WHAT IF JESUS HAD NEVER BEEN BORN?
LIFE WITHOUT GRACE
II Corinthians 5:17
S: Jesus’ Importance in all of Life
C: The essentiality of the Incarnation
Th: What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?
Pr: WE CAN EXPERIENCE GRACE BECAUSE OF JESUS.
?: Who? Who can?
KW: Examples
TS: We will find five examples of those who have experienced the grace of new life in knowing Jesus.
Type: Propositional, clarification
The ____ example is a…
I. PROSTITUTE
II. MURDERER
III. SLAVE-TRADER
IV. SKEPTIC
V. RUTHLESS POLITICIAN
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Know the grace Jesus offers.
Version: ESV
RMBC 24 December 05 AM
INTRODUCTION:
We have been influenced this month by the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
It is the book by C. S. Lewis, that we are confronted with this question…
1. What if it was always winter and never Christmas?
ILL Narnia – no Christmas
Lucy describes what the White Witch has done to the land of Narnia to her siblings, saying:
“She has made an enchantment over the whole country so that it is always winter here and never Christmas.”
The picture that is drawn is that it is a dead and stagnant time. Nothing is growing. Creatures are crouching around fires. The outdoors is endured rather than enjoyed.
Have you ever wondered what this world might be like if the first Christmas had never happened?
It is interesting that we live in a day and age when people are trying to remove Jesus from this time of the year.
Christians are called small-minded and bigoted, in an effort to minimize the impact of their faith.
But you know…
People can try to take Jesus out of Christmas, but it doesn’t work.
People can pretend that Jesus was not an historical figure, but they must be illogical to do so.
And people try to erase the impact Christianity has made over the last 2000 years, but such an impact is not so easily forgotten, if we care to look.
You see…
Jesus has come to earth.
He has intervened onto the stage of humanity.
And because He has done so, He has made all the difference.
Listen to this…
2. BECAUSE OF JESUS, WE CAN EXPERIENCE GRACE (II Corinthians 5:17).
I have never met anyone that has not enjoyed experiencing grace.
We often define grace as unmerited favor.
Most of us, either tonight or tomorrow, will be receiving gifts.
This giving will be acts of grace.
For grace is receiving a gift, not because we deserve it, but because we are liked, appreciated or loved.
We receive a gift, not because of our merits, but purely on the merit of the one giving.
They give because they enjoy doing so.
This is exactly what Jesus has done for us.
He wants to give us the very thing that we long for…a new start…a new beginning.
It says in Scripture…
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
This is why Jesus came.
Jesus came to make things new.
He came to make us new!
When left on our own, we mess things up.
We suffer broken relationships.
We get angry at the most ridiculous things.
We may even betray our friends.
But Jesus is willing, if we are willing to receive His gift, to make us new.
For He takes the liabilities of society and turns them into assets!
OUR STUDY:
Note these examples in history.
The first is a…
I. PROSTITUTE
For those of us who know our Bible well, we may recall naming her as “the woman caught in adultery.”
We do not know her name.
We do know that she was caught with a man (also unnamed), suggesting to us that she was plying her trade.
The Jewish leaders were delighted to find her doing so, so that they could put Jesus into a moral dilemma.
The law said she should die, and they expected Jesus to uphold the law.
They were ready to stone her.
But Jesus did not fall for the trap.
Instead, He challenged them.
He said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Since none of them could make that claim, one by one, they walked away.
And then Jesus uttered the most wonderful words of grace, “Go and sin no more.”
The second example is a…
II. MURDERER
Another story in the New Testament reveals that there was a man that was a persecutor of Christians.
In fact, since he was one of the Jewish leaders, he presided over the stoning of one of the early Christian leaders, named Stephen.
The story was done with his permission.
Later this person, in recalling his past, would call himself the chief of sinners.
He regretted his past, but he also celebrated the grace he experienced.
