sounding board...

Alright my dear friends...I have a confession.

I am using you right now. :)

This blog is going to totally be a trial-run of my sermon this weekend. Both our jr & sr high pastors are out of town this weekend, so they have asked me to speak in their places this weekend...that means I have to preach FOUR times in 16 hours to around 400 students.

So this week has been riddled with efforts to come up with a sermon that would be a representation of my heart all while inspiring these students to love Jesus and not go over their heads...

but this week has been like mental-block-central.

I mean it. I have sat down to study, pray, write, etc. on three separate occasions and have come up completely empty-handed.

I know my topic but there are literally one thousand directions I could go and I have been trying to depend on God for the correct option for this weekend. I have so much passion for this topic because it would have been something that, if I grasped in 7-10th grade, would have changed my life dramatically. what's my topic, you might ask?

Jesus.

:)

Told you there were a million ways I could approach this.

Ok let me be a little more clear on my exact angle.

I want to convey just how crucial this man was/is in history. I want to explain why he had to come and what his life achieved on our behalf. So let me talk to you about it...


In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it was good. And then He created man and saw that it was very good. Man lived in the garden with God in this beautiful picture of community. He was naked and felt no shame...but three tiny chapters in to this beautiful scene and what happens? We see man eat of the apple and that portrayal of unity is broken forever.

The Old Testament is littered with God's continual pursuit of his people and their constant rebellion. So God gave them the law in order that they may understand what upright living was and the standard for righteousness. But we see these people continually fail, rebel, repent and return to God. again. and again. and again.

The Old Testament points time and again to the life of one man. One man who would live the perfect life that no one before or since has been capable of living. That man is Jesus Christ.

Throughout the Gospels, we see the life, death and most importantly, resurrection of Jesus. But that was thousands of years ago. So what does that mean to me, today?

In short, it means everything.

This man separated history. He has been on more magazine articles than anyone in history. More than Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, any president, etc. And he was one man. One carpenter living in one tiny town. Who claimed to be God.


Acts 4:12 says, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

Through Christ, we have the invitation to live a new life, apart from the Law. The whole book of Romans speaks to this claim but I want to rest in Romans 7-8.

In Romans 7:4, we see Paul the Apostle state that we died to the law through Jesus Christ in order that we might bear fruit. Verse 6 goes on to say that we have been released from the law. And, while this seems like great news, we still have to remember that we all live under the fall of man. Paul understands this and continues in chapter 7 to confess that he lives in a constant state of doing what he does not want to do, because of his sinful human nature.

He says in verses 15-20, "...(18) I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, my sinful nature. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing."

In light of this, we continue on to Romans 8 where Paul proclaims, "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

Did you get that? there is NO condemnation because of Christ Jesus. We have been set free. We are no longer under the law! and that is the gospel.

But that's the weird irony. We continue to live as if we are under the law.

We live as if our own right living can earn us our spot in heaven. We try to tip the scales in our direction in an effort to earn our salvation, which is the same thing as living under the law all over again.

but if we were able to achieve this than Christ's sacrifice was unnecessary.

think about that. If we had a possible way to earn God's favor through our actions: church attendance, good deeds, walking old ladies across the street, then why would God have sent Christ to live a sinless life to die as our sacrifice? If I can achieve it all on my own, why would there have been a need for Christ? Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." catch that? all. have sinned. We all fall short. but...

Because of Christ, God sees me as pure. Not because of anything good I have done or you have done. Romans 6:23 goes on to say, "For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." If you are a believer in Christ, you are seen as spotless. There is a really big seminary term for this, do you want to know what it is?

It is called double imputation. This means that our sins, every single one of them, was given to Christ and, in return, Christ's perfect, sinless life was given to us. So when God looks upon us, through Christ, he sees beauty. perfection. and THAT is good news.

My prayer for all of you is that you would get this. You would catch on to this sooner rather than later. Because the implications of this are life-changing.

If I no longer live my Christian life trying to earn my salvation, than I am freed up to simply love God and read my bible, attend church, pray, etc. out of an overflow of my heart rather than an attempt to earn acceptance. My favorite speaker said this in one of his sermons, "So many of us are religiously exhausted and gospel ignorant." The last thing I want for us is to become religiously exhausted.

But I get it.

I get why we are religiously exhausted because we are trying to do with Jesus what we do with the rest of our lives. We work to get good grades. We practice to get better at sports or musical instruments. We live in a society that values effort and hard work so this understanding of simply receiving something so huge is mind-numbing.

I want us to have lives that are full of love because we realize how much love God had for us in sending his son to die for us!


Ok so that's it. what do you think? please let me know and give me feedback here or email or text or call or anything! you have 23 hours to reply!