Christ And World Revolution

CHRIST & WORLD REVOLUTION

2 Cor. 5:17

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR: Fish and Chips

1. Lost on a rainy night in the north of England, a lady stumbled across a monastery and requested shelter there. Fortunately, she's just in time for dinner and was treated to the best fish and chips she’d ever tasted.

2. After dinner, she went into the kitchen to thank the chefs. She was met by 2 of the Brothers. The first one said, "Hello, I’m Brother Michael, and this is Brother Charles."

3. "I'm very pleased to meet you," replied the lady. "I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful dinner. The fish and chips were the best I've ever had. Out of curiosity, who cooked what?"

4. Brother Charles replied, "Well, I'm the fish Friar."

She turned to the other Brother and said, "Then you must be....?" "Yes, I'm afraid so -- I am the chip Monk."

B. I’M TALKING TO YOU ABOUT TRANSFORMATION

1. “One of the most dramatic examples of men and women being transformed occurred in the famous true story, “Mutiny on the Bounty.” The Bounty was a British ship in the 1790’s.

2. Following their rebellion against the notorious Captain Bligh, nine mutineers, along with the Tahitian men and women who accompanied them, found their way to Pitcairn Island, a tiny dot in the South Pacific only two miles long and a mile wide.

3. Ten years later, alcohol and fighting had left only one man alive—John Adams. Eleven women and 23 children made up the rest of the Island’s population.

4. So far this story is well known in book and motion picture. But the rest of the story is even more remarkable.

5. About this time, Adams came across the “Bounty’s” Bible in the bottom of an old chest. He began to read it, and the power of Jesus Christ reached into his murderous, hardened heart and changed his life forever.

6. Adams abandoned the old life of quarreling, brawling, and liquor. He became a new man of love, humility and service to Jesus Christ.

7. He began teaching the women & children the Bible until every person on the island had experienced the same amazing conversion he had found.

8. In 1808 the USS Topas discovered Pitcairn Island and found a Christian community with a church where all on the island were Christians and where Christ’s teachings were the pattern of their society. [Signs of the Times, August, 1988, p. 5.]

9. What could cause violent, immoral men, murderers, savages on an island to become humble, kind & respectful?

C. FOCUS

We’re going to look at the greatest revolutionary who ever lived. Jesus’ call for personal & world revolution.

I. JESUS CHRIST: REVOLUTIONARY

A. DEFINITION: “Revolution”

1. Action of a celestial body going around in an orbit.

2a. A sudden, radical or complete change.

b. A fundamental change in political organization, esp. the overthrow or renunciation of one gov’t/ ruler & the substitution of another by the governed.

B. EXAMPLES

1. a. American Revolution b. French Revolution

c. Computer/ Information Revolution

d. A Revolutionary Product

2. Many have attempted to bring change, but none lasted!

C. JESUS – REVOLUTIONARY

The word “revolution” could be used of Jesus Christ as of no one else:

“ONE SOLITARY LIFE”

a. “He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. He never wrote a book, He never held an office, He never went to college, He never visited a big city, He never travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things usually associated with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

b. He was only thirty three. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

c. Twenty centuries have come and gone and today Jesus is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress.

d. All the armies that have ever marched, All the navies that have ever sailed, All the parliaments that have ever sat, All the kings that ever reigned put together -- have not affected the life of mankind on earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.”

1. HE HAS REVOLUTIONARY THOUGHTS!

a. Developed the Worldview of Western Civilization

b. Changed the Status of Women, from property To equals.

c. Made certain – Life after Death.