WHY RESTFUL IS BETTER THAN RESTLESS

God says, “Be still, and know that I am God;” (Psa. 46:10).  We can become so busy we lose touch with the reality and truth of God.  We must carve out regular time to “be still” before the Lord.  Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29).  Our souls can become so jumbled and troubled by the busyness of life that we lose touch with who we really are.  It’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves (Rom. 12:3 Mes).  Over the years we may not deal with what’s beneath the surface, maybe we even forget what’s there, and we add layers of scripts that we would rather follow than confront the unresolved pain and wounds deep down in our souls.  Instead of restful souls we live with restless souls.  Jesus says to commit your life to Him and learn from Him so you can have a restful soul.

In his book Prayer, Richard Foster writes:  “At first we thought solitude was a way to recharge our batteries in order to enter life’s many competitions with new vigor and strength.  In time, however, we find that solitude gives us power not to win the rat race but to ignore the rat race altogether.  Slowly, we find ourselves letting go of our inner compulsions to acquire more wealth than we need, look more youthful than we are, attain more status than is wise.  In the stillness, our false, busy selves are unmasked and seen for the impostors they truly are.”  Take the time to be still and unmask and know the Lord is your God.

DON’T SETTLE FOR ORDINARY

God wants to take ordinary lives and make them extraordinary.  We weren’t made to live boring lives where it’s the same old same old.  There’s more to life than living and dying.  We were made to live an exciting adventure.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Many people live dull and mundane and stressful lives, and they have no sense of lasting motivation or joy or enthusiasm.  God never intended for us to live depressed, worried, fearful, powerless, and mundane lives.  But for many that’s their normal way of life.  Maybe you feel inadequate; God wants you to live with competence.  Maybe you feel defeated; God wants you to live in victory.  Maybe you feel anxious and worried; God wants you to live confidently.

God wants to take your ordinary way of living life and transform it into a life that is extraordinary.  You were made for more than you think.  Ephesians 3:20 states, Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think (NLT).  God created you to live an extraordinary life.

The followers of Christ in the Early Church lived extraordinary lives.  Acts 4:13 states that,

The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures (NLT).

How do we live extraordinary lives through days that are good, or bad, or just plain ugly?

·         Value your future resurrection.

But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Hebrews 11:35 (NLT)

Life is tough, but if you’re a believer in Jesus, Who rose from the dead, you have your own future resurrection and eternal life to look forward to.  Even now as a believer you’ve been raised from spiritual death.  You have a new life now with Christ.  You have a “new liveliness”.  You’ve been raised from the dead, spiritually.

·         Make what matters in Heaven matter most.

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.  Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.  For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3 (NLT)

Because you’ve placed your belief in Jesus Christ for your forgiveness of sin, you’re guaranteed Heaven.  You’re on your way to a new life with a new body in a perfect world.  Get excited about it!  Think about it!  Focus on it!  Talk about it!  Live it!

·         Follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?”  Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them … Acts 4:7-8a (NLT)

To be filled means to be under the influence, to be led, to be under the management of.  If you’re a believer in Christ you have the Holy Spirit living in you.  Now make it a daily practice of consciously submitting to His leadership and take action based on what you learn from God’s Word.  God’s Spirit and God’s Word never contradict one another.

·         Live saved.

Do not let the grace that you received from God be for nothing.  2 Corinthians 6:1 (NCV)

Live it.  Love it.  Live the saved life.  Reflect often on God’s grace in your life such that your mind, will, emotions, and relationships reflect His grace.

Your salvation for whatever is on the line – your eternity, your livelihood, your finances, your family, your marriage, your heart and soul – is found in Jesus Christ.

·         Live with Jesus.

They realized then that they had been companions of Jesus. Acts 4:13 (GNT)

Peter and John had lived day in and day out with Jesus.  They were “followers” of Him.  They not only associated with Jesus, they followed Him as their Leader, and ultimately as their God and Savior.

