Recovering Redemption Series (2 of 6)
September 28, 2014 CFBC Chester, IL Dr. Mike Fogerson, Speaker
Introduction:
A The Good News may not be appealing to everyone, but the Bad News of the Gospel still applies to everyone.
1 Explain: There are people who want nothing to do with God, Jesus, Bible, Church, Change . . . they’ve got ways of trying to deal with their life and God isn’t one of them.
a Irregardless of what a person thinks of the Gospel, none of us can deny there are times we are disappointed, experience displeasure with life.
b Maybe not everyday, but often enough we feel the need to do something to about our feelings of helplessness, hopelessness.
aa Whether a person has knows/trust/believes in the Good News, God . . . there is a sense in all of us that we gotta do something about the bad news.
bb To do something about it, cope with it, make it go away.
2 That’s what I mean when I say the Good News may not appeal to everyone, but the bad news applies to everyone.
a The Good News: Jesus restores, saves, redeems.
b The Bad News: Our world our is broken, suffering happens, disease/divorce/disappointment exists.
aa People try to fix what’s broken; we’re fixers.
bb We try to make our own happiness, draw from our own buckets of redemption . . . they never really do the trick.
cc They eventually dry up/quit working.
I Our Go-To Buckets
A Bucket #1: Ourselves
1 In spite of our sketchy track record, we somehow have convinced ourselves that the cure to what’s wrong with us is a better version of ourselves.
a If we can just get ourselves more disciplined, defined . . . our lives are going to turn around and all of our problems will be solved.
b Diagnostic Question: Ten years ago, you thought that well-oiled, better balanced person would have arrived by now, right?
aa Thinner, gentler, more loving, compassionate, forgiving, healthier. . . at least that’s what we’ve told ourselves.
bb The truth is you and I would be hard-pressed to find AN-Y-ONE who has lied to us more than ourselves.
2 Have you ever really been happy with yourself for any real length of time? (Doesn’t matter how thin, ripped your abs are, well you manage your time, well you perform your job you don’t stay satisfied with yourself.)
a And we’re depending on the person who uses our toothbrush/drinks out of our coffee cup to fix everything broken in our lives?
aa I’m not too impressed that guy if I got real honest.
bb It was my best thinking that has caused me the biggest heartaches in my life.
cc While we’re making plans at being better, fixing our lives we are at the same time being our own worst enemies.
b It get’s worse, the Bible says,
Jeremiah 17:5-6 (NASB) 5 Thus says the LORD, "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD. 6 "For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant.
aa Harsh, but true. We’ve all crashed & burned.
bb As long as we keep looking to ourselves as the best solution you’ll never stop vacuuming the mess you leave behind.
cc You’ll never be good enough to suit yourself, much less be good enough for God . . . because we cannot redeem ourselves.
c T.S. We can’t redeem ourselves nor can we do it through other people.
B Bucket #2: Others
1 There is not a girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/mom/dad/child/friend; no relationship with another human being that can “fix you.”
a I think nearly EVERY divorce, at the heart of it, stems from an expectation on another person that he/she can never humanly achieve.
b Marriages will always struggle/often fail whenever we make the person who wears our wedding ring into a god who’s supposed to make us complete.
aa “She doesn’t make me happy.” That’s not her job!
bb You can’t make yourself happy, don’t have your spouse responsible for doing something you can’t pull off what you can’t do for yourself with any consistency.
2 This applies to every relationship we enter for these very simple reasons:
a Men make terrible gods. Women make terrible gods. Children make unholy terrible gods.
b Friends, co-workers, parents, boy/girlfriends, fiances, you name it . . . start looking to other people to satisfy your thirst/fill in the gaping hole in your heart your sailing into the headwinds of conflict, chaos.
aa When we put the oneness of our happiness, answer to our problems, we’re putting an impossible weight on them.
bb They were not created/equipped to carry that load and it will make everyone’s life miserable.
cc So, stop it. You can’t be redeemed by others.
C Bucket #3: The World
1 Have you ever noticed that no matter what we buy, get that it only makes us happy for a bit. (New jacket, new car, home, boat, motorcycle, phone, electronic).
a These things don’t change us, situation.
aa We’re still same people . . . now with just less money and more debt.
bb Our stuff doesn’t make us more complete or fix us.
b TBT, in 10 years, that purse you just bought for $300/golf club you just paid $400 for will make some guy feel equally as awesome as he pulls away from your yard sale after paying $3 for it.
2 We know stuff can’t make us happy (just as we fail ourselves, others fail us), we just keep pushing the button, “Gimme more!”
a We grab for things that have never failed disappoint us in the past, thinking that what we need is more of something . . . more of the same thing has never satisfied us before.
b The world doesn’t have what it takes to redeem us.
D Bucket #4: Religion
1 Church/religious folks aren’t any better than anyone else.
a Trying to solve your problems with religion is just as futile, failure filled as trying to solve your problems by getting better at being you.
b We try to redeem ourselves by a Christian-check list (go to church, choir robe, bible, singing in tune, tithe) . . . if we do enough of these things, the scale will tip ... God will be pleased with us/we’ll be happy.
aa Those scales aren’t real, they don’t exist; they are no scales.
bb You’re either completely justified by the blood of Jesus or your not justified at all . . . it really is just that simple.
2 Fearing God/Worshiping Him out of grateful obedience is a beautiful thing, brings blessings from the Father, but doing it to attract God’s attention/or to get on His good side isn’t redemption.
a If we’re trying to get on God’s Honor roll by being religious, we’re going to be miserable.
aa Religion doesn’t work . . . just like none of the other three buckets (ourselves, others, world.)
bb Trying to earn God’s pleasure by being religious doesn’t work!
b We’ve been given the idea that only good boys/girls go to heaven, but in reality it’s bad boys/girls transformed by the gospel of Jesus go to heaven—
aa those whose sins are covered by the redeeming work, and who love Him so much because of it.
bb They serve/worship Him, but because they bought their way in, but because they are in by the blood of Jesus.
