Andrew Isbell
May 30, 2021
Note: The transcript below is automatically generated and will contain errors.
Transcript:
It’s good to be with everybody again this morning. It’s very encouraging to see everybody again the first day of the week. I’ve asked you if you want to take out your Bibles. We’re going to be going through several verses this morning as we talked about the idea of being lost.
So the topic is morning is being lost. We were talking some people it’s last week listen to people talk and one of the things that don’t know me as we were listening to them. It was it wasn’t the subject wasn’t religion and it certainly wasn’t Christianity. But this idea that sometimes we expect things from people that we don’t have a right to expect and
The the tie end to me the thing that made me think about this subject was this idea that sometimes we expect one someone to accomplish something that that we have no personal experience in accomplishing and this might be unfair. If you don’t know something can be accomplished and expecting someone else to accomplish. It may not be right.
You may be expecting the impossible. You definitely don’t know how to advise them because you’ve never accomplished it yourself. So it makes it very hard to advise someone else on how to accomplish something that you can’t achieve yourself other than academic and you may be able to point to it. The the one thing you may be able to do is to point to advise from others or follow a plan by others who have accomplished that but in the
the end it’s going to be a situation where you don’t know the way to lead them. So this is a thing. This is a topic that’s near and dear to me because I’m a parent. So there’s a lot of things as you’re a parent that you realize in order to teach your children that modeling behavior is more is a is a stronger parenting technique and all the talking in the world. And if there are things were you have an accomplished those things?
You want your children to accomplish some first thing you set your mind to is accomplishing at yourself.
And once you can accomplish that spiritual thing then it’s a lot easier to lead your children into it. And the same thing I think is true for us as Christians is we try to help other Christians as to try to help those who are lost. So start out by saying this that there are two types of two kinds of lost is what I call a really lost which means I don’t know how to get where I want to go at all.
But then there’s a second lost that that I call completely lost which means I don’t even know where I want to go.
Right, so there are both kinds of people some people know where they want to go. This have no idea how to get there. And so they’re lost and some people they don’t even know where they’re going. It’s the worst kind of lost. They don’t have any idea of you were their goal is much less have they even started thinking about how I’m going to get there?
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In the Bible probably the most famous famous wondering is the wandering of the Israelites for 40 years because isn’t couldn’t accept God’s direction or necessarily lost in the true sense in that they were they were where God wanted them to be on the second part though. The Sinai Peninsula Peninsula is only about 24,000 square miles with sounds like a big area.
But Walker County for example is 800 square miles. So three Walker counties. So that’s a about sorry about 30 Walker counties. So so that’s that’s a big area, but it’s not a huge area. And so to wonder that area for 40 years is a long time and while they wondered why they wondered that you that are 40 years was a pretty simple thing is that they could
not accept God’s directions on where to go or how to get there. That’s what got him in there again with God gave him directions on what to do when where how to not be lost on how to get home and they said no. No, we don’t think that’s going to work and so they ended up wandering for 38 years because they couldn’t follow God’s Direction.
So we can find ourselves in many do in our own wilderness.
Trying to find our own way trying to find our way home trying to find our way out of that Wilderness and sometimes we’re trying to get there. Sometimes we’re trying to get to the place and sometimes we’re trying to decide where there is and both of those are struggles that Christians face. Those are both struggles that people face in the world as well. In order to even get to Christianity. Let’s start here by saying that I’m not really here this morning.
To talk too much about this idea of being completely lost if you’re here this morning. My hope is that you have picked heaven and eternal life with the father Jesus and the Holy Spirit is your destination. My hope is that you know, having us there and that they will be there and that you have this destination fixed by your faith in your heart soul and mind not going to speak real deeply about this idea of being completely lost this morning although
Very important thing for Christians because we were all once there we were all once completely lost and we weren’t even thinking about how to get where we want to go. We were just trying to figure out where is it that we wanted to go for a lot of people in the world right now who are and that exact place sometimes I think the easiest way to be in the world and will be in that place of being completely lost. There’s two ways to cope with that one way one way.
