WHY DID JESUS COME?
Romans 5:12-17; 6:6-22
It is the Christmas season again, and again we tend to forget what it is all about. We get so caught up in the decorations, buying and receiving gifts, and parties that the real reason for the holiday is forgotten. Many people at least in America can tell you what Christmas is about -celebrating the birth of Jesus. But if you asked them why he came they will probably not be able to give you the real answer. The Word of God says, “Call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins” Matthew . It is in Romans 5 and 6 that this reason is expanded, so we can better understand it.
There is a small tree which grows in Southeast Asia known as the Judas-tree. From its branches grow gorgeous blossoms. These blossoms look like scarlet sunbeams. The brilliant beauty of the crimson flowers attracts thousands of tiny insects. Wild bees also try to draw honey from their exquisitely shaped cups. But every insect that comes to rest on the edge of its blossom is overcome. It is overcome by a fatal drug which the flower-juice contains. And the insect drops dead upon the ground below. So, when you walk around a Judas-tree, you often see the soft grass littered with dead and dying insects. The Judas-tree reminds us of sin. Sin may look bright, pleasant, and attractive to our eyes. It may appear harmless to indulge in it. But lurking behind the pleasure of sin is a fatal poison. And sin is a poison—a wickedness that acts as a drug to take away your motivation to live for God.
Synopses-Jesus came to free us from the power of sin.
I Mankind was under the Power of Sin 5:12 , 5:6,
a. All have sinned 5:12
b. We were utterly helpless 5:6
Ephesians 2 Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins. 2 You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 3 All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature. We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God’s anger just like everyone else. Ephesians 2
Galatians 3:22 But the Scriptures have declared that we are all prisoners of sin, so the only way to receive God’s promise is to believe in Jesus Christ.
EVEL Knievel
On April 1, 2007, Knievel announced to a worldwide audience that he ’believed in Jesus Christ’ for the first time. He professed his personal faith in Christ to more than 4,000 people who gathered inside the Crystal Cathedral for Palm Sunday services in Orange County, California, and to millions via an "Hour of Power" telecast of the service to over 100 countries.
Knievel told how he had refused for 68 years to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior because he didn’t want to surrender his lifestyle of ’the gold and the gambling and the booze and the women.’ He explained his conversion experience by saying, ’All of a sudden, I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did, I believed in him!’ Knievel said he knew people were praying for him, including his daughter’s church, his ex-wife’s church, and the hundreds of people who wrote letters urging him to believe.
Knievel recounted how he ’rose up in bed and, I was by myself, and I said, ’Devil, Devil, you bas..... you, get away from me. I cast you out of my life....’ I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put his arms around me and never, ever, ever let me go.’ At his request, he was baptized before the congregation and TV cameras by Dr. Robert H. Schuller, Founding Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. "Christianity Today" reported that ’...Knievel’s testimony triggered mass baptisms at the Crystal Cathedral’ following his emotional testimony. (500 more baptized
Sin is an invisible force emanating from Satan, that impacts on the mind to stimulate the brain to think in terms of life options which detract from and destroy a persons divine potential.
Eternal Life is an invisible force resident in Jesus. It impacts on the mind to stimulate the brain to think in terms of life options which enhance and develop a persons divine potential.
Definitions by Dr. Richard Dobbins
Satan controls by his lies.
Jesus frees by his truth - Which will you believe?
Lies about Sin
1. No such Thing- Each person decides what is right and wrong for them. Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.
2. It is good - Bad is Good- Bad is righteous - Rebellion is desirable - Pleasure is god
3. It brings Freedom - Liberation - Womans liberation
4. It brings good results - Living together before marriage is beneficial for marriage.
Take her for a test drive
The Census reports a 72% increase in the number of cohabiting couples since 1990. Unfortunately, research shows that cohabitation is correlated with greater likelihood of unhappiness, and domestic violence in the relationship. Cohabiting couple report lower levels of satisfaction in the relationship than married couples. Women are more likely to be abused by a cohabiting boyfriend than a husband. Children are more likely to abused by their mothers’ boyfriends than by her husband, even if the boyfriend is their biological father. If a cohabiting couple ultimately marries, they tend to report lower levels of marital satisfaction and a higher propensity to divorce. One Study showed 48% more likely to divorce (David Popenoe -Rutgers)
Recent reports and commentaries on cohabitation tend to downplay these difficulties. I suspect this is because people do not know how to make sense of the research findings. Many people imagine that living together before marriage resembles taking a car for a test drive. The "trial period" gives people a chance to discover whether they are compatible. This analogy seems so compelling that people are unable to interpret the mountains of data to the contrary.
Here’s the problem with the car analogy: the car doesn’t have hurt feelings if the driver dumps it back at the used car lot and decides not to buy it. The analogy works great if you picture yourself as the driver. It stinks if you picture yourself as the car.
