The Way, the Truth, The Life - John 14:6

Title: The Way, the Truth and the Life
Date: October 26, 2008
Text: John 14:6

Introduction

- A pioneer missionary in Africa tells how he was taking the gospel to a new tribe, far to the north.
- With his bearers, he arrived at a village, a point beyond which his porters refused to go.
- The missionary appealed to the local chief . Was there someone in his village who could act as his guide to the distant northern tribe?
- The chief summoned a man, tall, battle scarred, carrying a large axe.
- A bargain was made and the next morning the missionary set off through the bush, following his new guide. The way became increasingly rough and the path had all but disappeared.
- There was an occasional mark blazed on a tree, occasionally a narrow path. Finally the missionary called a halt. He asked the guide if he was sure he knew the way.
- The man pulled himself up to his full height. "White man," he said, "you see this axe in my hand? You see these scars on my body? With this axe I blazed the trail to the tribal village to which we go.
- I came from there. These scars I received when I made the way. You ask me if I know the way? Before I came, there was no way. I am the way!

Background

- Jesus was telling the disciples that he was leaving them, that he would die but that he would return
- Thomas responds to Jesus, that they don’t know where he is going, so how can they know the way?
- Jesus response is to make this statement: “I am the way, the truth and the life – no one comes to the Father except through me”
- In making these 3 statements, Jesus is describing 3 ways in which he is showing us the way to heaven
- Today we are going to examine these three statements

I am the Way

- Jesus’ first statement is the He is the Way
- What does this mean, that Jesus is the way?
- The greek word “hodos” literally means a travelled way, a road, a journey - It also means a course of conduct, a way of thinking, feeling, deciding
- How does this meaning relate to Jesus?
- 1. Jesus went before us
- In the Roman army, the prodromoi were the reconnaissance troops who went ahead of the army to blaze the trail and ensure that it was safe from ambush for the rest of the troops
- Jesus is the prodromos, the traulblazer showing the way to heaven – the word is translated as forerunner, or the one who goes before us
- Jesus is the one who is our trailblazer – he has prepared the way for us
- 2. There are 2 ways to live
- Matt 7:13-14
- Two roads – one is wide and easy to follow, one is narrow and crooked
- The easy way is the way everyone else is going
- It is easy to follow, just follow the crowd
- It’s fun for the moment, but unless they repent and change direction, they will end up going over the precipice, and land in the fires of hell.
- The narrow road, representing following Jesus, is more difficult
- 2 weeks ago, went to South Lake Tahoe and saw the salmon run in Owen’s Creek
- Thousands of salmon had swum upstream to find a mate, and spawn
- The Christian life is a little like that – it can be a struggle to follow Jesus’ example, but at the end there will be a reward
- Rom 2:7
- Jesus is the way

I am the Truth

- Jesus is the Word of God
- John 1:1, 14 – he is God’s spokesperson
- He spoke God’s word, and gave it to us as truth
- John 17:17
- He says “I am the truth”
- He personifies the truth that sets us free
- John 8:32
- Jesus is the truth that sets us free from sin, from bondages and from everything that hinders us from going to heaven

I am the Life

- John 1:1-4
- Jesus was the creator of all things – he is the one who created life and gave it to us
- Heb 1:3 - He upholds all things by the word of his power
- He came to bring life
- John 10:10 – I am come that they may have life, and have it to the full
- John 11:25 – I am the resurrection and the life
- It is through Jesus that we have life, life eternal
- So Jesus is the way, the truth and the life
- He shows us the way to heaven

But we have a problem

- Rom 3:23 - Man has sinned, all of us
- Rom 6:23 - The result of that sin is death, eternal separation from God
- We have all been on that wide road, the easy road
- God’s gift to us is eternal life
- Jesus came to stand in our stead, and paid the price for us
- He offers that to every person
- He is the way the truth and the life
- This is what we remember as we celebrate communion, remembering what Jesus did in our place, and celebrating that we have been freed from death and given eternal life

Communion

- 1 Cor 11:23- 29
- People who take part in communion, should be believers
- If you wish to be a believer, and have not done so before, you can ask Jesus right now to forgive you of your sins, and ask him to come into your life, as your personal Lord and Savior
- You can do this right now
- PRAYER
- If you prayed this prayer right now, your sins are forgiven, and you now have a special relationship with God
- He is proud to call you his child
- He has given you a fresh start in life and he has promised to never leave you or forsake you!
- Our God is an awesome God!

