Luke 23:39-43
A man knocked on my door last week and introduced himself as a member of a local church called the Jehovah Witnesses. He invited me to his church for their Easter Service this weekend. He told me that some people think that they don’t believe in Jesus Christ, but he assured me that they do believe in Him. The service would be a memorial to His life and ministry on the occasion of His death.
I told him that I wouldn’t be able to attend, as I would be attending another Easter Service for which I was already obligated. We wouldn’t be holding a memorial service for Jesus but a celebration of His resurrection from the grave and in our hearts. That’s why here this morning. How about you?
All over the world people are gathering for memorials and celebrations. Some are doing both and between these different expressions of faith is a world of confusion about exactly who Jesus Christ really was.
When Easter comes I like to remember and read in the Bible once again the events of what we call Holy week or the Passion of Christ. I have watched films and attended large passion plays in out door theaters to remember all the details of that event. The meaning flows from the story and can be very hard to miss. Yet many will miss the meaning again this Easter and I don’t want us to be among them.
Sometimes on Easter morning I address the believers as I look at the disciples as they follow Christ to the Cross and beyond. Sometimes I consider the crowd that shout His praise and then demand his death just a short time later. We can be an angry mob and deny Christ and the foot of the cross.
Today I want us to consider the three crosses and the men that hung upon them, especially the man in the middle. He hangs between two men who don’t understand who He really is and in a crisis they all share. These are three desperate men, criminals but the man in the middle is about to change history.
39. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
Luke 23:39-43
This man was a criminal who wanted to survive the sentence of death. He was a desperate man and who can blame him? Who here would not fight for your life when it is threaten? We all want to live and die. Whether we are guilty of our crimes or not, no one in their right mind wants to die. I really believe all three men on the crosses that day were desperate to live.
Some people won’t even talk to God until they are in the desperate place where it is a life and death situation. Most people will start talking to God before they are at death’s door but almost all of us won’t come until we are desperate. What will it take to get you to talk to God? How bad do things have to get before you will start a conversation with Him and cry out to Him?
I so identify with this criminal. I don’t know what his crime was but it was bad enough that he was sentenced to death on the cross. When he shouts at Christ he doesn’t deny the charges and claim to be innocent. He just wants to live.
We are all criminal in God’s eyes when we first come to Him. We have stolen from Father God what is most precious to Him. We have murdered His only Son. We have broken all His laws and defied His good and perfect will in our lives despite many warnings. If God were to judge us guilty today He would be well within the right and the verdict is death, first spiritual, then physical and finally eternal.
The first criminal is like you and me when we shout at God and blame Him for all the evil in this world and for all the harm that comes our way. We don’t hurl insults when things are good but only when things turn bad for us in particular because that is the way criminals think. They are only interested in the law when it affects them in a negative way then they become bias experts.
A desperate criminal will confess to anything and do anything to avoid the punishment of death. They will want to make deals, but if they find nothing is working they will work the angles to find what will motivate those who stand in judgment over them. In the Easter story we have a criminal appealing to fellow criminal and not to the judge. He hurled insults trying to motivate Him to save Himself and make a break from the judgment of death. He may have heard that the man in the middle was innocent but then don’t all criminals claim to be innocent? They only think he was interested was whether Jesus had the power for a jail break or not. He wanted Christ to answer the scoffing of those who dared Jesus to come off the cross. The sign above the head of Jesus said, ‘King of the Jews’, and the soldiers yelled at the man with the crown of thorns, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” (Luke 23:37).
Jesus did not answer the soldiers or the first criminal. The criminal was desperate and willing to do anything to save Himself, but Christ would not respond to his desperate plea for salivation any more than He would acknowledge the mocks of the Roman Guards.
All were under the sentence of death that day but these who called on Christ to save Himself were in the greatest danger. Have you ever appealed to God believing that you could find leverage with the God of the Universe by making a bargain? I find it the height of foolishness to think that we would have any bargaining position with the creator of the Universe. The Lord God saw us getting ourselves into a desperate situation long before we became aware of what we were doing. He even tries to stop us but we ignored our conscience and went right into law breaking until the law caught up to us.
Should we be surprised if Christ is not interested in the desperate calls of guilty people who are only interested in avoiding punishment and in making prison deals? I am afraid that there are many desperate people in the world today who are like this criminal and they pleas, bargains, and threats are a waste of time. No deal will be made for them.
There was another criminal who was very different than the first one. He hung on the cross on the other side of Christ.
40. But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41. We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42. Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Luke 23:39-43
This second criminal is desperate as well, but his desperation is different than the first criminal. He knows that there is no way out of the sentence or off the cross. His thoughts turn towards what will happen he dies and the second court case he must face and the second verdict upon his life. If men can judge him and get it right what hope does he stand before the Holy God of the Universe to be judged. He is going to the court of Heaven with a criminal record and plenty of evidence of his guilt. His desperation is born from the fear of standing before a just God and be found guilty of all his sins against God.
In his fear of God He has even given up rationalization, saying ‘that his crimes aren’t so bad because everyone breaks the law at some point in their lives.’ Dealing honestly with his condition he knows when someone is lying and when someone is telling the truth. He knows just by looking at Christ that Jesus was not a career criminal. He was not guilty like them. If there could be still one good man who was innocent then he could not longer appeal to being no worse than anyone else. The final excuse he had before God was removed by the innocent man in the middle.
So many people who I talk to are desperate like the first criminal and I can’t really help them, nor can God. If we allowed them to escape or gave them one more chance they would just do more harm to other and continue to break the Law of God. There is no heart change, only the cries of a desperate person trying to avoid the consequences of their own lives.
Few people are like the second criminal who fears the judgment of God more than any court or prison here on earth. He feels the weight and conviction of his conscience upon his soul and no longer rationalizes or justifies his actions. Scoffing and mocking have been dropped for the desperate reality of confession. So far under conviction he knows God would be right in sending him to an eternity in hell. He knows that to let loose criminals in heaven would only ruin the place with sin and rebellion of the lawless.
This desperate man is a person who I can relate to and I hope you can as well. If you can’t I pray that someday you will relate to this criminal and know the desperate place that the conviction of a guilty conscience can bring you if you will face the truth.
As this second criminal faced the truth the most he could ask for and the best he could hope for was to be remembered. He wanted to matter to someone after he had died. All three men on the crosses that day were facing the same death and all were desperate. One was desperate to escape, one desperate to be remembered and the third desperate from something very different.
The second criminal was asking for a memorial service in heaven but the man in the middle had something very different in mind.
43. Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Luke 23:39-43
Jesus was a desperate man but not to escape what was coming and not to be remembered at a memorial service. He was desperate to do the will of His Heavenly Father. In the ultimate act of faith he would face not only death for the first time but taste the bitterness of sin as He took the sins of the world upon himself. Physical death was not as bitter as those sins. I know this because some of those sins were mine. They were so vile as to cut Jesus Christ off from Father God for the first and only time in infinity. That’s when Jesus cried out from the cross “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” Then he followed this was a statement: “It is done!” Christ had accomplished what Father God had requested and bore the guilt of my sin upon that cross. Your sins was on Him that day.
What we are desperate for is revealed in where we look. Have you ever heard that old country song “Looking for Love in all the wrong places?” We look for what we desperately want. The first criminal was desperately looking for an escape. The second criminal looked to be remembered after he had died. What was the man in the middle desperate for? We can tell by where he looked.
Jesus final words were to Father God, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” With those words He died.
With those words he lived. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, looked to the Father and for a resurrection by the Father’s hand on the other side of the grave. When He looked to Father God, he placed his whole life into His hands and trusted Him to take Him through to the other side…to paradise.
Paradise is not an island, or a golf course. It is not the happy hunting grounds or some version of Los-Vegas. Paradise that Christ looked to was to be by the Father’s side. He was leaving this world having accomplished on the cross what the Father requested because Jesus was desperate to do Father God’s will. When he got ready to leave he offered to take the second criminal with Him, to give Him more than a memorial service. He would reward the second desperate criminal with an introduction to the creator of the universe, His Father God.
In three days, on a Sunday God raised Him from the dead and know He lives in Heaven and in the hearts of those who are desperate for Him in their lives.
We are all facing death each and every day of our lives. Someday we will be told this is our last day. For others it will come sudden and without warning. Some of us will look for cures, for a way out…a way to cheat death like the first criminal. He wasn’t ready to die and face the judgment that is to come and he knew it in his heart.
Some of us will accept death when it comes and hope that we are remembered by those who loved us and that we made a difference in this world. We are looking for a nice memorial service and loving words on our tombstones. We are like the second criminal hoping the few acts of kindness and faith at the end of our lives is enough to wipe out the harm we have done.
How many of us will be like the man in the middle? How many of us will look to Father God and say, “I trust you even in death.” How many will believe like Christ did that we will be raised and that even the grave can not hold us down when God calls our name. Our way of escape is through the grave. We don’t need to be remembered when Christ Himself will embrace us in His arms.
The second criminal stumbled into those arms and found paradise in the presence of Father God. He asked to be remembered but did all that was necessary to be forgiven and redeemed. He had Godly sorrow for his sin and confessed his guilt to Jesus Christ and the world. He believed that Jesus was the Son of God and lived on this earth without any sin in His life. He asked Jesus to remember Him well in heaven despite his crimes. The only way Jesus could do that was to forgive those sins and that is exactly what Jesus did and without asking for paradise He stumbled into the arms of Christ.
Today you could stumble into the arms of Christ. Today you could do the same. Stop looking for an escape, there is none. Stop trying wipe out the memory of your sins by a few good works. Look to the man in the middle, to Jesus Christ. Confess, repent and be born again. Be desperate for God’s will in your life. No grave will hold you down.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “The Heart of Jesus”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
Hebrews 10:18-25
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day!
Seventy five percent of chocolate purchases are made by women all year long, BUT the week before Valentine’s Day, that statistic is reversed with 75% of chocolate purchases made by men. Over $1 billion Dollars worth of chocolate will be purchased for Valentine’s Day this year alone.
If the chocolates don’t work then maybe you should try flowers, my favorite way of saying ‘I love you.’ By tomorrow about $1.5 billion Dollars were spent saying ‘I love you.’
But it you really want to express your love to your valentine, nothing says it like jewelry at a tune of $1.4 billion dollars in 2011.
Wow, can you feel the love? Here are some suggestions on how to say “I love you” so that your love for one another goes on forever.
• Make sure you say "I Love You" at least once each day to your spouse.
• Write unexpected love notes.
• Give your mate an unexpected hug.
• Be spontaneous and surprising.
• Share memories and talk about memories you share together.
• Schedule a day to just rest together.
• Listen.
• Share why you love your spouse.
• Give the gift of your time.
• Smile.
• Say I love you in a different language.
Tomorrow is the day that people will want to express to another what is in their heart with hopes that there love will be returned. In many cases this will be an effort to preserve and cultivate the love they already share.
Despite all the advice and efforts we make it really does seem like the words “I Love You” is a desperate offer in a bargain for mutual benefits. How do you say “I love you…” without sounding desperate? There is a love that says, “I love what you can do for me.” There is a love that says, “I love qualities about you that I think are important.”
So, in the end, when we reveal what is in our hearts for another…it comes down to “I love you because I think you are worthy.”
What is in the heart of Jesus? If He were to tell us what is in His heart how would He express His love for us? Would he love us for how we make Him feel, or endearing qualities we display, or for what we can do for Him? Is His love a desperate bargain of mutual benefit?
We know what is in the heart of Jesus and like most things He ever did or said, His expression of love to us is unlike any human love. His love is greater and more amazing than all the valentines rolled together.
You see what is in the heart of Jesus is a desire to cure what is in your heart. He doesn’t want to give you a paper, chocolate, or gold heart this valentine. He wants to change the heart you have. He wants to transform your in most being with His very blood.
A Biblical faith is based on the belief that Jesus’ shed blood is the only remission for sins.
18. And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
19. Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20. by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21. and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
Hebrews 10:18-25
Remission is a word that theologians used all the time but most of us know the term not in relationship to Valentines Day but in connection to the terrible plaque of our day: Cancer. If you have ever walked with a person through the terrible threat of cancer you know that the word you want to hear from a doctor more than any other is: Remission.
When a doctor tells you that your cancer is in remission that does not mean that a cancer is cured. Complete remission refers to the situation where the disease disappears completely with the treatment. Partial remission refers to the situation where the disease shrinks but does not disappear completely with the treatment.
So when the doctor tells us that our cancer is in remission that means we are getting better and winning the battle with hopes of beating the disease. When the cancer is in complete remission we have won by beating the cancer back to the point we can’t detect it any more.
The reason the doctor uses the word “remission” is because they know that cancer is never really gone. Doctors now believe we all carry cancer in our bodies but healthy people don’t experience any outbreaks while those who get sick are taken over by the disease. In other words, cancer is in remission in us this morning if we are healthy and no signs of cancer can be found by the doctor.
I can’t think of a better illustration of how Christ says He loves us. He came to tell us that with treatment of His blood our cancerous sin can also be in remission. We have been doing so many things as humans to fight the terrible affects of sin in our lives. We have tried following rules, diets, and self discipline only to find sin flaring up like a tumor or lesion on our vital organs. We have under gone deadly attempts to kill sin and cut it out of our lives and even making tremendous sacrifices to find freedom from sin. Yet for most of us who can never seem to beat it back, denial and acceptance seem to be the only way we have learned to live with the spreading cancerous sin in our lives.
With Christ’s blood, no more treatments or sacrifice are necessary. All we need is an injection of His blood into our veins. It will change our heart and our minds. It will send cancerous sin into remission.
Cure from cancer means complete freedom from the cancer. To render someone cured of cancer, one has to wait and see if the cancer will ever come back. So, time is the crucial factor. If a patient remains in remission for a few years, the cancer might be cured. Certain cancers can reoccur after many years of remission.
The same is true for sin in our lives. The cure of sin, even though it may be dormant in our lives is to be free from sin. With a regular treatment of the blood of Christ we watch to seen if it will come back. Time and treatments are the crucial factors. If we sin continues to be in remission for a few years, the sin may be cured although it can reoccur. That is why we never stop in the treatment because sin lingers waiting to find a moment of weakness to make its come back.
The status of remission is determined by a series of tests and examinations to determine whether a cancer has responded to treatment or not. When we go through hard times and temptations these are tests to see if the cancer of sin is really in full remission.
The Bible tells us that when we begin treatment with the blood of Christ, we too can be confident to come to Christ on a regular basis, to have a change of heart, a new life and a new body. We present ourselves to Him for examination on a regular basis.
Did you know that the priest at the temple was responsible for controlling communicable diseases in the time of Christ? When Jesus cured the ten lepers of their disease he sent them to a priest to be inspected. He knew that they would not be accepted back into the community until the priest declared them cured, that their disease was in full remission. Can you imagine what it is like to be tested and waiting for the verdict before you find out if your disease is in remission, or complete remission?
The word of God says you can come with complete confidence to Jesus Christ knowing that His blood treatment in your veins can put sin in full remission in your life, but only as we continue to have His blood flowing through our veins, pumped by a changed heart.
So how do you begin the treatment and keep it going in your life so you can know not just a partial remission of sin, but the full remission?
