INVINICIBLE CHURCH 4-28-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
4/28/2024
Freedom and Boundaries
Genesis 2:15-17
A true follower of Jesus always “seeks God first” in everything they do, say, think and feel. God’s given us the freedom to choose to do things His way and He set the boundaries to bless us with the protection we need to stay in alignment with His word, wisdom and ways!
God’s freedom is true freedom and allows us liberty from being controlled by a government, but we also have to understand that there’s a lot of responsibility for anybody who chooses to receive God’s true freedom and liberty. We see God’s plan for it in…
Genesis 2:15-17 NIV - 15 The Lord God took The Man … And Put him in The Garden of Eden to Work It … And Take Care of It! ... 16 And The Lord God Commanded The Man … “You are Free to Eat from Any Tree in The Garden … 17 But you Must Not Eat from The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil … For when you Eat from It … You Will Certainly Die!”
Notice it says, “For WHEN you eat from it…” Not IF!
God knew all along that Adam and Eve (and all of mankind) wouldn’t be able to stay perfectly in His boundaries all the time every time because the enemy’s deceit, manipulation and temptation trying to get people to step across God’s boundaries is very clever and powerful!
Of course, we do have responsibility in the matter as well. We still get to decide whether we’re going to stay in line with God’s plan or step across the boundary… because God gave mankind the freedom to choose to seek God first or not!
So, the challenge is there’s always the possibility for us to fail to make the right decision when we’re fighting a spiritual battle against Satan…. which means when Adam and Eve decided to step across God’s boundary instead of seeking God first, the brought sin into the world!
Matthew 6:33 NIV - 33 But Seek First His Kingdom … And His Righteousness … And All These Things will Be Given to you as Well! … [“All These Things” is talking about all the needs we unnecessarily worry about!
There’s a lot to unpack on this, so let’s get started! The freedom we have to make decisions also leads to consequences! And a lot of seemingly simple decisions can compound into unpleasant, chaotic and even catastrophic consequences when we don’t seek God first!
And because God’s perfect plan covers everything, including government, the same Biblical principles apply to all individuals and governments. So, when people fail to follow God’s plan, the result is what we’re experiencing with our nation’s government today… and governments of nations all over the world!
For a long time now, we’ve allowed a lot of pagan politicians to get elected and appointed into leadership positions. So, our government is out of alignment with God’s plan in a lot of ways! We’ve talked about it before. If we want to correct it, we’ve got to keep God’s perspective on it!
God ordained government to protect His people and keep order among the nations! The Biblical responsibility for civil government is to maintain a safe, just, moral and responsible society that operates in freedom and liberty, so Godly nations can be successful!
God has also blessed us with the honor and privilege of living in a system where the people get to elect their leaders! So, followers of Jesus should discern how they’re going to cast their votes based on Biblical principles, starting with seeking God first! If we’re deciding how we vote based on anything else, then the negative consequences are going to keep piling up! People say, “What do you mean we allowed it… I didn’t vote for them” or even worse, “That’s why I don’t vote, because they cheat!” Voting is our part of the freedom God’s given us as a nation to elect government leaders!
It’s the physical action we take in the process of working to elect Godly leaders… and all physical actions have spiritual consequences. It proves the point that a lot of seemingly simple, single, mental decisions that require physical action can compound into unpleasant, chaotic and even catastrophic consequences when we don’t seek God first.
If a professing Christian says, they can’t or won’t vote for somebody because of their personality, moral failures, political party, ethnicity or whatever other personal characteristics the candidate may have, but they never mention praying to discern how God would have them to vote… then it’s pretty clear they’re not seeking God first!
But hear me on this, seeking God first in how we vote is just the starting point of where a lot of believers have failed in our part of electing government leaders! Our nation wouldn’t be in near as big a mess if more followers of Jesus had been faithful in carrying out His instructions to…
GO – MAKE – and TEACH… before they ever got down to the point of voting! If we’d been making more disciples, we’d have a bigger pool of Godly candidates in the running! And elected leaders would be more likely to keep civil government inside the boundaries set by God!
So, where did all this start… and how can we change it? When God created the first man in the human race, He also introduced the concept of freedom and liberty! God said, “You may freely eat from every tree in the garden, except for that one tree in the middle of the garden”!
It’s the very first boundary God set and the very first simple choice that Adan and Eve had to make! They failed… and sins have been compounding ever since! But God still gives us the option to choose from the good things that He provides us. So, along with freedom comes responsibility to do the right thing!
*(vs 15) Says … 15 The Lord God took The Man … And Put him in The Garden of Eden to Work It … And Take Care of It!
So, followers of Jesus have the responsibility to manage, maintain and expand the production of resources that God provides for us!
But also notice that true freedom has limits! Freedom without limits is called chaos. Satan is the author of chaos, not God! Satan wants to destroy everything God created, so right in the middle of the freedom that God provides for us, He sets a boundary!
Boundaries are for our protection! Staying in God’s boundaries keeps us safe! But boundaries are also tangible opportunities for us to show God that we love Him! So, God’s boundaries give us the structure that maximizes our freedom, which means…
God didn’t design boundaries to restrict our freedom! He sets legitimate boundaries to enhance our freedom, which means God’s plan allows our freedom to expand. But if we exclude God from our civil government and allow pagan politicians to mess with God’s plan and let government leaders come up with pagan laws and rules to run the nation…
… we’ll suffer the consequences. So, we can put the 10 commandments on the courthouse wall… say, “In God we trust”… and we’re “One nation under God” all we want… but when we decide to exclude God from government, things go bad! We see one of the earliest examples of this in…
1 Samuel 8:10-19 NIV - 10 Samuel told All The Words of The Lord to The People who were Asking him for a King! … 11 He said … “This is what The King who will Reign Over you will Claim as his Rights … He will Take your Sons … And Make them Serve with his Chariots and Horses … And they will Run in Front of his Chariots! ... 12 Some he will Assign to be Commanders of Thousands … And Commanders of Fifties … And others to Plow his Ground … And Reap his Harvest … And Still Others to Make Weapons of War … And Equipment for his Chariots! ... 13 He will Take your Daughters to be Perfumers … And Cooks … And Bakers! ... 14 He will Take The Best of your Fields … And Vineyards … And Olive Groves … And Give Them to his Attendants! ... 15 He will Take a Tenth of your Grain … And of your Vintage … And Give It to his Officials and Attendants! ... 16 Your Male and Female Servants … And The Best of your Cattle and Donkeys he will Take For his own Use! ... 17 He will Take a Tenth of your Flocks … And you yourselves Will become his Slaves! … 18 When that Day Comes … You will Cry Out for Relief from The King you have Chosen … But The Lord will Not Answer you in that Day!” … 19 But The People Refused to Listen to Samuel! ... “No!” … They Said … “We Want a King Over Us!
Sound familiar?!? How many times does it have to happen before we start listening to the warnings from God! When the people of a nation stop seeking God first and they start looking to the government to take care of them, then the government becomes their “god” and the next thing we know…
… the government starts taking things that God never intended them to have. The government will take control of people’s family, children, resources, churches, finances and they won’t stop until they control everything, which leads the nation into tyranny and chaos!
And it’s all because we allowed the government to be turned into a god! God said it, so it’s true! He warned us… I’m just repeating it! God’s plan calls for a civil government with limited power to protect His people and maintain minimal rules, regulations and boundaries, so His people can carry out the instructions from Jesus with maximum freedom and safety!
It tells us if we’re not honoring God’s plan by seeking Him first! It doesn’t matter if somebody’s a democrat or republican… right wing or left wing… conservative or liberal. If we’re not seeking God first, then we’re going to suffer the negative consequences of our bad decisions!
A big negative consequence of allowing the government to take control because we fail to seek God first is government tends to make way too many rules, regulations and laws… or they make the wrong rules, regulations and laws… or both!
God only gave them one boundary in the garden! They couldn’t handle it! Then He gave 10 Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the Old Testament… 8 Don’ts and 2 Dos! Then Jesus gave the one Greatest Commandment to the Pharisees in Jerusalem, followed by one more just like it!
If we’d just grasp these few key boundaries that were set by God and approached them all from the perspective of the instructions Jesus gave us to carry out God’s plan, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the thousands of laws set by government. That’s why God says…
Let Him set the boundaries because if we don’t, we end up with a government that takes control over things God never intended them to have! It’s important that we understand this because of the negative impact that bad government decisions have on every other part of God’s plan for us!
Remember, God’s kingdom plan has several moving parts… and they’re all kind of their own form of government. We’ve talked about civil government. Then there’s self-government, family government and church government… and in God’s plan, one doesn’t impose itself on the other! They work together!
So, as a follower of Jesus, our identity is in Him, which means we’re aliens here! We operate in God’s kingdom, independently from the ways of the world!! But still, we want the civil government here to be aligned with God’s plan, so that it brings God glory and expands His kingdom!
It’s why we need the right kind of leaders with both character and competence! We need and want leaders who seek God first and have a Biblical worldview, so they can influence others to seek God’s involvement in government and run it the way He designed it to be run!
We’ve got to stop trying to find the perfect leader. There’s only been one and there will never be another one like Him! His name is Jesus! Moses committed murder… David committed adultery and murder… Paul was a terrorist… but they were transformed by the hand of God and the Holy Spirit!
So, stop judging people and seek God first. Then, stay busy following the instruction from Jesus because as long as we exclude God from government, we’ll be like the Israelites in 1 Samuel… trying to figure out how to handle the tyranny and chaos we created when we ignore God!
God’s truth is the only truth. So, truth goes way beyond probability, possibility and potential! Truth is God’s absolute standard for how reality is measured! Truth is God’s perspective on every subject! So, He doesn’t want us trying to figure things out without Him!
Because truth isn’t what we feel like is true… what we want to be true… or even what we believe to be true! Truth is what God says is true, which means we’re supposed to adjust our actions, feelings, thinking, education and yes, even adjust our voting to what God says!
The reason we don’t see the government impact the world for God’s kingdom very much these days is because we don’t have very many kingdom thinkers. Notice I didn’t say we don’t have very many followers of Jesus, which is true too, but we don’t even have very many kingdom thinkers in government!
Now the reality is, God is going to get done what God wants to do regardless of government. But He’s told us that we’ll see more of His blessing if we follow His commands! The problem is most politicians are more aligned to a political ideology than to the kingdom plan of God!
Which trickles down and leads to division in the family and church and a lack of impact for the Kingdom of God in society! We know that the pagan politicians in office now aren’t running government God’s way… and we know what God said, “Government won’t run right without me”!
And History proves it! The result is what it’s always been! All kinds of evil escalates! We’re seeing one of the worst worldwide sins in history going on at a level most people could have never imagined. It’s human trafficking… human slave trade for labor, sex and money! But it’s always been a problem because we see law had to be established way back in…
Exodus 21:16 NIV - 16 “Anyone who Kidnaps Someone is to Be Put to Death … Whether The Victim has Been Sold … Or is Still in The Kidnapper’s Possession! …
It literally says if a person kidnaps somebody and sells them, they’ve committed a capital crime to be punished by death because it’s an abomination to God, but wicked people don’t care! They ignore God’s plan so they can maintain an evil economic system that thrives on power, control and money at the expense of innocent human life!
*Romans 13 says the government is supposed to wield the sword of God’s justice! The sword is God’s weapon of intimidation, judgment and death. It’s supposed to be the teeth in the deterrent that’s set up to protect innocent lives from evil criminals… and it’s needed because there are sinful/evil people in the world!
So, what do we do when the freedom, liberty and safety of our nation is in jeopardy! Do we just keep letting pagans run the government who think they know better than God what’s right… who don’t agree with any Biblical principles and values… and whose political practices are brazen acts of evil – do we just stand down or do we seek God first!
… And trust His plan, process and procedures to do whatever it takes asking for His words, wisdom and ways, so we can GO – MAKE and TEACH other people that it’s not good to lean on their own understanding… and it’s dangerous to trust other people who aren’t true followers of Jesus or trust other people who aren’t at least kingdom minded thinkers!
We’ve got to get busy because if we claim to understand freedom as God defines it, then one of the main things we ought to be doing is leading other people to freedom in Jesus! We don’t just get set free from sin without becoming invested in leading other people to freedom!
When a person professes and proclaims the name of Jesus Christ by submitting to Him as Lord and Savior for their salvation from sin, they’re freed from the bondage of sin and become part of the army of other believers known as followers of Jesus!
It allows them to be involved in the process of leading other people who’re being held hostage to sin to freedom in Jesus… no matter what ethnicity, class or culture! So, we’re expected to be working to fulfill God’s plan as an ambassador, warrior, servant or saint for Jesus.
It’s our responsibility, no matter how God gives us the opportunity to fulfill His plan. When we become a follower of Jesus, then we work for Him! We’re supposed to be speaking and leading people to God’s truth, which leads them to true freedom in Jesus!
It can be dangerous work for us because there’s a lot of people out there who don’t accept the concept of true freedom in Jesus… and they’re willing to go to battle over it! So, we have to be ready, willing and trained to take on the risk of defending our freedom in Jesus!
Also, we don’t want our families, churches and legacies having to operate in physical slavery to the enemy either! Then, there’s the different dangers for lost people. When they’re a slave to sin for too long, they get used to it. The bondage of sin becomes comfortable because at times they experience temporary pleasure in sin and get addicted to it!
So, true freedom seems too risky for them. They “feel like” they’ll have to give up the only things that have ever helped them feel good… or they just don’t want to give up things that brings them fleshly pleasure. But that’s what the enemy wants them to think. So, they lock themselves into the bondage of sin.
It’s sad because they’ve never experienced the guaranteed hope, peace and joy that only come from true freedom and liberty in Jesus! They have no idea what they’re missing. And they’ll never know unless someone speaks God’s truth to them and leads them to Jesus!
One of the biggest problems the church faces in advancing God’s Kingdom right now is we’ve got so many professing Christians who don’t want to stand up and fight for Biblical truth and principles. So, they tolerate the hedonistic, paganist, corrupt cultures and political paganism of the day!
But true followers of Jesus don’t operate with this kind of spiritually weak mentality! We understand God’s Biblical authority and instructions. So, we have to stand strong in our faith and testify with courage and boldness that we’ve got the “Good News” of true freedom in Jesus!
Our freedom has been paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ! There’s nothing better or more powerful than that! As a follower of Jesus, we understand the offer of freedom from the slavery to sin, so we can’t stand by and watch lost people choose to function in bondage to sin…
Especially when they can choose to operate in a life of true freedom through salvation in Jesus! He even offers freedom to governments if they’ll operate by His definition of freedom… and understand His definition of civil government. But a lot of people are so used to being slaves to sin or…
...illegitimately depending on government to be “god” (which obviously God never intended government to be) that they develop a bondage mentality … and it’s super difficult for them to escape from it! That’s why it’s past time for followers of Jesus to step up and not just celebrate our own freedom…
But also, be bold in speaking God’s truth about freedom through Jesus to the worldly/lost politicians, intellectuals and leaders in the mainstream media because God still offers freedom to nations but only when His rules, regulations and instructions are followed.
If we ignore that honor, privilege and responsibility, then we’ll live in bondage to sin as a nation even though we’re still free as an individual. Either way, God’s not going to set a nation free if the people won’t seek Him first to be set free from the sin that holds them hostage.
Let us pray...
INVINCIBLE CHURCH 4-14-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
4/14/2024
How to be a True Follower of Jesus pt 9 – Beginning to End – “SEEK”
Romans 3:9-20
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about God’s plan for His creation and everything in it. His plan includes Biblical decisions, instructions and principles for how to be a true follower of Jesus! So, once we freely choose salvation through Jesus by submitting to Him as our…
… Lord and Savior, our goal in life becomes bringing glory to God! He expects us to live and speak the truth about Jesus to the world! Jesus Himself gave us instructions and a process to get it done, which is the only tangible way we have to show Him that we love Him!
We started this series by covering God’s plan and strategy in some detail and God’s sent us specific messages every Sunday for the first 7 first critical action item about the instructions and process from Jesus. It’s to LOVE, PRAY and BE THANKFUL to God for everything…
… then GO into the world… MAKE disciples for Jesus… and TEACH them how to be obedient to the commands and instruction He’s given us! Then the wise thing to do (with the right motive) is the ASK God for the words, wisdom and ways to handle every circumstance and situation we face along with every opportunity He gives us to serve.
Today we’re going to talk about the action item SEEK and we’ll be in…
Romans 3:9-20 NIV - 9 What Shall we Conclude then? … Do we Have Any Advantage? … Not at All! … For we Have Already Made The Charge that Jews and Gentiles Alike are All Under The Power of Sin! ... 10 As It Is Written … “There is No One Righteous … Not even One … 11 There is No One who Understands … There is No One who Seeks God! … 12 All have Turned Away … They have Together Become Worthless … There is No One who does Good … Not even One! ...” 13 Their Throats are Open Graves … Their Tongues Practice Deceit! … “The Poison of Vipers is On their Lips! … 14 Their Mouths are Full of Cursing and Bitterness! … 15 Their Feet are Swift to Shed Blood! … 16 Ruin and Misery Mark their Ways! … 17 And The ‘Way of Peace’ they Do Not Know! … 18 There is No Fear of God Before their Eyes! … 19 Now we Know that whatever The Law Says … It Says To those Who are Under The Law … So that every Mouth May Be Silenced …. And The Whole World Held Accountable to God! ... 20 Therefore No One will Be Declared Righteous in God’s Sight by The Works of The Law … Rather … ~Through~ The Law … We become Conscious of our Sin!
Paul’s writing a letter to the church in Rome and he’s quoting what King David wrote to Israel in Psalms… and they’re not saying here that of all the people who’ve ever lived nobody’s ever tried to seek God. God made humans as triune beings with a body, soul and spirit.
In (vs 9) Paul’s just stating the fact that all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles are guilty of sin against God! The Word “we” here is talking about the Christians in Rome that he sent the letter to. They were completely dominated and enslaved by sin and under God’s condemnation!
In (vs 10) He’s pointing out that Christians don’t have a superior moral nature over everybody else. We’re all born with a sin nature because of the choices that Adam and Eve made in the garden and we’ll get to that here in a minute. But mankind is universally evil.
Then he says, if people don’t seek God, they can’t be made righteous, not even one! So, in (vs 11) when he says… man is unable to comprehend the truth of God or understand His righteousness, it’s because they don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit.
They’re choosing a life of evil depravity by rebelling against God! And they can’t blame their spiritual ignorance on a lack of opportunity for understanding God’s righteousness. It’s because they’re rejecting His son Jesus by denying that He’s the true Messiah sent by God!
Paul’s clearly implying that instead of fallen man seeking God Almighty, they’re trying to get away from Him, chasing false religions of the world… because man’s natural tendency is to seek their own interests and pursue the philosophies and rituals of other mortal men!
The reality is the only hope that anybody has is to seek God first! It’s the best means for finding out how His grace and mercy works! (Vs 12) is basically saying that people are natural inclined to wander off from God’s ways and pursue their own worldly ways.
In (vs 13) tombs were sealed to respect the dead, keep the decayed body from being seen and cover the stench of death! The open grace is a metaphor for an open throat, which would allow foul words to be spoken and would show the decay of the heart inside evil people.
In (vs 14) cursing here isn’t “cussing” … it’s talking about publicly declaring or wishing bad things would happen to somebody else with angry, loud and insulting language! It drives people to be bitter and hateful toward others for no real reason. Sound familiar?
(vs’s 15 & 16) are saying that evil/sinful people damage and destroy everything they touch. They leave a trail of pain, destruction and suffering in their wake! Good people try to build up… evil people try to tear down. Again, sound familiar?
In (vs 17) it’s not talking about lack of inner peace in the person. It’s talking about sinful people’s tendency toward conflict and division with other people… and with nations! Even when things are good, evil people will intentionally create conflict to tear things down!
In (vs 18) the true spiritual condition of evil people is very obvious because they have lack of proper respect, reverence or even acknowledgement of God! They foolishly and publicly show a complete disregard for God! In other words, they have no fear of God!
The Biblical definition for the fear of God is 1) awe of His greatness and glory… and 2) dread of the consequences for violating His holy nature! The reality is bad people who practice or support evil actions hate people so much that they don’t even think about God!
(vs 19) Tells us that every lost person is under the law. Jews received the written law through Moses… and Gentiles have the works of the law “written” on their hearts! It’s in our soul, so it’s in our conscience, which means both groups are accountable to God! (Everybody is.)
God pronounces a guilty verdict on the entire human race because of sin! And there’s no human defense for it! Jesus is the only answer! (vs 20) Goes on to tell us that it’s impossible for people to do what God’s moral law requires them to do for salvation. So, everybody’s condemned by their inability to follow the law, which means…
If a person isn’t saved through Jesus, then God justly condemns them for not keeping the law that He gave to His servant Moses! So, the law makes sin known and sets the boundary but it can’t save people from sin, which causes them to be eternally separated from God!
Now, humans just naturally seek spiritual things because God put a spiritual nature inside us. So, humans want some kind of spiritual connection to something, whether they can admit it, recognize it, understand it or not! That tells us the reality is…
… billions of people have sought after a god of some kind (small “g”) but not all people seek after the “one and only” true Almighty God of the universe! Followers of Jesus need to understand why so we can explain it to people when God gives us the opportunity… and we don’t want to miss them!
This all ties directly back to the very first sin against God by Adam and Eve! They already had an intellectual knowledge of the difference between good and evil because of how God designed us to function as a triune being with a body, soul and spirit. Now, stay with me here…
The spirit that God puts in our body warns our soul when we’re about to make a decision. Our soul reminds the conscience in our mind that there’s a difference between right and wrong. Then we use our brain to make the decision to do good or do bad.
The only way to guarantee that we make the good, right, God-honoring decision every time … all the time… is to always “seek God first” in everything we do, say, think and feel! Then God will ultimately work the experience to be “good” because God is always good!
Romans 8:28 NLT - 28 And we Know that God Causes Everything to Work together for The Good of Those who Love God … And are Called According to His Purpose for Them! … Now …
Adam & Eve knew God was good, so when God told them they could eat of the trees in the midst of the garden, they knew it was good to do that! And when God commanded them, “Don’t eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden…
… they also knew what God said was “good,” so the wise thing for them to do would be to just stay away from that tree and don’t eat that fruit but they chose to disobey, which meant that they experienced evil for the first time because their bad actions were a sin against God!
At that point, they not only had an intellectual knowledge of evil but they completely understood the nature of evil because they had fully experienced good and evil physically, mentally and spiritually for themselves… all because they didn’t seek God first!
God knows everything, so he already understood the nature of evil when Adam and Eve sinned. They lost their innocence, so the nature of evil was imparted into their very soul! Now they knew what evil was truly like, so like God they fully understood the nature of evil!
They felt the disgust, shame, guilt and grief of sin! It’s why they tried to hide from God but there’s no hiding from God. It’s why we want to always be working hard to follow the instructions and commands that Jesus gave us because we don’t want to be trying to hide from God. We want to be seeking God!
Now, Satan is real and he has a real supernatural power, but his supernatural power is limited! He knew Adam and Eve would be curious about deeper spiritual matters, so the snake’s deception in the garden included a very clever partial truth, which is still a lie. Now, think about it…
The Bible says that God allows Satan a certain amount of limited freedom, which means he can’t do everything he wants to do. So, Satan didn’t have free reign of the garden or he would have already slithered over to where Adam and Eve happened to be. So, the scenario is…
… Adam and Eve loved God. He’s the first person that Adam sees after God made him! Then God made Eve… and Adam loved God even more than he thought he ever could have. And God would come and visit them in the cool of the evening… and both of them loved it when God came so…
… they were constantly seeking God and He had told them a few things. One was… don’t go over to the tree in the middle of the garden! So, with the powerful brain that God gave them, they should have reasoned a couple of things… 1) God probably wouldn’t be over there either and 2) If God was over there, He didn’t want them to see what was going on over there.
Either way, God was telling them, don’t go over there, should have been enough! A lot of people say, “But I thought God is everywhere!” And He is! It’s called omnipresent. Then people ask, “Well why didn’t God stop them from sinning?” The answer is it was a test of their love, loyalty and obedience!
God will test us, but He’ll never tempt us. He’s given us “free will” to choose good or evil! It’s the only tangible way we have to show Him that we love Him! He’ll test us to give us a real-life opportunity to show Him that we truly love Him by choosing to obey Him!
If we truly love God, we’ll always seek Him first, whether He’s testing us, we’re being tempted by our flesh or it’s an attack from the enemy! And we don’t have to be embarrassed about a temptation of the flesh… as long as we don’t act on it!
It’s why we seek God first… because when we do, He’ll immediately protect us from ourselves and the enemy and in His perfect timing. He’ll work things to the good of those who love Him. So, “Don’t eat the fruit from that tree or you will surely die!”
I’m fully convinced that if Adam had done his job as the family leader and decision maker, as soon as he saw things stranger danger, if he’d immediately started seeking God… and admitted, “Hey God, I messed up and crossed the boundary… Now this weirdo’s trying to get us to eat the fruit from the tree!” God would have showed up and the story would have been different!
Kid test… one kid… secret camera… favorite candy… set the boundary… give the instructions.
Multiple kids… “You do it!” … “I’m not doing it… You do it and I’ll be the lookout!” That’s how we know that Adam was there! He was the lookout for Eve! But men have the responsibility to lead the family, group, team, business, nation, state or whoever else to “seek God first”!
Satan told Eve that, “God knows when you eat the fruit… your eyes will be opened… and you’ll know good and evil just like God does!" So, to Eve, knowing what God knows seemed like a good thing! But knowing what God knows isn’t the priority!
Knowing what God said and then doing it is always the priority! What the snake didn’t tell them was that experiencing evil would grieve God and ruin their relationship with God. It’s why partial truths can be more dangerous and deceptive than full blown lies!
God says His plan is enough for humans to understand and experience His goodness. So, if we’ll stop trying to know everything God knows… and if we’ll follow the instructions and commands that Jesus gave us to work God’s plan, we’ll see a whole lot more “good” happen in our life. It’s why God says in…
Isaiah 55:9 NIV - 9 “As The Heavens are Higher than The Earth … So Are My Ways Higher than your Ways … And My Thoughts than your Thoughts”!
But people have always wanted more divine knowledge and experience… a lot of times to their own demise! When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they brought sin into the world and they lost fellowship with God… and suffered other judgements that have affected all mankind ever since!
