Do you sit there and memorize movies? TV Shows? How about Commercial Jingles?

How about Scripture.

“For God __ __________ ___ ______...”

“God has not ¬¬¬¬__________ ____ __ _________ of fear…”

“You are ¬¬¬¬___________ ___ ________ ____________ faith.”

Good!!!! You know your Scripture!

Today, we are looking at Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:11-12; Luke 4:1-13

If we remember Jesus had just been baptized. He was approved and affirmed by the God the Father as His Son. And we pick up with Him headed to the wilderness. Matthew 4:1- 3

Jesus has just come from the heavens opening and God telling everyone… Matthew 3:17

Jesus was led by the Spirit to the place that a show down was going to take place.

He was created by Jesus. John 1:1-4

Matthew Henry’s Commentary points out that Jesus wasn’t tempted by just any demon nor a group of Satan’s best minions but by Satan himself.

This was Satan’s great opportunity to bring down the Son.

But not having any faults to worry about, Jesus was not led as a common man to give it His best shot. He was led as a champion heading into the ring. Matthew 4:4-11

Jesus finishes with the 1-2-3 knock out. But what did He stand on? Scripture!

Jesus used the Word of God to defeat Satan.

How about this, can you defend these statements?

“Chill out with the Bible thumping, God likes us to do things in moderation.” Revelation 3:16

“When God tempts you, it’s okay to get mad at Him. He will understand.” James 1:13-14

“God will never forgive what you just did don’t bother asking forgiveness!” Matthew 12:31; 1 John 1:9

Look at that! We overcame mediocrity, temptation, anger and fear, doubt and possible depression. And we used Scripture to help us!

That is the model that Jesus gave us! We need to learn the Scriptures.

The only way we can do that is by spending time in God’s word.

I want to talk today about “precious moments.”

So often those precious moments are brief, yet powerful moments in our lives.

What about “God Experiences”?

Do you remember the moment you received Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?

What about the day you decided to be baptized? What about all the answers to prayer that you have received?

How often we have these monumental God moments and we think to ourselves, “There is no way that I will ever forget this day!”

We take all the mental pictures of the moment and put them in our mental photo albums and then were to we place them? On a shelf, only to be remembered when we stumble upon them.

The Gospels have recorded for us the “precious moment” of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:29-34

And as you study it, there are some amazing revelations that can escape us if we are not careful and I will let you go find those for yourself.

Matthew 3:13-17 Here we have this precious moment where God reveals Himself in the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I want you to catch this. Luke 1:39-41

John the Baptist was not a foreigner to the work of the Holy Spirit!

John 1:30 John had a Holy Spirit encounter in the womb that was later repeated when Jesus approached.

John knew, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that same power that filled John’s mother Elizabeth when Mary greeted her, that Jesus was the Messiah as he exclaimed those words: John 1:29

John’s heart had to have skipped a beat as Jesus approached! As they exchanged words… He saw the Spirit descend like a dove! He heard the voice of God! But sadly, we will later read that John sent his disciples to confirm that Jesus was the Messiah. Did he forget that “precious moment?

Have you forgotten “your precious God moment”? Have you forgotten what it felt like when your heart skipped that beat when your spirit saw Jesus approaching you?

Do you remember the day when God confirmed His covenant in your heart, that whoever believes in Jesus and receives Him as their Lord and Savior.

When is the last time that you pulled that photo album off the shelf? Give your life over to Jesus today.

Today we serve a risen King! The King of glory!

There are many religions that say that they acknowledge Christ but how? Who is Jesus to them?

We have heard over and over that Christianity is the only faith that serves a risen Savior.

Let’s look at a few other religions.

Because when many of them speak the name Jesus, they are not speaking about Him in the same capacity we are. We need to understand that!

We will look at 4 areas: When they were founded and by whom; Who is Jesus to their faith; How is one saved; What happens upon death

Matthew 28:5-10

That is a big deal folks!

Today we celebrate a risen Savior. We celebrate that God’s one and only Son stepped down out of glory from His place in heaven and came to this earth and lived and died, but was resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God made it easy for us to come to Him! Jesus paid the horrible price for us!

