Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P20 (12-10-19)
Synopsis
Reading through Romans, we come to understand the purpose of the law. Recall the Jews were in slavery. When you are a slave, you are not free, but you are controlled by someone else. Now, when they are delivered out of slavery in Egypt, laws are needed to prevent anarchy and chaos. So God added laws for their benefit. But the Jews turned the law into a means for righteousness before God. The law was never meant for that.
As we discussed earlier, sin is the cause of man’s death, and the root of sin is the nature inherited from Adam, that says, “I will decide for myself what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil”. Now, if everyone does what is right in his own eyes, what happens? Lawlessness, disorder and chaos. So God initiated to man, wrote down what is right and wrong, and gave man the ten commandments. Now the law is not something to live by but something needed to restrain man from his own self destruction. Man was created to live in a dependent, loving relationship with the living God. Love is the fulfillment of the love, for love does his neighbor no wrong.
So the law is made for the unrighteous, those who do not have the Spirit of God living in them. But the law has a spiritual purpose, to let man know how sinful they are, so they may see their condition of death, and seek a savior. God worked though the law, with the Jews, and through the prophets, to lead people to the promised Messiah. Now that Jesus has come and did what he did, man is offered a gift of new life, the Spirit of God, to dwell back in man. This new life is offered both to the Jew, who were under the law, and to the Gentile, who never had the law. Remember, sin was in the world even before the law was given.
So what exactly did Jesus do? He died on a cross to take away the sins of the world. He took away the cause of death, which is sin, by eternally paying the price for sin, which is death, that justice demands. No man can pay this price. It is too great a price to pay and is impossible for any ordinary man to do. Only Jesus had a life to lay down, and only he had a life that could be raised up to new life again, having no sin of his own.
So again, we were reconciled to God by his death, while we were yet sinners. We were sinners when he shed his blood for us. In Hebrews, we read that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, that he shed his blood only once and it was all sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God against sin. How much sin? All sin, back to Adam and forward to eternity, of men yet to be born.
But we are saved by his life, the same life that raised him from the dead, can raise you from the dead. The only thing that is necessary is for man to recognize his condition of death, and seeing his need, turns to Christ and asks him for new life. You are saved by grace through faith in the work of Jesus Christ alone, which he accomplished for you through his death, burial and resurrection.
So what kinds of hangups do people have in believing the gospel? Some deny that Jesus died. If that is so, how do you explain the empty tomb? How do you explain away all the overwhelming evidence concerning his death? Others think that they are a good person. They think that because they have not done anything real bad, like Adolf Hitler, that they are okay. But salvation is not about how good or bad you are, but how dead you are. Paul, in Romans, goes to great lengths to explain this. James summarized this point that if you stumble at just one point in obeying the laws, just one of the ten commandments that most people are so familiar with, you are guilty of breaking all of it. Jesus said there is no one good but God alone. Paul says that the wages of sin is death.
Many just do not understand what salvation is. They think their religion saves them. They go to church and do the best they can. But going to church no more saves you than being a hen in a hen house. Religion never saved anyone. So many in religion think that salvation is getting your sins forgiven. Catholics say you must go to a priest to get your sins forgiven. Protestants says you go direct to God to get your sins forgiven, often quoting 1 John 1:9 out of context. Jews once said you have to go back to the day of atonement, sacrificing a bull or a goat, to get your sins forgiven. Other religions do not even acknowledge that Jesus is God in the flesh. Calvinists say that God just died for the elect. At best, there is confusion on the gospel message. Salvation is not getting sins forgiven. That is something Jesus already did, and the only one who could do it. Salvation is the receiving of new life.
Jesus did not come to establish a religion. If he did, you would think he would have started a Jewish religion, since he was born a Jew, but then all the Jewish leaders were opposed to him. Jesus came for a very practical reason. We were born spiritually dead. The pope cannot save you. Mohammad cannot save you. Martin Luther cannot save you. All these man had the same problem we did. They were born dead, like us, and had no life to give. If you are dead, you are dead. And the only thing a dead man needs is life. Jesus is the only person who laid down his life only to raise it up again. Jesus, unlike any other man, is God, an eternal being, in the flesh. Because of that, he is the only one who had a life to lay down. He is also the only being who has eternal life to offer for he is eternal life.
