Sermon Notes, September 4, 2016 AM
That You May Believe
Steve W. Reeves
INTRODUCTION:
A.
Fifteen years ago this week there were nineteen young men who read a letter.
The
letter was written in Arabic and called on
them to be obedient to their faith. It
promised them that their obedience would
lead them to heaven. The next morning,
September 11, 2001 those nineteen men
boarded four airplanes, hijacked them and
turned them into guided missiles destroying
the World Trade Center towers in New
York City and severely damaging the
Pentagon. One of the airplanes crashed in a
field in Pennsylvania.
1. These nineteen men acted according to
their belief. They believed what they had
been taught.
2.
Belief plays a critical role in forming our values. Our values determine our
actions.
This is why it is critical to understand
what we believe.
B.
John, the apostle, wrote near the end of the first century at a time when
persecution
was threatening the faith and values of
early Christians.
1. John’s purpose was not to rewrite the
story of Jesus. That had been done decades
earlier by Matthew, Mark and Luke.
2. John wrote to present evidence for
belief in Christ. Whereas the earlier gospel
writers referred to a total of 35
miracles Jesus performed, John records just seven
of them.
3. In John 20:30-31 John acknowledges that
Jesus performed many other signs and
wonders and then says, “these have been
written so that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and
that believing you may have life in His
name.”
C. What
are the benefits of believing in Christ?
I. PLEASES GOD
A. Faith is the foundation for our response
to God.
1. John 8:24 – “Therefore I said to you
that you will die in your sins; for unless you
believe that I am He, you will die
in your sins.”
2. Romans 5:1-2 – “Therefore, having been justified by
faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through
whom also we have obtained our
introduction by faith into this
grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the
glory of God.”
3. 2 Corinthians 5:7 – “We walk by faith
not by sight.”
4. Galatians 3:11 – “The righteous will
live by faith.”
5. Galatians 3:26-27 – “For you are all
sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For all of you
who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
Christ.”
6. Hebrews 11:6 – “Without faith it is
impossible to please God for He who comes
to God must believe that He is and
that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
7. 1 John 5:4 – “For whatever is born of
God overcomes the world; and this is the
victory that has overcome the
world—our faith.”
B. What type of faith pleases God?
1. Faith is not merely giving “lip
service” to an idea.
2. Faith that pleases God takes Him at
his word and acts upon it. If I were to tell you
that there was a gas leak in this
building and we needed to evacuate what would
you do? Would you say, “I don’t
smell it?” or “I don’t see it?” I would like to think
you would take me at my word because
you know that is not a statement I would
make foolishly.
3. C.S. Lewis said, “You never know how
much you really believe anything until its
truth or falsehood becomes a matter of
life and death. It is easy to say you
believe a rope to be strong as long
as you are merely using it to tie a box. But
suppose you had to hang by that rope
over a precipice. Would you still put your
faith in it?”
II. PROVIDES PURPOSE
A. An archer moved into a community.
Everyone was amazed when they began
seeing targets on trees and bales of hay
with an arrow in the very middle. They
asked the archer for a demonstration of
his skills. He could not hit the side of a
barn. When asked about the bulls eyes he
replied, “I shot first and drew the targets
later.”
1. This is descriptive of many people
today who go through life aimlessly from
circumstance to circumstance and
crisis to crisis. They have no goal, no
purpose. They have no target for
which to aim.
2. Does this describe your life?
B. Belief in Christ provides us with a
higher purpose and meaning than anything in
this world.
1. In Philippians 1:21 Paul said, “For
to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
2. Paul had known great accomplishment
in his life. He mentions some of these in
Philippians 3:3 -6.
a. Born into a Jewish family –
circumcised the 8th day of the tribe of Benjamin –
the same tribe King Saul had
come from.
b. When it came to knowing the law
of Moses he was a scholar and a Pharisee
insisting on strict observance
and interpretation of the law and the oral
traditions.
c. When it came to zeal he was a
persecutor of the church.
d. He had found a higher purpose. “But
whatever things were gain to me, those
things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:7).
III. PROMOTES PEACE OF MIND
A. Believing in Jesus is not going to
remove the challenges you face in life.
1. Faith does not remove every problem
or eliminate every obstacle.
2. Paul had a “thorn in the flesh” he
prayed about but God did not remove it.
Instead God said, “my grace is
sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:8-9).
3. Jesus said, “In the world you will
have trouble but take heart, I have overcome
the world” (Jn. 16:33).
B. Many years a beginning mountain climber hired
an experienced guide to lead him
on a hike into the Swiss Alps. After
many hours they came to a remote mountain
pass. The path had almost been washed
out. To the left was a wall of rock. To his
right was a cliff that dropped a
thousand feet. As the man looked down he could
feel fear knotting up inside him. His guide
shouted, “Do not look down! Keep your
eyes on me. Put your feet exactly where
I put my feet.” The man did so and was led
to safety.
1. God never promises that we will not
face rough terrain. There will be steep
climbs and difficult paths.
2. He has promised that Jesus will be
our guide and will never leave or forsake us.
IV, PROMISES PARDON
A. The guilt of sin affects each of us who
are of an accountable age before God.
1. We sin when we violate God’s law – 1
John 3:4.
2. We sin when we know to do good and do
not do it – James 4:17.
B. There is nothing you and I can do to
erase our sin.
1. We try to be righteous but Isaiah
said that our righteousness is like dirty rags in
The sight of God – Isaiah 64:6.
2. We have a debt we simply cannot pay.
We are like the servant pictured in a
parable told by Jesus in Matthew
18:23ff. A servant owed his master 10,000
talents. One talent was worth 6,000 denarii
(days wage). 10,000 talents would be
60 million denarii or 60 million
days wages. If you live to be 100 years old and
worked every day you would have
between 36 and 35 thousand denarii. There is
no way you could pay the debt.
C. In spite of our debt God offers to save
us through His Son. Acts 4:12 - “And
there
is salvation in no one else; for there
is no other name under heaven that has been
given among men by which we must be
saved.”
V. PERPETUATES LIFE
A. Return to John 20:31for a moment. What
was John’s purpose in writing? What is
the purpose for belief? Is it not, “that
you might have life in His name.”
1. The Bible was not written merely to
be “informational.” It was inspired by the Holy
Spirit to be “transformational.”
2. The purpose of Scripture is to lead
us to Christ who is the source of eternal life.
B. A Christian, a Muslim and a Hindu were
talking about their different faiths. The
Muslim and Hindu both pictured God atop
a high mountain and man in a valley
below. The Muslim said it was man’s duty
to climb toward God by engaging in
keeping law and perpetuating the Muslim
faith. The Hindu said it was man’s duty to
climb the mountain to God through denial
of the flesh and reshaping the mind. The
Christian then asked, “What if God came
down from the mountain and lived among
us in the valley? What if He offered us
salvation not on the basis of what we have
done but because of what He has done?”
Both the Moslem and Hindu said, “that
would be good news.” They are right.
That is the Gospel!
CONCLUSION:
A.
Remember, belief forms your values and your values determine your actions.
1. I invite you to believe in one who love
you.
2. I invite you to believe in one who calls
on you to love others - not just your
neighbor but also you enemy as well.
3. I
invite you to believe in one who offers abundant life.
B. If
we may serve you today we invite you to come as we sing.
