Emmaus Youth Group

12/14/2018

02/09/2018

God’s Love Is Unconditional
One of the most amazing things about God’s love is that it is extended to us when we do not deserve it and continues steadfast and strong even when we do not respond to it. In other words, His love is unconditional. That certainly is different from our love. We have a tendency to show more love to the people who obviously love us and less love to the ones who do not. We express our love to our spouses and our children when they perform to our expectations and we withhold it from them when they displease us. We shower affection on the lovable children and avoid the belligerent little rascals who look as if they might want to kick us in the shins. I find it easy to express my love to my wife when she tells me what a wonderful husband I am, but not quite so easy when she scolds me for not taking out the trash. I find it easier to be loving toward my children when they are obeying me willingly, but not quite so easy when they are resisting me.

God is not like that. The best-loved verse in the Bible says, “For God so loved the world,” that is, the whole world. That does not refer to the materials out of which our planet is constructed, but to the world of people. It does not mean the whole mass of humanity generally; it refers to each individual sinful person. The Bible categorizes all of them as God’s enemies, people who have willfully set themselves against Him (cf. Romans 5:10; Colossians 1:21). God even loves His enemies—all of them.

There is not one good thing in any of us that merits God’s love. He does not love us because we are so lovable or because we can somehow make ourselves worthy of His love. We are totally unworthy, yet He prizes us highly and showers His very best on us. It is His love for us that gives us our worth. God finds great delight and receives great glory when we respond to His love, enter His fellowship, and do His will. In fact, He made us for that purpose. But whether or not we ever return His love, He keeps on extending it to us. There is nothing we can do to make Him love us any more, and nothing we ever do will cause Him to love us any less. He loves us perfectly and completely regardless of how we perform. His love is unconditional.

So many of us are performance oriented. We have felt approved and accepted when we have performed to someone else’s satisfaction, and disapproved and rejected when we have failed to live up to their standards. Consequently, we treat others the same way. If they please us, we treat them kindly and considerately. If they displease us, we feel justified in treating them unkindly and unlovingly. Knowing God intimately will help us express love to others when they do not perform to our expectations.

There is a great Biblical illustration of God’s unconditional love in His relationship with the nation Israel. “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). Can we see what He is implying? There is no human reason for His love for Israel. They were a rebellious, stiff-necked people. But He loved them simply because He loved them.

That is how it is with you and me. He loves us just because He loves us. Nothing we ever did made Him love us, so nothing we ever do will make Him stop loving us. He loves us when we’re grouchy just as much as when we’re glad. He loves us when we sin just as much as when we don’t. He loves us when we open our mouths and say things we know we shouldn’t have said. He loves us when our wives or husbands or parents or children are not treating us as though they love us. He loves us when we’re feeling as though nobody in the whole world loves us. He loves us even when we don’t like ourselves. He never stops loving us.

02/09/2018

God’s Love Is Sacrificial
Not only does God’s love motivate Him to give, but it motivates Him to give when it costs Him dearly. That too is different from our love. We hesitate to do anything for others that will cost us too much or inconvenience us too greatly. But God’s love cost Him the very best that He had—His only Son. That is the message of the greatest love text in the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God’s giving His Son involved more than merely allowing Him to leave Heaven’s glory and enter earth’s history. It meant allowing Him to die in our place and pay the awful debt of our sins. God proved His love conclusively and irrefutably by sending His Son to the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10). That is sacrificial love.

It was no less of a sacrifice for God the Son than it was for God the Father. His willingness to offer Himself was the summit of sacrificial love. Paul called Him “the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). When the same apostle outlined God’s principles for harmonious marital relationships, he said, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Jesus Christ made the supreme sacrifice for us when He died in our place. He was falsely accused, beaten, spit on, crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross, and left to die the most excruciating death known to man. The infinite curse of sin’s penalty, the Father’s just punishment for the whole world’s guilt, was laid on Him as He hung on that cross. He possessed the power to walk away from it unscathed, yet He voluntarily stayed there and bore that suffering for us. There simply is no greater love (John 15:13).

Whenever we are tempted to think that nobody loves us, we need to think of the cross. Jesus bore that shame and suffering because He loves us. He values us so highly that He was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to secure for us eternal joy. That is the epitome of love. Knowing Him intimately will motivate us to make some sacrifices for the good of others—for our spouses, our children, and other members of the body of Christ. It will help us give up what we want in order to minister to their needs.