Transcript
So there is where we understand that suffering, when you approach suffering with an attitude of God, that it is going to produce in you perseverance, and that perseverance is what is going to produce character in you. It is the kind of character that people want to have. It is the kind of character that when you run into trials and tribulations, you do not see a person crumble under those trials and tribulations. You see a person standing tall, knowing something. As bad as it is, God will take it and work it together for good. God never makes bad good but He can cause it to work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. That produces character and character produces hope. Hope does not disappoint us? Why?
Romans 5:5
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
So prior to the day of Pentecost, man was basically on his own. He needed the law in order to have tracts, so to speak, to run on. He needed the law as boundaries in which to live. The law was given when they came out of Egypt, to keep them out of total chaos. They lived in slavery for hundreds of years. When you live in slavery, you do not make decisions. So God had to give them laws and instructions. God essentially said, “Here is how you are going to live to keep from total chaos from occurring.” That was a blessing for God to do. That was the tract, the parameters you lived by.
Exodus 6:6
6 “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.’”
God gave the ten commandments to Moses, who then gave them to the people. There were other laws you can read about in Exodus that the Jewish people lived under.
Exodus 20:1-3
12 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
Exodus 20:1-3
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
The Jewish people took those as a means of righteousness. This was their thinking, “Those who live by them are righteous and those who do not are not so righteous.” So their righteousness was attached to obedience to the law in their thinking. God said, “No, that is not where you are going to get acceptance in the sight of God.”
Romans 3:20
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.
Galatians 2:21
21 “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
The standard of God is a hundred percent perfection. That is why James said this.
James 2:10
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it..
No man can stand before God in his own righteousness. God prepared a way whereby man could be made righteous, not by our own works, but by the works of the righteous one, who is Christ Jesus.
Romans 5:6
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Christ did not come to save good people. There aren’t any. We walk around thinking we are real good. And we talk about that, saying “He is such a good person.” Jesus said there is no one good but God. When they called Jesus good teacher, he said if you call me good call me God, and if you do not want to call me God, do not call me good. That is a little paraphrase, but that is what he is saying.
Mark 10:17-18
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good – except God alone.”
Romans 3:11-12
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.”[Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20]
None of us are good. There is not a person sitting here, that if you park your mind on sin, are not capable of committing it. You can park your mind any place and give into it. So we have to guard our mind. That is why scripture instructs us to guard our mind.
Proverbs 4:23
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
If you do not guard it, Satan will bombard it. That is where all sin starts. Right in the head. If we park our minds on it, we will give into it. It is that simple. That is why he says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:12
12 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.
Get your mind soaked on truth. There is only one truth for us, the word of God. Get your mind soaked on this. Be one person who knows what truth is. Park your mind here, in the truth of God’s word. If you do not, Satan will take it and park it somewhere else. God did not die for good people. He died for us.
John 17:17
17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Romans 5:7-8
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
What is a sinner? Is it someone who goes out and does the nasty nine, the dirty dozen, or the terrible twelve. What is the sinner? A sinner is an unbeliever.
Romans 14:23
and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
John 16:9
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me
That is what you were prior to the time you became a believer in the one whom God sent to save us from our sin. A sinner is an unbeliever. Christ died for you and me as we were unbelievers. No one was born into this world as a believer. No baby came out of their mother’s womb saying, “praise Jesus”. You are born lost. You are born dead.
Psalm 51:5
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
If you are dead, you need life. If you have never come to the place in experience where you recognized the truth that you are spiritually dead, you are never going to turn to God for spiritual life. Until you see your death, why would you want life? That is why the resurrection has no meaning until you understand you are dead. The cross has no meaning until you understand you are a sinner.