The evil schemes of Satan have been so clever, devious and precise that lost people can only comprehend bits and pieces of the real truth about God, if any at all! And because of it, the reality of who God is gets blurred to a whole lot of people!
So, it’s only by seeking God and praying that He chooses to reveal Himself to us that our eyes are opened to the truth. Then, we can start putting the pieces together and pursuing Jesus in a way that honors God. Jesus tells us in…
John 17:3 NIV - 3 Now this is Eternal Life … That they Know You … The Only True God … And Jesus Christ, Whom You Have Sent!
Jesus is telling us that when we continue to seek God with the motive to know Him better, then we’ll be able to better understand the true purpose He has for us on earth… and in heaven! So, the two most important things we can think about are seeking God and pursuing Jesus!
Seeking God is a continual responsibility and privilege for all followers of Jesus… and it’s what really determines the direction and quality of our life! Now, seeking God isn’t always an easy thing to do! But it’s not because God doesn’t want to be found! It’s because we let our minds get saturated with the lies, deceit and misconceptions that’re schemed against us by Satan and then reinforced by our society, false prophets and pagan politicians among others!
We have to hold ourselves accountable as well because our sinful nature, disobedience and temptation can lead us astray if we lose focus! So, the best way to defeat the enemy’s deceit is to work hard to know God and His word better… and keep growing in our relationship with Jesus!
Romans 12:2 NIV - 2 Do Not Conform to The Pattern of This World … But Be Transformed by The Renewing of your Mind! ... Then you Will Be Able to Test and Approve What God’s Will Is … His Good … Pleasing … And Perfect Will!
There are multiple examples in the Bible of God’s people straying away from Him. So, they didn’t have a priest to teach them… and they were without the law, but in their darkest hours. Whenever they started seeking Him with the right motive, heart and love. They always found Him!
So, when God’s people sincerely seek Him, things go well. But when they stop seeking Him, things fall apart! Sin increases, morality declines and revelation from God stops! He doesn’t allow us to experience and encounter Him like we want to.
The same advice and counsel God gave to His people in that day still apply to us today! The principle is repeated all throughout scripture. If we seek Him. But if we forsake Him, we won’t be able to find Him, not because He’s not there, but because our heart isn’t right.
Deuteronomy 4:29 NIV – 29 But if from There you Seek The Lord your God … You will Find Him if you Seek Him with All your Heart and with All your Soul!
Jeremiah 29:13 NIV – 13 You will seek Me and Find Me when you seek Me with All your Heart!
Matthew 7:7 NIV – 7 “Ask and It will Be Given to you … Seek and you will Find … Knock and The Door will Be Opened to you!
Acts 17:27 NIV – 27 God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.
James 4:8 NIV - 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world!
The Biblical principle for seeking God is that when we draw near to God, He will reveal more of who He is to us! God doesn’t hide from people who’re seeking to know Him better. It’s why it will always benefit us to keep seeking God and pursing Jesus.
Think about this, what keeps us from seeking God first and stops us from sinning? It is our love for Jesus or our fear of the law. If it’s fear of the law, then we might need to find a follower of Jesus who we trust and talk to them about true salvation!
The way to recognize a true follower of Jesus is to watch them and talk to them for a minute or two. When they’re a true follower of Jesus, it will be obvious that they’re working in the process of seeking God first!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 4-7-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
4/7/2024
How to be a True Follower of Jesus pt 8
James 4:1-10
Beginning to End – “ASK”
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about Biblical decisions, instruction and principles for how to be a true follower of Jesus. The goal is to bring glory to God! His plan for all this includes us. He expects us to live and speak the truth about Jesus to the world! Jesus Himself gave us the instruction and a process to get it done!
He tells us to LOVE God and others unconditionally and sacrificially, PRAY continually and be THANKFUL to God for everything! Then to GO, MAKE and TEACH others, while we ASK, SEEK and KNOCK on the doors of opportunity that God gives us to get His work done!
We started this journey by covering God’s plan and strategy in more detail… and God’s given us specific messages every Sunday on the first 6 critical action items in the instructions and process from Jesus. It’s to LOVE, PRAY and BE THANKFUL to God for everything…
… Then “GO into” the world, MAKE disciples for Jesus and TEACH them how to be obedient to the commands and instructions He’s given us! Today we’re going to talk about the action item “ASK” … and we’ll be in James 4:1-10!
God wants to be involved in everything we do! And He’s not nosy! He asks us to ask Him. He’s given us an open invitation to come to Him! The wise thing for us to do would be to ASK Him for the words, wisdom and ways to handle every situation. Let’s look at…
James 4:1-10 NIV - What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that He jealously longs for The Spirit He has caused to dwell in us? 6 But He gives us more Grace. That is why Scripture says … “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before The Lord, and He will lift you up.
We’ve got battles to fight… side by side with Jesus and the Holy Spirit! We’re supposed to be fighting to defend the honors of Jesus and advance God’s Kingdom, which brings Him the glory He deserves! We shouldn’t be wasting time contemplating the philosophies of man and practicing the rituals of false religion!
And professing Christians certainly shouldn’t be wasting time fighting with each other for no good reason! We’re supposed to be focused on taking a stand for Jesus in spiritual battles against the likes of this pagan political administration who dared to try and replace the ONE day that the world recognizes as the resurrection of Jesus Christ...
… the one and only son of the living God, creator of the universe and everything in it. Whether people choose to believe in Jesus of not… and make the decision to receive Him, recognize Him or reject Him… at least up to this year, the entire world has been respectfully tolerant of the followers of Jesus who do choose to celebrate His resurrection on this day!
But now, this pagan administration dares to try and replace Resurrection Sunday with the recognition and celebration of every kind of sin known to man! The types of sins that are all an abomination to God! And we know all these sinful pagan practices are an abomination to God because He tells us they are in His Word… the Holy Bible!
To top it off, when their pagan representatives are mildly confronted by a passive media member with the question, “Why would the leader of a Christian nation agree to this brazen defamation of God?” They lie and say it was never intended to compete or replace anything about Holy Week!
Satan is the deceiver and it’s all part of his evil attempt to counterfeit and destroy everything associated with Jesus and God’s Kingdom! Satan doesn’t just hate followers of Jesus, he wants to destroy us because Jesus allows us the honor of fighting evil as His ambassadors, warriors, servants and saints!
So, when followers of Jesus argue, squabble and fight with each other… or complain about how they’re being treated… all while failing to ask for God’s guidance in taking action to a solution and fail to follow His instructions when they have disagreements… it dishonors God and breaks His heart! We know it because it’s all covered in the Bible!
Back to James… he gives us some very clear reasons that cause major problems for followers of Jesus. Instead of fighting evil, authorities, principalities and powers of darkness, a lot of professing Christians are fighting each other and it’s shameful because…
… when professing Christians are fighting each other, it means they’re not spiritually mature enough to fight the enemy! Sometimes they’re fighting the enemy and don’t even know it because they can’t recognize his strategy. They’ve been negligent in their spiritual training!
The reality about all training is we can either be proactive and self-disciplined… and take on the training regimen ourselves, so we’re ready for battle when necessary… or we can be reactive and lazy… and have spiritual training forced on us by the situations we get in!
And like physical workouts, it’s not enough to just have the knowledge of the technique. Spiritual and relational workouts require the same regimen. The work has to be put in. In other words, no pain, no gain! We have to put the word and work together with good decisions. Then we get spiritually stronger!
The stronger we are spiritually, the easier it is to handle the heavy spiritual challenges we all face in this life on earth! Spiritual workouts can be painful, but they’re always beneficial. So, we ought to thank God for all of them!
It’s the same thing with people who’re physically ill all the time! They usually haven’t made good decisions in taking care of themselves. It’s the same thing with relationships. Failing to follow God’s instructions for relationships (which starts with loving God and others unconditionally and sacrificially) opens the door for the enemy to manipulate and influence people into bad behavior and decisions!
Then, when things get bad enough, people ask God to fix it for them but it’s for the wrong motive! So, the answer is no… not until the motive is right … and the motive will only be “right” when it’s from the heart and in alignment with God’s will!
James gives us a lot of instruction for how followers of Jesus ought to operate. He wrote to believers who had a lot of problems because of bad decisions! In (vs 1-3) he points out their selfish desire to get things while also warning them to guard against these…
4 Dishonorable Actions and Attitudes
1) Being Selfish and Self-Centered!
God’s people wanted more power, pleasure and resources. It causes them to argue and fight amongst themselves all the time. People are naturally selfish and self-centered. We want what we want, when we want it and how we want it!
When we fail to pray and ask God to help us guard against having this attitude, we can get frustrated if we don’t get it! Then a lot of people want God to bless the solution they come up with… instead of asking God for His solution and working to abide in His answer.
2) Thinking and Doing Hateful Things!
Some of God’s people got so angry when things didn’t go their way, they’d just flat-out murder somebody that they thought was in their way, which is still going on today! If people weren’t doing hateful things to each other, they were thinking it, which Jesus said was the same thing as doing it because love didn’t stop them, the fear of the law did!
Matthew 5:22 NIV - 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ [Meaning “empty-headed” … Implying a person is stupid or inferior] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell!
1 John 3:15 NIV - 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has Eternal Life residing in him! … [That’s strong!]
3) Arguing and Fighting!
Our feelings are continually telling us that we want certain things… and we want things to be done the way we want them to be… and if somebody opposes us, we start building up hatred toward them, which dishonors God.
God is relational and made us in His image so we’re to be relational. We need to communicate. We need to be able to ask each other questions and dialogue accordingly! We’re to submit to authority unless the authority requires that we do things in direct conflict with God’s Word.
It’s a challenge because God made men and women different! We communicate differently! But in God’s infinite wisdom, He allows us to know that, so we should always be asking Him for guidance, wisdom and patience in talking to the opposite sex.
A big part of communicating is listening. James also tells us in chapter 1 that we’re supposed to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. People who fail to ask God to be involved in their conversations when they communicate are always going to struggle more in their relationships.
4) Failing to Pray! … A lot of times, God’s people… of all people…
… either forgot or refuse to pray! And if they do pray, they pray with selfish motives! The Bible says the human heart is very deceitful. So again, our feelings will lie to us. That’s why it’s easy for people to fool themselves about their own motives!
We can pretend like we’re taking the actions we take for God or for the benefit of other people, but the reality is our reasons can be selfish… and God’s not fooled by our selfishness because the Bible says selfishness is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
People operate from a lot of different motivations. The negative ones are pride, anger, revenge, entitlement or the desire for approval. Any motivation that comes from our sinful flesh dishonors God and leads to endless arguments in our relationships.
So, if we really want to honor God in our relationship with Him and each other, then we ought to be praying together and seeking solutions to problems together in God’s Word instead of trying to out debate each other! But we have to remember…
… selfish motives can hinder our prayers! Our feelings are so deceitful. We ought to constantly evaluate our own motives and be honest with ourselves about why we’re choosing to do things the way we’re doing them! So here are…
8 Ways to Evaluate Our Motives
1. Would we still :> - Give – Serve – and Sacrifice if nobody noticed?
2. If There were no tangible benefit to us … Would we still do it!?
3. Would we joyfully take a lesser position if God called us to?
4. Do we :> - Give – Serve – Share - and Sacrifice to feel good about ourselves?
5. If we have to endure prolonged suffering for what God has called us to do … Would we keep doing It?
6. If people :> - Criticize – Mock – or Misunderstand our actions for Jesus … Will we stop doing it?
7. If we never receive gratitude or reimbursement in any way … Will we keep doing it?
8. Do we evaluate our outcomes on how we compare to others … Or on our faithfulness to Jesus?
Now, personal satisfaction like taking a vacation, winning a competition, having nice things or even being wealthy aren’t wrong or bad… it’s the motivation behind it that can become an issue, especially when we’re not honest with ourselves about why we’re doing things!
The goal is always to glorify God! So, when we act like we’re obeying God on the outside, but our hearts are hard on the inside, God knows, which means we’re deceiving ourselves and others too! The only way we can operate with pure motives is through the power of the Holy Spirit!
Galatians 5:16, 25 NIV - 16 So I say … Walk by The Spirit … And you will Not Gratify The Desires of The Flesh! ~And~ 25 Since we Live by The Spirit … Let us Keep in Step with The Spirit!
When we let God control every part of our life, then we’ll want to please Him more than we want to please ourselves! But our worldly flesh isn’t going to give up trying to tempt us! So, the only way to stop the urge to gratify the desires of the flesh is to walk in the spirit!
The people James is writing to here are just like a lot of people today! He’s talking to professing Christians who’re trying to promote their own agenda instead of following God’s plan. They’re hoping to get what they want, no matter what it takes or who it hurts!
But it isn’t always from malicious intent. Sometimes people don’t even realize what they’re doing. They’re just following their feelings and their feelings are lying to them. So, when they don’t get what they want, they get frustrated and take it out on each other.
James tells us there’s a better way. Instead of arguing, fussing, fighting, coveting or worst-case scenario murdering, true followers of Jesus should always ask God for the wisdom to discern and know what glorifies Him in any given situation.
Then ask Him to teach us the best way to glorify Him. When we do things “His way” it will bring us true joy in Jesus! We ought to want what we ask for to glorify God first. It’s what it means to ask God for things with the right motive.
We shouldn’t be relying on worldly ways first, then if that doesn’t work, cry out for God to come in and fix it… like He’s some kind of “backup” or something! And we need to expect that we aren’t going to get some of the things we ask for because God always knows and does what’s best!
We ought to know, understand and believe that God has the authority and wisdom to do what’s best for us. Just like a wise Father’s not going to hand a loaded chain saw to his 8-year-old
son and tell him to go cut down a tree! But we should always ask because at the end of (vs 2) …
…it tells us, “You do not have because you do not ask God!” Now, God’s always going to deny requests that come from selfish intentions at the expense of somebody else or from a negative attitude that we may have toward somebody!
But it’s always better to ask God for things than to scheme and fight! Sometimes His answer is No and sometimes he says Yes because it pleases Him to give us the things we ask for. Now, it doesn’t always mean that His Yes is going to show up from heaven on a silver platter.
How God answers our prayers is still up to Him. His answers might involve a secondary agent or person… or it could just be that receiving what we asked means God gives us the ability to save money to buy what we asked for!
But it all starts with our prayer, which shows God that we’re not going to try to get things the worldly way. Instead, we’re going to defer to God’s judgment about what we ask for and how He sends it!
Discerning what God wants to give us is way more valuable and beneficial for us than what we can dream up on our own. So, we pray with confidence and faith in Him! It’s the strategy and process Jesus gives us for getting things we want from God!
We need to ask Him for it! There’s no guarantee that we’ll get it, but that’s always the best way to approach it because God always knows what’s best for us and prayer keeps us in the center of God’s will!
When we submit our will to His will and to His glory, we’ll be happy with whatever answers He gives us, whether it’s Yes, No or Wait!
God is working through the faithful followers of Jesus at Invincible Academy! I can 100% guarantee and prove it by the amazing spiritual victories we’ve experienced, but also by the vicious, relentless spiritual attacks from the enemy we’ve seen in the last few months!
But God is always faithful, wise and true! That’s why we need to be continually praying and asking for discernment and wisdom from God because we need to know how to quickly and efficiently recognize attacks from the enemy.
And we need God’s wisdom to fight the good fight “His way” so we can quickly and efficiently win every battle… all for the glory of God! And if it’s for God’s glory, it will be for our benefit!
Then we prayerfully, respectfully, faithfully and quickly ask for another opportunity to do God’s work… whether it’s spiritual battle, advice, counsel, ministry, mission or evangelism… all for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus… and the glory of God!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 3-31-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
3/31/2024
Two Plans
John 10:7-18 and Luke 19:28-48
Just like every week, God’s given me a great message today! It’s the “Best News” ever for the people who choose the right plan. For everybody else, the news couldn’t be worse! Ready for the short version of it? Alright here it is… everybody’s going to die some day!
The Bible says, “choosing” Jesus is God’s plan! It’s the perfect plan and guarantees us eternal life in heaven! Not choosing Jesus is the enemy’s plan! It’s the bad plan and includes any and everything other than Jesus. The bad plan sends people to hell.
So, we all need to be thinking about choosing a plan for where we want to go after we die! And there’s only 2! But most people are consumed and focused on their worldly circumstances and situations and what’s happening to them here and now but only from an earthly perspective!
It’s why most people spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do today or in the near future but they spend very little time thinking about where they’ll spend eternity… and how to help other people understand the importance of eternal decisions.
It’s why a lot of people today think that it’s always some other category of people trying to ruin all their hopes, plans, dreams and future! But when it’s natural man plotting against them, they’re usually just trying to increase their power, land and resources.
Our supernatural enemy, Satan’s, plan is way more dangerous than mortal man’s plot because it isn’t just to gain power and control. He wants to destroy us and keep us away from God because he hates God, Jesus and all followers of Jesus!
Part of Satan’s strategy is to pit God’s creation and God’s people against each other. But both God and Satan have a plan! God’s plan is based on love, grace, mercy, relationship and life. Satan’s plan is based on hate, depravity, destruction, separation and death! Let’s look at how Jesus describes it in…
John 10:7-18 NIV - 7 Therefore Jesus said again … “Very Truly I tell you … I Am The Gate for The Sheep! ... 8 All who have Come before Me are Thieves and Robbers … But The Sheep have Not Listened to them! ... 9 I Am The Gate … Whoever Enters through Me will Be Saved! ... They will Come In and Go Out … And Find Pasture! … 10 The thief Comes Only to Steal and Kill and Destroy … I have Come that they May have Life … And have It to The Full! ... 11 I Am The Good Shepherd! … The Good Shepherd Lays Down His Life for The Sheep! … 12 The Hired Hand is Not The Shepherd … And Does Not Own The Sheep! ... So, when he Sees The Wolf Coming … He Abandons The Sheep … And Runs Away! ... Then The Wolf Attacks The Flock … And Scatters It! ... 13 The man Runs Away because he Is a Hired Hand … And Cares Nothing for The Sheep! ... 14 I Am The Good Shepherd … I Know My Sheep … And My Sheep Know Me … 15 Just as The Father Knows Me … And I Know The Father … And I Lay Down My Life for The Sheep! ... 16 I have Other Sheep that are Not of this Sheep Pen! ... I must Bring them Also! ... They Too will Listen to My Voice … And there Shall Be One Flock … And One Shepherd … 17 The Reason My Father Loves Me is that I Lay Down My Life … Only to Take It Up Again! ... 18 No One Takes It from Me … But I Lay It Down of My Own Accord! ... I have Authority to Lay It Down … And Authority to Take It Up Again! ... This Command I Received from My Father!
Jesus explains both plans here in a context that the people would understand! Now, let’s go back a little further…
The first time Jesus physically shows up in the Bible is in Matthew 2… born of a virgin! Some wise-men (called magi) traveled thousands of miles from the far East to worship Him. They stopped in Jerusalem to find out where the Messian will be born, which is Bethlehem.
So, they’re going to follow the start of Bethlehem but before they leave Jerusalem, the evil King Herod says, when you find Him, send word back to me so I can go worship Him too! But what Herod really wanted to do was kill the “newborn king” because he felt threatened…
… by a baby king! The magi found Jesus but they didn’t tell King Herod because they figured out what he was really trying to do! (They weren’t called “wise-men” for nothing!) This infuriated Herod so he came up with another diabolical plan. We see it in…
Matthew 2:16 NIV - 16 When Herod Realized that he Had Been outwitted by The Magi … He was Furious … And he Gave Orders to Kill All The Boys in Bethlehem and Its Vicinity who were Two Years Old and Under … In Accordance with The Time he had Learned from The Magi!
In an evil attempt to maintain power and control over Israel, King Herod plots to kill the “King of the Jews” … the Messiah! So, he has all boys two years old and younger murdered!
Matthew applies the words of Jeremiah in the Old Testament to describe the crying out, sorrow, weeping and wailing of grief in the city of Rama as these children are being murdered! So, Jesus Himself, from the second He’s born, is being persecuted by the evil enemy!
It’s the devil’s plan! It’s still his plan! He wants to get rid of Jesus and His followers! And think about it, Satan’s still deceiving people into killing babies! Aborted babies never get the opportunity to grow up and become loving, strong, dedicated followers of Jesus!
Then, there’s a lot of people who claim to be atheist! They don’t believe in God or Satan. They think the spiritual realm is just a void. So, if a person believes there’s no God or no Satan, they’re basically saying there’s no source of good or evil… it’s to each his own.
Then, it’s just like the animals! But the moral code has to come from somewhere. If somebody says, ok, “I believe there’s a God”… then that means there’s good and the absence of good is evil… which means there’s potential for the evil realm to have a plan for our life too!
Evil infiltration is real. More people than ever are committing suicide, especially kids! Why would a teenager be thinking about committing suicide! They’re supposed to be playing sports, riding bikes, collecting coins, going to birthday parties or any other carefree activity kids do!
So where do suicidal thoughts come from? It doesn’t just happen! The reality is it comes from the infiltration of an evil world! And a lot of professing Christians aren’t comfortable talking about evil! But, Satan, Beelzebub, the devil, or whatever people want to call him… He’s real!
We have to resist him! On the other hand, some people are too comfortable talking about evil. They either take it way too lightly or they’re on board with it. Either way, it’s extremely dangerous. Evil isn’t some kind of game. Satan is the destroyer. And…
… He’s got a catastrophic plan to try and ruin people’s lives! God’s plan loves, creates, builds and restores. Satan’s plan hates, destroys, tears down and separates! Satan is jealous of God’s creation, power and sovereignty over all things and he hates Him!
Satan started his evil plan in the garden… and he’s still at it! We also see evidence of it from the second Jesus starts His public ministry at the age of 30! The religious leaders of the Jews (called Pharisees) hated Jesus too, so they plotted to destroy Him!
Matthew 12:14 NIV - 14 But The Pharisees went out … And Plotted How they Might Kill Jesus!
So, a big hindrance for followers of Jesus can be radical extremists who’re opposed to anything right, holy, just and pure… namely Jesus! But they aren’t the only ones! Sometimes even professing Christians can be the meanest, most negative, rudest people around!
There are people in our culture and world who call themselves Christians and walk around wagging their fingers judging and condemning people, which dishonors God. We’re supposed to hold each other accountable and love fellow believers enough to wisely help them see the err of their ways but sometimes…
… the greatest hindrance for lose people getting to Jesus are legalistic people in the church who claim to be the body of Christ. So, if you’re watching, listening or are here today as we go through the rest of the message, I’m going to ask you to kind of set aside thinking about the rude, mean, negative people in your life who call themselves Christians…
… and just concentrate on what God’s telling you through His message. If you genuinely pursue the truth about God, He’ll be faithful to put a follower of Jesus in your proximity who genuinely loves Him and who genuinely cares about you… and they’ll help you find your way into a salvation relationship with Jesus!
But we truly have to be on guard because the devil is a snake! He didn’t just want Jesus dead. He wanted to destroy Him… and he wants to destroy everybody and everything God loves. He’ll try to use people who claim to be Christians to keep lost people away from pursuing Jesus. A parallel passage on this is in…
Luke 6:11 NIV - 11 But The Pharisees and The Teachers of The Law were Furious … And Began to Discuss with one Another what they Might Do to Jesus!
The reason they were so upset with Jesus this time was He’d healed a man’s withered hand on the “wrong day”! It was the Sabbath day and they got so caught up in what day it was they didn’t care about the man being healed! They were locked in on their legal system! Jesus wasn’t following their rules. They had their own agenda, just like the devil!
And the devil’s just a created being! He’s a fallen angel. That’s all he is! And the Bible says in the Book of Revelation that when the trumpet sounds to signal “the end” the final battle is fought and it’s all about to be over. Satan will be thrown into the pit of hell!
So, Satan is not all powerful. He’s a supernatural power but his power is limited! And he despises Jesus so much that even though he’s heard God’s plan and he was in heaven before the universe was created, He still doesn’t care!
It seems like the devil would have been more about stopping Jesus from being crucified. If he understood that when Jesus dies on the cross… is buried… and is raised from the dead… then everybody has a chance to be saved, which is a big hindrance to Satan’s evil plan.
But he’s so eaten up with hatred for Jesus, that he stirs the people up and gets them to plot against Jesus, so they want to kill Him! The Romans can’t even figure out why but it’s basically because Satan’s crazy evil and he tries to do the same thing to us!
And his infiltration is everywhere! I’ve seen it first hand and dealt with a lot of people who were drug dealers, meth addicts, alcoholics, thieves, thugs and most of them say they were just born into a bad situation. They grew up in those kind of environments, so it’s just what they do!
Now hear me on this. It doesn’t matter where we’re born. All that matters is whether we’re reborn! People say, “Well you don’t understand”… my dad, mom, and everybody in my house were alcoholics, smoked week, and did meth… or whatever else they can come up with!
Another extreme excuse is… my family did illegal and immoral things to become successful business people, so I’m trapped in a family of criminals or whatever other bad circumstance people are in. They feel like it’s impossible to escape their bad situations.
But the reality is our feelings will lie to us! It’s an emotional weakness that a lot of people have and Satan uses it to keep them anxious, confused, depressed and scared! But when people choose to be in a salvation relationship with Jesus, they’re indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
And they want to start following the instructions and commands of Jesus because they know He loves them and only wants the best for them … and they’re never alone because now their identity is in Jesus and He never leaves us or forsakes us.
So, they become calm, cool and collected in their emotions and they because assertive, bold, confident and productive in their actions! They’re not emotionally and spiritually trapped by bad circumstances anymore or bad people, even if they’re still physically in the same environment!
The devil tells emotionally wrecked people that they have “no hope”! Satan deceives people into thinking that their physical surroundings and situations control their heart, mind, soul and spirit… but that’s not true. It’s a lie from the pit of Hell! When we submit to Jesus as Lord and Savior, we’re a child of God. The Bible tells us in…
1 John 4:4 NIV - 4 You … Dear Children … Are from God … And have Overcome them … Because The One Who Is In you [JESUS / The HOLY SPIRIT] is Greater than The one who is in The World [SATAN / DEMONS]!
There are countless testimonies of people out there who’ve been saved from the devil’s attempts to destroy their life with his emotional traps, snares and schemes… all through the power of the blood of Jesus… that He shed on the cross, which is God’s plan to cover and forgive our sins: past, present and future when we choose to receive Jesus as our Savior.
