Ephesians 3: The Lord Jesus Christ Loves You Just Because

Class Outline:

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Grace wins every time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re in the resident congregation, turn off your electronic devices and put them away.  Let this be a place where you aren’t distracted by the world.

 

Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

 

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Morning!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…an intimate, local Christian Church with a worldwide impact.  My name is Pastor Rory Clark.  Thanks for listening to this Bible lesson!

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

The Lord Jesus Christ Loves You Just Because

 

LESSON INTRODUCTION

 

IN CHRIST…

 

What does it mean to be IN CHRIST?  As believers, we know that we’re IN CHRIST.  But in the depths of us, in the deep, dark crevices of our souls, do we comprehend what it really means to be IN CHRIST?  Hardly.  Why?  Because we settle for and CRAVE conditional love.

 

To quote a country songby Johnny Lee…

 

LOOKIN’ FOR LOVE by Johnny Lee

 

I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places

Lookin’ for love in too many faces

Searchin’ their eyes…lookin’ for traces

Of what I’m dreamin’ of…

 

Just as is true for us, what he was dreaming of is real love…unconditional love.  Unfortunately, we look for the real love we want FROM THE WRONG PEOPLE.  And as Johnny Lee says in another lyric of his song, that’s “playing a fool’s game…hoping to win."  In our human relationships, we yearn for the unconditional love that God has for us, even though we may not fully comprehend it.

 

It’s not that people can’t love us like God loves us.  They can!  And some do.That’s where people go wrong.  They think God’s love is only available from God.  That’s false.

 

But even when we have people in our lives who reflect the unconditional love of God, sending it into us…people who hope their unconditional love penetratesthe depths of us…do we see it?  Do we feel it?  Hardly.

 

Why?  Because most of us are jaded and hurt by past failed relationships.  Most of us are wishing we had love from people incapable of giving it to us.  We idolize people who would never, under any circumstances,want to give us the kind of love we wanteven if they could.  We are determined to get the love we think we want from them.  They are conditional with their love.  “I’ll love you IF…”  Because we come to crave this kind of love, we can’t see that God has sent His unconditional love through severalpeople, and the love we wants is right under our noses.

 

Typically, our viewpoint of love is shaped by these pseudo-intimate relationships we’ve had in our lives.  We settle for “love” from people who are passing off conditional love as unconditional love.  When we have enough doses of conditional love…hundreds and hundreds of doses of it…these doses rob us of the hope that one day we can actually be in a relationship in which we are loved unconditionally as God loves us.

 

Unfortunately,these pseudo-relationships…and it’s foolishto call them relationships because they are transactions…skew our thoughts about whether we could ever have a real relationship.  We wonder if we deserve a real relationship with real love.  Well God thinks we deserve real love and He wants us to have it.

 

As we bring to a close our study of the third chapter of the apostle Paul’s letter to the believers in Christ in first-century Ephesus, God’s love is in view.  Paul prays that sooner rather than later, we might not only know about God's love, but also experience what real love looks like and feels like…God’s love for us…a love thatpenetrates parts of us that are much deeper than the intellect.

 

OPENING SONG INTRODUCTION

 

Let’s hear some music!

 

How would you describe God’s love for Abraham after the Hagar incident?

 

How would you describe God’s love for David after the Bathsheba incident?

 

How would you describe God’s love for Peter after the betrayal incident where Peter denied knowing the Lord three times just as the Lord predicted?

 

How would you describe God’s love for Paul that culminated in the Damascus Road incident?

 

How would you describe God’s love for you after every failure in your life?

 

Anita Baker does a good job of speaking for God to us…articulating what real love is like…love from God’s perspective…unconditional love…in her song JUST BECAUSE.  Pay close attention to the words.

 

MUSIC

OPENING SONG

Let’s Sing the Lord’s Praises

 

JUST BECAUSE

Anita Baker

 

OPENING PRAYER

 

Let us pray...

