032614: Do You Believe This?

Message: Do You Believe This?

I.                    Introduction

a.       Our goal this year is to see you get more rooted in Christ as we grow together

b.      One way we are doing this rooting is through sermons about questions found in the Bible.

II.                 Body

a.       Tonight’s story is found in John 11:1-44 and the question is: Do you believe this?

b.      We are often asked to believe something (Columbus sailed in 1492, your alarm going off means it is time to get up, 25 is the speed limit, a movie is worth seeing, etc…)

c.       Sometimes it is completely a blind asking.  We are asked to take the word of a person we have never met, about something we have experienced before.(Person twirling ad for furniture store on street)

d.      More often we are asked to believe something by someone we know (try this food), or asked to believe something we have had experience with before (smells like rain)

e.       Why do people try to get others to believe something?

                                                             a.      To help them obtain power or material goods

                                                            b.      To help us

f.       What does belief in something or someone do for us?

                                                             a.      It moves us to act

                                                            b.      It changes us from the inside out (heals, restores, makes things better)

III.               Act out story (see other paper or read John 11:1-44)

a.       What is Jesus trying to get you to believe?

                                                             a.      That He has the power to give life to the dead…if they believe in Him

                                                            b.      You are dead (like Lazarus)…wrapped up in sin, as he was in his grave clothes.  There is no way for you to get free of the grave that is holding you…at least not on your own.

                                                             c.      Christ died, at this death he took your sin upon him allowing for your forgiveness.  He then rose from the dead himself, showing his power over death…he can, not just unwrap you, but call you from the grave…giving you life

                                                            d.      This can happen if you allow him to be your Lord and Savior…if you believe in Him as the resurrection and the life.

b.      Why does he want you to believe?

                                                             a.      For his sake…because he wants a relationship with you again, he wants you

                                                            b.      For your sake….so that you are no longer entrapped by sin, living a hopeless, meaningless death

                                                             c.      If you choose to believe, if you make him your Lord and Savior, you will be saved from the spiritual grave yard and restore your relationship with God

c.       What will your belief in Him do for you?

                                                             a.      Forgive your sins

                                                            b.      Change your view of life and people

                                                             c.      Alter how you act

                                                            d.      Bring you into relationship with God

IV.              Conclusion

a.       So….do you believe this?

b.      Do you want to believe?  Will you believe?  Will you tonight ask Jesus for forgiveness for your sins, make him the one in charge of your life, and let him bring you into life?

031914: Has No One Condemned You?

Has No One Condemned You?

I.                    Introduction

a.       Our goal this year is to see you get more rooted in Christ as we grow together

b.       One way we are doing this rooting is through sermons about questions found in the Bible.

II.                 Body

a.       Read Jn. 8:2-6a – “At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.  They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.  Now what do you say?”  They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.”

                                                             a.      The leaders were trying to trick Jesus by putting him in a tight spot.  #1.  He could uphold the law and tell them to stone the woman, but the Roman government would be angered because Jews were not to carry out a death sentence.  Beyond that the woman is brought in alone, meaning there is another guilty party that is going unpunished.  She was caught in the act, which meant the guy was there too.  #2.  He could tell them to not stone her thus showing that he didn’t support the law, and turn the people against him.

                                                             b.      But Jesus sees their trap and goes a third direction.

b.       Read Jn. 8:6b-11 – “But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?”  “No one sir,” she said.  “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.  “Go now and leave your life of sin.””

                                                             a.      This is our question of the night: Has no one condemned you?

                                                             b.      Jesus gets them to not want to stone her by pointing out that they are all guilty of sin too, and probably deserve just as much punishment as she did.  The older ones realize this first and start to leave, then the younger, until only Jesus and the woman remains.

                                                             c.      He alone is without sin and could have carried out justice/judgment upon her, but instead he chooses to give her mercy and grace, choosing to forgive and telling her to stop doing the sinful things.

c.       Read Jn. 3:16-17 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

                                                             a.      From the beginning of Jesus coming it was his plan to not condemn, or judge, pass a sentence, execute, the world but rather to save the world through him.

                                                             b.      He came to forgive and heal, not to condemn and destroy.