Then there’s the people who miss the truth of God’s plan because they spend their entire life chasing the almighty dollar… working hard… trying to build a financial empire. And at the end of their life, they just leave a pile of stuff for their kids that has no eternal value.
It’s sad because they could have been pursuing Jesus, discipling their kids and leading others to Jesus, impacting the eternal trajectory of lost people! They missed the opportunities God would have given them in His plan to advance His kingdom, which builds treasures in heaven!
Matthew 16:26 NIV - 26 What Good will It Be for Someone to Gain The Whole World … Yet Forfeit their Soul? … Or what Can anyone Give in Exchange for their Soul.
Let’s look at another example of two plans in…
Luke 19:28-48 NIV - 28 After Jesus had said this … He went on Ahead … Going up to Jerusalem! ... 29 As He Approached Bethphage and Bethany at The Hill Called The Mount of Olives … He Sent Two of His Disciples … Saying to them … 30 “Go to The Village Ahead of you … And as you Enter It … You will Find a Colt Tied there … Which No One has ever Ridden! ... Untie It … And Bring It Here! … 31 If anyone Asks you … “Why are you Untying It?” … Say … ‘The Lord Needs It!” … 32 Those who were Sent Ahead went and Found It Just as He had Told them! ... 33 As they were Untying The Colt … Its Owners Asked them … “Why are you Untying The Colt?” 34 They Replied … “The Lord Needs It!” … 35 They Brought It to Jesus … Threw their Cloaks on The Colt … And Put Jesus on It! ... 36 As He went Along … People Spread their Cloaks on The Road! ... 37 When He Came Near The Place where The Road goes Down The Mount of Olives … The Whole Crowd of Disciples began Joyfully to Praise God in Loud Voices for All The Miracles they had Seen … 38 “Blessed is The King Who Comes in The Name of The Lord!” … “Peace in Heaven … And Glory in The Highest!” … 39 Some of The Pharisees in The Crowd said to Jesus … “Teacher … Rebuke your Disciples!” … 40 “I Tell you” … He Replied … “If they Keep Quiet … The Stones will Cry Out!” … [True Followers of Jesus can’t Keep Quite] 41 As He Approached Jerusalem and Saw The City … He Wept Over It … 42 And Said … “If you … Even you … Had only Known on this Day what would Bring you Peace … But Now … It is Hidden from your Eyes! ... 43 The Days will Come upon you when your Enemies will Build an Embankment against you … And Encircle you … And Hem you In On every Side! ... 44 They will Dash you to The Ground … You and The Children within your Walls! ... They will Not Leave One Stone on Another … Because you Did Not Recognize The Time of God’s Coming to you!” … 45 When Jesus Entered The Temple Courts … He began to Drive Out those who were Selling! ... 46 “It Is Written” … He Said to them … “My House will Be a House of Prayer … But you Have Made It a Den of Robbers!” … 47 Every Day He was Teaching at The Temple! ... But The Chief Priests … The Teachers of The Law … And The Leaders among The People were Trying to Kill Him! ... 48 Yet they Could Not Find Any Way to Do It … Because All The People Hung on His Words!
This is telling us there’s a cost in standing for the truth. It might even cost us our life! But God’s plan is the only eternal plan worth dying for! Jesus proved it to use in His death on the cross! So, when followers of Jesus choose to confront sin head on, it makes the enemy in hell angry! Then Satan gets busy manipulating people into his evil plan!
And the enemy’s going to attack. The attack could be very aggressive, subtle or subversive. A lot of times the enemy bases their attack on how strong we stand in our faith in Jesus and sometimes it’s based on how much we’re willing to take on for what we believe.
But God’s plan doesn’t call for every follower of Jesus to die a martyrs death! Most of the time He’s just asking us to be willing to die to the worldly things we spend most of our time pursuing! He’s asking us to take a stand for Him at work, school, the gym, social media, etc.
Anytime we take a stand for Jesus, there’s going to be risks! We could lose our career, friends, followers on social media or maybe even family members! It’s the cost of doing spiritual battle for Jesus and if we’re not willing to do it, then all we are is a spiritual prisoner of war!
Now, it doesn’t mean if somebody’s a true, born again, believer they lose their salvation. They’re just neutralized in the battle. They’re not a productive ambassador, warrior, servant or saint for Jesus! They’re kind of life in a self-imposed solitary confinement!
Because the devil’s got them right where he wants them and he didn’t even have to do anything. Now, he knows he doesn’t have the power to take them out of God’s hand, but he can make them miserable or ineffective in the spiritual battle!
So, they’re not advancing the kingdom of heaven and doing any hard to hell! I don’t know who said it first, but we should all want to be the type of follower of Jesus that when we wake up in the morning, the enemy said, “Ugh Oh… he’s up!”
We need to remember, there’s a day coming when we’ll die or Jesus comes back! And we’ll all give an account for the deeds done in the flesh, whether good or evil… and for the opportunities we’ve missed because we didn’t want to jeopardize our worldly preferences!
For those that’re passive, and don’t take a bold stand for Jesus… it’s not that they’ve made a deal with the devil! It’s that they’ve failed to follow the instructions and commands of the one who was willing to die to pay the price for our sins… the only one who could save us from ourselves… and eternal separation from God… His name is Jesus!
The mighty warrior who chose to follow the plan and command of God the Father, to bring glory to His name, by sacrificing His life in full obedience when He didn’t have to. If we fail to honor God by fighting for what’s right, holy and true, we also disappoint Jesus.
When we choose to stay in the demilitarized zone, instead of being in the battle, we have no way to show Jesus we love Him because He said, “if you love me, you’ll follow my commands”! We have to fight the good fight, keep the faith and finish strong!
Sin doesn’t keep us out of heaven... unforgiven sin keeps us out of heaven because it separates us from God! The only way our sin can be forgiven is for each one of us to decide to enter into a salvation relationship with Jesus by submitting to Him as Lord and Savior! It’s the only way!
So, two plans! God’s plan is based on love, grace, mercy, relationship and life. Satan’s plan is based on hate, depravity, destruction, separation and death! We’re either in one or the other! It’s our choice!
We can choose Jesus and be in God’s plan, no matter what our current life circumstances and situation happen to be. But anything other than choosing Jesus puts a person in the enemy’s plan! That’s the truth… the whole truth and nothing but the truth… period!
Which plan have you chosen? If you haven’t decided to follow Jesus, you’re in the enemy’s plan just by default! But you can choose to follow Jesus today, right now, stop waiting! We’re not guaranteed tomorrow! We’re not even guaranteed the next 10 minutes!
But what we are guaranteed is eternity in heaven with God when we choose to submit to Jesus as our Lord and Savior! You don’t get to choose after you die. It’s too late them. Don’t let the enemy fool you! Why would we not choose Jesus and God’s plan! There’s not a good answer to that question.
God loves us and gives us a choice to love Him. Choose to follow Jesus and become a part of God’s Kingdon plan now! This is how simple it is… pray to God… admit and confess that you’re a sinner! Say, “Father, I want to choose Jesus and your plan. I want to be on your side.”
I truly believe that Jesus died on the cross… was buried… and raised from the dead to pay the price for sins! I understand He’s offering me abundant/eternal life in heaven. I accept Him to live in me… change me… work through me… whatever it costs me.
And I thank Him for allowing me to be reborn as a child of God … and to be indwelled with the power of the Holy Spirit! It’s that simple! False Christianity, prophets, religious, priests and preachers will say... you have to count enough beads, chant enough prayers, do enough good work, give enough tithes and offerings…
Some even say things like you have to beat yourself with leather straps to suffer paid like Jesus did. But that’s an insult to Him. He’s already done that in obedience to God on our behalf! He never sinned, but He became all sin so we could have the opportunity to choose salvation and be made righteous in the eyes of God. It’s God’s plan, so it’s the right plan! Make sure you choose Jesus now!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 3-24-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
3/24/2024
How to be A True Follower of Jesus – part 7
Colossians 2: 2-23
Beginning to End – Teach
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about the Biblical decision, instructions and principles for how to be a true follower of Jesus. The goal is to bring glory to God! God’s plan for all this includes us! He expects us to live and speak the truth about Jesus to the world! Jesus Himself gave us the instructions and a process to get it done!
He tells us to LOVE God and others unconditionally and sacrificially, PRAY continually and be THANKFUL to God for everything! Then to GO -MAKE – and TEACH disciples while we ASK – SEEK and KNOCK on the doors of opportunity that God gives us to get His work done!
The last 6 weeks we’ve covered in more detail God’s plan and strategy, including the first 5 critical action items in the instructions and process from Jesus… being: LOVE – PRAY and BE THANKFUL to God for everything. Then GO into the world and MAKE disciples for Jesus. Today we’re going to talk about the action item to “TEACH”…
Colossians 2:2-23 NIV - 2 My Goal is that they May Be Encouraged in Heart … And United in Love … So that they May Have The Full Riches of Complete Understanding … In Order that they May Know The Mystery of God … Namely … Christ … 3 In Whom are Hidden All The Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge! ... 4 I Tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in Spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your Faith in Christ is. 6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives In Him, 7 rooted and built up In Him, strengthened in The Faith as you were taught, and Overflowing with Thankfulness. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of The Deity lives in Bodily Form, 10 and In Christ you have been brought to Fullness. He is The Head over every power and authority. 11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your Faith in The Working of God, Who raised Him from The Dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you Alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to The Cross! 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by The Cross. 16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found In Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with The Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow! 20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules … 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules … Which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body! … But they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
As a follower of Jesus, we know He’s the answer to everything… and in this passage Paul is specifically telling us that Jesus is the answer to man’s philosophy and ritual! Philosophy is inside the mind of man. Ritual is inside the heart of man. Concerning Christian faith, we know that the term Christian does means believing in Jesus Christ but we also know there’s a big difference in believing in Jesus and belonging to Jesus! A disciple of Jesus follows Him in love and obedience, which means as a true follower of Jesus, we’ve submitted to Him as Lord, Savior and King! We’re in a salvation relationship with Him! Our identity is in Him! He bought us at the highest price to Him! It’s only through His perfect life, death, burial and resurrection that we have the opportunity to be made righteous…
… and be reconciled to God! A lot of people have a head knowledge of Jesus and they call themselves Christians. They profess to believe in Him but they have no interest in following His commands and instruction. They follow a false religious system designed by man.
They’ve never fully submitted to Jesus as Lord and Savior, so they’re not transformed by the Holy Spirit. They aren’t saved and reconciled to God but the people who are saved, are a disciple of Jesus. And Jesus calls us to teach them how to be obedient to His instructions and commands.
In the true God glorifying Christian faith, there’s always been a tension or a fine line between the mind and heart of people when it comes to following Jesus. It’s the two points of contention that everybody has to decide between. Follow Jesus or follow the world!
It’s the danger of forcing mankind’s philosophies into Christianity. It makes the truth seem kind of hazy like steam which eventually evaporates and then there’s the danger of forcing mankind’s rituals into Christianity, which freezes the truth into a very rigid system or a restrictive body like ice which eventually melts away.
The Lord Jesus didn’t say, “I’m the steam of life” … and He didn’t say, “I’m the ice of life”… Jesus said, “I’m the water of life”! So, we need to teach people how to guard against following the false religious systems of mankind’s philosophies and rituals which they call Christianity!
While we’re going through this chapter, we need to make an evaluation of our own spiritual walk as a follower of Jesus to see if we’ve slipped into a false religious system of Christianity! God’s Word tells us that the Christian faith is only Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ crucified! So, in this passage Paul teaches us about the dangers of…
5 Religious Systems That True Followers of Jesus Must Guard Against
1) Fine-Sounding Arguments (vs 4-7) – Things that drive the church apart are the arguments of men, like claiming people have to possess a certain kind of spirituality – or show evidence that they have special spiritual gifts – or perform certain rituals. But the Bible says, the love of Jesus is what draws the church together and the love of God knits us together as one body! True love for God and others is the only way we’ll ever attain a full understanding of Biblical principles and receive the benefits of learning more about the mystery of God and Jesus.
So, doing what Jesus says proves we love Him and keeps us maturing in the discipleship process. The body of Christ as the church is the foundation of the mystery of God and Jesus. Now, in the Old Testament, God made it clear that He was going to save Gentiles. Last week we saw, beginning on the Day of Pentecost, God called out a body of believers and they were baptized in the spirit to become unified as the body of Christ, known as the church, which is the basis for true Christian faith! Our truth is the Holy Bible in totality, not just in the parts we like.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 NIV - 12 Just as a Body … Tho’ One … Has many Parts … But All its Many Parts Form One Body … So It Is with Christ! ... 13 For we were All Baptized by One Spirit … So As to Form One Body … Whether Jews or Gentiles … Slave or Free … And we were All Given The One Spirit to Drink!
We’re supposed to be standing shoulder to shoulder as God’s church, fighting the good fight against evil, depravity and the powers of darkness, not wasting time trying to undermine fellow believers because we don’t like their rituals and ceremonies, the way they worship God or how they baptize or the Bible translation they use.
The physical body of Jesus isn’t here anymore! He ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God! But the spiritual body of Jesus is still here in the form of the church, made up of the body of believers who follow Him and do His work as His disciples, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Mankind can’t create a true body of unity. It’s only through the Holy Spirit that we have unity as God’s church! The Holy Spirit puts all believers into unity as the one body of Christ, called the church! And the Bible tells us to keep the unity! One of the biggest problems today is we aren’t doing our part to keep the unity of the church as the one true body of Christ!
2) Hollow and Deceptive Philosophy (vs 8-13) – These are the traditions of men and the ways of the world! The Bible says, “human thinking” and “earthly wisdom” are foolishness in God’s sight because God’s thoughts are infinitely higher and wiser than human thoughts.
False prophets and teachers spew ideas that they’ve conjured up in their own mortal minds. They completely disregard or ignore the truth of God’s Holy Word! Paul traced this kind of deception right back to the spiritual forces of darkness at work in the world!
It proves that philosophy and psychology can’t replace the Bible! We have to know and trust that worldly spiritual powers have been disarmed, disgraced and defeated by Jesus! He’s the head over every power and authority and we’re made complete in Him!
Jesus warns us about false Christs and false prophets! They deny the truth… and they’re always trying to trick God’s people! So, teachers who add to or take away from the simple truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are teaching hollow and deceptive philosophies!
We have to be keenly aware of anybody teaching the traditions of man over the truth of God! And a lot of slick preachers do a really good job of melding the two together, which creates a false Gospel! We only follow the Word of God… not the word of man!
3) Legal Indebtedness (vs 14-17) – This is talking about the ceremonies – sacrifices and other elements of the old covenant that God requires for forgiveness of sin! The Bible says that these were only a shadow of the good things to come, not God’s permanent plan for salvation.
The law condemned, judged and convicted people! The religious sacrifice system would temporarily pardon them, until the high priest declared the next sin. It was kind of like what we see being done to certain people today were a high-ranking official says find me the man and I’ll assign him a crime!
Jesus fulfilled all the moral and ceremonial laws by living a perfect life and dying a sacrificial death… period! So, Jesus didn’t come to destroy the old religious system, He came to make it right… the way God designed it! He came to finish the old covenant and start the new covenant!
So, Jesus secured our eternal salvation through His fulfillment of the law and prophets! Priests don’t have to enter the holy place to offer sacrifices any more! Jesus has done that for everybody who chooses to submit to Him as Lord, Savior and King… once and for all…
… which means we can get all we’ll ever need to be reconciled to God in and through Jesus! It’s what we’re supposed to be teaching His disciples! The more we learn it, the stronger our faith grows in Him! He’s the only source for spiritual wisdom and knowledge we’ll ever need!
Dr. J Vernon McGee said… the next best thing to knowing the answer is knowing where to find the answer. We need to be teaching disciples that every answer we’ll ever need in our spiritual walk with Jesus in our life on earth is in the Word of God! It’s the simple truth of God’s Word!
And we don’t have to be highly intellectual to preach and teach it! The truth and message is so simple that a child can understand it! One of the enemy’s tricks is to make law so complicated that nobody can fully understand it… whether it’s the law of government or religions!
But God’s law is simple! He gave us 10 of them. They’re all based on unconditional, sacrificial, obedient love! They’re clear boundaries that guide us in living out the 9 action items in the instructions and commands from Jesus that we do because we love Him.
4) False Humility and Worship of Angels (vs 18-19) – This can also be mysticism… but for the sake of identifying and teaching against false Christianity these are denominations that practice spiritual obligations and duties from religious traditions that are created by man!
The origin is usually from some arrogant religious leader/leaders who’d take on or have bestowed on them a religious ranking, title or office that has no Biblical credibility at all! Then, they’d just decide how the denomination would practice faith and worship!
(vs 19) says… they’ve lost connection with the head. The head of the body of the church is Jesus. So, this means that they were only connected to Jesus through intellectual knowledge. They were never in a true salvation relationship with Jesus having been baptized and transformed by the Holy Spirit.
5) Submitting to The World’s Rules (vs 20-23) Pastors who fall into this type of worldly philosophy are usually prideful! They lead from a secular perspective and get caught up in the latest passing fads that are designed by church consultants and para-ministries!
We’ve seen it with our own eyes and thankfully God removed us from it! The longer these pastors use worldly strategies for doing God’s work, the farther away they get from God’s plan. Eventually, they can’t even see their disobedience to God’s Word and plan!
Sadly, they usually become so arrogant, they refuse to listen to advice, counsel, teaching or be held accountable by fellow believers. Now, disciples aren’t just going to know these things. They have to be taught.
The Bible is full of teaching about the benefit of knowledge and wisdom. Both are related but they’re not the same thing! Knowledge is info gained through study, experience or reasoning! Wisdom is the ability to discern or judge what’s true, right and eternal.
Knowledge can exist without wisdom, but wisdom can’t exist without knowledge. So, to gain knowledge of God’s Word, we have to pray, be taught, study and meditate on the entirety of God’s Holy Word!
To gain spiritual wisdom, we have to discern the true, right and proper actions to take in any given circumstance or situation based on the knowledge we’ve acquired from being taught and learning God’s Word! A simple way to say it is… wisdom is the correct application of knowledge.
Knowledge sees the light has turned red… wisdom applies the brakes! Knowledge sees the quicksand… wisdom walks around it. Knowledge is knowing how to start a fire… wisdom is knowing when and where to start it! So, a person can be knowledgeable without being wise!
Knowledge memorizes the 10 Commandments… wisdom obeys them. Knowledge learns all about God… wisdom loves Him unconditionally, sacrificially and obediently. God wants us to know knowledge of Him and He wants us to know what He expects of and from us!
If we’re going to obey Jesus, we have to know and understand His commands and instructions. So, it stands to reason that it’s equally important for us to wisely and properly apply the knowledge from and about God to our life!
Which means knowing facts about God and the Bible is not all there is to wisdom. The book of James tells us that wisdom is a gift from God! God blesses us with wisdom so we can glorify Him and use the knowledge we have of Him to do good. Now. Let’s get busy teaching it…
… because the discipleship process for a follower of Jesus starts with the teaching of Biblical knowledge and wisdom! Staying true to the Biblical principles of truth and teaching is how God imparts the wisdom of Jesus into us through the power of the Holy Spirit!
1 Corinthians 1:30-31 NIV - 30 It Is because of Him That you are In Christ Jesus … Who has Become for Us Wisdom from God … That Is … Our Righteousness … Holiness … And Redemption! ... 31 Therefore … As It Is Written … “Let The One who Boasts … Boast in The Lord!
So, we ought to love the wisdom that God imparts to us, the same way we love Him! Then, love Jesus and others enough to follow His instructions and teach them all about God’s love, truth, wisdom and plan… because every follower of Jesus is called to teach somebody.
Matthew 28:20 NIV - 20 … And Teaching them to “Obey Everything” I have Commanded you! … And Surely I Am With you Always … To The Very End of The Age”!
If each one will teach one, we’ll all become better ambassadors, warriors, servants, saints and disciples of Jesus. The remnant gets stronger and better… God’s kingdom is advanced… and the enemy gets weaker!
The Bible template for the structure of teaching is for all followers of Jesus to teach the truth of the Gospel when God gives us the opportunity, whether it’s in the church, home, office, school room, board room, the job, the street, community, friends… everywhere!
It’s how we “walk in Jesus”! When Paul wrote to Timothy, he emphasized the importance of preaching and teaching the entire Word of God! So, in the mission and ministry of the church, teaching is clearly a critical responsibility for all followers of Jesus!
2 Timothy 4:2 NIV - 2 Preach The Word … Be Prepared in Season … And Out of Season … Correct … Rebuke … And Encourage with Great Patience … And “Careful Instruction” (a.k.a. TEACHING).
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 3-17-24
BELIEVE IN THE TRUTH
JOHN 14-6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 2-25-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
2/25/2024
How to be a True Follower of Jesus pt 3
1 Thessalonians 5:12-25
Beginning to End … Pray like Jesus!
God’s got a plan! He created us for His glory and pleasure! Sin separates us from God, but if we choose to receive the free gift of salvation from Jesus, He saves us from our sin and reconciles us to God. Then, we become citizens of heaven and we’re just passing through this life on earth!
Our identity is "IN" Jesus and we become a follower of Him. So, God includes us in His plan. We’re an ambassador, warrior, servant or saint for Jesus! And, if we want to honor God, we’ll follow the instructions that Jesus gave us when God raised Him from the dead!
The instructions are called the Great Commission and Jesus gave them to us right before He ascended into heaven to be seated at God’s right hand! It’s the basic outline for the life and work that Jesus expects all His followers to be doing until He returns or He calls us home.
We know the instructions for life Jesus gave us are to LOVE – PRAY and BE THANKFUL for all things… GO – MAKE – and TEACH disciples… ASK – SEEK – and KNOCK on the doors of opportunity that God gives us to serve. These 9 action items are the way every follower of Jesus brings glory to God!
Last week we started with the greatest command in God’s plan and the instructions from Jesus which is to love God and others unconditionally and sacrificially! It’s the entire foundation of God’s law! So, the 10 Commandments from God are based on God’s love!
Now, the second part of God’s plan and the instructions from Jesus is to pray continually… and pray according to God’s will! Praying according to God’s will includes asking Him for wisdom, word and ways to get His kingdom work done, so we can all accomplish His will!
Also, we pray for the faith to trust the will and way that God gives us to accomplish the work He has for us to get done! And, when we pray for wisdom, we have to trust that God is always gracious and willing to answer our prayers for His glory, which is always good for us!
So, when the instruction is for sure from God, He’ll always give us the right thing to do at the right time. And it’s always right, no matter what the world says or what our own prior experiences tell us! So, how do we know for sure it’s from God? We pray and we discern!
1 Thessalonians 5:12-25 NIV – 12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in The Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. 16 Rejoice always, 17 Pray continually, 18 give Thanks in all circumstances … for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Do not quench The Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil. 23 May God Himself, The God of Peace, sanctify you through and through ... May your whole :> - Spirit – Soul - and Body be kept blameless at The Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The One Who calls you is Faithful, and He will do it. 25 Brothers and Sisters … Pray for us! …
Think about this… The Bible isn’t going to tell us what to do or what not to do that isn’t the right thing to do... or something that’s not the will of God! So, why wouldn’t we be working hard to do it? The best life practice is to pray continually, which means consistently and constantly!
So, as for a follower of Jesus, we have to make prayer a way of life! We pray, learn and train how to be in a continual attitude of prayer from our heart! Not just a programmed activity or kneeling and reciting some form of pre-printed prayers!
True followers of Jesus ought to recognize that our natural power is insufficient against the super natural forces of darkness. So, we’re okay being totally depended on the Holy Spirit of God to help us fight spiritual battels. It’s why we have to be in a constant attitude of prayer.
Because everything in this life is prone to be impacted by the enemy in spiritual battle! The Good News is that prayerful followers of Jesus, who trust in the power of the Holy Spirit can have true joy and peace in the midst of spiritual battles and the struggles of life!
The ultimate example of the right attitude we ought to strive for in prayer is the prayer of Jesus on the night before His crucifixion! He petitioned the Father for relief from the suffering, but He stayed faithful, loyal and obedient to endure it for God’s will and glory!
Luke 22:42 NIV – 42 “Father, if You are Willing, take this Cup from Me; yet Not My Will, but Yours be done!”
So, the urgent advice and encouragement from Paul to all believers is “pray continually”! It’s a mandate from God! The Greek word for prayer in the New Testament encompasses all the aspects of prayer: praise, submission, confession, intercession, petition and thanksgiving!
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray the way He prayed… and He gave them a template or outline for how we should form prayer in our heart as we talk to God! We see the response Jesus gave the disciples in…
Matthew 6:9-13 NIV – 9 “This, then, is how you should Pray … “‘Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your Name, 10 Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done, on earth as It is in Heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
We know that Jesus perfectly practiced what He preached (100%). So, we need to follow His lead and gain the wisdom to pray like Jesus prays! The best way to do it is to look at the circumstances Jesus faced… listen to the words He spoke… and learn from His positive attitude!
Pray Like Jesus
1) Follow His Example!
Jesus was fully God and fully human! He had a physical body and a human mind. His human body and mind wasn’t somehow absorbed into Him being God… which means he experienced everything we do: pain, suffering, emotion, temptation – everything!
So, Jesus was completely human! The Bible says, “He was as we are, but without sin!” As a human, Jesus exuded a positive attitude as a leader, teacher, friend and an authoritative miracle worker… but sometimes His soul was very sorrowful…
… especially on the night before His crucifixion! We know it’s cold that night because the servants of the high priest had built a fire to huddle around. But Jesus is sweating profusely! And it’s not because He’s afraid to suffer horrific torture and be murdered.
It’s because of the reason He’s being subjected to all this! The reason is because God’s creation… God’s people... haven’t loved God the way He’s loved them! They’ve egregiously sinned against God and separated themselves from Him! So, Jesus has not saved us from ourselves!
The burden of His mission is putting “intense pressure” on His emotions… and the only way to be at peace with it is to pray! He cries out to God in prayer! God gives His answer… and Jesus carries on with the decision with confidence, courage and peace.
It’s overwhelming to think about the weight of the responsibility on Jesus… the creator of the universe… and the physical suffering He’s about to endure… plus the sorrow He feels for people who dishonor God in such a disrespectful way. But He’s going to follow the will of God no matter what! So, yes, we need to prayerfully follow His perfect example! Then,
2) Listen to His Instruction!
