ARM Prison Outreach
International
"Ministers’
Minute" Volume II Number 4
Do you
need an idea for an Easter Weekend message?
Editor’s Note:
This sermon is the 4th email message of 2003 in a
series that ARM is sending as an encouragement to preachers and Christian
workers around the world. This message focuses on the great 14th
Chapter of John and the great victory that Jesus shares through His
resurrection. May God bless your
labors! -- Rod Farthing, Regional Development
Director
Conquering Death's Power
John 14:1-6
"Slept with his fathers" "Gathered to his people"
"Passed away" "Went Home" "Expired" "Decedent"
"Deceased"
What are we speaking about? Death. We have so
many "euphemisms" or replacement phrases for the adjective "dead." We
avoid the "D" word.
Jesus came to "render the devil powerless" and "deliver us
who were subject to slavery through the fear of death."
Heb 2:14-15
14 Since then the children share in
flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through
death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the
devil; 15 and might deliver those who through fear of death were
subject to slavery all their lives. (NAS)
Our text describes how Jesus conquers the TRIPLETS OF DEATH! Fear,
Finality, Futility.
John 14:1-6
1 "Let not your heart be troubled;
believe in God, believe also in Me.
2 "In My Father's house are many
dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for 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 to Myself; that where I am, there you may be
also.
4 "And you know the way where I am going."
5 Thomas said
to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the
way?"
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father, but through Me.
(NAS)
I. FEAR is conquered! v.
1
No troubled hearts! Scared to death? Maybe. But
the fear of dying -- whether the process or the result -- is overcome by our
Sacrificial Savior Who died in our place!
How many are paralyzed by fear? Like the 10 unbelieving spies
in Numbers 13, 14, we forfeit joy, success, and productivity because we are
afraid! Twenty-nine times in the Old Testament and 15 times in the New
Testament, God says, "Fear not!" Many other times He tells us to take
courage, take heart, and have confidence! Thru Christ we
can!
And thru Christ we MUST! For God's church to be the salt and
light He meant for us to be, we must conquer fear. We need to have the
attitude of boy whose team was losing 18-0 ....
A man stood to watch a ball game between two young teams. As
he walked toward the bleachers, he asked one of the players, "What's the score?"
The young fellow replied, "We're behind 18 to nothing." "Well," the man said, "I
must say you don't look discouraged." "Discouraged," the player said with a
puzzled look, "Why should we be discouraged? We haven't had our turn to bat
yet."
The army of Israel faced a giant, but a young man named David thought,
"I haven't had my turn," and he won! The twelve disciples saw 5,000 hungry
people and said, "Send the crowds away, so they can buy some food." But Jesus
thought, "I haven't had my turn yet!" The angry mob had Pilate seal the tomb
where Jesus was buried, but God knew, "I haven't had my turn yet!"
The church
is ready to "go to bat" and, like others who have placed their trust in God, we
will win! Remember these words of Jesus; "I will build my church, and the gates
of Hades will not overcome it" (Matt. 16:18).
II. Finality is
conquered! v. 2-3
The termination has become a transition. The
dead end has been made a corridor to eternity. The grave has been made a
graduation!
One source of our fear is the finality, the
irrevocability, of physical death.
When I was a boy, I loved playing sports
with my big brother. Being seven years younger, I was always the
underdog. The decided underdog. Try as he would to allow me to be
competitive, I was always losing. I would chastise him soundly if Larry let
up to allow me to come close in score. So he played at his level and I
fell far behind. Whether it was ping pong or wiffle ball, I was the
loser. And a bad one, at that. So I would get so far behind I would
throw an juvenile tantrum. At that point, Larry would justifiably say, "If
you can't play right, I am quitting." Boy, then I'd really throw a crying
fit. FOR AS MUCH I HATED TO LOSE, I HAD A FAR GREATER DISTASTE FOR THE
GAME BEING OVER!
And that is the way it is with us, is it not?
We don't like losing in the game of life, but the LAST thing we want is the game
to be over. In fact, even with sickness and pain, we have a STRONG desire
to keep on living. The finality of death is a great enemy. Praise
God, Christ Jesus conquers the finality of death.
"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be
also.
III. Futility is
conquered! v.5
How can we know the way? As Solomon said in
Eccl 2:10, 11:
And all that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not
withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my
labor and this was my reward for all my labor. 11 Thus I considered
all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and
behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the
sun. (NAS)
Our human attempts to make sense of life are as futile as an
elephant putting a daisy on her hat to draw attention away from her fat
ankles! Futility! But thru Christ, life HAS meaning!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way: "If you board the wrong train,
it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite
direction!"
In Sidney, Australia, a desperate prisoner finally
succeeded in escaping jail. He scampered up into the underpinnings of a delivery
truck that had stopped briefly in the prison warehouse. He held on desperately
as the truck drove out of the prison, and a few moments later, when the truck
stopped, the prisoner dropped down to the ground and rolled outward to freedom
-- ....only to find himself in the courtyard of another prison five miles from
the first!
Jesus ends the futility! HE IS THE WAY,
THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE! Listen to the hope we share with the Apostle
Paul:
2 Tim 4:6-8
6 For I am now ready to be offered, and
the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
8 Henceforth there is
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love
his appearing. (KJV)
A remarkable incident occurred recently
at a wedding in England. A young man, William Montagu Dyke, of large wealth
and high social position, who had been blinded by an accident when he was ten
years old, and who won university honors in spite of his blindness, had courted
and won a beautiful bride, although he had never looked upon her face. A little
while before his marriage he submitted himself to a course of treatment for his
eyes by experts. The climax came on the day of his wedding. The day came, and
the presents, and the guests. There were cabinet ministers and generals and
bishops and learned men and a large number of fashionable men and women. William
Montagu Dyke, dressed for his wedding, his eyes still shrouded in linen, was
driven to the church by his father, and the eye doctor met them in the foyer.
The bride, Miss Cave, entered the building on the arm of her white-haired
father, the admiral, who was all decked out in the blue and gold lace. So moved
was she that she could hardly speak. Was her beloved at last to see her
face--the face that others admired, but which he knew only through his delicate
fingertips? As she neared the altar, while the soft strains of the Wedding March
floated through the church, her eyes fell on a strange group. Sir William Hart
Dyke stood there with his son. Before the latter was the eye doctor in the act
of cutting away the last bandage. William Montagu Dyke took a step forward, with
the spasmodic uncertainty of one who can not believe that he is awake. A beam of
rose-colored light from a pane in the church window fell across his face, but he
did not seem to see it. Did he see anything? Yes! Recovering in an instant his
steadiness of countenance, and with a dignity and joy never before seen in his
face, he went forward to meet his bride. They looked into each other's eyes, and
one would have thought that his eyes would never wander from her face.
"At
last!" she said. "At last!" he echoed solemnly, bowing his head.
That was a
scene of great dramatic power and no doubt of great joy to both the bridegroom
and his bride. It is a suggestion of what will happen in heaven when the
Christian, who has been walking through this world of trial by faith, shall
awake in the likeness of his Savior, and see Him no longer through a glass
darkly, but, as Paul says, "face to face" (1 Cor. 13:12).
Fear is finished! Finality is forgotten!
Futility is forever gone! Praise God for the Son Who died in
our place and rose victoriously!
Rod Farthing,
ARM Regional Development Director
"Remain faithful
unto death .." Rev. 2:10B