Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

As Dear Children

Ephesians 5:1-2 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2 And WALK IN LOVE, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.

The Child of God is a follower of God. The Child of God loves Jesus, God’s Only Begotten Son. Are you a Child of God? If you are not, what a wonderful day it would be to give yourself to Jesus! To be a Child of God was not offered to Israel under the Old Covenant. But being a Child of God is offered to ALL who will receive Jesus today. The Scripture says:
Galatians 4:4-7 (NKJV) But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that WE MIGHT RECEIVE THE ADOPTION AS SONS 6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Only a Child of God can have the Holy Spirit. If you are not a Child of God, you are a slave to sin and the Law. Oh how I pray that you would give yourself to Jesus this very day! Continue reading

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The Righteous Fall But Rise

Proverbs 24:15-16 Lay not wait, O WICKED {rāšāʿ} man, against the dwelling of the RIGHTEOUS {ṣadîq}; spoil {šāḏaḏ} not his resting place: 16 For a JUST {ṣadîq} man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the WICKED {rāšāʿ} shall fall into mischief.

Word Study: God addresses the wicked here with a warning. The warning is that God Himself looks after the RIGHTEOUS or the JUST person, but the WICKED will fall and stay fallen. Let’s look at a few of these words in their original text. Let’s start with the words RIGHTEOUS and JUST. This is the same word in the Hebrew, the word ṣadîq (pro. tsad-deek’) which means “the lawful or right walking, the one justified and vindicated by God”.

The Righteous or Just Are Declared So By God Based On Faith In Christ

When a person repents and receives God as Lord and Savior, as Abraham did, the Bible says:

Genesis 15:6 {Abraham} believed in the LORD; and He COUNTED IT {ḥāšaḇ} to him FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

This scripture is quoted numerous times throughout the Bible. In … Continue reading

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Why Are You Here?

I want to start out this sermon by asking a simple question:

Why are you here today?

Some of you may be thinking, “Because I don’t want to go to that place called HELL”. Well, that’s a good reason. But we don’t come to a Church building in order to win frequent flier miles to Heaven. Salvation is entirely a work of Grace. When you:

Romans 10:9-11 (LSB) CONFESS WITH YOUR MOUTH Jesus [as] Lord, and BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART that God raised Him from the dead, YOU WILL BE SAVED; 10 for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES UPON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.”

The Bible is very clear that salvation is not a man-made work. It is a SUPERNATURAL WORK.

Titus 3:5-7 (LSB) {God} saved us, NOT BY WORKS WHICH WE DID IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that having been justified by His grace, we would become HEIRS ACCORDING TO THE HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

So if you’re here today because you don’t want to die and go to HELL, that’s a good reason. But the day Jesus saved you, God could have taken you to Heaven right then. So if you’re saved, yes, you should be in Church because you are a part of the Church.

The Christian is not to “go to” Church, but to “be” the Church. Christians are members of Christ’s Body. Continue reading

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Your Life Is A Stewardship From God

Several years ago there was an advertisement that ran in the Atlanta Journal. The ad read:

“SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship. Ethnicity not important. I’m a very good looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. When you get home from work, I’ll be at the front door wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 555-1212 and ask for Daisy.”

1500 men called the number, but didn’t find what they expected. The number was for the Atlanta Humane Society. Daisy was an 8 week old black Labrador Retriever.

The life we live, that we currently have, is a stewardship from God. God gifted us life at birth. “The LORD brings death and GIVES LIFE” (1 Samuel 2:6). “God is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” (Acts 17:25). What we have, what God has given us, is a stewardship. It does not belong to us. I often hear the phrase,

“My body, my choice”… Continue reading

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There Is Death In The Pot

2 Kings 4:38-40 (KJV) And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and {boil stew} for the sons of the prophets. 39 And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of {Stew}: for they knew them not. 40 So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof.

The Bible tells us that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4, ESV). So many people look at the Old Testament and compare it to the human appendix – a useless organ that can become infected and we would best be without. But the Old Testament was “written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come”. Our Lord Jesus preached extensively from the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus told those who would listen:

John 5:39-40 (ESV) You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, 40 yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life.

John the Baptist was the human Herald of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus, when He became flesh. But the Old Testament is the written Herald of Jesus, the Preincarnate Word of God!

God was reaching out to people through the Lord Jesus Christ, calling people to receive Him and love Him, even in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ was in… Continue reading

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But, But, But

Whether they know it or not, every single person is born under the Law of God. There are portions of the Law of God that are written in our hearts, in our conscience. Take, for instance, murder, the taking of innocent life. Murder was written into the Noahic Code. When Noah got off the Ark, God told him:

Genesis 9:6 Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.