Jesus is reminding us that God always gives the right thing to do at the right time, no matter how difficult or wrong it might seem to us at the time. Jesus was in intense distress when he prayed for God to allow this responsibility to pass!
But God had His reasons for not granting the request made by Jesus… and Jesus obeyed because He wasn’t relying on the prayer itself. Prayer is just the means of communication. Jesus was trusting God to answer His prayer according to God’s wisdom!
Jesus is telling us that our faith doesn’t need to be in the fact we prayed. That makes it about us. Our faith and trust is in the Father who answers the prayers! Then, we’re to be obedient in taking the action God gives because God gives good things to those who ask Him. Then,
3) Learn from His Teaching!
Jesus was the perfect person… and He’s the perfect God. So, we need to try our best to be the perfect student and learn from His perfect teaching! We’re going to look at 3 ways to learn from His teaching so we can pray like Jesus prays!
I. Learn from The Person of Jesus (His Incarnation).
Jesus isn’t a detached Savior! He’s involved! His willingness to identify with sinful man got Him in trouble with the religious leaders, but only because He is who He says He is… the eternal sovereign God in human flesh!
He came in human flesh and lived among disease, death, blasphemers, poverty, sadness – all of it! He was a social and religious outcast among the religious elite! He faced everything bad that humans could face! He was exactly what He calls us to be… salt and light!
He did real ministry among real people! We’ll never reach people with the truth if we refuse to understand what they’re faced with… and help them understand the supernatural forces they’re being manipulated by! Religion doesn’t save people… Jesus does!
II. Learning from The Passion of Jesus.
Jesus understands turmoil! When we’re under intense pressure… or overwhelmed with any kind of emotion… or there’s something we can’t get settled in our soul, we learn from and then lean on praying with the passion that Jesus prayed with in the garden!
Jesus experienced everything He experienced and endured it because it was the Father’s will! Jesus is always with us, so we don’t have to endure the struggles, distress, suffering trials and temptations alone! We’ll always find relief when we look to Him!
He may not deliver us from the storms or problems, but He’ll be right beside us through every bit of whatever it is! It’s because of His sufferings that we can have confidence, courage, certainty and faith! Prayer is how we rejoice through it all and it’s with Him!
III. Learning from The Petition of Jesus.
This might be the most important one because we learn that God doesn’t grant all requests… even from Jesus! When Jesus prayed to ask God if there was any other way, He encompassed His prayer in His affection for God… and inside the will of God!
Jesus knew before He prayed and asked that “In God’s wisdom”… He doesn’t always give us what we ask for! And praise Jesus that He doesn’t because sometimes what we ask for isn’t the best thing for us!
In God’s economy the things we think are “good” might actually turn out to be bad! And what we think might be bad could be an important part of God’s plan to train and equip us to be a better follower of Jesus!
If we don’t take into consideration how faithfully Jesus prayed during His earthly ministry, then we won’t understand and fully benefit from the Biblical command to pray continually. The New Testament gives us all kinds of examples of the consistent prayer life of Jesus and here are…
7 Biblical Instructions for Praying like Jesus
1) Pray for The Things The Bible Commands us to Pray for!
The Bible tells us to pray for our enemies, for missionaries, protection from temptation, for messengers of the Word, for government leaders, for relief from affliction and for the healing of fellow believers! So, where God commands prayer, we can be confident that we’re praying according to His will!
2) Learn from The Prayers of Godly Characters in Scripture!
Paul prayed for the salvation of Israel! David prayed for mercy and forgiveness when he sinned! The early church prayed for boldness to witness! All of these prayers were according to the will of God, just like our prayers ought to be today!
3) Pray with The Right Motive!
The Bible says selfish motives won’t be blessed by God! Also, we’re not supposed to pray just so people get to hear our religious words and see how spiritual we are! We’re mostly supposed to pray from our heart… according to God’s will. Then, we’ll be blessed!
4) Pray with a Spirit of Forgiveness Toward Others!
The Bible says a spirit of bitterness, anger, revenge or hatred toward others doesn’t allow our hearts to pray in total submission to God! Just like we’re told not to give offerings to God to try and resolve a conflict with a fellow believer. God doesn’t want us offering prayer for petitions until we reconcile conflicts with our brothers and sisters in Christ!
5) Pray with Thanksgiving!
We can always find something to be thankful for, no matter what or how bad we think things are in our life! We don’t have to like bad things, but we have to find a way to be thankful! It’s not easy, but it’s possible because all things are possible through Christ who strengthens us!
6) Pray with Persistence!
Just like every good thing in life, we should persevere in prayer! Never quit or be depressed/dejected because we don’t get an immediate answer or the answer we want! Part of praying in God’s will is believing in God’s perfect timing. His answer is Yes – No – or wait! We’re going to accept His judgment, submit to His will and keep on praying!
7) Rely on The Holy Spirit of God in Prayer!
The Bible says… when “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will”!
We have the Holy Spirit’s help in praying! So, at the times of our deepest depression or sorrow … and we feel like we just can’t pray… we have the promise of knowing that the Holy Spirit is actually praying for us! Man!! God is AMAZING!!
God’s got stuff for us to do! So, we need to always be in an “attitude of prayer” from the heart. While we’re praying, we need to keep the belief, faith and trust that God’s working all things together for our good… no matter what our current circumstances happen to be!
Romans 8:28 NIV – 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who Love Him, who have been called according to His Purpose.
So, if we really do want to accomplish God’s purposes… and we really want to pray like Jesus, then we’ll submit our will to God, The Father’s will, in every circumstance and situation, with the attitude of prayer that Jesus taught us when He said to God, “Not My will, but Yours!”
How do we get the stuff done that God’s got for us to do? We start by loving God unconditionally, loving others sacrificially… and praying like Jesus continually! Next week we’ll talk about being thankful in “all things”!
Let us pray…
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 2-18-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
2/18/2024
How to be a True Follower of Jesus pt 2
Romans 13:8-10
Beginning to End
So last week we started this series talking about the first step in the process of being a true follower of Jesus is making the personal decision to receive the gift of eternal life in heaven by submitting to Jesus as Lord, Savior and King. It’s called salvation. Jesus said in…
John 10:27-30 NIV - 27 My Sheep Listen to My Voice … I Know them … And they Follow Me! … 28 I Give them Eternal Life … And they Shall Never Perish … No One will Snatch them Out of My Hand! ... 29 My Father … Who has Given them to Me … Is Greater than All … No One Can Snatch them Out of My Father’s Hand! … 30 I and The Father Are One!” … So, there's a process that starts at our salvation in Jesus!
Our eternity in heaven is 100% secure from this point forward because we’ve received the sacrificial gift Jesus gave when He shed His blood and died on the cross on our behalf. His acts of obedience and love for the Father paid the full price of our entire sin debt, which was death and separation from God. The Bible says in…
Romans 6:23 NIV - 23 For the wages of sin is death, but The Gift of God is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Our identity in Jesus is established at the point of our salvation. Likewise, a person who never makes the decision to receive the gift of salvation through Jesus is separated from God. They basically concede to spend their eternity in hell. It’s the only other option for people who reject following Jesus.
Once we decide to receive salvation, we’re immediately ready to start the sanctification process of following and serving Jesus on mission and in ministry! We should also publicly declare our love for Jesus and our decision to follow Him by following His example of baptism by emersion in water.
At salvation we belong to Him. Now it’s time to go to work… and we ought to be excited about it because He paid the highest price that could ever be paid to get us! So, no matter what anybody else tries to tell us, we’re extremely valuable! And we’re locked and loaded with Holy Spirit power!
Which means we’ve got the potential to become an elite high speed operator as an ambassador, warrior, servant or saint for the Kingdom of God! We’re covered on the outside by the blood of Jesus and filled on the inside with the Holy Spirit power of God!
So, there’s no excuse! We have to stand up and fight for what’s good, right, holy and pure. We’re invincible against the weaker supernatural forces of evil and darkness. Sometimes it will be fun. Most times it will be a battle, but there’s always going to be sacrifice!
Matthew 10:38-39 NIV - 38 Whoever does Not Take Up their Cross and Follow Me is Not Worthy of Me! ... 39 Whoever Finds their Life will Lose It … And whoever Loses their Life for My Sake will Find It!
If we love Jesus, then we’re going to follow Him… and the way we follow Him is to follow His instructions. We know that His instructions are to love, pray, and be thankful for all things...go, make and teach disciples… ask, seek and knock on the doors of opportunity that God gives us to serve. Today we’re going to cover all that.
So, for a follower of Jesus, Love isn’t just a once a year kind of thing! It’s a daily process of self-sacrifice. And the only way to fulfill the Law of God is to learn how to love God the way He loves us… and love others the way we love ourselves. In other words, loving the way God loves is the only way to fulfill the law of God!
Romans 13:8-10 NIV - 8 Let No Debt Remain Outstanding … Except The Continuing Debt to Love One Another … For whoever Loves Others has Fulfilled The Law! … 9 The Commandments :> - “You Shall Not Commit Adultery!” - “You Shall Not Murder!” - “You Shall Not Steal!” - “You Shall Not Covet!”- and Whatever Other Command there may Be … Are “Summed Up” in this One Command … “Love your Neighbor as yourself!” 10 Love does No harm to a Neighbor! ... Therefore Love is The Fulfillment of The Law! …
In this passage Paul is saying that at our salvation, Jesus changes our sin debt into love debt. He gives us 4 of the 10 commandments as examples. The 7th, 6th, 8th and 10th! But we know that all 10 apply to the principle of love debt because he says in (vs 9) and “Whatever other command there may be.”
So, God’s law is summed up in one statement! “Love your neighbor as yourself!” The key to obeying the law is love! If we love, then we’re going to obey the law. It’s just that simple! To declare, “You shall not commit adultery!” is a moot point if we truly love somebody!
People never come to me for counsel and say, “I committed adultery because I love my spouse too much!” No… the problem is they committed adultery because they don’t love “Jesus and their spouse” enough! Unconditional/sacrificial love doesn’t defile the covenant of marriage!
True love doesn’t steal purity or rob holiness. That’s what lust and selfishness does. People don’t commit adultery and fornication when the love others too much. They can’t control their lust, so they do things like that because they don’t love God and others enough.
Same thing goes for murder. If we really love somebody, we don’t have to be reminded not to murder them. And if we really love people the way Jesus does, then it’s a moot point to say, “You shall not steal!”… because we’re not going to take things that don’t belong to us and…
If we really love God and others, were not going to covet the things other people have. So, love doesn’t replace the law… love fulfills the law. In other words, love gives us the bottom line goal for understanding how the entire plan and law of God can be fulfilled.
Paul’s telling us that God’s not just after our outward obedience. The pharisees all bragged about never committing adultery, murder, stealing or coveting. But they were full of it in their hearts! They hated Gentiles so much that they had murderous thoughts about them.
And they coveted things they didn’t have! They’d justify stealing things in their minds by creating false narratives against other people just like they did with Jesus. So, they were committing adultery against God in their hearts and minds. Sound familiar? Think about it…
We’ve got all kinds of laws with legal definitions, but people are continually scheming ways to skirt the law so they don’t have to fulfill the true intent of it. The Bible says, God’s intent for us is to love others sacrificially and unconditionally so we don’t want to commit sin against them.
The motivation for a lot of people to obey the law is trying to meet some kind of religious expectation or obligation. Other people are just afraid of getting caught and being punished. Now, the fear of getting caught works sometimes, but it’s not complete.
Some people just obey God’s law out of self-interest. They feel like if they live a moral life, then God will have to reward them for it! That’s not a pure motive. It’s selfishness… and then the thought of God’s wrath does keep some people from doing evil things…
All of these reasons might keep people from doing bad things. And maybe even motivate some of them to do good things but all of it is incomplete if they don’t love God unconditionally and love others sacrificially because they’re not fully obeying God’s law.
If we really want to honor God, then we’ll want to keep His commands out of love for Jesus! Not because we feel like we have to. We just really want to! God’s intention for the law is to help us develop true love in our heart. It’s the way God designed His law to be fulfilled inside His plan.
So, the foundational principle of God’s plan is unconditional/sacrificial love. To help us understand it, we’re going to look at how the 10 commandments are all about the Law of Love. The first four relate to the love for God. The other six relate to our relationship with each other.
The 10 commandments are in Exodus 20: 3-17. And I’m not going to read them all right now because we’re going to go through them individually. So, we can expand on how God has imbedded…
1) Love is Loyal – (vs 3) … 3 “You Shall have No Other gods Before Me!”
Loyalty to Jesus is a perfect description of love! Love is true. It’s single-minded. It’s not fickle. True love for God means there’s no higher love for some other deity or some other worldly pursuit. If we really love God, we’ll be faithful to Jesus and loyal to God!
2) Love is Faithful – (vs 4-6) … 4 “You Shall Not make for yourself an Image In The Form of Anything in Heaven Above … Or on The Earth Beneath … Or in The Waters Below! ... 5 You Shall Not Bow Down to them … Or Worship them … For ~I~ … The Lord your God … Am a Jealous God … Punishing The children for The Sin of The Parents to The Third and Fourth Generation of those who Hate Me … 6 But Showing Love to a Thousand Generations of those who Love Me … And Keep My Commandments!
True love keeps it’s promise! It’s devoted to and trusts it’s objective. True love is obedient. And where it applies, love is devoted to its subjects… and the most important thing is “faith and trust” in Jesus takes love to a whole other dimension.
3) Love is Reverent – (vs 7) … 7 “You Shall Not Misuse The Name of The Lord your God … For The Lord will Not Hold anyone Guiltless who Misuses His Name!
If we love God, we won’t curse His name. If we truly love God, we won’t use His name as a “cuss word”! It’s just disrespectful! For us to love God in the manner He deserves, we have to love Him in a deeply respectful way! It’s also the way we demonstrate the true love of God to others!
4) Love is Holy – (vs 8-11) … 8 “Remember The Sabbath Day by Keeping It Holy! ... 9 Six Days you Shall Labor and Do All your Work … 10 But The Seventh Day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God! ... On It you Shall Not Do Any Work … Neither you … Nor your Son or Daughter … Nor your Male or Female Servant … Nor your Animals … Nor Any Foreigner Residing in your Towns! ... 11 For in Six Days The Lord made The Heavens and The Earth … The Sea … And All that is In Them … But He Rested on The Seventh Day! ... Therefore The Lord Blessed The Sabbath Day … And made It Holy!
True love sets apart a time for pure, uncompromised, devoted, undefiled worship! Love recognizes the place of God! If we say we love God, we’re going to worship, serve and honor Him! We’re going to be faithful to Him, His commandments and His entire Word!
So, the first four commandments sum up what Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 22… that the greatest commandment is to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength! If people would love God this way, it would fulfill all the law. It’s just that simple! It’s part of our job to show them and teach them how.
Now, the next six commandments are the ones that speak about love toward others. And the four commandments that Paul refers to back in our primary passage for today are part of these six! Paul didn’t use #5 in the passage, but it tells us that…
5) Love is Respectful – (vs 12) … 12 “Honor your Father and your Mother … So That you May Live Long in The Land The Lord your God is Giving you!
So, true love yields to authority. It respects those who are worthy of respect… whether it’s in title, office, position or action. If we love our “Mother and Father,” we’re going to honor them. Honor is a deep reverential respect! So, true love is respectful.
6) Love is Protective – (vs 13) … 13 “You Shall Not Murder!
God gives life… and makes everyone in His image. So, true love believes every life is sacred! True love doesn’t abort, slaughter or commit genocide against human life. God’s design for love is to protect.
7) Love is Pure – (vs 14) … 14 “You Shall Not Commit Adultery!
True love doesn’t defile other people! God’s love glorifies all that is holy, pure, good and virtuous! God’s love honors, trusts and endures covenants and promises!
😎 Love is Unselfish – (vs 15) … 15 “You Shall Not Steal!
True love doesn’t take what belongs to somebody else! God’s love is all about being humble… and willing to give people things they don’t have… not taking things that don’t belong to us.
9) Love is Truthful – (vs 16) … 16 “You Shall Not Give False Testimony against your Neighbor!
True love doesn’t spin up false narratives about other people for purposes of gaining power and control. God’s love doesn’t lie about people to tear them down. People who bear false witness and give false testimony about others are going to answer to God one day and it’s going to be extremely bad for them!
10) Love is Content – (vs 17) … 17 “You Shall Not Covet your Neighbor’s House! ... You Shall Not Covet your Neighbor’s Wife … Or his Male or Female Servant … His Ox or Donkey … Or Anything that Belongs to your Neighbor!”
True love is thankful and satisfied in all circumstances and situations. We have to learn to be content when we have very little or a whole lot! Whether things in our life are good… or bad. We’re not supposed to be jealous of what other people have.
The point to all this is true love fulfills the entirety of God’s law. So, numbers 5 through 10 fulfill the second part of the greatest commandment that Jesus quoted to, “Love your neighbor as yourself!” In other words, what Paul is saying is love sums up and fulfills the entire Law of God!
So, the entire law of God in the 10 Commandments is summed up in two things… “Love God… Love Others!” That’s it! That’s the fullness of the law! It’s all right there in those two simple things!
People say, but the Bible’s so thick, complicated and hard to understand. So, how are we supposed to know all the rules, instructions, commands and principles? Let alone abide by them! It’s very simple… love God… love others… then just do what’s right!
Then people say, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Nope… that’s exactly what it means! “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength… love your neighbor as yourself.” If you can live with that mindset and in those conditions, what we want will be exactly what God wants!
It’s how God’s law is fulfilled! Love people unconditionally and sacrificially. And loving ourselves isn’t talking about some kind of psychological “self-love”! It’s not saying we need to learn how to have a healthy self-image.
He’s just saying that we tend to take care of ourselves “more and better” than we take care of anybody else! So, we should be as concerned about the comfort, happiness, peace and joy of others as we are about our own!
It’s what the Bible is talking about when it says Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them! As His followers, we’re supposed to fulfill God’s law as well, but it has to come from a heart of love inside us… and that only comes when we trust in the work of Jesus Christ at the cross!
Jesus fulfilled God’s law obediently, perfectly and prophetically, which is also the perfect expression of God’s love! Every way Jesus was called to fulfill God’s plan, He fulfilled it with perfect love! So, we’re called to love and if we love we fulfill God’s law!
John 13:34-35 NIV - 34 “A New Command I Give you … Love One Another! ... As I have Loved you … So you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”
So, I want to read a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 that John MacArthur got from a mission group in South Africa! And it clearly explains how a true follower of Jesus is to think about the “Love of God and others”!
Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 from a Message by John MacArthur
“If I know their language perfectly and speak like a native, But don’t have God’s Love for them, I’m nothing. If I have diplomas and degrees and know all the up-to-date methods and technology, But don’t have The Mercy of God’s understanding Love, I’m nothing. If I am able to argue successfully against the false religions of the people and make fools of them, But don’t have God’s Compassionate Love, I am nothing. If I have :> - strong faith - great ideals - and magnificent plans, But don’t have The Love of Jesus that :> - sweats - bleeds - weeps – prays - and pleads, I’m nothing. If I give my clothes and money to them, But don’t explain The Unconditional Love God has for them, I’m nothing. If I give up all my plans for worldly wealth, leave my home and friends, make the sacrifices of a missionary career, But turn sour and selfish because of the daily annoyances and slights that the world throws at a follower of Jesus, And don’t have God’s Love that requires me to give up my :> - rights – leisure - and preferred plans, I am nothing. My Virtue will have ceased to exist. If I can heal all kinds of sickness and disease in an attempt to show that God’s Love is kind, But in the process I wound hearts and hurt feelings, I am nothing. If I write articles or publish books that win applause … But fail to Deliver The Truth of God’s Word and The Gospel of Jesus Christ with The Language of God’s Love, I am nothing.”
We owe a “debt of love” to Jesus and the only way we can repay Him is to love God and others the way He does! It’s possible because we have a new capacity. We’ve been given a new command, and the new command is that we love sacrificially and unconditionally!
God’s design is for us to fulfill His law! But His intention isn’t that we fulfill it through obligation, it’s that we fulfill it through the love Jesus provides us at salvation and then the sanctification we build the kingdom work we do through the Holy Spirit of God!
If there’s anything that marks a true follower of Jesus, it’s the expression of God’s sacrificially and unconditionally love from Him… through us… to the world! And the world is watching us … and so is Jesus!
It’s why it’s so important that our love of God and others aligns with Jesus in both the little things and the big things! It’s how God’s law is fulfilled through us… and our part of God’s plan is complete! We can be 100% confident that we have the ability to get it done because the Bible says…
Romans 8:38-39 NIV - 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from The Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!
We know that the greatest example of love is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself! His love is the model… and His love is fully unconditional and sacrificial. He even gave Himself for those people who refuse “the gift”!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 2-4-24
Church Sermon Notes
2/4/2024
God’s Promises
1 Timothy 4:4-11
God has a plan and the components of His plan include His creation, truth, power, presence, revelation, words, will, ways and promises! His plan also includes us! He allows us to know, experience and encounter Him at a very high level, if we choose to do so!
He created us in His image and He’s given us the freedom to choose to love Him or not… because it’s the only way to prove true love is authentic and unconditional. If we really love Him, then we’ll want to do what He says. Not to “have to” but “get to” a.k.a. want to.
1 Timothy 4:4-11 NIV - 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by The Word of God and Prayer. 6 If you point these things out to The brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on The Truths of The Faith and of The Good Teaching that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be Godly. 8 For physical training is of some value, but Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and The Life to come. 9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. 10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in The Living God, Who is The Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. 11 Command and teach these things! …
(vs 11) Tells us we’ve all got a responsibility to command and teach the truth!
God created us with a very powerful brain so that we’d have the ability to do anything and everything He’s called, commanded and designed us to do for Him! So, we should want to serve our King Jesus in the role of ambassador, warrior, servant, saint or all the above!
And as a follower of Jesus, God’s plan includes everything we need physically, spiritually and emotionally to be successful in life for His purposes and for victory in spiritual battles for His glory! The tools and weapons He provides for us include His: word, will and ways!
Another reason God gave us a powerful brain is so we can experience and encounter Him. And, if all that isn’t enough for us to want to love and serve Him with 100% loyalty, confidence, courage and obedience, “God’s promises” for us are also included in His plan.
Neuroscientists (experts who study the brain and nervous system) have somehow determined that the average person has between 6,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day! That’s a wide range of thoughts! And even though it’s hard to trust what experts say these days…
We’d all agree that our minds do a lot of work! We’ve got a lot of thoughts! Now, as a follower of Jesus, we’re supposed to stay focused on Him. So, the question is, how many of our daily, hourly, by the minute thoughts are grounded and based on God’s promises!?!
We’ve already determined God’s plan included us… (vs 4) He created us to have a physical life here on earth. Then, Jesus spiritually equips us with the power of the Holy Spirit… and God also gives us a means of emotional support through our relationships with other brothers and sisters in Christ.
Inside God’s plan and design for our life are a lot of different relationships and purposes He has for us. One of the most important purposes we have in life is to fight spiritual battles waged against us by the supernatural enemies of God. We want to be as successful and productive as possible in winning a lot of victories for Jesus and advancing God’s Kingdom.
So, we have to stay true to the process of following Jesus and always be discerning our spiritual condition with God as an individual, family, church, community and nation! All of this seems like a lot of stuff to be getting done and a lot of responsibility …and it is!
But if we’re following Jesus, He’s with us every step of the way. And the power of the Holy Spirit is inside us, waiting for us to call on Him whenever we need Him! So, we don’t have to be overwhelmed or worried about the scope of God’s plan. The secret to success is the better we get to know God, the easier it gets for us to follow and fulfill His plan.
Some people don’t care about God’s plan, which means they’re rejecting Jesus! Some are just oblivious to it! Others are aware of it… and may even try to follow it. But it still overwhelms them. So, they only get involved at a bare minimum… they never submit to Jesus!
It’s a shame because they’ll never fully experience the true peace, joy and fulfillment that God desires and designs for us in His plan when we submit to Jesus as our Lord and Savior! God doesn’t want us to be overwhelmed and uncertain… He wants us to be encouraged and confident!
So, He’s made us a bunch of promises that we can trust with 100% certainty He’ll be faithful to keep! That’s why it’s super important for us to know, believe and trust in all of God’s promises! The Bible gives us more than 3,000 of God’s promises! And, like I said, we can bank on all of them with 100% confidence! God’s promises include…
1. God has a Good Plan for us … to Bless us … and Make us a Blessing to Others!
2. God will Give us Rest!
3. God will Give us Strength Equal to The Task He Assigns us!
4. God will Provide our “Daily Bread”!
5. Nothing will Separate us from God’s Love!
6. He Bears our Burdens … and He Fights for us.
7. He Delights to Give us Access to The Kingdom!
8. The Holy Spirit Prays Things that we Don’t Know to Pray for ourselves!
9. He will Never Leave us or Forsake us!
10. He will Supply All our Needs According to His Riches in Christ Jesus!
That’s only 10. So, there’s 2,990 more to go and we’re going to cover all of them today! (Not really!) But we’re going to look at a few more! And for a homework assignment that will benefit us if we’ll do it… find the Bible address of the 10 promises we just covered!
Then, in the rest of the message I’m going to give some addresses, but not always the complete verse. So, look up these verses as well! Now, think about it, even if those were the only 10 promises from God, we ought to feel pretty good about his plan for us! No wonder King David said in…
Psalm 139:17-18 NIV - 17How precious to me are Your Thoughts, God! How vast is The Sum of Them! 18 Were I to count Them, They would outnumber the grains of sand … When I awake, I am still with You!
So, if we truly believe God, have faith in Jesus, and trust in the Holy Spirit… why is it that when we’re faced with a problem or an ongoing bad situation, we dedicate the bulk of our thoughts to the problem and give very little (if any) thought to the promises of God?
The answer is that we give in to our selfish, human, sin nature instead of pursuing Jesus with everything we’ve got to find out what God wants us to learn from the situation. God has promised to deliver us, but it only benefits us if we’ve learned the lesson.
So, God will leave us in the equipping classroom until we’re either fully broken, submitted and humbled to His plan or truly content in our heart with our situation no matter what it happens to be! And He knows the difference!
We don’t get a free pass on the lessons of life. Jesus said it would be hard. We “get to” suffer with Him. But God promises a peace that goes beyond our understanding when we pursue Jesus with all our heart! And He’s always faithful! And it’s real! Somebody testify!