How do we “live with Jesus?”  We live with Him “spiritually”.  We don’t live with Him physically yet.  One day we will. But for now we live with Him spiritually.  Therefore we must give a lot of attention to the spiritual dimension of our lives. Why? – Because that’s where we talk and walk with Jesus.  That’s where we live, really live.  And that’s where our lives start transforming from ordinary to extraordinary.

ME VS. WE

We live in an “idolize me” society.  The “me mentality” has been accepted into the spiritual thinking of many.  In terms of spiritual maturity it has become about “our selves.”  It’s about “my” spiritual gifts, “my” spiritual growth, “my” spiritual life, “my” calling, “my” place of service, “my” word from God to you.   I’m not saying those things don’t exist, but there’s a danger.  The danger is that we tend to revolve the spiritual around ourselves and our preferences and our feelings and our way of wanting to do something.  Even in our spiritual lives we can be self-absorbed.  We should never underestimate the power of self-centeredness.  The “globe head” lives.  In our spirituality we tend to revolve everything around ourselves.

The truth about spiritual maturity is this:  Spiritual maturity is not about me; it’s about “we”.

There are three kinds of people:

The “spiritual Christian” who is spiritually alive by the Holy Spirit with Christ in his life,

The “non-Christian” who is spiritually dead without the Holy Spirit and faith in Christ, and

The “me Christian” who is connected with God, but he’s living like someone who is without Christ.  Though he is spiritually alive he’s living as though he’s spiritually dead.

The “me Christian” is:

·         Infantile

… you were infants in the Christian life. 1 Cor. 3:1 (NLT)

·         Weak

I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. 1 Cor. 3:2 (NLT)

·         Conflicted

You are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. 1 Cor. 3:3 (NLT)

·         Divisive

When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos … 1 Cor. 3:4 (NLT)

On the other hand the “we Christian”:

·         Serves with others so that people come to believe in Jesus.

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul?  Only servants, through whom you came to believe…, 1 Cor. 3:5

·         Sees God grow the church.

… God, who makes things grow. 1 Cor. 3:7

When we’re serving together according to God’s purpose, He causes growth.

·         Realizes building a church takes more than one person; it includes “us”.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 1 Cor. 3:10

If you’re a believer in Christ God has given you a spiritual gift, an ability for serving in the church in a particular way.  And it’s connected to your life purpose, your calling, your assignment which God has given you.  Therefore you’re responsible to carry out His assignment, being faithful with His grace in His church.  You are included in the building of the church.  You’re needed.  You are a necessity to the building of God’s family.

ROAD TRIP

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13-14).

You’re on a road.  Which one is it?  Jesus implies there are only two.  You’re on one or the other.  You get to choose which way you want to go.

The way to real living and eternal life is narrow because it’s through One Person – Jesus Christ.  The world believes the road to real life is a freeway with many lanes, many philosophies, many ideologies, and all belief systems.  But it leads to destruction.

For those of you who’ve already chosen the “narrow gate” and you’re on your way to Heaven, you need to look over to the freeway and flag some people down before it’s too late.  Care about the destination of those around you.

NEW BEGINNING

The death and resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of something new and powerful. Following His resurrection, Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NLT).

Jesus wants us to live in His power in order to tell others what we’ve witnessed of Him in our lives.  It’s a new beginning, a new way of living for us, and it begins with an encounter with Jesus.  During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3 NLT).  The lives of the Apostles and the followers of Jesus were changed forever after their encounter with the living resurrected Christ.  Their fears were overcome.  Jesus is really alive!  And the miraculous event of His resurrection and encounter with believers caused big changes in their behavior.  Not only did their inner lives change, their outer lives changed too.  Their whole way of living changed.

The first step to a new way of living is to encounter Jesus.  You’ve got to make a connection with Him.  Establish a personal relationship with Him.  Open your heart to Him and let Him forgive you and raise you from spiritual death and give you new life.

An encounter with Jesus gives us the opportunity to become convinced of Who Jesus is and to commit to Him.  … he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3b NLT).  The disciples became convinced that Jesus was truly alive.  He really did rise from the dead.  They listened to the truth Jesus taught.  They bought in and committed themselves to it.