Is to just to try to ignore it just try to ignore the fact that you’re lost and don’t know where you’re going and try not to think about it. That’s a pretty good coping mechanism to deal with a lot of things especially sin is just to try not to think about it when it comes up in your head crush it down and don’t think about it anymore. Ignore it the other way that people cope with it. Is it trying to fill it with something else some other goal and some other mindset but as Christians, obviously
we should be about the business of getting to those people who are completely lost and showing that there is a way and that there is a goal and that there is a place for them to go and that there is a home for all of us and the gospel message is just that so I don’t want to in any way diminish the importance of that issue but this morning what I want to focus on a little bit more is this this other idea of being a Christian
and trying to get where you want to go and being lost as far as how to get there. We’re going to talk about knowing how to get to heaven as I mentioned before the best way to get somewhere is to follow someone who has been there before think we all can acknowledge that if we’re trying to get somewhere if I’m going on vacation if I’m going somewhere that I’ve never been before it’s always nice to deal with someone who’s been there before who can tell you. This is the best way this is the best way I went this way I go there every
Week I know exactly where there’s a shortcut. Here’s the way to go is the best place to eat. All those kinds of things. They can help you out. Even when we don’t rely on another person where generally relying on someone who’s been there before so I know in this day and age unlike whenever I was young this day and age people rely on on this thing to get them places, right A lot of people nowadays can’t get anywhere without this thing. Like they if they lose this their lost right know how to read a map.
They don’t know about asking for directions. All those things are foreign everything you’re going to do you do right here, right? Well all that being said even the information there comes from someone who’s been there before right who someone had to create the map. Someone had to build all that. I was reading a story either week about the man who was kind of lost history for a while that discovered the pass through the mountains for the Oregon Trail.
And it was his maps that that allowed the people who got the credit for the Oregon Trail to utilize the Oregon Trail because he’s the one who discovered the pastor the mountains that everyone utilized but he had to go out there and find it and then let them know about it now. They had never been there before but they had something from someone who had they had maps from a man who had been there before and that helped them and guided them on their way. So as it is as I mentioned before finding someone who’s familiar with the
way to go preferably also someone who understands the challenges that will be faced on the way and it will stay with us preferably until we arrive are all great things to look for in trying to find your way somewhere so that you’re not lost since presumably no one in the listening audience today has ever been to Heaven this leads us to our first challenge.
how to get to a place not only know as ever been
Also, I know I said the lesson was on about the sighting where I want to go. It’s about getting there. But if no one has ever been to heaven the how do I know it’s there to be gotten to sort of a question that comes up. This is the kind of thing that might trouble a person. So let’s look at what Christ has to say in John 14.
So if we’re troubled by this idea of how do I get to a place I’ve ever been and no one I know has ever been John 14 begins to address that and John 14:1.
It says let not your hearts be troubled see it starts out knowing how we feel if you’re lost. That’s how you feel. You feel troubled right believe in God believe also in me in my father’s house are many rooms if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself and where I am you may be also
And you know the way to where I’m going.
So two things that we get here and John 14:1 through for one thing is we know that there’s a place prepared for us. All right. He lets us know in terms that are very easiest to understand that there is a place that is ready to receive us. All right, it’s been prepared for us.
So he takes away any doubt that we may have there and then he continues to talk about the this idea of and and he tells the the disciples are go there.
And you brings us great comfort in that Jesus tells them that the disciples already know how to get there.
I know how to get there. Right? And so if they know how to get there then it’s good. There are people that know how to get there but then Thomas speaks in 14 and 5 and he sounds like he doesn’t know anything.
About what Jesus is talking about? Why is this John John 14 and 5 Thomas said to him Lord. We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?
Right. So Thomas is confused. Jesus says you’ll know how to get where I’m going. Thomas is like I don’t even know I do not know how to get there. I don’t even know where you’re going, right?
This is the question that we still need an answer to today. Where are we going? And how do we get there?
