What Most Christians Do Not Know Series

What Most Christians Do Not Know

(Rev. Barry Johnson and Rev. Rodney Johnson)

NOTE: New Light Faith Ministries and Barry Johnson Ministries, founded by Rodney V. Johnson and Barry O. Johnson, respectively, are partnering to offer Bible studies for Christians who are seeking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. This is a Bible study lesson, not a sermon. The Bible studies teach foundational truth that are designed to challenge, encourage and, most importantly, flame the fire of hunger in the Christian who wants to learn more about who they have become in Christ Jesus. The Bible studies you find on this site contains the written version of the lesson. However, these lessons also include a video and an audio file of the study, a PDF version of the lesson and a sheet for note taking. If you would like any of the additional resources for these studies, please email us at newlightfaithministries@gmail.com or bjteachingltr@gmail.com for more information or contact us at the email provided on both of our Sermon Central pages. Please visit our YouTube Channel (Barry Johnson Ministries; New Light Faith Ministries, Inc.) to watch or listen to these lessons as well as other available sermons. Be blessed.

Introduction

The topic of our lesson in September was “What It Means To Be Born Again.” In that lesson, we discussed the reasons why a person needs to be born again (why the person needs to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior), God’s plan for redemption, and the definition of the phrase “born again”, which literally means “born from above”. We are now God’s offspring (children) with His spiritual life on the inside of us. When we were born into this world the first time, we were born with spiritual death inside of us called the “sin nature.” If you have not watched that lesson or listened to it, we encourage you to do so because it provides a foundation for what we are going to study in this lesson. For us, the natural follow-up to that lesson is the topic that we believe doesn’t get nearly the attention and focus that it deserves and that is “What Most Christians Don’t Know”. You see, it’s not enough just to accept Jesus and be born again. We need to know what it means for us in a practical way and that’s the focus of this lesson.

Some years ago, a person posted a video of a gentleman singing “Trouble In My Way” on Facebook – a song that both of us sang in church many years ago. One of the lyrics goes something like this: “Trouble in my way, I've got to cry sometimes. I can't sleep at night, but that's all right. I know that Jesus, He will fix it after a while.” While there is some truth in this song, it is an incomplete truth. Jesus can fix things, but He cannot fix things without us. While this song speaks to what we naturally do based on our fleshly emotions, it is not what we “have” to do. What you will hear in this lesson is how we have been empowered because we are born again and therefore our responses to our troubles can change. This is why Philippians 4:6-7 tells us “(6) Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; (7) and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” If we walk in the truth of Philippians 4:6-7 then we will find ourselves turning to God when troubles come and experiencing peace versus the losing sleep and crying. The difference is that we make the choice to turn to God and then His peace comes. If we did not take an action to first turn to Him, then that song would be 100% accurate for us because we would be losing sleep and staying up all night crying. This will be the focus of our lesson today – understanding who we have become and what we have access to because Jesus lives on the inside of us.

Ultimately, we will be looking at our role in helping Jesus fix things. You may be thinking that what I just said is not true. You also may be thinking that Jesus doesn’t need our help. But according to Scripture, Jesus needs us to partner with Him to deal with the situations that we face in life. And truly believing this comes with knowing and understanding who you have become now that you are born again and the importance of understanding the reason why you now have the same spiritual life and nature inside of you that is inside of Jesus.

We Have Access to God’s Grace in Times of Trouble