Pulling Down a Fortress - 2 Cor 10:4-5

Title: Pulling down a fortress
Date: October 19, 2008
Text: 2 Cor 10:4-5

Introduction

- 2 Cor 10:4-5 - “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
- We can learn about strongholds by reading about real-life wars and battles
- In Israel there is a place called Latrun.
- It’s right off the main highway from Tel Aviv and the airport heading up to Jerusalem.
- It’s a stronghold right along the main highway.
- It also intersects with a highway leading from Gaza up to Ramallah, two major population centers of Palestinian Arabs.
- The Turks, when they controlled the land, had built this fortress, near a monastery and ancient Emmaus.
- The British converted the fortress into a police station.
- When the War of Independence in 1948 began, the Arab Legion took control of the Latrun stronghold.
- From this spot, they could pick off the caravans carrying supplies up to the Jews in Jerusalem.
- This was one stronghold that had to be taken! It had a stranglehold on Jerusalem!
- Five separate times, the fledgling Israeli Defense Forces tried to take it.
- Again and again the Arab Legion drove the attackers away.
- So the Israelis built a road around the stronghold, over rough terrain, so the supply trains could get through. This basically nullified the effectiveness of the fortress
- During the 6-day war, the Arabs were forced to abandon the fortress, and today it is a tank museum
- So can we see the strategic importance of a stronghold?
- For 20 years that place threatened the security of Israel, right in the heart of the nation.
- For how many years has a stronghold threatened your security in the heart of your thought life?
(illustration from http://www.lehigh.edu/~gdb0/simcha/strongho.htm)
- Today we are going to talk about strongholds and how to defeat them

What is a stronghold?

- A stronghold is a defensive position, a place that is difficult to capture
- Psalm 9:9 “The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble”
- Hebrew “misgab” - high place, refuge, secure height, retreat
- A place on a high cliff for example, is not easy to take control of
- So a stronghold is a place that is difficult to be captured
- This defensive position may be held by either enemy or friendly forces
- It can threaten the safety of the surrounding terrain, depending on who controls the fortress
- The stronghold may have been there for a long time
- It could be a natural rock formation, something that has been there as long as we know about it
- An example of this could be our sinful nature
- Our sinful nature is a stronghold in our lives – it is something which enslaves us, it is addictive, it pulls us down
- A stronghold could also be something that has been constructed during our lifetime
- We may have built a fortification, a structure with walls and defenses
- An example could be lying
- The first time we lie, it may be seem like a small thing, a “little white lie”
- Then we do so again, and again, and again
- Before long we have built up a habit of being economical with the truth
- We have built a stronghold of dishonesty
- A stronghold is a way of thinking and feeling that has developed a life of its own
- This could apply to many things
- For example:
- Depression, unbelief, temper
- Repeating pattern of failure
- Provoking others to reject you (without knowing you are doing so)
- Resentment, worthlessness
- Abuse often leads us to build a stronghold of worthlessness filled with negative thoughts (I’m guilty, I’m worthless, Nobody could ever love me, I’m good for nothing, I’m ugly, Nobody would like me if they really got to know me, Nobody really cares for me, Nobody really wants me for who I am)
- The truth may be quite different, but we believe these lies
- As we accept these lies they can become a stronghold of rejection, stopping us from accepting God’s love for us

How can we capture and pull down these strongholds?

