Romans
5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love
toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Last
Sunday, our associate Pastor Obie preached the last sermon in our series on
miracles, climaxing with the lynch-pin of life; the single thing that everything
else is depending and riding on and that time, itself, is divided upon. The
greatest miracle of them all is the resurrection of the Messiah Jesus Christ –
third person of the Godhead. Jesus is not just some picture on the wall. Our
faith is based upon a historical account, which there is more evidence than
most other historical figures. Christian C.S. Lewis wrote: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really
foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a
great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one
thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things
Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic —
on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be
the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the
Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a
fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet
and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense
about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did
not intend to.”
1
Corinthians 15:14, 17 “If Christ is not
risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. And
if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!”
Jesus
Christ is why we are here today. The United States of America was founded on
Jesus Christ. If Christ, the Son of God, is a man-made fable, it would never
have lasted. Our faith is neither empty nor futile. God is real, Heaven is
real, forgiveness and salvation is real, and individual lives being changed are
proof. He changed humanity. The resurrection of Jesus Christ makes possible the
miracle of salvation. But, why do we need to be “saved”? We need to realize the
truth of Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God.” We are in a sinking boat and most don’t even know it.
How? Pastor Obie uses the example of his Aunt who owned an immaculate house
furnished in pure white carpet and furniture. Nobody was allowed into her spotless
house unless they were as clean as she was, which included removing your shoes
at the door as not to trek dirt in. Sin is not just like dirt on our shoes, but
more like poop on our shoes and walking on his Aunt’s carpet. Whether a little
poop or a lot, it just isn’t going to happen. Habakkuk 1:13 explains this about our Sovereign Creator God, when
he states: “Your eyes are too pure to
look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” We all have sin (poop on our
shoes, so-to-speak), so we all need the salvation of the Lord. Worse part is
that we willfully put that poop on our shoes on purpose. How?
Let’s
continue Pastor Obie’s message on "the greatest miracle of them all” tomorrow.
In
Christ, Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment