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Weekly Sermon 2-7-10
Your Place Or Mine?
Today I want to talk about being in our place or His. The title of this message is 'Your Place Or Mine' for one particular reason. I want us to think about a place we truly want to be. I want us to think about what the two options are in the different places. Do we want to be in our place, whether we think it be a good or bad place at the moment, or in His place.
Turn with me if you will to John 14:1-3, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. (2)In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (3)And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also."
I want to take the first line of that first verse for a second and talk about something that happens in our place so many times. "Let not your heart be troubled". Many times in our place, our heart is troubled for whatever reason. We have so many troubling things that seem to rear it's head in our lives at any one given time. This past week, I had two children in the hospital, both giving birth to a grandchild for us, one with complications, a close friend of the family killed in a car accident, a dad that was in tears over the loss of this friend, and a daughter on the road, on a trip to see her sister in the hospital, the one with complications, who was having anxiety attacks the whole time she was driving. Talk about a rough week in our house hold. This would give every opportunity for our hearts to really be troubled. In this first part of this verse, Jesus says, Let not your heart be troubled. Why, when He knows us and the way of the world would He say something like this to us? Let us look at a few things, in John only, that deals with some of the troubles here.
The first place I want us to look, holding your place here is in John 5:4-9, "For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. (5)And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. (6)When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time [in that case], he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? (7)The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. (8)Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. (9)And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath."
Now, still keep a hold of John 14, turn with me to John 11:33-44, "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, (34)And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. (3)Jesus wept. (36)Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! (37)And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? (38)Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. (39)Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been [dead] four days. (40)Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? (41)Then they took away the stone [from the place] where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up [his] eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. (42)And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said [it], that they may believe that thou hast sent me. (43)And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. (44)And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go."
These are just two instances, of the 4 troubled things mentioned in John, where the word trouble is shown. In both of the instances where trouble is mentioned, look how Jesus handled the situation. He took the troubled time and turned it into something positive. When we have times of trouble in our lives, do we take that time and turn it to something positive? God has a master plan for everything that happens, whether we can see the plan in action, or whether we can not, there still is a plan, by God, that will develop over HIS time. If we put our lives in God's hands, then we will not have to worry about what the plan is, or how it turns out. The plan will turn out the way God had intended, whether we want to admit it or not. Lets let Him work the way He works in our lives.
"In MY Fathers house are many mansions". The word house here is the Greek "oikia", meaning dwelling. This tells us that Heaven is the dwelling place of Jesus' Father, God. In this "dwelling place" there are many mansions, or the Greek "mone" meaning abiding place. Now Jesus says that He will go to prepare a place for us there. The word place comes from the Greek "topos", meaning a place of habitation, like a city. This tells us that Jesus will go to the dwelling place of God where there are many abiding places and prepare a place of habitation there for us. This also means, to me, that we will co-habitat with God Himself.
This last verse, that we read about here, I think is one of the greatest verse for our security as there is in the Bible. Jesus says, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also." Jesus, Himself, says that He will come again and receive us unto Himself and we may live with Him. That to me is a great offering by Jesus. All we have to do is believe in Him, who He is, what He did for us, and that He definitely is the Lord of all, to be able to live with Him.
Now to really get into the meat of this particular message. We have seen how, in troubled times, Jesus takes the trouble and makes it something positive. We see that we have a place here on earth that is our place, that is full of the times that this world has to offer, and finally we see a place, where God lives, that has many places to live with Him, in a place, called Heaven, where we will not ever have to worry about times of trouble.
I will pose the question again, your place or mine? I am not saying that I want you to pick God's place, in the literal, right now, but to really reflect on the place you are at right now and determine whether you want to stay in that place or be in God's place. What I want you to think about is the place your spiritual self is currently residing. Is your spiritual relationship residing in the place you want it to be? Does your soul represent who you are in God's eyes. When you finally reach your final resting place, where would you really like it to be? Guess I will go Baptist on ya'll for a minute, would you want to spend the rest of your eternity in the fires of Hell, where there is gnashing of teeth and screams of torture, or in a place where the angels sing angelic praises to a loving God. I personally choose to reside with the Almighty Loving God.
To be able to spend your eternity with the love of God, then we have to go right back to the very first verse we started out with today. Jesus stated, "ye believe in God, believe also in Me". There is only ONE way to get to God and that is through Jesus Christ. I have had many say to me that they are good folks and that they do not sin enough to keep them out of Heaven. There are many that believe that being good or doing good for others is all it takes. If that was all it took, then it really saddens me that the ONLY Son of God came down here and died for nothing. Was Jesus' death all in vain? I think not. There was a reason that Jesus died, for the sins of all mankind. He shed His blood to wash away our sins so that, when the time comes, we may be able to stand before God and have Jesus as our attorney stating, yes this person has committed all these terrible offenses, but has been totally pardoned by the saving blood.
Do you know about the blood of Christ? Do you know of the saving grace of Jesus Christ? If you do not, but you would like to, all you have to do is say a simple prayer with me.
Say this simple prayer with me, Dear Lord, I want you to be the Lord over my life, forgive me of my sins, and give me the gift of everlasting life. Amen.
If you have said this simple prayer, then we believe that you have received salvation. We would love to rejoice with you, so please drop us a note, in our link, to let us know and confess Jesus before man, so that we may send you a few things that we hope will help you in your new Christian walk.
With Love in Christ,
Pastor Stone
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