The sinner thinks, “Who needs you, God? You did not need to die for me. I am okay. Have you not read the book, ‘I am okay. You are okay?’” I am going to write a book called, “I am not okay. You are not okay. That is okay.” Until you see your condition you are not ready for the provision. If you are not thirsty, you are not interested in a water fountain. Only when you are thirsty are you interested in finding water. Only when you are hungry do you want to find out where the food is. Satan wants to tell you that you are not thirsty and not hungry. Here is some stuff that will fill you up a little bit.
Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:9
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood,
Folks, if you want to know what the blood is, look at Leviticus 17:11.
Leviticus 17:11
11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.
The life of the creature is in the blood. Since we have been justified by what? His life.
Romans 5:9-10
how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Folks, let us look at this passage. Back to what I was talking to about the man in regard to his reading of Calvin and of his reformed theology. As I said to him, this is how Calvin was off. Maybe a dear man, but he was off. People have been copying Calvin being off all these years saying, “God cannot die for all people’s sins, for that would be universal salvation? If salvation is getting sin forgiven, then would that not be universal salvation? “Thank you, God, for dying for my sins”, and that is all you had to do, then would that not be universal salvation, that God died for the sins of all the world? If you think that is what salvation is, then you could not believe Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. For if he died for all, then I would be there with Hitler. But what does scripture say?
Romans 5:10
sup>10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled
When were we enemies? When we were sinners. When did Christ die? While we were still sinners. When were we reconciled? When we were sinners. Through what? The death of Jesus. Then Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, and that is exactly what he did. He took away the sins of the whole world. He took away Hitler’s sins? Jesus took away his sins, your sins and he took away my sins. Is that salvation? No.
Jesus death on a cross is what he had to do to clear the deck to bring salvation. What is salvation according to this passage? Saved by his life. You are reconciled to God through the death of His Son, and that is reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
Getting sins forgiven, or taken away, is not salvation. It is a part of salvation. It is what God had to do to clear the deck in order to bring life to the dead. If the bible is true, and if the bible says, we were all born into this world dead spiritually, if that is true, then do you have a problem? If you are a Jew, do you have a problem, if you are dead? If you are a Gentile, do you have a problem, if you are dead? Those are the only two categories God had, so you would have to say the whole world is dead. If you are dead, then you have a problem. You have a problem far greater than sins. You have a consequence you are dealing with. The consequence you are dealing with is death.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.
Moses cannot give you life. The pope cannot give you life. Martin Luther cannot give you life. I cannot give you life. There was only one person who can give you life. That is the resurrected one, Christ Jesus. That is why God sent him. He did not send him to form a new religion. He sent him to give life to the dead. He looked down upon His creation with compassion. They are dead. If you are dead, you need life. The only kind of life available to us is spiritual life. The only one who can give it to you is Jesus.
John 17:1-3
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
That is not religion. Religion cannot give you life. How can religion give you life? Jesus came and said, “I am going to be obedient to the commands of God”. So the sinner says, “Fine. Nice goal. Let me try that.” But how is that going to give you life? A person says, “I am going to go to church every Sunday”. Nice. How is that going to give you life? Are you going to come into the church to get life? If you are dead, you need life.
John 11:24-26
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
The law is stringent. The wages of sin is death. If you stumble at one point, you are guilty of breaking all of it. The law is without bending. It is stringent, is it not? If you have a corpse, try to bend it. It is stiff. It is stringent. It will not bend. That is what you and I are under unless we have been freed from that unbending death and have become the recipients of life in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15:56
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
Romans 8:2
2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 5:10
how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
This is the most important message that anybody can get a hold of because it explains, in this one passage, what salvation is. It is not religion. It is not being a Catholic. I have to laugh about making mother Theresa a saint. I was made a saint when I was 36 and God made me a saint. And he made you a saint, if you are in Christ. That is why you are called saint. That is why Paul did not address people as all those old sinners saved by grace. He called them saints not because they were good but because they are saved.
