Category: Practical

Two Reasons the Resurrection is a Necessity

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Practical6 Comments

Resurrection

Yesterday was Easter Sunday – the day Christians all over the world celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave.

But why? Why celebrate the resurrection? Why was it necessary? There are at least two reasons the resurrection is a necessity.

Two Reasons the Resurrection is a Necessity

(1) The resurrection was necessary to prove Jesus’ death actually satisfied God’s wrath.

In Philippians 2, we learn that Jesus is glorified. He is highly exalted and made to be our king because He humbled himself on the cross.

“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Php 2:8–11)

Jesus wouldn’t have been resurrected and made our King, He wouldn’t be exalted, if His sacrifice wasn’t sufficient and satisfied God’s wrath.

So Jesus’ resurrection was a necessity because it proves His sacrifice was sufficient to pay for our sins. Without it we are all still damned to hell.

(2) The resurrection was necessary because without it we couldn’t experience eternal life.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians,

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:20-22).

If Christ had not raised from the dead, then we wouldn’t either. Death is the end. Eternal life doesn’t exist. Heaven doesn’t exist.

Thankfully that isn’t true. Thankfully the resurrection happened, which means this world isn’t the end for us. Eternal life is to come. Life in a perfect world, ruled by a perfect King is to come. There is hope. There is something for us to look forward to.

Question for Reflection

  1. What reasons would you give for the necessity of the resurrection?

Resources

Post adapted from my sermon: The Seriousness of Sin and the Necessity of the Cross and Resurrection

Image

5 Motivations to Call Others to Repent

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Evangelism, Pastoral, Practical1 Comment

Unashamed

I spent last week in Louisville, Kentucky visiting friends and attending Together for the Gospel. The time with friends and the conference was a blessing.

This years conference was subtitled Unashamed. It’s focus was evangelism. While it is a common tactic to make evangelicals feel guilty for not evangelizing the lost, I appreciated that that was not their tactic. Instead of focusing on guilt, they focused on the power of the gospel to make men alive in Christ.

Some motivations that stuck out to me where the ones Thabiti Anyabwile gave. He specifically provided five of which I have highlighted below.

5 Motivations to Call Others to Repent

(1) Repentance is for the joy of heaven, the church and Christ.

(2) Repentance is calling someone to see worth in God’s sight.

(3) Repentance is a call to gain heaven’s greatest pleasures.

(4) Repentance isn’t emphasis on do’s and don’t’s, but on seeing God as He really is.

(5) Repentance is a call to what God calls beautiful.

Question for Reflection

  1. What other gospel-centered motivations would you add to the list above?

Resource

If you would like to hear Thabiti flesh these points out, you can watch his message here.

What is Jesus’ Mission and How Does it Affect Us?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn PracticalLeave a comment

Mission

What is Jesus’ mission? How does it affect us? A good summary of Jesus’ mission and how it affects us is found in Ephesians chapter 1. In verses 3-10 we learn three things:

(1) Jesus’ mission was given and prepared before the world was created (3-4; 9-10a)

Everything that has happened in this world is no mystery to God. He knew Adam and Eve would eat the fruit in the garden, that they would rebel against Him. He knew the world would turn out the way it is today.

God was prepared. He had a plan to save His people, so they could experience life with Him. His plan involved Jesus, His Son.

Ephesians 1:3-4 says,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” (Eph 1:3–4)

And Ephesians 1:9-10a says,

“making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time,” (Eph 1:9–10a)

So Jesus’ mission was God given. It was a plan that He and the Father came up with before this world was even created.

(2) Jesus’ mission was to take our punishment for us (7)

As sinners we are separated from God and we deserve His punishment, but Jesus came to die in our place, to take God’s wrath on Himself.

Ephesians 1:7 says,

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,” (Eph 1:7)

The way we experience redemption is by Jesus shedding His blood. The way Jesus shed His blood was by being nailed to a cross. While He hung on that cross, the Father’s wrath was poured out on Him. The wrath that we deserve was poured out on Jesus as He hung in our place.

So Jesus’ mission was to take our punishment for us.

