TXTThe desire of God is not that you would be insulated or isolated from the world but that you would be a living testimony to God’s truth in and to the world.

Every Christian experiences a tension between desiring to be separated from the world and obedience to proclaim the gospel to the world. Throughout history, there have been excesses on both sides of this tension. Sometimes, Christians have overemphasized separation from the world and sought to isolate themselves from the world and restrict contact with non-Christians. At other times, Christians have overemphasized ministry to the world and abandoned holiness and the requirements of faith and obedience in a foolish attempt to make the gospel more worldly appealing.

The Christian who attempts to isolate themselves from the world disobeys God’s command to be a gospel light and witness to the world, and the Christian who seeks at all costs to be appealing to the world disobeys God’s command to live lives of holiness.

Whether you are a recent high school graduate preparing to enter the working world or attend college, or an adult working a secular job, every Christian must wrestle with this tension that comes from living a holy life for Christ while living in an evil world.

This is the very issue that Jesus is praying about in John 17:14-19. He does not pray that God would take Christians out of the world, but while they are in the world, keep them holy and obedient to the faith.

In this sermon, pastor Ben Smith preaches from John 17:14-19 on how you can be in the world without becoming like the world by seeking godly affections, resting in God’s power, and being set apart by God.

For Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is not something that is celebrated once a year but a moment that forever changes your life.

In a few weeks, many will celebrate the completion of their high school or college studies. To recognize these achievements, schools will host graduation ceremonies, called commencement exercises. Because these ceremonies celebrate the completion of a course of study, most people think of a commencement service as a ceremony to mark the conclusion of something.

However, to commence means to start. Commencement exercises are intended to mark the beginning of something. For high school graduates, that is the beginning of their life as adults and entering the workforce, and for college graduates, that is the beginning of the career they trained for.

This is similar to how many think about Resurrection Sunday. In many ways, Resurrection Sunday can feel like the conclusion – the big event. And thus, the Sunday after is more about getting back to normal. The family pictures have been taken and posted to social media. The new clothes are now just another piece in your wardrobe. All of the candy has been eaten. And now things are back to a regular routine and norm.

For those who have confessed Jesus as Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead, the resurrection is not the conclusion but the beginning. For Christians, Resurrection Sunday is not an event that comes and goes; it is a celebration of a moment that forever changes their lives.

Luke 24:13-35 recounts the experience of two men who seemed very familiar with Jesus and what He taught. They seemed to have had high hopes that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah. Yet they are perplexed because of the events that led to Jesus’s crucifixion and death. They have heard reports that His body is no longer in the grave and that He is, in fact, alive.

These are amazing and perplexing things to these men, but at the point that we meet them in Luke 24, these events have had no impact on their lives. They are walking home and getting back to their regular lives. But as they walk home, they meet Jesus, and everything about their lives changes.

The resurrection forever transforms your understanding and your life.

The resurrection of Jesus is more than a historical event. The resurrection of Jesus is a confrontation of faith. Do you believe that He is the resurrection and life?

This interaction between Martha and Jesus is dripping with emotion. Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, had a close and affectionate relationship with Jesus. Verses 33-36 tell us that when Mary met him, accompanied by many mourners, he was deeply moved, and when he came to the tomb, he wept. The sisters are grieved by the loss of their brother and disappointed that Jesus had not arrived in time to heal him from his sickness.

There is a tendency to read this passage and focus primarily on the emotions. However, God is doing more than ministering to emotions in this passage. In God’s providence, he was providing an opportunity to demonstrate His glory and call his disciples to a deeper faith and belief.

Martha acknowledged that she believed in the resurrection on the last day, but this belief was academic and did not influence how she experienced the grief of the moment. Jesus called her to personally believe that he alone is the source and power of resurrection and eternal life. Many people, like Martha, acknowledge Jesus's resurrection, but what does it mean to have faith and belief that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? This passage exposes the insufficiency of knowledge alone and the requirement of faith and confession.

Having faith and belief that Jesus is the resurrection and the life is:

• More than an acknowledgment of fact.

• Believing that in Jesus alone is salvation.

• Confessing Jesus as Christ and Lord.

The desire and will of God is for you to be in right relationship with Him and be in His presence. The testimony of this is that God has provided the way for the defiled to be made holy and those separated from Him by sin to draw near in confidence through the offering of His son, Jesus Christ.

The offering of Jesus reveals God's will, which calls for a response of faith. This passage teaches three responses to the offering of Jesus that God expects of you.

Some tasks are restricted from you because of a lack of ability. Other tasks are restricted from you because of a lack of qualification or authority. The pride of sin produces the lie that your own efforts can achieve righteousness. The arrogance of sin can convince you that you do not need Jesus. However, the testimony of scripture is that you can never achieve righteousness before God through your own efforts. Salvation comes only through the work of God. Jesus is the perfect high priest who, through His life, death, and resurrection provides forgiveness of sin and access to God to all who believe in faith. 

