If Jesus Returned Today Part 2
If Jesus Returned Today • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Connections Connections Connections
Connections Connections Connections
We live in a time and society where everything is about being connected. Connected to the internet, connected to the WiFi, connected to people who can help you archive what you want, connected to groups that promote your ideology, connected to news sources, connected to your bank account, connected to your shopping habits, connected, connected, connected. We connect our phones, we connect our watches, our televisions, our computers, our heat and air units, our home appliances. We even have refrigerators and washing machines that are connected to our networks. With all of our technology, we have world wide networks, everything is in the network. Still yet, we have the most relationally disconnected and socially dysfunctional people than at any point of history. We are technologically advanced but morally bankrupt as a society.
But the one thing that is most connected is your soul. It is connected to everything you have allowed into your eyes, your ears, your mind, your spirit, and your heart.
What are some of the things God warns us not to connect our soul to?
it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Let me give you a few visual illustrations of what your soul begins to look like as you go through life letting things connect to your soul. This includes not only things like bad choices, ideologies and sinful relationships but also things fears, hurts, regrets, insecurities, and offenses. You may even have generational bonds so far back that you don’t even know they are still affecting you in your soul, decisions, and relationships to this day.
This is an illustration of the intercontinental data connections. It looks like a maze of lines hard to trace where one connects to another and the multitude of connections where lines cross.
Then there is this diagram of global microRNAs. “MicroRNAs (miRNAs; ribonucleic acids ) are a class of non-coding RNAs that play important roles in regulating gene expression. The majority of miRNAs are transcribed from DNA sequences into primary miRNAs and processed into precursor miRNAs, and finally mature miRNAs” (Overview of MicroRNA Biogenesis, Mechanisms of Actions, and Circulation - PMC (nih.gov)).
Now what does that mean? I have no idea. But Pastor William Tolleson, Ph.D could indeed explain. But I know this, it is an excellence illustration of how entangled your soul is when you try to live in and like the world yet call yourself a Follower of Faith in Jesus Christ.
How about this one? It is all the social media apps on your phone. This illustrates how they are actually all connected through bots, scripts, and code gathering and sharing information about you, your thoughts, your interests, your likes and dislikes, your desires, your affections, your emotions, your locations, spending habits, and tons of data of which they swap, sell, share, and use to market things to you, feed your appetites, and lure you into a web of ideologies, temptations, and connections.
Now this all you think you are doing; making social connections with those you choose. Wrong! Through one person you are connected with, even if they are family, you can easily be connected to hundreds of people you have no idea who they are or what type of people they are.
It could easily end up looking like this. This is an illustration of a typical multi-app social media web of connection.
Now, I have used social media as an illustration because it is so prevalent in our lives. I am not saying it is necessarily bad. But you need to understand how it really works and applies to the health and wellbeing of your soul and your integrity in Christ Jesus. I have used many illustrations to simply show you a visual of what your soul might look like as a result of sinful choices, by you as well as others you choose to allow in your life, things you allow into your soul and so much more.
Let me demonstrate how easy things connect to our souls as we go through life.
(Balloon Bond Illustration) Demonstrate how easy they are entangled together and continue to connect. The initial balloon is your soul, the connecting balloons are the entanglements God warns us of.
In science, “stable molecules exist because covalent bonds hold the atoms together. We measure the strength of a covalent bond by the energy required to break it, that is, the energy necessary to separate the bonded atoms. Separating any pair of bonded atoms requires energy. The stronger a bond, the greater the energy required to break it” (https://openstax.org/books/chemistry-2e/pages/7-5-strengths-of-ionic-and-covalent-bonds).
So many times, Christians find themselves being set free but they allow these things to connect to them again and again through choices, choices, choices. In fact, this world seeks to convince us that these connections are not only safe and necessary but healthy and normal. But as a result, many find themselves oppressed, addicted, isolated, and enslaved to the consequences of sinful and worldly choices. They are convinced that the connections are too strong and unbreakable. But this is not TRUTH.
This is why Proverbs tells us:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Today, there are so many godless ideologies and cultural compromises that have made their way into what we call the Faith of the Followers of Yeshua. Literally, thousands of professing believers have fallen shipwrecked by the masses who call themselves shepherds, teachers and ministers of the Gospel of the Christ. My desire is that you do not become a casualty of culturally heretical theologies that are contrary to the eternal Word of Truth and are of the spirit of the anti-Christ. The anti-Christ is among us. He has revealed himself. And many professing believers have taken the mark by prostituting their faith with cultural identity and ideologies.
This why Jesus says this in Luke:
And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Brother and Sisters, the Messiah is coming soon. It is sooner than the days of our fathers who watched diligently over their souls awaiting for His return. You might say, “But He did not come in their life times.” Do you not know that they faced the reality of eternality, either in or apart from God’s presence, when they drew their last breathes?
Hear the words of the Lord:
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
Know that the things that have connected to your soul, and are not of the Spirit of Christ, do not have a permanent bond. Right now, Christ made a way for you to be free from them all and stay free.
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
If Jesus returned today, what would He find connected to your soul? Would He find you connected or abiding in Him?
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
What are you connecting your soul to today that Jesus would not want connected to Him. You cannot be connected to this world and Christ?
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
That which you connect your soul to can easily become your master. If Christ returned today, could you call Him Master?
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience.
If Jesus returned today and looked at your life, how connected to Him would you be? Would you reconnect with Him today? Would you strengthen that connection with Him today? Would you be free from all things that He would not want connected to?