2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)
Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things
are become new.
I can remember the exact
moment that it happened for us, that we began associating the Christmas season
with a dark drive, car lights and rain.
We had just finished a
church service and were heading to Warranten, OR to look at Christmas lights.
· It was dark, as we crossed the bridge over Young’s Bay
· It was raining and
· It was crowded with cars
Anita and I had been
married five years by the time we spent our first Christmas in the ministry
together in Astoria.
From then on, whenever
the time change happened and it was dark and raining on our way to evening
church, we would tell each other, “It’s beginning to look a lot like
Christmas.”
Besides the time change,
there is something else that happens at the Christmas season of the year.
I don’t think it’s
magical or anything like that, but the change is palpable:
· Traffic gets heavier – I imagine with people shopping for
Christmas
· There are decorations going up – especially inside the
stores and on houses
· The music in public places changes – Christmas music is just
more pleasant to listen to than most of the junk called music anymore
Whether it is a
spiritual thing or not, I am pretty sure a case can be made that, when Jesus
came into this world – He changed everything.
He changed everything
for Mary and Joseph, didn’t He?
· He changed everything in the little town of Bethlehem.
· He changed the course of the Wise Men.
· He changed the plans of Herod.
Later,
· He changed the ministry of John the Baptist
· He changed the occupations of the 12 apostles
· He changed the lives of those He healed, gave sight to, cast
out devils and raised back to life
Christ has changed
everything in history
It is miraculous how a
poor man from a small, conquered country challenged the error of his own
religion and changed the course of every major nation for the next 2000 years.
Modern historians
attempt to pay down Christ’s influence by claiming that European history only
represents a small bit of all history for those 2000 years.
They say that it is
arrogant and ego-centric to view European/Christian history as the real picture
of world history just because it is the only history that was conscientiously
recorded.
I would just like to say
this – there is something to be said for the fact that they actually attempted
to record their history.
If the fact that they
were self aware enough to try to write down what they were doing, and the fact
that they did it successfully enough that it has survived over the histories
of:
· The Orientals
· The Africans and
· The Native Americans
I’m guessing that their
history is an important part in the whole of world history.
Those Christian influenced
Europeans in turn influenced every corner of the globe.
Find
· Any continent
· Any island or
· Any tongue
That somehow was not
touched by those Europeans who were somehow touched by Christianity.
· I’m not saying that everything they did was right.
· I’m not saying that they were even mostly real Christians
What I am saying is that
Christ touched Jerusalem and in turn changed the world.
The Apostle Paul said,
2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)
Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things
are become new.
Christ had certainly
changed his life.
He went from:
· Being a highly successful and powerful leader among the Jews
to
· Being persecuted by the Jews, challenged by the Christians,
hated by the pagans and yet, turning the world in his time upside down.
I believe we would be
well within Biblical truth to say that, when a person knows Jesus Christ, he
changes everything about our life.
Christ changes
I. HOW WE LIVE
Matthew 4:4 (KJV)
But he answered and
said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
One of the most
immediate things that happens to the Christian is that he gets a new “playbook”
for life.
Whatever it was that was
giving him directions before he got saved, after he is saved, the Bible takes
on a brand new role for him.
· It’s not just a religious book any more.
· It now is a line of communication with God.
Christians don’t view
the Bible as a book of philosophy. We see it as God talking to us.
· I knew about the Bible before I got saved.
· I had probably seen a Bible, I don’t remember, but
· I might have read a verse of the Bible.
I had nothing really
against the Bible before I got saved, it just meant nothing to me until I was
saved.
But I can tell you,
after I got saved, I wanted to know what the Bible said and I wanted to learn
to live how it taught me to live.
My first “sort of “
Bible, was a paperback copy of ‘Good News for Modern Man” someone gave me.
I didn’t have anyone to
teach me the Bible, I wasn’t attending church yet, but I did begin to read it.
A couple of years later
I was invited to attend an independent Baptist church that had just started the
Sunday before.
I already knew I wanted
the kind of Bible they used and Pastor Scudder offered to go along with me and
help me pick it out.
I got a leather bound
Thompson Chain Reference Bible, King James Version, and a small pocket sized
leather King James Bible I could take to work with me.
I was single in those
days would often often fall asleep at night with my Bible on my chest.
I’ve read some part of
the Bible almost every day of my life since December of 1979.
I cannot say that I
understand it all or that I always obey all of it that I do understand.
But I can say it has
changed how I live, the course of my life.
· It’s changed what I think about
· It’s changed how I react to circumstances
· It’s changed how I act as a husband
· It’s changed how I raised my children
· It’s changed, in my case, how I have earned my living
What I have discovered
over the years is that all of us, who are Christians, grow in our practice of
Bible teachings at different paces.
