Will You “B” What You Should?
Notes
Transcript
Will You “B” What You Should?
Will You “B” What You Should?
In these 5 Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday, which is the Season of Lent on the church calendar, I am going to continue to teach about some of the ways we can honor the Lord Jesus with our connection and commitment to him.
Last week, I talked about the “N Word”— about boldly continuing to live out our faith no matter what surrounds us, no matter what the challenges are, no matter what the threat is. In Northern Iraq and Syria, when the Islamic State marked a house or business with “N” it meant they were followers of the Nazarene, Jesus, and subject to whatever abuse the militant Islamists would care to inflict. That runs the gamut from being shunned, having home or property seized or destroyed, and even face the ultimate test of faith, threatened with death by beheading if one would not give up Jesus. Are you willing to be an “N” who stands with Jesus no matter the cost?
Today, I’m not going to talk about basic faith and identification with Jesus. I’m going to talk about the “B” of Christian life. Will you B what you should?
>>>I’ve got 4 categories to “B”: Believing, Born Again, Baptized, and Becoming. They are all tied together in helping us to B what we should in Christ. I will only have time for the first three today, and will get to the theme of Becoming next week.
Believing
Believing
First is believing. In the gospel of John, believing in Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Son of Man Messiah, the Self-sacrificed Savior, is the key to eternal life. What we do is important, but what we believe about Jesus is the MOST IMPORTANT THING for eternal life.
>>>We have that thought primed for us in John 1, first about the misson of John the Baptist, about whom the scriptures says,
7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.
There are many witnesses about Jesus Christ and the what he has done for us, but John is our first witness, so that we can trust what this man says, and believe in Jesus.
>>>And then the Gospel says about Jesus in...
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
So, believe on the testimony of the witness of John and believe to become God’s children, regardless of where you come from or what your heritage.
>>>So why do we believe, and what do we believe?
One of the “Whys” is...
Believing In Jesus For Eternal Life
Believing In Jesus For Eternal Life
This of course the very core of the Gospel, in the first important verse that we learn in Sunday School or as new believers,
>>>As we read it in . . .
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
The First Step to B What We Should is to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, so we will not perish but have eternal life. This is why Jesus came, to give life by forgiveness from sin.
Jesus later expanded on this a bit, as he was speaking of his own authority as the Son of God in Jerusalem, after he healed a man by the pool of Bethesda on a Sabbath, to explain just how much has been given to him by our Father Creator God.
>>>For with Jesus, it is not just the power to heal a man of his infirmity, but it goes way past this, to the power to heal every one of us from the pains and penalties of sin, as he proclaims,
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Sin knocked humanity out of contention for eternal life, beginning at the Garden of Eden, because sin created death— because before sin, there was only life. And sin has carried the weight of death ever since.
But from the very beginning of all, our God has better plans for us: his plans are life and not destruction.
God’s heart of love wants so intensely to return us to his eternal presence, that he has provided Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for our sin. And when Sin is disarmed, death is defeated, and live has a place again.
If we will just hear Jesus well and believe what we first heard from John 3:16, we are on the path to really believing that God is the architect for our salvation.
When we believe Jesus’ words, we believe God, who sent Jesus. And then eternal life is restored to us. Not though justice against us, for that would be death, but through grace by the sacrifice of Christ.
We can pass directly from this life to our eternal life; because of Believing.
>>>This is so important that Jesus even goes on to tell us that...
Believing Is Doing the Work of God
Believing Is Doing the Work of God
Jesus was teaching a crowd on the shore of Galilee, and picked on the crowd for following him around the lake just to get another miracle because they were the 5,000 we were fed. So after they asked him why he took off,
>>>Jesus told them,
27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
Hmmm. Work for food that is good for eternal life.
>>>Confused as ever,
28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”
Ah. Now, that was the right question.
>>>So,
Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
The work of God, fulfilling the will of God, is about believing in Jesus, the one he sent.
So When we believe the witness of John (Jn 1:7) and we believe the words of Jesus (Jn 5:24) , then we believe God— and that brings eternal life.
But we must, in the process of that believe in Jesus as our Savior.
When we believe in Jesus, not just believe about Jesus or believe Jesus, we believe that he is the Son of the Living God who has paid the penalty for our sins and made our path clear to God’s eternal life.