22. let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:18-25
There are many ways that the Bible tells us what is in the Heart of Jesus and how it flows to us with healing power. Blood flows through our hearts and the Bible tells us about the blood of Christ and its power. This same healing power that causes sin to go into partial and full remission is also described as water in this passage and in other places as wind.
From Genesis to Revelation these symbols of blood, water, and wind tell us the same truth about what is in the heart of Christ. Love for Father God and the Love of Father God lives in the heart of Christ and it is this Love that makes the one. Yet that Love is not like any human love. It is not a feeling or a romantic interest.
The Bible tells us very clearly that God is Spirit and that God is Love. We are also told that Holy Spirit is the very Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God feels, desires, and acts on our behalf. It flows like wind, water, and blood through Father God, Jesus Christ and to any who will open their heart to Jesus Christ through the repentance of sin.
(John 4:24-“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 1 John 4:16-“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. John 3:8-“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”)
20. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21. that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23. I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23
Angels marvel this can happen.
10. Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11. trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
1 Peter 1:10-12
And they rejoice when the Holy Spirit enters a new believer at salvation. (Luke 15-“10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” )
If this is amazing and marvelous for angels to understand we as limited human being can’t understand this with our minds or emotions. Although we can’t understand it, we can experience this amazing event in our own lives. We can have flow into our hearts what is in the Heart of Christ. We can receive the very Love of God, His Holy Presence, through the Holy Spirit into our hearts this very day.
This gift of the Holy Spirit symbolized by blood, water and wind…can change our hearts for the remission of sin. The bent and temptation to sin will always be in us while we are on this earth but regular dozes of the Holy Spirit will force that sin nature into remission. Often it happens partially and when enough exposure to the Holy Spirit we can experience a complete remission of sin.
24. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25. not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:18-25
The secret to the remission of sin, partial or complete is to have the Holy Spirit pumping through your heart on a regular basis. When the Holy Spirit flows through us it changes our hearts and that flow is dependant on our hearts beating for Christ.
What gets your heart racing? Winning a big game or jumping out of an airplane? Does the love of a person you thought you could never have send your heart bounding to the point of making you dizzy? Some of us are just dizzy because are hearts have grown weak from lack of use.
You can have the best blood in the world but if your heart is not beating, it isn’t going to do you any good. You can have a deep love for a girl or guy but if you can’t get their heart to beat for you then your love will not be realized. We need a changed heart, and a beating heart to experience God’s love, but we also need keep each other passionate for the Love of God so it does not grow cold in our hearts.
The key is to keep the Holy Spirit pumping and flowing through you. What is in the Heart of Jesus flows to you as soon as you believe and receive salvation through repentance? When that happens the flow is great because we were empty, but soon we are filled and take the fullness of God for granted. If we remain full and stagnate that Spirit can not transform us, or cause sin to go into remission. The Spirit of God, The Love of God is to great for you to contain the fullness. For us to know more of God’s love we must let it flow into us and out again to others. The love of God is meant to be moving and flowing through our lives into the lives of other people. This flow through our beating hearts is the secret behind the complete remission of sin.
How does the heart of the believer pump the Holy Spirit through their lives? We follow the advice in this passage.
-spur one another on toward love and good deeds
-not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing,
-encouraging one another
-remember the Day of Christ’s return is approaching.
The cancer of sin comes from self preoccupation. It is a deadly disease that infected a third of the angels of heaven and all of humanity. It lingers in our very nature but it can be placed into a partial and then a full remission when we get our hearts pumping for God and His Love for other people. Sin is defeated every time and this is how Christ being Human kept himself from sin. His heart beat only for the Love of God.
Take the words advice and discover by experience what beats in the Heart of Christ. Repent and be saved. Let it beat in your heart as well. If you have a clog in your veins, repent of that sin and get the Holy Spirit flowing again. Let the Spirit flowing through your lives beat sin into remission. Give your changed heart to God.
Valentine is tomorrow and some hearts will beat fast when one young person purposes marriage to another. Tomorrow could be the day we stand before God. Will we know Him now in our hearts and enter before His presence with full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”? Now is the time to have your heart changed with a fresh infusion of the Holy Spirit. Christ promised it to you and it is yours to have if you will come and repent of your sins. Don’t let anything get in your way.
Category 2011 (millions) 2010 (millions) YoY % Chg
Dining Out $ 8,831.20 $ 8,508.30 3.8%
Candy $ 2,593.20 $ 2,466.80 5.1%
Romantic Getaway $ 2,164.30 $ 2,047.00 5.7%
Flowers $ 1,582.50 $ 1,355.20 16.8%
Jewelry $ 1,456.30 $ 1,308.70 11.3%
Clothing & Lingerie $ 1,165.30 $ 1,126.30 3.4%
Greeting Cards $ 822.80 $ 784.30 4.9%
Total $ 18,615.60 $ 17,597.10 5.8%
source: IBISWorld 2011 Valentine’s Day spending forecast
26. For this is my blood of the new covenant that is being poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.
Matthew 26:28
77. and to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.
Luke 1:77
5. Because of his love he had already decided to adopt us through Jesus Christ. He freely chose to do this 6. so that the kindness he had given us in his dear Son would be praised and given glory. 7. Through the blood of his Son, we are set free from our sins. God forgives our failures because of his overflowing kindness.
Ephesians 1:5-7
22. In fact, under the law almost everything is cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of the blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:22
Hebrews 10:18-25
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day!
Seventy five percent of chocolate purchases are made by women all year long, BUT the week before Valentine’s Day, that statistic is reversed with 75% of chocolate purchases made by men. Over $1 billion Dollars worth of chocolate will be purchased for Valentine’s Day this year alone.
If the chocolates don’t work then maybe you should try flowers, my favorite way of saying ‘I love you.’ By tomorrow about $1.5 billion Dollars were spent saying ‘I love you.’
But it you really want to express your love to your valentine, nothing says it like jewelry at a tune of $1.4 billion dollars in 2011.
Wow, can you feel the love? Here are some suggestions on how to say “I love you” so that your love for one another goes on forever.
• Make sure you say "I Love You" at least once each day to your spouse.
• Write unexpected love notes.
• Give your mate an unexpected hug.
• Be spontaneous and surprising.
• Share memories and talk about memories you share together.
• Schedule a day to just rest together.
• Listen.
• Share why you love your spouse.
• Give the gift of your time.
• Smile.
• Say I love you in a different language.
Tomorrow is the day that people will want to express to another what is in their heart with hopes that there love will be returned. In many cases this will be an effort to preserve and cultivate the love they already share.
Despite all the advice and efforts we make it really does seem like the words “I Love You” is a desperate offer in a bargain for mutual benefits. How do you say “I love you…” without sounding desperate? There is a love that says, “I love what you can do for me.” There is a love that says, “I love qualities about you that I think are important.”
So, in the end, when we reveal what is in our hearts for another…it comes down to “I love you because I think you are worthy.”
What is in the heart of Jesus? If He were to tell us what is in His heart how would He express His love for us? Would he love us for how we make Him feel, or endearing qualities we display, or for what we can do for Him? Is His love a desperate bargain of mutual benefit?
We know what is in the heart of Jesus and like most things He ever did or said, His expression of love to us is unlike any human love. His love is greater and more amazing than all the valentines rolled together.
You see what is in the heart of Jesus is a desire to cure what is in your heart. He doesn’t want to give you a paper, chocolate, or gold heart this valentine. He wants to change the heart you have. He wants to transform your in most being with His very blood.
A Biblical faith is based on the belief that Jesus’ shed blood is the only remission for sins.
18. And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
19. Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20. by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21. and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
Hebrews 10:18-25
Remission is a word that theologians used all the time but most of us know the term not in relationship to Valentines Day but in connection to the terrible plaque of our day: Cancer. If you have ever walked with a person through the terrible threat of cancer you know that the word you want to hear from a doctor more than any other is: Remission.
When a doctor tells you that your cancer is in remission that does not mean that a cancer is cured. Complete remission refers to the situation where the disease disappears completely with the treatment. Partial remission refers to the situation where the disease shrinks but does not disappear completely with the treatment.
So when the doctor tells us that our cancer is in remission that means we are getting better and winning the battle with hopes of beating the disease. When the cancer is in complete remission we have won by beating the cancer back to the point we can’t detect it any more.
The reason the doctor uses the word “remission” is because they know that cancer is never really gone. Doctors now believe we all carry cancer in our bodies but healthy people don’t experience any outbreaks while those who get sick are taken over by the disease. In other words, cancer is in remission in us this morning if we are healthy and no signs of cancer can be found by the doctor.
I can’t think of a better illustration of how Christ says He loves us. He came to tell us that with treatment of His blood our cancerous sin can also be in remission. We have been doing so many things as humans to fight the terrible affects of sin in our lives. We have tried following rules, diets, and self discipline only to find sin flaring up like a tumor or lesion on our vital organs. We have under gone deadly attempts to kill sin and cut it out of our lives and even making tremendous sacrifices to find freedom from sin. Yet for most of us who can never seem to beat it back, denial and acceptance seem to be the only way we have learned to live with the spreading cancerous sin in our lives.
With Christ’s blood, no more treatments or sacrifice are necessary. All we need is an injection of His blood into our veins. It will change our heart and our minds. It will send cancerous sin into remission.
Cure from cancer means complete freedom from the cancer. To render someone cured of cancer, one has to wait and see if the cancer will ever come back. So, time is the crucial factor. If a patient remains in remission for a few years, the cancer might be cured. Certain cancers can reoccur after many years of remission.
The same is true for sin in our lives. The cure of sin, even though it may be dormant in our lives is to be free from sin. With a regular treatment of the blood of Christ we watch to seen if it will come back. Time and treatments are the crucial factors. If we sin continues to be in remission for a few years, the sin may be cured although it can reoccur. That is why we never stop in the treatment because sin lingers waiting to find a moment of weakness to make its come back.
The status of remission is determined by a series of tests and examinations to determine whether a cancer has responded to treatment or not. When we go through hard times and temptations these are tests to see if the cancer of sin is really in full remission.
The Bible tells us that when we begin treatment with the blood of Christ, we too can be confident to come to Christ on a regular basis, to have a change of heart, a new life and a new body. We present ourselves to Him for examination on a regular basis.
Did you know that the priest at the temple was responsible for controlling communicable diseases in the time of Christ? When Jesus cured the ten lepers of their disease he sent them to a priest to be inspected. He knew that they would not be accepted back into the community until the priest declared them cured, that their disease was in full remission. Can you imagine what it is like to be tested and waiting for the verdict before you find out if your disease is in remission, or complete remission?
The word of God says you can come with complete confidence to Jesus Christ knowing that His blood treatment in your veins can put sin in full remission in your life, but only as we continue to have His blood flowing through our veins, pumped by a changed heart.
So how do you begin the treatment and keep it going in your life so you can know not just a partial remission of sin, but the full remission?
22. let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:18-25
There are many ways that the Bible tells us what is in the Heart of Jesus and how it flows to us with healing power. Blood flows through our hearts and the Bible tells us about the blood of Christ and its power. This same healing power that causes sin to go into partial and full remission is also described as water in this passage and in other places as wind.
From Genesis to Revelation these symbols of blood, water, and wind tell us the same truth about what is in the heart of Christ. Love for Father God and the Love of Father God lives in the heart of Christ and it is this Love that makes the one. Yet that Love is not like any human love. It is not a feeling or a romantic interest.
The Bible tells us very clearly that God is Spirit and that God is Love. We are also told that Holy Spirit is the very Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God feels, desires, and acts on our behalf. It flows like wind, water, and blood through Father God, Jesus Christ and to any who will open their heart to Jesus Christ through the repentance of sin.
(John 4:24-“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 1 John 4:16-“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. John 3:8-“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”)
20. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21. that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23. I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23
Angels marvel this can happen.
10. Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11. trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
1 Peter 1:10-12
And they rejoice when the Holy Spirit enters a new believer at salvation. (Luke 15-“10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” )
If this is amazing and marvelous for angels to understand we as limited human being can’t understand this with our minds or emotions. Although we can’t understand it, we can experience this amazing event in our own lives. We can have flow into our hearts what is in the Heart of Christ. We can receive the very Love of God, His Holy Presence, through the Holy Spirit into our hearts this very day.
This gift of the Holy Spirit symbolized by blood, water and wind…can change our hearts for the remission of sin. The bent and temptation to sin will always be in us while we are on this earth but regular dozes of the Holy Spirit will force that sin nature into remission. Often it happens partially and when enough exposure to the Holy Spirit we can experience a complete remission of sin.
24. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25. not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:18-25
The secret to the remission of sin, partial or complete is to have the Holy Spirit pumping through your heart on a regular basis. When the Holy Spirit flows through us it changes our hearts and that flow is dependant on our hearts beating for Christ.
What gets your heart racing? Winning a big game or jumping out of an airplane? Does the love of a person you thought you could never have send your heart bounding to the point of making you dizzy? Some of us are just dizzy because are hearts have grown weak from lack of use.
You can have the best blood in the world but if your heart is not beating, it isn’t going to do you any good. You can have a deep love for a girl or guy but if you can’t get their heart to beat for you then your love will not be realized. We need a changed heart, and a beating heart to experience God’s love, but we also need keep each other passionate for the Love of God so it does not grow cold in our hearts.
The key is to keep the Holy Spirit pumping and flowing through you. What is in the Heart of Jesus flows to you as soon as you believe and receive salvation through repentance? When that happens the flow is great because we were empty, but soon we are filled and take the fullness of God for granted. If we remain full and stagnate that Spirit can not transform us, or cause sin to go into remission. The Spirit of God, The Love of God is to great for you to contain the fullness. For us to know more of God’s love we must let it flow into us and out again to others. The love of God is meant to be moving and flowing through our lives into the lives of other people. This flow through our beating hearts is the secret behind the complete remission of sin.
How does the heart of the believer pump the Holy Spirit through their lives? We follow the advice in this passage.
-spur one another on toward love and good deeds
-not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing,
-encouraging one another
-remember the Day of Christ’s return is approaching.
The cancer of sin comes from self preoccupation. It is a deadly disease that infected a third of the angels of heaven and all of humanity. It lingers in our very nature but it can be placed into a partial and then a full remission when we get our hearts pumping for God and His Love for other people. Sin is defeated every time and this is how Christ being Human kept himself from sin. His heart beat only for the Love of God.
Take the words advice and discover by experience what beats in the Heart of Christ. Repent and be saved. Let it beat in your heart as well. If you have a clog in your veins, repent of that sin and get the Holy Spirit flowing again. Let the Spirit flowing through your lives beat sin into remission. Give your changed heart to God.
Valentine is tomorrow and some hearts will beat fast when one young person purposes marriage to another. Tomorrow could be the day we stand before God. Will we know Him now in our hearts and enter before His presence with full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”? Now is the time to have your heart changed with a fresh infusion of the Holy Spirit. Christ promised it to you and it is yours to have if you will come and repent of your sins. Don’t let anything get in your way.