How do we get where we’re going? And how do we know where it is that we want to go? Why doesn’t Thomas know?
Jesus then answers him again in John 14 beginning of her six, which is the next verse.
Jesus said to him I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through me.
If you had known me you would have known my father also from now on you do know him and have seen him.
So there’s a lot here in 1467. The answer is pretty simple. He tells him that the reason that he knows the way to heaven and to the father.
is that he knew what he didn’t know that he knew and the reason that he knew is that Christ was the way
and he knew Christ.
And so Thomas if he’d have been said, do you know me he was it out know you but he said another way. I don’t know the way well what Thomas didn’t realize was that knowing Christ and knowing the way the same thing.
Right. That’s what Jesus is telling him. He know me then you already know the way right?
So the answer is pretty simple there and it talks about Jesus talks about himself being three things. He says I am just very powerful turn of phrase. I am not I’ll show you not someone else is not I can tell you more about it, but I don’t know everything about it. But I am I am the way Christ was and is the way
Christ was more than a guide guides great, but crisis more than a guide more than a messenger a messenger is great right having a messenger come and help you get where you’re going. That would be a great thing. He’s more than a guy who’s more than messenger. He was and is the only path to where we want to go Thomas knew the way because Thomas knew Jesus.
acts 4 and 12 Acts 4:12 says and there is salvation in no one else for there was no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved clearly the only way
To where we want to go is Jesus Christ. The Bible is clear about this in many locations. That’s just one of them.
He also though goes on to say not only is he the way but he’s also the truth.
Christ
Is the truth and it uses the definitive article there the not a had some not a part of the truth. Christ is the truth.
Jesus
is the truth because also Jesus is the word.
Psalms 119 and 142
Psalms 119 and 142 tells us something that’s very important. It says your righteousness is righteous Forever Your Law is true.
What God says is true?
Right this idea that we have to worry about in test what God tells us to see if it’s true is contrary to scripture because he said it we know that it’s true not because man agrees with it is it true but because he said it we know it’s true John 1 and 1 John 1 and 1 says this one through five in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
God all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life. And the life was the light of men the light shines in the darkness and the Darkness has not overcome it.
The word we know that Christ is also the word.
The word is the truth.
So he literally and figuratively is the truth.
Christ speaks with authority
not pointing out truth, but being truth unlike the prophets and unlike the apostles. We look at Matthew 5. We’re gonna have a little long reading here. So if you want to follow along Matthew 5 and 22
But I said to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says you fool will be liable to the health of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift before the altar first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift come to terms quickly with your accuser. You have heard it set. I’m sorry while you are going with him to court less your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the
Arden to be put in prison truly I say to you you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
You have heard it said You shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin tear it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell.
It was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Again, you have heard it said to those of old you shall not swear falsely, but she’ll perform to the Lord that which you have sworn but I say to you do not take an oath at all either by heaven or it is the Throne of God.
Jesus here in Matthew and it goes on but Jesus here in Matthew 5 does not point to Authority.
He does not point to truth. He speaks it into the world with the authority of God.
Over and over and over he says I say to you it’s very different than the apostles very different than the prophets. I say to you.
Jesus is truth.
The third thing he claims is that he is life.
Christ tells Thomas that he’s life Christ cannot be overcome by Death.
In him is eternal life through him and by him his life John 10 and 17 John 10 and 17 says the following for this reason the father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me. But I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again this charge I received from my father.
Jesus has authority over life.
He is not subject to it. It is subject to him.
John 14 and 18 through 21
I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you in a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live you also will live and that day you will know that I am in my father and you and me and I and you 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.
Because He Lives we will live he brings us with him to our final destination and loving him. Oh bring us to him.
And his love will bring us home.
Because Jesus is the path. Jesus is the map. Jesus is the gate.
John 14 and 8
through 13
Philip said to him Lord show us the father and it is enough for us.