1 Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
We have all kinds of religious stuff, with dumb looking hats and robes. All this trying to make oneself look holy. That does not make you holy. People fall for that stuff all over the place. Teaching that is totally contrary to the word of God. Masses of people fall for false teaching. Why? They do not check it out against the word of God. Is Luther the standard of truth? No. Is the pope? No. What about Kuresh? No. Where are you going to have to go to find truth? The bible. The word of God. What are you going to have in you before you can understand what the bible means? The Spirit of God in you.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
9 However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[Isaiah 64:4] –
the things God has prepared for those who love him –10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
2 Peter 1:21
21For 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.
Acts 17:11
11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
The Spirit of God has to reveal the meaning. That is why, folks, you have the ability to go into the word of God, if you are saved, and trust Jesus to reveal what this means. You do not have to come to me, the pope, Luther, or Calvin, or anybody else. You can go right to the word of God and the word of God will reveal what it means. Do you believe that?
We are not dealing with religion. We are not dealing with organization. We are dealing with people. We are dealing with you’s and me’s. We are dealing with people whom God loved so much that he came and died for us, so he could be raised from the dead, to come and live in you. That is good news, folks. That is not a religion. You do not have to worry about joining a religion, or joining anything.
People say to me, “Do you have a church membership?” No, if you are in Christ, you are already a member of his church and that is good enough for me. If you are in Christ, then you are in His church. That is how you get to be in His church, or His body. The body of Christ is the church, the Ecclesia. How do you get to be in his body? By becoming born again. The Spirit of God comes to live in you, then He baptizes you or places you into His body.
1 Corinthians 12:27
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
Ephesians 3:6
This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
So if you are already joined to Him, then you do not have to join something else. It is okay if someone wants to do that. I am not saying something is wrong with that. I am saying that if you are joined to Christ, then that ought to be good enough. If you want to come here as a member of Christ’s body that is fine. If you want to go somewhere else, then that is okay too. That is your decision. The issue is you are a part of the body of Christ, regardless of where you go. Otherwise, if you traveled overseas and you would be in tough shape, for you could not have come here unless you are Rod and he came down from Canada. Anybody else, you will have to come in another way.
Romans 5:10
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
So let us back up a minute, guys. When we were God’s enemies, what does that mean? When you are God’s enemies that means you are what? Lost. You are a sinner. We got through saying He died for sinners. When you were a sinner, a non-believer, God’s enemies, God reconciled you to the death of his Son. When did God reconcile you to Himself as far as sin is concerned? The minute you came into this world. You came into this world reconciled.
Now folks, think about this. What does that say to you then if someone pointed their boney finger at you and said, “if you do not quit sinning, you are going to go to hell?” Is that true? No. Why is that not true? No man will ever go to hell because of his sins. Jesus said the world’s sin is unbelief in me.
John 16:9 (TLB)
The world’s sin is unbelief in me
Where are all of your sins? Where were they all placed? Were your sins judged? Where were they judged? At the cross. What was the verdict? Guilty. What was the punishment? Death. Who took it? Jesus. How much of it? All of it. If he took all of it, how much is left for you? None. So, you are born into this world as a forgiven person. But is there a consequence to sin? And, what is it? Death. That has to be dealt with. God cleared the deck for the divine action of bringing life to the dead. Are we together?
Colossians 1:20 (TLB)
20 It was through what his Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him – all things in heaven and on earth – for Christ’s death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood.
2 Peter 1:3-4
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
How does He bring life to the dead? Through the resurrected life of His Son. Now folks, that is precisely why the Paul says that without the resurrection we are to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins.
1 Corinthians 15:18-20
18 [If there is no resurrection] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Why did he not say the cross? The resurrection was the centrality of the teaching of the New Testament. He was raised from the dead. That was the thing people could not get a hold of. To the people who hated Jesus and hated what the new movement was having, they said, “No, somebody came and stole him.” Well, go find him then?
