The Changes Jesus Made In Me

Introduction

A pleasant good morning to all, to all who are visiting with us. We thank you for joining us on this occasion as we have come together to praise and to magnify the name of our God to spend this time together and to study the Word of God. Truly it’s an encouragement to me every time we can come together and to uplift each other and truly to praise our God. If you have the Bible with you, I’d invite you to be turning in your Bibles this morning. Go ahead and be turning to 1 John. But I’m not going to say place a marker there because we’re going to be going through several different passages this morning. And I’ll try to give enough time so that you yourself can turn to those passages, at least for the most part.

We’re going to be looking at several different texts this morning. Before we get into the lesson, though, let’s just talk about politics for a minute without being too political. If that’s possible. I think most of us are anxious for Tuesday to get here for no other reason, then the phone will stop ringing. That’s pretty high on my list. But this is an election season. And we will be making important decisions come Tuesday. And one of the buzzwords that’s been going around, not only this election, last election, and really any election, is the word change. There was half of the country in 2008 that said, we need a change. We need to change course. And now you’ve got half of the country that’s saying, well, we need change.

And the other half is saying, no, we don’t need change. Let’s just continue the way we go. But this idea of change all the time. That we look at our condition and we look at our country and we say, we need change, change, change. And well, certainly, we that’s not to get into the politics, but yes, we look at things and we want to make changes, and we have the ability within our country to go and to vote and to enact different laws and to change those officials who are over us. But that’s not the most important change. What I want to talk about this morning is change. The most important change that could ever occur in your life or in my life, and it has nothing to do with politics.

1. I Was Once in Sin and Separated From God

It has nothing to do with the economy. It has nothing to do with who’s ruling over us. It has everything to do about me and my relationship with God. I’m going to go from a personal standpoint this morning, but I hope that you can see that these things would apply to you. Because I need a change in my life. In fact, I would say to you that I am a changed person now. What do you mean by that, Josh? What do you mean that you need a change in your life? Well, if I were to describe myself to you in my former days, and I would say to you that I was once in sin. Truly, we could all say that we were once in sin.

If you turn in your Bibles there to 1 John, notice how sin is described there in 1 John chapter 3 and in verse 4. There the text reads in 1 John chapter 3 and in verse 4 that everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. Have you ever done something that is wrong? Have you ever violated law of any kind, whether it be civic law? Have you ever voted the law violated the law of your parents? Have you ever read the Bible and been convicted from a standpoint that I have violated God’s law? If I was ever outside of the law, I was in lawlessness, and therefore I was in sin. And so what Paul says in Romans 3 and in verse 23, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God is true, and it was certainly true of me.

Now, you may have known me all my life, and you may have said, Josh, you’ve always been a pretty good guy. Others may say, Josh has always been a scoundrel. But regardless of what your opinion of me was or is now, the fact was that I was once in sin. And because of that sin, I was also therefore separated from God. Back in the Old Testament, in Isaiah the 59th chapter, and Isaiah the 59th chapter in verses 1 and 2, a text known and familiar to many. Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save, nor is his ear so dull that it cannot hear. But speaking even to God’s people of that time and certainly to us today, he says, Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

You go to the very beginning of the Bible story. And man and woman in the garden of Eden, and man and woman having this relationship with God. And yet when man sins and violates the will of God, he’s in lawlessness, he’s in sin, he is therefore separated from God. He’s cast out of the garden. If you’re still there in 1 John, know what John says in the first chapter of 1 John in verses 5 and 6. This is the message we have heard from him, 1 John chapter 1, verses 5 and 6, and announced to you that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. And if we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

2. Dead, Lost, Poor and in Bondage

The whole essence of fellowship is to be as God is, so we can be in his presence. But I can’t be in his presence if I’m in sin. If I do that which is wrong, then I am outside of the light. And I am in darkness. And yes, even I, all of us would say. That at one time, and perhaps for much of our lives, we were separated from God. My sins caused that separation. Your sins caused that separation. And because I was separated from God, I was removed from the source of life. And I was dead. Romans 6 and verse 23. The wages of sin is death. The warning to Adam in the garden, the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

And we recognize that, yes, physical death began to come into play. But why? Because spiritual death has also occurred. Man separated from God. He is dead. He’s removed from that which is really life. You know, there’s a big thing about zombies right now for some reason. I don’t like horror movies. I don’t like zombies. And if I see anything with a zombie, I’m changing the channel as quick as you can say, go. What’s a zombie supposed to be? It’s the living dead. Well, in a sense, you and I have all been spiritual zombies for some time of our lives. We’ve been functioning, we’ve been living here on the earth. We’ve been walking about to and fro and going about doing our business, but what am I?