02/09/2018

God’s Love Is Self-Giving
Love involves action. It is expressed in the giving of oneself for the good of another, so it always demands an object. Whenever we talk about love we are suggesting that there is more than one person involved. There must be at least two—the one who loves and the one who is loved. If God has always been love and love demands an object, we may wonder how God demonstrated His love before He created angels or men. Jesus answered that question. He revealed that there was a love relationship between the persons of the triune Godhead from eternity past, when He said to His Father, “Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). We have seen that God is complete and sufficient in and of Himself. He has no needs which must be met by others outside Himself. He did not need to create other beings in order to express His love. It was perfectly expressed between the persons of the Trinity from all eternity.

Yet He did create. Why? He wanted so much to manifest His love that He first created the angelic hosts and later the human race so that he might communicate Himself to them, give of Himself for them, and bestow His very best on them for their benefit and blessing. Our love is often selfish and demanding. God’s love is pure. Because He is love, He loves to give. Jesus said He gives good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). James went so far as to say that every good gift finds its source in Him (James 1:17). Since God is love, we can expect Him to give of Himself.

Knowing the God of love can help to make us more loving and giving persons. Not only will getting to know Him more intimately cause us to become more like Him, but resting secure in the assurance that He loves us will keep us from making demands of others and free us to reach out unselfishly and minister to them for their benefit alone. It is vitally important that we understand how much God loves us,

02/09/2018

We all need to know that somebody loves us.The good news from God’s Word is that somebody does. To know Him is to find release from the crippling effects of feeling unloved. Twice the Apostle John categorically stated that God is love (1 John 4:8,16). Love is one of the warmest words in the English language, and that God is love is one of the most sublime, uplifting, and reassuring truths known to mankind. Love is His nature. It is not merely a friendly attitude He projects. It is the essence of His being. He is always going to act toward us in love because He cannot do otherwise. Love is the way He is.

02/01/2018

Because life is a v***r we should humble ourselves before God and obey His will.

James is beginning a new section, but the connecting theme through chapters 4 and 5 is humility. True faith judges pride by humbling oneself before God. In 4:1-12, James hit the need for humility to resolve conflicts and have harmonious relationships. Now he turns to the subject of humility with regard to the future. He is confronting an arrogant spirit that he had observed among the churches. Although these people professed to know Christ, they were living with a worldly attitude that the apostle John calls “the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:15). They were making plans without taking into account their own mortality and God’s sovereignty. Like the prosperous man in Jesus’ parable, they were saying, “I’ll build bigger barns to store my goods,” and “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.’” “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’” (Luke 12:19-20).

12/31/2017

JESUS BIRTH WAS UNIQUE
Incarnation means in flesh. When God invaded the human race, his conception and birth as a human baby was unique. An angel told a young virgin named Mary that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would conceive and bear a son, who would be holy, the Son of the Most High. And angels announced his birth to the world.

HIS NATURE WAS UNIQUE
Jesus had a human nature, but he didn't have a sin nature. He was without sin and no other human being can make that claim.

Read Hebrews 4:15 and 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Why is this so important? Because if he were just another sinner like us, he couldn't die as our substitute. He could only die for his own sins. We needed a sinless Savior and only God could meet that qualification. What were the reasons for His coming?

PROOFS OF HIS HUMANITY
He matured like all human beings do (Luke 2:40, 52).

He had a human body: seen, heard, and touched (1 John 1:1).

He had a human soul and spirit (Matthew 26:38, Luke 23:46).

He possessed human names, Son of Man, Son of David, Jesus.

He was hungry (Matthew 4:2).

He was thirsty (John 19:28).

He grew tired (John 4:6).

He wept (John 11:35).

He showed feelings (Mark 6:34; Luke 7:13, compassion; 10:14, indignation; Mark 14:34, sorrow; John 11:5 love).

He was tested (Hebrews 4:15).

He prayed (Luke 5:16).

He died (John 19:30, 33).

PURPOSES FOR HIS COMING AS A MAN
To reveal God to men (John 1:18).

To provide an example for living (1 Peter 2:21).

To die as a sacrifice for humanity's sins (Hebrews 10:1-10).

To enable Him to be a merciful High Priest (Hebrews 4:15-16).

To destroy the devil's work (1 John 3:8).

To free us from bo***ge to fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).

To be the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14).

There's one more passage we should look at that will help explain how this could be.

Read Philippians 2:5-11.

He made himself nothing, or He made himself of no reputation.

The Amplified Version says, “He emptied himself.”

Did Christ empty Himself of some or all aspects of deity when he came to earth?

If emptying means that Christ gave up or lost some of His divine attributes during His earthly life, the other Scriptures we have already looked at contradict that notion. This passage says that He humbled himself by taking on a human body and nature and by dying on the cross the death of a criminal. This means that there is no subtraction to His deity, but just the addition of humanity with its consequent limitations.

