:

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [Pause to pray.]

“The Promise of Precious and Magnificent Promises!”

2 Peter 1:1-4 (NAS95)

Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Today’s message is going to provide a big picture for this sermon series and the four BIG IDEAS of how God is inviting us to live the Victory that Jesus Christ has given to us. We are invited to live like champions because our victory is through the promises of God.

“For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”

You hear this truth from Paul at the very beginning of Peter’s second letter: your faith is a received faith, not a created one. You have received a faith as the same kind as Paul’s.

How? By the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace are multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord because He has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through His divine power.

Are you hearing this? Peter made it very clear from the very beginning: God has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises—they are all of grace!

And why has God given us His grace through His Son Jesus Christ? Peter continues: so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption (death) that is in the world by lust.

God has given you Victory through His precious and magnificent promises and that victory is your fellowship in the Trinity—you are alive in Christ, no longer cut off or dead in sin! You have been delivered and rescued and now, God is calling you to live through His divine nature—to live in the victory of Jesus Christ—the victory that is found in every promise of God that has been lavishly poured out upon you through you adoption as sons, the children of God with right of inheritance.

Listen to Paul explain this miracle of grace from Galatians 4:4-7, a scripture we looked at thoroughly in our Christmas messages over the last month,

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

You are an heir to all the promises of God! You will be His people and He will be your God!

As Paul proclaims of our rich inheritance in Ephesians 2:4-10,

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

You already have been fitted for your super bowl ring, now you just need to trust that the victory is your’s and live like a champion and wait for the day when the ring is put on your finger.

We are now going how to do this through the framework of being a part of a Superbowl winning team. For a NFL team to win the Superbowl, every player has to play like a champion.

Each player must do the following:

(1) Know the team’s playbook;

(2) Train to be in great shape;

(3) Listen to the coach; and

(4) Work together with all the other players as one team!

In the same way, as we learn the precious and magnificent promises of God so that we may become partakers of the divine nature to the glory of God, we must also do those same four things:

(1) We are God’s team and we need to know God’s playbook to run the right plays at the right time. God has given us everything we need to do His will for His glory.

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man [athlete] of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Do you know the promises of God? They are found in the Bible and they are your victory in Jesus Christ. We will be learning them throughout 2021, but each of us must commit to hiding them in our hearts.

“Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”

(2) We are God’s players and we need to exercise our faith and work together to win the victory! We are called to train ourselves for godliness and to be ready at any time to run God’s play!

“Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.”

Are you in spiritual training? I remind you that grace is not opposed to effort, only to earning.

I can testify to you that physical training does have a season of glory, whether that season ends in high school, college, in the NFL, but there is a day where even the most celebrated athlete’s career must come to an end.

The good news is that when we train ourselves in godliness, the fullness of the victory is always yet to come! 

The glory days are never behind us, but always before us! When we train ourselves according to the Word of God, the living God sets before us a future that has the truest and highest honor of being welcomed into the Victor’s Circle of Heaven. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27,

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

That leads us to the third big idea of how we are to live like champions…

(3) We are God’s players and we need to learn the Coach’s voice so we can play the right play at the right time! We are God’s players and when the Coach calls us into the game, we must be ready to obey even if we don’t understand exactly how God is going to use us!

Listen to how Jesus explains the importance of knowing the Coach’s voice in John 10:3-5, 10b,

“But he who enters by the door is a shepherd [coach] of the sheep [players]. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep [players] hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep [players] by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep [players] follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. … I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Do you know the Coach’s voice and trust Him so well that you respond without hesitation?

Jesus promises that His Victory is the “abundant” or fullness of life that can only come through your fellowship in His Trinity—the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, let’s be clear, that the victory I am calling us to live and the championship I am calling us to win is not always health and wealth, worldly success and prosperity! That is not the gospel I preach or we have been given by Jesus.

The abundant life that God promises through Jesus Christ is the fullness of His Presence—your partaking of His divine nature. Because it is only then that we can have the fullness of joy, the sufficiency of grace, the perfection of love, or the rest that comes through His peace guarding your heart and mind.

That leads us to the final big point that will thread throughout this sermon series on the promises of God…

(4) We are God’s team and the victory is God’s! The championship celebration is in our future; we are invited to live like champions, as one team, today, knowing the Victory is already ours in Christ Jesus!

“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Do you trust and live like God’s victory is secure for you, as a member of His body—His Church?

Footnotes:

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, ed. Jana Riess, trans. O. C. Dean Jr., First edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 75.

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