Jesus Is Our Source, Period! Series

Jesus Christ is our Source, period.

January 31st, 2010

Pastor Glenn Newton

Colossians 1:15-23

COL 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

COL 1:21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” NIV

A. W. Tozer said, "The most important thought anyone can have is a correct understanding of God’s attributes."

This year at the beginning of the school year, I had a young lady try to tell me that the way I was teaching to multiply fractions was wrong, and her way was right. She told me that her parents had taught her how to multiply fractions, using a certain method, and that she didn’t want to learn another way. I didn’t really act shocked by this, I just asked her to show me her method on her paper. She did, I then used the proper method and we got two different answers….imagine that…?

It took me a while, but I was able to persuade her that her method was flawed, and that she would not come up with the right answer on most problems. Her parents were good intentioned, they most likely thought what they were teaching her was the right way, but it wasn’t.

Now in math, there are different methods of finding out the right answer. But the truth is, there is only one answer for every problem, so if your method doesn’t get you to that one correct answer…It’s flawed and will mislead you.

Friends, as believers…if we don’t have the proper belief about who Jesus Christ is, what He has done, what He has accomplished through the cross and His resurrection, if somehow our belief in Him is flawed, we are going to come to the wrong answers about a lot of things in this life, we will be misled by false belief.

Let’s go over some of the basics…if you are new to our church, maybe you haven’t heard us state these basics before:

The Church of the Nazarene holds these 16 Articles of Faith…..

Just as a reminder, we can all use those sometimes can’t we?

1. The Triune God

2. Jesus Christ…the 2nd Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father; that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures are united in one Person, very God and very man, the God-man.

We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that He truly arose from the dead and took again His body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession for us.

3. The Holy Spirit

4. The Holy Scriptures….we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God……

5. Sin, Original and Personal

6. Atonement…Jesus made Atonement for us through his death on the Cross!!!!

7. Free Agency / Prevenient Grace

8. Repentance

9. Justification, Regeneration, and Adoption

10. Entire Sanctification….a second work of grace that brings us into a state of entire devotement to God, and the holy obedience of love made perfect.

11. The Church…

12. Baptism

13. The Lord’s Supper

14. Divine Healing

15. Second Coming of Christ

16, Resurrection, Judgment, and Destiny

Those are the 16 Articles of Faith, if you are a Church of the Nazarene member, I challenge you to become very familiar, study those scriptures, those passages and see for yourselves where these articles of faith come from….they come from God’s Word.