So much so, he would write…
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Paul, the apostle, a former murderer, the chief of sinners, and a new creation, saved by the grace of God…he laid the theological foundation for our understanding of the Christian faith.
He understood that the new life that came from Jesus was able to affect each one of us, no matter where we have come from or what we have done.
The third example is a…
III. SLAVE-TRADER
During a violent storm, a young man prayed on the ship he had responsibilities on.
He was afraid he was going to die, so he committed his life to Christ.
The trouble for him was that he worked the slave trade.
He earned a livelihood by herding people into a ship.
He made money by selling human cargo.
But when he survived that violent storm, he recognized that God had intervened.
Gradually, he began to understand the evil that had consumed him and he repented of his sin.
Later, he would become a pastor, and during that time, John Newton penned these words:
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see!
John Newton would become the pastor of another man who was a political force in England.
This man was sick of politics and wanted to quit.
But Newton persuaded him not to quit because he knew God had great things for him to do.
This man was William Wilberforce, and he played the critical role in abolishing slavery in England.
Yes, the grace of Jesus is powerful!
The fourth example is a…
IV. SKEPTIC
He was born in Northern Ireland.
His mother died when he was seven years old.
During his formative years, he learned to read classic literature in five languages.
At age 19, when he took the entrance exams for Oxford, his examiner stated that his exams were “the best ever seen in the history of Oxford.”
Before he entered Oxford, he served in the British Army during World War I, where he was wounded three times in battle.
Until he was 30 years old, he was an avowed atheist. In a letter written to a friend in October 1916, he said, “I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best. All religions, that is, all mythologies to give them their proper name, are merely man’s own invention.”
But a change began to take place in this man while he was a professor at Oxford.
He became friends with two other professors, who happened to be real Christians.
One was Hugh Dyson, the other was J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings.
As he got to know these two, he became persuaded that their faith was real.
And in the summer of 1929, he became convinced that Jesus really was an historic figure who really did die on the cross as a substitute for the sins of the world.
So C. S. Lewis bowed his head and invited Christ into his life and received the grace of a new life.
When Lewis sought to write about his own experience, he did share it, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
He viewed himself as Edmund, the one who betrayed his own siblings, in order to be king over them and Narnia.
In that story, it is Aslan who dies for Edmund so that he will be restored.
And this reflected Lewis’ own faith, and his own gratefulness for what Jesus had done for him, the former atheistic skeptic.
This was grace.
The fifth example is a…
V. RUTHLESS POLITICIAN
He was a high-powered attorney that became the special counsel to the president.
He had access to what was considered to be an inaccessible man.
And he was known as the hatchet man for President Nixon.
He would do anything and everything for the president, and it didn’t matter who got hurt in the process.
Another official in the White House described Charles Colson this way…
I came to regard Colson as an evil genius. His brilliance was undeniable, but it was too often applied to encouraging Richard Nixon’s darker side, his desire to lash out at his enemies, his instinct for the jugular. I would have to say – granting always Nixon’s central responsibility for what happened in his administration – Colson was one of the men among his advisors most responsible for creating the climate that made Watergate possible, perhaps inevitable.
Now, Charles Colson is known for much different things.
He is still regarded a genius, but a compassionate one.
He is known for his magnificent books, inspiring talks, and prison ministry.
He uses his genius for Christ.
But if you take grace out of the equation, if we remove Jesus, all we are left with is evil genius.
APPLICATION:
Be assured of this today…
What Jesus has done for others He can do for you, if you let Him.
The babe in a manger came for peace on earth, a peace that starts in each one of us individually.
It is the extension of grace that puts meaning into life – new life for you.
Lord Jesus, I come seeking you today. I realize the baby of Bethlehem is more than a sweet story; it is God coming as man to reach each of our spiritual needs. So, I turn from my sins and ask that You take Your rightful place on the throne of my heart. Thank You that You have paid for my sin. Make me new again. Amen.
RESOURCES:
Books:
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
D. James Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?
