* Watch the video… God Has A Plan…
Let’s open up our Bibles to John 20: 1-18... Let’s stand as we read God’s Holy Word.
1. God has always had a _Plan_ for your Life.
Can you imagine with me what these disciples of Jesus were thinking in the hours after watching their friend, Jesus… this God-Man who had showed them so many miracles, who had taught them so much about the Kingdom of Heaven….Can you imagine what they were thinking as they were huddled in their homes… afraid of what might happen next to them personally… but also afraid that maybe they had believed in someone who wasn’t all that He claimed to be…. Because He’s dead.
God has a plan. Say that with me this morning… God has a Plan.
I don’t know about you but I think the disciples were a little confused about the Plan that God was unveiling.. Don’t you think they were.
Now I want you to understand Jesus didn’t trick the disciples… in fact, in many cases in Scripture Jesus tells his disciples that He is going to die, and be raise from the dead… but the disciples just could not “see clearly” what Jesus was trying to tell them.
In Luke 18: 31-33 Jesus says it as plain as you can, but it was just beyond them to comprehend this Plan.. Listen to what Jesus said, LK 18:31 Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. 32 He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. 33 On the third day he will rise again."
The disciples couldn’t understand God’s plan for their salvation, their view wasn’t clear… Can you imagine playing a game and the coach coming to the team before the game starts and says, “Listen, I have the game plan here… this is going to work, trust me… Were going to lose the game…… on purpose…. And then in 3 days were really going to Win”. We would say the coach was crazy…
Do you know what God’s Plan is for your Life? God has paved a way for you and for me to know Him, to live for Him, and to spend eternity with Him in Heaven…. That road that has been paved… was paved in blood…. The blood of Jesus… God’s only Son… who God Sent…. On purpose, as part of this “Out of this World” plan to die for you and for me.
Why did Jesus have to Die? That’s a good question.
The Answer is really simple….. Because You and I are sinners… we have all sinned against God in one way or another… we have all choosen at some point in our life to do exactly what we wanted… no matter what we knew in our heart of hearts was the right thing…. We choose to put ourself on the throne of our hearts instead of the God who created us to Worship Him only.
God who so loved us, even when we have sinned against Him, Had a plan from the very beginning to take care of this sin problem. We need to understand that God takes sin serious… there could not be just a sweeping of our sins under the rug of heaven… the Bible teaches us that God is Holy, without blemish, totally Righteous… so in order to have a personal relationship with us who have been covered in sin…. There had to be a cleansing… that stain of sin that we all have had to washed away so that we could be made Holy, and so we could come into the presence of a Holy God. So what was God’s answer to this delimma?
There was only one thing so Holy, so precious, so vaulable that if given, it would appease the Holiness of God… and that one thing was the life blood of His Own Son, Jesus Christ.
Are you grasping that today?
God sacrificed His Son for you and for me.
Does that tell you about how much God love you? He loves you… right now.
Can you say GOD HAS A PLAN.
So what keeps us from knowing and understanding this God of Love that so loved us that He gave us Jesus? So what keeps us from just running to Him and enjoying all the blessings that this God of Love wants to pour out into our lives?
Do you remember when I said the disciples couldn’t “see clearly” what God’s plan was. That’s what’s keeping us from realizing what God has for us…. Blurred vision.
This week I did something that I needed to do about four weeks ago, but if you know me… I have this awesome ability to put things off…. I changed my windshield wipers… one on my van and both on my truck….
I’ve been driving around town with blurred vision for the last four weeks….. Many of you are living life today with blurred vision… in fact, you may not even realize that your looking through a blurred windshield, because it may have never been clean and clear… and you think that what your looking through is normal.
With my truck…. How come the windshield wiper always goes bad right in your line of vision? Have you ever noticed that? I had this streak that was a constant on my truck, and the dumb little wiper was warped by the sun, rain, cold, the elements so that even though I turned it on, even on high it didn’t accomplish what it was created to do.
To look at it from the outside of the truck, you wouldn’t have known that it was defective, but when you needed it most, when the rain came, when the mud got splashed…. It wasn’t able to carry out it’s purpose.
Do you know what warps us and keeps us from carrying out our God given Purposes? Sin. We believe the Bible is clear in it’s definition of sin…. Sin is when I willfully, knowingly break a known law of God.
The Bible makes clear that we are all Sinners, we have all choosen willfully to go against God’s law at some point, so we have all become warped… Turn to your neighbor and say… “Man, your warped”.
There’s no need for me to try and list all the sins that you may have committed… How many of you here today already know those things that you have done that you knew were wrong, but you did it anyway? I hope you just didn’t lie…. The truth is God has given each of us a conscious that lets us know right from wrong… The Bible teaches us that God has written on our hearts His law… so you will never be able to say I didn’t know… because God wrote it on your heart…
This morning there is something that we all need to be able to carry out God’s plan for our life, for us to be able to carry out God’s intended purpose in our life… we have to have it… there’s no way around it. What is it? Actually it is not a it…. But what you need is a HIM.
2. Jesus Christ must Live Through You, Giving You His Resurrection Power.
My friends there is a big difference between living the blurred life, and the Christ Empowered Life….
There is a big difference between living a life with no real direction, and the life that has His Direction.
There is a big difference between living a life with no real purpose, and the life that has been given Eternal Purpose.
There is a big difference between living a life with no real Hope for change, and the life that Has the Hope, and the Life Changer intimately involved.
Hear me this morning… no matter what you are seeing this morning in your own life, you can’t go by that because your view is going to be blurred if you don’t have Jesus Christ in your heart and life. No matter what you see this morning…. There is a God… and through the Resurrection Power of Christ He can change your life… He can change your life…. We have the evidence of the power of the Resurrected Christ right here this morning in the lives of people who’s views were blurred by sin, but Jesus Christ made everything clear, pure… and they want to share quickly this morning what the Power of the Resurrection has done for them…..
Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" JN 11:25
I’m asking you plainly today… How’s your view? Are you ready to accept the greatest Gift that’s ever been given… New Life, New Hope, Forgiveness for all your sins… and Healing that will enable you to not only be able to see your God given purpose, but God promises you the Power through Jesus Christ to carry out that purpose.
How do you accept this gift? It’s very easy, it’s not near as difficult as some might try and make it.
You just talk directly to God… You tell God that your sorry for your sin, we call that repenting, what that means is that you don’t want to be apart of those things anymore… You then tell God that You want to put your Faith and Trust In Him, and In His Son and ask Jesus to come into your heart…… Does that sound too hard? If it does we have some good people who would be glad to lead you in that prayer this morning if you are not sure what to do.
You see, many of us here today remember when we realized we were so blurred by the world and our own sin that we were missing the most important thing in life… We were missing God.
You may be wondering, if I make this decision… I don’t know if I can stick to it by myself, because there will be folks in my home or in my family that won’t support me….
Let me tell you, we have groups that meet every week that would love to encourage you, support you, love you, and will help you… We have a women’s group, a men’s group, and we have recovery groups that can help you with any kind of habit, hurt or hang up that you are dealing with….Your’ not alone, we are all in this together… but you have to make this descision on a personal level, no one can make it for you…. Will you choose to Live for Christ today?
Nola is coming to play… we are going to sing a chorus…. You are invited to come forward and pray, and if you would like some help in praying we have some kind folks who will help you and lead you….The God who can change your life is calling out to you this morning…. I know you can hear Him… it’s that small still voice… will you answer today?
