Man's Search for Messiah
Notes
Transcript
Why do french people eat snails? They dont like fast food
I tried to talk to Jennifer the other day whike she was applying a mud mask… you should have seen the filthy look she gave me.
There was a time many years ago when I had lost lots of weight very quickly and my wedding band kept falling from my finger and I would always grab it and put it back on, until one day I was sitting in the house and I realized it was no longer on my finger and I began to panic. And I know for some people its not a big deal, and its not that it was worth a lot of money, but to me it’s an outward sign of an inward change, look I am going there just like baptism… and so for me its important… it symbolizes one of the most important things in my life my covenant with my wife. So i freaked out a bit and I knew I had lost it after the gym that morning, and I was looking everywhere to try and find it and retrace my steps. Jennifer ordered me a knew ring, one in a size that would fit, and of course I found it about a week later in a load of laundry where my hand had gotten wet and cold it fell of in the clothes and I never knew it.
But we are living in a world where people are searching… This is what the entire world is looking for and what has been sold in so many different ways, in fact a search on amazon brings back over 20K books on the meaning of life. Today, it is sold mostly as needing to find happiness in ones self. We can’t be dependent upon others for our happiness or allow others to take us down so we have to look into what OUR truths are and how we can get that happiness inside of ourselves and then we have fulfilled the full mission in life.
For Islam the meaning of life is to worship Allah and follow his principles of spreading the prophets ways throughout the world. Which isn’t always pleasant and peaceful.
What we find though is if we are searching for meaning and purpose, and hope outside of Jesus we will ultimately find ourselves singing a song much like U2, and we still haven’t found what we’re looking for...
We are being more and more congnizent of life and death, especially after covid and today Jesus will really ask these people when you die, will you live… And Jesus is talking about the meaning of life and its purpose to these people in essence in today’s scripture.
21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Jesus leaves these people with four different problems in this story we need to look at...
I am Going away.
And here he is referring to his own death… and it was to that he was talking about, Jesus whole mission and purpose for coming into this world of ours was to live a sinless life and to die a death as a sacrifice that only he could live so that we could be made right for God and this is what he refers to when he says I am going away
He is wanting them to realize he won’t always be there with them and there is a greater purpose that he is going toward and I love that he wants to prepare them before that moment to know that it is coming.... and the next point he will kind of elaborate on that even more
You WIll seek me
and our search for life, or meaning in it fails this is what he is telling them in this moment. God has created us for life but we go looking for it in all the wrong places…
And he is telling us we try to find him and really we try to find the peace and joy that he offers, in so many things...
Some of us try to find that in money… we work and work and try to gather up more and more because we believe it will ultimately make us happier
Some people seek it in a companion…
Some seek it in their kids… they wrap all their happiness up in their children and live the life they wished they could live as a child vicariously through them and one day the child goes to live their own life...
Some seek it in a job…
And what we see is if we are searching for it in anything other than Jesus we will fall short...
and this is where I love the Jim Carey quote where he talks about getting everything you have ever wanted and then realizing your life is still not fulfilled… its because we are finding it in the wrong things.
.And what we realize is that all of our hope and happiness and joy is found in Jesus it all comes from him but we search for it in so many things,
You will die in your sin
The Bible tells us sin is rebellion against what God requires. Or has commanded us to do.. and he has written it inside of us and we have a conscious that can call us back to the right way of life. And we know that this doesn’t mean that we will live a perfect life and we will get it all right after we come to know Jesus. And the Bible tells us that, but we often use that as a crutch of an excuse to do things that we shouldn’t be doing, but this isn’t what God is looking for or wants out of us, he wants something much deeper and its all about heart change and what we feel when we do things wrong and how our heart has changed its desires.
THe Bible tells us though that God created us for life with him and to live and obey him and he does expect perfection and purity. And this is what so many people have a problem with and cannot wrap their minds around, they cannot believe that anyone would expect perfection and this is exactly what God calls for and I think we can wrap our minds around this because we would most all certainly expect perfection and purity when it comes to certain areas of our lives… for instance our food, we expect our food when we go out to a restaurant to be pure.
