FREEDOM AND FULFILMENT

“JESUS is perfect theology” is one of my favourite quotes from Bill Johnson, Pastor of Bethel in Redding, California.

Jesus worked as a village carpenter until he began his ministry at the age of 30. He became an itinerant preacher. 

Everywhere he went, he healed the sick and cast out demons. 

• Everywhere his challenging words and his amazing miracles restored broken lives but provoked the indignation of religious leaders. So it is today when men and women of faith dare to believe God and release the miracle power of God. Little has changed.

Acts 10:38 (NASB)   "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. 

Jesus was prepared to be misunderstood and hated by religious leaders because he loved people. 

• Some people today are strangely offended by extreme miracles. If God uses a ministry to heal cancer patients and make blind people see, there are always many people who quote the Bible and attack the ministry.

What does God want? 

• First of all, he wants to save you from hell, forgive your sins and give you eternal life.

Jn 3:16 (NASB)  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

So many of us stop there. We want people to be converted and we hope they will join our church. 

But Jesus had a much higher aim. 

• There were some Jews who, according to our standards, were already converted but Jesus did not comfort them but provoked them with a tough challenge.

Jn 8:31 (HCSB)  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

Jesus was not satisfied with converts. He wanted disciples.

We have so many shallow believers today because we just look for people who will say YES to a preacher. 

Jesus wants followers, people who will live as he lived, knowing God for themselves in a deep personal way.

Jesus spent much time alone with the Heavenly Father. Although he himself was God, he lived as a man and he needed guidance from the Spirit of his Father. He talked to God and God talked to him.

So it is with us. Christians who change the world talk to God and God talks to them. 

• This is not a special gift to chosen Christian leaders but the will of God for you and me.

Jn 10:27 (NASB)  "MY SHEEP HEAR MY VOICE, AND I KNOW THEM, AND THEY FOLLOW ME;

• and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 

PARTNERSHIP WITH GOD

Ro 8:26-27 (CJB)  Similarly, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we don’t know how to pray the way we should.

• But the Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with groanings too deep for words; 
• and the one who searches hearts knows exactly what the Spirit is thinking, because his pleadings for God’s people accord with God’s will. 

It is so important that we recognise the limitations of our human nature.

• As a man I am only a very imperfect part of a pitifully fallen creation.

• As a man, I can make a great effort to resist the corruption of this world but the results will always fall far short of the goodness of God.

• As a man I cannot save the people around me because I myself need to be saved.

Jesus said to His chosen Apostles:

"Yes, I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in me and I in him shall produce a large crop of fruit. For apart from me you can’t do a thing. Jn 15:5 (TLB)  

The Apostle Paul reminds us:

...And what do you have that you did not receive? ...1 Corinthians 4:7 (NKJV) 

God created you to enjoy a close personal relationship with himself.

• He loves you completely. His love for you is so warm and tender. 

If you have not experienced the warmth and tenderness of His love, you have hardly begun to understand who Jesus is, no matter how much Bible knowledge you might have.

• He wants you to experience the comfort and security of this deep love every hour of your life on earth.

1Jn 4:16 (TLB)  We know how much God loves us because we have felt his love and because we believe him when he tells us that he loves us dearly. God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. 

Some will protest that the love of God is not just feeling. That is true but if we do not experience and feel the love of God, we are like men and women who are alive but blind and deaf.

• We are called to be partners of Jesus in expressing the love of God on earth, to make His love known, to let His love be seen and felt but those who don’t know Him at all.

1Jn 4:10 (NIV)  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

We can only live in God’s love by receiving and experiencing His love and presence in our lives. 

Someone will probably accuse me of preaching a sweet feeling Gospel. 

Love I practical. Love looks like something. 

• The next step is to choose to love our fellow believers, ALL our fellow believers, Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal and Evangelical. 

1Jn 3:16 (TLB)  We know what real love is from Christ’s example in dying for us. And so we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian brothers.

• 1Jn 4:11 (NIV)  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

You may try to define who can and cannot be saved by measuring other believers against the doctrine of your denomination but does God judge this way? 

Are you an Evangelical Christian? Do you love suffering men and women like Mother Teresa?

• Are you a Roman Catholic? Do feed on the Holy Scriptures as you daily bread?
• Are you a Pentecostal Christian? Do you personally study the Scriptures for yourself with the diligence of a Baptist or a devout Jew?

Romans 14:4 (NKJV)  Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

• Jn 13:35 (NKJV)  By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." 

Am I suggesting that all Roman Catholics are born again believers? No, I am not.

• However I believe there are also many Baptists and Pentecostals who are not ready for heaven.

God is calling us to live in partnership with His HOLY Spirit, loving Him, loving one another and loving a lost world with His love working in us.

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

"Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbour, Pressing him to your bottle, 

Even to make him drunk, That you may look on his (or her) nakedness! Habakkuk 2:15 (NKJV) 

In this chapter we also see the most horrible sin dominating the world in the darkest of times.