I’m really dead. Because I’m separated from my God. And let me tell you, that’s the scariest thing. Being separated from my God meant that I was lost. We are familiar with Isaiah the 53rd chapter, this wonderful promise of the prophecy of the one who was to come, the one who was to come and redeem the people. What does that text say in Isaiah 53 and in verse 6 of what the Messiah was going to come and do? In Isaiah 53 and in verse 6, the text states that all of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. He was coming because we were all lost, because we all decided we go do our thing. We left the shepherd. We left the one who was looking out for us.

And we were lost because of it. Wandering about aimlessly, seeking purpose, seeking meaning in life, and yet never recognizing that true purpose and meaning in life is found in only one place, and yet we, by our own determination and on will have left that. We had wandered away. We had strayed away. So we were lost and not perhaps even knowing it.

Remember the words of Jesus back in Matthew the 16th chapter. If you go back to Matthew, the 16th chapter, this is now within the context of what will we leave and what the cost is to follow Jesus.

But the main point we’re going to make is in verse 26. But in Matthew the 16th chapter, beginning in verse 24, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Poverty is something that you and I know nothing about. We really don’t. We live in a blessed society, even where if we would be deemed as somewhat poor, yet we live like kings compared to so much of the world. That doesn’t matter.

You could be Donald Trump. You could have been Solomon. And all of his wealth and all of his riches. And yet that’s all you had, Jesus says, what do you got? You’ve got nothing. You can have everything in this world, but if you forfeited your soul, what have you got? And that’s where we stand. If we’re outside of God. If we don’t have that relationship with him, we may succeed in so many ways in this life. And yet, truly we find ourselves with nothing. Poor. Wretches. Not only was I poor, but I was in bondage. Saying in the gospels, go over to John the eighth chapter. Notice what Jesus has to say about sin. Certainly one of the great advances of our country was the eradication of slavery.

While the slavery still exists throughout the world, we would all long for all kinds of slavery to no longer exist, whether it be based on race or economic status or whatever it may be. We say, this is a terrible thing. Let’s get rid of slavery. And yet we all find ourselves slaves. John the eighth chapter, verse 34. Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. Sold in bondage. Unable to redeem yourself, unable to pay enough to your master now for him to let you go. No, you’re a slave to it. And that was my condition. That was your condition. And because of all that, because of my separation from God in this life, because I had made myself a slave to sin, and I had forsaken my soul for whatever I might find in the world, because I had wandered away from my shepherd.

I had wandered away from the one who is good. What did I find myself looking forward to? Matthew the 25th chapter, in verse 34, this great scene of judgment. Where the Son of Man has come and he is sitting on his throne, the nations are gathered before him, and he separates them as a shepherd, separates the sheep from the goats, and he puts the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. And you read in Matthew chapter 25 and verse 34. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you are blessed. I’m sorry, we don’t want to read that verse 34 there. I want to read verse 41. So read the other side of the coin. Then he will also say to those on his left in verse 41, depart from me, accursed ones, and to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.

What Jesus is doing is he’s actually proposing the sentence to us that we had accepted ourselves.

Then you will truly experience what it is to be without God. To be away from the presence of the Lord, to be in hell, the place prepared for the devil and his angels where there is torment, and there is nothing good. And that was all I could look forward to. Because of my own sinful life.

And boy, I need a change. I need something to turn everything around.

