Monday, November 19, 2007
How To Make Your Life Count
The most popular word for Christians in the Bible is SAINTS.
from the greek word Agonizomai... sanctified
Do you feel like a saint?
Saints? Like James and John?
I am like James and John Lord, I size up other people in terms of what they can do for me; how they can further my programs, feed my ego, satisfy my needs, give me strategic advantage.
I exploit people, for your sake, but really for my own sake.
Lord, I turn to you to get the inside track and obtain special favours, your direction for my schemes, your power for my projects, your sanction for my ambitions, your blank check for whatever I want
I am like James and John. Change me, Lord Make me a man who asks of you and of others, what can I do for you? – Robert A. Raines
We are often more like Plaster saints.
You know, Lord, how I serve you with great emotional fervour in the limelight You know how eagerly I speak for you at a women’s club You know how I effervesce when I promote a fellowship group You know my genuine enthusiasm at a Bible study. But how would I react, I wonder if you pointed to a basin of water And asked me to wash the calloused feet of a bent and wrinkled old woman day after day month after month In a room where nobody saw and nobody knew. – Ruth Harms Cullim
There is sin that adheres to even our most sacred duties! We don't much feel like saints.
Romans 6 gives us God's way of making us saintly.
1. THERE IS SOMETHING TO REALISE.
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
You need to realise that you are dead.
We are talking here tonight about the mystical union between the the Lord Jesus Christ and His people.
Baptism is like a wedding ring; just as a wedding ring symbolises that a person is married, so baptism symbolises our union with Christ.
Baptism symbolises death and resurrection.
It symbolises your death and resurrection with the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have died with Chris to sin.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2. YOU NEED TO RECOGNISE YOU ARE DEADRomans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
logizomai .. an accounting term. Do the sums. If you are untired to Christ, then you have died to sin. Reckon it to be so. When temptation comes a calling tell it there's no one home, the person that was there that responded to temptation is now dead. Reckon that this is so for yourself.
3. YOU NEED TO RESIST SINRomans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Take responsibility for your sins.
So often we make the excuse that we were born this way! This is our psychological makeup. And so there is no hope of us ever changing. We have made chanins for ourselves to our sins.
The angry eprson says, "well this is just the way I am. I can't do anything about, I'll just have to love with this the way I am." What a cop out! This person is refusing to take responsibility for their sins.
The depressive person who likes to enjoy their depression says to themselves, "Well this is just the way I am. I am a depressed person. I will just have to live with it!" Again, this is a cop out! This person is running from their responsibility for their sins, and as a result is leaving themselves chained to their sins.
And they don't need to. They can leave those sins behind.
4. THERE IS SOMETHING TO RELINQUISH
Romans 6:13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Whose slave are you? you have a choice. you can be yielded to sin or to God. Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody"
"instruments" = weapons
Whose stockpile of weaponry are you contributing to?
Consider the outcomes. Death!
But aren't Christians saved from death?
Yes. The atoning death of the Lord Jesus cleanses us from all sins. 1John 1:7
But tehre is still death is sin.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
is primarily written to Christians.
We like to use this verse evangelistically, but its for Christians. Paul is saying that when you as a christian give yourself up to some sin, you give yourself up to some elements of death.
Consider: if you give yourself up to selfishness, there will be death in relationships.
If you give yourself up to self pity there wll be death in some of your friendships.
And thre will be a diminishing in your fellowship with the Lord.
You have a choice.. to serve sin resulting in all sorts of death in your life , or to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ with all sorts of life in your life.
When you relinishuish, make it a wholehearted surrender of all that you are to the
Lord Jesus Christ.
There are 4 answers for the saint who feels like an aint.
Realise
Recognise
Resist
Relinquish.
The Tour de France is the world's biggest cycling race. It is a 22-day, 20-stage road race that is usually run over more than 3000km. It is a circuit of most areas around France and, sometimes, neighbouring countries. The race is broken into stages from one town to another, each of which is an individual race. The time taken to complete each stage becomes a cumulative total to decide the outright winner at the end of the Tour.
In 1989 the organizers returned to holding a time trial as the final stage. In it, Greg LeMond of the United States overtook the Frenchman Laurent Fignon, who held a 50-second lead, to win by eight seconds, the closest margin in the Tour's history.
Disaster struck LeMond while turkey hunting in California, April 20, 1987, when his brother-in-law accidentally discharged his shotgun, striking LeMond in the back just over two months before the 1987 Tour de France was to begin. LeMond missed the following two Tours while recovering, also undergoing surgery for appendicitis and for tendinitis in his leg.
At the 1989 Tour de France, with 37 shotgun pellets remaining in his body (including some in the lining of his heart), LeMond was hoping only to finish in the top 20. Heading into the final stage, however, an individual time trial finishing in Paris, LeMond was in second place overall. He was 50 seconds behind Laurent Fignon, who had won the Tour in 1983 and 1984. LeMond rode the time trial using then-novel aero bars, which gave him a significant aerodynamic advantage, to beat Fignon by 58 seconds to claim his second yellow jersey with a final victory margin of 8 seconds – the closest in the Tour's history. As LeMond danced in victory on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon sat and wept. Several days later, Fignon attributed his loss to saddle sores, which had hurt his performance. However, it was noted that Fignon had been overconfident on the last stages of the Tour, even congratulating LeMond on his second place, allowing LeMond to gain an advantage which proved decisive.
In hospital all he could think of was making his life count.
With the impediment of a couple of gunshot pellets near his heart, he still put in the effort to win and make his life count.
