Is There Not A Cause? Series

1. THE CHURCH SEEMS TO BE ANEMIC.

Anemia: a quantitative deficiency of the hemoglobin, often accompanied by a reduced number of red blood cells and causing pallor, weakness, and breathlessness. A lack of power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness

a) The blood of Jesus gives power to the church

- The church stands or falls on the blood of Jesus

- We are over-comers by the “blood of the lamb.” Revelation 12:11

- The blood runs through the bible (it is the scarlet thread that flows through scripture).

- Andre Crouch gave us a beautiful song years ago

- “The blood that Jesus shed for me, way back on Calvary;

- The blood that gives me strength, from day to day;

- It shall never lose its power.

- For it reaches to the highest mountain,

-And it flows to the lowest valley:

-The blood that gives me strength, from day to day,

- It shall never lose its power!”

- It soothes my doubts, and it calms my fears;

-And it dries all my tears;

--The blood that gives me strength, from day to day,

- It shall never lose its power!”

b) God established a blood covenant with man in the garden of Eden

- Animal skins were used to cover man’s nakedness after his fall in the garden

- It was a picture of God’s desire to cover our nakedness (our sin) from before His eyes (something had to die).

- In Exodus 12 God established the Passover (explain)

- The death angel would pass and take out the first born of every Egyptian’s house but where the blood of the lamb was present, there would be safety

- God promised that He would make a new covenant

Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

- Jesus represents that new covenant that God has made

-Jesus became that Lamb whose blood was shed for the church

- Matthew 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

c) The blood cannot lose it’s power but we may cause it to lose it’s efficacy (capacity for producing a desired result or effect; effectiveness)

- Through our unwillingness to recognize the power of the blood

- The blood has the power to cleanse and make atonement for sins- “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9

- The blood has the power to redeem - 1 Peter 1:18 - 19 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

APPLICATION: But we find that the church today is anemic in that we have lost our faith in the power of the blood of Jesus. We used to sing: There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the Lamb…but now it seems we are living in a different age. I say it is time for us to get back to trust and faith in the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is what makes the church what it is and without it we are nothing!

2. THE CHURCH SEEMS TO BE LETHARGIC