>>>John goes on, in Jesus’ words in the next chapter, to tell us that. . . .
Believing In Jesus Is Believing In God
Believing In Jesus Is Believing In God
Coming up is a verse which creates a circle of thought and ties together the Father, Son, and Faith. We hear Jesus’ words and believe in God and gain eternal life; we believe in Jesus who God sent and find that is doing God’s work,
>>>and now. . .
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
So believing in Jesus is believing in God the Father who sent him.
Those who believe they are safe because they believe in God have missed the significance of the particular point in history where All Time was brought into focus as the love of God and the Justice of God met at the center of the cross, on Jesus the Son, and finished the sacrifice for our sin. You can’t be safe for eternity believing in God but not believing in the Son of God.
If we refuse to believe in Jesus the Son of God our Savior, then we cannot truly believe in who God is.
Jesus himself says if we see him we see the Father. Not in a completely literal sense, but in a real sense because we see the Father reflected in the person of Jesus Christ His Son.
Jesus brought us enough light to see deeper into the heart of God than ever before, and so gave us the ability to know God more deeply than ever.
Don’t keep on in the darkness of stubborn grasping at what isn’t yours; instead, take hold of the light of Jesus through believing in him.
But simple belief, for all its promises, is not the whole of what we need. The scripture famously tells us that Satan believes in Jesus, and it makes him shudder.
>>>What we need is a complete remaking. We need to . . . .
“B” Born Again
“B” Born Again
Born again, born anew. Not a renewed human birth,
>>>but something entirely new:
Born Again to See the Kingdom of God
Born Again to See the Kingdom of God
The Jews of Jesus’ day were certain they had the whole Kingdom of God figured out. But their understanding was incomplete and culturally driven. They were both too concrete in their thinking and to prone to wander into different guesses, imaginations, and dreams about what the Kingdom of God would be. And mostly, they were wrong.
One of the leaders of the Jews, Nicodemus, came to Jesus secretly, probably because he wanted to confirm some of his own beliefs and this seemed like just the person to ask.
>>>But after Nicodemus had broken the ice with some flattering statements, and before he could even ask his question....
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
This is the only passage in the Gospel where Jesus says “you must be born again.” He says it 3 or 4 times in John 3 , as He is explaining it to Nicodemus. Nick was really confused by this statement. At first, he could only think of physical birth and the impossibility of redoing that.
Then we read in John 1:6 and John 1:8 that the second birth is a Spiritual birth. This is the whole point of the second birth: to restore what was lost by the sin that had banished mankind to be mostly blind to God. To be born again is to be remade in the likeness of God the Father, including a spirit that hears God once again and begins to recreate purity within.
Although the phrase “born again” does not appear in in Ephesians 2, that chapter is a great discussion on how being made new in Christ Jesus not only purifies us but also draws Jew and Gentile into one unified body of God’s people.
And then in 1 John 5 the discussion continues as well, speaking of being “Born of God”, a phrase used 6 times in the epistle.
There is no time to dive deep into those passages today, and I don’t want to be just talking in circles about all these facets of being.
>>>So let’s pick up the concept in 1 Peter, as the Apostle tells us that being Born Again means we are . . . .
Born Again to a Living Hope
Born Again to a Living Hope
One of the problems we see all the time is the problem of hopelessness in the world. It is hopelessness that drives people to extreme actions, trying to create hope for themselves or trying to eliminate whatever they think is the source of destroyed hopes and dreams.
So people will kill those they are supposed to love and protect. People will raid the institutions of government or power, tearing down instead of building up. People will even turn the cause of hopelessness back on themselves, and think that the only way out of the hopeless state they are in is to take themselves out.
There are so many ways that a lack of hope affects people, and moods, and behaviors. Instead of living with a lack of hope, wouldn’t it be nice to jump in and take a swim in a lake of hope?
>>>Well, we don’t need a lake of hope because God provides us a new birth into a living hope:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Born out of hopelessness and into a living hope that is a hope of really living in the here and now and points us on to the hope we have beyond the grave.
“Born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” His resurrection points us to our final resurrection. This life is not the end of hope, our death is not the end of hope, the grave is not the end of hope.