(3) Jesus’ mission was to unite us to God for all eternity (10b)

We know this because the second half of Ephesians 10 tells us the plan that was revealed in the fullness of time was,

“to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph 1:10b)

So Jesus’ mission then is designed to restore all creation back to God. To restore shalom or peace first between us and the Father. Second between us and each other. Third between the Father and creation. Fourth between us and creation.

So Jesus came to unite us to God for all eternity through His shed blood on the cross and this was a mission that started before time even existed.

The Good News

The good news is that all those who would repent of their sin, who would turn from living how they want, admit Jesus is their Savior – that He came to die in their place, and follow Jesus will experience salvation.

So have you done that? Have you turned from your sins to follow Jesus? Have you given your life over to Him? Do you recognize Jesus’ mission was to come and die in your place so that your relationship with the Father could restored?

Or do you deny Jesus’ mission? Do you refuse to repent? Do you refuse to recognize Jesus as the Messiah? The Savior? Do you try to come against Jesus and destroy Him?

Questions for Reflection

  1. What do you believe?
  2. What have you done?
  3. Where are you at?

Resources

Image

Post developed from my sermon: Those who Come Against Jesus Don’t Win in the End

Are you a Disciple or a Consumer?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Practical3 Comments

Disciple or Consumer

In Matthew 20:34 we are told that the blind men Jesus just healed “followed him.” These men didn’t just use Jesus for their own personal gain. They didn’t think of Him as a genie in a bottle who comes out to heal them before disappearing back into the bottle. No, after their sight was restored, after they were healed by Jesus, they got up and followed Him.

Disciples

While some may argue that they just followed Jesus into Jerusalem for the Passover, I believe Matthew is getting at something more. I believe he is telling us they became one of His disciples.

What Their Actions Teach Us

Their actions then teach us that we shouldn’t use Jesus for our personal gain. Instead Jesus’ work in our life, either miraculous or through the church, should cause us to follow Him.

While that is true, I think a lot of people don’t do that. People suffer illnesses or injuries all the time, are healed in miraculous ways and may even credit that to Jesus, but they don’t follow Him.

Crediting Jesus with Something and Following Him are Two Different Things

Following Jesus requires us to allow Him to call the shots in our life, to direct the way we live. Many people don’t want that. Sure, they want Jesus to give. They want His healing touch. They want Him to work everything out in their lives, but they don’t want to follow Him.

For Who He Is

And you know, we are going to continue to use Jesus until we see Him the way these men did in our story, as the Son of David, as our King, as the one who has the right to direct our lives. Until we recognize who Jesus is, we won’t follow Him. All we will do is take from Him, consume, and treat Him and His church as a genie in a bottle. Someone we run to when we are in trouble, but nothing more than that.

So do you see Jesus through the eyes of these two men, as your King? Or do you see Him as just another way to get a handout?

What Jesus Wants

Jesus doesn’t want us to take from Him. Instead, He wants us to give ourselves to Him, to see Him as our King, to follow Him. Jesus wants these things from us. In other words,

He wants disciples not consumers.

Question for Reflection

  1. Are you a disciple, or are you a consumer?

Resource

Image

Respectable Sins: Anger | Part 7

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical, Respectable Sins1 Comment

Angry Birds

In the last post in this series, I looked at the long-term results of anger. In this last and final part on anger, I  talk about how to deal with our anger so it doesn’t escalate

How do we keep our anger from escalating?

Often anger left to brew will manifest itself in different ways. It may start as resentment, move to bitterness, then enmity and hostility, and on to a grudge before turning into strife. We, however, have to stop anger from running this path. We can do that by remembering and reflecting on a few things:

(1) Remember God is Sovereign 

God allows situations to occur in our life that have the potential to make us angry. Instead of allowing anger to take over and run its course, we should remember God has a purpose for everything. When we find ourselves in a situation where we are tempted to become angry, we should ask ourselves what purpose could this situation have in my life?

Admittedly, the question is an easy one to ask. The answer, however, doesn’t always come so easy. Think about Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was imprisoned in Egypt because Potiphar’s wife couldn’t have her way with him. He was forgotten by the cup bearer and left in prison to rot.