Category 2011 (millions) 2010 (millions) YoY % Chg
Dining Out $ 8,831.20 $ 8,508.30 3.8%
Candy $ 2,593.20 $ 2,466.80 5.1%
Romantic Getaway $ 2,164.30 $ 2,047.00 5.7%
Flowers $ 1,582.50 $ 1,355.20 16.8%
Jewelry $ 1,456.30 $ 1,308.70 11.3%
Clothing & Lingerie $ 1,165.30 $ 1,126.30 3.4%
Greeting Cards $ 822.80 $ 784.30 4.9%
Total $ 18,615.60 $ 17,597.10 5.8%
source: IBISWorld 2011 Valentine’s Day spending forecast
26. For this is my blood of the new covenant that is being poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.
Matthew 26:28
77. and to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.
Luke 1:77
5. Because of his love he had already decided to adopt us through Jesus Christ. He freely chose to do this 6. so that the kindness he had given us in his dear Son would be praised and given glory. 7. Through the blood of his Son, we are set free from our sins. God forgives our failures because of his overflowing kindness.
Ephesians 1:5-7
22. In fact, under the law almost everything is cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of the blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:22
Monday, April 4, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus Provides the only Way to be Saved”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
John 6:35-51
People cannot come to me unless the Father who sent me brings them to me. I will bring these people back to life on the last day.
John 6:44
No one else can save us. Indeed, we can be saved only by the power of the one named Jesus and not by any other person."
Act 4:12
Options, I love them. I want to have many choices and styles to choose from. If I have many choices then I will be able to make the best choice that fits who I am. Since we are all so different, no one choice can fit everyone. Right?
We in America really believe that diversity and freedom to choose from the many based on personal preference of the individual is a universal truth and even a divine right.
We could say choice is our “cup of tea.” There are more teas in this world than just Lipton. In fact many Americans are discovering how diverse and wonderful the choices the world offers us in exotic teas. Not only that, we are slowly realizing what ancient people knew for millennium, that they are actually healthy for us as well as tasty.
I have brought several teas this morning and I have several different teas for us to choose from. Which is your cup of tea? Some are dark black breakfast teas, while others are light herbal, and one a very exotic ancient tea with healing powers. If I were to ask you which is your cup of tea, which would you choose. You would most likely want to smell the leaves and maybe have a taste test, while comparing which appeals to your senses the most.
The choice we make and how we make it is very much the way we approach the various claims of religions. Some religions talk about following rules, and others your bliss, while yet others say the whole thing is an illusion. The world provides us with many ways it claims that we can find our way to heaven. Many even tell us we can determine for ourselves what “heaven” will mean if we just choose their ‘cup of tea.’
In our series on a Biblical Faith we have to face a very difficult fact. The Bible tells us in all the different cups that are being offered, there is only one that will allows us to enter into the only Heaven there is, and all the other cups are poisoned. That might not be the news you want to hear, but if the Bible is right, it could be the most important hint you will receive in your life. If you knew that of all these teas I brought today were actually poisonous and one could cure all your health problems, which one would be your “cup of tea?”
The mood in America that like choices is offended by the idea that I would suggest that not only is their one way to a real Heaven, but that all other paths are poison and lead to death. One commentator on American Culture said…
"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own."
- ILN 8-11-28 (G. K. Chesterton)
What he means is that I should stand before you and tell you that every tea here is just as good as the next, even though I know they will all get you killed except one. This isn’t about taste or preference. This is about life and death.
Despite the choices that are before us this morning and everything we have been told over the years we still are confused about the decision we need to make today. Barna Research shows us in their research.
More than four out of five Americans claim to be Christian and half as many can be classified as born again Christians. Nine out of ten adults own a Bible. Most adults read the Bible during the year and a huge majority claims they know all of the basic teachings of the Bible. How, then, can most people say Satan does not exist, that the Holy Spirit is merely a symbol, that eternal peace with God can be earned through good works, and that truth can only be understood through the lens of reason and experience? How can a plurality of our citizens contend that Jesus committed sins and that the Bible, Koran and Book of Mormon all teach the same truths?
Barna Identifies Seven Paradoxes
Regarding America’s Faith
December 17, 2002
What this means is that despite what the Bible tells us, we choose to believe that any choice we make is good one, because we just want it that way. This belief that we can decide whatever we want despite what the Bible says has persisted in what American’s believe for decades now. There is a very good chance that someone reading this message or listening to me right now, are among those who believe one cup of tea is as good as another.
Recently a woman expressed what most Americans experience. She grew up church hoping and although her parents thought religion was important she didn’t really understand why they felt that way. Now that she is an mother herself she has come to this conclusion…
No matter what Church I went too the message was still the same. To live life loving yourself, loving and caring for the people around you and to make choices in life that would make Christ proud. We can’t be perfect. No one is, but the secret is to do your best. Failure only exists in the ones who choose to give up. The ones who try never fail. No matter what the outcome.
In my opinion, all roads lead to one God. There isn't any wrong or right religion. If it works for you and it gives you the strength, wisdom and serenity to live in happiness and the will to do good then so be it. 1.
Stacey Chillemi
Published Author
(See foot note…)
Somehow this dear lady grew up in church, attends church now with her children, and still thinks that the Bible says, “Chose any cup of tea you want as long as it helps you find happiness and peace.”
Yet the Bible that most of us owns warns us that not just any cup will save. All will kill and only one has life. Which cup is it?
35. Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
The Bible tells us that Jesus has come to the end of His three year ministry and all that is left to do is to die for the sins of the world upon the cross. Jesus has the same problem I have today and every other pastor who holds out the true and trusted words of God. The problem is that people do not believe the Word of God when it declares that there is only one cup the gives life, and all the others kill.
Jesus came so we would choose the right cup, and live. God is not cruel because He does not give us enough choices. God is good because He is doing everything He can right now to get you to make the right choice and live. God is not narrowed minded, but desperate that we live. He is not pushy but urgent that we understand the danger we are in at this very moment if we choose wrong.
The choice we are given today is Christ or nothing. We must believe that God provides in Jesus the only way to be saved from our just judgment in hell or loose out forever. The only way we are going to see a resurrection is if we make the right choice.
A better analogy is to go back to our teas. What if I told you that you are dying from a fatal disease? Then what if I told you that only one of these teas could save you and all the rest wouldn’t hurt you, but they couldn’t save you from what’s wrong in your body? The Bible tells me that I have fatal disease and it is sin. I want to ignore God and go against my conscience. That nature, that sinful bent is what makes us terminal. Yet on the table is a cure, but only if you chose to believe what the Word says and drink from the right cup.
If you ask a doctor: "Have you ever had to tell someone that they were going to die soon?" He would most likely tell you that it was the hardest thing he did as a physician. But in most cases, he would detect a problem and give them a course of action that, if followed, would save their life.
That doctor isn’t being cruel or harsh. He is being deadly honest and giving hope. Yet even this clear choice is not enough to believe.
41. At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42. They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43. “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48. I am the bread of life. 49. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
John 6:35-51
The trouble with making a good choice today about what cup we will drink is that we consider how we are doing right now and see no need to change. We getting along and life is not perfect, but good enough. Unless we are desperate why would we give up our options and commit to only one path? Why get married when you can still have fun with several partners? Why get tied down with kids when you can travel and enjoy life? Why buy a home and be stuck with a job and a mortgage when you can travel the world? In other words, why give up freedom of choice for the commitment of a demanding relationship?
When this part of Christ’s short life on earth takes place time is running short. If Christ wore a watch, He would be looking at it and tapping it with His finger. Soon He would be arrested, stand trial, and be crucified on the cross. Time was running out and those who liked Him but were not committed needed to make a choice. They would not make it through the test that was coming if they did not decide to give up their choices and commit to Him as their only hope.
For our choices to narrow and believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from an eternity in hell and enter heaven, we need a divine intervention from God. The Bible calls this a conviction. This is an inner sensation of God in our hearts telling us that we need to make this choice or miss our chance to be saved from this world and it’s many choices. This conviction is a deep sense of knowing, a conviction that the Bible is right and all other voices are wrong. We know in our conscience this is the only real choice we have if we are going to live. God narrows the choice for us by this spirit of conviction and without it no one will commit to Christ alone as their only hope of salvation.
Has God placed that conviction in you? Have you made the choice? If you think you still have options, as most American’s do, then you have not experienced the benefits of believing the convicting Spirit of God. When we really believe God’s word, there are no other choices left. Our entire hope is on the Lord Jesus Christ, His death and His resurrection.
53. Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
66. From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
John 6:53;66;67-69
If you lack that God given conviction, all you have to do is ask for it. Just say a prayer to God and ask Him to give you the gift of a convicted spirit. King David in the Old Testament did this when he prayed,
23. Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24. See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24
If you ask Father God, He will send the Holy Spirit and convict you what you must chose and narrow your focus to Jesus Christ. He may have already accomplished this in your life because someone else asked Him to bring conviction into your life. But that gift is wasted if we don’t commit to Christ as our only hope.
Jesus made His disciples choose. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Today I am asking you to make the choice. Now is the time to commit. To accept Jesus and declare Him as your only hope of salvation is the decision we must make today. There are only two possible answers today and that is ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ We must choose.
On the communion table this morning we have a cup for you to drink. This cup represents Christ Himself. His blood is represented by the grape juice and His body by the bread. The only way drinking this juice and eating this bread will make any difference in eternity is if you commit to Christ and reject all other options of salvation. He must be Lord of all in your life, or Lord of nothing. This is no time to hold back because we are going to need this single minded focus in the days, months and maybe years ahead. Just like the disciples before Easter we must be all in and trust on Christ for everything. No other religion or philosophy will save you. They can not cure what is wrong with your heart. They can not remove the cancerous sin from our lives. Only this one cup, the cup of Christ can save us now.
Will you say yes be coming and receiving the Cup of Christ or will you say no and keep your options open? Decide now. Heed the conviction you asked for earlier and make your choice. Now is the day of salvation.
1. Stacey Chillemi is the managing editor for the magazine UZURI. She is the author of Epilepsy You're Not Alone; Live, Learn, and Be Happy with Epilepsy; Epilepsy and Pregnancy: What Every Women Should Know; the children’s book My Mommy Has Epilepsy and My Daddy Has Epilepsy ; and two collections of poetry, Keep the Faith and Eternal Love. She has recently been featured in Woman’s World Magazine and the New Jersey Star Ledger.
John 6:35-51
People cannot come to me unless the Father who sent me brings them to me. I will bring these people back to life on the last day.
John 6:44
No one else can save us. Indeed, we can be saved only by the power of the one named Jesus and not by any other person."
Act 4:12
Options, I love them. I want to have many choices and styles to choose from. If I have many choices then I will be able to make the best choice that fits who I am. Since we are all so different, no one choice can fit everyone. Right?
We in America really believe that diversity and freedom to choose from the many based on personal preference of the individual is a universal truth and even a divine right.
We could say choice is our “cup of tea.” There are more teas in this world than just Lipton. In fact many Americans are discovering how diverse and wonderful the choices the world offers us in exotic teas. Not only that, we are slowly realizing what ancient people knew for millennium, that they are actually healthy for us as well as tasty.
I have brought several teas this morning and I have several different teas for us to choose from. Which is your cup of tea? Some are dark black breakfast teas, while others are light herbal, and one a very exotic ancient tea with healing powers. If I were to ask you which is your cup of tea, which would you choose. You would most likely want to smell the leaves and maybe have a taste test, while comparing which appeals to your senses the most.
The choice we make and how we make it is very much the way we approach the various claims of religions. Some religions talk about following rules, and others your bliss, while yet others say the whole thing is an illusion. The world provides us with many ways it claims that we can find our way to heaven. Many even tell us we can determine for ourselves what “heaven” will mean if we just choose their ‘cup of tea.’
In our series on a Biblical Faith we have to face a very difficult fact. The Bible tells us in all the different cups that are being offered, there is only one that will allows us to enter into the only Heaven there is, and all the other cups are poisoned. That might not be the news you want to hear, but if the Bible is right, it could be the most important hint you will receive in your life. If you knew that of all these teas I brought today were actually poisonous and one could cure all your health problems, which one would be your “cup of tea?”
The mood in America that like choices is offended by the idea that I would suggest that not only is their one way to a real Heaven, but that all other paths are poison and lead to death. One commentator on American Culture said…
"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own."
- ILN 8-11-28 (G. K. Chesterton)
What he means is that I should stand before you and tell you that every tea here is just as good as the next, even though I know they will all get you killed except one. This isn’t about taste or preference. This is about life and death.
Despite the choices that are before us this morning and everything we have been told over the years we still are confused about the decision we need to make today. Barna Research shows us in their research.
More than four out of five Americans claim to be Christian and half as many can be classified as born again Christians. Nine out of ten adults own a Bible. Most adults read the Bible during the year and a huge majority claims they know all of the basic teachings of the Bible. How, then, can most people say Satan does not exist, that the Holy Spirit is merely a symbol, that eternal peace with God can be earned through good works, and that truth can only be understood through the lens of reason and experience? How can a plurality of our citizens contend that Jesus committed sins and that the Bible, Koran and Book of Mormon all teach the same truths?
Barna Identifies Seven Paradoxes
Regarding America’s Faith
December 17, 2002
What this means is that despite what the Bible tells us, we choose to believe that any choice we make is good one, because we just want it that way. This belief that we can decide whatever we want despite what the Bible says has persisted in what American’s believe for decades now. There is a very good chance that someone reading this message or listening to me right now, are among those who believe one cup of tea is as good as another.
Recently a woman expressed what most Americans experience. She grew up church hoping and although her parents thought religion was important she didn’t really understand why they felt that way. Now that she is an mother herself she has come to this conclusion…
No matter what Church I went too the message was still the same. To live life loving yourself, loving and caring for the people around you and to make choices in life that would make Christ proud. We can’t be perfect. No one is, but the secret is to do your best. Failure only exists in the ones who choose to give up. The ones who try never fail. No matter what the outcome.
In my opinion, all roads lead to one God. There isn't any wrong or right religion. If it works for you and it gives you the strength, wisdom and serenity to live in happiness and the will to do good then so be it. 1.
Stacey Chillemi
Published Author
(See foot note…)
Somehow this dear lady grew up in church, attends church now with her children, and still thinks that the Bible says, “Chose any cup of tea you want as long as it helps you find happiness and peace.”
Yet the Bible that most of us owns warns us that not just any cup will save. All will kill and only one has life. Which cup is it?
35. Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
The Bible tells us that Jesus has come to the end of His three year ministry and all that is left to do is to die for the sins of the world upon the cross. Jesus has the same problem I have today and every other pastor who holds out the true and trusted words of God. The problem is that people do not believe the Word of God when it declares that there is only one cup the gives life, and all the others kill.
Jesus came so we would choose the right cup, and live. God is not cruel because He does not give us enough choices. God is good because He is doing everything He can right now to get you to make the right choice and live. God is not narrowed minded, but desperate that we live. He is not pushy but urgent that we understand the danger we are in at this very moment if we choose wrong.
The choice we are given today is Christ or nothing. We must believe that God provides in Jesus the only way to be saved from our just judgment in hell or loose out forever. The only way we are going to see a resurrection is if we make the right choice.