>>>A living hope is ours because we are born again by the Spirit of God, and that also means we are. . . .
Born Again to Live In Eternity
Born Again to Live In Eternity
We have barely navigated this life of living and breathing in the beauty of God’s creation for a few decades. Each beat of our hearts brings us closer to the end of our time on earth.
How could we possibly be fit to live with God and others for eternity? What becomes of the issues of growth and change and age and challenge? That’s all we know, and without the word of God, it may be all we can imagine.
>>>God has taken of that for us, and Peter tells us to allow the living hope we now have to infuse our relationships with a “sincere brotherly love,
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
This is important because heaven will not look like our separated or even segregated communities.
The deeply troubling actions of white supremacy across our nation is bad enough on its own. But paired with those who grab a copy of a King James translation of a Latin translation of the ancient scriptures written in Hebrew and Greek to make it look like they are on a holy crusade makes me shudder.
It is the exact opposite of what the Bible tells us about inclusivity and the work of Christ to bring all things together. On earth, sin still reigns, the devil still infects selfish thoughts, pride and privilege still trumps humility, service, and a true brotherly love.
But Peter tells us that its time to act like we have entered the goodness of God’s purposes: “Since your have been born again,” is the conclusion of purified souls and “earnest love for one another from a pure heart.”
We clearly need to be reborn for this life and for the more than this life God has for us. Living with God and others for eternity is not about growth and change and age and challenge.
Instead, it’s about God creating something new and something pure and something excellent and something good in us: we become, through the new birth, fit for eternity, with the imperishable infusion of God’s word, his living and abiding word in us.
Our task is to live up to what God has place in us through Jesus Christ, so that living hope fits us for eternity. That starts Now.
>>>Moving to the next facet of our Bs for Christians is to. . . .
“B” Baptized
“B” Baptized
Baptism is never listed in the Bible as an option for Christians; it is listed as an expectation for Christians.
>>>But it is only taking a bath unless we are. . .
Baptized Because of Belief
Baptized Because of Belief
Of course, there is a long tradition in some of the churches of baptizing or Christening babies when they are presented and named in the church. I won’t go into that background today, because the tradition of baptism that I see in the Bible is a tradition of being baptized because someone has Believed and been Born Again, and the Baptism is a sign and symbol of that.
>>>In the postlogue to the Gospel of Mark, in 16:16, expanding the Great Commission from the end of Mathew’s gospel, we read Jesus saying, . . .
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
So we see belief and baptism are tied together. Once we believe, baptism should be our immediate goal. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” is taken by some to mean that if we do not get baptized then we are not really saved.
I don’t believe that is quite what it means here, for the second phrase of the sentence says, “whoever does not believe will be condemned.” It doesn’t say whoever is not baptized. It is belief in Jesus, as we went over at the beginning of the message today, that saves us.
It is baptism that marks us as Jesus’ own. It puts us in the category of the “N” Christians that we talked about last week: Believers who are willing to be identified with Jesus the Nazarene forever after. Baptism is our personal marker in time that we have placed our hope of salvation in Jesus.
>>>Then we read Paul giving his testimony of his own rebirth into Jesus, and his Christian Guide Ananias of Damascus told him he needed to be . . .
Baptized Because Your Sins Are Washed Away
Baptized Because Your Sins Are Washed Away
The Spirit of God had made Ananias a prophet to the zealous Saul of Tarsus whom Jesus had stopped on the road before he got to Damascus. Ananias told Saul (who would soon be know as Paul) that he was appointed as a witness to his vision of Jesus Christ and the work of Christ in him to change his heart.
>>>So because of all of that, the new directive to Saul comes:
And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’
It is not the water that washes away sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ, our sacrifice, that covers our sin. Baptism gives us the picture of that, and as Paul later said in Romans, the picture of dying to sin when we are forgiven, being buried under the water, and rising again to new life.
Be baptized because your sins are washed away. Be willing to show the world that is so. That’s one reason why we are glad to do our baptisms outside, in public, more or less. It is a testimony, not just to the church but also to the world that we are now follwers of Christ.
>>>And, know that in Baptism you are . . . .
Baptized INTO Christ
Baptized INTO Christ
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.