Restoration 2013: Jesus.

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Restoration Ministry

Mark Howard

Jesus:  The Ladder

Heavenly Father, Father, we praise your name tonight that we have Jesus.

Give us Jesus tonight, Father, as we're here, as we're in the Word, as we're meditating, as We're asking you to open our hearts and minds to receive Him, that He may materially transform our lives and make us more like Him.

It is in the name of Jesus that we ask and pray these things tonight.

Last night, when we talked about Jesus the refiner, I made an appeal last night, a forward call last night, and I was praising the Lord that many of you responded to what the Holy Spirit was communicating to your hearts in wanting to make that more thorough commitment to Jesus.

1 thing that has perplexed me in ministry is how often it is that you can have a type of a meeting where you make an appeal.

There are numbers of different appeals that are made.

Probably the most uncomfortable appeal is that forward call.

I can't help but remember the first time I was in a meeting where somebody had a call to the front.

And Of all things, it was a video meeting.

Unless you've been in the situation, you don't understand the awkwardness of sitting and watching a video.

And I, you know, when you're unaccompanied, I was unaccustomed to anything like that.

I had been out of church life altogether.

And I remember sitting in this auditorium.

Somebody had invited me to watch Mark Finley.

And when he got to the end, he got into his appeal.

And I was sitting in my chair and the Holy Spirit began to tell me, you need to respond to this.

You know, all the reasons why it didn't make any sense, the top on the list being it's just a video.

But the Holy Spirit was really stirring my heart.

And you know when you've been in a setting like that and you've been called to respond.

That struggle, that wrestling that goes on.

And I remember, he's calling us forward, I stood to my feet and I felt like every eye in the place was right in the back of my head.

And I went forward, but when I went forward, the tears just came.

I felt the presence of Jesus and I realized who it was who was calling me.

But as I said, 1 of the challenges I've had in my experience is watching People respond to calls like that and expecting that after they've done that, everything in their life is going to be different.

That they're not going to have to struggle with their sin anymore.

Those old temptations that plagued them won't plague them anymore, only to return to life the next day and find out.

So what do you do when you respond to that appeal and you go back to things the way they were?

What's the answer for how to advance in the Christian life?

And that's what I want to look at this evening.

There's an interesting statement in the book Steps to Christ, page 48, that says this, many will be lost while hoping and desiring to be Christians.

How can you hope and desire to be Christian and be lost?

She says they do not come to the point of yielding the will to God.

And if you read, and I don't have the whole statement here, but she says elsewhere in that chapter that the will is the power of decision or the power of choice.

They do not now, The next sentence says, they do not now choose to be Christians.

And what we're going to look at tonight is the reality of the fact that a choice to be a Christian is not a 1 time choice at an altar call.

It begins when you give your heart to Jesus and then you must choose Him every step of the way.

They don't choose to be Christians and then she says this which is to me 1 of the most powerful and hopeful statements that has been penned.

It says, through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life.

By yielding up your will to Christ, you ally yourself with the power that is above all principalities and powers, you will have strength from above to hold you steadfast and thus through constant surrender to God." Through what?

You know, when a soldier, the enemy army comes in and a soldier surrenders to the enemy army, What does that mean?

You give up to the enemy army and that means you start obeying their orders.

Through constant surrender to God through the will, you will be enabled to live the new life, even the life of faith.

Now what we're going to do, where we're going to turn tonight is we're going to turn into the book of 2 Peter.

2 Peter, Peter gives us, I don't want to say a recipe, but he gives us Some step by step directions, literally, in advancing in the Christian life.

Now you have to take a little bit here when we're listening and we're talking about Peter.

Now we looked, I think it was our first night together in Luke chapter 5 when Peter was in that boat by the sea and Jesus said, go let's go out and you're going to drop down your nets for a catch and Peter began to argue with him.

He said, you know, Master I'm a fisherman and you're a carpenter.

But nevertheless at your will we'll go out.

And remember they went out to the sea and he dropped down the nets.

Immediately they were filled so full that the other boat came and both boats were sinking.

If you were here the first night, you remember that.

And it was after that experience, I mean, at that experience, when Peter realized he was in the presence of 1 who controlled the forces of nature that he fell down on his knees before Jesus and he said, Lord, depart from me for I am a sinful man.

Depart from me, I'm not worthy, but stay here, right?

What's interesting is we see an experience after that Jesus says, right immediately after that, from now on you're going to catch men, and the Bible says they forsook all and followed him.

And yet it was after that experience that we find Peter denying his master 3 times.

Denying him even having been told he would deny him.

The third time the scripture tells us in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus' eyes caught the eyes of Peter right as the words were in his mouth with cursing and swearing.

And I love what it says in the book, Desire of Ages.

Ellen White says there was no condemnation in that look of Christ.

And it's interesting that Jesus had told Peter beforehand, you're going to deny me, but when you're converted, strengthen your brethren.

Now the first note I want to leave with you on that is this, as we've said already, conversion is not a one-time thing.

We haven't arrived at 1 point or another point.

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Jesus: The Ladder

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