Our confidence, security and joy in life will be in direct proportion to our awareness of the promises of God! It’s why we need to read, learn, understand, meditate on, memorize, believe and trust in God’s promises! Moses said it best in…
Deuteronomy 32:47 NIV - 47 They are not just Idle Words for you … They are your life! … By Them you will live long in the land you are crossing The Jordan to possess.”
God’s promises are kind of like pre-answers to our prayers. So, we need to trust in them… because standing on the promises of God not only gives us peace in our soul. It also connects us to the power that God’s ready to give.
Again, it’s why we need to hide the promises of God’s Word in our heart by reading, studying, meditating on and basically saturating ourselves in them. And whatever we do, we don’t lose heart and give up! Jesus never does and He’s right here now… listening!
There’s a whole lot of God promises in scripture and when God pledges that He’s going to do something… or not do something… or something will come to pass … or not come to pass. These aren’t just casual promises like we make sometimes.
God’s promises are rock solid, unequivocal, faithful commitments that are made by Him to be fulfilled by or through Him. So, as the recipients of His divine promises we can have full assurance that what God has pledged will indeed be fully realized in His perfect timing. Good or bad. The Bible says in…
Numbers 23:19 NIV - 19 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that He should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Now, let’s look at just a few more of the promises that God has made…
Promises of God in the Old Testament!
Genesis 12:2-3 … God promised to bless the whole world through Abraham and his descendants. It’s called the Abrahamic covenant… and pointed to the coming of the Messiah (Jesus)! It correlates with John 8:56 in the New Testament.
Leviticus 26:12-13 … God promised Israel He’d be their God and makes them His people. Old Testament history is full of examples of God fulfilling this promise.
Deuteronomy 4:29 … God promised that if we seek Him, we’ll find Him! God’s not playing hard to get. Deuteronomy 4:7 says, “Our God is near us whenever we pray to Him!”
Psalm 121 … God promised protection for His children! He’s the vigilant watchman over all Israel!
1 Chronicles 16:34 … God promised that His love will never fail. He’s faithful in every way!
2 Chronicles 7:14 … God promised Israel that their sin could be forgiven, their prosperity restored and their nation healed! Repentance opened the door to fellowship and blessing!
Deuteronomy 30:15-18 … God promised prosperity to Israel under the terms of Mosaic covenant for obedience… and destruction for disobedience! Unfortunately, Israel eventually chose to disobey and the nation was taken captive and destroyed by Assyria and Babylon!
Psalm 1:1-3 … God promised blessing for all who will delight themselves in His Word. Simple faith has its rewards!
Promises of God in the New Testament!
Romans 1:16-17 … God promised salvation to all who believe in His Son! There’s no greater blessing than the free gift of God’s salvation!
Romans 8:28 … God promised that all things will work out to the good for His children who love Him. This is the bigger picture that keeps us from being discouraged by bad circumstances!
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 … God promised comfort in our trials. Remember, He has a plan and one day we’ll be able to share the comfort that Jesus is preparing in heaven for those who follow Him!
2 Corinthians 5:17 … God promised new life in salvation through Jesus! It’s the beginning of a brand new existence!
Ephesians 1:3 … God promised every spiritual blessing in Jesus! Whereas in the Old Testament, Israel had the promise of physical blessing! The church today has been promised spiritual blessing. 1 Peter 1:4 says our inheritance is reserved for us in the heavenly realms!
Philippians 1:6 … God promised to finish the work He started in us. God doesn’t do things half way. He started the work in us and He’ll be sure to complete it!
Philippians 4:6-7 … God promised peace when we pray! His peace is protection! It will guard our hearts and minds in Jesus!
Matthew 6:33 and Philippians 4:19 … God promised to supply our needs! Not that we get everything we want, but our needs will be taken care of! Matthew 6:26 says, “We are more valuable than the birds… and our heavenly Father feeds them!
Jesus’ promises in the Gospels!
Matthew 11:28-30 … Jesus promised us rest! Our burdens are lifted at Calvary!
John 10:10 … Jesus promised abundant life to those who follow Him. Following Jesus brings us more spiritual fulfillment than we could have ever anticipated. There’s nothing boring about it!
John 4:14 … Jesus promised eternal life to those who trust Him! As the Good Shepherd, He also promised to hold us securely! John 10:28 says, “No one will snatch them out of my hand!”
Acts 1:8 … Jesus promised His disciples power from on high! In His power, Acts 17:6 says, “They turned the world upside down!”
John 14:2-3 … Jesus promised that He’ll come back for us… then we’ll always be with Him!
There’s a whole lot more of God’s promises we could list! All of them have their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ! Hebrews 1:3 says, “Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory,” and 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ!
Trying to choose the greatest promises in the Bible is completely subjective. The greatest promise of God in the Bible for any particular person is going to depend on the needs and feelings of that individual at a given time.
But we’re going to look at the promises of God that would probably be high on the list for most people.
Sometimes the promises in the Bible are taken out of context… and people end up thinking the Bible says something it doesn’t really say.
For instance, does the Bible tech that we can have everything we want in prayer? No, John 14: 13-14 must be kept in context. Does God promise every individual alive a hope and a future? No, Jeremiah 29:11 must be kept in context.
Some of God’s promises in the Bible have great scope and impact. The first promise that God gave Adam and Eve was very great indeed. Genesis 2:16-17, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
This promise Satan flatly denied, and in unbelief Adam and Eve ate from the fruit, and sin and death entered the world. All of us, being descended from Adam and Eve ratify their decision to disobey God, and so that promise applies to us as well in Romans 5:12!
This is probably the most terrible promise in the Bible, and it is the greatest in scope—it applies to literally everyone! … But … God did not leave humanity under condemnation with no way out.
He entered the human race as a man (Jesus Christ), lived a perfect life, and died, taking the death we deserved. He then rose again. When a person is united with Christ in faith, another promise applies. This promise is repeated over and over in places such as …
Romans 8:1-4 NIV - Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus The Law of The Spirit Who gives Life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His Own Son in The Likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that The Righteous Requirement of The Law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to The Spirit.
By any standard, the promise of salvation by grace through faith is the greatest promise in the Bible.
Once a person submits to Jesus and becomes a child of God by faith, the other promises come into proper context. A lot of the promises that people pull out of context really only apply to the child of God.
The person who is not in Jesus is still under the deadly promise of punishment and that’s the promise that a lost person needs to hear and understand. It is misleading for a follower of Jesus to apply the promises of God to somebody who’s not saved in Jesus!
The two most important promises to know and heed are summed up in…
Romans 6:23 NIV - For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Which leads us to what most followers of Jesus would consider God’s greatest promise.
John 3:16 NIV – 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.
The day is coming when we will experience answers to every prayer we’ve ever prayed in faith. Whatever we’re going through, I can assure you, God is listening.
So don’t give up.
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 1-28-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
1/28/2024
God’s Plan: Purpose / Life / Battle / Victory
Romans 12:1-2
We’re living in a season of extreme instability and distrust right now. The world has never seen anything like the unmitigated evil that’s all around us! But the reality is there’s nothing new under the sun! It’s just that the scope and levels of it are mind blowing!
Because there’s never a break from it! The internet and social media gives us instant access to every single perversion, crime and evil act out there. But still we shouldn’t be afraid of it or stressed out about it. We’ve got to keep fighting it because…
…we’re God’s people and God’s got a plan for us! So, we ought to be responding with courage and confidence! If we’ll remind ourselves every day that our only purpose in life is to bring God glory and pleasure by faithfully following Jesus… period… and if we’ll do what Jesus says, then there’s nothing to fear or fret about! Paul tells us how and why in…
Romans 12:1-2 NIV - Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, Holy and Pleasing to God … this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by The Renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is … His Good, Pleasing and Perfect Will.
Followers of Jesus know that tests and trials are part of God’s plan, which means we know that our stability and provision doesn’t come from the government, a political party or an elected leader! Our identity is in Jesus, so our stability and provision comes from Him!
We know Jesus is our Savior from sin… and the Bible also says He’s the Lord of everything we need for life and Godliness. He made all of it available to us through His sacrifice on the cross! So, we need to stop, look, listen and hear what Jesus has been saying to us all along, which is…
God’s given us a plan of action that we “get to do” for everything we’ll ever face in this life! So, we have to be discerning, understanding and prepared for what God’s doing in the world right now… and how He’s going to work in and through us in the process for all of it!
We have to guard against becoming complacent in the process of following Jesus because of worldly influence! We have to be great listeners and overcomers! Our prayers are the key to success and the instructions Jesus gave ought to be the foundation of our prayers!
We have to remember the root cause of most all problems are spiritual in nature, so public heath officials, politicians and economists don’t have the answers, which means our prayers are essential and critical in fighting the spiritual battles of this world!
The church has to respond in humble obedience to God’s action plan if there’s ever going to be peace, safety and prosperity! But no matter what happens or what the initial outcome is, we have to keep fighting and keep a positive attitude because the Bible tells us in…
1 Thessalonians 5:17 NIV - 16 Rejoice always …
So, for us to be in the best spiritual condition for getting our part of God’s plan done, we have to stay positive, always praise Jesus and be joyful… no matter what’s happening around us! It’s not easy, but we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us!
There’s no excuses so stop making them because the foundation of God’s action plan for us is really simple…
LOVE – PRAY – THANK – GO – MAKE – TEACH – ASK – SEEK and KNOCK! Now here we go again… more reps… because we need to LEARN them – MEMORIZE them – and LIVE them out! It’s the plan Jesus spells out for us in the Bible which brings glory and pleasure to God!
There’s the preparation for bringing God glory and pleasure…
1) LOVE Matthew 22:37-39 - 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
To love the way God tells us to love will always conquer evil! Also, note that the Greek word for neighbor includes family, friends, strangers, enemies. The entire Bible expands on it all through the New Testament. It’s an agape love for all of God’s creation!
2) PRAY 1 Thessalonians 5:17 – Pray continually!
This part of the instructions can’t be any more plain and clear than that!
3) THANK 1 Thessalonians 5:18 - 18 give Thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
We have to find a way to give thanks in “all circumstances” … not just the circumstances we like or we feel good about!
God’s will for all believers always starts with these 3 actions: loving God and others with joy – praying continually – and always giving thanks, regardless of our circumstances!
Then, there’s the implementation for bringing God glory and pleasure…
1) GO Matthew 28:18-19 - 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …
Every day… everywhere we “go”… in all of our circles of influence… we’re on a mission from God to deliver the truth!
2) MAKE Matthew 28: 18-19 - 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …
We’re supposed to use our gifts, experience and resources to equip, produce and prepare other followers of Jesus to do “His work” as obedient disciples!
3) TEACH Matthew 28:20 - 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
We’re also supposed to use our knowledge, wisdom and experience to teach them the truth of God’s principles, promises and patterns from the Bible!
Obedient followers of Jesus who intentionally live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit will have a positive influence on the world for all that is good!
Then, there’s the strategy for brining God glory and pleasure…
1) ASK Luke 11:9-10 - 9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
We ought to continually be petitioning God for clarity in all things He wants us to give, receive, speak and do for Him and others!
2) SEEK Luke 11:9-10 - 9 “So I say to you … Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
When we diligently and intentionally seek to know God better, God is faithful to give us opportunities to serve Him! Our responsibility in the process is to pursue Jesus in obedience, then the opportunities are going to happen!
3) KNOCK Luke 11:9-10 - 9 “So I say to you … Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Once the opportunity is available… and we discern and confirm it’s from God, we have to take action to get the process started! Knocking is taking the first step in initiating what God wants done!
Then, the power of the Holy Spirit inside us empowers and guides us to reflect the glory of God to a lost and dying world! It’s a spiritual battle that God wants us to fight for Him! So, not only has He given us access to His power through the Holy Spirit, He’s also given us all the tools and weapons we need in the battle to bring God glory and pleasure.
1) GOD’s WORD 2 Timothy 3:16-17 - 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2) GOD’s WILL 1 Peter 4:2 – 2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for The Will of God.
3) GOD’s WAY James 1:2-4 - 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your Faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
If we’ll follow God’s plan, then we’ll never, ever, never, ever have to worry about what the enemy is going to do! Now, we certainly need to be aware of the enemy, but we don’t have to worry about him!
We have to stop focusing on and worrying about what others aren’t doing for God… and stay focused on getting to know God better and doing more of what we can do for God! The Bible tells us that Satan’s never going to stop the lies and deception! It’s his strategy!
Jesus warned us… we’ll be attacked and the enemy will get more clever with it. So, we have to be prepared to fight the good fight! And if we want to fight effectively, we have to be keenly aware of what we’re up against from the enemy… this time… and every time!
Basically, spiritual attacks have been happening since the Garden of Eden. Every attack proves that our struggle isn’t against humans (flesh and blood)… but against rulers, authorities, supernatural powers of darkness and evil spiritual forces in the heavenly realm!
The enemy’s battle strategy has always been to create temptation, anxiety, distrust and fear! A lot of times, the deception is done by generating false evidence that’s made to appear real. And with every step of Satan’s plan, the false evidence is presented to be true! But if we’re faithful to God’s plan, the truth will always will out over time!
The enemy’s plan is to try and gain power and control over people’s decisions. Most importantly, he wants to confuse people about who they’ll decide to truth for eternal salvation and where they’ll go to pursue their spiritual conviction… which includes the church!
This causes fear in a lot of people and urgency in others… or a feeling of some kind of required mandate in others! False religions demand that people go through ceremonies, rituals, traditions or customs to “get right” with God, which is all a lie from hell!
So, it’s past time to put down our idols of comfort and convenience and follow God’s plan, which Jesus said is to pick up our cross daily and follow Him, making whatever sacrifice we have to make along the way!
God’s given us a process and strategy for His action plan so that we’ll be fully equipped to fight the good fight as well! We’ve got to take all 9 of the action words from Jesus, apply them to our life and then get to work living what we believe!
We have to be strong in the Lord. We have to put on the whole armor of God, trusting in His undeniable and undefeatable power so we can stand firm against the devil’s strategies because it’s foolish to rely on our own weak and worldly ways!
Evil is here! In boldness, forms and fashions like we’ve never seen before! It’s easy to discern what’s been happening! We’ve been bombarded with a relentless wave of lies and deception! The world is pretty much in total chaos!
We’ve got a few leaders with sound moral values, but evil is so rampant in every shape, form and fashion. The only way we can defeat it is with God’s action plan, based on Biblical truths and principles, working in unison with the power of the Holy Spirit!
How we respond to God’s action plan going forward is critical! We’ve got to develop better habits and patterns! And if the government, economy, border, health and security finally stabilize, we can’t just go back to our old way of life and habits…
… because there’s a message of truth and discipline that God has intended for us to realize and learn in all this! We have to make the most of this season of training God’s has us in! Not just say we’re able to endure it… we can’t to be able to fight better with the training and equipping!
So, let’s be determined to be good leaders! Our old routines aren’t going to work for getting the new assignments done. God’s prepared us by giving us the opportunity to go through a season where we had to pray and believe like never before!
We need to realize that the enemies’ original plan for this was to be devastatingly deadly… to generate the most fear and distrust in God as possible and try to force others to rely on government! But God is faithful to his plan, promise and principle (as always) and He responds to the prayers of His people in only the way God can!
Only God knows how much worse this could be if He doesn’t intervene! He’s always been with us through it all.. and He always will be! As His people, we need to be thankful for that… no matter how it impacts us because we know what a lot of people don’t know…
Those who aren’t His people will answer for it on judgement day! It’s easy to see who rejects Jesus… especially now! We need to love them enough to pray for them and keep speaking the truth to them as well! It’s part of God’s action plan for us!
Pagan leaders may say that “Prayer didn’t do it… God didn’t do it… We did it”! But those are evil and wicked people who reject Jesus and are going to answer for it one day! They don’t even realize how much prayer they need… and they don’t care!
That shows us the only way to untangle all this intentional/evil web of lies, deception, manipulation, suppression and oppression is through the power of the Holy Spirit! We have to live the truth and respond with God’s wisdom, courage, confidence and boldness!
We are the ambassadors and warriors for the lion of the tribe of Judah! It’s time to go beyond speaking God’s truth to start roaring it! It’s the only way to put a stop to the confusion, fear, hatred and distrust among the people!
So, we need to be extremely thankful that He’s trusting us by putting us here for just such a time as this! It’s an honor and privilege that we “get to” do this for Him! When God surveyed the span of all time and all possibilities and all the critical turning points, He chose us!
God looked at this season of attack from the enemy with all the manipulation, dishonesty, confusion and hate… and God called our name to be used by Him to stand and pray and speak the truth of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! We won’t be silenced and we won’t be stopped! Not because of us, but all because of Him and His power!
We’ll pray until we see the name of Jesus exalted… and His glory fills the earth! We’ve got an assignment! God’s still calling us to live in truth and righteousness! Followers of Jesus are gaining momentum around the world through prayer and truth!
A lot of believers are realigning their priorities to get in sync with God’s will and waking up to the magnitude of the mission that God’s given us! We’re in a battle and it has nothing to do with the military, economy or politics! It’s all rooted in the spiritual realm!
We have to maintain constant spiritual awareness now… our prayer and humble submission to God are the only weapons that will make a difference! God is aware of all who stand on his behalf and we’re extremely valuable to Him. Jesus proved that at the cross!
The church that is aware, awake and involved is more essential now than it’s ever been! Our nation’s heritage, founded on a Christian worldview, and the constitution that was written to protect our right to worship God are systematically being dismantled!
The best news is God’s still in control and He’s purifying His people! We want to make sure that we respond to Him with humility and determination! And if we’ll faithfully repent and pray, we’ll keep seeing the grace, mercy and deliverance of our God! We won’t stop!
God’s given us an action play! When the church (God’s people) step up and put it into practice, it always works! And it always has! But we have to learn to use the weapons God’s given us for warfare and stand strong against the devil’s schemes!
Our nation and the world needs spiritual change, not political alignment! We can’t compromise, even for a short season of personal gain and worldly acceptance! We’ve got to decide whom we will serve! It’s our choice!
God is faithful to His people and if we’ll continue to stop, look, listen and hear, He’ll direct our steps and secure our future! Because down the road, we’re going to face greater threats than pagan politicians!
Lawlessness keeps growing exponentially… open boarders aren’t God’s design! He’s separated us from each other in the past, for our own good, but we keep failing to follow His plan. It’s called illegal for a reason! The media compounds the problem by mocking and criticizing those who stand for what’s right! Law and order are in jeopardy!
We’ve been betrayed by a lot of our corporate, political and in some cases, even church leaders! They don’t put the interest of God and His people first! They don’t even put the interest of the nation first! They keep us divided by propagating something they call racism…
… which isn’t even a valid term! Racism is people hating other people… not ethnicity hating ethnicity! There’s only one “race” in God’s design and it’s the human race! These pagans refuse to celebrate the good in our heritage and only highlight the weakness!
They’re narcissistic, materialistic and hedonistic! They surround the capital building with maximum security, even calling in the national guard to protect themselves, while the stop construction of the boarder walls and condemn and hinder the boarder patrol who are supposed to be and trying their best to protect us! It’s betrayal!
But even more concerning than that is the apathetic church that’s been more concerned with comfort and convenience than the purposes of the kingdom! A lot of churches have treated the blood of Jesus with a casual contempt that’s very sad and scary! The reality is…
… we’re approaching the end of the age! There’s not a timeline for it, but the way things are unfolding now can be seen highlighted in scripture! Victory in Jesus is real and attainable for us because our Lord, Savior and King Jesus has defeated Satan and every evil power of the world!
Praise Him! There’s been an awakening among a lot of believers! God’s message can’t be stopped. That’s why we’re invincible… on this rock… every Sunday … and every day… His truth gets proclaimed… always has… always will!
God has set love, peace, joy and prosperity in front of us! The alternative is death, deception, depression and destruction! It’s our choice! Please choose Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today! It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make! Your life literally depends on it!
To call Jesus “Lord” only gives Him a title… To submit to Jesus as Lord, Savior, and King… and then serve Him in faithful obedience brings glory and pleasure to God!
Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, which is the only way we could even have a choice to be with God in heaven! There’s no doubt Jesus wants everybody who will to be with Him in heaven!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 1-21-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
1/21/2024
Discerning Spiritual Condition – Part 2
The Book of Amos
Remember, the truth behind the real reason we exist is because God wants us to be in an unconditional love relationship with Him. We only have life because God created us and made us in His image, which is all for His glory and pleasure… and it’s all based on relationships.
By His design we’re triune beings. We operate in a physical realm, which is our body driven by our brain… An emotional realm, which is our soul driven by our mind… And a supernatural realm, which is our spirit driven by our connection to or separation from God!
So, God is love and God is a God of order and structure. He has a master plan for all His creation and wants us to be a part of the process for getting it done! He doesn’t demand or expect us to get it done on our own, He’s given us His Word of truth in the Holy Bible!
Also, He gives us His truth individually through divine revelation sometimes as He sees fit! All of this only happens through the power of the Holy Spirit, who’s sent by Jesus to reside in us as soon as we’re submitted to Him in a salvation relationship as our Lord and Savior!
So, God will share almost everything with us…His creation, truth, power, plan and even His son Jesus! But the one thing He will not share with us is His glory. And why would anybody expect Him to? But somebody did and that somebody is Lucifer a.k.a. Satan!
God created Lucifer as an angel in heaven who got to be in charge of worship. But Lucifer was selfish and he couldn’t find a way to be obedient and thankful for that. He was jealous of God and he wanted to receive God’s glory through being worshipped by the other angels.
This angered God, so God cast Lucifer out of heaven, giving him access to the earth! This made Lucifer angry and he somehow convinced 1/3 of the other angels to go with him (becoming demons). But even now, Lucifer a.k.a. Satan still thinks he can be God!
So, Satan has a strategy too! He’s always trying to counterfeit, disrupt and destroy everything God has created! That’s why Satan went to the Garden of Eden, disguised as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God. He lied to them, convincing them they could be like God!
They believed the “fake news” and they made the decision to sin against God! Once Adam and Eve sinned against God, they became spiritually separated from God… and because all mankind are descendants of Adam and Eve, we’re all born with a sin nature.
But because God is also a God of grace, mercy and patience, He made a way for us to choose Him… and have our sin eradicated by the power of the blood of Jesus! It’s our choice! We can choose Jesus, who is love, truth, light and righteousness or…
We can reject Jesus, which leads us towards hate, lies, darkness and wickedness! Sin separates us from God… Satan knows it… and is continually trying to deceive, tempt, mislead, influence and manipulate people into choosing sin.
It puts us in jeopardy of compromising a right spiritual condition with God! It’s the content of the spiritual battel of good vs evil – right vs wrong – truth vs lies – light vs dark – liberty vs restraint – freedom vs suppression – and capitalism vs communism!
So, the reality is this life is only about Jesus vs Satan and we “get to” choose who we’ll align with and serve! Choosing to submit to Jesus puts us on His team! If we don’t submit to Jesus, then by default, we reject Him which puts us on Satan’s team!
Sin and Satan are the 2 primary factors that have us in a spiritual battle! If our focus in life only consists of comfort, convenience, pleasure and wealth… instead of Christ and Him crucified, then we’ll always be in a spiritually compromised condition!
We take ourselves out of position to be in the ultimate use of God, which means we won’t have the greatest impact we could have on God’s Kingdom for His glory and pleasure! It’s the only way we have to show Jesus we love Him… by doing what He says.
It’s why a true follower of Jesus always needs to be able to discern the spiritual condition of ourselves, others, families, churches, communities, nations and the world in relation with the Holy God of the Bible! Starting in the book of Amos last week, we see the different…
Spiritual Conditions of Men and Nations
1) “PAGAN” - Enemy of God! Depraved, Wicked, Evil; Completely Rejecting Anything to do with Jesus!
2) “LOST” – Religious Enemy of God! Not Submitted to Jesus in a True Salvation Relationship and Possibly Involved in One of The False Religions of The World!
3) “SAVED” – Professes Faith in Jesus as being Submitted to Him as Lord and Savior, But is Out of Alignment with God’s Word, Will, and Ways!
4) “DISCIPLE” – A Faithful Follower of Jesus, Obediently Working “The Process” of God’s Plan in Order to Know Him Better and Advance His Kingdom!
Israel’s 2 primary sins were absence of true worship and a complete lack of true justice. This same spiritual condition of disobedience is seen today in the open boarder policy of the pagan political leaders of our nation. Anything out of alignment with God’s plan opposes God’s justice. We touched on this last week. Look at…
Deuteronomy 28:43-45 NIV - 43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail. 45 All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees He gave you! …
The world has tried this before. After the flood, God commanded humanity to increase in number and fill the earth, but people stopped seeking God and started seeking other providers, protectors, provision and resources. Humanity decided to build a great city and all congregate there.
Noah’s great grandson (Nimrod) even convinced them to build a great tower in case God decided to flood the earth again! (Which God already said He wouldn’t.) So, the spiritual condition of man became corrupt in their disobedience to God!
It’s just one of the many decisions that people make in opposition to God, His plan and the process for following Jesus. So, it will help equip us for winning the spiritual battles we fight if we know and understand these…
5 Biblical Principles Concerning The Spiritual Condition of Humanity
1) God will Punish those who Exploit The Poor!
Amos 2:6-7 NIV - 6 This is what The Lord says … “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. 7 They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny Justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My Holy Name.
The phrase, “for three sins… even for four” is a common phrase in Amos! Three sins represent fullness or completeness… four represents an overflow or a spiritual condition that’s the tipping point for God’s judgment.
2) God’s Plan for Humanity Demands Biblical Justice!
Amos 5:14-15 NIV - 14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then The Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say He is. 15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps The Lord God Almighty will have mercy on The Remnant of Joseph.
Choose to do what’s right!
3) True Worship always Includes God’s Justice and Righteousness!
Amos 5:21-24 NIV - 21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to Me. 22 Even though you bring Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. 23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24 But let Justice roll on like a river, Righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Not just show and tell… or our preference!
4) Do Not become Complacent about Following God’s Plan!
Amos 6:1-7 NIV - Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come! 2 Go to Kalneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours? 3 You put off the day of disaster and bring near a reign of terror. 4 You lie on beds adorned with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. 5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. 7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.
We have to believe in Him first and pursue Him first!
5) God will Restore those who Remain Faithful Followers of Jesus!
