Sermon Central
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The Source Of Significance Series
Contributed by Rick Stacy on Jan 7, 2004 (message contributor)
Summary: 1st in series based on John 1&2. The problem is that we human types keep trying to find the good life in all the wrong places, using all the wrong tools, with all the wrong resources, and getting miserable empty results.
Living the Good Life
A Study of John 1 & 2
Having what it takes to make it in the world today…
Jesus came for one purpose
“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
To give us an abundant life.
God never intended that we be miserable, hurt, damaged, or depressed.
The problem is that we human types keep trying to find the good life in all the wrong places, using all the wrong tools, with all the wrong resources, and getting miserable empty results.
We all know this!
We keep trying it anyway.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
Let me show you what Jesus teaches us about living the good life.
Jesus came to show us how to obtain a great life
He showed us by the example he set in his daily deeds.
He taught us with simple profound stories and crisp clear illustrations from the world surrounding us.
He empowers us through his Holy Spirit to become new creatures and to overcome the evil one.
Learning about Living the Good Life
Finding the Source of Significance – John 1:1-13
Satisfying the Hunger for Approval – John 1:14-34
Discovering Your Purpose for Being – John 1:35-50
Understanding the Root of Happiness – John 2:1-11
Focusing on the Valuable – John 2:12-25
The Right that changes everything
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
God is the author of life
To Live the good life you have to build on the right foundation…
It is critical to understand that God is the author, designer, and creator of life.
God is the author of life. Jesus is God. Jesus is the author, designer, and creator of life.
Every so often the news will report that man has come up with life…In a test tube; On Mars; On a Saturn moonscape; or in the polar icecape 17 gazillion years before prehistoric man.
These reports are all suspect. In a test tube we find people carefully coaxing amino acids to join up and become proteins – hardly life and hardly accidental.
On Mars and Saturn moon there is evidence of water or ice… which is hardly life and hardly Godless if there is life.
We are facing many ethical issues with respect to life
Abortion, cloning, birth control pills, the night after pill, genetic engineering, euthanasia, and the list goes on.
All these issues obscure the truth and miss the point by a good country mile!
Life comes from God – God breathed…
Humankind will never be masters of life – only possessors and stewards
Humankind will never be a creator of life – only procreators.
If humankind ever becomes designers it will be of the vessel – not the spirit.
God is the source of significance
As the creator he has endowed us with our innate purpose and reason for being… our significance
Satan wants you to believe three lies – all of which diminish God’s part in your significance as a person.
Lie #1: God, if he exists at all, is not really interested in you.
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
I have the right to become a child of God.
Not part of the normal biological processes
Not born of natural descent, Nor of human decision, Not in a test tube, invitro, adoption – Or a husband’s will
