October 2 2016 Connecting With The Real Jesus

Connecting With The Real Jesus

John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth and the life."

John 14:1-9 (NLT) “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him! Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am?

How Do We Connect to the Real Jesus?

1. I engage the way of Jesus through prayer.

Question: "How do you know what Jesus would do?"

John 14:13 "You can ask for anything in my name and I will do it because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father."

Matthew 7:7 "Keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds and to everyone who knocks the door will be opened."

2. I encounter the truth of Jesus through Bible study.

John 14:9-11 Jesus replied "Philip, don't you even yet know who I am even after all the time I've been with you? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Why are you asking to see Him? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" "The words I say are not my own but my Father who lives in me, does his work through me." "Just believe that I'm in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe, because of what you have seen me do."

Question: Have you ever seriously studied who Jesus is?

Common Myths:

  • Jesus came to make us more religious.

See Mark 7.

  •  Jesus was just a good human.

See John 2.

  • Jesus was a good historical figure.

See John 18.

  • Jesus will make your life easy

CS Lewis “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

3. I experience the life of Jesus through believing.

Acts 16:31 "Believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ and you will be saved."

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.

Memory Verse: John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."

March 17 2013 Learning To Love Christ Back

LEARNING TO LOVE CHRIST BACK

Rev. 4:116 - You (God) created everything and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.
Romans 12:1 - Because of God’s great mercy to us, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His Service and pleasing to Him. This is your true Worship that you should offer.
I Peter 4:2 - From now on, live the rest of your lives controlled by God’s Will, not by human desires.
Romans 6:13 - Give yourselves completely to God, every part of you, you want to be tools in the hands of God to be used for His good purposes.

1. Why Love Christ Back?

He shaped us for a specific reason.

Gal. 1:15 - For even before I was born, God had chosen me to be His and He called me, what kindness and grace.
God Knows what’s best for me.
Jer. 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.
I Am grateful for our salvation.
II Timothy 1:9 - Christ saved us and called us with a Holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace.

God Promises to reward our commitment.

Proverbs 7:6 - In everything you do put God first and He will direct you and brown your efforts with success.

WHAT KEEPS US FROM LOVING CHRIST BACK

1. Short term values.
Mark 4:19 - The attractions of this world and the delights of wealth, and the search for success and love of nice things came in and crowded out God.
I John 2:17 - The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear, but anyone who does the Will of God will live forever.

2. Past failure.
Phil 3:13-14 - Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me.

3. We are self motivated.
Prov. 14:14 - The back slider is bored with himself, but the Godly man’s life is exciting.
Mark 8:35 - If you insist on saving your life you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.

4. Fear.
Psalm 37:5 - Commit everything you do to the Lord, trust Him to help you do it and He will.

HOW DO WE LOVE CHRIST BACK

1. Consider the cost.
Luke 14:27-28 - No one can be My disciple who does not carry his own cross and follow Me, but don’t begin until you count the cost.

2. Come just as you are.

3. Do it now.
Hosea 10:12 - Sow for yourselves righteousness, break up the follow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord.

4. Give all we have.
Romans 12:1-2 - Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His Service and pleasing to Him. This is true Worship, then you will be able to know the Will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

C.S. LEWIS “THE ONLY THING CHRISTIANITY CANNOT BE IS MODERATELY IMPORTANT.”