- 1. First of all we need to identify the stronghold
- Eph 5:11 “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them”
- Psalm 26:2 “Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind”
- It takes courage to man up and take a good look in the mirror
- What are the areas of my life that have become strongholds?
- Sometimes the real stronghold is hidden and hard to see
- In prayer, ask God to show you your secret sins
- This takes humility, but we have to know our enemy before we can get him out of the way
- 2. Repent of your sin
- Be honest before God and repent
- We may need to overcome our instinct to automatically defend ourselves
- Excusing ourselves will never deal with the issue
- Confession and repentance is the only way to bring down these strongholds
- Ask for the sin to be covered by the blood of Jesus
- 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”
- 3. Surround the stronghold with truth
- John 8:32 – “32And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”
- In the introduction we talked about the stronghold at Latrun
- First, the Israelis tried a frontal attack, five times – that did not work
- The way that stronghold was dealt with ultimately was by building a road around it
- Sometimes we have to defeat our strongholds by surrounding them with truth
- Once you’ve identified a stronghold, go to the Bible, and study the opposite truth from God.
- Use a concordance or a chain reference bible or a topical bible.
- For example, if the stronghold is rejection, study all that the Bible says about God’s acceptance.
- Then surround that stronghold with the word of God! Read those verses, pray them, make them a part of you
- If you are struggling with a stronghold of depression, surround it with hope.
- If you are struggling with a stronghold of rejection, surround it with acceptance from your Abba Father
- If you are struggling with a stronghold of unresolved anger, surround it with forgiveness.
- If you are struggling with a stronghold of fear, surround it with the knowledge of God’s love.
- If you are struggling with a stronghold of failure, surround it with the victory of the resurrection!

Conclusion

- If we have strongholds in our life that we want to deal with, let’s pray together
- “Lord, please show me any areas of my life that I need to surrender to you. Please forgive me for compromising, and give me the courage to pull down these strongholds. Thank you Jesus for your forgiveness and for dying on the cross so that I could be set free. I commit to surrender every stronghold to you, and in Jesus’ name I reject any satanic influences that have held me captive. I purpose to take every negative way of thinking captive, and bring it into obedience to the truth, because the truth will set me free. In Jesus’ name, Amen."

Repent and be Baptized - Acts 2:38

Title: Repent and be baptized
Date: October 13, 2008
Text: Acts 2:38

Introduction

- Once there was a young minister who kept boring his congregation with sermon after sermon on baptism. Finally church officers instructed him to preach on the subject of pills the following Sunday. They could see no connection between pills and baptism.
- So on Sunday, the young minister announced that would be his topic for the day. "There are big pills and there are little pills," he said, "bitter pills and sweet pills, cheap pills and expensive pills. Another pill is the gospill-and that gets to my real subject-'baptism.'

Instruction to be baptized

- Mat 28:19-20
- Acts 2:38

Jewish baptism

- repentance first
- self-immersion
- there had to be a witness
- for both men and women after conversion to Judaism
- a ceremonial cleansing after defilement
- seen as new birth
- spring or flowing river the highest form of ritual bath or mikveh

Baptism by immersion

- Jesus was baptized by immersion
- The eunuch was baptized by immersion
- The word baptidzo means “to immerse or dip under water”
- The word baptize itself means “to dip under water”

Examples of baptism

- Mat 3:13-17 Jesus baptism
- Acts 8:26-39 Ethiopian eunuch

Symbolism of baptism

- Rom 6:3-4
- Just as Jesus died, was buried and was raised from the dead, we die to our old life, are buried in baptism and come up to live a new life

Being born again

- “The baptismal water (Mikveh) in rabbinic literature was referred to as the womb of the world, and as a convert came out of the water it was considered a new birth separating him from the pagan world. As the convert came out of these waters his status was changed and he was referred to as "a little child just born" or "a child of one day" (Yeb. 22a; 48b; 97b). We see the New Testament using similar Jewish terms as "born anew," "new creation," and "born from above."” - http://www.bebaptized.org/Jewishroots.htm
- John 3:1-7