Hebrews 7 teaches three ways that Jesus, as the perfect son of God, provides for salvation.

It is possible to be near the gospel and miss salvation. It is possible to have some knowledge of the gospel and not believe it. It is possible to be close to salivation and not be saved. Proximity does not equal possession.

Beyond making a comparison between Moses and Jesus, Hebrews 3 warns that it is not enough to simply know who Jesus is. Like the people that Moses led, there will be many who miss out on receiving the salvation of Jesus. Those whom Moses led out of Egypt were witnesses to God's great and glorious power but did not have faith and thus did not receive the blessing of the promised land. Likewise, many today have heard the gospel but have not believed in faith and thus have not received the promise of salvation.

God has used many things to reveal himself to man and testify to his glory, but these things must not distract you from the glory of Jesus Christ. We are people who are easily distracted. The first chapter of Hebrews identifies some of the good things God has used to reveal himself to man, testify to his glory, and accomplish his will. God used these good things to point to his glory, but they are not and never have been equal to his glory. The danger and warning of this chapter is becoming distracted by these things and missing what they testify to. 

With such a propensity to be distracted, how can you keep your heart and mind focused on the glory of Jesus Christ? To keep you from disastrous distractions, this passage calls you to recognize the glorious supremacy of Christ in three areas.

You might expect the cost of receiving the gift of atonement provided by the eternal Son of God to be high and costly. You might expect the requirements for exchanging your sin for the righteousness of Christ and being made heirs with Christ, adopted as children of God, to be complicated and difficult to achieve. However, in simple language, the Bible declares that to be saved from your sin requires the confession of Jesus as Lord and the belief that God raised him from the dead.

The gospel of Matthew (2:20-23) tells us that God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream to tell him that the child that Mary was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel also instructed Joseph that the son Mary would bear would be named Jesus because "he will save his people from their sins." The name Jesus is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means the Lord saves.

The New Testament celebrates the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophetic promise. One of the earliest books in the New Testament is 1 Thessalonians. In chapter 5, Paul gives instructions for how Christians are to live in the context of a wicked and broken world. Specifically, Christians are to live in a posture of expectation of the imminent return of Jesus.

The connection between Isaiah 9:7 and 1 Thessalonians 5 is one of timing and perspective. Isaiah is looking forward to the day that the Messiah will come. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, is rejoicing that Jesus the Messiah has come and is looking forward to when he will return. Isaiah looks forward to the Messiah coming to establish his kingdom. Paul is rejoicing that the kingdom of God has come and is looking forward to the day when the fullness of it is known.

From these two passages, we are encouraged to have a perspective of hope in the promise of salvation that enables us to persevere in the present.

The last two names listed in Isaiah 9:6 for the Messiah are Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. These two names point to the eternal nature of the Messiah and the work of redemption he has accomplished.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul teaches that the resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to the work of redemption and celebrates the victory over sin and death that Jesus' resurrection has brought. The redemption of Jesus provides eternal salvation and eternal peace to those who believe in faith in Jesus.

Isaiah declares that Jesus will be called – wonderful counselor and mighty God. Wonderful counselor acknowledges that the Messiah will be one who reveals the glorious truth of God, and Mighty God declares that he is God and exercises the power of God. The Messiah will be God, revealing the truth of himself to the world.

In the New Testament, one of the clearest declarations of this comes in John chapter 14. Jesus was encouraging his disciples that he was preparing an eternal dwelling place in his Father's house for those who believe in God and in him. Thomas asked Jesus how they would know the way to his Father's house. Jesus responded that He was the way, the truth, the life, and salvation was only through him.

With this declaration, Jesus made it clear that the hope of the gospel was exclusively through and in himself.

Isaiah 9:6 is a familiar passage often read during Advent. This Advent season, I will be preaching each sermon from Isaiah 9:6 with attention to the names given to the Messiah.

Today, we consider the first two phrases of the passage: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” In these two phrases, we have a foundational truth of the hope of the gospel declaring the nature of Jesus. Jesus is both and, at the same time, all God and all man. These two natures are united in the person of Jesus. He is all God and all man.

Isaiah prophesied this glorious mystery in Isaiah 9:6 when he declared that unto us would be born a child (man) and a son would be given (God). The gospel of Matthew tells us that God sent an angel to Joseph to declare to him that the baby that Mary conceived was of the Holy Spirit and was the one for whom the prophet Isaiah foretold and would be called Immanuel (which means God with us) (Matthew 1:18-25).