God forbade child sacrifice. He forbade the taking of any life, unless that person took a life. The Inca who gave their 4 year old child up to die alone and under the elements on a mountaintop would be guilty of a capital offense under God’s Law. And we all know in our hearts that murder is wrong, just as we know that theft, lying, rape, sexual sins – these things are wrong. But the heart can be hardened by uncorrected sin. Paul warned us in:… Continue reading

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Order Of The Family

Exodus 20:12 (ESV) Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

The Bibles doesn’t command that we like our parents, or even that we love our parents, but that we show them honor, respect because they are our parents. Our parents may make bad decisions. All are flawed by sin. But God tells us that long life is promised to those who honor their parents. The Apostle quotes this text in the New Testament:

Ephesians 6:1-3 (ESV) Children, OBEY your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 HONOR your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

I came across this quote from a child psychology site:

“The family unit often acts as society in miniature. When families are strong and stable, they contribute to a thriving community. Conversely, when families struggle, the ripples can be felt throughout society, potentially leading towards breakdown and decline. Today, perhaps more than ever before, the family structure appears weakened, with a significant number of children growing up without a father present in their lives. … Children benefit immensely from exposure to both maternal and paternal approaches. As … research suggests, distinct contributions from both male and female parents seem fundamental to human development. The idea that parenting is gender-neutral doesn’t align with the evidence; fathers offer something unique and irreplaceable.” Continue reading

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The Law Was Added – Why?

God loved Adam, and proved it by what he did. But Adam doubted the love of God, and proved that by what HE did. He disobeyed God. He hid from God. He blamed God. This is THE Transgression (1 Timothy 2:14). And yet, God loved him anyway, and gave Adam life for death. Death reigned on the earth from Adam to Moses. Why? It wasn’t because people ate of the forbidden fruit as Adam did (for no one could get into Eden).

Death reigned because people rejected the love of God, choosing instead love of self and by extension love of sin. The wages of sin is death, and God is life. There was no law, and man embraced death while rejecting God.

When Jesus Christ came to this earth, He came to mediate a New Covenant, to bring us, through the Gospel, into a loving relationship with God. The Bible says: Continue reading

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Paul’s First Amen

As I stated when we began the Book of Romans, this Book is called the “Constitution of Christianity”. Throughout the Book our Lord explains the Christian way of life.

In the first 11 chapters God establishes that all are born physically into this world in need of the Savior. Because of Adam’s sin, we are born the first time separated from God, spiritually dead. We are absolutely unable to make ourselves physically born. We are also absolutely unable to make ourselves spiritually born. We must be born again.

Romans 3:10-12 (KJV) As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

In order to accomplish new birth for the spiritually dead us, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to this earth to first show us the Way of God. Jesus then went to the Cross. Dying for our sins, He made payment to God for us, a payment we could not make. Jesus offers this salvation to whosoever will receive Him as Lord and Savior.

Romans 3:24-26 (KJV) {We can only be} justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

The first 11 chapters speaks of our need for salvation and what God did to offer it. The last 5 chapters tells us what God saved us for. He didn’t save us just for Heaven (which is what many believe). He saved us to bring Heaven to us. To make us into children of God. To use us as light in this present fallen world.

This section of Scripture is what I call “Paul’s Three Amens”. From Romans 15:14 till the end of the Book Paul uses examples of those who are saved, and how they live their lives. Paul ends each section with an AMEN. Today we look at Paul’s First Amen, which deals with how the Grace of God changed the Apostle’s life. Continue reading

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God Never Gives Up

Romans 15:4-7 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. 5 Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: 6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.

How Do We Define “God”? How Do We Define “Fool”?

Everyone knows that there is a God Who made all things. That’s an absolute truth. Oh, there are people who say “We’re atheists. We’re agnostics. We’re scientists. We believe that all things just evolved out of nothing. We believe in the survival of the fittest. There is no God. There is only “mother nature”, a mother who came about by accident.” If that were true, the name “God” or “Jesus Christ” wouldn’t be in your language whatsoever. “OMG”. Everybody knows there is a God Who is above us.

Defining the word “fool” is easy. The Bible says that the definition of a FOOL is:

Psalm 14:1 (KJV) The FOOL hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

The FOOL says there is no God. The reason they say this is that, IF there is a God (and there is), THEN the stupid things they do, they will be held… Continue reading

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