Amos 9:11-15 NIV - 11 “In that day “I will restore David’s fallen shelter … I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins … and will rebuild it as it used to be, 12 so that they may possess The Remnant of Edom and all The Nations that bear My Name,” declares The Lord, Who will do these things. 13 “The days are coming,” declares The Lord, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, 14 and I will bring My people Israel back from exile. “They will rebuild The Ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from The Land I have given them,” says The Lord your God.
So, what do we take from this? Answer – the big picture plan given to use by Jesus for fighting spiritual battles… and advancing God’s Kingdom is to speak the truth of the Gospel to all people so that the good news of Jesus resonates around the world!
No matter what the rest of the world is doing, if we’re being obedient to God and working the process of following Jesus, standing strong in the spiritual battles we face, not tolerating sin and love the lost people He put in our path enough to present them the truth…
...then we can look forward to hearing, “Well done good and faithful servant” when we stand before Him in heaven! The plan goes like this…
>Preparation :> – LOVE – PRAY – and BE THANKFUL!
*Implementation :> - GO – MAKE – and TEACH!
>Strategy :> - ASK – SEEK – and KNOCK!
*The Tools and Weapons :> - WORDS – WILL – and WAYS of GOD! …
The presentation – (present the hard truths in love: right vs wrong – good vs evil – and positive vs negative! If the presentation is wrong, i.e. anger, judgmental or chastisement… the message probably won’t be heard!
Note – as a follower of Jesus, we can’t tolerate sin! But because we’re commanded to love others the way we love ourselves, then we tolerate (love) the sinner and continue speaking truth into their lives for as long as it takes to help them see the truth, turn from their sins and submit to Jesus as Lord and Savior!
Our identity is in Jesus, so the success of all this depends on how much we involve God! The key to being in the proper spiritual condition for experiencing and encountering God is to faithfully and diligently pursue Jesus with all our heart, mind, soul and strength!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 1-7-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
1/7/2024
True Spiritual Leaders - Part 2
Matthew 23:1-39
It’s a New Year and as a follower of Jesus, it’s important that we remind ourselves every day the real or true reason we exist. We only have life because God created us and made us in His image to be a part of His master plan, which is all for His glory and it’s based on relationships!
Most importantly for us is our relationship with Him through Jesus. Then our relationship with others through Him. By God’s design, relationships are only authentic and valid when actions toward one another by both parties in the relationship are grounded in true unconditional love. He also allows us to be part of…
… the process for working out His master plan. The process has responsibilities that apply to all of us, which are general, fundamental and foundational. Then He has unique, specific and special operative responsibilities inside the process for each one of us!
Also, by His design, we’re triune beings. So, we operate in a physical realm, which is our body, driven by our brain… and emotional realm which is our soul, driven by our mind… and a supernatural realm, which is our spirit, driven by our connection to (or separation from) God!
We can only be connected to God through the power of the Holy Spirit… and we’re only indwelled by the Holy Spirit if we’re in a true love, salvation relationship with Jesus. Since relationships are only valid when both parties take actions based on true, unconditional love, then…
… it’s our choice whether we want to take the action to be in a true love, salvation relationship with Jesus. He’s already done His part in the relationship process by being obedient to God’s command to come and sacrifice His perfect life on our behalf, which paid the price for our sins!
So now it’s up to us to do our part in the relationship by taking the action of submitting to Jesus as our Lord and Savior! When we make this conscious decision, then we’re connected to God through the Holy Spirit and we start the process of showing Him we love Him by being obedient to His instructions.
It’s called the sanctification process! We work to know God better by learning His Word, discerning what’s true and right – and putting our faith into action! The goal is to continually become more like Jesus so that we’re true spiritual leaders for God’s Kingdom.
I know this already seems like a lot of truth to digest, but it really is simple. The Bible says the truth of the Gospel is simple enough for a child to understand. You either love Jesus or you don’t! You’re either in a relationship with Jesus or you’re not! There’s no middle ground!
Understanding the supernatural realm is the challenge. We operate in the physical realm right now, so the only power we have as a human is natural. But as part of God’s creation, we’re in a supernatural battle against the dark spiritual authorities, powers and forces of evil!
It’s literally supernatural battles of good vs evil… right vs wrong… truth vs lies… pure vs perverted… integrity vs corruption… generosity vs greed… selfless vs hedonistic… and holy vs pagan! The Good News is, when we decide to follow Jesus, we’re indwelled by the Holy Spirit. So, we have something that the enemy doesn’t… and it’s access to God’s supernatural power! Now, in this life of spiritual battles, there are true spiritual leaders and false spiritual leaders.
Being able to identify a false spiritual leader is a valuable skill in our role of being a true spiritual leader because sometimes it’s hard to tell if a person is a false spiritual leader! They can be religious extremists who say a lot of right things…
… but they’re the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus warns us about! Their deception might be intentional or ignorance… it could be aggressive legalism or passive tolerance! Whatever evil attempt at manipulation or influence it is, Jesus wants us to recognize it!
So, last week we started…
Matthew 23:1-12 NIV - Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples … 2 “The teachers of The Law and The Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. 5 “Everything they do is done for people to see … They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others. 8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and He Is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, The Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted!
Jesus gives us…
6 Ways to Identify True vs False Spiritual Leaders
1) Spiritually Authentic – True spiritual leaders are called by God… false spiritual leaders are not!
2) Spiritually Simple – True spiritual leaders are only committed to and bound by the parameters of the revealed Word of the Living God… false spiritual leaders add various human requirements to the faith that are not from God!
3) Spiritual Integrity – True spiritual leaders live what they preach and profess to believe… false spiritual leaders may say the right things, but they don’t do the right things.
4) Spiritually Sympathetic – True spiritual leaders patiently witness to and serve lost people in both word and deed… false spiritual leaders load people up with unnecessary burdens.
5) True Spirituality – A true spiritual leader’s heart is controlled by the Spirit of God… false spiritual leaders primarily do things for their own external show!
6) Spiritually Humble – True spiritual leaders have an outward spiritual strength with an internal spirit of meekness that is evident in their words and actions… everything a false spiritual leader does focuses and centers on them.
Then in (vs 13) Jesus changes gears… from this point in the passage on, Jesus isn’t talking about the character of these false spiritual leaders but their condemnation. He knows the judgment that’s going to come down on them if they don’t change their ways. So, in…
Matthew 23:13-31 NIV - 13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] Some manuscripts include words here that are similar to Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47 which reads ... 47 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” 15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. 16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it. 23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. 29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
8 Sins that False Spiritual Leaders are Judged On
1) Exclusion (vs 13) – They keep people out of the kingdom of heaven by misleading them.
This is a direct contradiction in spiritual work that Jesus commands us to do! We’re supposed to lead people into God’s Kingdom by speaking the truth of the Gospel!
2) Exploitation – (vs 14) – They take advantage of poor, lonely, hurting people who’re in desperate need of spiritual truth!
They mislead people who’re in all kinds of vulnerable situations with manipulative messages of false hope!
3) Perversion – (vs 15) – They mislead and corrupt everybody who comes to them for spiritual truth with the false spiritual counsel of the devil!
People who’re broken, hurting, suffering, questioning, doubting, weak-willed, panicked and are struggling with all kinds of problems are looking for answers and hope. So, they’re easy targets for false teachers, so they manipulate them into corruption and perversion.
It’s how a person searching for spiritual truth ends up becoming like a child of hell, which is a person whose character and deeds cause them to deserve eternity in hell! Our job as ambassadors for Jesus is to get the Gospel of Truth to them before the enemy gets his hooks in!
4) Subversion – (vs 16) – They undermine God’s truth by developing a worldly system that allows them to live in sin and theoretically not violate their own falsely define moral code.
This basically means they want to lie but they know that God hates a liar. So, they develop a subversive system of lying based on oaths and they’ve got the audacity to think that by design of their own subversive system, these lies don’t count against them somehow.
It’s like when a little kid tells a friend that he promises he’ll do something that he knows he’s not going to do! Then, when the friend calls him on it, he says, I really didn’t have to do it because I had my fingers crossed behind my back! It’s that kind of system… sound familiar?
5) Inversion – (vs 23-24) – They ignore God’s command for justice, mercy and faithfulness while insisting people adhere to manmade rituals, customs, ceremonies and rites!
They neglect the things that really matter to God and only pay attention to the things that are important to them! The Bible tells us that in the process of God’s plan, these little manmade things don’t really matter at all!
6) Extortion – (vs 25-26) – They abuse their false religious authority for the purpose of self-gain!
On the outside, they appear highly religious to the world, but on the inside, they’re full of self-indulgence and robbery! The Greek word is even more severe because it means pillaging, raping, plundering!
7) Deception – (vs 27-28) – They deceive people in words and actions with false gospel, hypocrisy, legalism and fake news!
The parallel here it’s Passover and if a Jew touches a tomb (even accidentally) they become ceremonially unclean! So, beforehand, they’d go through the city and whitewash all the tombs so visitors could see them. But there was nothing in scripture that mandated this.
They just wanted everything on the outside to look like they had all their manmade religious priorities in order for visitors. But the reality was that on the inside, they were guilty of exclusion, exploitation, perversion, subversion, inversion, extortion and …
😎 Pretension - (vs 29-31) – They pretend to be holy, righteous, sanctimonious and better than everybody else!
Paul points this out to Timothy when he says, “Evil men will grow worse and worse!” Paul knew it in his soul! They pretty much admitted that they were worse than their forefathers without even realizing it!
And the reality is, their forefathers killed a lot of the servants of God but these guys were about to kill the Son of God! To tie this all together, when we think about our ministry as a follower of Jesus, we have to address things from a positive perspective…
Even things that’re negative like the dangers of people being misled by false spiritual leaders! We have to spend more time focusing on being a true spiritual leader and speaking the truth about Jesus than we spend complaining and criticizing what others are doing wrong!
The instructions Jesus gave us are to carry out God’s plan and are really simple to do… and will transform us into true spiritual leaders if we’ll do it: love, pray and be thankful for everything… to go, make and teach disciples… and to ask, seek and knock!
The world's plan tells us we have to get educated, established and pursue a career first to be successful… which eventually leads to stress, worry, anger, depression, addiction, etc. God’s plan calls for us to pursue Jesus, which leads to peace, joy and glorifies God!
While we’re pursuing Jesus, we discern from God through prayer what He would have our career to be! Because this life isn’t about pursuing comfort, convenience, ease or a high-class lifestyle. If we’re blessed by God to have those things, then praise Jesus!
Our primary goal in this life is to pursue Jesus and follow His plan for winning spiritual battels in everything He calls us to do! If we’re faithful and diligent in that pursuit, we’ll become the spiritual leaders we’re called to be. So, I’ll close with this…
We’ll never be able to lead people to Jesus unless we’re pursuing Him ourselves! And we don’t have to be in a full-blown sprint because it’s not a race, but it is a marathon. So, we do need to be in steady run for what’s right, which will be obvious to people around us.
In the course of a battle, it’s always beneficial for a follower of Jesus to know where we stand with God as an individual, family, church, community and nation. The Bible gives us examples in all cases! So, next week we’re going to look at what the Old Testament book of Amos tells us about the current spiritual condition of our nation and us!
We want to be successful in advancing God’s Kingdom in 2024. So, let’s be diligent in praying that God will help us be wise in recognizing what’s false and be faithful in respecting what’s true, so we CAN be the true spiritual leader He’s called us to be!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 1-14-24
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
1/14/2024
Discerning Spiritual Condition
The Book of Amos
Sunday mornings are for hearing specific messages from God… then applying those messages to our life! It’s how we become better equipped and prepared to get His work done! Lately, He’s been sending His Invincible Church messages about His truth, power and the expectations He has for us!
Remember the true reason we exist is because God wants us to be a part of His master plan. So, we only have life because God created us and made us in His image, which is all for His glory and it’s all based on relationships.
The most important relationship we have is our relationship with God through Jesus. Then our relationship with others through Him. God has a process for getting His plan done and there’s a real supernatural enemy who fights against us while we’re working the process of following Jesus in God’s plan.
One of Satan’s go to strategies is to try and get God’s people and nations divided… get them disagreeing and fighting amongst themselves, about everything from religion, economics, government, politics, moral values, marriage, family, sanctity of life, etc.
It’s Satan’s attempt to take our focus off God and His Son Jesus. If we fall for Satan’s schemes, it hinders our work in the process of following Jesus, which is not good, because in our relationship with God, He’s designed us to have purpose and responsibilities for fighting spiritual battles!
Thankfully, He doesn’t leave us on our own to get His work done! He’s given us His Word of truth in the Holy Bible… and He reveals His truth to us as He sees fit! He’s also given us access to His power through the Holy Spirit, which He wants us to access as a spiritual leader.
Now, God is pleased with His creation. We know because when He was finished, He looked at it and said, “It is good!” God loves His children and all He wants from His children is for us to love Him the same way He loves us! Jesus said it was the greatest commandment… and the second one is life it.
God gets angry when other people mess with His people and nations. God also gets disappointed when His children are disobedient. It’s because God’s a good Father! He’s given us boundaries and instructions to follow for our protection, well-being, training and equipping!
He loves us enough to allow us to fail at times, which also works to mature, prepare and equip us for worse situations down the road, but it also helps train us to be ready to get His work done as an ambassador, warrior, servant or saint in the process of following Jesus!
So, God is love, but God is also just… and the scary part is God’s justice comes with God’s wrath, if necessary! And because God is Holy, perfect and sovereign, His justice applies to all people and nations, whether they’re in a salvation relationship with Jesus or not!
A lot of believers think that God’s judgement and wrath is only for the pagan or lost because if we’re God’s children, He loves us unconditionally… which is true… but God’s grace and mercy doesn’t override His justice and wrath for anybody!
We have to understand and be able to explain to people that God can’t and won’t compromise His justice by withholding the discipline and consequences that come with sin! And the level of a person or a nation's spiritual condition can determine the severity of the consequences!
That’s why, in the course of a battle, true followers of Jesus need to always be aware of our spiritual condition with God as an individual, family, church, community and nation! The Bible gives us examples of this in all cases.
So, we’re going to look at what the Old Testament Book of Amos tells us about the current spiritual condition of the world, our nation, our families, churches, communities and us. We need to hear and understand this message because it’s very apparent that we’re in the exact same situation today. The context for it is…
Israel had become a divided nation. (Goes back to Satan’s strategy!) The division came from a judgment on not keeping God’s commands which prohibited idolatry! There was also tribal discord and political unrest. The Biblical principle is that sin causes division!
Amos wasn’t a prophet by vocation! He was a shepherd who God called to leave his flocks and go prophesy against God’s people! His home was in the southern kingdom of Judah. But God had him cross over into the northern kingdom of Israel to reach His message.
God calls Amos even though He doesn’t have an education or a priestly background. Amos’ messages of impending doom and captivity for the nation because of their sins are unpopular and ignored, probably because things hadn’t been this good in Israel since the times of King Solomon!
Amos can see that beneath Israel’s external prosperity and power, the leadership of the nation is internally corrupt to the core! The sins that Amos warns the people about are neglect of God’s Word, Idolatry, pagan worship, greed, corrupt leadership and oppression of the poor!
God starts by having Amos pronounce a judgment on all the surrounding pagan or lost nations. Then on the nation of Judah where Amos is from … and finally the harshest judgment is given to God’s nation of Israel! The message that Amos gets from God is that judgment is near!
Amos 1:1-15 NIV - 1 The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa … The vision he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel. 2 He said … “The Lord roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds dry up, and the top of Carmel withers.” This is what the Lord says … “For three sins of Damascus, even for four, I will not relent. Because she threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth, 4 I will send fire on the house of Hazael that will consume the fortresses of Ben-Hadad. 5 I will break down the gate of Damascus; I will destroy the king who is in the Valley of Aven and the one who holds the scepter in Beth Eden. The people of Aram will go into exile to Kir,” says the Lord. 6 This is what the Lord says … “For three sins of Gaza, even for four, I will not relent. Because she took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom, 7 I will send fire on the walls of Gaza that will consume her fortresses. 8 I will destroy the king of Ashdod and the one who holds the scepter in Ashkelon. I will turn my hand against Ekron, till the last of the Philistines are dead,” says the Sovereign Lord. 9 This is what the Lord says … “For three sins of Tyre, even for four, I will not relent. Because she sold whole communities of captives to Edom, disregarding a treaty of brotherhood, 10 I will send fire on the walls of Tyre that will consume her fortresses.” 11 This is what the Lord says … “For three sins of Edom, even for four, I will not relent. Because he pursued his brother with a sword and slaughtered the women of the land, because his anger raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked, 12 I will send fire on Teman that will consume the fortresses of Bozrah.” 13 This is what the Lord says “For three sins of Ammon, even for four, I will not relent. Because he ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to extend his borders, 14 I will set fire to the walls of Rabbah that will consume her fortresses amid war cries on the day of battle, amid violent winds on a stormy day. 15 Her king will go into exile, he and his officials together,” says the Lord! … So, we see the … à
Spiritual Conditions of Men and Nations
1) “Pagan” Enemy of God – Depraved, Wicked, Evil! Complete Rejection of Jesus!
Both Kingdoms of Judah and Israel are having to deal with hatred, violence and attacks from surrounding pagan nations – just like today, these nations perceive that the land of Israel belongs to them.
A brief look at each of the images in Amos more fully explains what they indicate:
- Iron teeth (1:3): “Iron teeth” were part of a threshing sledge, a farming implement drawn over grain to thresh it and cut the stalks. God pictures Syria’s cruelty toward Gilead (in northeast Israel) as a threshing sledge being run over His people. For their brutality, Syria is promised judgment.
- Murdered pregnant women (1:13): The Ammonites would be judged for performing atrocities against Israel… The Bible confirms the reality of such horrific acts during war.
- Burning bones (2:1): The Moabites would be judged for their sin of the disrespectful treatment of an Edomite king’s corpse in a culture in which a proper burial was of utmost importance, the burning of bones communicated a severe hatred.
- Destroyed roots (2:9): This is a picture of God’s judgment on the Amorites, as the “fruit above” and the “roots beneath” were destroyed—in other words, the Amorites were completely wiped out. God reminds Israel of the Amorites’ fate in order to call His people back to righteousness and the fear of God.
- Hooks (4:2): This is part of a prophecy against Israel, warning them that the Assyrians would one day take them captive. Israel would be led away as fish were carried away on hooks. It is believed the “hooks” could be literal, since Assyrians did at times lead captives with ropes attached to rings in the jaws or lips of their enemies.
All horrendous things!
2) “Lost” Enemy of God – Not Submitted to Jesus in a True Salvation Relationship!
Trying to live a life of mor values but not understanding the necessity and requirement of submitting to Jesus as Lord and Savior to be made righteous in the eyes of God!
3) “Saved” Professing of Faith in Jesus - But Out of Alignment with God’s Word, Will, and Ways!
Amos 2:4 NIV - 4 This is what the Lord says … “For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not relent. Because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed,
The phrase, “for three sins… even for four,” is a common phrase in Amos. “Three sins” represents fullness or completeness… “four” represents an overflow or a sin that is the tipping point for God’s judgment.
Israel’s two primary sins were absence of true worship and complete lack of true justice! Their worship had become ritualistic and performance based… and they weren’t pursuing God’s Word, will and ways with their hearts.
They also weren’t following God’s standard of justice with their neighbors or even with surrounding nations. This is amazing to me. It’s just like today! For a different version of the same verse…
Amos 2:4 NLT - 4 This is what the Lord says: … “The people of Judah have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They have rejected the instruction of the Lord, refusing to obey his decrees. They have been led astray by the same lies that deceived their ancestors.
The purpose of prophesying doom was to call sinners to repent! It’s the same reason God sent Jonah to preach in Ninevah! The Ninevites repented and God didn’t bring about judgment. The Lord had compassion for those who repented!
4) “Saved” Follower of Jesus - Obediently Working “The Process” to Know God Better in Order to Advance His Kingdom!
Amos 3:7 NIV - 7 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.
Amos 9:14 NIV – 14 … And I will bring my people Israel back from exile. “They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
A lot of people think they’re not qualified to speak God’s truth. They think that they’re just a salesman, farmer or housewife. Amos would’ve been considered “just a” shepherd! He wasn’t a prophet or priest or the son of either one!
He was just a shepherd… a small businessman in Judah. So, who would listen to him? But instead of making excuses, Amos obeyed and became God’s powerful voice for change!
God has used ordinary people such a shepherds, carpenters and fishermen all through the Bible. Whatever we are in this life, God can and will use us! Amos wasn’t much. He was “just a” willing servant for God! It’s good to be God’s “just a” whatever!
The influx of people on our border applies to this scenario as well… and will give us plenty of opportunity for serving God!
Deuteronomy 28:43-45 NIV - 43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail. 45 All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.
Which we’ll cover next week. For now, God says…
“Seek me and live” is God’s invitation to return to “pure and genuine” devotion in following Jesus, which is the foundation of our life and relationship with Him!
The Good News is the book ends with God’s promise to Amos of future restoration of the remnant.
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 11-12-23
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
11/12/2023
Be Ready pt 5
Luke 21:5-38
The Bible tells us that God has a “master plan”! In His plan, the world as we know it is counting down to and end of time moment that He’s already determined, which starts with the second coming of Jesus and nobody knows the exact day and time this will happen except God!
So, He wants His people to be ready, stay ready and keep doing the specific work that He’s designed us to do inside of His perfect plan. It’s why we can be sure God wants us to know and understand the times, signs and events that will be happening before the second coming of Jesus!
About 27% of the Bible contains prophecy. The second coming of Jesus is mentioned 321 times in the Bible, which is more than any other subject except for salvation. So, a key part of the life, teaching, instructions, ministry and prophecies of Jesus tells His followers to be ready!
Luke 21:5-38 NIV - 5 Some of His Disciples were Remarking about how The Temple was Adorned with Beautiful Stones … And with Gifts Dedicated to God! … But Jesus said … 6 “As for What you See Here … The Time will Come when Not One Stone will be Left on Another … Every One of them will be Thrown Down!” 7 “Teacher” they Asked … “When will these Things Happen? … And What will be The Sign that They are about to Take Place?” … 8 He Replied … “Watch Out that you are Not Deceived! … For Many will Come In My Name … Claiming … “I Am He” … And … “The Time is Near!” … Do Not Follow them! ... 9 When you Hear of Wars and Uprisings … Do Not be Frightened! ... These Things Must Happen First … But The End will Not Come Right Away!” … 10 Then He said to them … “Nation will Rise against Nation … And Kingdom against Kingdom! ... 11 There will be Great Earthquakes … “Famines and Pestilences” in Various Places … And Fearful Events … And Great Signs from Heaven! … 12 “But Before All This … They will Seize you … And Persecute you! ... They will Hand you Over to Synagogues … And Put you in Prison … And you will be Brought Before “Kings and Governors” … And All On Account of My Name! ... 13 And so you will Bear Testimony to Me! ... 14 But Make Up your Mind Not to Worry Beforehand How you will Defend yourselves! ... 15 For I will Give you “Words and Wisdom” that None of your Adversaries will Be Able to “Resist or Contradict”! … 16 You will Be Betrayed … Even by Parents … “Brothers and Sisters” … “Relatives and Friends” … And they will Put Some of you to Death! … 17 Everyone will Hate you Because of Me! … 18 But Not a Hair of your Head Will Perish! 19 Stand Firm …And you will Win Life! ... 20 “When you See Jerusalem being Surrounded by Armies … You will Know that Its Desolation is Near! ... 21 Then Let Those who Are In Judea Flee to The Mountains … Let Those In The City Get Out! … And Let Those In The Country Not Enter The City! ... 22 For This is The Time of Punishment in Fulfillment of All that has Been Written! ... 23 How Dreadful It will Be In Those Days for Pregnant Women … And Nursing Mothers! … There will Be Great Distress in The Land … And Wrath against this People! ... 24 They will Fall by The Sword … And will Be Taken as Prisoners to All The Nations! … Jerusalem will Be Trampled On by The Gentiles until The Times of The Gentiles are Fulfilled! ... 25 “There will Be Signs in The Sun … Moon … And Stars! ... On The Earth … Nations will Be In “Anguish and Perplexity” at The “Roaring and Tossing” of The Sea! … 26 People will Faint from Terror … Apprehensive of What is “Coming On” The World … For The Heavenly Bodies will Be Shaken! … 27 At That Time … They will See The Son of Man Coming In a Cloud with “Power and Great Glory”! … 28 When These Things Begin to Take Place … Stand Up … And “Lift Up” your Heads … Because your Redemption is Drawing Near!” … 29 He Told Them this Parable … “Look at The Fig Tree and All The Trees! ... 30 When they Sprout Leaves … You Can See for yourselves … And Know that Summer is Near! ... 31 Even So … When you See These Things Happening … You Know that The Kingdom of God is Near! ... 32 “Truly I Tell you … This Generation will Certainly Not Pass Away until All These Things have Happened! ... 33 Heaven and Earth will Pass Away … But My Words will Never Pass Away! ... 34 “Be Careful … Or your Hearts will Be Weighed Down with Carousing … Drunkenness … And The Anxieties of Life … And that Day will Close On you Suddenly like a Trap! ... 35 For It will Come On All Those who Live On The Face of The Whole Earth! ... 36 Be Always On The Watch [Be Ready] … And Pray that you May Be Able to Escape All that Is about To Happen … And That you May Be Able to Stand Before The Son of Man!” … 37 Each Day Jesus was Teaching at The Temple … And each Evening He Went Out to Spend The Night On The Hill Called The Mount of Olives … 38 And All The people Came Early in The Morning to Hear Him at The Temple!
This passage give us…
4 Primary Ways Jesus Teaches us to “Be Ready”
1) Discern “The Prophetic Times” We’re Living In! … (vs 5-9) Tells us, followers of Jesus are supposed to know and remember the specific Biblical events that happened at specific prophesied times in the past and be diligent in praying, working and watching for the Biblical prophecy that’s going to happen in the future.
2) Discern “The Prophetic Signs” We’re Living In! … (vs 10-19) … Tells us what the signs are! These are fearful events that will terrify and disgust us! Some are natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and famines!
Then, there’s other things like curses, plagues and pestilence! And the worst indicator signs are depravity, debauchery, perversion, pagan rituals, wickedness and all other manners of evil! We see it escalating every day now… human trafficking, sex slavery, child abuse, child sacrifice, mass shootings, serial killers, etc.