Matthew 28:12-14
12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”
There are all kinds of things they think happened at the empty tomb. The empty tomb was empty because it was empty. Why it was empty is because Jesus was not there anymore, the only man I know of who was raised from the dead. You are dealing with historical facts. There was a tomb you can go look at. If you had a man who was on a cross, and beaten half to death, as it says in the Old Testament. The Messiah would be beaten as no man, beaten beyond recognition, nailed to a cross, nails through his hands and his feet, suffocated to death on a cross, and died.
Isaiah 52:13-15
13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14
Just as there were many who were appalled at him –
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness –
15
so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Yet some people say he just did not die. He just passed out. How are you going to put a man who just went through that kind of torture, with nails through his feet and his hands. Who is going to move that stone? There are some people who will say, “Well he did.” How are you going to move it from the inside? Have you seen that stone over in Israel? Have you seen how they put that stone down in the crevice? It took a soldier to move it. He did not move the stone. He would be too weak in condition to move anything. Then the disciples came and stole him. How did they do that when they had guards at the tomb? How did they do that? Do you know what the penalty was for a guard who let somebody out like that from the tomb? Death.
Matthew 27:62-66
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.“ 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
Again, folks, you may have one guy who could perpetuate a lie, but you do not have twelve to fifteen of them. Somebody down the road, you get ready to crucify me upside down, the gig is up. The Jews stole him? What benefit is there to that? No benefit to that. If he is resurrected from the dead, then we are in worse shape than before. There is no way the Jews were going to steal the body.
What is the only explanation we have for the empty tomb? He was raised. He was raised from the dead just like it was prophesied, to be raised from the dead. The empty tomb, the centrality of the message of the New Testament. Jesus was raised from the dead. So that that life that raised him from the dead can raise you and me from our state of spiritual death. That is what being born again is. What is birth? Life.
John 3:3
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
Forgiveness does not give you life. Life gives you life. The resurrection of Christ Jesus, where he came to give life to the dead. Now folks, when you are dealing with humanity, you hear a message like this, and you have to say to yourself, if this is some kind of a lie, then Jesus and his disciples have perpetuated upon mankind the worst atrocity that you could ever imagine because they have told people that Jesus was raised from the dead when indeed he wasn’t, and they have told people that they were born again when that really did not happen to them, and for 2000 years, you have had people who were a bunch of liars, including everyone of you in this room, just a bunch of pack of liars.
I want to tell you something. If Jesus isn’t alive, then I do not know what happened to me back when I was 36 years of age. You explain what happened. Do not come up with any psychological nonsense. When you are going in one direction in one moment and then going in another direction the next moment, something happened to you. And something has happened to you or you would not be sitting here. You could not be born again unless something happened to you.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
So for 2000 years people have been lying? Does that make any sense? They are not lying about religion, “Well, I go to this church or that church”, but lying about the fact I had a personal encounter with Jesus. I know Jesus. I talk to him every day. What you are dealing with is, is this truth or not? If it is truth, then it says that truth will set you free. Set you free from what? The error that is in your mind, the error the world keeps bombarding us with, the error that says, “Oh, I practice religion and that will take care of me”.
John 8:32
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
This is not a religion. We are not talking about a Jewish religion, about Jew, Gentile, or about the Catholic or Protestant religion. We are not talking about any of that stuff. We are talking about a personal encounter with the living God. We are talking about a personal time in your life when God came to invade your life. He stands at the door, as it says of your heart, right now, and says to you, if any man opens the door, I will come into you. And do what? Give you life.
Revelation 3:20
20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
He does not make a nerd out of you. I used to think, “These people come to Jesus. Oh, brother”. No, he comes to make something out of you. He makes you what you are. That is the only time you will be free in your life is when you are complete, when you have been made complete by God. That is the only time you will ever be yourself. It will be the only time you will get to know who you are, is when you come to know who He is, because if Christ is your life, then who do you need to get to know to get to know yourself? Christ.
John 17:3
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Jesus is alive today. He is alive today with the same message he has been proclaiming to mankind for 2000 years. Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life and whosoever believes in me though he were dead, spiritually, yet shall he live, spiritually. Whosoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:24-26
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
