“Staying on the Path”

Part 1: Jesus, the Son of God

1 John 2:22-23

INTRO: Struggle with my computer, my cell phone, stuff I didn’t even know about a few years ago.

Facing issues and questions in life I didn’t have to think about just a few years ago:  pornography, abortion, HIV/Aids, transplant surgery, euthanasia, genetic engineering, cloning, single parenthood, homosexual marriages.

Now that I’m a pastor (a “rookie” at 63), I’m supposed to know stuff!  John Boykin: “Preach the Word”.

             

Religion has negative connotations for a lot of people. Lots of people just want to be rid of “religion”.  Jesus Seminar, DaVinci Code, Christopher Hitchens, cultural attacks, “the only ‘religion’ you are not free to practice in America. Kids going off to college and rejecting their faith, sophisticated arguments from scholars, unprepared to deal with philosophy.

Truth: religion can get pretty strange pretty quickly. Religion fuels judgment, hypocrisy, mysticism, superstition. Religion takes away far more than it adds

When you dig under the surface of religious scandals, you discover that it wasn’t about the Kingdom of God, it was about building a man’s own empire.

 

(TRANSITION)” So what’s the answer?  What are the right questions?  What are the steps to a confident, defensible, secure faith you can stake your life on? DIRECTION (not intention) DETERMINES DESTINATION.  How do we “stay on the path” John faces these issues

 

1. (vss. 18-22) Identify the “spirit of anti-Christ”

1 John 2:18-27 (The Message) 18 Children, time is just about up. You heard that Antichrist is coming. Well, they're all over the place, antichrists everywhere you look. That's how we know that we're close to the end. 19 They left us, but they were never really with us. If they had been, they would have stuck it out with us, loyal to the end. In leaving, they showed their true colors, showed they never did belong. 22 So who is lying here? It's the person who denies that Jesus is the Divine Christ, that's who. This is what makes an antichrist…

 

              Anti (against) Christ’s everywhere you look!       Didn’t really leave, never with us!

              LOOKING FOR GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES! Acts 17:27, 31

 

2. (vs. 24) Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message.

 

              Key word: STAY What convinced you to become a believer?

                            Receivers had John’s gospel - We have the whole Bible. 

                            WHEN YOU GET DISILLUSIONED – go back to John’s gospel

                            SUMMARY: Stick to what you know (what the bible says) about Jesus

                            Keep going back to the beginning (Inigo Montoya in “The Princess Bride”)

 

3) (vs. 27)    Live deeply in what you were taught. “ABIDE” (meno – stay in a relationship)

             

SO WHAT?    SIMPLE TEST:  What do you believe about Jesus!

 

Religion vs. relationship

All religions have the same standards (C.S. Lewis’ 8 commandments)

Everyone admits that they don’t measure up (ILLUSTRATIONS)

Even irreligious people violate their own personal standards (ILLUSTRATIONS)

 

It’s EASY to manipulate God; We’re all guilty.  Pray for my team, that I’ll get a job (not someone else who’s praying that he’ll get the same job)

 

Just in case there’s any way to leverage what religion offers you, you’ll go back to it,

              Multiple ideas just mean nobody’s CERTAIN!

              No atheists at funerals.

              Because we’re uncertain; we go on Christmas and Easter “just in case”

 

Never met a person who didn’t have to ask someone to forgive them at some point;

              fallen short of my own admitted, acknowledged standard of behavior

 

None of us can say “I have never done anything to anyone that I don’t need to be forgiven for” –

 

SIN KILLS RELATIONSHIPS (ILLUSTRATIONS)

   Even if there is no God, I’ve still failed to live up to my own standard. I NEED FORGIVENESS!

 

Religion asks “who’s right”?               The better question is who is Jesus?

Religion asks “what’s true”?                The better question is what happened? (God came to the

              planet and raised a man from the dead – Acts 17:31)

Religion asks: “what do I have to do”?                The better question is what has God done?

  

“NO ONE comes to the Father except through me”

vs. 

EVERYONE GETS TO THE FATHER THROUGH ME!              

Our common ground is where we find a response to our need for forgiveness.

Just as forgiveness restores and rebuilds a relationship, Jesus’ forgiveness restores and

rebuilds our relationship with God             

             

What distinguishes our faith from ALL others: FORGIVENESS FOR ALL: Restored relationship with God – RECONCILIATION (God shaped vacuum in EVERY person)

 

NOW WHAT?  God was is Christ reconciling the world to Himself and giving us the ministry of reconciliation (1 Corinthians 1)

ONE FINAL THOUGHT

2 Corinthians 1:18-22 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" (YES) is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. NIV