12/27/2017

Isaiah 40:30-31 NIV

30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

12/25/2017

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about Me in the scroll—I have come to do Your will, O God.’” (Heb. 10:5-7 NIV)

Note the opening words of this passage: “When Christ came into the world….” The Story is saying that on that first Christmas, in some incredible way the eternal Son of God in a baby’s body said to His Father, “Here I am. I will do as You have asked. I accept the body You have prepared for Me, the body that will bleed out in perfect payment for sin.”

And this is the answer to our question. This is why Jesus came to earth. God’s Son surrendered His sinless human self to be the future unblemished offering to perfectly and completely save sinners.

And this we do find in the birth narratives, everywhere. God tells Joseph that Mary “will give birth to a son, and you will give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” In the field that first Christmas night the angel tells the shepherds, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.” Zacharias prophesies over his son, the infant John Baptist, saying John would go prepare the way for “the Lord,” and “give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” Thirty years later John points at the Lord Jesus Christ and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”7

Each of these events echoes our unsung Christmas verse: “A body You prepared for Me.” The Lord. The Christ. The Savior. Emmanuel. God with us, who would die for us. The Lamb of God.

So, the Story tells us the precise reason the Son came to Earth. Not to teach love and peace and care for the poor, but to submit Himself to something unspeakably violent and brutal. That is why every crèche ought to have a cross hanging over it, because Jesus was born to die. And on this point Jesus speaks clearly:

“God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (Jn. 3:17 NIV)
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Lk. 19:10 NIV)
“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Lk. 5:32 NIV)
“I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative.” (Jn. 10:17-18 NASB)
“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28 NIV)
I want you to think very carefully about Jesus’ last statement, because there are three questions we must answer to understand His meaning. The first is, “What is a ransom?” Well, a ransom is the price paid to purchase a hostage or a slave, of course. A ransom buys a body. Second, “Whose body does Jesus buy with the ransom?” He buys those who are held hostage. He pays a price to purchase sinners, rebels, and slaves. Finally, “What is the price He will pay?” Jesus will buy bodies by surrendering His own body. “A body You prepared for Me.” He will sacrifice Himself to save others.

So, Jesus came to earth to save sinners. The statement is so common to our ears, it is easy to miss its significance. “Save” means to rescue from imminent danger. Jesus came to rescue us because we were in danger. What was that danger? What was Jesus rescuing us from? Here is the answer. Jesus did not come to rescue us from our ignorance or our poverty or our oppressors or even from ourselves. Jesus came to rescue us from the Father. 8

Remember, the King is angry.9 He is the One who is offended. He is the One who is owed. He is the Sovereign we have rebelled against, the Father we have disobeyed, the friend we have betrayed. And that is a dangerous place for us to be. Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.” Later in the Story we learn, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”10

That is the bad news. And it is very bad news, to be sure. Yet, without the bad news, the good news is not good. And the good news is very, very good. Here it is: The Father has mounted a rescue operation. There has been an invasion.11 God came down. “A body You prepared for Me.”

Jesus’ life was filled with many extraordinary deeds, so many, one of His disciples wrote, the world itself could not contain the books needed to record them.12 But there are two very particular things Jesus did that were vital to the rescue.

First, Jesus lived the life we should live, but do not. We rebel; He submitted. We sin; He obeyed. We live for self; He lived for the Father. We falter; He succeeded. He had no hint of sin, no darkness, no shadow. As one has put it, “He remained free, uncontaminated, uncompromised.”13 Jesus never failed, obeying even to the death. This no one has ever done. There was no one like Him.

Second, Jesus made a trade. He took His perfect life and He traded it for our rotten lives. He gets our badness—and the judgment and punishment that go with it. We get His goodness. We take His place, and He takes our place.

If that seems hard to imagine (and I understand completely if it does), let me offer something that might help. On a flight from Jacksonville to Miami I spoke with a dear Muslim woman about the differences between the God of Jesus and the God of Mohammed. I said that both were holy and both demanded we be holy, too, and there will be justice to pay because we are not. But on this issue of justice, I said, we come to an important distinction.

I asked the Muslim woman to imagine our plane being hijacked and the terrorists trying to drag her out onto the tarmac to kill her in front of cameras for all the world to see. I then asked her to imagine that I put my own body between hers and the attackers and said, “Don’t take her. Take me instead.” She said she could not imagine anyone doing that for her.

Yet this, I told her, is what God has done in Jesus. To satisfy justice, God came down. Not Allah; Yahweh. Not Mohammed; Jesus. God stepped out of Heaven and dwelt among us—“A body You prepared for Me”—and said to the Father, “Take Me instead.” That was the trade.

The trade took place on a small outcropping of rock outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem. It was called Golgotha, the place of the skull. We know it as Calvary, the place of the cross. It was the reason Jesus was born. It is the reason God came down.