 

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…

 

Father, if not for you, there would be no way for our finite minds to comprehend the infinite depth of Your unconditional love for us…thank you for giving us God the Holy Spirit who leads us into all the truth, including the truth concerning how much You love us…thank you for sending Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who demonstratedunconditional love by laying down His life for us on a Cross…thank you for always having a plan for us, especially after every catastrophic failure in our lives…

 

…as we listen to Paul’s prayer for us today, help us comprehend the penetrating nature of Your unconditional love…show us how to fix our eyes on You when there is doubt we are loved…and help us to see the people with whom You surround us…ALL of them…people who are a manifestation of Your love…people you send to us…

 

…we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...Amen.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

The Lord Jesus Christ Loves You Just Because

 

LESSON PART ONE

 

Watchman Nee, who was Chinese and a Christian and a teacherduring the 20th

century, had a thirty-year ministry establishing local Christian churches throughout the atheist country of China.  In one of his books, Nee suggests a way for us to look at Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that’s simple and useful.  He says the six chapters can be divided into three parts…SIT, WALK, and STAND.

 

Today we are finishing the first half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians at Chapter 3. Watchman Nee would describe Chapters 1 to 3 as the SIT position of Christianity.

 

We express faith in Christ alone of our salvation.  The Lord Jesus Christ saves us, while we do nothing.  Then we transition into the Christian Way of Living.  Just as we become believers IN CHRIST by doing nothing, we continue in Christianity by doing nothing.  The Lord continues to do everything for us.  He gives us a permanent positionwith Him as a free gift…a position the Bible calls IN CHRIST…a position we can never lose…then He invites us to SIT and to enjoy our position.

 

The SIT portion of the Christian Way of Living gives us a chance to reflect on what God has DONE for us.  God intends that as we go on in the Christian Way of Living, we recognize His gifts of salvation, forgiveness, and unconditional love requires nothing of us.  Ephesians, Chapter 2, Verses 8 and 9…

 

EPHESIANS 2:8

For by grace you believers IN CHRIST have been saved through expressing faith in Christ alone…and that grace and that faith and that salvation are not from the source of yourselves…it is the gift of God…

 

It’s God giving you what you don’t deserve and can’t earn…JUST BECAUSE.

 

EPHESIANS 2:9

…and that grace and that faith and that salvation is not as a result of your

works…so that no one may boast about being self-sufficient.

 

As believers in Christ, we are, according to Ephesians, Chapter 2, Verse 6…

 

EPHESIANS 2:6b

…seated by God the Father with Christ in the heavenly places…

 

God invites us believers in Christ to SIT with Him on His throne in the heavenlies.

 

So the Christian Way of Living is a place of rest.  What a pity we believe the

deceptions of Satan’s cosmic curriculum that has usconvinced that the spiritual life is about DOING, even when Hebrews, Chapter 4, Verse 1 says…

 

HEBREWS 4:1

…let us believers in Christ fear…if we fear anything…that when a

promise remains of entering into the rest provided by God, any one of you may seem to have fallen short of it.

 

We advance in Christianity by SITting.  We advance in Christianity by putting all our weight on the Lord.  The Lord invites us to cast our cares on Him.  Most Christians don’t want this dependence on God.  Instead, they want to DO.

 

To WALKand STAND before sitting is a reversal of the true order of things.  When we are sitting, our entire weight is on that thing on which we are sitting, the Lord’s hands.  He carries the weight.  He carries the burden of us.  We are not a burden to Him.

 

 

The final passage in Ephesians, Chapter 3 and the concluding passage of the SIT portion of the Christian Way of Livingis a prayer from the apostle Paul on our behalf.  Let’s listen to the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD TRANSLATION of the prayer…Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 14 to 21…

 

EPHESIANS 3:14

For this reason, I (Paul) bow my knees before God the Father…

 

EPHESIANS 3:15

…from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name…

 

EPHESIANS 3:16

…that God the Father would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through God the Holy Spirit indwelling the inner man…

 

EPHESIANS 3:17

…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…and that you, being rooted and grounded in love…

 

EPHESIANS 3:18

…may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length

and height and depth…

 

EPHESIANS 3:19

…and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

 

EPHESIANS 3:20

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us…

 

EPHESIANS 3:21

…to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

 

So often, for those of us studying the Word of God, the things we study are just words.  We’ve listened to several passages of Ephesians, Chapters 1 to 3…we’ve studied the passages…we’ve heard the words…we’ve learned the lessons…but do we truly grasp what God is telling us?  Hardly.