No one becomes a
Christian and immediately knows how to live just like the Bible teaches.
It’s a process.
And the process takes a
little longer for some of us and a little less time for some of us…
But if we are
Christians, the process is happening.
We are changing how we
live to match how the Bible teaches us to live.
Christ changes
II. WHY WE LIVE
Matthew 4:19 (KJV)
And he saith unto them,
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Peter, James, John and
Andrew were all fishermen, when Jesus called them
Matthew Levi was a tax
collector
Exactly what the others
had done for a living before meeting Christ is uncertain…
What we do know is that,
once they started following Jesus, he made them fishers of men – he taught them
to try to win others to the Christian faith.
Paul was likely the most
dramatic change in this regard.
Paul had been a Pharisee
and had taken charge of hunting down and persecuting Christians.
Then came that day he
met Jesus.
He asked Christ what he
wanted him to do.
Jesus’ answer was
Acts 9:15 (KJV)
… he is a chosen vessel
unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of
Israel:
And the Bible says, Acts
9:20 (KJV)
…straightway he preached
Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.
Paul spent the rest of
his life telling everyone, but especially the Gentiles, that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God.
· He planted churches
· He trained preachers and
· He wrote volumes meant to help people know Christ better
Paul might be a more
extreme example of the “why” Christians live, but it is not different for him
that any of us.
· We are called to be witnesses for Jesus Christ.
· We are called to glorify the Lord
· We are called to live for His pleasure
Christ changes how we
live
Christ changes why we
live
And then,
Christ changes
III. WHERE WE
WILL LIVE
John 14:1-3 (KJV)
Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are
many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a
place for you.
And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I
am, there ye may be also.
Jesus made the promise:
· I am going to go to my Father’s house
· I am going to prepare a mansion for you and
· I am going to come again that bring you there
You check out the rest
of the New Testament and you will see that this became the heartbeat of the
believers.
The men in white apparel
It had been 40 days
since Jesus had risen from the grave. Over those few weeks He had shown himself
alive on a number of occasions and to a number of people.
Here He was speaking
with His disciples and, as He spake, He was taken up from them, gradually
ascending into the sky until He could no longer be seen.
They were doing exactly
what I think we would all do – they stood there gazing up into the sky. In
disbelief of what had just happened.
Suddenly there appeared
to men, each in white apparel. Obviously angels who promised…
Acts 1:11 (KJV)
…. this same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen him go into heaven.
Stephen the deacon
Stephen was not one of
the original twelve.
There was nothing
special or unique about his, so far as we can tell, except that he was a man of
faith and filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
Stephen went about doing
exactly what all Christians are called to do… he told people about Jesus.
And he got into trouble
for it.
Those Pharisees got so
angry at him for preaching about Christ that they took him outside the city and
stoned him to death.
But just before he died
– the Bible says, Acts 7:55 (KJV)
But he, being full of
the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
Apostle Paul
Paul’s writings make up
the bulk of the New Testament so it is not surprising that he has the most to
say about this heavenly home of ours.
He says,
1 Corinthians 15:51-52
(KJV)
Behold, I shew you a
mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the
dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
He says,
Ephesians 2:6 (KJV)
And hath raised us up
together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
He says,
1 Thessalonians 4:13-17
(KJV)
But I would not have you
to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not,
even as others which have no hope.
For if we believe that
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God
bring with him.
For this we say unto you
by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of
the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
He says
Titus 2:12-13 (KJV)
Teaching us that,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly, in this present world;
Looking for that blessed
hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
And he says
2 Timothy 4:6-8 (KJV)
For I am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing.
Paul believed, preached
and lived the truth that “to be absent from the body” is to “be
present with the Lord.”[1]
Apostle Peter
Peter weighs in on this
subject of heaven when he writes,
1 Peter 1:3-4 (KJV)
Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead,
To an inheritance
incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for
you,
Apostle John
John survived longer
than any of the rest of the Apostles, probably by almost 30 years.[2]
1-3rd John
were written about 90 AD.
John had been living for
Christ for 60 years when he wrote,
1 John 3:1-2 (KJV)
Behold, what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of
God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we the
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
And of course, John
wrote the book of the Revelation, which is all about our eternity in heaven.
Christ changes
everything.
Conclusion
I got saved in April of
1977[3].
I was 19 years old
I cannot say it happened
over night – but I can say that, there has hardly been any aspect of my life
that has not been changed because I met Jesus Christ.
And I would not change
anything back to the way it was!
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