The Bridge to Life
John 10:10, Romans 6:23
August 2, 2009
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT IS FROM ANDY STANLEY’S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."
Me: I grew up in a church that didn’t have Vacation Bible School.
My earliest memories of VBS were while I was living in Pine Ridge, SD, and going to VBS at a little church in Whiteclay, Nebraska, right across the border from Pine Ridge.
We: How many went to Vacation Bible School when they were younger?
When you were going, did you really understand the reason they sent you?
Maybe because your parents, grandparents, or whatever wanted you to hear about Jesus.
For others of us, it was a good excuse to get us out of the house for a while. Am I right?
I don’t know why you went, but let me tell you why we offer VBS:
The reason we do VBS here is because we want children and their families to hear the good news that everyone can have forgiveness of sins and a home in heaven because of Jesus and what He did for us on the cross.
And since many of you weren’t here during the week, I want to take this time to explain to you as clearly as possible how you can have that forgiveness and that home in heaven.
That is the cornerstone of everything we do around here. Everything else we do is built on that foundation.
We believe that Jesus came to give us hope, because on our own, we have none – at least not as far as eternity is concerned.
God: We’re going to look at one verse of Scripture that really lays out what I want to communicate today.
I want everyone in here today to know exactly what it takes to know for sure you’re on your way to heaven when it’s your name we read in the obituary column.
The basis of what I want to share with you is the cross.
The cross is a universal presence, especially here in the US. And different people look at the cross differently.
Let’s look very briefly at four ways people can view the cross:
Some people see the cross as a symbol. They see the cross they automatically think Christ, Christianity, or church.
And for many people, that’s all it is – a symbol.
Others look at a cross and they see a memorial, usually at a place like a cemetery, where this picture was taken.
A third way people see a cross is simply as a fashion statement. Here’s Paris Hilton hawking her line of designer crosses.
I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t put much stock into what the cross is really all about, and that’s the fourth way we can look the cross, and that is as a…
Bridge
Here’s where we bring in the Scripture passage, which is printed on that little diagram in your bulletin.
Romans 6:23 –
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
We’re going to be filling in that diagram as we examine this verse.
You’ll see that on the right we have God, on the left we have us, and we see that we’re separated from God on this side of the diagram.
That separation is caused by our…
Sin.
All of us have sinned. There’s no one in here who hasn’t sinned. I’ve sinned, you’ve sinned, Billy Graham has sinned, the pope has sinned, even my mother-in-law has sinned, and she’s a pretty swell lady, I gotta tell you.
You and everybody you know has sinned.
A sin, by the way, is basically anything we do, say, or think that goes against God’s Word. The Bible says do it, and we don’t do it, or the Bible says don’t do and we do it anyway.
Let’s look at the left side of the diagram first, because it describes our condition without God.
The word that goes into the first blank is…
“Wages.”
I think most everybody here knows what wages are, right? It’s what you get paid for work.
Have any of you ever gotten ripped off in your wages? Let’s say you’ve worked 40 hours but only got paid for 30.
Or you worked a bunch of overtime but the boss either didn’t pay you the overtime rate of time and a half or didn’t pay you at all.
When we don’t get what we’ve earned, we get a bit upset.
Well, we earn a spiritual wage with our…
sins. And what is that wage, according to this verse?
Death. Not just physical death. It’s spiritual death as well.
And if we’re spiritually dead when we’re physically dead, then we don’t spend eternity in heaven, we spend eternity in hell.
Now, that’s not really very good news, is it? And I’m guessing none of you got up to come to church here today thinking, “Man, I’m hoping the pastor tells me I’m going to hell!”
That’s not what I get up hoping to tell people, that’s for sure.
But I want you to hang on, because that’s not the rest of the story, okay?
Let’s take a look now at the right side of the diagram.
This verse tells us that God wants to give us a free gift.
Now let’s talk about that for a moment.
A gift isn’t like a wage, is it?
How many of you here have received a gift, but before you got it, you had to sheetrock the basement?
And hopefully, none of you parents make your kids earn their gifts. Why? Because gifts can’t be earned. Gifts are given.
This particular free gift is from God, not a wage we earn from our sins. You see the contrast?
So God has a free gift for us, and that is…
Eternal life. The assurance that when we leave this earth, we have heaven.
That’s what God wants each of us to have.
So we have this little dilemma: Here’s what God wants, but here’s what we’re facing on our own.