A better analogy is to go back to our teas. What if I told you that you are dying from a fatal disease? Then what if I told you that only one of these teas could save you and all the rest wouldn’t hurt you, but they couldn’t save you from what’s wrong in your body? The Bible tells me that I have fatal disease and it is sin. I want to ignore God and go against my conscience. That nature, that sinful bent is what makes us terminal. Yet on the table is a cure, but only if you chose to believe what the Word says and drink from the right cup.
If you ask a doctor: "Have you ever had to tell someone that they were going to die soon?" He would most likely tell you that it was the hardest thing he did as a physician. But in most cases, he would detect a problem and give them a course of action that, if followed, would save their life.
That doctor isn’t being cruel or harsh. He is being deadly honest and giving hope. Yet even this clear choice is not enough to believe.
41. At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42. They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43. “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48. I am the bread of life. 49. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
John 6:35-51
The trouble with making a good choice today about what cup we will drink is that we consider how we are doing right now and see no need to change. We getting along and life is not perfect, but good enough. Unless we are desperate why would we give up our options and commit to only one path? Why get married when you can still have fun with several partners? Why get tied down with kids when you can travel and enjoy life? Why buy a home and be stuck with a job and a mortgage when you can travel the world? In other words, why give up freedom of choice for the commitment of a demanding relationship?
When this part of Christ’s short life on earth takes place time is running short. If Christ wore a watch, He would be looking at it and tapping it with His finger. Soon He would be arrested, stand trial, and be crucified on the cross. Time was running out and those who liked Him but were not committed needed to make a choice. They would not make it through the test that was coming if they did not decide to give up their choices and commit to Him as their only hope.
For our choices to narrow and believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from an eternity in hell and enter heaven, we need a divine intervention from God. The Bible calls this a conviction. This is an inner sensation of God in our hearts telling us that we need to make this choice or miss our chance to be saved from this world and it’s many choices. This conviction is a deep sense of knowing, a conviction that the Bible is right and all other voices are wrong. We know in our conscience this is the only real choice we have if we are going to live. God narrows the choice for us by this spirit of conviction and without it no one will commit to Christ alone as their only hope of salvation.
Has God placed that conviction in you? Have you made the choice? If you think you still have options, as most American’s do, then you have not experienced the benefits of believing the convicting Spirit of God. When we really believe God’s word, there are no other choices left. Our entire hope is on the Lord Jesus Christ, His death and His resurrection.
53. Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
66. From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
John 6:53;66;67-69
If you lack that God given conviction, all you have to do is ask for it. Just say a prayer to God and ask Him to give you the gift of a convicted spirit. King David in the Old Testament did this when he prayed,
23. Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24. See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24
If you ask Father God, He will send the Holy Spirit and convict you what you must chose and narrow your focus to Jesus Christ. He may have already accomplished this in your life because someone else asked Him to bring conviction into your life. But that gift is wasted if we don’t commit to Christ as our only hope.
Jesus made His disciples choose. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Today I am asking you to make the choice. Now is the time to commit. To accept Jesus and declare Him as your only hope of salvation is the decision we must make today. There are only two possible answers today and that is ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ We must choose.
On the communion table this morning we have a cup for you to drink. This cup represents Christ Himself. His blood is represented by the grape juice and His body by the bread. The only way drinking this juice and eating this bread will make any difference in eternity is if you commit to Christ and reject all other options of salvation. He must be Lord of all in your life, or Lord of nothing. This is no time to hold back because we are going to need this single minded focus in the days, months and maybe years ahead. Just like the disciples before Easter we must be all in and trust on Christ for everything. No other religion or philosophy will save you. They can not cure what is wrong with your heart. They can not remove the cancerous sin from our lives. Only this one cup, the cup of Christ can save us now.
Will you say yes be coming and receiving the Cup of Christ or will you say no and keep your options open? Decide now. Heed the conviction you asked for earlier and make your choice. Now is the day of salvation.
1. Stacey Chillemi is the managing editor for the magazine UZURI. She is the author of Epilepsy You're Not Alone; Live, Learn, and Be Happy with Epilepsy; Epilepsy and Pregnancy: What Every Women Should Know; the children’s book My Mommy Has Epilepsy and My Daddy Has Epilepsy ; and two collections of poetry, Keep the Faith and Eternal Love. She has recently been featured in Woman’s World Magazine and the New Jersey Star Ledger.
Friday, April 1, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus’ Finished Work”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
Hebrews 7:23-28
It is finished!
That is what I long to say one day about the book I am writing. I will call up all my friends and share the news and tell everyone I am looking forward to their comments. The only trouble is that I know what they will say. My good friends will tell me the truth and say, you’re not sending it off to a publisher like that are you? I’ll say, “Whatever do you mean?” In some nice and gentle way they will point our spelling and grammar error’s along with some missing pieces of the plot.
Embarrassed I will go back to work make the fixes and then announce: It is finished! This time I won’t let my friends have another look at it but post it right away to several publishing houses waiting for wonderful comments and a big fat signing bonus.
The trouble is I know that the publishers will write back and some might say they enjoyed the book and see some possibilities, but with more changes and extensive editing. Embarrassed I will take those suggestions to heart in the hopes of gaining their approval. After passing through several committees, editors, and re-writes I will announced to the world that “It is finished!”
That’s when the literary critics will review the book and offer their suggestions how it could have been so much better. Taking into consideration their comments I may make changes hoping for a second print where they could be inserted. Then the public will start commenting and contradict everything that the critics. Not sure on whom to please I will just give up changing the book and go on to another project.
Isn’t that the way it is with everything in our lives. What we do is never really done but always the “work in progress.” Homes are never really finished or raising children. We never really finish a job we just go home. For us humans “finishing” is when we give up and call it good enough. We run out of time, money, patience, and passion long before any work we are doing is really finished.
I want us to remember how we call something ‘finished’ because we can’t really understand what Christ has done for us and is doing for us if we confuse our way of thinking with His. The finished work of Christ is remarkably different than any work any human being has every attempted.
When it comes to our relationships the last words we want to hear is “I’m finished with you.” We never want people to be finished with us, but not to over stress by our neediness either. I have met many people, even after they become Christians who are anxious about whether Christ is finished with them yet and what that might mean.
You see Jesus did finish a work that He took on for us but He is not finished with any of us yet. It was on the cross where He died that he announced that the work he took on for us was finished.
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
John 19:30
I would love to say with absolute conviction “It is finished…” but when Christ said it, he meant that He had paid for my and your sins and there was no price left to be paid. He paid it all and no one can say that anything was left owing.
Sometimes when we pay the price of a wrong done to us, in other words, forgive something with out expecting compensation; we are also finished with the person we forgive. Many people forgive to be done with someone, to get free of them so they never have to see them again. Forgiveness for us is often the last act of a dead relationship. Our forgiveness usually sounds like this: “I forgive you and I never want to see you again.”
People who have a problem with God often say He is cruel and unjust, but our actions are often far more harsh in standing and if we had the power that God has, it would indeed be very terrible.
Consider how incredibly different Jesus Christ is when He pays the price for our forgiveness.
23. Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24. but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
26. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.
Hebrews 7:23-28
Jesus does not walk away when He pays the price for the wrongs we have done against the Father. Instead He places Himself in a position where He can serve us and God to make sure the peace he bought is kept.
The trouble with the work that Jesus does is not that it is imperfect, but that we are always getting into trouble. Christ can perfectly save me, forgive me, and intercede on my behalf before God, but after having come to Him I will mess up again and need more help in the future.
Jesus shows us what real love and forgiveness is in that His finished work is not just complete but permanent. He maintains my position of forgiveness before God no matter how many times I might mess up.
That is hard for us to understand someone who can be that consistent in their love and forgiveness towards a person who seems like a perpetual looser. Yet that is just how different the finished and permanent work of Christ is in the courts of heaven. He will never give up on us if we will never give up on Him.
Jesus has the ability to intercede because of His death on the cross and resurrection that placed Him at the right hand of Father God. But it is His unfailing love that helps us when we fail. Paul said it this way…
That is why he is always able to save those who come to God through him. He can do this because he always lives and intercedes for them.
Hebrews 7:25
If you wonder how this works, you are not alone. Ever since Jesus took up this finished and permanent work believers and seekers have wondered what they have to do to be right with Christ. You begin by repenting of your sins and asking Jesus to forgive you and to come into your life to make a heart change.
To begin is the first step but the second step is to persist. When we begin we share in the cross of Christ, when we persist we enter into the courts of heaven where His everlasting love is revealed.
Now, since the dawn of the Christian faith, believers have wondered can I do whatever I want and Christ will keep interceding for me before Father God?
20. …But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
1. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means!
Romans 5:21, 22; 6:1
We can be sure that Christ will persist in His office of intersession if we honor so great a love of Father God. On the other hand we should be careful not to go on sinning thinking we have a free pass to do what we want now because our Lord will pay the bill. Such an attitude would dishonor the grace and love of Father God. John warns us that anyone who treats such a grace cheaply is in danger…
6. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:6
Make no mistake that our salvation in Jesus Christ depends on our relationship with Him. This is not governed by a law but there are some basics about relationships we must understand if we are going to confident in Christ rather than legalities. Some have tried to turn Grace into a legal relationship with God that is binding on Him. The truth is that our salvation is dependent on the attitude that Christ, the great and permanent intercessor before God has towards us.
If He were to deny us we would be in trouble. If He acknowledges us and welcomes us into the Kingdom then Father God will follow His lead. Unlike us His attitude towards those He cares about is not affected by the imperfections of our character, or even the pain we cause Him from time to time. But there is one thing that can’t change His attitude towards us even if we had at one time entered into a relationship with Him. Jesus stated this very clearly in Matthew:
32. “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:32-33
Peter, the Apostle of Jesus Christ was such a man. He was the first to acknowledge before others that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the promised Messiah. He did this by the power of the Holy Spirit. He believed with His heart and was committed to Christ.
Peter was also the first to deny Christ after acknowledging Christ. In fact he did it three times at the trial of Jesus Christ, before the crucifixion. Not only that, but Jesus predicted that he would do it despite the objections made by Peter. Now this is how amazing the Love of Christ is towards us. He promises Peter that he will restore him once he falls.
31. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
33. But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
34. Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
Luke 22:31-34
The faith of Peter did fail just as Christ predicted. Christ warned Peter if he denied Him before other men, then Christ would deny Peter before the father. The denial of Peter was the words “I don’t know Him.” The denial of most modern believers is often, “I just don’t know.” In the story of Peter and in our own denials the following affect is shame. If we are ashamed of Christ He will be ashamed of us. If we boast of Christ with joy and pride then Christ will boast about us with joy and pride.
You see, this is how relationships work. They are not contracts that are binding upon both parties, but a living dynamic that requires us to believe and confess Christ before others if we want Christ to believe in us and acknowledge us before Father God.
We are a small church here in Medford and I have noticed that some have been ashamed to be apart of this congregation. We are not as big, fancy or offering as many programs as other congregations. It would be terrible if we think that is how relationships work in the courts of heaven where Christ is accomplishing His permanent office before Father God. I don’t believe that Christ is ashamed of the First Church of God, as long we keep acknowledging the amazing love of God in Jesus Christ before the world. In fact, I know that this congregation has been the subject of praise and thanksgiving before the throne of God.
Where are you this morning? Is your faith marked by shame or by faith? Do you acknowledge that amazing love of Christ before others or are the words, “…I don’t know” often on your lips?
Do you want to know? Do you want to believe? Then we can be restored even as Peter was after denying Christ three times. Christ just asks us a simple question: “Do you love me?” Is there anyone here who is not ashamed of Christ who would like to stand and declare before us today that they love Jesus Christ for His perfect and finished work? If you would do that today Christ will do the same before Father God. Will you do that right now? Jesus is watching and waiting upon what you do in the next few minutes.
10. With one sacrifice he accomplished the work of setting them apart for God forever.
Hebrew 10:14
20. Through him he also reconciled all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, thus making peace through the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:20
Hebrews 7:23-28
It is finished!
That is what I long to say one day about the book I am writing. I will call up all my friends and share the news and tell everyone I am looking forward to their comments. The only trouble is that I know what they will say. My good friends will tell me the truth and say, you’re not sending it off to a publisher like that are you? I’ll say, “Whatever do you mean?” In some nice and gentle way they will point our spelling and grammar error’s along with some missing pieces of the plot.
Embarrassed I will go back to work make the fixes and then announce: It is finished! This time I won’t let my friends have another look at it but post it right away to several publishing houses waiting for wonderful comments and a big fat signing bonus.
The trouble is I know that the publishers will write back and some might say they enjoyed the book and see some possibilities, but with more changes and extensive editing. Embarrassed I will take those suggestions to heart in the hopes of gaining their approval. After passing through several committees, editors, and re-writes I will announced to the world that “It is finished!”
That’s when the literary critics will review the book and offer their suggestions how it could have been so much better. Taking into consideration their comments I may make changes hoping for a second print where they could be inserted. Then the public will start commenting and contradict everything that the critics. Not sure on whom to please I will just give up changing the book and go on to another project.
Isn’t that the way it is with everything in our lives. What we do is never really done but always the “work in progress.” Homes are never really finished or raising children. We never really finish a job we just go home. For us humans “finishing” is when we give up and call it good enough. We run out of time, money, patience, and passion long before any work we are doing is really finished.
I want us to remember how we call something ‘finished’ because we can’t really understand what Christ has done for us and is doing for us if we confuse our way of thinking with His. The finished work of Christ is remarkably different than any work any human being has every attempted.
When it comes to our relationships the last words we want to hear is “I’m finished with you.” We never want people to be finished with us, but not to over stress by our neediness either. I have met many people, even after they become Christians who are anxious about whether Christ is finished with them yet and what that might mean.
You see Jesus did finish a work that He took on for us but He is not finished with any of us yet. It was on the cross where He died that he announced that the work he took on for us was finished.
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
John 19:30
I would love to say with absolute conviction “It is finished…” but when Christ said it, he meant that He had paid for my and your sins and there was no price left to be paid. He paid it all and no one can say that anything was left owing.
Sometimes when we pay the price of a wrong done to us, in other words, forgive something with out expecting compensation; we are also finished with the person we forgive. Many people forgive to be done with someone, to get free of them so they never have to see them again. Forgiveness for us is often the last act of a dead relationship. Our forgiveness usually sounds like this: “I forgive you and I never want to see you again.”
People who have a problem with God often say He is cruel and unjust, but our actions are often far more harsh in standing and if we had the power that God has, it would indeed be very terrible.
Consider how incredibly different Jesus Christ is when He pays the price for our forgiveness.
23. Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24. but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
26. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.
Hebrews 7:23-28
Jesus does not walk away when He pays the price for the wrongs we have done against the Father. Instead He places Himself in a position where He can serve us and God to make sure the peace he bought is kept.
The trouble with the work that Jesus does is not that it is imperfect, but that we are always getting into trouble. Christ can perfectly save me, forgive me, and intercede on my behalf before God, but after having come to Him I will mess up again and need more help in the future.
Jesus shows us what real love and forgiveness is in that His finished work is not just complete but permanent. He maintains my position of forgiveness before God no matter how many times I might mess up.
