John 14:1-3 “Let not
your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My
Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself;
that where I am, there you may be also.”
This last Sunday, Pastor
Kyle continued in our sermon series through the gospel of John with Chapter 14,
stating that since the dawn of time, all have wrestled with the same
fundamental questions. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Is there a God
and is He involved with His creation or just spin it in existence and let it
run? Is God personal, love and care about me? Why is there evil in the world? Why is there
diseases, sickness and death? If God is all-powerful why do children die of
cancer? What happens when I die? Did God create the heavens and the Earth or
was it time, chance and natural selection through evolutionary processes?
Secular Humanism is born out of these type of questions.
Job 12:7-10 “But
now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; and the birds of the air, and they
will tell you; Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of
the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of
the Lord has done this, in whose hand is the life of
every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?”
Yet, obvious design and
order in the cosmos, along with scientific irreducible complexity in DNA, in
nature and in life point directly to intelligent design and a Designer
“Creator” God. The existence of a soul (mind, will and emotion) in a living
being is sufficient evidence of an all-powerful Creator. There has to be a God.
Yet, being fallen finite creatures, we all have sin, struggle and doubts. Jesus
of Nazareth was a real person in history, confirmed by non-Christian historians
of that time. Disciples died testifying that Jesus Christ was God incarnate and
the Christian church exploded in growth from then until now upon that fact.
This world needs hope and it is found in Christ alone.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 “Now
we do not want you to be uninformed, believers, about those who are asleep [in
death], so that you will not grieve [for them] as the others do who have no
hope [beyond this present life]. For if we believe that Jesus died and
rose again [as in fact He did], even so God [in this same way—by raising them
from the dead] will bring with Him those [believers] who have fallen asleep in
Jesus.”
Death is one of the things
that people fear. People in Jesus’ time thought that the Messiah was not
supposed to die, but establish God’s ever-lasting kingdom of Earth. The path to
Heaven is through Jesus Christ alone – the Way, the Truth and the Life. Let not
your hearts be troubles, when our souls are troubled, the Lord responds with
comfort. The Lord is our refuge. Jesus is a shield to discomfort in life. The
Lord is our dwelling place and He has given us a Comforter in the Holy Spirit
for this life. Life is short, for sure, and death is a reality that we all
face, but we do not need to worry about it (if we follow Jesus). Because of
what our Savior did for us on the Cross for the atonement of our sins, to be
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The hope of Heaven and the eternal perspective
in this life are a reality. Heaven is real but the only way to get in is
through Jesus Christ. Would we rather live in a world of troubles or live
in hope, faith and peace?
Let’s continue Pastor Kyle’s
message in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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