The Amazing Grace Highway
Living-Hope – week 3
TODAY – is Mother’s Day…
And moms are awesome, amen?
NOW - I want us to take a moment to honor all of the moms in this room today…
Check out this video
Why We Celebrate (Video)
Why do we celebrate moms!
Well for a lot of reasons, right?
And one of those reasons is because God created moms to reveal His heart.
And from where I stand, I must say that moms have done a pretty awesome job doing just that…
• Compassion
• Sacrifice
• Unconditional love
• Believing in her children
I would like all moms to stand….
Let’s give it up for these moms.
Now I want everyone else to stand and let’s surround these moms and pray for them…
Pray for moms….
NOW – just 2 weeks back we began a message series on the letter 1 Peter called, ‘Living-Hope, A Sure Anchor In Troubled Times.’
This letter was written by Peter, you know the walking on water fisherman who had the opportunity to hang out with Jesus (God the Son) for 3 years, when He wore flesh and walked on this planet.
I MEAN – think about it, Peter had a ring-side seat to all of the awesome things Jesus did…
THIS LETTER – is from Peter, a guy who had knowledge about, a relationship with and access to Jesus that is unequaled in human history…
AND IT – was written… to people just like you and I…
PEOPLE - who found themselves in the midst of great hardship and difficulty… trying hard to hang on to hope.
NOW - it’s been an awesome study so far…
AND – until 5:38 am last Sunday morning what I had planned on doing was to hit the pause button on 1 Peter and ‘Living-Hope’ today so that we could have a conversation about Hannah, one of the awesome moms we find in the Bible.
HOWEVER – last Sunday morning as I was going over my message, ‘Living With Great Expectation.’ A CONVERSATION – about how as people… God the Father chose, God the Son died for and God the Spirit lives… As people who have been given a new birth into a living hope that we can expect some pretty GREAT things.
We can expect…
• An inheritance in heaven that can never perish, spoil or fade away… Listen – if you are a Jesus-follower there is an inheritance in heaven with your name on it.
• God’s power to protect us… And that is a really awesome thing. I mean – when we are protected by the God who literally breathes out stars, that is some serious protection.
And because God’s power is protecting us… ‘Ultimately nothing can hurt us because nothing can hurt us ultimately.’
• Troubles to strengthen our faith – “we do not just have to GO through it – instead we can GROW through it…
• The salvation of our souls… and remember salvation is everything God has done, is doing and will do for us ‘in Christ.’
WELL – early last Sunday morning as I was going over that last point… that you and I as Jesus-followers can expect to receive the salvation of our souls that I felt God say to me,
“Hey Steve, I need you to talk about this salvation some more next week and expand on it… because my people (including you) do not fully appreciate and are constantly underestimating the power of my amazing grace and the magnitude of the salvation that is yours because of My Son....”
And I was like, “But God, you know what next Sunday is, right? It’s Mother’s Day and I was planning on talking about Hannah.”
“Yes, I know next week is Mother’s day… and I also know that there is nothing a mother (especially the moms who will be in this room next week) want then her children being right with God…
In fact, that was ‘the passion’ of all the great moms in the bible… including Hannah”
BOTTOM LINE – this morning… May 11, 2014, my goal, my intent is twofold…
#1 – honor the moms in this room
#2 – talked about this GREAT salvation that every Christian
mom wants for her children…
ALRIGHT – let’s do this… Goal #2…
Prayer
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. – 1 Peter 1:8-12
I like how the MSG bible words verse 12…
Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this! – 1 Peter 1:12 (Msg)
OKAY – that’s crazy…
I MEAN – angels who have seen things like…
the creation of the universe, the beginning of time,
and God the Father/Son/Spirit on a regular basis)…
I MEAN – angels see, experience and live in the place that John writes about in Revelation… YET – they long to look in on our salvation… (Man, I wish I could see and experience what Steve, John, Larry and Laurie do…)
AND LISTEN – it’s not only the angels who are getting all fireed up about our salvation…
THE - prophets of old (Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel)… who wrote about the grace that was coming to us – could hardly contain themselves (as their pen dance across the page) though they never did understand it fully…
SURE – the wrote about Christ… about the Messiah, and about His suffering, about His glory and His grace.
BUT – even though they searched intently and with great care they still could fully get or grasp it… (and they sooo wanted too)
AND - like I said last week… you and I may imagine what it was like to be them… (to be David walking into the valley, Moses stretching out the staff, Daniel coming out of the lions den)… They tried to imagine what it would be like to be us! To be me. To be you. To actually live in this grace in which we now stand.
AGAIN - they wrote about them… but they never did fully understand what the Holy Spirit had them put on paper… WHY? BECAUSE – they never lived in or experienced it personally… AND UNDERSTAND – there is a HUGE difference between just hearing or writing about something then actually experiencing it yourself…
Like the PCH (pacific coast highway)– for years I heard about it, but one day I got to experience it…. SHOW PICTURE OF PCH.
OKAY – here is what we are going to do during our remaining time this morning… We are going to crank up the tunes, put down the top, put Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses, David and Daniel in the car and drive up the AGH.
I. The Forgiveness Of All Sin… Once and For All
NOW – the prophets of old knew all about sin.. and about wanting that sin forgiven… so they could get back to God.
I MEAN – they’ve been dealing with sin ever since Genesis 3.
AND – anytime they sinned they were required to bring a sacrifice to the temple… Year after year… they brought them… BUT – all of those sacrifices never allowed them to experience
The Forgiveness Of All Sin… Once and For All…
The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves.
The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. 2 If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. 3
But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. 4 For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins…
Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. – Hebrews 10:1-4,11
UNDERSTAND – all those sacrifices that… Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses, David and Daniel made…
Those sacrifices were never able to provide perfect cleansing…
Why? Because…
It is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin…
Then what about the guilt
The guilt never disappeared…
What about the sin?
Offering the same sacrifices again and again – can never take away sins…
BUT LISTEN – 2000 years ago the GRACE these guys wrote about put on flesh and everything changed…
AND NOW THE - (guilt remaining… imperfect cleansing… sins not taken away) IS - no longer the reality for God’s people… Christ (the Messiah, our Great High Priest, the lamb of God) has come… AND THE - new and better covenant they wrote about has been a reality… ever since the empty tomb…
WHICH - is exactly what the writer of Hebrews said as he continues to pen the words of Hebrews chapter 10;
But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time.
Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet.
For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. – Hebrews 10:11-14
UNDERSTAND – the reality that you and I as Christ-followers experience and live in every day… The Forgiveness Of All Sin… Once and For All…
Would absolutely blow the minds of (Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel)…
I MEAN - the sheer beauty of it would take their breathe away…
AND VERSES – like:
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. – Col 2:13,14
AND – verses like…
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, - Romans 8:1
Would make them dance and fill them with an inexpressible and glorious joy…
ALL my sins are forgiven…? Yes, every sin
Once and for all? once and for all/complete
No more bringing sacrifices year after year?
No more sacrifices, Jesus is enough
It is finished!
MGCC – no, we do not realize how fortunate we are…
Forgiveness of all sin once and for all
Let that sink in…
NEXT – as we continue our drive up the coastline of the GRACE that was to come and is now here…
II. Freedom From ‘Do to Be’
UNDERSTAND – all that Isaiah, Jeremiah and the rest of the OT prophets new was… the law, the old covenant and trying to keep rules… AND – there were a lot of rules… 613 if you want to be exact… 613 rules that God’s people were required to keep in order to be right with God... AND – under this system of rules the practice of faith was a burden…
NOW – some people today may think that it’s a burden to have to get up and drive to church on Sunday morning… AND SOME – may think that it is a burden to spend time in God’s word and in prayer…
BUT LISTEN – the practice of faith that OT prophets were under… was a real burden…
Let me give you just one example…
AND AS – I read this passage from Leviticus…
IMAGINE – actually having to do this (and God’s people did for over 1400 years…) this was all they ever knew – until God’s AG hit the streets.
"If a member of the community sins…and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD's commands, he is guilty. When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect. He is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering… Leviticus 4:27-
Could you imagine doing that every time you sinned.
