Jesus Came as The Light

 

When I was growing up, I had a hero. It was my cousin. He was a lot older than me & he was a great football & baseball player. He was an all-American in college in both football & baseball & he played major league baseball. I wanted to be like him. I believe that we all want a hero. We want someone to be an example for us, a person who embodies all the qualities that are good & noble.

 

In John 1:9-13 we see a hero, Jesus, as He comes into the world.

 

Verse 9 says, “The true light, which gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

 

Jesus came as the true light which was giving light to everyone in the world. In 1 John 1:7 we are told that if we walk in the light that we will have fellowship with one another & the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all sin. Jesus is the light & as we surrender ourselves to Jesus, He as the light gives us fellowship & cleansing from sin.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about walking in the light that is Jesus & having fellowship with Him & others & being cleansed from our sin.

 

Verse 10 says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.”

 

Jesus is not only the light He is also the creator of all creation. He came into the world as one of us, a human. The world, however, did not know Him. The world did not know Him because He did not come as one of the elites, an emperor or king or prince. He came as an ordinary human being.  

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that Jesus is the Creator & He came into the world as an ordinary human being for us.

 

Verse 11 says, “He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him.”

 

Jesus was not received as the Savior by the Jewish people. Even more, the people of His hometown of Nazareth did not receive as the Savior. The world today does not receive Jesus as Savior or Lord. The world seeks after the things that they think will bring joy, hope, security, & purpose. The problem is that the things the world seeks after cannot bring those things, only Jesus can.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about receiving Jesus as the Savior & the Lord.

 

Verse 12 says, “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to be children of God.”

 

Jesus & only Jesus gives us the right to become children of God. We are not natural born children of God. We have to become supernaturally born or born-again children of God.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about receiving Jesus as Savior & Lord & becoming God’s children.

 

Verse 13 says, “Who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

 

Salvation & becoming children of God does not come through being physically born or through effort of human authority or through human effort, but only from the will of God by the death & resurrection of Jesus. I hear the phrase, “You can do anything you set your mind to do,” or “If you can dream it, you can be it.” There are some things that we as human beings cannot do, & the number one thing we cannot do is save ourselves. Only Jesus can bring us salvation.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about trusting Jesus & Jesus alone to bring us salvation.

 

Jesus is not only our Savior & Lord, but He also needs to be the reason for us to live & the model for how we live. We must walk in Jesus, the Light of the world.

 

Raising the Roof & Removing the Walls,

Joe

What We Must Do Love!

 

In Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus says that we are love God with all that we are & we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In Matthew 5:43-44 Jesus clarifies that if our neighbor is our enemy or someone who tries to persecute us, we are still to love them & pray for them. In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus says that we are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, & visit the sick & imprisoned. The two things that characterized the early church & need to characterize the church today are an overwhelming love for & devotion to Jesus & love for others.

 

When Christianity first arose, it was not considered a religion but was seen as a nonreligion. The early disciples of Jesus were considered atheists because when they were asked, “Where is your temple?”, the disciples would answer, “We don’t have a temple”. When they were asked where their priest served, they would say they had no priests. When they were asked where they made their sacrifices, they said they did not offer sacrifices.

 

Jesus Himself is the temple to end all temples & Jesus Himself is our high priest that was superior to any other priests & Jesus Himself is the perfect sacrifice that supersedes any other sacrifice.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about loving Jesus above anything or anyone else & being fully devoted to Jesus as our Savior & Lord.

 

Jesus loved people.

He loved lepers who were social outcasts.

He loved the lame & the blind who were burdens to society.

He loved women who were marginalized.

He loved slaves who were disenfranchised.

He loved children who were vulnerable & overlooked.

He loved immoral people who were religious outcasts.

He loved Samarians & Gentiles who were racial & ethnic outcasts.

 

Jesus loved people who were wealthy & well to do & people who were poor & broken. Jesus loved them because they were all His creation & all shared the same need to be delivered from sin & they could not do it themselves. The early disciples loved people as Jesus loved people & God used that love to change the world. If we now as disciples are going to be used by God to change the world, we will love people like Jesus loves people.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about loving people as Jesus loves people.

 

The mission of the church in the first century was to take the gospel of the grace of Jesus to the world. They did it through loving Jesus & being devoted to Him completely as Savior & Lord & loving others as Jesus loved them. We have the same mission of take the gospel of the grace of Jesus to the world & we must do it with the same priorities of loving Jesus & loving others. We must be different than those who are living based on worldly values or people committed to religious rituals & traditions. We must live out the reality of Jesus living in us.

