What Do You Get When You Receive Christ?

Subject: What Do You Get When You Receive Christ?

Scripture Reading: John 1:6-13

If the truth were known today, our community is filled with people who are fed up with life. For many life has become one vicious cycle. People have lost the meaning for living and are barely existing. Going through the motions of life day after day but never really experiencing life.

In fact I am convinced that if most people knew what they would receive by knowing Christ, that they would run to Him. But the reason they don’t is because of what II Corinthians 4:4 tells us “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

Satan has done his best to blind the eyes of every single person who does not know Christ. Why? Because he does not want to them know what they are missing by not serving Him. If the lost would truly and fully understand what is offered through Salvation, they would come to Christ.

I want to share with you what you get when you receive Christ.

There are at least five things that you get.

I. You Get A Past That Is Forgiven And Forgotten.

I have said it many times since I have been here as pastor, but let me remind you of it again: Everyone has a past!

Now many of us don’t like to admit that fact. We like to think of ourselves as being good to a certain degree. Oh we many acknowledge that we have a few faults, but underneath we think that our good points far outweigh our faults and our sins, and therefore we think that we are pretty good people.

I reminds me the lady who came to church one Sunday with a big black eye, and after the service the Pastor knowing the problems in the home said, “Sister, I’m praying for you, and for that beast of a husband you have.” To which the lady replied, “Oh, Pastor, it may be true that Joe drinks some, and beats me some, and cheats on me from time to time, and gambles away our money, but other than that, He’s a pretty great husband.”

And that is the way it is so often in our lives, we try to minimize our faults and glorify our virtues. We are willing to acknowledge what we call a few faults or mistakes. But we are not willing to come face to face and admit the hideous and horribleness of what God calls our sins.

But whether we like to face it or not, the Bible clearly tells us that in Romans 3:23 “All have sinned.” And in Isaiah 53:5 it tells us that “we have turned to our own way. Wanting to do our own thing.”

All of us have a past!

But I’m glad to be able to tell you that when we come to Jesus Christ, that we receive forgiveness of sins. God freely forgives us for the past life of sin that we have lived.

Paul puts it like this in Ephesians 1:7 “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”

There is no doubt about it, some of the sweetest stories in the Bible are those of forgiveness.

I think of the woman caught in the very act of adultery. The law in that day said that she deserved to be stoned immediately. So they took her to Jesus to see what He would say. When they told Jesus about her, He said, you who are without sin, you cast the first stone. Then he stooped down wrote something in the sand and when He stood up all of her accusers were gone and in love and grace he said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn thee go and sin no more.’

Oh, listen God knows your past life of sin, He knows everything that you have done. But today He loves you in spite of all that. No, He does approve of what you did, but He loves you and wants to forgive you of that past sinful life that you have lived.

Oh listen this is great news! The God of heaven, who created you and loves you wants to forgive you of your past life of sin. But not only does He want to forgive you, If you will come to Christ you will also receive a past that is forgotten.

Look at what He promises in Jeremiah 31:34 “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Then in Micah 7:19 we read “And thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”