Before we get started in the word of God I want to pose a question to you. I want you to think about this question as to how it relates to God. Let’s imagine you are out at the beach. Your having a great time doing your thing…but you haven’t noticed the tide is dragging you out. You’re having fun in the sun until finally all of a sudden you’re looking for the shore and can’t find it! How would you feel? You would feel lost, doomed, you would be really afraid.
As you notice the sharks circling all of the sudden you see a helicopter fly over you, and a man drops into the water with you. He harnesses you on the rope and the helicopter takes you up leaving him behind. You ask the pilot about that man…and with tears in his eyes he tells you it was his son. They didn’t have enough fuel to take you and still get him out too. But he tells you…His son wanted to save your life and gave his own to do it.
You would feel a great deal of gratitude. You would want to know more about this man that gave his life for you. You would probably go to his grave and pay your respects…and tell him you love him.
Jesus did that for us. You would never forget that man. Never forget what Jesus did for you.
Jesus Saved Us!
In Ephesians 2:4 we read “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)
Just like in the story…we were out there being swept away from God. The tide called sin pulled us out too far and death circled us waiting to finaly take us out. We were as good as dead in our sins.
But Jesus came and gave us a life line. He has given us a way back to God through His sacrifice. Even when we did not know Him He loved us!
We need to remember where we come from. We have been given the gift of life through Jesus. By his sacrifice when He paid the price for our sins we were saved if we chose to let Him tie that rope around us and lift us to safety.
According Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.
Jesus died for us. The main thing I want you to consider is that Jesus died for you…what are you doing for Him? How are you going to show your love for Him?
We read He forgives sins. We know it’s true because we experienced it! Do you remember when you first came to God and understood how He washed your sins away? He doesn’t hold them against you anymore! Why wouldn’t you love Him?
When You See Gods Forgiveness You Should Overflow With Love To Him And The Lost
In Luke 7:47 it said “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
I am afraid there are times we forget what Jesus has done. Our love seems to dwindle down because we don’t remember how much we have been forgiven! We don’t remember what it was like to be lost out in the world without hope! We tend to forget those things and it makes it easy to become cold on the inside.
Let me ask you…when someone saves your life, wouldn’t you tell others about it? Wouldn’t you love that person enough to brag on them? All the time you see people bragging about their heroes who saved their lives. They go on TV and find it so easy to speak publicly about their heroes and yet we find it hard at times just to walk over to our neighbor and say “Jesus saved me”. “He wants to save you”.
If we took it seriously and really thought about the love God showed to us…it would be so much easier to show love to others. It would be easier to put something down we enjoy to go tell someone about Jesus. Or to get in our bible and grow in God.
Jesus said “if you love me, keep my commandments” Only two things did He really ever command. One was to love. The other was to go and share the love He gave us.
Let me tell you something about new Christians. Have you noticed the zeal and fire they have for God? Do you ever wonder why that is?
Just to share a personal and somewhat embarrassing story…when I first came to God I had such a desire to share Him with others! I went to the local school and proceeded to share my faith as best I could with the students. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but I knew I needed to tell people about God! They were asking all these religious questions and I didn’t know what to tell them. I was new to it all myself.
But you see, I was forgiven. I had felt God take away my shame and sins. I knew what it was to feel the burden lifted. That’s what makes new Christians such go getters. They know what God has done and Love Him so much for it!
Later I learned more and started conforming more and more into what God wanted from me. I learned more and walked a narrower road. The cuss words stopped and the dirty jokes ended. But you know what…I began to forget where I came from. I began to take the blood of Jesus for granted.
We can’t do that church. We need to remember where we come from and where we were heading. We need to remember those sins we still deal with and those prideful thoughts with our lack of urgency are still under the blood of Jesus! He has forgiven us! Doesn’t that just make you love Him more? Doesn’t it make you want to tell someone about this love you found?
Stand Out By Having A Thankful And Loving Heart, From understanding Gods Forgiveness
What are we going to do this week? Are we going to get in the bible and shut our doors? Are we reading because we love Jesus and want to be better able to follow Him into the lost world? If we are then why shut the door? Let’s take the bible out to the lost and SHARE this love!
I think if we just remember what God has done for us and start loving Him for it as we should…we would be able to win the lost. They are looking for something different. They are looking for love.
They haven’t really seen something they want from us. They have seen us go to work like them, spend time at the game like them, and just be like them in general. We complain about our boss and are angry at the same things as them.
What do we have that they want? We have freedom! We have a load taken off of us that they still carry! We have a sure life eternal! But so many times we don’t act like it because we don’t really remember what God has done! All they think we have is a belief in a book called the bible!
People remember things that are out of place. If you opened the book where’s waldo and everyone but him was in total brown you could spot his red striped shirt a mile off.
Church… we are to be a peculiar people. We should be different than the world. We should have something they don’t. A grateful heart full of love. That’s something they will see and notice. It’s out of place. It’s what will draw them. Show them you are more in love with God then anything else. Show them by being willing to tell them about the forgiveness you have found and the freedom it gives you. That’s different. Normal is slinging your car into their parking space and then inviting them to church. They see it all the time.
To close I just want to remind you again…Jesus has forgiven you of even more than you know. We should relies the weight of the forgiveness and love Him all the more. Enough to show REAL love to others. Love they don’t see normally.
When you understand the true price that was paid it will be easy to have a heart OVERFLOWING with love and thankfulness. So much so that the world will see it and want it. It’s why we are here. To go with love from a forgiven heart to reach the lost.
Think about it when you go home. Think about how God saved you. Sometimes we need to remember how it began to know how to get to our destination. We need to remember what God has done to tell others what He will do. Go to the lost with thanksgiving to God for your salvation.