 

Then, all at once, it hits us.  These first three chapters of Ephesians are a love letter from God.  That's what we turn our focus to today…that's what Paul is praying for on our behalf…that not only are we able to recognize what real love is…and that’s  God’s love for us…but also that we see His love all around us because He has surrounded us with His love…through PEOPLE.

 

As I prepared today's lesson, I reflected on my high school days, whe

n I learned many wonderful things that I couldn't comprehend.  A poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning came to mind.  HOW DO I LOVE THEE…also known as Sonnet 43.  Listen to this…

 

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Elizabeth Barret Browning

 

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach

When feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

 

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Elizabeth Barret Browning

 

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need…both by sun and by candlelight.

 

I love thee freely, just as men strive for right.

 

I love thee purely, just as men turn from praise.

 

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Elizabeth Barret Browning

 

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and I love thee with my childhood’s faith.

 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints.

 

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Elizabeth Barret Browning

 

I love thee with the breath, smiles, and tears

Of all my life

And, if God chooses

I shall but love thee better after death.

 

I remember thinking, “What in the hell is she saying?”  And all I could think is that to whomever she was writing, she loved him beyond anything I was able to comprehend.

 

That’s how God loves us.

 

He loves us beyond anything we are able to comprehend.  Knowing this, God made a way for us to know His love through experience.  That’s what we’ll be looking at in our Bible lesson today.

 

The structure of Paul’s prayer is a series of simple messages.

 

PASSAGE STRUCTURE

 

Part One

When believers in Christ are strengthened by God the Holy Spirit’s enabling power…

 

PASSAGE STRUCTURE

 

Part Two

…we learn to live through the divine power of God’s unconditional love in every circumstance of life…

 

PASSAGE STRUCTURE

 

Part Three

…and this unconditional love from God fills us up with a fullness that would beincomprehensible if God didn’t place this love right before our eyes through the people with whom He surrounds us.

 

So let’s embark on the journey to comprehend this magnificent conclusion to the SIT portion of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

 

Let’s begin at Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 14 to 17…

 

EPHESIANS 3:14

For this reason (for all I said in the first three chapters so far)…I bow my knees before God the Father…

 

When Paul says “for this reason” it includes thanks for the reconciliation work of the Lord Jesus Christ at the Cross…for the Lord’s breaking down of the barrier of the dividing wall…for the Lord tearing down the veil preventing access to the Holy of Holies where God lived.  Now we have direct access to God!

 

Paul is praying for us here just as He did in Ephesians, Chapter 1, Verses 16 to 19…

 

EPHESIANS 1:16

…I (Paul) do not cease giving thanks for youwhile making mention of you in my prayers…

 

EPHESIANS 1:17

…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

 

EPHESIANS 1:18

I (Paul) pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…so that you will know what is the hope of God the Father’s calling, and so you will know the glorious riches of God the Father’s inheritance given to the saints…

 

EPHESIANS 1:19

…and so you will know the surpassing greatness of God the Father’s power (dunamis) toward us who believe.

 

In Chapter 1, Paul was praying that we would KNOW God.  This prayer asks for something deeper.

 

 

EPHESIANS 3:14

For this reason (for all I said in the first three chapters so far)…I bow my knees before God the Father…

 

EPHESIANS 3:15

…the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name…

 

When Paul says“from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” he is saying the barrier between God and man is torn down AND the barriers between us are torn down…Galatians, Chapter 3, Verse 28…

 

GALATIANS 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek (no racial distinction)…there is neither slave nor free man (no social distinction)…there is neither male nor female (no gender distinction)…for you are all one who are in union with Christ Jesus.