Yeah, there had to be a very long line at that altar
YEAH – under the system of rules; the practice of faith was a burden, AND… to make matters even worse no one no one could ever measure up…
For no one can ever be made right in God's sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it.” - Romans 3:20 (NLT)
LISTEN – under the way of rules; not only was the practice of faith a burden, BUT – no matter what you did, no matter how hard you tried you would never measure up… You always fell short. You were never good enough.
IN FACT…
Living under the law could really be summed up by these three words, “Do to be.” UNDER – the system of rules – you had to do to be; BUT the problem was you could never do enough to measure up…. to be righteous in God’s eyes…
THEREFORE - living under the old way… was full of pressure… pressure to perform, to do, to earn, to be good enough… all the while knowing that you were not.
MGCC
After knowing only the pressure of rules all of their lives… the OT prophets would have been completely blown away by the reality of the coastline of God’s amazing grace… and the freedom from ‘do to be.’ AND VERSES – like…
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. - Ephesians 2:8,9
And…
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Cor 5:21
You were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. – Col 1:20,21
Would cause the prophets of Old to jump out the car and dance on the AGH coastline!
NO – I don’t. You don’t. We don’t realize how fortunate we are to pitch our tent on the coastline of God’s amazing grace…
• No more trying to measure up
• No more doing to be
• No more constantly falling short
• No more ‘never’ being good enough
• No more banging our heads against the wall and trying to figure out what we are doing wrong and what we need to right in order to earn God’s favor. We are already have it – it’s called ‘grace’ God’s unmerited favor.
MGCC
WE LIVE under a new and better covenant…
WE LIVE – under grace…
AND LISTEN
Under Grace we do not live FOR our salvation we live FROM our salvation, which means the pressure to perform is off.
(gold medal, golden gate bridge... illustrations)
III. God Lives In Us
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? - 1 Cor 6:19
UNDERSTAND - approaching God in the days of the OT prophets was not something that people did… There was a very real separation between the presence of God and the people of God. Let me give two quick examples that underscore this distance…
FIRST EXAMPLE – when Moses climbed to the top of Mt Sinai and God’s presence descended on that mountain with fire – smoke – and the sound of a loud trumpet blast… what were the people warned not to do…?
NOT – to touch the mountain or they would die - (which is why Moses put barriers up at the base of the mountain…)
EXAMPLE TWO… Where was the one place in all of Israel where God’s presence dwelt…?
In the temple, in the holy of holies…
(court of gentiles, woman, men, priest, holy place, holy of holies)…
SO YOU SEE - there seemed to be one barrier after another that separated the people from the presence of God…
THAT – is why when you point out to them as you drive up the coastline of the AGH, the truth that GOD lives in them they would be totally blown away!
Okay, am I hearing you right…
• The God whose presence I could never even get close to
• lives in me
• I am the Temple.
• GOD lives in me!
• No way
• R U kidding me
The same power that conquered the grave lives in us!
Amazing. Unbelievable.
I MEAN – we always loved singing Psalm 84… ‘How lovely is your dwelling place, but we never imagined it would be us!”
AS we – continue to drive up the coastline of the amazing grace that was coming and is now here…
AND AS – your passengers… the OT prophet attempt to take in the incredible beauty of all the breathing realities that dot the coastline…
• Forgiveness of all sin – once and for all
• Freedom from ‘do to be’ – praise God the pressures off!
• God living in us
YOU LOOK – out the window and point out to them yet another reality of the grace that is here…
IV. Adoption Into God’s Family
AND – you noticed them getting more excited then ever…
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” – Romans 8:15
God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
– Galatians 4:5
1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
- 1 John 3:1
YEAH – at this point I am convinced that they would have you stop the car… pull over to the side of the road… so that they could spend some time gazing at the wonder of their adoption into God’s family!
Basking in the love that God had so lavishing poured out on them…
“God not only allows me in his presence. He not only is willing to live in us… But He is willing to adopt us into His own family – calling us His sons and daughters.
R U kidding me!
God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
– Galatians 4:5
NOW I UNDERSTAND – a lot about adoption.
Twice I boarded a plane with my wife Laurie and flew to the other side of the world.
