<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Anthony Baca

For A Crown

Our Father in Heaven, thank you so much for blessing us with your presence today.

We know that on this day, in a special way, you abide with your people.

And we just want to take this time to Thank you for loving us so much that you would desire to spend time with people like us.

Bless us now, Lord, as this beautiful, precious day of rest comes to its close.

Help us to soak up Christ's loving presence while we have this opportunity, Lord.

Let the Spirit of God speak to our hearts and transform and change us.

So Friday night, we began, and the weekend, the concept for the weekend is misconceptions that Christians have.

And Friday night we talked about the misconception that I had when I was a brand-new Christian and that is God will do everything for me and I really don't have to do anything of myself.

And we saw from the Bible that that's not what God is looking for in our experience with him.

He's looking for a humanity combined with the divinity.

A humanity that is humbled in the dust because it realized of itself it can do nothing.

It is fully dependent upon God to do everything.

However, the human element is choice and the human element can choose to believe and act as though God's Word were true, or the human element can choose to disbelieve, and depending on the choice made depends on whether or not the promise becomes reality or not.

And so we saw the importance of coming together with God and combining our human effort, working as though it all depends upon us, but praying and pleading and living as though it all depended upon God.

It's a beautiful balance that we have to find in our Christian journey.

Our second misconception was this morning.

There was a lot going on this morning in my mind, but the main misconception is it's not my talent, so I don't have to do it.

I didn't say it plainly, but I think that was clear.

Too often as Christians we think, oh, that's not my gift or my talent, so I don't need to participate, I don't have to do it.

I hope you saw from this morning's presentation that that's not the case.

In fact, we are called to always participate in sharing the gospel, even in facets that we're not used to sharing because God wants to grow and to develop us and I was torn on this afternoon on which presentation to do and I've decided to do this presentation That was not an original email entitled for a crown For a crown true motives in service at the end of the day.

I believe what it comes down to is the motives behind everything that we do.

Notice with me, as we go back to my atheist years.

I've heard Christians answer this question.

If I were to ask, why are you a Christian?

So obviously you should become a Christian.

Because obviously you don't want to go to hell.

I mean Honestly, doesn't that sound nice?

Or, heaven's gonna have everything you could ever want.

Like, every, you know, pleasure that you would ever want is going to be there.

Anything that can make you happy will be there, so why wouldn't you want to be there?

Back in my atheist years when I would debate Christians and argue with Christians because I did do that, often it usually ended with these concepts being expressed to me.

Don't you just want to be there because of XYZ?

Or look, you should just, bro, if you don't accept this, you're going to burn in hell.

And that was like the concepts that I heard as an atheist back in my atheistic years.

And to be honest, what I have found in my experience, in my conversion experience, is that often we won't say these things, But sometimes the way we live our lives and the type of Christianity we have testifies that in the heart, in the deep recesses of our heart, these are actually our motives.

Or are we Christians because of something else?

That's what we're going to talk about in 3 simple points.

Our first thought is we're going to look at 2 aspects of God's character.

2 aspects of God's character that I think are important to understand.

Second, we're going to see the power of God's goodness and that's in relation to his character.

And the third thing we're going to do is we're going to make it personal.

If you haven't noticed this weekend, I believe that we should apply truth to ourselves.

Above all else, truth needs to apply to me first before I present it to someone else.

If you have your Bibles and you want to follow along, you can turn to Romans 11.

The verses will be on the screen if you need them.

However, I always do encourage you to follow along in your own personal Bibles.

Because if you caught it this morning, I had a mis-scripture on the screen.

It said Matthew 24 all morning, but it was actually Matthew 25.

And so, if you were in my class and you caught that, you would have got extra credit on your final.

But this is not a class nor is there a final for you so there's no need for extra credit.

You're turning Romans chapter 11 verse 22.

A very interesting passage of Scripture to me when it comes to who God is.

The Bible says, therefore consider the, what's that beautiful word?

Severity of God on those who fell severity but towards you goodness if you continue in his goodness otherwise you also will be cut off.

The context of Romans chapter 11, it is a parable type illustration that Paul has given of a tree.

And that there are branches that represented the Jews which were cut off because of unbelief, and the Gentiles were grafted in through faith, but then he tells them, don't become prideful because if God cut off the original branch, he can cut you off too, and he can always put the original branch back in.

In other words, It doesn't matter if you are Gentile.

If you accept Christ by faith, you can be part of this tree.

It's the plan of salvation being described, how God can take anyone who accept Christ by faith and bring them into the family of God, or how Christ can take anyone who has, or God can take anyone who's rejected Christ and can cut them off of the tree.

And after this illustration, he says, therefore are 2 aspects of God that you have to understand.

There is a goodness of God who is long-suffering and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But there is also the severity of God, because though God is long-suffering, it is not eternal suffering.

Long-suffering does 1 day come to an end.

Revelation plainly teaches in Revelation chapter 14 verses 6 through 12, that after the last message of mercy is given, mercy's door at 1 point will shut, which is why we need to earnestly plead for people today to accept Christ while the door is still open.

So there are 2 aspects of God's character.

Now I like how Paul says it in this passage.

If I'm speaking to you one-on-one, I want you to pretend you're the only person here and I'm talking to you, and I said, you have to understand that there's a severity of God on those who fall, severity.

Yeah, it's implying that I'm not, when I'm talking about God's severity, I'm not necessarily applying it to you.

It's almost as if he's assuming a sale here.

He's assuming a thought, and then he gives a qualifier, if you continue in his goodness.

I believe Paul is hinting at something very important here about God's character.

Back to Menu

For A Crown

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Rebellion & Witchcraft

39m

The Ripple Effect

1h 19m

Why Did God Kill His Own Prophet?

53m

Plenary

When Temptations Return

1h 18m

Plenary

The One Thing Jesus Can’t Give You

55m

Think On These Things

Think on These Things- Part 3

39m

Plenary

As a Witness

50m

Don’t Lose Heart

50m

The Commandment of Love - Part 2

57m

Plenary

Truth Only

51m

Don’t Leave Home Without Him

47m

Alistair Huong: Examining Our Motives

Why Am I A Christian?

41m

Sound Doctrine