III.               Conclusion

a.       Nelson Mandela taught the world a lesson in grace when, after emerging from prison after twenty-seven years and being elected president of South Africa, he asked his jailer to join him on the inauguration platform. He then appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu to head an official government panel with a daunting name, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Mandela sought to defuse the natural pattern of revenge that he had seen in so many countries where one oppressed race or tribe took control from another. For the next two-and-a-half years, South Africans listened to reports of atrocities coming out of the TRC hearings. The rules were simple: if a white policeman or army officer voluntarily faced his accusers, confessed his crime, and fully acknowledged his guilt, he
could not be tried and punished for that crime. Hard-liners grumbled about the obvious injustice of letting criminals go free, but Mandela insisted that the country needed healing even more than it needed justice. At one hearing, a policeman named van de Broek recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body, turning it on the fire like a piece of barbecue meat in order to destroy the evidence. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife was forced to watch as policemen bound her husband on a woodpile, poured gasoline over his body, and ignited it. The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond.  What do you want from Mr. van de Broek? the judge asked. She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial. His head down, the policeman nodded agreement. Then she added a further request, Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him. And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real. Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing Amazing Grace as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand, but van de Broek did not hear the hymn. He had fainted, overwhelmed. Justice was not done in South Africa that day, nor in the entire country during months of agonizing procedures by the TRC. Something beyond justice took place. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, said Paul. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu understood that when evil is done, one response alone can overcome the evil. Revenge perpetuates the evil. Justice punishes it. Evil is overcome by good only if the injured party absorbs it, refusing to allow it to go any further. And that is the pattern of otherworldly grace that Jesus showed in his life and death. – Excerpted from Rumors of Another World by Philip Yancey

b.       As his followers we are called to do the same.  We are to forgive those who have harmed us, even when the deserve no forgiveness.  We are to love those around us, even when they are acting unlovable.  This can be people at your school, your friends, your relatives your parents, or even your siblings.

c.       Is there someone you need to forgive and show grace to?  Tonight is the night to do that, and to commit from this point forward to showing others grace and mercy rather than condemnation. 

031214: Do You Want To Get Well?

Message: Do You Want To Get Well?

I.                    Introduction

a.       Our goal this year is to see you get more rooted in Christ as we grow together

b.       One way we are doing this rooting is through sermons about questions found in the Bible.

II.                 Body

a.       Tonight’s question is “Do You Want to Get Well?” and it is found in…

b.       Read Jn. 5:1-9 – “Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.  Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.  Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.  One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”  “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.  While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Get up!  Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.  The day on which this took place was the Sabbath,”

                                                             a.      There is a missing verse here, which wasn’t found in the earlier copies of the Bible, so they footnote it.  You’ll notice it helps explain a little bit of what is going on.  At this pool, there was a believe that when the water stirred it was because an angel was stirring it and the first one in would get healed.

                                                             b.      This man had been lying there, weakened by what whatever his brokenness was, for 38 years.  He was hoping that one day he would be able to beat everyone else into that pool, which may actually bring about healing. 

                                                             c.      Jesus sees him, learns how long he has been there, and asks him, “Do you want go get well?”  In this case the word for well, means to be made whole.  Jesus wants to know if he wants to be whole instead of broken.  Do you want to get well?

                                                             d.      Then Jesus heals him, he gets up, cured, and able to walk.  After 38 years of hoping for healing from this pool, instead he found healing from Jesus.

c.       We are all broken

                                                             a.      Some of us are physically broken: blind, can’t walk, cancer, AIDS, flus, colds, tired, etc…

                                                             b.      Some of us are emotionally broken: depressed, lonely, angry, fearful, etc…

                                                             c.      Some of us are spiritually broken: addicted, unforgiving, lost

                                                             d.      Are there any here that would be willing to admit you are broken?

d.       We often look to pools to find healing

                                                             a.      We look at all kinds of things that we think can heal us, but often just mask what is going on, without bringing about healing, they are empty pools

                                                             b.      Empty pools: drugs, alcohol, entertainment, having, popularity, fame, relationships, porn, food, work, volunteering, etc…

                                                             c.      None of these things will bring you healing, and many of you have been sitting by that pool for 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 65 years

                                                             d.      Are there any here that would be willing to admit you have been trying to find healing from an empty pool?

e.       Jesus can make you whole

                                                             a.      Jesus is the only one able to make us whole, and he is asking the question tonight, “Do you want to get well?”

III.               Conclusion

a.       Karen Austin – Alcoholism