 

IN CHRIST there is one family.  As Christians we are brothers and sisters.  We are the new spiritual species…The Church…EK KLESIA in Greek…Jews and Gentiles united…the angels never saw it coming.

 

If you have a name, it is because God the Father has put His stamp on you!  Paul is praying…

 

EPHESIANS 3:16

…that God the Father would grant you…according to His glorious riches…to be strengthened with enabling power through God the Holy Spirit…the One who is indwelling your inner man…

 

Paul wants us to experience spiritual strength on the inside.  For many Christians, their strength is an outer façade.  Inside they are a mess.  Often, when Christians pray, they ask God the Father for touter things…a house…a car…money…that He might break out the teeth of our enemies…material things…outward things that others including ourselves can see.

 

Real strength is internal strength, the kind that gives us perseverance in the face of the worst adversity.  Internal strength is strength of thought powered by God’s divine power, not by human power.

 

The enabling power of God the Holy Spirit empowers us to do anything.  Do you

pray for access to that power?

 

When we return from the break we’ll take the offering, and then we’ll continue our study of Paul’s prayer for us at the end of Ephesians, Chapter 3.  On the break, youmay want to listen to Anita Baker telling us why God loves us one more time.

 

FIVE-MINUTE BREAK

JUST BECAUSE

Anita Baker

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

The Lord Jesus Christ Loves You Just Because

 

OFFERING INTRODUCTION

 

Let’s welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall with one of his always insightful and always inspiring messages on the power of giving.

 

THE OFFERING

Deacon Denny Goodall

 

OFFERING VERSE

 

EPHESIANS 4:10

The Lord Jesus Christ who descended from heaven is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.

 

OFFERING SONG

THERE IS NONE LIKE YOU

Instrumental Version

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

The Lord Jesus Christ Loves You Just Because

 

LESSON PART TWO

 

Continuing with Paul’s prayer on your behalf for inner strength.  Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 14 to 17…

 

EPHESIANS 3:14

For this reason (for all I said in the first three chapters so far)…I bow my knees before God the Father…

 

EPHESIANS 3:15

…the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name…

 

EPHESIANS 3:16

…that God the Father would grant you…according to His glorious riches…to be strengthened with enabling power through God the Holy Spirit…the One who is indwelling your inner man…

 

Without God’s power we are nothing.  Who are you without Christ?  How can you be others-focused without Christ?  How can you love your enemies unconditionally without Christ?  In John, Chapter 15, Verse 5 the Lord says…

 

JOHN 15:5

I (the Lord Jesus Christ) am the vine…you believers in Christ are the branches…and he who abides in Me and I in him…he bears much fruit (the fruit of the Spirit)…for apart from Me YOU CAN DO NOTHING.

 

Paul is praying for God to help us see that God’s strength in us is completely able.  Without God’s strength in the inner man have neither the power nor the inclination to do any selfless things!

 

So what are your inner strength needs?  Do you pray for this part of you?

 

In Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 17 and 18, Paul says he prays to God the Father for you…

 

EPHESIANS 3:17

…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…and that you, being rooted and grounded in unconditional love…

 

EPHESIANS 3:18

…may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s unconditional love…

 

Paul prayed that we KNOW in Chapter 1.  Now he is praying that God helps us comprehend.  The word comprehend means “to violently seize and hold onto.”  To comprehend what?  God’s unconditional love.  Christianity is a lifestyle of LOVE.

 

If you don’t love unconditionally as a Christian, you have nothing.  If you don’t love unconditionally your accomplishments are zero.  First Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verses 4 to 8…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13:4

Unconditional love is patient…unconditional love is kind and is not jealous… unconditional love does not brag and is not arrogant…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13:5

…unconditional love does not act unbecomingly…unconditional love does not seek its own…unconditional love is not provoked…unconditional love does not take into account a wrong suffered…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13:6

…unconditional love does not rejoice in unrighteousness…but unconditional love rejoices with the truth…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13:7

…unconditional love bears all things…unconditional love believes all things… unconditional love hopes all things…unconditional love endures all things.

