Go to Jesus for Strength (9-11-22)
Introduction:
It was never our faith that enabled us to believe in Jesus as Savior or to receive any of the blessing of Christ in our faith journey. All faith is a gift of God, imparted from Jesus, given graciously to the people of God. We cannot generate faith, work it up, or manufacture it ourselves.
Ephesians 2:8 (NKJV) For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
- Faith in the real world.
- It was never our faith that enabled us to believe in Jesus as Savior or to receive any of the blessings of Christ in our faith journey.
- All faith is the gift of God, imparted from Jesus, given graciously to the people of God.
- We cannot generate faith, work it up, or manufacture it ourselves.We have begun to talk about the something better.Hebrews 11:40 God having provided something better for us…
Past messages review:
- Eyes on Jesus.
- Jesus’ Hupomeno and perseverance enduring the cross.
- Jesus was the example of faith.
- Our faith energized by the power of God.Today we will talk about going to Jesus.
1. Learning to trust Jesus.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Isaiah 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
- Trusting in Jesus for all our needs.
- Trusting in Jesus for all our strength.
- That he might impart His faith into your life.
- Tell Jesus of your sorrows.
- In the sanctuary of His presence you will find rest.
- Freedom from the noise without and within.
2. Making intimate contact with Jesus.
Philippians 3:10 (NKJV) that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
- Know: to learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of perceive, feel
- “I poured out my soul before God. Again and again confessing my grateful love to him who has done everything for me… I saw him to give me some work to do for him as an outlet for love and gratitude.” Hudson Taylor
- The limitless possibilities that intimate contact with Christ brings into our life.
- Lose this contact and we lose the hope on victorious life.
- We are dependent upon Jesus for everything.
- “How blessedly he did lead me I can never, never tell. It was like a continuation of some of my earlier experiences at home. My faith was not on tried… But oh! I was learning to know him I would not even then have missed the trial. He became Sonier so real so intimate!” Hudson Taylor
- Our strength comes from contact.
- Ela… the new tech charges on contact.
3. The Almighty God shall provide strength.
Gen. 17:(NKJV) 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.
- El-Shaddi – El = God – Shaddi = Almighty
- “El Shaddi is the name of God that sets Him forth primarily as the strengthener and satisfier of His people.
- Abraham might be weak at 99 but God was strong to accomplish what his body could not.
4. El Shaddi the many breasted One!
- Shad = Hebrew word for “breast”
- The place where babies derive strength and nourishment from where the life of the mother flows into the baby.
- But it does not stop there.
- The Hebrew word El is used for God and His power, so almighty or omnipotent God is a good translation.
- The word Shadday is a plural word from shad, which in the singular form refers to a woman’s breast.
- Therefore if we are going to translate it correctly we have to say something like this, “I even I am omnipotent God of many breasts.”
- What God was communicating to Abraham and to us was/is “Draw from me all the strength and sustenance you need.
- The grace of God pouring forth provision like a Mother into helpless babies.
5. The secret of the one whom Jesus loved.
John 13:23-25 (NKJV) 23 Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom He spoke. 25 Then, leaning back on Jesus’ breast, he said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”
- Lean in question: Who is the one closest to Jesus and described as the one Jesus loved?
- John would lean back on Jesus’ breast.
- For that’s where the unspeakable joy of The Christian Life is.
- That’s where the deep things of God exist and are revealed.
- This is where safety and strength are found and sustained.
- John never stopped leaning on Jesus’ Breast even after The LORD had gone back to Heaven.
- As such, he (John) got the download of some of the most important revelations of the deep things of God ever given to mankind.
- Ela… when we find ourselves in situations that seem unbearable yet we need to bear it as our Christian duty requires it our love for Jesus demands that we do yet the strength seems so little for the task at hand… we go back to leaning n the breast of the Lord.
6. Hudson Taylor’s spiritual secret:
- “As for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more of the wondrous supply of grace lead up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Jesus the fullness of our precious Savior my guilt and helplessness seem to increase”
- After years of Hudson Taylor struggling to live and walk right before the Lord and longing for better days and fruitful ministry… John McCarthy, his friend, wrote to him:
- “I do wish I could have a talk with you now about the ways of holiness. At the time you were speaking to me about it, it was the subject of all others occupying my thoughts, not from anything I read so much as from a consciousness of failure a constant falling short of that which I felt should be aimed that…”
- “Do you know, I now think that the striving, longing, hoping for better days to come is not the true way to holiness, happiness, or usefulness.”
- “The Lord Jesus received his holiness begun; the Lord Jesus cherished his holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon is never absent would be holiness complete…”
- “It is defective faith which clogs the feet and causes many of fall.”
- ” this last sentence, I think I now fully endorse. To let my loving Savior work in me his well my satisfaction is what I live for by grace. Abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking often on to him; trusting him for present power;… Resting in the love of an almighty savior”
- “How them to have our faith in Christ only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all that he has for us: his life, his death, his work, he himself has revealed to us in the word to be subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith… But I’m looking after the faithful one seems all we need a resting in the loved one entirely for time and for eternity”
- “HudsonTaylor wrote afterwards about the impact of these words” “as I read, I saw it all. I look to Jesus, and when I saw Oh how Joy Flowed!”