Here’s Thomas. I mean, here’s Philip again. Trying to wrap his head around what Jesus is telling them just like Thomas was he says show us the father and it is enough for us. Jesus is were why is this? Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me Philip Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say show us the father? Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me the words that I say to you. I do not speak on my own authority.
30 but the father who dwells in me does his work believe me that I am in the father and the father is in me or else believe on account of The Works themselves truly truly. I say to you whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater Works than these will he do because I am going to the father whatever you ask in my name this I will do that. The father may be glorified in the son.
Jesus and the father are one.
He is in the father and the father is in him the path to the father is through the son.
Love and belief will bring us to Christ and then Christ will bring us home.
I asked you also to look closely because it’s easy to say what I just said. She just say Christ and loving Christ and doing what Christ did will bring us there. But look closely and notice that Christ is not the final love and belief the way the world defines love and belief.
Words are powerful and what people realize pretty quickly and not in modern times in ancient times which is why a lot of philosophy crept up to discuss the meanings of words. Right was it it was easier to change the meaning of a word than the change what somebody had said
in other words if something was written down then it’s written down.
And it’s really hard to change what’s written down?
What’s easier to do is to change the meaning of one of the things are all of the things that are written down so that nobody understands. What was written down anymore.
We’ve seen that happen in this country with a document called the Constitution was a document that was very clear and it was written down and then everybody started changing the meanings of the words that were in there until it means something different than it started out meaning.
People do that with God’s word all the time people do that with Christianity all the time. And I want you to see in God God’s aware of what people are going to do. God knows what’s in the hearts of men. He prepared us for that in the scriptures.
She look at what Jesus has to say about this, but look closely and noticed that Christ doesn’t Define love and belief the same way the world does now.
Neither love or belief are passive to Christ. He says that those who love him will keep the Commandments and whoever believes will do his work.
The belief and the love that Jesus is talking about or not the belief in the love of the world.
Right the way the world loves her delay you say this the other day and this is to the point. She said that my children are all grown.
And when they were when I was raising them, they weren’t my friends. I was their mother and now they’re all grown. She goes what I what everybody told me he was when they grow up then you’ll be their friends and she goes well they grew up and I’m still not their friend she goes because I won’t lie to him and friends will lie to you to make you feel better and I won’t so that makes me different than most of their friends the world lies about things.
To make themselves feel better. The reality is belief and love and following the Commandments Are All One Thing.
You can’t separate them. The world wants us to believe that love is a feeling in our heart and emotion that comes and goes depending on how our moods are.
And that belief has nothing to do with work and the two things are separate in which in which is can’t be farther from the truth. They are they are together always together never separated.
There is no other way to or guide the heaven and no man can get us there and no man has ever been no one knows the way no one can command death. You can search the world all over you’ll find no one that can do those things. No one that can get you there. No one that’s ever been there. No one that knows the way there no one that has command of death. You can search the whole world over and you won’t find it.
Jesus Christ was all those things Jesus Christ is going to come back for us. Who are his?
The way to heaven is simply to be his.
When he comes back.
Because those that are his or not orphans.
And the rest of the world is we know the way home and we know how we’re going to get there.
Now all we have to do all that’s left is to start search the scriptures to search them hard to search them daily to search them with thirst.
There’s a lot more to be said about the scriptures because we talked about doing what he does and we talk about fall keeping the Commandments. Then you’re going to have to know what the Commandments are and what he did.
And that’s the scripture. The scripture is full of what he did and what he commanded.
So we got to search the Scriptures Daily to know how to keep his Commandments and to know how to do the works that he does so that one day.
When he comes back, we are his and we go with him.
to our home
That’s my lesson for this morning.
Again, we didn’t talk about making that big Choice very much if there’s any with us that has made that big choice that is decided where they want to be that knows that Christ is the way there is read the scriptures the knows that they have sinned.
They want to repent of that sin be baptized for the remission of that sin and live doing what Christ did following Christ Commandments as a Christian so that one day can go with him home.
We invite you to come as we sing Our closing song.