3) Discern “The Prophetic Events” That Are Still to Come! … (vs 20-28) … When we’re faithful to study and know Bible prophecy, we can be 100% sure of what’s going to happen in the future, which gives us confidence and courage to keep doing the work we need to be doing now! So, now we’re going to pick back up from last week on the 4th way He tells us to be ready.
4) Discern “Spiritual Matters” So We Can Be Ready for Now! … (vs 29-38) … What Jesus was telling the disciples then also applies to us as His disciples today… and it will always apply to His followers until He returns. The truth is, choosing to identify with Jesus makes us a follower of Him, so we’re supposed to be ready to do the work He’s called us to do!
Inside that framework…
A ) (vs 29-31) … The only way we can be ready to accomplish everything that God has for us to do is to always be pursuing the light of the truth, which is His Word, His will and His ways! Then in…
B ) (vs 32-35) … The only way we can be ready to receive discipline from God is to walk in the light of the truth. And, picking up here from last week in…
>(vs 36) … Jesus just said … 36 Be Always On The Watch [Be Ready] … And Pray that you May be Able to Escape All that is about to Happen … And that you May be Able to Stand before The Son of Man!”
Jesus is giving a universal command to all believers that carries through for all ages! There are a lot of verses that talk about this and remembering them will save us a lot of grief and confusion. Look at…
Mark 4:19 NIV – 19 … but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke The Word, making it unfruitful.
2 Timothy 2:3-4 NIV - 3 Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his Commanding Officer.
Another way to say it… going into battle with golf clubs, fishing rods, skateboards, TV remotes or video games will get a person killed! That’s why followers of Jesus go into spiritual battles with the Bible and the power of the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 13:5 NLT – 5 Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of Genuine Faith.
*Back in (vs 35) … Where Jesus said … 35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of The whole earth.
This is a very specific description of lost people! These are the people who’ve rejected Jesus! They’re condemned and they’ll definitely be living on earth during the time of the great tribulation period that’s coming (sooner rather than later)! The Old Testament also tells us to be ready…
Isaiah 26:20-21 NIV – 20 Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. 21 See, the Lord is coming out of His dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed on it; the earth will conceal its slain no longer! … The signs are the indicators to take actions from the warning.
Revelation 13:14 NIV – 14 Because of The Signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. … There it is again… the signs…
Revelation 17:8b NIV – 8 The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come! … PAST - PRESENT - and FUTURE PROPHECY! …
The very best reason we have for being ready is no matter how and when the rapture goes down, followers of Jesus have the guaranteed hope, powerful peace and unstoppable joy that comes with being a child of God because we don’t belong here. When we live it, people notice it!
Philippians 3:20 NIV – 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, The Lord Jesus Christ, … It's also how we're qualified and worth of discerning spiritual matters.
C ) (vs 36-38) … The only way we can be ready to obediently respond to spiritual matters is to always be on watch for the light of the truth!
A lot of professing Christians spend a whole lot of time worrying about debating and sometimes even arguing about when the rapture of the church will happen! The rapture is when God removes all believers, living and dead, from the earth (the true church) …and…
… give us glorified bodies in heaven for eternity. Then, He’ll impart His righteous judgement on all who refused to believe and submit to Jesus (God’s only Son/ the one true Messiah) as Lord and Savior! Followers of Jesus need to stop worrying and keep working!
It’s vital for us to understand how we’re declared worthy to be God’s children so we can discern spiritual mattes and help those around us who’re lost without Jesus, come to know and understand how they can be made worthy.
The Bible says, all of us are sinners, separated from God, headed for eternity in Hell! But sinners can be saved from separation and hell by God’s grace through faith in Jesus!
We’re made worthy by believing in the Holy sovereign God of the Bible, having faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior and trusting in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Then, we pray and watch for the spiritual matters God has planned for us!
So, stop worrying about it just do it! Praying and being on watch causes us to be ready because we’re made worthy in Jesus at the time of our salvation! The Bible gives us a lot of verses that speak to this…
Philippians 3:9 NIV – 9 and be found In Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ … The Righteousness that comes from God on the basis of Faith.
Our righteousness comes by God through faith in Jesus, powered by the Holy Spirit. Nobody can make this happen by their own actions or power! No other false god has the ability to impart righteousness on anything or anybody! It is where we get our strength to endure this mess!
2 Timothy 2:1 NIV – You then, My son, be strong in The Grace that is In Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 1:13 NIV - 13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with Faith and Love In Christ Jesus.
Colossians 1:28 NIV – 28 He is The One we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all Wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature In Christ Jesus.
At the moment a person repents from sin and submits to Jesus as Lord and Savior, salvation is deposited by God in our spiritual account. It’s at that same moment we’re placed in Jesus and our identity is in Him!
Which means our worthiness is found in His worthiness. Our righteousness is found in His righteousness and our salvation is found in His salvation!
Jude 24 NIV – 24 To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His Glorious Presence without fault and with great joy.
A while lot of the current so called Christian culture isn’t being very watchful! Way too many pastors don’t teach the church to be ready to discern urgent spiritual matters like attacks against our faith and freedom.
We’re supposed to be teaching followers of Jesus to be praying and watching… stay alert… so, we can be ready to take on the spiritual matters that God has designed for us! We need to be in an attitude of prayer all the time!
Revelation 3:1-2 NIV – “To The Angel of The Church in Sardis write … These are The Words of Him Who holds The Seven Spirits of God and The Seven Stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! … Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God! … There ~IT~ is AGAIN … BE READY! … à
We have to wake up and guard against the worldly dangers that keep us from being ready! It’s things that can literally consume us like bitterness, apathy, idleness, anger, lack of prayer, pursuit of worldly wealth or whatever else we get distracted by!
Matthew 26:41 NIV – 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
We need fellow believers that keep us ready, awake, watching and waiting! We want believers in our lives who will remind us that Jesus could come any minute! We want believers in our lives who’re ready to meet Jesus!
Luke 12:45-46 NIV – 45 But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My Master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46 The Master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect Him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
So, what should we be doing to make sure we’re ready when Jesus comes back?
1. Make sure our closest friends are believers and hold each other accountable to the truth!
2. Start producing fruit by speaking the truth and doing things the way Jesus would!
3. Build God’s church by using our spiritual gifts to serve Jesus as He calls!
4. Be ready to reach out to meet the needs for truth of those in our circles of influence!
5. Make worshipping Jesus a priority! (Showing Him love in praise, words and actions!)
6. Read the Bible every day (with the ears to hear from the Holy Spirit inside us!)
7. Pray all the time… all day… then, fall asleep praying! (Pray continually!)
8. Look for the opportunities God gives us to serve Jesus! Be involved in His kingdom work!
9. Witness to others about what God has done for you! (Speak the truth of Jesus to people!)
10. Continue working hard to know God better (Grow in our love, faith and trust of Jesus!)
*9 Action Words :> - LOVE – PRAY – THANK – GO – MAKE – TEACH – ASK – SEEK – KNOCK!
It’s not too late to make a difference for the Kingdom of God but we have to make the decision to be ready now!
Titus 2:11-13 NIV – 11 For The Grace of God has appeared that offers Salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and Godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait [BE READY] for The Blessed Hope … The appearing of The Glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ …
If you’re listening online… and you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, then I’m inviting you to pray to Jesus right now… and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior! He knows what’s best for us and it’s eternity with God in heaven… But the only way to get there is through a salvation relationship with Jesus! So, don’t wait! Receive him now!
Let’s pray!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 11-19-23
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
11/19/2023
The “Able Power” of Jesus
Ephesians 3:13-21
We finished a series last week that focused on God’s truth, which is the only truth. Now we’re going to move into a series focused on God’s power and all that goes with it, which goes way beyond a person just saying they know there’s a God and He’s powerful because…
… knowing God and experiencing God are two different things! We’re going to look at what the Bible says about experiencing and encountering God through our belief, faith and trust in Jesus, which also provides us His power and it all starts with sincere worship, praise and prayer as God’s humble/obedient ambassador, warrior, servant and saint!
God has unlimited power and we have ongoing needs, but that’s ok because God’s able to do way more than we could ask or even imagine! So, it’s a perfect match! But it still seems like a lot of believers have some unmet needs. The Bible tells us why life seems this way.
Ephesians 3:13-21 NIV – 13 I ask you, therefore, Not to Be Discouraged because of my Suffering’s for you, which are your glory.14 For this reason I kneel before The Father, 15 from Whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of His Glorious Riches He may strengthen you with Power thru His Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have Power, together with all The Lord’s Holy people, to Grasp how wide and long and high and deep is The Love of Christ, 19 and to know this Love that surpasses knowledge … That you may be filled to The Measure of all The Fullness of God. 20 Now to Him Who is ABLE to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His Power that is at work within us, 21 to Him be Glory in The Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Paul is praying for and encouraging the church to get a grasp on the able power of Jesus! (vs 19) is saying it’s directly related to the fullness of God, which is everything God is! It’s all His attributes, character, perfection and holiness.
And it all hinges on His power and love! So, the fullness of God is in His complete nature. It’s who He is! This passage is telling us that Jesus has infinite power and He is able to do anything, everything and all things! And His power is IN us!
At the time, Paul’s talking to people who’re discouraged, defeated, scared, tired and have lost hope! Just like a lot of people today! Paul points them to Jesus and tells them Jesus is able to help them overcome everything that’s overwhelming them.
Jesus is the best news we could ever give to lost people… and people who’ve lost all hope in life. There’s somebody who is able to deliver them from shame, guilt, fear, oppression, persecution, evil… just name it! He has power over it and His name is Jesus!
So, when the Bible says we can conquer all things through Christ who strengthens us, that’s exactly what it means! It’s not some philosophical ideology! It’s the cold/hard facts! The power of Jesus conquers all things and the Bible gives us a lot of real examples!
A lot of real-life bad situations involving real people aren’t just stories. Like when King Nebuchadnezzar told Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego that they had to stop bowing to worship God and submit to his authority instead or else they’d be executed in a fiery furnace!
Nebuchadnezzar told them that nobody has the power to overrule him! But these 3 Hebrew men told the king the sovereign/holy God whom we serve is able to deliver us from your hand of persecution. We don’t know if He will, but we know He’s able!
Then on over in Daniel 6, a law was passed by the kings of the Meade’s and Persian’s that prohibited praying for 30 days! Daniel kneeled and prayed anyway! And he didn’t hide to do it! He opened the windows in his house to prove he trusted God for protection!
The penalty for disobeying the king was being thrown in the lion’s den to be eaten alive! The king came the next day to see if there was anything left of Daniel, but Daniel was alive and well! And he testified to the king, “I tried to tell you that my God is able to protect me”!
The king had earthly authority to sentence Daniel to death for breaking man’s law but he didn’t have the power to override God’s hand of protection over His faithful servant! It’s the same power of Jesus that saves us from the life and death situation we’re in with sin!
Our sin convicts us and sentences us to death, but we can be saved through the power of Jesus, who’s able to defeat the death sentence of sin! And He’s more than able to protect us from the attacks of the enemy and the bad situation of life!
Now, the power of Jesus in us doesn’t always deliver us from bad situations. Sometimes He delivers us through bad situations and sometimes He delivers us in bad situations. But He always delivers us in God’s perfect timing and our faith is a big part of it!
Hebrews 7:25 NIV – 25 Therefore He is ABLE to save completely those who come to God through Him, [That’s JESUS] … because He always lives to intercede for them!
Then there’s the people who’re headed for death and don’t seem to know it. And part of the work Jesus has given us to do is speak the truth into them and wake them up! It’s why we should never give up on unsaved people we live because Jesus is able to save them!
2 Corinthians 9:8 NIV – 8 And God is ABLE to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
Jude 1:24- 25 NIV – 24 To Him Who is ABLE to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His Glorious Presence without fault and with great joy … 25 to The Only God our Savior be Glory, Majesty, Power and Authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
(vs 20) God want us to experience and encounter Him in miraculous ways so we can testify to people about things that are only possible through the power of Jesus! People aren’t always going to believe what we’re telling them, but they ought to be able to see that we believe it!
When we truly love Jesus and speak God’s truth with boldness, conviction and guidance from the Holy Spirit, people are able to tell that we believe in God and have faith in Jesus. So, it’s imperative that we trust the process that the Bible lays out for following Jesus!
We see the process at work over in (Mark 4 and to the end of Mark 5) … Jesus takes the disciples on a journey to learn how to trust Him. They’re going to see 4 situations that most anybody who’s caught in the middle would say are impossible to resolve!
What Jesus is about to show them is the Almighty Power of God over every situation… and understand what they’re about to experience and witness in real life… is directly connected to what Jesus just taught them in the classroom. (And He’ll do the same for us!) So…
4 Examples of The “Able Power” of Jesus in Impossible Situations
I. Jesus Calms The Sea! - (Mark 4:35-41) … Jesus and the disciples were crossing to the other side of the sea of Galilee to continue their mission and ministry work. Jesus was asleep because He was exhausted from all the work they’d been doing. Then, a violent storm blew in!
The disciples panicked. They didn’t stop to consider who was in the boat with them. However, they woke Him up and asked Him, how and why He could sleep when the storm was about to sink them, So, He got up, spoke with power and the sea went calm because He is able!
And then He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind obeys Him!” But even then, instead of fully trusting Him, they were kind of afraid of Him. After this, it gets even better…
II. Jesus Heals a Demoniac! - (Mark 5:1-20) … The boat lands in a very rocky area with cliffs, where there’s actually a demon possessed maniac! He has supernatural strength and nobody or nothing could bind him. Jesus spoke and cast a legion of demons out of him into pigs!
Then the pics panicked and ran off a cliff and died, which put a stop to the legion of demons! Then, the man goes to ten cities and tells people, “I met a man who spoke and the demons came out of me! The Messian has come! Remember the disciples are seeing all this! Next…
III. Jesus Heals a Woman! - (Mark 5:21-34) … They go back over the Sea of Galilee and a Jewish ruler named Jairus has a daughter who’s dying! He says, “My little girl is dying. Will you please come help?" And, Jesus says, “Yes!” So, as Jesus is walking toward the home of the little girl who’s dying, He’s swarmed by other people wanting help! All of a sudden, He stops and says, “Who touched me? I felt power go out of me!” A woman in the crowd confessed that she touched Him!
She had an issue of blood that couldn’t be healed, but she believed that if she could get close to Jesus, He would surely heal her! Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well!” Apparently, even after this, the disciples are still confused because He didn’t touch her! Then…
IV. Jesus Resurrects a Dead Girl! - (Mark 5:21-43) … Now He’s ready to go to the dying girl! But runners from the house tell Him it’s too late. She’s dead! Jesus turns to them and says, “Don’t be afraid! Only believe! And He goes to the house anyway!
Mourners are already there… waiting and crying! Jesus tells them to stop it! And everybody calms down. He says, “The girl is not dead… she’s just asleep!” He looks at the girl that says, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” And she wakes up! Jesus has authority over life and death!
So, we see in all of these real life/real people impossible situations that Jesus can be trusted… again… these things really happened! This isn’t just some folklore or fable. These events show and prove the power of Jesus and His teaching, which tells us…
4 Facts about The “Able Power” of Jesus
A. Jesus is the Lord over the “natural” realm.
He speaks to the wind, water, fire and earth … and they obey Him!
B. Jesus is the Lord over the "spiritual" realm!
The enemy’s supernatural power, evil principalities and demonic forces… are all under the control, command and able power of Jesus!
C. Jesus is the Lord over the “physical” realm!
He heals the physical body! Like the woman with the issue of blood. His “able power” speaks, touches, or is just simply present… and it reverses physical events that have already transpired like the little girl that had died!
D. Jesus is the Lord over the "eternal" realm!
Jesus is the sovereign Lord and has power over all things: past, present, future and forever!
We’re living in a day where the prophecies, purposes and words of Jesus are literally happening at an exponential pace… and we’re headed to the final chapter of this fallen/sinful earth at almost break-neck speed! All of it’s fully described in the Book of Revelation!
So, we can either focus on our circumstances and what other people are saying and doing or we can trust the truth of the Word of God and focus on Jesus … how He's the almighty/sovereign Lord and has power over heaven and earth!
The history of this earth ends with Jesus coming back and making all the things right that we’ve seen made wrong. And He’s bringing God’s justice with Him! He’ll establish a new heaven and new earth and He doesn’t want anybody to miss it!
He has a role and responsibility for us in the process and He doesn’t want us to miss that either! So, when we think about what really matters, let’s move beyond our earthly perspective on circumstances, economies, political issues and world situations!
So, let’s focus on Jesus who had a fully human, natural, humble birth! He lived a perfect spiritual and physical life! He died a physical death and defeated evil and sin in the process! He even defeated physical and eternal death!
And He’s coming back to defeat Satan and all his demons! So, how could we ever doubt that Jesus has all the power that we’d ever need in all our times of trouble! No matter how desperate, how urgent, how tragic or how personal our trouble happens to be!
We have to believe He has the power. We have to live out our faith to prove it! Not only to ourselves, but to others! Then we have to trust Him by taking whatever action He calls us to take in advancing God’s kingdom, even if it makes us afraid or doesn’t make sense!
Jesus came on the greatest rescue mission ever conceived! He has not … cannot… and will not fail. In fact, He’s already won the war! We just have to finish the battles and He’s fighting right beside us! His plan for our life is better than any plan we could ever come up with!
Jesus is a mighty God. We can believe His promises! He has power over the spiritual world… the physical world… even power over life and death itself! He’ll give us everything we need to face anything we’re going through. But we have to ask!
We have a hope in Jesus that does not… and will not change! Because we’re connected to Him through belief, faith and trust! We’re His brothers and sisters as children of the most high God! So, let’s put our best effort and energy into focusing on that!
Things will change for the better when we do! I promise because Jesus promised us first!
In Revelation 1:8 Jesus declared that “Alpha and Omega”! … The beginning and the end… the spirit of the living God… who’s the creator… and who has all power over past, present and future! He dwells in us and wants to help us. He has done and will do… everything He says He’ll do!
We need to work hard everyday to obediently live out the guaranteed hope and power of Jesus so others will see our love for Him but most importantly, so we show Jesus how much we love Him. I don’t do this much, but …
I want to give us an action item to take away… a tangible thing we can all do for life application. It’s really easy… if we’ll do it! Sometime this week read (Revelation 22) … the entire chapter. Let the reality of the guaranteed hope that we’ll have in Jesus sink in. Pray as you read through and ask God to do something through us for Him.
If you’re listening online… and you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, then I’m inviting you to pray to Jesus right now… and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior! He knows what’s best for us and it’s eternity with God in heaven… But the only way to get there is through a salvation relationship with Jesus! So, don’t wait! Receive him now!
And please join us for our baptism service on December 3rd.
Let’s pray!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 10-22-23
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
10/22/2023
Be Ready pt 2
Luke 21:5-38
One of the foundational themes Jesus taught us through His life, teaching, instructions, ministry and prophecies is to be ready! The primary reason He warns His followers to be ready is that only God knows the exact date and time that Jesus is coming back.
All through scripture the Bible tells us that the time is counting down to an ending moment that’s been predetermined by God. That specific moment is the “end of time” as we know it on earth and it ushers in the start of eternity for all mankind… either in heaven or hell!
So, God’s going to terminate physical time and that’s when Jesus will eliminate all rule, authority and power of the enemy on this earth… and establish His millennial kingdom under the authority, principle and power of God Almighty! And Jesus tells us to be ready!
We’ve started looking at all the reasons Jesus tells us to be ready and why we should want to be working hard to get ready. It all centers on us loving Jesus enough to be an obedient faithful follower of Him as our Lord, Savior and King!
The main passage for this study is in Luke 21: 5-38. It’s the final public sermon from Jesus and He preached it from the Mount of Olives. So, it’s called “The Olivet Discourse.” The foundation of the message is, “Be ready for His second coming!” The message has 4 specific segments, which gives us…
The Four Primary Ways Jesus Teaches Us to “Be Ready”
Jesus tells us that the countdown to His second coming would start in Jerusalen when God’s Holy temple would be destroyed by the Romans. History tells us it happened exactly when and how He said it would. Last week we started with the first way Jesus tells us to be ready which is…
1) Discern “The Prophetic Times” we’re Living In! … (vs 5-9) Tells us followers of Jesus are supposed to be diligently praying, working and watching for “the prophecy” of the end times, so we can discern exactly how God wants us to respond to what we see going on around us.
(vs 5&6) Tell us we have to know and understand Bible history… (vs 7&8) tell us to be diligent in discerning the truth so we know when we’re being lied to… and (vs 8&9) tell us to know and understand the Bible prophecy that hasn’t happened yet because God’s telling us what’s going to happen in advance! That’s a review of (vs 5-9). Today we’re going to cover (vs 10-19).
Luke 21:10-19 NIV - 10 Then He said to them … “Nation will Rise against Nation … And Kingdom against Kingdom! ... 11 There will be Great Earthquakes … “Famines and Pestilences” in Various Places … And Fearful Events … And Great Signs from Heaven! … 12 “But Before All This … They will Seize you … And Persecute you! ... They will Hand you Over to Synagogues … And Put you in Prison … And you will be Brought Before “Kings and Governors” … And All On Account of My Name! ... 13 And so you will Bear Testimony to Me! ... 14 But Make Up your Mind Not to Worry Beforehand How you will Defend yourselves! ... 15 For I will Give you “Words and Wisdom” that None of your Adversaries will Be Able to “Resist or Contradict”! … 16 You will Be Betrayed … Even by Parents … “Brothers and Sisters” … “Relatives and Friends” … And they will Put Some of you to Death! … 17 Everyone will Hate you Because of Me! … 18 But Not a Hair of your Head Will Perish! 19 Stand Firm …And you will Win Life! …
The 2nd Way Jesus Teaches us to Be Ready is…
2) Discern “The Prophetic Signs” We’re Living in – So, (1st is “times” and 2nd is “signs”) … (vs 10-19) tell us our response to prophecy needs to be, “I’m not afraid because I’m ready!”… which means it’s super important that we study and understand the signs of Bible prophecy because…
1) It reassures us the guaranty of our salvation through Jesus … 2) it gives us confidence and boldness to do God’s work… 3) it helps us evaluate our actions… 4) it helps us calm our mind and emotions… 5) it increases our faith in God and His Word and 6) it continually shows us that God almighty is real!
Followers of Jesus are supposed to be discerning people! To discern the signs means we have to stay alert! The definition of discern is to separate with a keen eye and mind. It means to distinguish and segregate or to divide or to profile!
When (vs 11) says, “fearful events” it’s talking about things we see going on that terrify and disgust us all at the same time! These are things like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornados, famines, floods, plagues and pestilence!
So, the prophecies of Jesus are incredibly profound and 100% accurate. That’s why there’s no excuse for a professing follower of Jesus to not fully trust His instructions and be obedient, diligent and urgent in carrying them out and getting His work done! No matter what’s going on! We’re told all through the Bible, both Old Testiment and New Testiment…
Ecclesiastes 8:5-6 NIV – 5 Whoever obeys His command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. 6 For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery!
We’re also warned by Jesus that we shouldn’t give more credibility to the so-called experts of this world than we do to the truth and power of the Word of God! God even gives us powerful brains and minds primarily so we can experience, encounter and know Him better. The secondarily to help us in our spiritual and physical battles on earth! Look at…
Luke 12:54-56 NIV – 54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? … So … à
True followers of Jesus should have a Biblical worldview (vs 10-11). When we’re diligent to align everything we do and say with God’s Word, we’ll stay under the protective umbrella of the power of the Holy Spirit! Remember Satan can’t accurately produce or predict prophecy!
But when we’re spiritually attacked, if we don’t keep a Biblical perspective on everything we do, then we’re setting ourselves up to be deceived, distracted, disrupted and detained by the enemy. And we’re going to be attacked, that’s for sure!
Deception is a huge part of Satan’s strategy in his spiritual battle plan against us! So, we have to be ready to discern when we’re being deceived! And when we’re saved, we’ve been spiritually equipped to do it! Jesus has even given us the weapons to fight with!
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV – 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary … They have Divine Power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments … And every pretension that sets itself up against The Knowledge of God … And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
The easiest way to develop and maintain our Biblical worldview is to know and follow the instruction we’re given in the Bible! It’s the only way to do and live what’s right in the eyes of God and stay focused on the things of God. It also sets an example for others!
Philippians 4:8 NIV – 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable … if anything is excellent or praiseworthy … think about such things.
We’re called to be the salt and light of the earth, which means true follower of Jesus are called to live in a way that causes other people to think about pursuing a relationship with Jesus Christ! We can’t be salt and light if we’re not trusting Jesus and doing things God’s way!
2 Peter 3:11 NIV – 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live Holy and Godly lives.
This world is very temporary! None of the things of this earth will carry over into heaven… or hell. So, we’ve got to stop being consumed by worldly things! When we live our lives focused on the things of God, other people are able to tell we’re a follower of Jesus. It has to be seen in everything we do!
Matthew 5:14-16 NIV – 14 “You are The Light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your Light Shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and Glorify your Father in Heaven.
Being “the light” means that we’re people who love, pray and are thankful for everything! We GO – MAKE and TEACH people to be disciples… and we ASK – SEEK and KNOCK on the doors of opportunity that God gives us to serve Him!
It’s also very important to train ourselves and remember that followers of Jesus should discern words of wisdom from God when we speak advice into the opportunities He gives us (vs 12-15).
Matthew 28:18-20 NIV – 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All Authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in The Name of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I Am with you always, to The Very End of The Age!”
Once we submit to Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we’ve been transformed and reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus, which means we’ve got something important to tell everybody! So, every follower of Jesus is supposed to be in training to speak the truth of the Gospel as an evangelist!
The reality is, if we’re a follower of Jesus today, It’s because somebody was obedient to the instructions Jesus gives His follower and told us about being in a relationship with Him! Somebody spoke the truth to us, so let’s speak the truth to a lot of people. It glorifies God!
When we’re saved, we’ve got “Good News” for people to hear! We’ve got something good to say! People are hearing enough bad news these days. Let’s give them the good news about Jesus! And we don’t have to wait for them to ask! We just discern from God when He wants us to speak. And when it involves the truth, He’ll give us plenty of opportunities!
When we're saved, we've got "Good News" for people to hear! We've got something good to share.
Acts 4:13; 17-21 NIV – 13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this Name.” 18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in The Name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is Right in God’s Eyes … to listen to you, or to Him? You be The Judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” 21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened.