During that time, I am sure Joseph wondered what purpose all this had. Why God allowed this to occur in his life. For years, he didn’t know why. Eventually though, he discovered its purpose. It was to make a way for God’s chosen people – Israel – to survive a severe famine. A famine that couldn’t be foreseen or predicted.

God has a plan for everything that occurs in our life. We may never know the answer to the question why, but we can rest in the fact that God is sovereign and in control. Knowing that should help us deal with our anger before it escalates.

(2) Pray God would allow us to grow in our love for others, even those who have wronged us.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:5 that:

“Love is not…rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”

The NIV translates “resentful” as “keeps no record of wrongs” and “it is not irritable” as “is not easily angered.”

You can see why it is important we pray for love. It helps us forget and wipe the slate clean, as well as it keeps us from being easily angered.

So if you find yourself angry at another, pray that your love for them would increase. It is a sure fire way to kill your anger and keep it from escalating.

(3) Forgive as God has forgiven us

The parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35 teaches us that our forgiveness of others is based on God’s forgiveness of us.

If we are having a hard time forgiving someone who has wronged us, we need to turn to the gospel. As we do, we need to remember God forgave us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8).What a great truth! God forgave us why we were still sinners.

While we would admit what God has done is awesome, I believe we often miss the greatness of this verse. I believe that for two reasons.First, because it is a verse we have read and quoted so many times. Second, because we don’t realize the true nature of sin.

Sin is more than missing the mark. It is more than breaking a few commandments. Sin is an all out attack on God’s right to rule. Our sin can be compared to a band of rebels storming the castle with the intent of removing the king from his throne in order to set their own king in his place. When we sin, that is what we are doing. We are storming God’s throne room with the intent of setting our own selves in His place as the ruler of our lives.

Paul tells us that while we were sinners – rebels – God forgave us of our sins by dying in our place. If God can extend forgiveness to rebels who are attempting to overthrow Him, certainly we can find a way to extend forgiveness to others who have sinned against us.

Questions for Reflection

  1. What else can help to keep anger from escalating?

Resources

Post adapted from Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 121-28

Image

Respectable Sins: Anger | Part 6

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical, Respectable Sins2 Comments

Angry Birds

In the last post in this series, I looked at the reasons we get angry at God. Today we explore the long-term results of anger.

The Long-Term Results of Anger

If we let anger bake long enough, something is going to come out of the oven. What that something is depends on how long you allow your anger to remain in the cooker. Here is a list of what you might expect as a result of your anger:

(1) Resentment – Resentment is anger that arises and builds because of unfair treatment.

It is usually manifested internally. And it can occur for a number of reasons. A boss overstepping at work.  A wife dominated by an overbearing spouse. A kid bullied on the playground. All these can cause resentment, especially if the person feels like they can’t change the situation.

(2) Bitterness – Bitterness  is a feeling of ongoing animosity.

When resentment is left to soak, it can grow into bitterness. How do we know when resentment has moved to bitterness? A tell-tale sign of bitterness is unforgiveness, and a greater degree of ill will is often expressed toward the person resented.

(3) Enmity and Hostility – Enmity and Hostility represents a greater degree of ill will toward the person. Whereas, bitterness is often “to some degree marked by polite behavior, enmity or hostility is usually expressed openly. Often it is in the form of denigrating or even hateful speech toward or about the object of the animosity” [1].

(4) Grudge – A grudge is a persistent feeling of ill will toward another.

Grudges occurs when anger and unforgiveness have occurred for an extended period of time. It results in hostility and a desire for revenge.

(5) Strife – Strife is open conflict or turmoil between parties.

Strife can occur in a number of settings:

  • Families
  • Churches
  • Communities

Because it involves multiple individuals who have formed themselves into groups, it especially needs to be eradicated. Not only for peace and safety, but because it hurts our witness for Christ in the surrounding community.

Unchecked and Undealt with Anger Escalates

These categories show us that anger left to bake heats up. It escalates over time. What starts out as resentment moves to bitterness, then to enmity and hostility, next to a grudge, and finally into strife.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Have you noticed your anger escalating if left unattended?

Looking Forward

In the next post in this series, I will talk about how to deal with our anger so it doesn’t escalate.

Resources

Post adapted from Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 121-28

[1] Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 132.

Image