Often times when experiencing a negative situation, we are told to rejoice. Rejoice! Rejoice! Just Rejoice and everything will be okay. Yet that’s very difficult to do if we do not see that we have any reason to rejoice. If we don’t see why we can rejoice it simply sounds like mindless pretend joy – a “fake it till you make it” mentality… just fluff. Even worse, if we express those sentiments to our believing brothers and sisters, they will look at us funny, as if we don’t have enough faith or we don’t trust God enough. The Bible though, does not leave us lacking any real and substantial reasons why we can rejoice however. In-fact it goes into extensive details about precisely that – because God understands the feelings and emotions that we have, and He does not disregard them. He foreknew the scenario that I just described, about needing to see the reason why we can rejoice. And this is what we will be looking at today.
I'm going to begin today by making a very controversial statement: Jesus is all that you need. Among believers, this statement is surprisingly controversial. Some people will say: “well, we need oxygen and food and water – so Jesus is really not all that we need.” This seems logical and even reasonable at first, when viewed through the lens of the world, but is this really what the Bible teaches? In this study today, we will be examining the sufficiency of God, and specifically His sufficiency for us, in all things. Because if we do not understand that God is our total sufficiency, then we must begin looking to other things to fill-in the gaps. So as we see these truths today, we will broaden our view of the nature and character of God, and will be able to receive more from Him.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis these days on relationships. Reality shows typically focus on relationships, new dating websites seem to spring up every month, and more songs are written and more movies are produced about relationships than any other subject. It should be no surprise then that the Bible has quite a bit to say on this important topic, and while it is an extremely broad issue with many sub-areas, there is one over-arching principle which we will be studying today, and that is the importance of Jesus being the center of not only the relationship, but the center of each persons life. Whether you are single, dating, or married, the centrality of Jesus can not be over-stated, and this relationship with Him is what we will be taking a look at today.