That is hard for us to understand someone who can be that consistent in their love and forgiveness towards a person who seems like a perpetual looser. Yet that is just how different the finished and permanent work of Christ is in the courts of heaven. He will never give up on us if we will never give up on Him.
Jesus has the ability to intercede because of His death on the cross and resurrection that placed Him at the right hand of Father God. But it is His unfailing love that helps us when we fail. Paul said it this way…
That is why he is always able to save those who come to God through him. He can do this because he always lives and intercedes for them.
Hebrews 7:25
If you wonder how this works, you are not alone. Ever since Jesus took up this finished and permanent work believers and seekers have wondered what they have to do to be right with Christ. You begin by repenting of your sins and asking Jesus to forgive you and to come into your life to make a heart change.
To begin is the first step but the second step is to persist. When we begin we share in the cross of Christ, when we persist we enter into the courts of heaven where His everlasting love is revealed.
Now, since the dawn of the Christian faith, believers have wondered can I do whatever I want and Christ will keep interceding for me before Father God?
20. …But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
1. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means!
Romans 5:21, 22; 6:1
We can be sure that Christ will persist in His office of intersession if we honor so great a love of Father God. On the other hand we should be careful not to go on sinning thinking we have a free pass to do what we want now because our Lord will pay the bill. Such an attitude would dishonor the grace and love of Father God. John warns us that anyone who treats such a grace cheaply is in danger…
6. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:6
Make no mistake that our salvation in Jesus Christ depends on our relationship with Him. This is not governed by a law but there are some basics about relationships we must understand if we are going to confident in Christ rather than legalities. Some have tried to turn Grace into a legal relationship with God that is binding on Him. The truth is that our salvation is dependent on the attitude that Christ, the great and permanent intercessor before God has towards us.
If He were to deny us we would be in trouble. If He acknowledges us and welcomes us into the Kingdom then Father God will follow His lead. Unlike us His attitude towards those He cares about is not affected by the imperfections of our character, or even the pain we cause Him from time to time. But there is one thing that can’t change His attitude towards us even if we had at one time entered into a relationship with Him. Jesus stated this very clearly in Matthew:
32. “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:32-33
Peter, the Apostle of Jesus Christ was such a man. He was the first to acknowledge before others that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the promised Messiah. He did this by the power of the Holy Spirit. He believed with His heart and was committed to Christ.
Peter was also the first to deny Christ after acknowledging Christ. In fact he did it three times at the trial of Jesus Christ, before the crucifixion. Not only that, but Jesus predicted that he would do it despite the objections made by Peter. Now this is how amazing the Love of Christ is towards us. He promises Peter that he will restore him once he falls.
31. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
33. But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
34. Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
Luke 22:31-34
The faith of Peter did fail just as Christ predicted. Christ warned Peter if he denied Him before other men, then Christ would deny Peter before the father. The denial of Peter was the words “I don’t know Him.” The denial of most modern believers is often, “I just don’t know.” In the story of Peter and in our own denials the following affect is shame. If we are ashamed of Christ He will be ashamed of us. If we boast of Christ with joy and pride then Christ will boast about us with joy and pride.
You see, this is how relationships work. They are not contracts that are binding upon both parties, but a living dynamic that requires us to believe and confess Christ before others if we want Christ to believe in us and acknowledge us before Father God.
We are a small church here in Medford and I have noticed that some have been ashamed to be apart of this congregation. We are not as big, fancy or offering as many programs as other congregations. It would be terrible if we think that is how relationships work in the courts of heaven where Christ is accomplishing His permanent office before Father God. I don’t believe that Christ is ashamed of the First Church of God, as long we keep acknowledging the amazing love of God in Jesus Christ before the world. In fact, I know that this congregation has been the subject of praise and thanksgiving before the throne of God.
Where are you this morning? Is your faith marked by shame or by faith? Do you acknowledge that amazing love of Christ before others or are the words, “…I don’t know” often on your lips?
Do you want to know? Do you want to believe? Then we can be restored even as Peter was after denying Christ three times. Christ just asks us a simple question: “Do you love me?” Is there anyone here who is not ashamed of Christ who would like to stand and declare before us today that they love Jesus Christ for His perfect and finished work? If you would do that today Christ will do the same before Father God. Will you do that right now? Jesus is watching and waiting upon what you do in the next few minutes.
10. With one sacrifice he accomplished the work of setting them apart for God forever.
Hebrew 10:14
20. Through him he also reconciled all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, thus making peace through the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:20
Friday, March 25, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus Pays the Price For Our Sin”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
First Church of God,
Medford, Oregon
www.fcog.us
1 John 4:7-12
Do you have any bills hanging over your head? Do you know the shock of getting a large unexpected bill? Debt can carry such strain and anxiety that many find it difficult to sleep at night.
Then there are those nasty business people who want their money. They call and call making veiled, and then not so veiled threats until they are paid. Sometimes it is nasty letters that come in the mail or even creditors knocking on our doors.
All this is very upsetting for us when we owe the debt. Money and how we will live has become the number one issue in people lives as they face uncertain futures. The issue with money and debt is that we don’t really understand how it works. That is why some less the credible people take advantage of us in what has been called “predatory lending.”
The government is even talking about getting tougher on such loans while they are abusive in their own policies.
Today we are going to try to understand some of the basics about debt and what it really means in terms of our relationships, self esteem and freedom. We must be more savvy about debt if we are going to understand our relationship with God and what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.
Then maybe our attitude about debt, money and loaners will change as well. When we understand what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, then we will understand what He can do in the rest our life, including our finances.
First we must understand that we are in debt. There is bad debt and good debt and when it comes to God we are in bad debt. We owe Him what we have no means to repay. Worst yet we are bad debtors, for many do not consider the debt we owe to be of any concern.
We had a great friend in a man called John the Baptist. He came just before Jesus Christ to remind us of our debt and to warn us that there was one and only one chance to get free of this obligation and to be saved from ruin, poverty and death.
He called out to those who would listen and to us today to “repent” of our sins. He warned people that they were so far in debt that the religious acts they were doing would not be enough to catch up on the dept. Our debt began with breaking a command of God not to eat of a tree. Since then God has warned us to not do a lot of things and do other good things. But we have kept on sinning believing that we could always do something later to make things right with God. John told them they were wrong and so are we if we think that way. We all need to admit that we are so far in debt to God, so far down the road of rebellion to Him that there is no way we can repay Him for what we have done.
If we are going to stop going into more debt we must recognize it us who are creating the debt. More cash will not save us from more debt. We can’t just keep printing more money and think we will get by. We can’t just pray a prayer, give some money, or attend a church service and think we have caught up enough. We are so far down in a hole of rebellion we don’t really want to go back to God, live in His house, by His rules.
Yet, if we can stop, just stop and admit we are going down a road that is leading to ruin, then maybe we can be ready to hear what God has to offer. God has away to not only pay our full debt but to bring our rebellious hearts home to where we belong.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:29
The offer God makes to us is to pay of our debts, if we are willing to stop a debt creating life. If we will reform, turn around, and start making deposits in our relationship with Him, then God will EXPIATE our debt of sin. That is a fancy word theologians use to say that through His Son Jesus he will end the dept of our sin.
For so God so loves you that He gave His only Son to die upon a cross to pay the full debt or your sin. But what good is it if we just start running up more debt? If we will repent, turn, and admit we have been living a wild prodigal life then the Father will take us back to live in His home and by His rules. This is how we know what love really is.
7. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:7-12
Here is the thing we don’t understand. We can’t know what love is until we know what it means to forgive a great debt. You see we think that when we run up a debt that we are hurting no one but ourselves. “What does it matter to anyone else what I do with my life. If I am hurting my self then what business is it of anyone else?” That’s the problem with debt, because it is borrowing something from other people we have no intention to repay, respect, or return. People who create bad debt just take what they can and consider anyone foolish enough to lend them foolish enough to rob.
Our debts hurt people who trust us with what is there’s. When we fail to give back what we owe we hurt other people. When we fail give back dignity, respect and especially love to those who have lent us there’s, then we hurt them by a theft of the soul.
God can love us but if we take that love for granted and don’t repay it, then we don’t really know the value of His love. If we borrow money and don’t repay it with interest, we don’t really know the value of money or of the trust given to us by another. That is why God’s word tells us “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Love is not a free pass to do what you want.
Love is not getting what you want or need without obligation.
Love is not seeking your own good and happiness.
Some have called this love, but it is not love. That is a mirrored image of love which reflects back the reverse of what love really is by making us look into ourselves and to our own interest.
What love really is, what God shows us about love, is more like a open window from which we can see a bigger world, and something more important than our own interest. Love is a call to be free of our own interest and invest heavily in a cause much greater.
When we spend our time, our energy and resources on ourselves we are going into debt because there will be no return on what we spend. If we spend our time, our energy and our resources on God through Jesus Christ His son, then we will have invested because a great return will be given on what we give into the Kingdom.
Self love is a debtor’s obsession. The Love of God is an investors dream.
1. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4. so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4
So what does it mean to Love like God?
10. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Have you ever gone to buy something and someone told you that your money is no good and they wouldn’t accept it, or maybe your credit card? Have your checks ever been turned down? That can be an embarrassing moment, right?
There are many people who are going to heaven with bad currency thinking they have what they need to get into heaven. We know we have a debt with God and when we get there we hope to pay it off with the currency of affection, good works and sincerity. But when we arrive at those gates we will find that our currency is no good, and we will be turned down while our debt will be called in and collected. In the process many will experience a spiritual death and an eternity in hell. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Our definition of love is worthless in heaven. What we think is good enough for acceptance into heaven is no where near the standard of heaven itself. If we had our way heaven will be filled with adulterers, liars, murders, gossips, slanders, and many others that will ruin the place in no time at all. What we can do, save, and scrape together on our own will never be enough to pay the dept we owe God.
What we need, and we need it today, is not more of our so called ‘love’ but the pure and precious gold of God’s Love in our hearts. Now here is the amazing thing. He is willing to deposit that into your heart today. He is willing to pay off all that we owe Him because of what His son did for us on the cross. He paid our debt with blood that was priceless.
That is what atoning means. That is what it costs God when we create a debt through sin. We hurting not only ourselves, but we have do great harm to the God who loves us and chooses to be hurt rather than protect Himself from out rebellion.
Now here is the amazing truth. If we will accept his gift of forgiveness, after we have recognized the terrible nature of our rebellion and accumulated debt, then He will place a Love in us unknown by natural means. We will receive heaven in our hearts. If it is really the Love of God, it will overflow in Love for others, even the worst among us.
Paul knew what it meant to be one of the worst and yet be loved in this amazing way. He wrote:
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…”
Romans 13:8
Now do you understand what a debt is and just how far in the hole we have all fallen. No amount of good works or religious actions will pay down the debt. We can’t go on sinning and paying down as we go justifying our actions on balanced ledger.
We are so indebted to God that there is only one who has the means to pay that debt off and that is Jesus Christ. He is willing, but if we take Him up on His offer we no longer belong to ourselves. We have become His possession.
19. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20. you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
When Christ comes and set us free from debt and the debtor’s obsession, He then claims our lives, our bodies, and our future. We receive the wealth of God’s Love which better than gold in heaven. Our balanced ledgers of good works versus sins are burned and only the ledgers of heaven will show that Christ has paid it all and we are his possessions.
11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Rev. 20:11-15
My friends are you ready to face the balance sheets of heaven? Our record keeping does not show our real debt. We have been ‘cooking the books’ in our favor. We are in a desperate place and not far from when we will stand before the great white throne of God before the courts of heaven. When they open the books, will the find a note by your debt saying: “See Jesus Christ for collection.”
If you not sure let me show you how to be ready. Come, now is the time. If we fail to come now we are saying no to God’s gracious gift. We must choose and what we do know will affect us for eternity. To respond to God’s gracious offer in Jesus Christ is to say yes. To postpone, to think about it more, to wait for a better time is a rejection of God’s love. If we neglect so great a Love of God, what hope can we have on the great Day of Judgment?
---------------------------------------------------
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:31-46
First Church of God,
Medford, Oregon
www.fcog.us
1 John 4:7-12
Do you have any bills hanging over your head? Do you know the shock of getting a large unexpected bill? Debt can carry such strain and anxiety that many find it difficult to sleep at night.
Then there are those nasty business people who want their money. They call and call making veiled, and then not so veiled threats until they are paid. Sometimes it is nasty letters that come in the mail or even creditors knocking on our doors.
All this is very upsetting for us when we owe the debt. Money and how we will live has become the number one issue in people lives as they face uncertain futures. The issue with money and debt is that we don’t really understand how it works. That is why some less the credible people take advantage of us in what has been called “predatory lending.”
The government is even talking about getting tougher on such loans while they are abusive in their own policies.
Today we are going to try to understand some of the basics about debt and what it really means in terms of our relationships, self esteem and freedom. We must be more savvy about debt if we are going to understand our relationship with God and what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.
Then maybe our attitude about debt, money and loaners will change as well. When we understand what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, then we will understand what He can do in the rest our life, including our finances.
First we must understand that we are in debt. There is bad debt and good debt and when it comes to God we are in bad debt. We owe Him what we have no means to repay. Worst yet we are bad debtors, for many do not consider the debt we owe to be of any concern.
We had a great friend in a man called John the Baptist. He came just before Jesus Christ to remind us of our debt and to warn us that there was one and only one chance to get free of this obligation and to be saved from ruin, poverty and death.
He called out to those who would listen and to us today to “repent” of our sins. He warned people that they were so far in debt that the religious acts they were doing would not be enough to catch up on the dept. Our debt began with breaking a command of God not to eat of a tree. Since then God has warned us to not do a lot of things and do other good things. But we have kept on sinning believing that we could always do something later to make things right with God. John told them they were wrong and so are we if we think that way. We all need to admit that we are so far in debt to God, so far down the road of rebellion to Him that there is no way we can repay Him for what we have done.
If we are going to stop going into more debt we must recognize it us who are creating the debt. More cash will not save us from more debt. We can’t just keep printing more money and think we will get by. We can’t just pray a prayer, give some money, or attend a church service and think we have caught up enough. We are so far down in a hole of rebellion we don’t really want to go back to God, live in His house, by His rules.
Yet, if we can stop, just stop and admit we are going down a road that is leading to ruin, then maybe we can be ready to hear what God has to offer. God has away to not only pay our full debt but to bring our rebellious hearts home to where we belong.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:29
The offer God makes to us is to pay of our debts, if we are willing to stop a debt creating life. If we will reform, turn around, and start making deposits in our relationship with Him, then God will EXPIATE our debt of sin. That is a fancy word theologians use to say that through His Son Jesus he will end the dept of our sin.
For so God so loves you that He gave His only Son to die upon a cross to pay the full debt or your sin. But what good is it if we just start running up more debt? If we will repent, turn, and admit we have been living a wild prodigal life then the Father will take us back to live in His home and by His rules. This is how we know what love really is.
7. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:7-12
Here is the thing we don’t understand. We can’t know what love is until we know what it means to forgive a great debt. You see we think that when we run up a debt that we are hurting no one but ourselves. “What does it matter to anyone else what I do with my life. If I am hurting my self then what business is it of anyone else?” That’s the problem with debt, because it is borrowing something from other people we have no intention to repay, respect, or return. People who create bad debt just take what they can and consider anyone foolish enough to lend them foolish enough to rob.
Our debts hurt people who trust us with what is there’s. When we fail to give back what we owe we hurt other people. When we fail give back dignity, respect and especially love to those who have lent us there’s, then we hurt them by a theft of the soul.
God can love us but if we take that love for granted and don’t repay it, then we don’t really know the value of His love. If we borrow money and don’t repay it with interest, we don’t really know the value of money or of the trust given to us by another. That is why God’s word tells us “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Love is not a free pass to do what you want.
Love is not getting what you want or need without obligation.
Love is not seeking your own good and happiness.
Some have called this love, but it is not love. That is a mirrored image of love which reflects back the reverse of what love really is by making us look into ourselves and to our own interest.
What love really is, what God shows us about love, is more like a open window from which we can see a bigger world, and something more important than our own interest. Love is a call to be free of our own interest and invest heavily in a cause much greater.
When we spend our time, our energy and resources on ourselves we are going into debt because there will be no return on what we spend. If we spend our time, our energy and our resources on God through Jesus Christ His son, then we will have invested because a great return will be given on what we give into the Kingdom.
Self love is a debtor’s obsession. The Love of God is an investors dream.
1. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4. so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4
So what does it mean to Love like God?
10. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Have you ever gone to buy something and someone told you that your money is no good and they wouldn’t accept it, or maybe your credit card? Have your checks ever been turned down? That can be an embarrassing moment, right?
There are many people who are going to heaven with bad currency thinking they have what they need to get into heaven. We know we have a debt with God and when we get there we hope to pay it off with the currency of affection, good works and sincerity. But when we arrive at those gates we will find that our currency is no good, and we will be turned down while our debt will be called in and collected. In the process many will experience a spiritual death and an eternity in hell. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Our definition of love is worthless in heaven. What we think is good enough for acceptance into heaven is no where near the standard of heaven itself. If we had our way heaven will be filled with adulterers, liars, murders, gossips, slanders, and many others that will ruin the place in no time at all. What we can do, save, and scrape together on our own will never be enough to pay the dept we owe God.
What we need, and we need it today, is not more of our so called ‘love’ but the pure and precious gold of God’s Love in our hearts. Now here is the amazing thing. He is willing to deposit that into your heart today. He is willing to pay off all that we owe Him because of what His son did for us on the cross. He paid our debt with blood that was priceless.
That is what atoning means. That is what it costs God when we create a debt through sin. We hurting not only ourselves, but we have do great harm to the God who loves us and chooses to be hurt rather than protect Himself from out rebellion.
Now here is the amazing truth. If we will accept his gift of forgiveness, after we have recognized the terrible nature of our rebellion and accumulated debt, then He will place a Love in us unknown by natural means. We will receive heaven in our hearts. If it is really the Love of God, it will overflow in Love for others, even the worst among us.
Paul knew what it meant to be one of the worst and yet be loved in this amazing way. He wrote:
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…”
Romans 13:8
Now do you understand what a debt is and just how far in the hole we have all fallen. No amount of good works or religious actions will pay down the debt. We can’t go on sinning and paying down as we go justifying our actions on balanced ledger.
We are so indebted to God that there is only one who has the means to pay that debt off and that is Jesus Christ. He is willing, but if we take Him up on His offer we no longer belong to ourselves. We have become His possession.
19. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20. you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
When Christ comes and set us free from debt and the debtor’s obsession, He then claims our lives, our bodies, and our future. We receive the wealth of God’s Love which better than gold in heaven. Our balanced ledgers of good works versus sins are burned and only the ledgers of heaven will show that Christ has paid it all and we are his possessions.
11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Rev. 20:11-15
My friends are you ready to face the balance sheets of heaven? Our record keeping does not show our real debt. We have been ‘cooking the books’ in our favor. We are in a desperate place and not far from when we will stand before the great white throne of God before the courts of heaven. When they open the books, will the find a note by your debt saying: “See Jesus Christ for collection.”
If you not sure let me show you how to be ready. Come, now is the time. If we fail to come now we are saying no to God’s gracious gift. We must choose and what we do know will affect us for eternity. To respond to God’s gracious offer in Jesus Christ is to say yes. To postpone, to think about it more, to wait for a better time is a rejection of God’s love. If we neglect so great a Love of God, what hope can we have on the great Day of Judgment?
---------------------------------------------------
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:31-46
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus our Advocate and Only Mediator”
1 Timothy 2:1-7
I’ve shaken my fist in anger and cursed furniture, cars and even some people. If I’m not mad enough there is always someone on the radio of TV eager to make me mad again. I’ve been mad at just about anything you can imagine.
Except unicorns. I’ve never been angry at unicorns.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever been angry at unicorns either. We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist—that we truly believe not to exist—tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies (in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
A survey in America revealed that 62 percent of people were sometimes angry at God, but that figure is most likely higher today.
Angry feelings tended to match up with a patient's general level of mental distress. More distress was linked to more anger at God, Exline found. It isn't clear whether the anger caused the distress, the distress caused the anger, or some other factor caused both. What does seem clear is that a passing anger at God is nothing to be alarmed about, regardless of how theologically troubling some people find such emotions.
"We get mad at people every day," Exline said. "Usually it passes, and then it's probably not going to affect your mood or your mental health all that much. But when it turns into a grudge ... that's where anger tends to become more of a problem for people. It's the same sort of thing with anger toward God."
At God We Rage: Anger at the Almighty Found to Be Common
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 04 January 2011 12:18 pm ET
It seems if we are angry enough at God to develop a grudge with Him, then that anger can push us to a disbelief in God. I suspect that a great deal of atheism and agnostics are simply angry with God and use reason to defend their position.
If that is the case, then often a disbelief or lack of faith in God is more of a snub or giving the divine the silent treatment out of a emotional dilemma. Something terrible may have happened to you in the past that makes you angry at God for being so unfair and cruel. Or you may conclude as some do that God is angry with you and fear Him wondering what to do.
As is common amongst people today we think we are unique in the world, but anger towards God and what we perceive as anger from God is an ancient as humanity. The question is what can we do when there is anger between us and heaven?
The Bible has a great many things to say about this, but here a few key points to lowering the distress that such anger brings into our lives.
Go to Jesus when you are angry with God:
"God is not a mortal like me, so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial. If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could put one hand on God's shoulder and the other on mine. The mediator could make God stop beating me, and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment."
Job 9:32-34
In the above lament, Job asks for a Son of Man who is also equal with God. He wants someone like God but someone also like himself. He wants that one person that can stand between two angry people and love them both. Placing a hand on each shoulder he keeps them for attacking and from leaving. He keeps the connected, talking and understanding what has passed between them.
Jesus Christ is the one Job wanted so He could be reconciled to the God because his relationship was one of anger on both sides. At least that is what he thought. Have you ever been so angry at someone you can’t even talk to them? Have you so rehearsed what they will say in your own mind that you have already shot down every possible reply without ever uttering an actual word?
There are many who have that kind of relationship with God. Job was not an atheist or an agnostic. He knew that there was a God and that He could be good and harsh. Although he was angry with God he didn’t hide from God but demanded an answer for his misfortune and distress.
Consider how Jesus Christ is the only one who can put a hand on your shoulder and one on God.
1. Jesus did not come into this world to condemn you but to save you. (John 3:17)
2. Jesus loves us despite our sin and paid the price of sin upon the cross.
3. Jesus is loved by the Father and is pleased with Him.
4. Jesus only wants what the Father wants.
5. Jesus wants us to find life abundantly, to conquer sin and be free.
In the entire world there is only one who can stand between us and God keeping us together but not attacking and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He is truly a friend to all atheists, agnostics and believers who are under the distress of anger with God. Go to Jesus when you angry with God.
Go to Jesus when you want to reconcile with God:
1. I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2. for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6. who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
The trouble with trouble is that it spreads. The anger we hold in our hearts was meant to be perishable, like cheese or milk. Anger moves us to act, engage and demand something better when it is fresh. But if we keep it longer than a day it will spoil into remorse, bitterness and a foul grudge. Anger if allowed to spoil will move from a demand for justice to something beyond all reason.
We may be able to tolerate such a foul smell in our lives for a time but a grudge spreads into all relationships until we find that we are not fit for any relationship for the unreasonable demands we make on God we will make on everyone else. When we suspect God the author of all things good, we will suspect all others. We can not live at peace others; cease our shouting and cruel words; and do good for others when we let our grudge with God spoil all things.
Along with the growing grudge our distress grows. We blame the distress of an unfair life for our anger, but it is our spoiled anger towards God that gives us the greatest distress. I know what most of the grudge bearing people of the world would rarely admit. I know they want to be relieved of this burden but believe reconciliation to God is a bitter pill to swallow.
Yet the Bible tells us that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (v.4). You see the only real way to reconcile with God is to come to know the truth about our grudge. Jesus Christ must hold us by the shoulder and God so that we can hear what we have failed to acknowledge.
When we hold a grudge we rehearse in our minds our grievance. The words are unspoken but often rehearsed in our minds. We can even imagine the reply of the one we are angry with and then develop rebuttals we think that will demolish their objections. Almost every true atheist or agnostic I have met have this kind of understanding about how flawed God is and so elevate themselves above the divine declaring it a myth.
This is not a knowledge of truth, but a rehearsed deception. We must come to know the truth about our anger. When we go to Jesus we will discover it was angry and grudged filled people like us that nailed Him to the cross where he bore the full force of our accusations. They yelled crucify Him because He is no Son of God. In the same way when we are angry with God we say to ourselves that God is a myth and His justice a joke. We don’t try to kill him, but we act as if He does not exist.
Here is the truth that our anger drives us to stop talking to God, and to stop listening to God. What declare that God is dead to us and we will not bother with Him hoping He will be hurt by our actions and not bother with us. Yet the Bible tells us that is not an agreement that God can make or one that Jesus Christ will honor.
The great truth that those who are angry with God find hard to believe is this: God stills wants you to be saved from the fowl grudge that has gripped your heart and to be reconciled through the knowledge of truth and the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. He bore the full brunt of anger and asked for forgiveness. He holds our shoulders still while He holds Gods. All He asks is that we throw out our spoiled anger and accept the truth about our corrupted life.
Those who have accepted this offer have seen their lives change, cleaned, and transformed with a fresh flow of God’s peace, love and acceptance.
Some of us may think it’s too late to be reconciled to God.
Go to Jesus when you blow it:
1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
Jesus Christ stands between us and God holding our shoulders and asking us to come and reason with Him. If we will repent in the knowledge of the truth then God will forgive and receive us as His child. We can be angry and not sin if we don’t let our distress spoil into a soul rotting grudge.
This has been made possible so that we would persist in our rebellion with God. All rebellion needs an excuse and nothing justifies it more in our hearts than spoiled anger. All sin is rebellion towards God and now the Lord Jesus has made it possible so that we would not continue to sin by restoring our relationship with God.
Although Father God will not leave nor forsake us there are times when we will fall into hold habits or come into an ordeal where we begin to doubt God as we once did. In a situation like this, what do we do?
Jesus is the advocate and mediator that first reconciled us to God and He is the one we go to when we have fallen back into old ways. We may try to turn from Father God’s face but Christ holds us by the shoulder and will not let go. He remains constant turning our face to God and away from sin. As long as you have a sense of guilt, knowing that you are turning away from God, then Christ still has a hand on your shoulder to turn you back to God.
Even now, as you hear this message, He is with us placing a hand on your shoulder and one on God. He is letting you know that now is the time to turn and face Father God and know the truth about ourselves rather than the lies we have believed. We need to know the truth about Father God rather than the whisperings of an angry heart.
This is our chance to be reconciled to God and leave the distressed pain of a angry heart behind.
If the hand of Christ is on your shoulder today, you have a chance now to be reconciled to Father God. Take it. Take it now.
------------------------------------------
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Julie Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University and the lead author of this recent study, has examined other data on this subject with identical results. Exline explains that her interest was first piqued when an early study of anger toward God revealed a counterintuitive finding: Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
At first glance, this finding seemed to reflect an error. How could people be angry with God if they did not believe in God? Reanalyses of a second dataset revealed similar patterns: Those who endorsed their religious beliefs as “atheist/agnostic” or “none/unsure” reported more anger toward God than those who reported a religious affiliation.
Exline notes that the findings raised questions of whether anger might actually affect belief in God’s existence, an idea consistent with social science’s previous clinical findings on “emotional atheism.”
Studies in traumatic events suggest a possible link between suffering, anger toward God, and doubts about God’s existence. According to Cook and Wimberly (1983), 33% of parents who suffered the death of a child reported doubts about God in the first year of bereavement. In another study, 90% of mothers who had given birth to a profoundly retarded child voiced doubts about the existence of God (Childs, 1985). Our survey research with undergraduates has focused directly on the association between anger at God and self-reported drops in belief (Exline et al., 2004). In the wake of a negative life event, anger toward God predicted decreased belief in God’s existence.
The most striking finding was that when Exline looked only at subjects who reported a drop in religious belief, their faith was least likely to recover if anger toward God was the cause of their loss of belief. In other words, anger toward God may not only lead people to atheism but give them a reason to cling to their disbelief.
I've argued elsewhere that, according to the Christian tradition, atheism is a form of self-imposed intellectual dysfunction, a lack of epistemic virtue, or—to borrow a term from my Catholic friends—a case of vincible ignorance.
Vincible ignorance is intentional suppression of knowledge that is within an individual’s control and for which he is responsible before God. In Romans, St. Paul is clear that atheism is a case of vincible ignorance: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Acknowledging the existence of God is just the beginning—we must also recognize several of his divine attributes. Atheists who deny this reality are, as St. Paul said, without excuse. They are vincibly ignorant.
Recognizing this fact, however, does not mean that the cause of this self-imposed dysfunction has been understood. While I firmly believe all forms of atheism are instances of both vincible ignorance and an obstinacy of will, I've sometimes mistakenly assumed it to be a purely intellectual failing—a matter of the head, not the heart. Only recently have I begun to appreciate how much the emotional response to pain and suffering can push a person to an atheistic worldview.
Most pastors and priests would find my epiphany to be both obvious and overdue. But I suspect I’m not the only amateur apologist who has been blinded to this truth. As a general rule, those of us engaged in Christian apologists tend to prefer the philosophical to the pastoral, the crisp structure of logical argument to the messiness of human emotion. We often favor the quick-witted response that dismisses the problem of evil rather than patient empathy, which consoles atheists that we too are perplexed by suffering.
Many atheists do, of course, proceed to their denial of God based solely on rational justifications. That is why evidentialist and philosophical approaches to apologetics will always be necessary. But I'm beginning to suspect that emotional atheism is far more common than many realize. We need a new apologetic approach that takes into account that the ordinary pain and sufferings of life leads more people away from God than a library full of anti-theist books. Focusing solely on the irate sputterings of the imperfectly intellectual New Atheists may blind us to the anger and suffering that is adding new nonbelievers to their ranks.
Joe Carter is the web editor of First Things. His previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.
RESOURCES
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Anger at God common, even among atheists
Julie Juola Exline and Alyce Martin, "Anger Toward God: New Frontier in Forgiveness Research
Joe Carter, Do Tummy Aches Disprove God?