• To adopt Mei-Leigh into our family on July 18th 2005
• And to adopt Jin-Tao on January 21, 200
And let me tell you, though they are adopted they are my kids 100%... I could not imagine life without them…
Adoption is a huge thing…
It involves: tremendous cost, great love, a powerful choice…
I MEAN – how amazing that God left His world and came to ours to adopt us..
BUT LISTEN – there is something that would make adoption into God’s family an almost unbelievable concept to the OT prophets who are from the Middle East which is a shame based culture…
In the Middle East family is important… but there something even more important then family… the honor of the family. That is why the worst thing anyone can do is to bring shame and dishonor to their family)…
Mulan…
There was an extreme example of this on in Phoenix Arizona a few years back.
An 8 year old girl from Liberia… was lured into a shed by 4 boys ages 9-14 with the promise of candy. Once inside the shed the 4 boys took turns abusing her…
Neighbors heard her screams and called the police.
When they arrived the 4 boys were running from the shed…
And if this little girls nightmare wasn’t bad enough her Father told the police officer and the case worker who was there… “Take her, I don’t want her…”
Why – because in her father’s eyes she had brought shame and dishonor to her family.
(yeah, I know it makes no sense to us)
HOWEVER - that was and is pretty much the mindset of much of the Middle East.
AND THAT IS WHY… a holy and righteous God wanting them in his family would blow the OT prophets away.
I MEAN – I can hear Isaiah saying, “Okay, your telling me that
God, the Holy God… the one I saw in the Temple
the one who caused me to cry out, ‘I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King the Lord Almighty… the one who is surrounded by angels flying and crying out…
holy, holy, holy - is the Lord God Almighty
the whole earth is full of His glory
not only forgives me, frees me, lives in – but wants me (a sinner) in his family… he is not dishonored by me….
God not only allows us into His presence, He is not only willing to live in us - but He is willing to adopt us into His own family, calling ‘us His sons and daughters.
R U kidding me!!!
MAYBE NOW
We can understand and feel the powerful emotions behind 1 John 3….
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
– 1 John 3:1
NOW – at this point in our drive up the AGH, I am pretty sure that the OT prophets would be about to explode with joy.
And would tell us, I don’t think I can take anymore, I am being overcome by awesomeness…
And we would say just one more and we will call it a day…
The Life We Can Now Live
But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. "Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life."
– Acts 5:20
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! – 2 Cor 5:17
Christ in you the hope of glory. – Colossians 1:27
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. – 2 Peter 1:3
UNDERSTAND…
The life they could never live by trying harder and following rules better is now possible because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and the Spirit’s presence in us…
AS – a Christ-follower you can:
• LIVE - a life of; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…
• LIVE A LIFE – where we: overcome our anger, control our tongue, turn the other check, flee from lust, always speak the truth, forgive those who hurt us, pray for the those who persecute us, treat others the way we want to be treated, never worry about anything, store up treasures in heaven, fear nothing or no one but our God, defeat the things that have held us back, have a peace beyond understanding, see hardships as a path to real joy…
• LIVE A LIFE – that is not about us… BUT - is about helping, serving, reaching out to, living for the good of others…and the glory of God…
• LIVE THE LIFE – we’ve always wanted to live…
• A - purposeful, exciting, selfless, fulfilling, free, abundant, overflowing - LIFE of adventure with and for the King of Glory…
MAN – driving up the coastline of the grace that is here is amazing…
YEAH – The AGH takes your breathe away…
The reality of where we live as God’s adoptive children is amazing…
AND – we have only scratched the surface of all that His Grace entails…
I MEAN – we really could stay all day… and spent another few weeks… but we won’t.
SO – here is how we will wrap this thing up… This week on face book I posted this question…
“What are two things that really excite you about your salvation”
here are a few of them
1. that my salvation is NOT about me trying to measure up - it is a free gift, GRACE!!!!
2. that it will only get better and better and better from here... and that this 'increasing betterness' will go on FOREVER!!!!!
3. Knowing it is a gift and that nothing I can do can ever change His love for me!
4. that all that stuff that I did as a teenager is gone and God has restored me to how He created me before I messed it all up
5. I have somewhere good to go after this world ...
6. And death is nothing!
7. God’s grace is greater than the weight of my sins
8. Freedom
9. A new identity
10. That I have nothing to fear, for He has my life in His perfect hands