3. In Christ He Died for My Sin and Reconciled Me

And so in Christ, I could say, and you could say that things begin to change. Now, instead of in sin, I can glory in the fact that he died for my sin. In 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says about the resurrection. But as he enters into that discussion of the resurrection, the 1 Corinthians, the 15th chapter, he begins to talk about the fundamentals, you might say, of the gospel. Matthew, the 15th chapter. I’m just going to read verses 3 and 4. I’m sorry, 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4. The Apostle Paul writes, I delivered to you as of first importance that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

And of course, he goes from there to talk about the resurrection. But he begins by saying he had to die before he was resurrected. And why did he die? Because Josh Creel, you sinned. And Peter and Paul and John and James and Barnabas and Doug and Tom and Hal and Dennis and Frank and everyone else that’s in this room, you sinned. And because he was willing to do that for me and for you.

Colossians, the first chapter, speaks about this great reconciliation that we now have in Christ. Colossians the first chapter. And I’m going to read verses 19 through 22. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1, verses 19 through 22. It was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through which I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. It was a father’s good pleasure, the one who I sinned against, the one who I had left voluntarily, the one who I was separated from, and yet it was his good pleasure that in Christ I could be reconciled back to him. I was not doomed forever to be apart from my God.

Going back over to the Corinthian letters in 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, the fifth chapter in verses 18 and 19, the Apostle Paul writes, all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not kind of trespasses against them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. I sinned, but Christ died for my sins. I was separated from God because of my sins, but God purpose I want to bring him back. And so I’ll send my son. And through him and his death on the cross, Josh and everyone else can be brought back to me. And so, whereas I was once spiritually dead, now through Christ I am made alive.

4. Once Dead, Made Alive; Once Lost, Found

We have at home a couple of books written by Mrs. Lee, Sister Lee’s stories for children. There’s a book on the stories of God’s first people, Israel, and there’s a book about the stories of Jesus. And I’ll try to read one of those every night to Jared before bedtime. One of the stories that read to Jared this week was of Jesus meeting the widow of Nain down in Luke chapter 7. Go back in Luke chapter 7. Just read this brief account with me. And just get the picture in your mind of what you see about Jesus as he’s here on the earth. In Luke, the seventh chapter, and beginning in verse 11, note what it says here. Luke chapter 7, beginning in verse 11. Soon afterwards, he went to a city called Nain.

His disciples are going along with him, accompanied by a large crowd. Now, as he approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother. And she was a widow, and a sizable crowd from the city was with her. Get the picture in your mind of what’s happening on this day. Here, coming from one direction, going toward the city is Jesus. The Jesus, the author and the giver of life. The one who says in John chapter 1 and verses 1 through 4 that who he created all things, and in him was life, and life was the light of men. Here comes Jesus. He’s going toward the city. What’s coming out of the city? Death. A dead son, the only son of a widow.

And so death is coming out of this city. And the great sorrow in the mourning because of death. What happens when the life of Jesus meets death? That’s what this account is about. It’s what this great miracle purports to show us. When the Lord saw her, verse 13, he had compassion for her and said to her, Do not weep. And he came up and touched the coffin, and the bearers came to a halt, and he said, Young man, I say to you, arise. The dead man sat up and began to speak. Jesus conquers death. While certainly we look forward to the resurrection from the dead, that’s not the only death that Jesus conquers. Ephesians, the second chapter. We were reminded that we were all dead. Ephesians chapter 2 in the first six verses makes that perfectly clear to us.

Ephesians 2 and verse 1, you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of air of the Spirit who is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. How do we get in this situation? How do we get in this condition? Paul didn’t say it’s God’s fault. He said it’s my fault. You did this, you went down this path, and you were dead because of it. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespass, transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Death conquered by Jesus. Life given by Jesus. I was once dead. But he changed me. He made me alive. I was once lost, and that I had departed from God myself, but he came and he found me. We’ll not take time to read all of Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15 stands out to us because it talks about lost things. Talks about the parable of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep. There were 99 who were saved. There’s one who is lost. Talks about the woman searching after the lost coin. Then it talks about the prodigal son who goes out and he returns to the Father. But just note how Luke chapter 15 begins. Why are we talking about these lost things? Why are we talking about the shepherd going out and searching for the lost sheep?

Luke 15, verses 1 and 2. Now the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near to him to listen to him. But the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. They scoffed. They laughed. This can’t be a Messiah. This can’t be a prophet or a teacher of God’s word. He wouldn’t associate with such people. And what’s the point of the passage? The shepherd seeks those who are lost. The woman seeks after that which is precious to her. The father with open arms gladly receives his son who has gone away and squandered all of his possessions. Of course he came and he associated with the tax collectors and the sinners because he came seeking them.

