Week Of:   April 4, 2010

Title:  A Guarantee of What’s to Come  

Series:   Systematic Theology – Part 23    

Scripture:  1 Peter 1:3; 2 Corinthians 5:1-5

1.                  I don’t know if you’ve done a lot of hiking in your life or not.  But hiking is a good metaphor for a lot of things in life.  Because if you’ll excuse the pun, hiking especially in the mountains, has its up and downs.  Hiking to the top of a mountain can be rewarding as well as rather challenging and sometimes intimidating. 

2.                  It is rewarding because when you get to the top of the mountain you can look around at God’s glorious creation. You can see everything that God has done around you, and believe me our God can create—He can flat out paint.

3.                  It is also rewarding because you can look back and see where you’ve been.  Wow, I climbed all the way up here! 

4.                  But the challenging part is what’s ahead.  For the hiker in the mountains or in life there is always another mountain ahead, and the destination at times seems so far off!

5.                  Well what does all of this have to do with Easter? Well you might say that Good Friday and Easter are the twin peaks of God’s timeline or at least humanities hike along the trail of its existence.  To Christians everywhere, Easter represents the focal and central stage of our existence.  It is what we look backward to recall or remember, the present to which we experience, and the hope to what we shall experience.   

6.                  Today I would like to talk to you about looking forward.  Ever since Jesus was crucified, rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father, the church has looked forward to His return.  “Come quickly Lord Jesus, Come” has been our prayer.  But as of yet our Lord has not graced us with His second coming.

7.                  How do we know that He is coming?  Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15:20-23.  In this passage, Paul is responding to some who doubt the reality of the resurrection of the dead.  The resurrection of the death is what Jews and Christians everywhere believed would happen before the end of time. To respond to such ascertains Paul says, “Listen if there is no resurrection of the dead then there is no resurrection of Christ Jesus, and if no resurrection of Christ Jesus then their faith is futile and they are still in their sins.  And those who have already died as Christians are lost in their sins; we then are to be pitied more than all men and women.”

8.                  Christ has been resurrected from the dead, he is the first fruits of all of the souls that God will raise, and we who are followers of Christ will follow.

9.                  In other words, we as Christians have the hope of someday finishing the race or if you will the hike that God has started us on, and one day we will be resurrected to wonderful new life in Christ Jesus.  We all have this hope because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ we celebrate today.  But take away the resurrection of Jesus and everything we believe falls apart, and we are pitiful group of people who have diluted themselves into believing that we are saved.

10.              Meaning without the resurrection of Jesus Christ then no resurrection of the following people….(read off a list of people’s names).

11.              Jesus Christ’s resurrection is our guarantee of our resurrection and the resurrection of our friends and love ones. 

12.              Another guarantee is more subjective and experiential in nature.  It is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity.  The Holy Spirit is fully God, and proceeds out of the Son and the Father God.  The Holy Spirit is first seen in the Bible in the book of Genesis as it hovers over the waters of creation.  He is seen in the mighty acts of God through men like Moses and the prophets of old.  He is understood to have fathered the 2^nd person of the Trinity in the womb of Mary.  He is known to have come upon Jesus at His baptism, filling Him with power.  And by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit came with power on Peter and the other believers at Pentecost to empower them to live and love as Jesus did.

13.              It is the Holy Spirit that Paul says is now a part of every single believer’s life…in fact Paul says that “anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ (the Holy Spirit)…does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9).

14.              So don’t be afraid of the Spirit…in fact pray, “Come Holy Spirit Come.” Don’t worry: You won’t start uncontrollably speaking in tongues, running around our services like a chicken with their head cut off.  You won’t pick up a bottle of poison and start guzzling it down. You won’t have an uncontrollable urge to pickup snakes and caress the slimy scaly bodies.  In short, you won’t do anything that you don’t won’t to do, except you might have urge to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, and serve the Lord God with all of you heart, soul, and mind.

15.              Because first and foremost, the Holy Spirit is the embodiment of love and, by the Grace of God if you want to or if you are at least willing to, you will be able to care about those who you never believed possible for you to care about. Again, the Holy Spirit doesn’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do; it just makes it possible to do what you want to do.

16.               There is something else I must mention this Easter.  The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our resurrection.  If Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee of a general resurrection for all believers, then the Holy Spirit is my individual guarantee for my own personal resurrection.