(http://www.boundless.org/2001/departments/beyond_buddies/a0000498.html)
(About half of all cohabiting relationships in this country end within five years. If a cohabiting relationship does last for five years, there is a ninety percent probability that it will eventually lead to a marriage.
Cohabiters who eventually marry have a higher divorce rate than those who do not live together before marriage. If a long lasting, loving marriage is the goal, then living together before marriage prepares them more for failure than success.)
Cohabiters have an 80% chance their relationship will end. 40% will break up before marriage, 40% will divorce before 10 years of marriage. (Marriage Savers -Michael McManus)
The Truth about Sin -
1. God Decides and he wrote it down.
2. It always looks attractive, but It is always destructive- It may bring temporary pleasure, but will always result in self destruction
On 11 May 2000 a lady found a new e-mail message on her computer, which simply said, "I love you". It looked innocent enough, perhaps even romantic. Like most of us would, she clicked to open the message, and the so-called "Love Bug" was born. With lightning speed it raced around the world, bringing politics and business to a halt. It was a deadly computer virus that caused millions of computer software programs to crash. One virus, but so much contamination. But it’s not the first time that a single virus has caused so much grief to mankind. In fact, it’s a kind of replay of a deadlier virus that hit Planet Earth more than six thousand years ago polluting the first human couple, Adam and Eve. Despite God’s warning not to click on to Satan’s message, they did so with appalling consequences for them, and through them to all mankind. That virus is called "Sin".
3. It brings bondage - Addictions, Drug and alcohol addictions, sexual addictions, porn addictions, food addictions, money, (Anna Nicole Smith, Lindsay Lohan,)
4. It can never bring about positive results
Like a serpent its bite brings death. It looses guilt, shame, fear, anger, low self esteem, depression.
National Geographic reported that a 13-foot Burmese python swallowed a 6-foot alligator in Florida . The consequences were lethal, as the gator split the snake open from the inside out, literally. That’s like what sin does to us. We think we have something great, until it destroys us from the inside out.
5. It makes us irrational -
Scientists studied a native tribe in South America whose people have been dying prematurely for generations. After thorough investigation, the cause of premature death was determined. The disease was transmitted by an insect that lived in the walls of their adobe homes. This new information presented several options. They could move to another area where such insects don’t exist, tear down their homes and rebuild them, use insecticide to rid their homes of the bugs, or, continue as they have and die early. Surprisingly, these people have opted to remain as they are and do nothing about their problem. Many people behave similarly. To save themselves, they know what they must do; instead, they opt to remain unchanged (McHenry’s Quips, Quotes, and Other Notes, p. 23).
5. IT RUINS OUR Relationships
Robert Shuller tells
One problem I remember was a time when our son Bob broke our trust and lied to his mother and me. He was still young, dating Linda, his wife-to-be, and was only allowed to see her on certain nights. Well, one night he wanted to see her without permission and told us he was at his friend’s house. When we found out the truth, there was a real scene between us. He had violated our trust; it was like a crack in a fine cup that marred its appearance. In the confrontation, I smashed a fine English tea cup on the floor and told Bob that to restore our trust would be like gluing that cup back together again.
He said, “I don’t know if I can do that.”
And I said, “Well, that’s how hard it is to build confidence and trust again.”
The outcome was that Bob spent literally weeks carefully gluing the pieces together until he finished. He learned a very important lesson.
Dr. Robert H. Schuller, in Homemade, Jan. 1985
6. You Can’t control it
Sin will take you further than you want to go, leave you longer than you want to stay, Cost you far more than you want to pay.
Say no at the first sign of compromise. That is where it starts. Not the big sin.
In an article dated 4/9/97, a writer for USA Today wrote:
Scientists now say that a series of slits, not a giant gash, sank the Titanic.
The opulent, 900-foot cruise ship sank in 1912 on its first voyage, from England to New York. Fifteen hundred people died in the worst maritime disaster of the time.
The most widely held theory was that the ship hit an iceberg, which opened a huge gash in the side of the liner. But an international team of divers and scientists recently used sound waves to probe the wreckage, buried in the mud under two-and-a-half miles of water. Their discovery? The damage was surprisingly small. Instead of the huge gash, they found six relatively narrow slits across the six watertight holds.
II Jesus came to Deliver us from the Power of Sin 5:17 , 6:6
A. To provide Forgiveness for past sins committed
B. To make us right before God (To restore the relationship)
C. To enable is to live above sin here and now
And no doubt you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with him. (Acts 10:38)
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; Luke 4:18
EVEL Knievel
On April 1, 2007, Knievel announced to a worldwide audience that he ’believed in Jesus Christ’ for the first time. He professed his personal faith in Christ to more than 4,000 people who gathered inside the Crystal Cathedral for Palm Sunday services in Orange County, California, and to millions via an "Hour of Power" telecast of the service to over 100 countries.