Jesus is still talking to us today.  How? – through the Bible, God’s Word to us.  Because He is alive, His words are just as living today as they were then.  Now is your opportunity to listen to Jesus, to believe in Him, and to follow Him as your Forgiver and God.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”  Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame. 1 Cor. 15:33-34

Paul is writing about the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and he says if there’s no resurrection, then what we do with our bodies has no bearing on our future.  Immorality was a way of life for many in Corinth, and some of the believers didn’t take the resurrection seriously in order to rationalize their sin.  Paul quoted the Greek poet Menander, “Bad company corrupts good character.”

The Corinthian Christians were spending a lot of time with people who lived sinful lives.  And they had begun to take on their immoral character and believe in their half-truths about God.  Wrong beliefs lead to wrong actions.  Corrupt company leads to corrupt thinking and living.

Therefore it’s important that we take inventory of the people we spend time with on a regular basis.  Who is influencing who?  The people you spend extra time with on a regular basis will rub off on you.  You will become like them.  Paul doesn’t say that we are to totally disassociate with those who aren’t believers in Christ yet.  Otherwise how are we to bring them to Christ?  He’s saying don’t get your deep friendships from those who aren’t believers.  If you do, you’ll drift away from Christ.

Keep the resurrection of Christ, which is behind you, in view, so that you can keep your resurrection, which is ahead of you, in view.  And then you will live as children of the light, children of the day, awake and alert, and ready for the return of Christ.

WHY THE TRUTH OF THE RESURRECTION PUTS TO DEATH HALF-TRUTHS

Whole truth reveals and kills half-truth.  The whole truth clears away the impurities.  The truth clears up misinformation.  It eliminates the spin.  Why is truth important?  Because we live and die by truth.  Soren Kierkegarrd said, “What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.”

Jesus said, “Anybody who is living by the truth will come to the light to make it plain that all he has done has been done through God” (John 3:21 Ph).  We need the whole truth to reveal and kill the misinformation in our lives.

In Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth he says, But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead?  For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either.  And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless (1 Cor. 15:12-14 NLT).

There were those in the church at Corinth who believed there was no resurrection of the dead, but they believed Jesus had risen from the dead.  They believed half the truth, but half the truth distorted the whole truth.  Some believed a person’s soul died with the body.  Others believed that the soul was released from the body when it died.  The ideas that were floating around in those days about life after death, and the different religions and philosophies of what happens to people after death – all had an influence on Christians’ thinking.  The half-truths they believed polluted the whole truth.

People today still buy into half-truths and neglect the whole truth.  People tend to bring with them into their newfound faith in Christ – their presuppositions about God and the afterlife, their ideas from their past, their thoughts and inclinations about Jesus and the Spirit, and God the Father, and Heaven and Hell, and eternity.  And their belief system is polluted.  A lot of extras are mixed in with the truth.  And they have a distorted, unclear view of God and salvation and holy living and the necessity of spiritual maturity and life after death.

Some people don’t believe in a resurrection from the dead or life after death.  They don’t believe in a Heaven or Hell.  They believe there is nothing after you die.  By their presupposition of God and life after death, they don’t accept the reality of God or a resurrection from the dead for life after death.

The issue is not lack of evidence.  The issue is a “willingness” to examine the evidence, to be open-minded enough to look at the facts and let them speak for themselves.  If anyone open-mindedly and sincerely examines the facts of the Resurrection, they cannot refute the truth.

If they don’t believe, it’s because they’re not willing to believe.

A half-truth can completely change everything.  Half-truth clouds the whole truth.  The wrong information can be deadly information.  What’s the whole truth about the resurrection of the dead?  Because Christ rose from the dead, resurrection from the dead for His followers is true.  Jesus Christ literally rose from the dead in a glorified supernatural physical body. 

Because the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the Resurrection of Christ:

There is a resurrection of the dead, there is life after death, there is a heaven and a hell, everything Jesus ever said is of ultimate importance, believers who’ve already passed from this life are alive and with the Lord in Heaven, and we have a future beyond this life.

Because of the Resurrection, life is worth living, Jesus is worth serving, and the Good News is worth sharing.