17.              Travelocity has a guarantee that they get for you the lowest possible rates for your vacation plans, if not then they refund you the difference.  God has this guarantee that if the Holy Spirit is a part of your life, then you will be a part of the glorious resurrection of God (Read 2 Corinthians 5:1-5).

Salvation is the work that God does when we turn loose and let God take over in our lives.

9.                  Salvation is the application of the work of Jesus Christ to our lives, which results in our rescue being made possible.  It is admitting that we are powerless over our sins and that without Jesus Christ there is no rescuing from it.   This according to scripture this morning happens because of Grace… (Ephesians 2:1-10).

10.              It is deciding to allow God to do the work of saving our souls and then by the grace of God deciding to cooperate with Him to the sanctification of hearts.

1.                  Last Sunday if you were present and accounted for you might remember that we said “Salvation is the application of the work of Jesus Christ to the lives of human beings.” We also said that experiencing the salvation that Christ has made possible for us is being rescued from a host of terrible and ugly things.

2.                  This rescue operation that God has made possible for us is essentially two parts.  One an objective part which we have celebrated as the Easter event, and also what we celebrate everyday of our lives.  You realize don’t you that every Sunday as a church we come together to celebrate the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?  We celebrate the Gospel in two forms: one, the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and two, the promise that comes out of the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

3.                   The subjective part of us being rescued is our response to this story and promise of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  “God does it and we accept” is essentially what I am saying.  Say that with me please…

4.                  But how we receive or accept the salvation has not always been agreed on.  Before Jesus came—before the Gospel was lived and declared—the Jews believed that if God was going to rescue His people they must obey the 10 Commandments and all of the law.  As Christians, we might look back on their idea of salvation and say that it was based on works—the Jews working real hard to obey all of those laws and regulations. But to a devout Jew, they would say that’s not true; it takes a lot of faith in God and His Word to even try to obey all of those things.  We live by faith too.

5.                  The big difference is not a matter of whether Christians and Jews have faith, but what their faith is in and what they put with it. 

6.                  For example, in this morning’s scripture Paul says in verse 4 “But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…” According to Paul, Jesus rescued us from our spiritual death that was brought about by our sins and transgressions.

7.                  This rescue was made possible by the gift of God through faith. Paul says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

8.                  From this scripture, most Protestants say that salvation is matter of grace and faith alone.  Nothing else needs to go with my response of faith to the grace of God.  Nothing else is necessary—but faith alone.

9.                  Roman Catholics believe in faith in Jesus Christ just like us, however they don’t say they believe in faith alone.  Yes, they have faith in Jesus Christ. It is neither fair nor accurate to say that Catholics don’t have faith in Jesus Christ.  It is just that they don’t believe in faith alone.  They say for their salvation to be complete they need to live a life of love, loved for God and for one another.  After all, doesn’t the letter to James say that faith without works is dead?

10.              In the 16^th century (October 31, 1517), Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door or bulletin board of the church of Wittenberg, Germany.  These 95 theses were not a declaration of independence from the Catholic Church but simply a call to an academic debate about the issue of indulgences.  Yet within 5 years a Lutheran group of churches in Germany had formed and split off from the Pope.

11.              However, from his writing, it is evident that in addition to the issue of indulgences a young Luther struggled with his understanding of salvation.   He had faith, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t love God enough. If the Roman Catholic Church said salvation was faith plus a genuine love of God and love for one’s neighbor, how did he know whether or not he loved God enough?  Jesus said that we should love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves, well was he doing that?

12.               The key to Luther’s deliverance from his terrible dilemma of not knowing if he loved God enough to secure his salvation came when he begin to apply the Gospel to his life. 

13.              The Gospel, as I’ve said before, is the story of Jesus but within this story of Jesus there is a promise.   The promise is that Jesus Christ came, lived, and died “for me.”  Luther came to love the fact that the Gospel was for him.  Yes, God so loved Luther that He sent His only son to die for Luther.  If Luther believed in God’s Son, God would forgive Luther’s sin and give him everything that His Son had.

14.              Being saved is having faith in God’s promises and God’s only begotten Son.  Let me illustrate the faith part by talking about marriage.  Marriages are based upon promises and exchange of marital vows.   In a traditional marriage when you believe these promises and exchange these vows, what you receive through these vows is nothing less than another person.  In receiving this person you receive also that which is theirs.  We say for better or worse.  Use Luther’s analogy….