So the question becomes, “How do we get from here to there?
The answer is…
The cross.
Jesus came to earth to die on the cross for your sins and mine.
He came to die so that you and I wouldn’t have to pay the penalty for our own sins. He paid the penalty for us.
He was the perfect, sinless Son of God, who laid down His life just so you and I could be forgiven of our sins and have a home in heaven.
So now we have a bridge between us and God.
But just having a bridge isn’t enough for us to say we’re going to heaven.
We have to cross the bridge. Just getting to a bridge doesn’t mean you’ve crossed it, does it?
This verse say that this free gift from God is obtained…
Through Jesus.
What does that mean?
It means that we can only access the eternal life God wants to give us by going through Jesus.
Jesus said –
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Now, either Jesus is right about that or He’s wrong. And if He’s wrong, He’s either insane or He’s a liar.
But I don’t think He’s lying or insane.
What does it mean to “go through” Jesus?
It means to put your faith in Him as your only hope for forgiveness of your sins and a home in heaven.
You can’t get there by being a nice person. You can’t get there by being reading your Bible, praying, or being baptized – as an infant, a child, or as an adult.
You can’t get there by joining a church or even going every week. So you can relax about wondering if I was going to say you needed to be a Wesleyan in order to get to heaven.
You’ll never hear that here. There are a number of great churches in the area, and I’m friends with those pastors. We join together on occasion to hold events where people can hear about Jesus, and none of us is worried about where people might go to church when it’s over.
You can’t get there by doing anything on your own, no matter how good or religious it is.
We can only get their by taking the gift Jesus paid for on the cross.
So how do you take that gift?
Three things you do to take that gift, and you can write these in that little box in the upper right of your diagram:
1. Admit you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness.
Remember, all of us are that. All of us have broken God’s laws more times than we can count.
2. Believe Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again from the dead.
The word, “believe” doesn’t mean just mentally thinking, “Yeah, okay. Jesus died for me. I get it.”
The word, “believe” means that we’re staking our destiny on it.
It’s believing that without Christ there is no hope and so I’m putting all my hope on Jesus.
I’m not believing in my church background or my baptism or my mom’s faith. I’m believing in Jesus.
Years ago my wife and I went to the Royal Gorge in Colorado.
The Royal Gorge is the world’s highest suspension bridge.
Now, you need to understand that I’m scared of heights big-time, and the thought of walking or driving across this bridge didn’t thrill me in the least.
This thing swayed with the wind, and people and vehicles were on it, and that it was just moving like crazy.
I could have stood on the side of that canyon all day and said that I believed that bridge would hold me up.
I could look at all the facts about the engineering of it, the materials, and the fact that the bridge had never collapsed to that point.
But it wasn’t until I was willing to actually step on that bridge with both feet and risk my neck could I say that I really believed.
Because if that bridge breaks, I’m dead. I had no other hope.
It’s the same with Jesus. When you believe in Jesus and what he did like you do when you put your faith in a bridge to hold you up, that’s what the Bible means, and that’s the kind of faith that moves you from here to there.
Did that make sense? If it didn’t please tell me after the service because I don’t want anybody confused about that, okay?
And then you simply Receive the gift by asking for it by faith, trusting that God has given it to you, because He said He would.
You: If you have never taken the gift God is offering you through Jesus, today’s as good a day as any to take it.
Don’t put it off, because you don’t know what a day might bring, and you don’t want to miss out on this awesome gift.
I didn’t put my faith in Jesus until I was a freshman in college. I didn’t hear about Jesus much as I was growing up, at least not in a way that I understood what I needed to do to make sure I was going to heaven.
I went through high school partying – getting drunk and stoned, and chasing women, stealing stuff and doing other illegal things.
But when I found out that Jesus wanted me to go to heaven, and that He died to make it happen, you better believe I jumped all over that.
It was a great feeling to know that I had been forgiven of my sins and that I would be I heaven someday – in spite of my past sins.
The guy who helped me find Jesus shared this verse with me the next day:
I John 5:11-12 –
[God] has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.
He said that because I had the Son – because I had Jesus, I had eternal life, because God promised it in the Scriptures.
And it’s the promise He makes to you today.
I’m going to say a prayer in a minute that you can pray with me to take Jesus for yourself, to receive the free gift of God.
And if you want to walk out of here today knowing that your sins are forgiven and that you have a home in heaven when you die, then I invite you to pray along with me in your heart.
(Prayer)
