The 3 Most Important Days of Your Life
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7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Occasionally, when I am preaching, if you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know that I take Bunny trails. I say, “I’m going to take you down this path or alley for a moment.” Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s not. But I do.
The writer of Hebrews does this as well, and He’s doing it in these two verses. He’s stopped, in the middle of a discussion on love and then a discussion on Jesus, and put in these two verses.
Consider your leaders. The writer of Hebrews is asking us to remember our leaders. If youasked me to do this, I know exactly where my mind would go… who I consider to have been and are my spiritual leaders.
You know too. Youmight go to someone who was your pastor, or a good friend who introduced you to Christ. You know who’d you think of .
But there would be a difference. because what the writer of Hebrews says is look at them, then consider the outcome of their way of life.
You would immediately think of that individual, and if they are still living and serving Jesus that would be a great thought. If they died of old age or of something else , still serving Jesus, you’d be happy with the thought.
But the writer of Hebrews, as he wrote these words, He would have been thinking in different terms.
The outcome of their way of life He meant the way they died. And it usually wasn’t good. It involved spears, lions in the coliseum, being burnt at the stake, crucified, and in at least one case being crucified upside down. It wasn’t good.
Then he says the shocking thing. Imitate their faith. He didn’t say imitate their death, he said imitate their faith in the face of death. Because they didn’t lose faith .
That’s what the Hebrews were in danger of doing. Losing their faith in the face of trial. And He wants them to see how the martyrs of the faith kept their faith in the face of death.
Then he offers the best example. Jesus. Jesus was the same whether he was with children in the streets or before Pilate facing death. He never changed or wavered.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Consider some of what the Bible says.
Psalm 90.2 says
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Isaiah 44.6 says
6 Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.
When Jesus said, in John 8.56-58, it drove people mad.
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
James says in Jesus there is no shadow or variation of change.
And revelation 1 carries with it 5 verses in one chapter that reflects the eternal nature of Jesus.
And so, Hebrews 13.8 should come as no surprise to us. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Think about it, the church sings:
"Great is Thy faithfulness, " O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
"Great is Thy faithfulness!" "Great is Thy faithfulness!"
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
"Great is Thy faithfulness, " Lord, unto me!
Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
"Great is Thy faithfulness!" "Great is Thy faithfulness!"
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
"Great is Thy faithfulness, " Lord, unto me!
The eternal nature of Jesus is what the churhc believes. The same yesterday, today, and forever.
But what if you weren’t raised in the church? What if those aren’t your hymns, that isn’t your book, and you still need Jesus but don’t know it?
You don’t hear, “The Bible Says” like I do.
You never said the apostles creed and meant it.
You never sang the hymn how great thou art and understood it.
What about those people?
I want to talk to you about the 3 most important days of your life. And that title isn’t original with me.
The first is Yesterday. Not your yesterday, but Jesus’ yesterday.
And specifically, I want you to consider the 33 years of his life.
Yesterday.
Yesterday.
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
And we could go on and on with Prophecies about Jesus before he was born. That were clearly him.
All nations would be blessed through him.
David’s lineage
The tribe of Judah
A virgin birth
He would go to Egypt
Born in Bethlehem
6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. 7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: 8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
Ministry would begin in Galilee
Gentiles would be his followers
John the Baptist as forerunner.
He would be rejected by his own.
He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey.
40 pieces of silver would be the price of his betrayal.
None of his bones would be broken in crucifixion
He wuold be forsaken by his friends
He would thirst on the cross.
He would rise again- a resurrection.
All that, and he is known to have been a real person who secular historians wrote not only about, but about the many things in scripture that were prophesied about him.
So what does that have to do with you? Right?
Well, everything. Even though you weren’t there and you didn’t see it. It was actually all about you.
His birth, his life, and most imortantly his death and resurrection were all days that were very important. but most importantly, they were important to you.
If Jesus doesn’t come, live, and die the way He did- we have no hope.
But because he did come, live, and die the way He did. we do have hope.
Most importantly because on one day he rose from the dead.
Today.
Today.
How tough is your today?
Cancer? Covid? Death? Family problems?k Finances?
Maybe everything’s going great.
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Jesus said an alarming thing to is disciples in John 13.33
33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
You can have that peace today . Because Christ can be with you.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow
Because He Lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living just because He lives.
Whatever your tomorrow holds, He is enough.
Jim Deselms.
Cancer,
Crashes,
Lo, I am with you to the end of the age.
It’s all predicated on our relationship with Christ
There’s a specific tomorrow for us- several, actually, that we will all share in.
11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Rapture
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
The Great White Throne Judgment.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Bottom Line:
His Yesterday Secures Our Tomorrow Today
His Yesterday Secures Our Tomorrow Today
You can be sure.
Yesterday He died for me- song.