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13:8

Unconditional love never fails!

 

Put this in your wedding and leave out the word unconditional and you miss the point.  Unconditional requires God’s enabling divine power.  There is nothing in humans that can manufacture love.  Back to Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 17 and 18, Paul prays to God the Father for you…

 

EPHESIANS 3:17

…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…and that you, being rooted and grounded in unconditional love…

 

EPHESIANS 3:18

…may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length

and height and depth (of God’s unconditional love)…

 

Why rooted?  The roots of God’s unconditional love go deep into the soil of life for nourishment.  Paul wants God to help us grow every day in the soil of unconditional love, both unconditional love for God and unconditional love for others.

 

Why grounded?  So that we live every day in every decision on the firm foundation of eternal security.  In Matthew, Chapter 7, Verses 24 to 27 the Lord says…

 

MATTHEW 7:24

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them…(believers in Christ)…may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the Rock.”

 

MATTHEW 7:25

“And the rain fell…and the floods came…and the winds blew and slammed against that house…and yet it did not fall…for the house had the foundation of the Rock.”

 

The rock is Jesus Christ.

 

MATTHEW 7:26

“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them…(unbelievers)…will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

 

MATTHEW 7:27

“The rain fell…and the floods came…and the winds blew and slammed against that house…and it fell—and great was its fall.”

 

Paul is praying that we COMPREHEND God’s unconditional love in us…down deep…and when we do we will know through experience…

 

EPHESIANS 3:18b

…what is the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s unconditional love…

 

God’s unconditional loveis broad enough to capture WHOSOEVER.

 

God’s unconditional love is long enough…it is eternal…it has no beginning and no ending…it is forever and ever and ever.

God’s unconditional lovehigh enough.  It reaches from the gates of hell to the throne room of heaven.  As believers, we SIT on the Lord’s throne with Him because He raised us up to SIT with Him in the heights of the heavenlies.

 

God’s unconditional loveis deep enough.  It is not shallow.  It isn’t something that

He falls into and out of.  How deep is His love?  There is no bottom to His love.

 

In Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verse 19 Paul prays that God’s unconditional overwhelms usthrough experience, so that you…

 

EPHESIANS 3:19

…know the unconditional love of Christ surpasses knowledge…so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

 

Unconditional love fills every crevice of us.

 

When you experience this unconditional love with a human being there is nothing like it.  And you know it when you see it.  You feel it when you feel it.  And it is so beautiful as to be unbelievable.  We have an impossible time accepting that anyone could love us this way and we do anything we can to sabotage it.

 

A lot of Christians are so jaded, they don’t believe that God can bring them real love.  So they hide behind God and put up barriers to real love.  This was never God’s intent for us.  Paul’s prayer is for us to wake up to the divine power that unleashes real love…THROUGH PEOPLE.  Paul wants us to experience it.

 

Paul concludes with a DOXOLOGY, an oft-vain attempt to express adoration, honor, and gratitude to God.  Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 20 and 21…

 

EPHESIANS 3:20

Now to God the Father…who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the divine enabling power that works within us…

 

EPHESIANS 3:21

…to Him be the glory in the Church Age and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

 

Five things we learn from the doxology.

 

1

God is able…He can work…there is nothing His unconditional love can’t do.

 

2

God hears what is on our hearts.  God is able to produce what we can imagine because He reads our minds and He hears our unspoken things.

 

3

God is able to produce what we can’t imagine, too!

 

4

God is able to give us ALL we ask.

 

 

5

God’s power and His love are immeasurable.

 

God loves us JUST BECAUSE.  Let’s close with the NEW LIVING TRANSLATION of Paul’s prayer…Ephesians, Chapter 3, Verses 14 to 21…

 

EPHESIANS 3:14

When I (Paul) think of all thisI have said in the first three chapters of this letter…I fall to my knees and pray to God the Father…

 

EPHESIANS 3:15

…and I pray to the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.