The truth about Jesus always impacts people one way or another because it’s a spiritual thing. And a lot of times we’ll be persecuted in some kind of way for speaking about Jesus but that’s ok too because a true follower of Jesus can’t lose in this world!
John 14:25-26 NIV – 25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But The Advocate, The Holy Spirit, Whom The Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The only way true followers of Jesus can be deceived is if they fail to discern the truth from God through the power of the Holy Spirit! So, true followers of Jesus should have 100% confidence in their acceptance and assurance from God! (vs 16-19)
As far as persecution goes, think about the stoning of Stephen. The rocks were flying at him and he cried out, “Father forgive them… they don’t know what they’re doing!” … just like Jesus did at the cross! That tells us the closer we get to Jesus, the more we’re going to be like Him!
Again, the reality is, somebody who professes to be a Christian is going to be persecuted, but the great news is persecution, rejection or even death can’t separate a true follower of Jesus from God!
So, we’ve got nothing to be afraid of! Literally, all of the very worst things that can happen to us on this earth are only temporary! Even death! Then, if we’re saved and a follower of Jesus, we get to go be with Him in heaven for eternity… where nothing bad ever happens! It’s true, so it’s real and it lasts forever!
2 Corinthians 5:8-9 NIV – 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at Home with The Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
Which means in life and death, if we’re a saved believer, not even one hair on our head will ever be lost forever! Yes, followers of Jesus are going to be persecuted, some even up to execution, but not one single follower of His will ever completely perish… forever! That’s why we’re invincible because of Jesus and what He did at the cross!
Romans 8:37-39 NIV – 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from The Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Matthew 16:25 NIV – 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it.
Just a few more scriptures to wrap up today’s message…
Mark 10:28-30 NIV – 28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow You!” 29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Me and The Gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age … homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields … along with persecutions … and in The Age to come Eternal Life.
The power of death on earth shouldn’t scare a true follower of Jesus because ultimately, it’s what ushers us into His presence in heaven!
Matthew 18:14 NIV – 14 In the same way your Father in Heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
A believer who walks with Jesus may lose their life on earth, but they’ll never lose their way to heaven!
John 3:15 NIV – 15 ... That everyone who believes may have Eternal Life in Him.
John 10:27-29 NIV – 27 My sheep listen to My Voice; I know them, and they follow Me. 28 I give them Eternal Life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of My Hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is Greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s Hand.
All of this works together to let us know that followers of Jesus will be able to discern the signs, times and seasons of when His return is near, but only God knows the day and hour! But that’s ok because it’s God’s plan and it ought to motivate us to get His work done!
Now we’ve discerned the signs of the times so we’re ready to: tell others about Jesus, love our husband or wife God’s way, keep training to do what God wants us to do, give God our best of everything, learn how to enjoy God’s amazing love for us and learn how to live in His awesome power!
If you’re listening online and you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, then I’m inviting you to pray to Jesus right now and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior! He knows what’s best for us and it’s eternity with God in heaven, but the only way to get there is through a salvation relationship with Jesus. So, don’t wait… receive Him now.
Let’s pray.
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 10-29-23
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
10/29/2023
Be Ready pt 3
Luke 21:5-38
The Bible tells us that God wants His people to “Be Ready” and “Stay Ready” for His plan, which means it’s God’s will for us to know and understand the signs of the times concerning the second coming of Jesus, so we can be ready for the work He’s designed us to do!
The primary reason we know it’s so important is approximately 27% of the Bible’s message from God to us contains prophecy! And out of the 27 Books of the New Testament, 23 of them mention or teach something about the second coming of Jesus.
In fact, the second coming of Jesus is mentioned 321 times in the Bible, which is more than any other subject except for salvation! It’s what we see all through the course of Paul’s ministry. He talks about the salvation of lost people and the second coming of Jesus more than anything else!
Likewise, we want to be successful in everything God designed us to do in our ministry on earth as a follower of Jesus! So, we’ve been looking at the …
4 Primary Ways Jesus Teaches Us to “Be Ready” in Luke 21: 5-38.
1) Discern “The Prophetic Times” We’re Living In! … (vs 5-9) Tells us followers of Jesus are supposed to be diligently: praying, working and watching for the continuing prophecy of the end times. The second way for us to be ready is…
2) Discern “The Prophetic Signs” We’re Living In! … (vs 10-19) Tells us the signs are fearful events that terrify and disgust us, which are natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, floods, plagues and pestilence!
The fearful events also include evil, vile, perverted actions of wicked people, which happen every day now. We can see clearly the signs of these type of abominations increasing in scope and frequency all the time. Today we’re going to pick back up in…
Luke 21:20-28 NIV - 20 “When you See Jerusalem being Surrounded by Armies … You will Know that Its Desolation is Near! ... 21 Then Let Those who Are In Judea Flee to The Mountains … Let Those In The City Get Out! … And Let Those In The Country Not Enter The City! ... 22 For This is The Time of Punishment in Fulfillment of All that has Been Written! ... 23 How Dreadful It will Be In Those Days for Pregnant Women … And Nursing Mothers! … There will Be Great Distress in The Land … And Wrath against this People! ... 24 They will Fall by The Sword … And will Be Taken as Prisoners to All The Nations! … Jerusalem will Be Trampled On by The Gentiles until The Times of The Gentiles are Fulfilled! ... 25 “There will Be Signs in The Sun … Moon … And Stars! ... On The Earth … Nations will Be In “Anguish and Perplexity” at The “Roaring and Tossing” of The Sea! … 26 People will Faint from Terror … Apprehensive of What is “Coming On” The World … For The Heavenly Bodies will Be Shaken! … 27 At That Time … They will See The Son of Man Coming In a Cloud with “Power and Great Glory”! … 28 When These Things Begin to Take Place … Stand Up … And “Lift Up” your Heads … Because your Redemption is Drawing Near!” …
The prophecy of Jesus is complete because it has specific design inside of God’s overall plan for the Nation of Israel, the Jewish people, the city of Jerusalem, the gentile people, and it encompasses the entire world for all time. But the primary thing to remember is…
God’s alarm clock for the prophetic times is centered on the Nation of Israel and the second coming of Jesus. #1 there are “times” and #2 there are “signs”! So, Jesus expects us to keep up with what’s going on and keep our eye on the Nation of Israel.
The only nation in history that’s had its sovereignty completely taken away and then completely restored again is the Nation of Israel, exactly like the Bible said it would! So, this prophecy makes it easy to discern the times we’re in now!
The times and signs work hand in hand! That’s why God wants us to be aware of the prophetic signs because they’re indicators for the end of time events! So, we have the proof of prophecy that’s come to pass in history so far. Now we move on to #3, which is…
3) Discern “The Prophetic Events” that are Still to Come! … (vs 20-28) – The benefit we get from studying this is knowing with certainty what’s ahead gives us confidence and courage for the work we need to be doing now. Because…
What God says is what God does… and Jesus makes it easy for us to see the big picture idea of what God wants us to know! What Jesus says in (vs 20-22) covers 2000 years of time! So, looking ahead gives us the true perspective for having a Biblical worldview!
It’s one of the primary reasons God gave us the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God… and it’s not of this world, but it was sent by God to this world! Non-believers who try to refute the Bible say it’s written by man so it can’t be trusted, which isn’t true. The Bible says in…
2 Timothy 3:16 NIV – 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness …
So, no matter what people want to believe, the Bible is the authority of God! A lot of folks may not believe it or like it, but the reality is, every time we speak the Bible, the Holy Spirit infuses it into the lives of the people who are listening.
It causes them to start thinking about spiritual matters. That’s why people will forget what we say from human intellect, but they’ll never forget what the Holy Spirit says through us! Always stick to the truth of the Bible! We can put it to the test and it will pass every time!
2 Peter 1:21 NIV – 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by The Holy Spirit! … What it's saying here is...
All the authors of the Word of God were possessed by the Holy Spirit. Most people only think about being possessed in terms of being possessed by a demon, but every follower of Jesus is possessed by the power of the Holy Spirit and can’t be demon possessed! Also, the truth of God’s Word will never go away!
Matthew 5:18 NIV – 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from The Law until everything is accomplished.
This is telling us that the Word of God will be completely fulfilled. Also in…
John 13:19 NIV – 19 “I Am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I Am Who I Am!
So, when the Bible said Jerusalem would be surrounded and destroyed by enemies, it happened! And it’s not just in the Bible, it’s in history books as fact! So, when the Bible says Jerusalem will be surrounded by armies again, it’s going to happen!
Daniel spoke about the events around the ministry of Jesus 500 years before Jesus was born! And every bit of it happened exactly the way he prophesied that it would…
Daniel 9:26 NIV - 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ The Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and The Sanctuary. The end will come like a flood … War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
God’s Word ever fails! Mattew gives us a more detailed prophecy…
Matthew 24:14-21 NIV – 14 And this Gospel of The Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a Testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. 15 “So when you see standing in The Holy Place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel … Let the reader understand … 16 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on The Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled again.
God wants us to be looking ahead because He wants us to know what’s coming! Not just for our curiosity and planning, but because He’s got stuff for us to accomplish for His Kingdom!
So, back to (vs 24), in one sentence, with just 15 words, Jesus reveals a truth that nobody can deny… Jerusalem is the epicenter of the past… and the future.
Past to present… How we got here… God’s plan to reveal Himself to the World… Abram, Sarah, Hagar, Ismael, Miracle, Isaac… the spirit of Hagar became evil… Sarah had Abraham put her out of the house… Jerusalem was promised by God to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and descendants!
Prophecy… Solomon builds temple… King Nebuchadnezzar destroys 1st temple in Jerusalem 565 BC… Israelites reconquer… King Herod builds 2nd temple… Romans destroy in 70 AD… pagan spirit of Hagar rises again… Muhammed falsely prophecies… Nation of Islam… Muslims.
They believe the Temple Mount was promised to Ismael. The reality is, Jerusalem belongs to God, but God doesn’t stay where He’s not wanted! It’s been thousands of years since there was a permanent representation of God on the Temple Mount!
God is not begotten and He has no son!
Jews sufferer because they rejected God and His Son, Jesus… again and again! Holocaust, persecution from radical Islam, most recently the attacks from Palestinians in Gaza… back to the main passage in (vs 24) again… this is amazing…
(vs 24) They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Full stop. 2000 year+ pause… Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Basically, there are two types of people… Jews and Gentiles. There are two types of Jews and Gentiles… Jews who believe in Jesus and Jews who don’t. Gentiles who believe in Jesus and those who don’t! Two dynamics surrounding each! The temple and the church!
God’s dealing with each group in His sovereign/holy way! He wants all who will come to salvation through Jesus, but there’s still specifics that are unique to each covenant that He will fulfill because He made the promise and He won’t break it!
Even more amazing… go way back before (vs 24) to the Old Testament where it’s prophesied in…
Hosea 5:15; 6:1 NIV – 15 Then I will return to My Lair until they have borne their guilt and seek My Face … in their misery they will earnestly seek Me.” [Prophesying 2000+ YR PAUSE] … 6 1“Come, let us return to The Lord. He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us; He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds.
So, God’s going to deal with the Jews and the Gentiles on earth as He has specified and sees fit, in His perfect timing! There will be a rapture of the church, which is all who choose to submit to Jesus as Lord and Savior, receiving the gift of salvation!
God is a loving, patient, merciful, gracious God. He’s given the Jewish people many, many chances…
John 1:10-11 NIV – 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made Through Him, the world did not recognize Him. 11 He came to that which was His Own, but His own did not receive Him.
God won’t be done with His people until His plan is fully complete! There are so many times when He gives grace and mercy that people become arrogant and disobedient. It’s what Paul was talking about in…
Romans 11:25 NIV – 25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited … Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
We can do our part by looking ahead to prophecy in the Bible because looking ahead helps us understand and discern more about God’s heart, mind and plan. We need to spend more time reading the Bible than we do reading books about the Bible. It tells us what’s going to happen and what to be ready for…
Romans 8:20-23 NIV – 20 For The Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by The Will of The One Who subjected it, in hope 21 that The Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the Freedom and Glory of The children of God. 22 We know that The Whole Creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have The First-Fruits of The Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to son-ship, the redemption of our bodies! … SO … à
The Bible’s not only a manual for how to live our life now. It’s also a warning beacon that allows us to be ready for the future! Again, we can have 100% confidence in God’s Word. Look at…
2 Peter 3:3-5 NIV – 3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ He promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s Word The Heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.
The better we know and understand the prophecy in God’s plan, the more assurance, confidence and courage we have to get His work done! Let’s do our part and get ready!
If you’re listening online and you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, then I’m inviting you to pray to Jesus right now and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior. He knows what’s best for us and it’s eternity with God in heaven, but the only way to get there is through a salvation relationship with Jesus! So, don’t wait. Receive Him now!
Let’s pray!
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INVINCIBLE CHURCH 10-15-23
Invincible Church Sermon Notes
10/15/2023
Be Ready pt 1
Luke 21:5-38
One of the foundational themes in the life – teaching – instructions – ministry and prophecies of Jesus is for His follower to be ready! The primary reason He warns us to be ready is that only God knows the exact date and time that Jesus is coming back!
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at all the reasons Jesus tells us to be ready… and why we should want to be working hard to be ready! It all centers on us loving Jesus enough to be a faithful/obedient follower to Him as our Lord, Savior and King!
Luke 21:5-38 NIV - 5 Some of His Disciples were Remarking about how The Temple was Adorned with Beautiful Stones … And with Gifts Dedicated to God! … But Jesus said … 6 “As for What you See Here … The Time will Come when Not One Stone will be Left on Another … Every One of them will be Thrown Down!” 7 “Teacher” they Asked … “When will these Things Happen? … And What will be The Sign that They are about to Take Place?” … 8 He Replied … “Watch Out that you are Not Deceived! … For Many will Come In My Name … Claiming … “I Am He” … And … “The Time is Near!” … Do Not Follow them! ... 9 When you Hear of Wars and Uprisings … Do Not be Frightened! ... These Things Must Happen First … But The End will Not Come Right Away!” … 10 Then He said to them … “Nation will Rise against Nation … And Kingdom against Kingdom! ... 11 There will be Great Earthquakes … “Famines and Pestilences” in Various Places … And Fearful Events … And Great Signs from Heaven! … 12 “But Before All This … They will Seize you … And Persecute you! ... They will Hand you Over to Synagogues … And Put you in Prison … And you will be Brought Before “Kings and Governors” … And All On Account of My Name! ... 13 And so you will Bear Testimony to Me! ... 14 But Make Up your Mind Not to Worry Beforehand How you will Defend yourselves! ... 15 For I will Give you “Words and Wisdom” that None of your Adversaries will Be Able to “Resist or Contradict”! … 16 You will Be Betrayed … Even by Parents … “Brothers and Sisters” … “Relatives and Friends” … And they will Put Some of you to Death! … 17 Everyone will Hate you Because of Me! … 18 But Not a Hair of your Head Will Perish! 19 Stand Firm …And you will Win Life! ... 20 “When you See Jerusalem being Surrounded by Armies … You will Know that Its Desolation is Near! ... 21 Then Let Those who Are In Judea Flee to The Mountains … Let Those In The City Get Out! … And Let Those In The Country Not Enter The City! ... 22 For This is The Time of Punishment in Fulfillment of All that has Been Written! ... 23 How Dreadful It will Be In Those Days for Pregnant Women … And Nursing Mothers! … There will Be Great Distress in The Land … And Wrath against this People! ... 24 They will Fall by The Sword … And will Be Taken as Prisoners to All The Nations! … Jerusalem will Be Trampled On by The Gentiles until The Times of The Gentiles are Fulfilled! ... 25 “There will Be Signs in The Sun … Moon … And Stars! ... On The Earth … Nations will Be In “Anguish and Perplexity” at The “Roaring and Tossing” of The Sea! … 26 People will Faint from Terror … Apprehensive of What is “Coming On” The World … For The Heavenly Bodies will Be Shaken! … 27 At That Time … They will See The Son of Man Coming In a Cloud with “Power and Great Glory”! … 28 When These Things Begin to Take Place … Stand Up … And “Lift Up” your Heads … Because your Redemption is Drawing Near!” … 29 He Told Them this Parable … “Look at The Fig Tree and All The Trees! ... 30 When they Sprout Leaves … You Can See for yourselves … And Know that Summer is Near! ... 31 Even So … When you See These Things Happening … You Know that The Kingdom of God is Near! ... 32 “Truly I Tell you … This Generation will Certainly Not Pass Away until All These Things have Happened! ... 33 Heaven and Earth will Pass Away … But My Words will Never Pass Away! ... 34 “Be Careful … Or your Hearts will Be Weighed Down with Carousing … Drunkenness … And The Anxieties of Life … And that Day will Close On you Suddenly like a Trap! ... 35 For It will Come On All Those who Live On The Face of The Whole Earth! ... 36 Be Always On The Watch [Be Ready] … And Pray that you May Be Able to Escape All that Is about To Happen … And That you May Be Able to Stand Before The Son of Man!” … 37 Each Day Jesus was Teaching at The Temple … And each Evening He Went Out to Spend The Night On The Hill Called The Mount of Olives … 38 And All The people Came Early in The Morning to Hear Him at The Temple!
All of this sounds like the ole’ good news/bad news thing where somebody asks, “What do you want first… the good news or the bad news? Most people want the bad news first, hoping that the good news will take the sting out of the bad news!
It’s the same teaching method that Jesus used and He wants us to know the good news that never changes which is, God is always good, even in the worst of times, but for about 6 months, Jesus had been telling the disciples to be ready…
… because He was going to be betrayed – arrested – falsely accused – beaten – humiliated – tortured – and crucified! He wanted them to start getting spiritually prepared, so they’d be ready to take on whatever needed to be done to advance the Kingdom!
But the disciples thought that once Jesus was resurrected, He’d immediately establish His millennial Kingdom on earth, and they’d all get back to properly serving, worshipping and praising God the way true followers of Jesus are called to!
They kind of skimmed over all the bad news that had been prophesied and was 100% going to happen… and only focused on the good news that was 100% going to happen too, but not until God’s perfect plan and timing called for it to happen!
The disciples formulated in their minds their preference of what they wanted to happen! What they thought would immediately happen was Jesus would supernaturally overthrow Rome, establish His Kingdom, the millennium would start and everything would be good!
But God had His perfect timing for everything! A lot of people are going through difficult times with all of the hardships, health problems, corruption, depravity, wickedness and evil going on in the world right now… and some of it is beyond horrific!
That’s why we have to remember that God’s with us in the midst of all of it… and we have to trust Him when He says that He is working all things for the good of those who love Him! He’s faithful to His Word and promises, so if we love Him, we’ll be patient and trust Him!
John 14:1-3 NIV - “Do Not Let your Hearts Be Troubled! ... You Believe In God … Believe Also In Me! ... 2 My Father’s House has many Rooms … If That were Not So … Would I have Told you That I Am Going There to Prepare a Place for you? … 3 And if I Go and Prepare a Place for you … I will Come Back … And Take you to Be with Me … That you Also May Be Where I Am!
Jesus gives us the bad news first… because of sin, the earth is fallen and depraved! So, the truth is, there are going to be hard times in this world! Then, He gives us the good news that once we believe in Him and submit to Him as Lord and Savior, we belong to Him!
Because we belong to Him, we get to live with Him in heaven forever, where there is never ever – never ever – any bad news ever again! And the Bible teaches us that God wants His church to know that Jesus could come back at any moment… so be ready!
Today we’re going to focus on (vs 5-9) our primary passage. In that, we read in Luke 21 where Jesus preached His final public sermon from the Mount of Olives and the foundation of the message was “Be Ready” for His second coming! It’s called “The Olivet Discourse”.
It’s covered in 3 of the 4 Gospels… and they don’t contradict each other… they compliment one another! It gives us a more complete perspective of what Jesus was actually teaching. It’s like the encyclopedias that had the transparent overlays. When all the pages are turned, the picture is complete! “The Olivet Discourse” is the same way…
In it are … 4 Ways Jesus Gives Us to Be Ready…
1) Discern “The Prophetic Times” we’re Living In – Every follower of Jesus is supposed to be diligently praying, working and watching for the signs of the times, so we can discern exactly what God would have us do in response to what we see going on around us!
God never changes and history never changes, but the world and the people in it are changing all the time! The takeaway from (vs 5-6) is if we’re going to be ready for prophetic times, we need to know and understand Biblical history.
Satan is trying to distract us from focusing on spiritual matters! He wants us to put more of our attention on things of the world and less of our time and attention on the things of God! He wants us to get lax in our Bible reading and devotion time!
God gave us the Bible to feed us spiritually, which keeps us alive and growing in Him! When we go too long without reading the Bible, our spiritual life starts to atrophy! Our faith and our ability to serve God gets really weak! Then, we’re not training or being fed!
It’s dangerous because we’re literally starving ourselves spiritually! It’s why Jesus warns us to always be increasing our reading, learning, meditating on and training in God’s Word! We need to be as spiritually strong as we can be to fight the evil and wickedness that keeps getting worse everywhere in the world, every day!
It’s the Bible in our heart that allows us to discern how to avoid or attack the evil things going on in the world around us… and also discern how we love, pray and are thankful… how we go, make and teach… how we ask, seek and knock!
If we don’t keep getting spiritually stronger, we won’t be a very effective ambassador, warrior, servant or saint for Jesus! We’ll be apathetic to the times we’re living in and we need to know and understand the fact that time is running out!
That’s also why it’s super important for us to know and understand Biblical truth and principles! Time and light aren’t scientific constants like we’re taught in school! As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches that time and light are running out for this fallen world!
Time and light are physical properties of this physical universe, so time and light are kind of supernaturally condensing or slowing down and will eventually run out! I’m convinced it’s the primary reason why it seems like we have less time to get things done!
It’s because God’s in control of everything including time, light and life, but God doesn’t always exercise His control over all things, so we need to keep a Biblical perspective on life instead of solely relying on a scientific perspective!
Putting all this together, the world is faced with a lot of bad news! The economy is bad… evil is running rampant… more people are consumed with depravity and perversion... death and destruction are everywhere…
So, it’s only the true follower of Jesus who can be thankful to God for putting us here for such a time as this! The rest of the world and false religions are consumed and worried about their prideful preferences, selfish pleasures, status in society and financial well-being.
While true believers who are true followers of Jesus are only interested in pursuing Jesus Christ and Him crucified, working hard to show Him we love Him by doing what He’s told us to do, even when we’re faced with all the horrific circumstances going on today!
Early on in their walk with Jesus, the disciples still had some of this same prideful perspective on the things of God. They thought the most important things about God were the physical things that would be built or seen like ceremonies, rituals and the temple!
Mark 13:1 NIV - As Jesus was Leaving The Temple … One of His Disciples said to Him … “Look Teacher! … What Massive Stones! … What Magnificent Buildings!”
They wouldn’t understand why Jesus wasn’t enamored with the temple! Solomon built it and it was built to God’s specifications more so to see if the Israelites would follow His specific instruction to just have an opulent temple! Now, it was a sight to behold!
It had a lot of polished white marble and was trimmed in gold! The Romans even declared it to be one of the “7 Wonders” of the Roman empire, even though they didn’t build it! It was so bright that when the sun would rise, the reflection off the temple made it seem like the sun was rising in the East and West!
But Jesus knew that after His birth, life, ministry, death, burial and resurrection, God isn’t interested in the buildings we build to worship Him. God is interested in us working to make our body and life the temple of our love, praise, worship and obedience to Him!
There’s a church that’s a short driving distance from here that built a new building about 7-8 years ago and it includes a 7-million-dollar fountain! Now, if they discerned that God would have them build a 7-million-dollar foundation, then go for it… but I don’t know!
Jesus prophesied “The Fall” of the temple is Jerusalem to them because He wanted them to refocus their temporary hope from the earthly things that they could see, but which could also be destroyed, to the guaranteed hope of the unseen spiritual things of God that are eternal!
Jesus is telling them the future so He can teach them that we can read prophecy like a book! The question is, will anybody read it? It’s important that we continually read God’s Word because Bible prophecy is God announcing history in advance!
The reason prophetic history is so important is twofold. We study it to learn from the past so we strengthen our faith and trust in Jesus and God announces prophetic history to us, so we’ll be diligent in praying that we’ll do whatever it takes to be ready!
God gives us His Word to prepare us, not to terrify us! And we can trust God’s Word 100%. So, when Jesus tells us how to be ready, He knows we have the tools to do it!
There’s a whole lot of terrible things going on in the world now, but it shouldn’t catch us off guard! So, we don’t need to panic, we need to praise God because He trusted us enough to put us here now for just such a time as this!
Pastor Jack Hibbs said it like this… It’s only through the eyes of God that man can begin to see life clearly. It’s even more true when it comes to looking into the future through Biblical prophecy! God tells us in the Old Testament in…
Isaiah 46:9-10 NIV - 9 Remember The Former Things … Those of Long Ago … I Am God … And There is No Other … I Am God … And There is None Like Me! ... 10 I Make Known The End from The Beginning … From Ancient Times What is Still to Come! ... I say … ‘My Purpose will Stand … and I Will Do All That I Please!
God knows we’ll be better equipped to face the future if we’ve taken the time to learn from the past and been properly trained to master it! Then, we’ll be better able to properly discern our actions for the present!
Isaiah 48:3-5 NIV - 3 I Foretold The Former Things Long Ago … My Mouth Announced Them … And I Made them Known … Then Suddenly I Acted … And they Came to Pass! ... 4 For I Knew how Stubborn you were … Your Neck Muscles were Iron … Your Forehead was Bronze! ... 5 Therefore I Told you these Things Long Ago … Before they Happened I Announced them to you So That you Could Not Say … “my Images Brought them about … my Wooden Image … And Metal god Ordained them!”
All past, present and future prophecy from God has always been and always will be 100% accurate and in full alignment with the Bible! That truth alone ought to be more than enough reassurance for us to fully trust in Jesus for all the actions He calls us to take!
God expects us to love Him enough to know the prophetic times we’re in, which means it’s time for us to know Biblical history because true faith in Jesus is founded on and backed by fact… and we need to work hard to be ready for His return!
We’ll pick up here next week and I’m going to start tying current events into the prophecies of God.
If you’re listening online and you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, then I’m inviting you to pray to Jesus right now and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior! He knows what’s best for us and it’s eternity with God in Heaven, but the only way to get there is through a salvation relationship with Jesus, so don’t wait. Receive Him now!
Let’s pray.
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