The last two weeks we have basically begun our journey to look at the names of God, and already we have seen some amazing things about God and His character, including some things which may have possibly shattered some preconceived and long-held ideas about Him.
For example, we’ve seen that He is always with you. That He will in-fact never leave you – which is a pressure-point for some people who have believed that God comes and goes, or that He ignores and leaves us if we manage to upset Him through bad performance.
We also saw that He is a provider, not just of our bare essential needs, but also a great many of our wants and blessings on top of all that as well.
Today, we are going to continue with this theme, as we look at the ultimate provision and protection that He has offered, as we look at another name of God, one which is guaranteed to break down some spiritual barriers.
On several occasions, I have been in conversations where I have bluntly asked someone, “are you righteous in the sight of God?”, and then the person in question would hesitate, they would pause, and consider their life and their behaviors, and then with shakiness in their voice answer “I think so...”. This reveals the fact that when it comes to righteousness, such people as the ones I have spoken with, really have no confidence at all in their righteous standing before God; and it’s precisely for this reason that they aren’t standing on the proper foundation… they aren’t standing in Christ, but instead are looking at their own behaviors and performance and judging their righteousness and their standing before God based on that, instead of on the finished work of Christ.
This has a more damaging effect than you may imagine at first, because righteousness by faith in Christ is at the very core of our new identity, and it is very important to successful spiritual warfare; to the utilization of our power in Christ. As we studied last week, God has given us power; He wants us to have it and make use of it… but we will never have success, unless we stand on the proper foundation, and approach from the correct perspective.
So today in this study, we look at the importance of knowing, truly knowing beyond doubt that you are righteous.
I invite you to look at the title of today’s study, and ponder it deeply for a few moments. What if God wasn’t recording your sins? How would that change your life? How would that change the way you think, or the concerns of your heart? How would that affect your conscience, or the guilt and shame that so easily burdens us? How would this change your relationship with God and how you view Him?
In this study today, we will be looking at these questions, and the truth of scripture that surrounds them. We will be examining all of this through the lens of the grace of God, and in the light of the finished work of Christ – His sacrifice for you, and who you are today in Him.
As you see this truth today, your eyes will be opened to the amazing Grace of God, that we sometimes sing about, but never stop to consider the reality of what it means for us. And many chains of guilt, shame and condemnation will be broken as a result of seeing this today.
A very old scam with a long history, is called the “Bait-and-Switch”, were people are promised goods or services at a substantial discount, and then later come to find out that what they were promised is either not available, or not as good as was originally expected. The customers are then often highly-pressured to consider more expensive items instead of what they were originally promised.
In the United States, such actions are generally considered to be “false advertising” and many lawsuits have been filed over the years for such practices.
So it saddens me when I see people falling victim to the exact same type of bait-and-switch tactics in modern Christianity. There’s a lot of this going on today and most people don’t even realize that it’s happening to them. In many ways it happens very slowly and subtly, over a period of years, and it ruins people’s spiritual lives.
Well, the scriptures are not shy in warning about it, and so today I want to share with you some common bait-and-switch tactics in Christianity that I have come across, and how you can avoid them by knowing the truth of Jesus Christ.
God is Love. A lot of people have that sign hanging in their homes, or as a sticker on their car, some even have it tattooed on their body. But do you know that there is great power, even divine power in love? We often don’t stop to think of the implications of that statement that God is Love; and not just any kind of love, but divine love. You see the world has greatly corrupted the idea of love… some see it as synonymous with sexual intercourse, while others see it as something cruel and hurtful. However divine love is not like our corrupted human ideas of love. Divine love is so much more, and so much better, and so very powerful
The Bible says that we can have all knowledge, all wisdom, and all understanding, but if we do not have love, we are empty… we are noise without substance, and what we will be studying today, is the power of divine love. Because there are many who think that love is weak, but in reality, it is the strongest and greatest of all.
God is great. God is mighty. God is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the Creator and Ruler of all. Naturally for anyone who believes, it is easy to proclaim that God is all of these things, and just as naturally we want to give Him all honor and praise which is rightfully His. The question then must be asked, how exactly do we honor God? What is the measuring line by which an offering is measured? By what standards do we judge what is offered to Almighty God?
I have found in my time that many people who like to tout the perfect holiness and awesomeness of God, really don’t give much thought to what they offer Him. It’s an amazing double-standard that a perfect holy God seems to have no trouble accepting flawed offerings. They say “Oh well, just do your best, that’s all God requires.” Really?? Is that what the Bible truly says? In reality my friends, (and if you have glanced up at the title), there is only one truly acceptable offering to God – only one which meets His perfect standard; Jesus. This is what we will be studying today.
God’s will for you is nothing short of perfection. That fact must be completely understood right from the very start. His will for you is perfect and that is exactly what He has given to you as a gift. Perfection. He has given you Himself. He has given you Jesus, and through Jesus, you are madeperfectly justified, perfectly righteous, perfectly redeemed, perfectly holy, perfectly whole and perfectly healed. He paid for these things to be yours in Christ, and for all of those that have received Jesus, this is actually your reality today, as amazing as that sounds.
Why is it then that some never see this reality for themselves? Why is it that for some this reality seems to be nothing more than a fleeting wish. Why do some shrug it off as a fantasy. These are questions that many believers struggle with, these questions have even shipwrecked the faith of some people. And so we will be examining these questions today, and see what God’s Word says about them, in the light of the finished work of Jesus Christ, so that these questions will not stumble people any longer.
One of the more familiar records of a healing by Jesus, is the woman with the issue of blood. This story is remarkable for several reasons, yet contained within it are several pearls of wisdom that most people do not even realize are there. As you may have heard me say before, there are no insignificant details in the Bible; every detail recorded in scripture is there for a reason. And so today what we will be studying are the details of this account of the woman with the blood issue being healed by Jesus, and how they can be applied to us today.
Many people when they read the accounts of Jesus performing miracles (and especially healing) they read the story and then say “I wish that would happen for me”, but then it never progresses beyond that point. However the Bible is clear that every thing that happened and was recorded, was done so for our benefit, so that we could learn the mercy and the grace and the love of God for us (Romans 15:4). So let’s now examine the scriptures, and see what they show us about Jesus and His healing.
One of the more common questions that people ask, is how to receive the blessings of God. They are looking for something to do, some action to perform that will bring about miraculous change – almost like a magic spell. They are looking for some new bit of wisdom that will suddenly enlighten them to see a way to acquire what they are searching for. They often think that if only they could find this elusive bit of wisdom, all their questions would be answered and all doors would be opened to them… and so they keep going from this to that, from here to there, hoping to stumble across it somewhere.
Well, today, I am going to show you the hidden treasure. We are going to see it straight from scripture. And as we see this truth today, every door of blessing will be open to us. We have often heard it said that the best place to hide is right in the open, and this truth, this valuable gem and pearl of wisdom has been right in-front of us all along.
How clean are you? This question is often posed to congregations of believers in an attempt to motivate them to good works. However I am posing this question to you today for an entirely different reason... Not to expose your perceived failings or shortcomings, but instead to show you how completely clean you are in Christ Jesus today. You see, many believers are living life with the belief that they are clean one-moment (when they think they are behaving well) and then dirty the next moment (when they fail), so they are on some sort of spiritual teeter-totter – up one moment and down the next moment.
This however is not how God wants us to live. This shifting-sand, roller-coaster mentality is not the abundant life which Christ died to give us. So today we will be examining the truth of how completely clean you are in Christ (in every way) and how by seeing this truth, you will be on the unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ, instead of the shifting sand of emotions, feelings and your own performance.