The help.
We would never say, well 90% of that pie is great so we can accept that, no we want it pure and perfect so our standard is the same when it comes to things like that so it is not unheard of to think we want something perfect and hold things to that kind of standard.
And God expects us to live a life that he has called us to live…
Notice he says you will die in your sin, I love what D.A. Carson points out here, “the singular sin refers to the particular sin of unbelief, of rejecting Jesus and the revelation he is and brings”
Their sin is they dont trust and believe that Jesus is teh messiah. And if we have been presented with the truth of Christ and have not accepted it, this is the sin in our lives as well. WHy is unbelief such a big deal… becasue if you trust the truth of what someone says you reject that person as well, you can’t just say you like Jesus but don’t trust what he says, this is something that just doesn’t go together.
Where I am going you cannot come.
You can’t go where I am going. Why?
WE can’t find the way to Heaven… and again it goes back to speak to that difference between the spiritual and physical worlds that we cannot cross...
and what’s more even if we could find it we couldn’t get in, because without him our names aren’t on the list
and there is big bouncer that sits outside and waits for us to come and hes like.. name isnt on this list can’t get in so even if we could find it it wouldn’t change a thing for us… and here is the crazy way in which the Jewish leaders responded...
22 So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”
And for the people in this time, the people that committed suicide were considered to be insane… and what they are doing here is really questioning his mental stability. They are not believing that he is talking like a sane person. And what they at this moment don’t realize is that Jesus does not plan to kill himself, but he does know that he will allow them to take his life. And to me there is a little bit of humor in this because what they want is for him to die and be done away with, and if they really thought Jesus were to kill himself, it would have given them exactly what they wanted, he would be out of their way so to speak, but they also want to use those details against him.
So Jesus responds to them again in verse 23
23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
So he says look you and I are not the same.. .you are from earth i am from heaven… You are from sinfulness and I am from righteousness… so he has said where they come from and then he adds where they are going… you will die in your sins...
and what we see here is sin is plural… and DA Carson says this is becasue it refers to all the sins that spring out of your unbelief… think about that for a moment… all of our sins really spring out of not believing in who Jesus is.. if we truly believed and understood we would hold so tightly to him that it would keep us from it… and don’t hear me as saying this means because we sin we don’t believe in Jesus… thats not what I’m saying but what I think that means is in those moments when we sin its because we have trusted ourselves and believed the lie that our ways and desires are better and have taken our eyes off him even for a brief moment in believing that he has the best for us…and it all springs up from the disbelief in who he is…
And he is telling them we didn’t start in the same place and we won’t end in the same place.
John Calvin said, “Unbelief is the fountain and cause of all evils.”
And ever person ever born besides Jesus was born in this world with a heart dispositioned to sin and lawlessness, but Jesus was not, and then by living we make it all worse, because we add to that initial sin on a daily basis, and we all need something to bring us back to a place where we can commune with him.
And he offers a solution...
24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
And just take a look at that first UNLESS.... you are stuck unless… so he is offering judgment but he is giving us a way out… he is saying if you have a way out...
BELIEVE… You have to go all in with Jesus.. there is no other way but with him we have to know that he is the only way as he has said. And he is saying this is the way we have to do this… and we have to realize in this world even though the road is narrow we have to only go with Jesus...
and what are we believing? That I am he… and in the original greek it literally just says, I am… not I am he… and you should know that this is the way that God referred to himself through out all of scripture when he said to Moses I am.... and Jesus here is again declaring his Godhood and what we have to realize that he is the one… and he came and he never sinned so that he could offer up his life for all of us who have sinned so we could be made right with the father.... and for all of us in this room it is not too late for us, we still have time today to turn to Jesus and allow him to make way for us to live back with God the father.