Conclusion

- Will be baptizing shortly
- Let me know if you are ready to be baptized

Salvation for Rahab - Josh 2:1-24

Title: Salvation for Rahab
Date: October 12, 2008
Text: Joshua 2:1-24

Background

- It was around 1400 BC, in the spring
- The Israelites had spent 40 years traveling from Egypt to the Promised Land
- They had physically left Egypt, but Egypt was still inside them
- The journey had taken longer than intended, because of personal choices the Israelites made
- But finally they reached their destination, the promised land
- It was now around 38 years after Joshua himself had been sent out as a spy
- Joshua, who had succeeded Moses, now sent out two spies to take a look at the land, especially Jericho
- Jericho was the first fortified city the Israelites would encounter while taking the land
- It had a double wall around the city, with a space of 15 feet between the two walls
- The inner wall was about 12 foot thick and the outer wall was around 6 foot thick and 25-30 feet high
- “In his book The Bible As History Werner Keller describes the archaeological expedition in 1930 led by Professor John Garstang Garstang noted every detail with utmost precision and graphically described the violence by which the ancient walls of Jericho fell. The diggings showed that there were two parallel walls; the inner wall was especially massive, being twelve feet thick. The outer wall or fortification was a six foot brick wall about twenty five to thirty feet high. Houses (like the house of Rahab the harlot) were built on top and connected the two walls.
- “Professor Garstang described clear traces of a tremendous fire and the space between the two walls was filled with rubble, blackened bricks, charred wood, and ashes. Along the walls the houses had been burned to the ground and their roofs crashed on top of them. The most remarkable of Garstang's discoveries, however, had to do with how the two walls had fallen. The stones of the outer wall had fallen outward and downhill, but the inner wall had fallen the opposite direction - inward. According to Garstang, these observations could lead to only one conclusion: that an earthquake must have shattered the city” - http://www.newtestamentchurch.org/opa/Articles/1998/06/walls%20of%20jericho.htm

Rahab’s identity

- Joshua 2:1-7
- The NIV says Rahab was a prostitute, and the marginal note says “possibly an innkeeper”
- The Hebrew word used here is “Zanah” which means “to commit fornication, be a harlot, play the harlot”, so it seems that that is just who Rahab was, a prostitute
- Hospitality was an important part of the culture of the times, and it may be as a result of exercising this custom that Rahab invited the men in.
- There is no indication whatsoever, that anything immoral happened here
- We notice that the spies were observed going to Rahab’s house, and the king of Jericho wants them to be arrested
- Rahab lies about their being there
- There is no way to sugar coat this, she did lie, and the Bible makes no excuses for it
- A Christian is told not to lie – the Ten Commandments tell us “Thou shalt not bear false witness”, and Jesus tells us “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no”

Rahab’s salvation

- Joshua 2:8-14
- Rahab expresses her recognition that the God of the Israelites is greater than the gods of Jericho
- In Jericho they practiced child sacrifice – the Bible tells us that when Jericho was built, the king sacrificed his own son and laid him in the foundations for the gate at the entrance to the city
- As a result of her action in welcoming the spies, Rahab had shown a change in her allegiance
- She had now sided with the Israelites, and the God of Israel
- A change had happened
- She had seen the way in which God was dealing with the Israelites
- She saw that their God was alive and powerful, totally unlike the gods of the land
- She chose to submit to that God
- Josh 2:15-21
- There was something she had to do, however
- That was that she had to let down a scarlet cord, out of her window
- In a way this was like baptism, an outward and public expression of our faith in Jesus
- The scarlet cord represents the blood of Jesus, the means of her and our salvation
- She immediately hung this cord out the window
- She did not wait till the Israelite soldiers were outside the walls of Jericho
- She did it immediately, not being afraid of being suspected of treason
- This was an act of faith

Rahab’s faith

- as a result of Rahab’s faith in the God of Israel, she was listed in the list of Biblical heroes, in Hebrews 11
- Hebrews 11:31
- Her obedience and faith in God was accepted, and she became a part of the Israelite nation
- She personally received salvation as a result of accepting the God of Israel as her God
- As a result of her obedience, her parents and her family were also saved
- And she eventually married a leader in Israel
- Matthew 1:5 – she married Salmon, the father of Boaz, and became the great-great-grandmother of David the King of Israel, and thus became an ancestor of Jesus
- Jesus was not ashamed to have Rahab as an ancestor, despite her former way of life
- Because when we come to Jesus, the former things have passed away
- Rev 21:4 “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away”
- The old way of life we had before Jesus came into our life no longer has to have a hold over us
- We may have been drug dealers
- We may have have cheated and stolen and broken God’s law in every conceivable way
- We may have been violent and criminal, we may have beaten our wife or children
- We may have wrecked the lives of our loved ones and hurt them in so many ways
- But God says that he accepts us
- Just as Rahab was accepted by Jesus as his ancestor, we are accepted by him as his children
- Roman 8:15-16
- We are now clean and washed by the blood of the Lamb
- Revelation 7:14 – we have come out of the tribulation, the pain and heartache and troubles of our former life and now we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus
- How awesome
- If anyone would like to receive Jesus into their life right now, I will lead us all in a prayer
- This is not just a ritual, this is us offering our life up to God, just like Rahab did