• It speaks of evil men using violent coercion and alcohol (or drugs) to sexually abuse powerless victims (male or female). 

  • In today’s world rape, kidnapping and trading slaves for prostitution is out of control. It is a huge global industry.

Liberal humanist governments have legalised prostitution in many countries, hoping this will prevent and help control violent criminal sexual abuse but such laws has often have often produced the opposite result.

The democratic freedom we rightly value comes from Western Europe, Britain and former British colonies. These are the countries where the Bible once had a profound influence on culture.

• It is true that classical Greece was pagan but that country only gave democratic rights to the male citizens, who were a privileged class ruling over women and slaves.

• It is also true that the French Revolution also proclaimed faith in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. However the French Revolution was the scene of the most depraved mass slaughters, horrific wars and an epidemic of arbitrary executions.

Liberal democracy is only fully effective when there is a measure of respect for Biblical truth and moral goodness.

• When the God of the Bible is ignored or despised, Western Society, once known as Christendom, falls to pieces. That is what we are seeing today.

• All Western Countries are sinking under a mountain of debt and moral confusion.

Habakkuk Chapter 2 vividly describes this chaos. However, in this chapter we also find the solution to the problem.

I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected. 

• Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

• For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

"Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith. Hab 2:1-4 (NKJV) 

In the traumatic End Times, faithful believers will seek personal encounters with the Living God of Israel and He will not disappoint us. 

• God will share profound and powerful truths with those who love Him and listen to Him.

When God gives you a message to share, don’t wait until your pastor invites you to preach on Sunday because it probably won’t happen. 

• God calls you to share His messages with the people around you, at home, at work, on the bus and on the Internet.

• But don’t just preach. Live by faith. In these difficult times, only a profoundly personal faith in God will get you through. 

  However, the End Time is not only a time of darkness.

• God will answer our heart cry for His presence in a way we have not yet seen or understood, although many of us are beginning to experience fresh revelations of His glory.

For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea. Hab 2:14 (NKJV) 

We see a similar message in Isaiah.

Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; 

But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. Isa 60:1 (NKJV) 

It is time for us to begin to see the glory of God in more dramatic abundance than ever before. 

• I believe we will see extreme miracles which will surpass the miracles of Moses and the Miracles worked by Jesus when He lived as a man.

Never before in history has the earth been FILLED with the KNOWLEDGE of the Glory of God but it will happen. 

• And it will happen in the midst of darkness and strife before Jesus returns.

A Time for Courage

Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' Isaiah 41:10 (NKJV) 

Many times in the Bible, God says to His people: “Fear not” or “Do not be afraid.”

• In some texts, God is telling His people their fears are imaginary, that there is nothing to be afraid of at all.

In Matthew 14, the disciples were in a boat in rough weather. When they saw Jesus walking on the water, they thought He was a ghost.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." Mt 14:27 (NKJV) 

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, he reassured her.

Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. Lk 1:30 (NKJV) 

God’s people have nothing to fear from supernatural manifestations of heavenly glory.

On the other hand, there are situations where we have real reasons to be afraid but God calls us not to be afraid anyway.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Mt 10:28 (NKJV) 

Here Jesus is saying Do Not Fear even though you face savage persecution and possible martyrdom. It is a call to courage and faith in God’s salvation. 

• It is also a warning to remember God’s punishment for cowardice.

God Is Love

As we read the Bible, we see again and again, that there are two essential aspects to the love of God. 

These are comfort and challenge.

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.  

Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." Mt 4:18-19 (NKJV)

What a blessing, to be invited to live full time with Jesus and to be given the power to get men and women saved, to rescue them from damnation! 

• But what a challenge to leave the security of a successful family fishing business and to live by faith in God’s daily provision!

I have a friend who was once a committed Muslim in Saudi Arabia. 

• Muslims have no assurance of salvation. They live in the hope that they might be good enough to escape hell fire. 

When George came to know Jesus, he had the comfort of knowing the God who really loved him as His dear son. 

Some Muslims desire such a personal relationship with God but their sacred writings offer no hope for such a fulfilment.

• But it was a challenge to be rejected and persecuted in his own country. It was a challenge to flee to Australia as a refugee.

God called him to study for a doctorate at an Australian university where there are a lot of Arab Muslim students. Not one of them escapes Georges personally targeted preaching of Jesus.

Once George spoke to an Arab Muslim missionary on campus, one of many militant Muslim missionaries sent around the world financed by oil rich Arabs.

“Why do you preach Islam?” asked my friend.
“Because I want to go to heaven,” replied the Muslim missionary.
“That is very selfish!” said George. “I know I have a home in heaven. I preach Jesus because I want OTHER PEOPLE to go to heaven.”

We have the comfort of knowing God has prepared a home for us in heaven.

We have the challenge or reaching others with the Good News of God’s kindness.