This Is Your Life? Series

Personal Questions…

This is Your Life?

John 10:10

March 11, 2001

Intro:

A. An associate pastor tells the story of Mac…

Mac was a hard-driving, though businessman in his 70’s.

He had been a church member for many years.

But one Wednesday night as he heard the associate share his testimony, he realized that he had never personally trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior.

Though he had been involved in a lot of religious activity, he never really had a clear idea of what it meant to be a Christian.

After spending a few days pondering and asking the associate questions, Mac made up his mind.

At the Sunday night service of their church, he decided to come forward to make a public profession of his faith in Christ.

The associate was down front serving as a counselor, and was deeply moved by the sight of this tough old businessman coming forward to receive Christ in childlike faith.

They were both in tears as they stood before the pastor.

"This is tremendous!" the pastor exclaimed.

He told the associate, "This man is one of the most brilliant businessmen in our city! He’s wealthy, he’s talented, and we need to put him to work! I want you to see that Mac is totally involved in what you are doing. We want to take full advantage of what he can do."

The associate said he will never forget Mac, his eyes full of tears, speaking with a sincere, trembling voice: "Pastor, I don’t need a job. I need the Lord."

B. The Christian world has become so frantic in its busyness that it reminds me of the well-known definition of a fanatic: "A person who redoubles his efforts after he has lost sight of his goals."

1. Over and over we have witnessed the spectacle of people coming forward in a service to recommit their lives.

2. And some may not go forward, but they rededicate and recommit, and nothing ever changes in their lives.

3. In essence, they come to say, "God, I’m really serious this time. This time I’ll do it if it kills me!"

C. So what is the problem?

1. Why is it that so many people walk down an aisle and then they work and work at being a good Christian, but nothing every seems to change?

2. Why is it that so many people don’t experience victory in their Christian life?

D. Last week I spoke about living up to our high position as Christian…

1. We looked at what the Bible says really happens at the point of salvation.

2. We found that the Bible says that sixty seconds after salvation, our sins our forgiven.

3. We found that when we truly understand God’s great gift in sending His only Son to die for our sins, we will forgive ourselves and we will forgive others.

4. We also found that sixty seconds after salvation we have been given eternal life, therefore we don’t have to live the rest of our lives worrying about whether or not we have been good enough to get into heaven because our belief is what saves us and not being a good person.

5. We also found that sixty seconds after salvation we have become children of God and can therefore have a direct relationship with God and don’t need any human or dead saint mediator to go to God on our behalf.

6. We learned that sixty seconds after salvation we want the world to know what God has done for us and we therefore can’t help but tell people the good news about Jesus instead of talking about the bad news and gossip that others like to talk about.

7. Then we learned that at salvation our bodies become the temples of the HS and we therefore have God with us all the time and don’t have to visit Him in some church building.

8. And finally we discovered that at the point of salvation we become saints.

9. We simply need to take advantage of all the blessings that God gives us and live up to our high position.

10. And that brings us to where we are this morning.

11. I believe that one of the main reasons folks don’t experience victory after working so hard at their Christian lives is because they don’t understand one of the major advantages of being a saint.

12. The work hard, they fail; they redouble their efforts and they fail again.

13. And they just don’t understand what the problem is.

14. So I suggest that we need to look seriously at one verse this morning: John 10:10 (read).

15. Now first of all let me ask…

I. What is the significance of Christ’s resurrection?

1 Peter 1:3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,