Will you make your life count for the Lord Jesus Christ?
from the greek word Agonizomai... sanctified
Do you feel like a saint?
Saints? Like James and John?
I am like James and John Lord, I size up other people in terms of what they can do for me; how they can further my programs, feed my ego, satisfy my needs, give me strategic advantage.
I exploit people, for your sake, but really for my own sake.
Lord, I turn to you to get the inside track and obtain special favours, your direction for my schemes, your power for my projects, your sanction for my ambitions, your blank check for whatever I want
I am like James and John. Change me, Lord Make me a man who asks of you and of others, what can I do for you? – Robert A. Raines
We are often more like Plaster saints.
You know, Lord, how I serve you with great emotional fervour in the limelight You know how eagerly I speak for you at a women’s club You know how I effervesce when I promote a fellowship group You know my genuine enthusiasm at a Bible study. But how would I react, I wonder if you pointed to a basin of water And asked me to wash the calloused feet of a bent and wrinkled old woman day after day month after month In a room where nobody saw and nobody knew. – Ruth Harms Cullim
There is sin that adheres to even our most sacred duties! We don't much feel like saints.
Romans 6 gives us God's way of making us saintly.
1. THERE IS SOMETHING TO REALISE.
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
You need to realise that you are dead.
We are talking here tonight about the mystical union between the the Lord Jesus Christ and His people.
Baptism is like a wedding ring; just as a wedding ring symbolises that a person is married, so baptism symbolises our union with Christ.
Baptism symbolises death and resurrection.
It symbolises your death and resurrection with the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have died with Chris to sin.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2. YOU NEED TO RECOGNISE YOU ARE DEADRomans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
logizomai .. an accounting term. Do the sums. If you are untired to Christ, then you have died to sin. Reckon it to be so. When temptation comes a calling tell it there's no one home, the person that was there that responded to temptation is now dead. Reckon that this is so for yourself.
3. YOU NEED TO RESIST SINRomans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Take responsibility for your sins.
So often we make the excuse that we were born this way! This is our psychological makeup. And so there is no hope of us ever changing. We have made chanins for ourselves to our sins.
The angry eprson says, "well this is just the way I am. I can't do anything about, I'll just have to love with this the way I am." What a cop out! This person is refusing to take responsibility for their sins.
The depressive person who likes to enjoy their depression says to themselves, "Well this is just the way I am. I am a depressed person. I will just have to live with it!" Again, this is a cop out! This person is running from their responsibility for their sins, and as a result is leaving themselves chained to their sins.
And they don't need to. They can leave those sins behind.
4. THERE IS SOMETHING TO RELINQUISH
Romans 6:13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Whose slave are you? you have a choice. you can be yielded to sin or to God. Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody"
"instruments" = weapons
Whose stockpile of weaponry are you contributing to?
Consider the outcomes. Death!
But aren't Christians saved from death?
Yes. The atoning death of the Lord Jesus cleanses us from all sins. 1John 1:7
But tehre is still death is sin.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
is primarily written to Christians.
We like to use this verse evangelistically, but its for Christians. Paul is saying that when you as a christian give yourself up to some sin, you give yourself up to some elements of death.
Consider: if you give yourself up to selfishness, there will be death in relationships.
If you give yourself up to self pity there wll be death in some of your friendships.
And thre will be a diminishing in your fellowship with the Lord.
You have a choice.. to serve sin resulting in all sorts of death in your life , or to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ with all sorts of life in your life.
When you relinishuish, make it a wholehearted surrender of all that you are to the
Lord Jesus Christ.
There are 4 answers for the saint who feels like an aint.
Realise
Recognise
Resist
Relinquish.
The Tour de France is the world's biggest cycling race. It is a 22-day, 20-stage road race that is usually run over more than 3000km. It is a circuit of most areas around France and, sometimes, neighbouring countries. The race is broken into stages from one town to another, each of which is an individual race. The time taken to complete each stage becomes a cumulative total to decide the outright winner at the end of the Tour.
In 1989 the organizers returned to holding a time trial as the final stage. In it, Greg LeMond of the United States overtook the Frenchman Laurent Fignon, who held a 50-second lead, to win by eight seconds, the closest margin in the Tour's history.
Disaster struck LeMond while turkey hunting in California, April 20, 1987, when his brother-in-law accidentally discharged his shotgun, striking LeMond in the back just over two months before the 1987 Tour de France was to begin. LeMond missed the following two Tours while recovering, also undergoing surgery for appendicitis and for tendinitis in his leg.
At the 1989 Tour de France, with 37 shotgun pellets remaining in his body (including some in the lining of his heart), LeMond was hoping only to finish in the top 20. Heading into the final stage, however, an individual time trial finishing in Paris, LeMond was in second place overall. He was 50 seconds behind Laurent Fignon, who had won the Tour in 1983 and 1984. LeMond rode the time trial using then-novel aero bars, which gave him a significant aerodynamic advantage, to beat Fignon by 58 seconds to claim his second yellow jersey with a final victory margin of 8 seconds – the closest in the Tour's history. As LeMond danced in victory on the Champs-Élysées, Fignon sat and wept. Several days later, Fignon attributed his loss to saddle sores, which had hurt his performance. However, it was noted that Fignon had been overconfident on the last stages of the Tour, even congratulating LeMond on his second place, allowing LeMond to gain an advantage which proved decisive.
In hospital all he could think of was making his life count.
With the impediment of a couple of gunshot pellets near his heart, he still put in the effort to win and make his life count.
Will you make your life count for the Lord Jesus Christ?
# posted by Groseys messages @ 9:08 AM 