All we have to do is believe that He did so and that He has risen these 3 days later!

What’s the point of it all if we don’t? 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Today we celebrate an awesome God!

One who lived for us!

One who lived with us!

He was tried like us!

But He never sinned like us!

He went to the cross for us!

And He died for us!

He overcame death for us!

And now He has gone and is preparing a place for us!

He sent His Comforter to us!

And He has promised to return for us!

Today is Palm Sunday. Today we will look at Jesus’ entry on a donkey that preceded His death on the cross.

Matthew 21:1 – 27:56; Mark 11:1 – 14:52; Luke 19:28- 22:53; John 12:12-18:11

This week before His crucifixion is referred to as the “Passion” week.

What did your Messiah do and say? How did your Messiah act? Who did your Messiah surround Himself with?

I say, “your” Messiah on purpose because I don’t want the weight of this moment to be brushed aside. I don’t want the generality of “our” Messiah, to be mistaken that He did something for others and not for “you” specifically!

Jesus knew the cost of doing what we are going read today and where that would lead…

And He still did it… And He did it for “you”!

We are going to read today from the 4 Gospels. Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11;

There are similar recordings but there are also additional details given in others.

This does not discredit the accounts given, but it adds a fuller picture of what is taking place.

Jesus who has walked everywhere, decides to enter back into Jerusalem in the manner that fulfills the prophecy given by Zechariah. Zechariah 9:9

He is riding into the final battle scene of His life in much the same fashion as He came into this world… devoid of any possessions, with the exception of what He was wearing.

This was a march of death that He did for our sakes!

Jesus entered life in humbleness and now we see Him march into death in humbleness.

Luke 19:28-44

Jesus is telling the religious leaders that something monumental is taking place!

If they don’t praise Me for what is taking place, the very stones of the earth would shout for the coming Messiah.

John 12:12 – 19 How fitting that God so loved the world that He sent His one and Only Son and that in this statement the Pharisees confirmed that the mission had been accomplished?

When Jesus mounted up on that colt, He mounted Himself on that cross for you and for me!

We are going to be taking a look at the words of Jesus for the next little bit as we travel through the Red Letters of Scripture.

Only 1 of the 4 Gospel writers was inspired to share a moment in time of Jesus’ adolescence with us.

But that there is such tremendous significance to be found within it. Luke 2:41-50

Here we have a record that gives us a glimpse into the life of Jesus, growing up.

Luke 2:41-42

Jesus is recorded as being 12. He is almost a “man” according to Jewish customs.

Luke 2:43-45

You see, Jesus is coming into His own, if you will.

He stayed behind.

And we see that they were “seeking Him.”

Luke 2:46-48

They looked everywhere! They sought Him anxiously! Where did they think Jesus would be hanging out? Where did they search first?

How often do we have this discussion with Jesus?

“why have You done this to me? … I have sought You anxiously.”

How often do we blame Him when we are the ones who have wandered off and not made sure He was with us?

We were the ones who wandered away and yet we say, “why have You done this to us?”

His response is the same for us today as it was for Mary and Joseph.

You had to seek me? You should have known where I was.

49 And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

If you have wandered from Jesus you can find Him again, today.

If you have been blaming Jesus for things in your life that He really isn’t responsible for, ask Him to forgive you today!

Forgiveness is His Father’s business.

Gideons International presents their ministry to Cornerstone Church.

The Book of James instructs us that we need to shine our lights.

I want you to keep in mind that this book was written by the half-brother of Jesus Christ.

In fact, James was a part of the family that said that Jesus was out of His mind. Mark 3:20-21; Mark 3:31-35; John 7:2-5

It is crazy to think that you could live with the Light not knowing who Jesus truly was until He showed Himself to you after His resurrection as recorded in Acts and 1 Corinthians.

James commands us to shine the light!

James is telling us that it’s not enough to believe in Jesus, his brother, unless that belief brings about action. And he is talking to Christians… James 2:14-19

Unless your faith causes you to act, there is no value in it. The implication is that you don’t truly have faith in Christ.

You have to shine the light. Otherwise, you are simply providing lip service.