I’ve shaken my fist in anger and cursed furniture, cars and even some people. If I’m not mad enough there is always someone on the radio of TV eager to make me mad again. I’ve been mad at just about anything you can imagine.
Except unicorns. I’ve never been angry at unicorns.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever been angry at unicorns either. We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist—that we truly believe not to exist—tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies (in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
A survey in America revealed that 62 percent of people were sometimes angry at God, but that figure is most likely higher today.
Angry feelings tended to match up with a patient's general level of mental distress. More distress was linked to more anger at God, Exline found. It isn't clear whether the anger caused the distress, the distress caused the anger, or some other factor caused both. What does seem clear is that a passing anger at God is nothing to be alarmed about, regardless of how theologically troubling some people find such emotions.
"We get mad at people every day," Exline said. "Usually it passes, and then it's probably not going to affect your mood or your mental health all that much. But when it turns into a grudge ... that's where anger tends to become more of a problem for people. It's the same sort of thing with anger toward God."
At God We Rage: Anger at the Almighty Found to Be Common
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 04 January 2011 12:18 pm ET
It seems if we are angry enough at God to develop a grudge with Him, then that anger can push us to a disbelief in God. I suspect that a great deal of atheism and agnostics are simply angry with God and use reason to defend their position.
If that is the case, then often a disbelief or lack of faith in God is more of a snub or giving the divine the silent treatment out of a emotional dilemma. Something terrible may have happened to you in the past that makes you angry at God for being so unfair and cruel. Or you may conclude as some do that God is angry with you and fear Him wondering what to do.
As is common amongst people today we think we are unique in the world, but anger towards God and what we perceive as anger from God is an ancient as humanity. The question is what can we do when there is anger between us and heaven?
The Bible has a great many things to say about this, but here a few key points to lowering the distress that such anger brings into our lives.
Go to Jesus when you are angry with God:
"God is not a mortal like me, so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial. If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could put one hand on God's shoulder and the other on mine. The mediator could make God stop beating me, and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment."
Job 9:32-34
In the above lament, Job asks for a Son of Man who is also equal with God. He wants someone like God but someone also like himself. He wants that one person that can stand between two angry people and love them both. Placing a hand on each shoulder he keeps them for attacking and from leaving. He keeps the connected, talking and understanding what has passed between them.
Jesus Christ is the one Job wanted so He could be reconciled to the God because his relationship was one of anger on both sides. At least that is what he thought. Have you ever been so angry at someone you can’t even talk to them? Have you so rehearsed what they will say in your own mind that you have already shot down every possible reply without ever uttering an actual word?
There are many who have that kind of relationship with God. Job was not an atheist or an agnostic. He knew that there was a God and that He could be good and harsh. Although he was angry with God he didn’t hide from God but demanded an answer for his misfortune and distress.
Consider how Jesus Christ is the only one who can put a hand on your shoulder and one on God.
1. Jesus did not come into this world to condemn you but to save you. (John 3:17)
2. Jesus loves us despite our sin and paid the price of sin upon the cross.
3. Jesus is loved by the Father and is pleased with Him.
4. Jesus only wants what the Father wants.
5. Jesus wants us to find life abundantly, to conquer sin and be free.
In the entire world there is only one who can stand between us and God keeping us together but not attacking and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He is truly a friend to all atheists, agnostics and believers who are under the distress of anger with God. Go to Jesus when you angry with God.
Go to Jesus when you want to reconcile with God:
1. I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2. for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6. who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
The trouble with trouble is that it spreads. The anger we hold in our hearts was meant to be perishable, like cheese or milk. Anger moves us to act, engage and demand something better when it is fresh. But if we keep it longer than a day it will spoil into remorse, bitterness and a foul grudge. Anger if allowed to spoil will move from a demand for justice to something beyond all reason.
We may be able to tolerate such a foul smell in our lives for a time but a grudge spreads into all relationships until we find that we are not fit for any relationship for the unreasonable demands we make on God we will make on everyone else. When we suspect God the author of all things good, we will suspect all others. We can not live at peace others; cease our shouting and cruel words; and do good for others when we let our grudge with God spoil all things.
Along with the growing grudge our distress grows. We blame the distress of an unfair life for our anger, but it is our spoiled anger towards God that gives us the greatest distress. I know what most of the grudge bearing people of the world would rarely admit. I know they want to be relieved of this burden but believe reconciliation to God is a bitter pill to swallow.
Yet the Bible tells us that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (v.4). You see the only real way to reconcile with God is to come to know the truth about our grudge. Jesus Christ must hold us by the shoulder and God so that we can hear what we have failed to acknowledge.
When we hold a grudge we rehearse in our minds our grievance. The words are unspoken but often rehearsed in our minds. We can even imagine the reply of the one we are angry with and then develop rebuttals we think that will demolish their objections. Almost every true atheist or agnostic I have met have this kind of understanding about how flawed God is and so elevate themselves above the divine declaring it a myth.
This is not a knowledge of truth, but a rehearsed deception. We must come to know the truth about our anger. When we go to Jesus we will discover it was angry and grudged filled people like us that nailed Him to the cross where he bore the full force of our accusations. They yelled crucify Him because He is no Son of God. In the same way when we are angry with God we say to ourselves that God is a myth and His justice a joke. We don’t try to kill him, but we act as if He does not exist.
Here is the truth that our anger drives us to stop talking to God, and to stop listening to God. What declare that God is dead to us and we will not bother with Him hoping He will be hurt by our actions and not bother with us. Yet the Bible tells us that is not an agreement that God can make or one that Jesus Christ will honor.
The great truth that those who are angry with God find hard to believe is this: God stills wants you to be saved from the fowl grudge that has gripped your heart and to be reconciled through the knowledge of truth and the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. He bore the full brunt of anger and asked for forgiveness. He holds our shoulders still while He holds Gods. All He asks is that we throw out our spoiled anger and accept the truth about our corrupted life.
Those who have accepted this offer have seen their lives change, cleaned, and transformed with a fresh flow of God’s peace, love and acceptance.
Some of us may think it’s too late to be reconciled to God.
Go to Jesus when you blow it:
1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
Jesus Christ stands between us and God holding our shoulders and asking us to come and reason with Him. If we will repent in the knowledge of the truth then God will forgive and receive us as His child. We can be angry and not sin if we don’t let our distress spoil into a soul rotting grudge.
This has been made possible so that we would persist in our rebellion with God. All rebellion needs an excuse and nothing justifies it more in our hearts than spoiled anger. All sin is rebellion towards God and now the Lord Jesus has made it possible so that we would not continue to sin by restoring our relationship with God.
Although Father God will not leave nor forsake us there are times when we will fall into hold habits or come into an ordeal where we begin to doubt God as we once did. In a situation like this, what do we do?
Jesus is the advocate and mediator that first reconciled us to God and He is the one we go to when we have fallen back into old ways. We may try to turn from Father God’s face but Christ holds us by the shoulder and will not let go. He remains constant turning our face to God and away from sin. As long as you have a sense of guilt, knowing that you are turning away from God, then Christ still has a hand on your shoulder to turn you back to God.
Even now, as you hear this message, He is with us placing a hand on your shoulder and one on God. He is letting you know that now is the time to turn and face Father God and know the truth about ourselves rather than the lies we have believed. We need to know the truth about Father God rather than the whisperings of an angry heart.
This is our chance to be reconciled to God and leave the distressed pain of a angry heart behind.
If the hand of Christ is on your shoulder today, you have a chance now to be reconciled to Father God. Take it. Take it now.
------------------------------------------
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Julie Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University and the lead author of this recent study, has examined other data on this subject with identical results. Exline explains that her interest was first piqued when an early study of anger toward God revealed a counterintuitive finding: Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
At first glance, this finding seemed to reflect an error. How could people be angry with God if they did not believe in God? Reanalyses of a second dataset revealed similar patterns: Those who endorsed their religious beliefs as “atheist/agnostic” or “none/unsure” reported more anger toward God than those who reported a religious affiliation.
Exline notes that the findings raised questions of whether anger might actually affect belief in God’s existence, an idea consistent with social science’s previous clinical findings on “emotional atheism.”
Studies in traumatic events suggest a possible link between suffering, anger toward God, and doubts about God’s existence. According to Cook and Wimberly (1983), 33% of parents who suffered the death of a child reported doubts about God in the first year of bereavement. In another study, 90% of mothers who had given birth to a profoundly retarded child voiced doubts about the existence of God (Childs, 1985). Our survey research with undergraduates has focused directly on the association between anger at God and self-reported drops in belief (Exline et al., 2004). In the wake of a negative life event, anger toward God predicted decreased belief in God’s existence.
The most striking finding was that when Exline looked only at subjects who reported a drop in religious belief, their faith was least likely to recover if anger toward God was the cause of their loss of belief. In other words, anger toward God may not only lead people to atheism but give them a reason to cling to their disbelief.
I've argued elsewhere that, according to the Christian tradition, atheism is a form of self-imposed intellectual dysfunction, a lack of epistemic virtue, or—to borrow a term from my Catholic friends—a case of vincible ignorance.
Vincible ignorance is intentional suppression of knowledge that is within an individual’s control and for which he is responsible before God. In Romans, St. Paul is clear that atheism is a case of vincible ignorance: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Acknowledging the existence of God is just the beginning—we must also recognize several of his divine attributes. Atheists who deny this reality are, as St. Paul said, without excuse. They are vincibly ignorant.
Recognizing this fact, however, does not mean that the cause of this self-imposed dysfunction has been understood. While I firmly believe all forms of atheism are instances of both vincible ignorance and an obstinacy of will, I've sometimes mistakenly assumed it to be a purely intellectual failing—a matter of the head, not the heart. Only recently have I begun to appreciate how much the emotional response to pain and suffering can push a person to an atheistic worldview.
Most pastors and priests would find my epiphany to be both obvious and overdue. But I suspect I’m not the only amateur apologist who has been blinded to this truth. As a general rule, those of us engaged in Christian apologists tend to prefer the philosophical to the pastoral, the crisp structure of logical argument to the messiness of human emotion. We often favor the quick-witted response that dismisses the problem of evil rather than patient empathy, which consoles atheists that we too are perplexed by suffering.
Many atheists do, of course, proceed to their denial of God based solely on rational justifications. That is why evidentialist and philosophical approaches to apologetics will always be necessary. But I'm beginning to suspect that emotional atheism is far more common than many realize. We need a new apologetic approach that takes into account that the ordinary pain and sufferings of life leads more people away from God than a library full of anti-theist books. Focusing solely on the irate sputterings of the imperfectly intellectual New Atheists may blind us to the anger and suffering that is adding new nonbelievers to their ranks.
Joe Carter is the web editor of First Things. His previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.
RESOURCES
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Anger at God common, even among atheists
Julie Juola Exline and Alyce Martin, "Anger Toward God: New Frontier in Forgiveness Research
Joe Carter, Do Tummy Aches Disprove God?
Saturday, March 5, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus the Sinless Redeemer”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him.
2Co 5:21
If you search the world for opinions about Jesus being sinless you will quickly discover that most people won’t argue about the high moral standing of Jesus Christ. We may argue over his divinity, his resurrection and even his existence but most leave his purity from sin alone.
That doesn’t tell us what we think about Jesus being without sin, it’s just a topic we avoid and make many assumptions. To talk about whether Jesus sinned begs the question whether sin even exists. If you are inclined to believe that there is a right and wrong set by God you are not likely to accuse His one and only son of breaking those rules.
Yet secretly, in our hearts we find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ could take on the form of a human being, live among sinful men and all this world’s temptations and not sin in some small way. For the incarnate Christ to be sinless would seem unnatural and inhuman.
Would it surprise you to know 42% of adults believe that Jesus committed sins while on earth? Even among people who are identified as being “born again” about a third believed that Christ did sin while on earth, the same percentage as the population as a whole. (“Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years” March 6, 2009, www.barna.org).
This Biblical teaching that Christ without sin is absolutely critical to the Christian faith. Jesus could not die for our sins if He died as a consequence of His own. If Jesus sinned then we are all lost in our sins and can not escape the judgment of Hell.
If you belong to more liberal congregations you are more likely to believe that Jesus was a sinner, but a nice guy who had some great ideas. Here are a few groups in 2001 and the percentage of members who believed in a sinless Christ:
Presbyterian: 45%
Catholics: 33%
Lutheran: 33%
Methodist: 33%
Episcopal: 28%
When we compare these results with people who don’t attend any church we find a more Biblical response. In 2004, a Barna Research survey of the "unchurched" and found that 49% believe that Jesus was sinless while on earth which is higher than five of the liberal denominations listed above.
This series is our time to check the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solidly on a Biblical understanding. What frightens me as a pastor is that in some congregations you are better off not attending if you want a Biblical faith in Jesus Christ.
So let’s check again with God’s word and make sure we are on solid footing when it comes to Christ’s sinless nature, and His ability to pay for our forgiveness on the cross.
11. But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15. For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-28
If you scratch your head when reading this section of the Bible, I don’t blame you because Paul is talking about Jewish rituals to Jewish people who understand the customs. Most of us are foreigners to this world and we can easily get lost in all this talk about sacrifice, high priest, and tabernacles.
There are a few key truths that God is revealing to us in this passage about who we are in relationship to the perfect sinless Christ.
You already know that everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We call that our conscience. That’s the inner part of our being that warns us when we are making morally wrong choices and urges us to act when it is the right thing to do. The trouble with our conscience is that we are told from early on in our life not to listen to it, but to set it aside as outdated notions of previous generations.
Yet no matter what we do the conscience remains and convicts us that we are guilty of disobeying God and His will for our lives. A troubling conscience has bothered humanity since Adam and Eve hid the bushes from God and yet God found them anyways and asked what they were feeling so guilty about.
We are still hiding from God. So many people tell me that they want to hear from God and actually make contact but that is really hard to do when we are hiding in the bushed with Adam and Eve. What we hope will happen if God were to show up is that He will say we are very special and everything is going to work out.
The reality is that God has been seeking each one of us and beating the bushes trying to get us to stop hiding from Him. What that means is that there is only one way to make first contact with God and that is by being honest with our conscience. We must face what God is saying to us about and admit that we are guilty of rebelling against Him and His will for our life. Until we are ready to do this we will not really meet God. We will only call out from the bushes and ask if He could come back later when we have a better set of clothes.
The better clothes, for the people prior to Christ were the sacrifice of animals. In other words we looked for “scapegoats” for someone else or something else to take the blame for what we have done.
Since then we have looked for other creative ways to dress up for God and hide our sins from Him. We have tried rationalization, denial and religion of all kinds but no matter what we do we know it won’t work. We may feel alright for awhile but the feeling of guilt always comes back. We can never have a totally clean conscience by trying to ignore it or cover it up.
That is why Christ came to pay the price for our sins. His death does not just cover our sins, but actually cleans our conscience of all guilty when it is applied. Having your conscience washed clean by Christ through the Holy Spirit can not be duplicated or matched by any other guilt hiding method.
It is time for us to come out of the bushes, feel the weight of our sin and let Christ wash away the guilt of our sin. That is how we are going to finally connect with God, the only way.