Knievel told how he had refused for 68 years to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior because he didn’t want to surrender his lifestyle of ’the gold and the gambling and the booze and the women.’ He explained his conversion experience by saying, ’All of a sudden, I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did, I believed in him!’ Knievel said he knew people were praying for him, including his daughter’s church, his ex-wife’s church, and the hundreds of people who wrote letters urging him to believe.
Knievel recounted how he ’rose up in bed and, I was by myself, and I said, ’Devil, Devil, you bas..... you, get away from me. I cast you out of my life....’ I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put his arms around me and never, ever, ever let me go.’ At his request, he was baptized before the congregation and TV cameras by Dr. Robert H. Schuller, Founding Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. "Christianity Today" reported that ’...Knievel’s testimony triggered mass baptisms at the Crystal Cathedral’ following his emotional testimony. (500 more baptized)
On September 23, 1862 the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln. However, it was not until June 19, 1865 that Union general Gordon Granger read the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, TX to alert the Texas slaves that they were free. For three years they had been free of the power of slavery, but continued to deal powerlessly with the presence of their old masters.
III Our Part is To Learn How to Stay Free -Discipleship
A. Unless we soak our minds in the Word of God daily we will believe the lies of Satan.
-TV, Movies, Radio, Music
B. Stay away from the temptation you can
Three men applied for a job driving a truck over a mountain route. The first guy said,
"I’m such a good driver, I can come within one foot of the edge without losing control." The
second guy said, "Oh yah, well I can come within six inches of the edge and not lose control."
The man doing the hiring looked at the third man, and asked him how good of a driver he was.
He replied, "Well, I’m a good enough driver to know not to try to drive close to the edge at all. I
stay as far away from the danger as possible."
C. Don’t Give in to its Lustful desires, or allow sin to control you 6:12
Conclusion: In 1981, a Minnesota radio station reported a story about a stolen car in California. Police were staging an intense search for the vehicle and the driver, even to the point of placing announcements on local radio stations to contact the thief. On the front seat of the stolen car sat a box of crackers that, unknown to the thief, were laced with poison. The car owner had intended to use the crackers as rat bait. Now the police and the owner of the VW Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than to recover the car. So often when we run from God, we feel it is to escape his punishment. But what we are actually doing is eluding his rescue.
Sulfur Caves
In Southern Mexico lies the Cueva de Villa Luz, or Cave of the Lighted House. As you make your way to the cave you walk through a veritable paradise of tropical birds and lush rain forest. Underwater the cave is fed by 20 underground springs, beautiful watercourses which teem with tiny fish. The cave itself is home to spectacular rock formations and beautiful ponds. The environment is inviting. Yet accept the invitation and you’ll soon be dead. You see, the Cueva de Villa Luz is filled with poisonous gases.
Temptation is just like this. It presents itself to us as something inviting, attractive, life-giving. Yet in reality it’s poisonous and toxic.
Source: Scott Higgins. Information on the Cave obtained from National Geographic, May 2001.
"Sin breaks fellowship with God. A little girl committed a certain offense, and when her mother discovered it she began to question her daughter. Immediately the child lost her smile and a cloud darkened her face as she said, "Mother, I do not feel like talking." So it is when our fellowship with God is broken by sin in our lives. We do not feel like talking to Him. If you do not feel like praying, it is probably a good indication that you should start praying immediately". (Billy Graham as quoted by Roy B. Zuck. The Speaker’s Quote Book. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997, p. 356). As someone once said, "Sin will keep us from prayer or Prayer will keep us from sin".
Today it seems that all you have to do to sell a product is include some natural herb or mineral with it. Products ranging from shampoo to diet pills have all jumped on the “all natural” bandwagon. Just because something is all natural does not make it better or safe. There is one word in our vocabulary today that immediately connotes fear, disease and death, yet it is “all natural.” Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral used for thousands of years. Everyone from the Ancient Egyptians to the Romans used asbestos for various products. From the early 1920’s until just recently, asbestos was the insulation of choice in America. Asbestos has been used in things such as pipe wrapping, roofing, insulation, brake pads, roofing shingles and many others. Unfortunately, asbestos can break down into microscopic fibers and if inhaled or ingested, can remain in the body for many years and cause serious disease.
For a long time people were ignorant of the danger that this naturally occurring mineral posed. It seemed like a miracle fiber, heat and flame resistant and virtually resistant to wear and tear. Yet the more we learn about Asbestos the more we realize the danger it presents to man. Even with all the information we have about Asbestos today some people seem to be indifferent towards this harmful material. It is expensive to clean up and it is hard to replace with a comparable product. As a result of some people’s reluctance to abandon its use, more and more people have come into contact with Asbestos and become sick and died.
It seems strange to normal thinking people to allow themselves or others to come into contact with such a dangerous material, yet we do it every day. Sin is much more dangerous than asbestos and the consequences are much more severe but people still insist on indulging in the pleasure of sin despite the risk.