The glorious hope of Christmas is that God came, in the flesh, to redeem us from our sins. The prophet Isaiah declared this future hope, and the New Testament celebrates the fulfillment of this hope. Philippians 2:5-11

teaches this fundamental truth and testifies that Jesus coming in the flesh was an act of grace, a gift of love, and there is hope in the name of Jesus.

When lives are in danger, the first impulse is to think about how they can be rescued. The most horrifying situations are when there is no hope of saving those in danger. The gospel's good news is that God desires to rescue you and has provided a way for your salvation in Jesus.

Chapter two begins Paul's instructions to Timothy on the proper order of the church. Before addressing these issues, he lays the foundational truths of the church's call to prayer and the forgiveness of sin only in Jesus. In this sermon, I show the good gift of redemption, the desire of God to save, and man's only hope is in Jesus.

When you travel by ship, there is a moment when you realize that your safety is totally dependent on the integrity of the ship. When the ship leaves the dock, it does so slowly enough that the safety of the land seems to linger and remain within reach. However, as the ship sails further to sea, your sight of land grows smaller and more distant. At the distance of 2.9 miles, any sight of land finally slips beyond your site as the curvature of the earth limits your vision. When any sight of land is lost, and all you can see is water in every direction, is the moment that you realize that your life rests entirely in the ship's ability to reach the next port. As the sun sets and darkness cloaks all but what the ship's lights can illuminate, the feeling of dependency on the ship for safety is made all the more profound.

Paul knew something about shipwrecks. He had experienced near-death experiences in multiple shipwrecks. With these memories in mind, he writes to Timothy a charge to fight the good fight for the gospel and a warning of the grave consequences that come from rejecting the gospel.

For all the advancements in modern media, the most effective marketing approach has remained unchanged since the creation of time. The most effective and powerful persuasive tactic is personal testimony. It is helpful to hear about all the features of a product and how it could improve your life. However, what will draw your attention and acceptance toward purchasing something is when someone you know says, I use it; it helped me; you should use it too.

In this passage, Paul declares that the primary purpose of Jesus coming in the flesh to earth was to save sinners. In making this point, he shares his personal testimony of salvation, his sin before Christ, and the grace that he has now received. Through his testimony, we see the common depravity all experience, the hope of salvation through Jesus, and the testimony and worship that follows.

It is good and helpful for you to think about and work out issues of theology and doctrine. Those under the Lordship of Jesus rightly desire to be as obedient to His word and faithful to His commands as possible. Therefore, those who are disciples of Jesus spend their lives working out their faith and striving to understand God's word better. And yet the saving gospel is not complicated or hard to understand. Sometimes faith to believe is difficult, but understanding it is not. This is the beauty of God's grace; salvation is found through faith, by grace simple enough for a child to understand, powerful enough to save the most wicked sinner.

As we remember the triumphal entry, we recognize that these events point us to what will be. Jesus is coming again. There is coming a second triumphal entry. Having defeated sin and death on the cross, He will return as a King of kings. Having atoned the wrath of God, He will welcome the saints into the presence of God. Having received the worship of a few, he will soon receive the worship of everything that has breath.

Leaders naturally want to project an image of power and strength. Any perceived weakness threatens their ability to command the attention, loyalty, and support of those they lead.

In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul makes a radically different claim. He does not claim strength, power, ability, intelligence, or any other characteristic of worldly admiration. Instead, he identifies himself with the forgettable, ordinary, and disposable jar of clay. His identification with such humility is not made in despair but in glorious hope. He recognized that God uses the powerless and ordinary to display His glory and power.

The imagery that Paul references in 2 Corinthians 2:12-17 is of a Roman General’s victory parade. When the victorious general returned home, there would be a parade to celebrate his victory and the general’s success. The sights and smells of the event would be memorable. There would be incense burned in honor of the hero. There would be processions of soldiers and officers. There would be grand ceremonies and celebrations for the victors. These events would be grand and glorious for the ones in the parade and the citizens celebrating their war heroes. However, there would be others in the parade that would not experience it as a joyful event. Slaves and other captured people conquered by the victorious army would also march in the parade. They would not be marching to places of honor but toward the arena to die fighting each other and wild beasts to entertain the crowds. 

The sights and smells of the parade would be cause for joy for the celebrating Romans. The sights and smells of the parade would be cause for dread for those marching toward their death. 

With this imagery in mind, I want you to see from this passage that regardless of the reception you may receive, Christians are to bear witness to the truth and serve God, not man.

In the days of Jesus’ birth, Israel was not a free nation. They were unhappily under the control and rule of Rome. But God was doing more than bringing political relief. Jesus the Messiah brought freedom from the enslavement of sin.

Let us rejoice that Jesus, the Messiah, has come to set us free from the bondage of sin so that we might be transformed from slaves to sons and have the assurance of hope.