 

Raising the Roof & Removing the Walls,

Joe

Jesus Understands

 

Over the years as a pastor many people came to me and shared some very difficult things. Some of those things I could identify with and others I could not. I was very careful not to say to those people who were going through things that I could not identify with that I knew how they were feeling. I didn’t say that because it was not true. I had compassion for their hurt but I did not have the slightest idea what they were feeling. One of the most awesome things about Jesus is that He can identify with everything in our lives.

 

Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus went through every struggle and faced every temptation that we do. He understands our weaknesses, He experienced every struggle, and He was tempted with every sin that we have been tempted with and yet He did not sin. So, when we struggle with our weaknesses and our temptations, He understands our struggles and our feelings because He had them too. But, because He overcame them, He can give us the power through Himself to overcome them.    

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about knowing that Jesus faced every struggle and every temptation that we do and He overcame them all and did not sin and gives us the power through Him to overcome our struggles and temptations.

 

Hebrews 2:18 says, “For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Jesus did not just breeze through His temptations. When He faced temptations, they were hard and painful to Him. We face temptations and we struggle with giving in to them or trusting God and turning to Him. They cause us suffering. Jesus, because He experienced that also, understands what we are going through and can help us. It is comforting and enabling to know that, as we face temptations and struggle with them, Jesus knows the suffering we are experiencing and is there with us to help us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about knowing that as Jesus faced temptations, He suffered as He overcame them and is with us and gives us the power to not allow the temptations to lead to sin.

 

Hebrews 2:10 says, “For it is fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The word perfect here means to be complete. Jesus was perfect from His birth through His death and resurrection, so He needed nothing else to be perfect. He was sinless and never did anything that was not according to the Father’s will. Jesus understands our weaknesses, He was human and identifies with our temptations because He was also tempted. But Jesus had never sinned. He could not identify with our sin until the cross. Jesus became our sin on the cross. He became guilty of every sin that every person who had ever lived and those who would live would commit.  2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that God the Father made Jesus who had never sinned to be guilty our sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. Jesus became complete because now He had experienced the penalty of sin, separation from the Father, and He now knew from a human perspective what sin was.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about Jesus suffering and dying on the cross for our sin so that we could become the righteousness of God and receive salvation.

 

With Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                      Joe

Old Covenant and New Covenant

 

The word covenant means a binding agreement between a superior and an inferior. In the Old Testament we see several covenants that God makes with individuals like Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and David. God also makes a covenant with a nation, His people, Israel.

 

In Exodus 24 this covenant is confirmed with Israel. Verse 8 says, “And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’”

 

This covenant was confirmed with blood, the blood of animal sacrifices. These animal sacrifices had to be made over and over and the covenant was based on the people obeying all the law that was given to them by God. The purpose of the law was to show God’s people that His standard was more than they could do and for them to look to Him to provide a deliverer to deliver them. But instead of the law leading them to see their sin and failure, they used it as a means of pride and found ways to justify their disobedience. The law then became a burden and a stumbling block to God’s people.

 

Jesus, the Son of God, God in the flesh came to be our deliverer.

 

In Matthew 26:26-29 Jesus is celebrating the Passover with His disciples. In verses 27-28 Jesus takes one of the cups or blessings in the Passover meal, the cup of redemption and says, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

 

Jesus establishes a new covenant not based on the blood of animals, but on His own blood, the blood of God in the flesh.

Jesus establishes a new covenant not based on the law but on grace through faith in His finished work on the cross.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about experiencing the new covenant based in the blood Jesus shed as He died on the cross for our sins.

 

In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” The Law was given by God and thus it was good. But the Law could not justify us or make us righteous. Jesus came as the fulfillment of the law by living a perfect sinless life that obeyed all of God the Father’s commands. So, we depend not on our ability to obey all God’s commands but on Jesus having done that and being the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about depending on Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law and the giving of His life as our perfect sacrifice for sin.

 

In Hebrews 8:7-12 the writer points out why the new covenant established in Jesus is better than the old covenant.

 

The old covenant had faults, but the new covenant is faultless.

The old covenant was exterior, but the new covenant is interior.

The old covenant did not lead the people to know God, but the new covenant enables an intimate relationship with God.

The old covenant temporarily dealt with sin, but the new covenant deals with sin eternally.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about experiencing the superior covenant, the new one based in Jesus and His shed blood.

 

The choice is very clear; depending on a covenant based in keeping the law perfectly or depending on a covenant based in grace through Jesus’ death on the cross where He has fulfilled the Law perfectly.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls,

                         Joe