16. In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17. because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21. In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:11-28
When God heard the confession of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He knew that anything they made to cover up would not really hide their guilt before Him. He warned them that death was the consequence of their sin and to prevent justice from taking their physical lives that judgment was forced on the scapegoat. He killed an animal and clothed them in the skins of that animal. This was a temporary fix and foreshadowing of what was to come.
You see their sin and our sin meant that God would have to decide between us dying physically and spiritually, or He would somehow have to pay that price for us without giving up His holy nature and justice. To embrace and love us after we sin meant that He would pay a terrible price. The amazing character of God is that He did not hesitate in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Gethsemane. He does not hesitate today and is willing to pay the price to restore us back into His arms again.
We have jumped from conscience to the principle of inheritance. Verse 16 tells us that the price Jesus paid on the cross was not just to wash our conscience clean but to make it possible for us to inherit a kingdom that we do not deserve.
The blood of Christ then accomplished to very important acts in our lives, it takes away our guilt and makes us blood brothers of Christ, inheritors of the Kingdom of God as children of God. That is why this verse reminds us that everything in our lives must be under the blood of Christ. He sacrificed everything for us so we could surrender everything to Him. Jesus freely gave up all that was precious to Him so we would freely give up all that is precious to us in exchange for His forgiveness and love.
Now here is the thing. In our day we think of blood as a contamination. If there is a blood spill at a Red Cross clinic it’s a big deal and everything has to be sanitized. If you are a medical person, or emergency response personnel you are taught to protect yourself from being contaminated by the blood of other people.
When people address our sin it is often with gloves and masks to protect themselves from cross contamination. We know that sin can spread and infect us all just like a biological pathogen. So when we hear that God uses the blood of Christ to wash us clean and make us blood brothers with Christ we might be disgusted with that image.
True enough, if the blood of Christ was contaminated. But this is the good news. The blood of Christ is pure and without sin or virus. He does not infect us like everyone else, but washes us clean. His blood in us is like an infusion of anti-bodies and powerful white blood cells that attack and clean us from the inside out. He detoxifies us and every part of our lives when we exposed it to His blood.
Not only is the guilt gone, but the very nature of sin can be scrubbed from our veins but only when we inject the blood of Christ into every part of our lives.
Now understand this, that “blood” is a powerful symbol that represents the life, the soul, and the spirit of a living being. The blood of Jesus Christ is literally the Holy Spirit in our life. This gift of the Holy Spirit is what marks us inheritors of eternal life. Ephesians chapter one tells us that when we hear the gospel and believe upon it that we receive forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit on that day and hour. The word tells us that this Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our eternal inheritance.
There you have it: blood, spirit and inheritance all tied together as one important event in our lives if we will come out of the bush and confess our sins to God who is calling us.
Now think about this. If Christ had sinned then His blood would have been contaminated like ours. We wouldn’t want to be exposed to it and contract and even deadlier disease from Him. But because the blood or spirit of Christ was without sin we can take it into our own soul and watch it begin to fight back the infection in our own lives.
Only the pure and healthy blood of Christ, the pure and powerful Holy Spirit of Christ could accomplish this in anyone’s life. All other religious figures were flawed and infectious.
23. It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28. so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:11-28
This passage may have you scratching your head again because we have gone from guilty conscience, to inheritance, and now we are talking about heaven and what waits for us there. We‘ve found out that Christ being without sin makes it possible for us to have our conscience washed clean and to be declared a child of God right now.
But this is not the final chapter or the end. Although we are guaranteed to inherit the Kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit we are not home yet. Look around you the next time you watch the news and see how things are falling apart. This broken down world is not your inheritance. You are not going to receive a “fixer upper.” When we come out of the bush and come clean with Christ we become fellow heir’s with Him of the Kingdom of God that is yet to come. We don’t get Eden, a garden away from God, we get to move in with God and live there as part of the family of God. We have been living in the bushes of his back yard and He wants to invite us to get cleaned up and move into the Mansion with Him.
This is a very special privilege but not just anyone will be allowed in side the Mansion of God. You can’t just run to heaven at the last moment from the bushes where you are hiding. You must come when He calls you, and He is calling you today.
You see, what you see around you are copies of the real thing. In fact this place, this church or sanctuary is a building that is copy of heaven. This place is just a shadow of what is to come. In heaven there will be a door where those who have been washed clean can come through and enter the Kingdom and those who have not been washed clean will be turned away. We have steel and glass doors, but the Bible tells us that the Door is Christ Himself.
We also have a place to worship God and a raised stage on which we can lift up God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. But in the courts of heaven Father God will be raised up above us all and Jesus Christ His Son will stand on His right hand.
We sing songs and offer our prayers to God here in this place of worship but this is but a shadow to the songs that will be raised in heaven and the shouts of praise to the visible glory of God.
Now hear me on this next point. Even though this is but a copy of heaven and a shadow of things to come there are things we can know, do and experience right now that you will not be able to do in the glory to come. Here is the shadows of glory we have the chance to experience the conviction of sins and the sting of guilt. Here in but a copy of heaven we can repent of our sins and ask Jesus Christ to apply the blood he spilt on the cross to our conscience and every part of our life. In this place, in the midst of a fallen world, we can receive the Holy Spirit and become heirs with Jesus Christ for the Kingdom to come.
We can do none of that in that glory to come; we must do it now or miss the glory to come. We must do this before we die. “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,…” (v.27). Jesus is worthy of being our Redeemer because He is a sinless Redeemer. Let Him be yours today and for eternity or miss out forever. In the shadows of Glory, in this place is your only opportunity.
God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him.
2Co 5:21
If you search the world for opinions about Jesus being sinless you will quickly discover that most people won’t argue about the high moral standing of Jesus Christ. We may argue over his divinity, his resurrection and even his existence but most leave his purity from sin alone.
That doesn’t tell us what we think about Jesus being without sin, it’s just a topic we avoid and make many assumptions. To talk about whether Jesus sinned begs the question whether sin even exists. If you are inclined to believe that there is a right and wrong set by God you are not likely to accuse His one and only son of breaking those rules.
Yet secretly, in our hearts we find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ could take on the form of a human being, live among sinful men and all this world’s temptations and not sin in some small way. For the incarnate Christ to be sinless would seem unnatural and inhuman.
Would it surprise you to know 42% of adults believe that Jesus committed sins while on earth? Even among people who are identified as being “born again” about a third believed that Christ did sin while on earth, the same percentage as the population as a whole. (“Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years” March 6, 2009, www.barna.org).
This Biblical teaching that Christ without sin is absolutely critical to the Christian faith. Jesus could not die for our sins if He died as a consequence of His own. If Jesus sinned then we are all lost in our sins and can not escape the judgment of Hell.
If you belong to more liberal congregations you are more likely to believe that Jesus was a sinner, but a nice guy who had some great ideas. Here are a few groups in 2001 and the percentage of members who believed in a sinless Christ:
Presbyterian: 45%
Catholics: 33%
Lutheran: 33%
Methodist: 33%
Episcopal: 28%
When we compare these results with people who don’t attend any church we find a more Biblical response. In 2004, a Barna Research survey of the "unchurched" and found that 49% believe that Jesus was sinless while on earth which is higher than five of the liberal denominations listed above.
This series is our time to check the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solidly on a Biblical understanding. What frightens me as a pastor is that in some congregations you are better off not attending if you want a Biblical faith in Jesus Christ.
So let’s check again with God’s word and make sure we are on solid footing when it comes to Christ’s sinless nature, and His ability to pay for our forgiveness on the cross.
11. But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15. For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-28
If you scratch your head when reading this section of the Bible, I don’t blame you because Paul is talking about Jewish rituals to Jewish people who understand the customs. Most of us are foreigners to this world and we can easily get lost in all this talk about sacrifice, high priest, and tabernacles.
There are a few key truths that God is revealing to us in this passage about who we are in relationship to the perfect sinless Christ.
You already know that everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We call that our conscience. That’s the inner part of our being that warns us when we are making morally wrong choices and urges us to act when it is the right thing to do. The trouble with our conscience is that we are told from early on in our life not to listen to it, but to set it aside as outdated notions of previous generations.
Yet no matter what we do the conscience remains and convicts us that we are guilty of disobeying God and His will for our lives. A troubling conscience has bothered humanity since Adam and Eve hid the bushes from God and yet God found them anyways and asked what they were feeling so guilty about.
We are still hiding from God. So many people tell me that they want to hear from God and actually make contact but that is really hard to do when we are hiding in the bushed with Adam and Eve. What we hope will happen if God were to show up is that He will say we are very special and everything is going to work out.
The reality is that God has been seeking each one of us and beating the bushes trying to get us to stop hiding from Him. What that means is that there is only one way to make first contact with God and that is by being honest with our conscience. We must face what God is saying to us about and admit that we are guilty of rebelling against Him and His will for our life. Until we are ready to do this we will not really meet God. We will only call out from the bushes and ask if He could come back later when we have a better set of clothes.
The better clothes, for the people prior to Christ were the sacrifice of animals. In other words we looked for “scapegoats” for someone else or something else to take the blame for what we have done.
Since then we have looked for other creative ways to dress up for God and hide our sins from Him. We have tried rationalization, denial and religion of all kinds but no matter what we do we know it won’t work. We may feel alright for awhile but the feeling of guilt always comes back. We can never have a totally clean conscience by trying to ignore it or cover it up.
That is why Christ came to pay the price for our sins. His death does not just cover our sins, but actually cleans our conscience of all guilty when it is applied. Having your conscience washed clean by Christ through the Holy Spirit can not be duplicated or matched by any other guilt hiding method.
It is time for us to come out of the bushes, feel the weight of our sin and let Christ wash away the guilt of our sin. That is how we are going to finally connect with God, the only way.
16. In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17. because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21. In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:11-28
When God heard the confession of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He knew that anything they made to cover up would not really hide their guilt before Him. He warned them that death was the consequence of their sin and to prevent justice from taking their physical lives that judgment was forced on the scapegoat. He killed an animal and clothed them in the skins of that animal. This was a temporary fix and foreshadowing of what was to come.
You see their sin and our sin meant that God would have to decide between us dying physically and spiritually, or He would somehow have to pay that price for us without giving up His holy nature and justice. To embrace and love us after we sin meant that He would pay a terrible price. The amazing character of God is that He did not hesitate in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Gethsemane. He does not hesitate today and is willing to pay the price to restore us back into His arms again.
We have jumped from conscience to the principle of inheritance. Verse 16 tells us that the price Jesus paid on the cross was not just to wash our conscience clean but to make it possible for us to inherit a kingdom that we do not deserve.
The blood of Christ then accomplished to very important acts in our lives, it takes away our guilt and makes us blood brothers of Christ, inheritors of the Kingdom of God as children of God. That is why this verse reminds us that everything in our lives must be under the blood of Christ. He sacrificed everything for us so we could surrender everything to Him. Jesus freely gave up all that was precious to Him so we would freely give up all that is precious to us in exchange for His forgiveness and love.
Now here is the thing. In our day we think of blood as a contamination. If there is a blood spill at a Red Cross clinic it’s a big deal and everything has to be sanitized. If you are a medical person, or emergency response personnel you are taught to protect yourself from being contaminated by the blood of other people.
When people address our sin it is often with gloves and masks to protect themselves from cross contamination. We know that sin can spread and infect us all just like a biological pathogen. So when we hear that God uses the blood of Christ to wash us clean and make us blood brothers with Christ we might be disgusted with that image.
True enough, if the blood of Christ was contaminated. But this is the good news. The blood of Christ is pure and without sin or virus. He does not infect us like everyone else, but washes us clean. His blood in us is like an infusion of anti-bodies and powerful white blood cells that attack and clean us from the inside out. He detoxifies us and every part of our lives when we exposed it to His blood.
Not only is the guilt gone, but the very nature of sin can be scrubbed from our veins but only when we inject the blood of Christ into every part of our lives.
Now understand this, that “blood” is a powerful symbol that represents the life, the soul, and the spirit of a living being. The blood of Jesus Christ is literally the Holy Spirit in our life. This gift of the Holy Spirit is what marks us inheritors of eternal life. Ephesians chapter one tells us that when we hear the gospel and believe upon it that we receive forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit on that day and hour. The word tells us that this Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our eternal inheritance.
There you have it: blood, spirit and inheritance all tied together as one important event in our lives if we will come out of the bush and confess our sins to God who is calling us.
Now think about this. If Christ had sinned then His blood would have been contaminated like ours. We wouldn’t want to be exposed to it and contract and even deadlier disease from Him. But because the blood or spirit of Christ was without sin we can take it into our own soul and watch it begin to fight back the infection in our own lives.
Only the pure and healthy blood of Christ, the pure and powerful Holy Spirit of Christ could accomplish this in anyone’s life. All other religious figures were flawed and infectious.
23. It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28. so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:11-28
This passage may have you scratching your head again because we have gone from guilty conscience, to inheritance, and now we are talking about heaven and what waits for us there. We‘ve found out that Christ being without sin makes it possible for us to have our conscience washed clean and to be declared a child of God right now.
But this is not the final chapter or the end. Although we are guaranteed to inherit the Kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit we are not home yet. Look around you the next time you watch the news and see how things are falling apart. This broken down world is not your inheritance. You are not going to receive a “fixer upper.” When we come out of the bush and come clean with Christ we become fellow heir’s with Him of the Kingdom of God that is yet to come. We don’t get Eden, a garden away from God, we get to move in with God and live there as part of the family of God. We have been living in the bushes of his back yard and He wants to invite us to get cleaned up and move into the Mansion with Him.
This is a very special privilege but not just anyone will be allowed in side the Mansion of God. You can’t just run to heaven at the last moment from the bushes where you are hiding. You must come when He calls you, and He is calling you today.
You see, what you see around you are copies of the real thing. In fact this place, this church or sanctuary is a building that is copy of heaven. This place is just a shadow of what is to come. In heaven there will be a door where those who have been washed clean can come through and enter the Kingdom and those who have not been washed clean will be turned away. We have steel and glass doors, but the Bible tells us that the Door is Christ Himself.
We also have a place to worship God and a raised stage on which we can lift up God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. But in the courts of heaven Father God will be raised up above us all and Jesus Christ His Son will stand on His right hand.
We sing songs and offer our prayers to God here in this place of worship but this is but a shadow to the songs that will be raised in heaven and the shouts of praise to the visible glory of God.
Now hear me on this next point. Even though this is but a copy of heaven and a shadow of things to come there are things we can know, do and experience right now that you will not be able to do in the glory to come. Here is the shadows of glory we have the chance to experience the conviction of sins and the sting of guilt. Here in but a copy of heaven we can repent of our sins and ask Jesus Christ to apply the blood he spilt on the cross to our conscience and every part of our life. In this place, in the midst of a fallen world, we can receive the Holy Spirit and become heirs with Jesus Christ for the Kingdom to come.
We can do none of that in that glory to come; we must do it now or miss the glory to come. We must do this before we die. “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,…” (v.27). Jesus is worthy of being our Redeemer because He is a sinless Redeemer. Let Him be yours today and for eternity or miss out forever. In the shadows of Glory, in this place is your only opportunity.
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