E Our buckets all go empty (We’re toast)
1 If we stop trying to defending our buckets we’ll recognize none of them have really worked at fixing us.
a We’ve all got the same problem, we’re all terminal/diseased at the root.
b All of our attempts to fix ourselves like pouring hope into buckets that leak (Jer. 2.13.)
Jeremiah 2:13 (NASB) 13 "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.
2 That admission is really a great thing!
a When we get the point where we understand that we/others/world/religion can’t redeem us, then we are at the spot where the high surgeon of Heaven can perform corrective heart surgery on us.
b It’s when we realize our buckets don’t work, and then we can get set free, recover what was lost when sin entered the picture.
II Full Recovery
A Romans 5:6, 8-10 (NASB) 6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
1 You gotta love you some Romans 5.6!
a The God of creation/glory is telling us what He was willing to do to redeem us.
aa God has loved us from the beginning, sent His Son to die for us, even now still saving people by His Son’s sacrifice.
bb Nothing but Jesus, His blood can redeem us.
b People talk about Christianity being crutch, like that’s supposed to offend us.
aa It doesn’t offend me. I need that crutch . . . couldn’t make without that crutch.
bb Leaning on the crutch of Christianity sure beats hobbling around without help on a busted femur, which is the only choice we were ever going to get unless God had come to our rescue at the right time, while we were weak, and propped us up by the living power of Jesus’ death & resurrection.
2 “So, we’re all damned? There’s nothing we can do? - - - yeah, unless.
a Unless, God steps in and redeems us.
aa The beauty of the Christ’s gospel is the great “unless” of life.”
bb We are doomed unless we’re redeemed by the blood of Jesus.
b Our redemption is not turned on & off like a light.
aa You are His, His love/acceptance for you is endless, He’s proud to give you His name.
bb But your still dark in spaces, broken in spots, (true, not everything changed when you succumbed to the call of grace.)
c The good news is that Gospel is still working, invading our weakness.
B If we really understood 2 Cor. 5.21, we might stop going to our buckets as often.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB) 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
1 Ourselves
a The Gospel tells us to get over ourselves.
aa You were saved by grace alone through faith alone.
bb Because of that, God gets all the glory.
b When we “get” the gospel we’ll stop going into us for and start going into the Lord and laying our problems to Him.
aa Get rid of this please.
bb If your spouse/kids/boss/parents pick out something that needs fixed in your character/attitude, you run to Jesus and say, “Lord, come and get it.”
2 Others
a When the Gospel is in our heads we know our approval comes from God, not other people (spouse, kids, parents, friends.)
aa Their acceptance of us will not determine who we really are in the eyes of God.
bb He’s declared you redeemed, He’s rescued us.
cc Walk with a humility/confidence that is as indescribable and it is impeccable.
b In humility, we don’t go around doing/saying whatever we want, unwilling to respond repentantly to any kind of rebuke.
aa In confidence, we’re not looking for anyone’s approval to validate us.
bb So instead of needing your spouse to think your awesome before you’ll be good to them, you just stay obedient to the Lord and take care of them/family.
cc Whether your spouse thinks you hung the moon or on days they’d really just like to hang you, God loves you.
3 The World (Our problem with the world is not the world.)
a God has put a lot of things in this world for all of us (pagan or Presbyterian) to draw pleasure from: Double stuff Oreo/fried chicken. (Maybe questionable nutritional value, but not confessional sin material)
aa Just because something doesn’t happen in church doesn’t mean it’s bad, sinful.
bb Our problem with the world is not the world.
b When we understand the Gospel, we’ll see that all the great things in this world are given to us by God.
aa Food, Golf, Hunting, Loving your spouse, are gifts from God for us to enjoy.
bb They don’t define who we are, they point us to the One who refines us to be in His image.
cc We worship Him for all that He has made.
4 Religion (I think truly understanding the Gospel kills religion)
a Religion is always outside-in: “God, I’ll do this for you, You do something for me.”
aa The gospel is not from the outside-in, it’s always from the inside out. (Col. 1.27)
bb A new heart, new creation, new desires, new loves.
cc Holiness/righteousness has been given to you, reborn inside of you . . . and you can not do anything that can earn you any more favor than that!
b We’re not reading our bible, going to church/Sunday School to make God love/bless us more, but rather because we love Him and want to bless His heart. (Not to make Him love us, but because He already loves us.)
Conclusion:
Notice to Sermon Central Users:
My name is Mike Fogerson, and I pastor a Southern Baptist Church in Chester, Illinois. I have been a long-time user of Sermon Central and truly appreciate its content and contributors. Some of the best sermons I’ve ever preached have been reworked material from this website. As you use the material from my sermon bank, understand that it is work that has been done from not just myself, but from hundreds of other pastors as well. If you see part of your message, or a bunch of your message with my name on it and this upsets you, please email me and I will quickly respond and cite you as the main source. My intent is not to claim someone’s work as my own. I am disclaiming up front that I use the resources from Sermon Central and appreciate the tool. I simply want all those who use my work to know that some of these messages were inspired by the Holy Spirit working through other pastors. Because I do use the messages of other pastors I waive all claims of originality or origin of creativity for the messages posted under my messages. I pray God blesses your preaching ministry for the glory of His Kingdom.
Respectfully,
Mike Fogerson