 

EPHESIANS 3:16

I pray that from God’s glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through God the Holy Spirit.

 

EPHESIANS 3:17

Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s unconditional love and keep you strong.

 

 

 

EPHESIANS 3:18

And you will have the divine enabling power to comprehend, as all God’s people must, how wide, and how long, and how high, and how deep God’s unconditional love is for you.

 

EPHESIANS 3:19

May you experience the unconditional love of Christ, though it seems too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of the resurrection life and the divine power that comes from God the Father.

 

EPHESIANS 3:20

Now all glory to God the Father, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

 

EPHESIANS 3:21

Glory to Him in the Church Age and through Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever! Amen.

 

Do you really think that God intended only to give you His unconditional love through Himself?  Is our God so weak that he can’t get His unconditional love through to you through people?  May it never be!

 

Maybe the one God sent to love you unconditionally is the same in gender as you.  And no…this is not an invitation to a homosexual ideology.  It’s an invitation to realize that relationships powered by unconditional love don’t; only happen with members of the opposite sex, even though you may be hoping for that.  Maybe you don’t bother to notice all the people around you who love you without conditions.

 

Maybe you just like continuing to beg the conditional love people to love you.

 

Well God has other plans for you, and in the next chapters of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, His plans for you will unfold.  For now, just realize that God wants you to know Him, to know His unconditional love for you, and to experience His unconditional love…both directly from Him and through the people He sends to you.

 

Without unconditional love it is impossible to WALK and STAND.

 

 

THE GOSPEL MESSAGE

The Good News of Jesus Christ’s Salvation Offer to the Human Race

 

The next ten minutes could be the ten most important minutes of your life.  You’ll be introduced to the good news concerning how you can spend all eternity in heaven when you close your eyes in this life.  We want you to know that…

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

He Wants You Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

…and what He wants for you is that you make the most important decision of your life.

 

Do you have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ?  If not, God considers you to be a sinner…the description of an unbeliever.  Yet as one of God’s creatures you are a focus of His concern and His mercy…Ephesians, Chapter 2, Verses 4 and 5…

 

EPHESIANS 2:4

But God…being rich in mercy (toward unbelievers) … because of His great unconditional love with which He loved us…

 

EPHESIANS 2:5

…even when we were spiritually dead…

 

God loves you unconditionally and forgives you totally, especially when you are at your worst. In the spiritual realm you are at your worst when you live a lifestyle that follows the direction of God’s enemy, Satan, and his kingdom of darkness.  A life in spiritual darkness is not the life God wants for you.  John, Chapter 10, Verse 10 highlights the life God is eager to provide…

 

JOHN 10:10

I (the Lord Jesus Christ) came that My creatures may have the resurrection life… and have it abundantly.

 

The resurrection life is a life in the light.

 

All of us were born in a state of unrighteousness…as citizens of the world…as members of the kingdom of darkness.  Said another way, we were born physically alive and spiritually dead as ungodly, unrighteous unbelievers.

 

It’s not your fault you were born this way, but it is your circumstance.

 

Who says so?  The Lord says this is true in His Word…First Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verse 22…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:22a

For all in union with Adam at physical birth (and that is every human who comes to earth) are set to die the second death in the Lake of Fire…

 

Living a lifestyle of darkness means we don’t have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ…First John, Chapter 1, Verse 6…

 

FIRST JOHN 1:6

If we say we have fellowship with God and yet walk in a lifestyle of darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth…

 

What’s the way out of a lifestyle of darkness?  The Bible shines a light on the way out…John, Chapter 20, Verse 31 says…

 

JOHN 20:31

…these things written in the Bible have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ…(the Messiah…the Son of God…the Lord…who took on human form as Jesus…the Christ)…and that by believing in Him you may have the resurrection life (eternal life) in Hisname.