5. Made Rich, Set Free, Given Hope

And he came seeking us all. I was poor. He made me rich. No. Not the health and wealth gospel of Joel Osteen and so many that if you will obey God, if you’ll follow God, you’ll believe in God, that He’s going to provide for you all these wonderful material things. 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and in verse 9 talks about how we’re rich. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That though he was rich, how was he rich? Not while he was here on the earth. But as the Son of God, as deity in heaven, he was rich. Yet for your sake he became poor. So that his through his poverty, so that you through his poverty might become rich. And so here we stand.

Here I stand. I do fine. The congregation here is very generous to me. I don’t think the world would call me rich. Many here are doing fine. You have decent jobs, perhaps even good jobs. But you’re not the rich of the world, yet you are the rich. Because through this poverty, we become rich. I was once in bondage, but he set me free. Matthew 20 and verse 28. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 1, verses 18 and 19, that we were not redeemed from our aimless or worthless conduct with things like silver or gold, but we were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

He freed me.

I’m not enslaved to sin. And because of that, now we can go back to Matthew 25 and what he says in verse 34. I have hope.

6. Live Thankful, Worshipful, Confessing, Loving, Obeying Him

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Brethren, that’s the change. That’s the change that we all needed. That’s the change that’s only available in Christ Jesus. Now, let’s look at that just a minute, another perspective. If you and I can glory in this. If we can recognize that what the scriptures are talking about is personal change, the change of people, the change of people who went away from God, who were lost in sin, but now it can be something completely different because of what God did in Christ. What does that mean for us? Well, first of all, it ought to means that I ought to live thankful. Regardless of what happens this week, next week, next year, regardless of whatever may happen to me, I ought to be thankful to my God.

Because all He’s already done for me, the greatest thing that could ever be done. Colossians, in Colossians, the third chapter. We know a few verses out of this. Let’s just tie these verses together in Colossians chapter 3 that speak about thanksgiving. Colossians 3 and verses 15 through 17. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do all the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Well, certainly there are applications to be made of those passages regarding our singing, regarding our lies.

The point overwhelmingly of that passage is here’s the thankful living that I’ll be manifest in all of God’s people. Can you say today that I’m changed because of what God did? That I’m no longer what I once was, and you be thankful. Worship Him. Not just as we do today, but as we also recognize from Romans chapter 12 and verse 1, that I’m to be a living and holy sacrifice to God. That is my acceptable worship to God. Live your life in honor of the one who gave his son for you. You live your life in honor of the one who rescued you, who made you rich, who found you. Honor him, worship him in all that you say and do. Confess him before men. Luke chapter 12 and verse 8, where Jesus says, I say to you, everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of Man, will confess him before the angels of God.

That’s not just speaking of when someone is first coming to Christ that they should confess that Jesus is the Christ. No, it’s an idea of a life. That your identity is tied up with Christ. And then you’re not ashamed to be found with Christ. And then whatever you’re doing in your life, you can confess. I do this because I have a relationship with God through Christ. And so I confess him. Love Him. Love Him with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. Let Him be the most precious thing to you. Because of what He did for you. And obey Him. Jesus says, if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. John 14, 15. If He offers me this kind of change, then I ought to change for him.

Conclusion

I ought to live a life thankful, worshipful, confessing him, loving him, and obeying him. And so we offer an invitation this morning. You can have a changed life. But if you’re outside of Christ, and you are separated from God, and that’s not a pretty picture. There’s no hope in that picture outside of God. But he offers to make you something new. He offers to forgive you, to reconcile you, to make you rich, and to give you hope. But to receive that, you need Christ. You need to really follow him. You need to really come to him. Be baptized to have your sins forgiven. To be baptized so that you may be put to death and raised to walk in newness of life. Let God change you.

Will you have faith in him? To know that what you really need, God and God alone can provide, and he will provide to you if you’ll respond to him in faith. Can we aid you in some way that you can experience these wonderful, great, timeless, eternal changes that God provides? If so, won’t you come as we stand and as we sing?