James 2:21-24 James used the patriarch of the Jewish faith, Abraham as an example.

And then providing a second example of a much less desirable sort. James 2:25-26

So what does a lifestyle of shining our light for Christ look like?

We’ve been told that we can’t just claim to believe and sit back and do nothing.

Even the thief on the cross did something after professing his faith in Christ. He chastised the other thief. He was not saved by this action of chastisement, but it was because of his faith (which saved him) that he was moved to speak out!

We are not saved by works. God saved us so that we would do good works that He already planned for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10

Matthew Henry’s Commentary states that if our lives are compared to that of a plant, “Faith is the root,” and “good works is the fruit produced.” Colossians 1:9-11; Psalm 119:105

Yet another implication that your faith is moving you along.

We can’t change lives if we are not Shining the Light in our daily lives.

John 3:19-21 We know that Christ came into this world as a light for all to see.

We know that we need to seek out God with all that we have. We need to seek His truth. And when we find it we rest in that truth. Matthew 11:28-30

How do you Be the Light? You turn to the Light. You must repent of your sins and acknowledge who Jesus is and what He has done and surrender to Him. Romans 10:9-13

How do we “Be” the Light? We have to accept the Light, Christ Jesus, and receive Him into our hearts.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Why do we want to “be” a light to others? Philippians 3:8-14

Christ came to die for us. We must imitate and die to ourselves be willing to die for others. Galatians 2:20

How do we “Be the Light”? We allow Jesus, the Light, to live in and through us!

We have to make a conscious effort put on Christ. Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:26-27

We need to do the things He did. 1 Peter 2:21-25

Are we being like Christ, who pointed everything He did back to God?

1 Corinthians 11:1 Are we an extension of Christ to the world? Are we a light to the world? Ephesians 5:8-9

We can “Be” the light for others!

We just have to believe that we are worthy to make such a statement!

Elder Mark talks about how we were created to praise and worship God. At what point do we start worshipping in our own personal lives? Job was a blameless and upright man. He feared God and shunned evil and "there was no one on earth like him." but he fell into the trap of satan for a time and into such dispair that he began to push God away. Job came to realize and accept that he was not perfect and that he had to relinquish control of his life to God because God's plan is perfect even though he didn't know what that was. Job had to surrender without any knowledge of where God was going to take him.

Until we can surrender control of our own lives, we cannot truly worship God. Our attempt at control will hold us back.

Find the Light / Be the Light / Shine the Light

Find the Light

March 5, 2017

Welcome

What does that look like?

Matthew 6:22-23 We look at that and say, “OK! That makes sense.”

If my eye is good… my lamp, or light, is good. If my eye is bad… my lamp, or light is bad.

Matthew 6:23 If you think that you are all good when you are actually bad, what is bad to you?

Are we all in for God or are we allowing a little bit of Satan into our lives?

We need to understand that there are only 2 choices in this life. Living for God, who is the Light. Or living for Satan.

Acts 17:27-30 God wants us coming back to Him

Let me ask you this, if 3 billionaires told you that they would teach you the secret to making money, and all you had to do was listen and believe and do… I mean, that it was a sure fire way that you would guaranteed make billions as well, would you listen? Matthew 3:1-2; Matthew 4:17; Acts 2:38

We need to be looking for the Light! We need to find the Light!

2 Corinthians 6:14b – 15a The answer is that it can’t. 1 John 1:5-8

We are called to make a choice! Do we walk in His light? Or do we stick with darkness? John 3:19-21

Did you catch that? Did you see it? John 3:20 How do we find the light? We seek it out!

Deuteronomy 4:29b; Isaiah 55:6; John 5:19-20; Psalm 73:25; Matthew 7:7-8; Matthew 6:33

How shall we come before Him? James 4:7-8; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; Hebrews 10:19-22

How do we find the Light? We seek Him out and once we find Him, we spend time with Him. We learn His ways. We die to ourselves and actively try to become who He created us to be.The awesome thing about finding the Light, is that He wants to be found!

Seek God this week! Find the Light!

And once you do… Stay there… Stay in His presence! Become like Him!