 

The way out of darkness can be summed up in one word…BELIEVE.  When you choose to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, He will usher you personally into a lifestyle of light…First John, Chapter 1, Verse 5…

 

FIRST JOHN 1:5

This is the message we apostles have heard from the Lord Jesus Christ personally and announce to you…that the Lord is Light…and in union with Him there is no darkness at all.

 

By trusting the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish your salvation, He’ll provide you with a lifestyle in the light…John, Chapter 14, Verse 6…

 

JOHN 14:6

Jesus said to the doubting apostleThomas, “I am the way (to salvation) … and I am the truth (through the gospel message in the Word of God) … and I am the resurrection life (eternal life) …and no one comes to God the Father in heaven but through believing in Me.”

 

So what do you have to do to have a relationship with the Lord?  Acts, Chapter 16, Verse 31…

 

ACTS 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved by God, you and everyone in your household who also believes.”

 

JUST BELIEVE!

 

It’s pretty simple.  The Lord’s invitation is described in First Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verses 3 and 4…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:3

For I (Paul) delivered to you as of primary importance the gospel message I alsoreceived from God…that it was Jesus Christ who died for our sins according tothe Old Testament Scriptures…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:4

…and that He was buried…and He was raised from the dead on the third day…according to the Old Testament Scriptures…

 

RIGHT WHERE YOU SIT, RIGHT NOW, you can have a relationship with the Sovereign God of the Universe, the Lord Jesus Christ…and He will welcome you into a lifestyle in the light…John, Chapter 3, Verse 36…

 

JOHN 3:36

“He who believes in the Son has the resurrection life right at that moment…but he who does not obey the command to believe in the Son will not see the resurrection life…instead the wrath of God (the Lake of Fire) abides on him.”

 

The Lord’s offer is directed to EVERYONE who wants to live a lifestyle in the light…in John, Chapter 6, Verse 37, the Lord says…

 

JOHN 6:37b

…the ones who come to Me to believe inMe…I will certainly not cast out into the outer darkness…the Lake of Fire.

 

If you reject a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, which is your prerogative… your choice to remain in spiritual darkness…Revelation, Chapter 21, Verse 8…

 

REVELATION 21:8

“But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars (all descriptions of the lifestyles of unbelievers…the lifestyles in the dark)…their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

 

Unbelievers move from spiritual death to the second death in the Lake of Fire when they close their eyes in this life.  The worst part is they do so voluntarily.  It is NOT God’s will for them.

 

Don’t let that happen to you!  Join God in heaven, the kingdom of light, when you close your eyes in this life.  Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 13…

 

ROMANS 10:13

…for “whosoever will call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved by God.”

 

First Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 9 describes the Lord as…

 

FIRST PETER 2:9b

…Him who has called you unbelievers out of darkness into His marvelous light…

 

The Lord Jesus Christ and His kingdom of light are waiting for your call.

 

THE GOSPEL MESSAGE

The Good News of Jesus Christ’s Salvation Offer to the Human Race

 

CLOSING SONG INTRODUCTION

 

Let’s close with music!

 

June Murphy does a great job of expressing God’s unconditional love for us in her song WHEN I SAY I LOVE YOU.

 

MUSIC

CLOSING SONG

Let’s Sing the Lord’s Praises

 

WHEN I SAY I LOVE YOU

June Murphy

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

Almighty God and Father…

 

Thank you for opening our spiritual eyes so we can see Your unconditional love all around us…thank you for helping us experience Your love through people…thank you for removing the conditional love people from our lives in due time so we can enjoy those who really loves us as You do…

 

…keep us from loving conditionally, and help us pass along Your unconditional love to everyone we meet, whether they notice it or not…

 

…we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...Amen.

 

THE ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

Please make it a habit to listen to the announcements.  They are posted separately.  Keep current on the things going on and coming up in Barah Ministries.

 

DISCUSSING THE LESSON AND PRAYER CIRCLE

 

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KEEP ON STUDYING THE WORD OF GOD DAILY!

 

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www.barahministries.com