Saved But Struggling | Easter Sunday | 04.04.21 | Pastor Micah Sutton

So we're talking here on Easter Sunday on the subject of saved, but struggling, saved, but struggling.

When we talk about this this day, it really started a week ago in the life of Jesus.

It really wasn't just today.

It wasn't a culmination of a resurrection where it all started in the resurrection.

It began before the resurrection.

And how many of us know that the situation of deliverance doesn't start with deliverance.

It starts with needing deliverance.

And so Jesus is going into the city of Jerusalem and he's riding on a donkey.

It's a borrowed donkey.

And this whole week, Jesus is borrowing stuff that he doesn't intend to use for a long period of time.

And so he's, he's borrowed the donkey and he's riding into Jerusalem and people were putting Palm fronds on the ground and laying their cloaks or their clothes on the ground.

And the donkey that he's riding is just kind of walking across these things as they shout Hosanna in the highest, and they're like cheering him and they're, they're calling him Messiah, they're calling him King they're, they're making a big deal about Jesus.

But, but we know that in just a few days, the same people are going to be yelling, crucify him, crucify him, calling for his death, and then mocking him as he hangs there on the cross.

And that's kind of the odd reality of the week that Jesus is having in this moment, the same people saying Hosanna or the people saying crucify him and the Jews who are afraid of him.

And don't like, what he's teaching don't believe that his teaching is true.

They are pressuring the Roman government that we, we know the, the governor, his name is pilot.

And they're pressuring pilot to make a decision to, to crucify a man that pilot is saying, no, I don't want to crucify him because the man is innocent.

I don't see anything in what he's done or what I know about him to indicate that he should be crucified, but they're, they're pushing him.

And they're, they're, they're, they're causing him to make decisions that he doesn't want to make.

And

It's the pressure is

From the crowd.

But the plan was God's plan all along God.

Wasn't surprised about what was happening here.

And Jesus is crucified hanging on a cross,

Two thieves, the crowd mocking him.

The nails have fixed him to the

Cross, but it was love that kept him there because we know that scripture tells us he could have called legions of angels to come down legions of angels.

That's a lot of angels and they would have come and they would have taken him off the cross.

No army on earth could have stopped Jesus from coming off the cross and from even ruling on earth at the time.

But his vision was bigger than that in an after suffering for several hours.

Jesus, the old King James version of the scripture would have said that he gave up the ghost.

It meant that he gave his life away.

He died knowing and knowingly in on purpose.

And so the soldiers wanted to make sure that he would in fact was dead.

So they pierced his side with a spear.

And the scripture says that blood and water flowed from him, everything that was happening to this point, it was all a fulfillment of prophecy that had already been given in the old Testament.

And under the old covenant, the prophets of old had said these things were going to happen.

And in fact, they were all playing out.

Now this man by the name of Joseph of air mafia, he, he came to pilot and he said, would you give me the body of Jesus?

I have a tomb that I had to place him in.

And so, so Jesus' body was taken from the cross and carried into this tomb and it would have been very normal for a wealthier person to have a tomb.

It would have been a family, a tomb.

And so Joseph May have had other people that he loved in that tomb and that would have been normal.

And in fact, he's now bringing Jesus into that tomb.

And then it would have been normal for after Jesus to have been placed there for other family members and others that he loved to be also placed in that tomb when the time was right for when their passing came, what was not normal is that they would have sealed up with a big stone and it was not normal that they would have had soldiers guarding the tomb.

But again, the same people that pressured pilot to make the decision to crucify him in the first place.

Now pressured pilot to roll a stone across it and to seal the tomb and then to place guards there in order to make sure that no one would try to come into the tomb, steal his body and then, then proclaim or declare that Jesus had risen from the dead.

When reality, they had just stolen his body.

That's what they thought they were going to do.

But while they were very prepared for somebody trying to break into the tomb, they were not prepared at all.

For someone breaking out of the tomb and the church I grew up in, we used to sing a song and it would say somethings on the inside, working on the outside.

Oh, what a change in my life.

Anybody know that song.

Then it's like Jesus, on the inside working on the outside.

Oh, what a change in my life.

I'm over myself here.

This is a choir, the choir of one person right now.

Jesus saw on the inside working on the outside.

Oh, what a change in my life.

Oh, what a Jay.

Hey and my, and the whole song's about what Jesus.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

The whole point of the song was what Jesus is doing in our life.

Well, what Jesus was doing on the inside of that tune was changing the entire world.

He was changing the direction of humanity.

And for three days it seemed like nothing at all was going on in the tomb.

But for three days, Jesus was working on something in there.

And first he went and defeated hell.

And then, then he defeated the death.

And then he defeated on the third day, he came out of the grave, praise God.

And he Rose victorious.

Amen.

Thank you, Jesus.

For what he has done.

He got up, he got up and the grave and he began walking and talking and teaching his disciples for many, many days.

And then after talking with them for many days and being seen by many, many people, which is in fact, one of the reasons why Christianity grew the way that it grew is because so many people had connected with a risen savior with somebody they saw die.

And then apparently got up that it became a powerful movement very, very quickly.

And as this is going on, he ascends into heaven in front of 500 people standing there.

And he goes, he sits at the right hand of the father.

And 50 days later, we have Pentecost and Pentecost is when the Holy spirit came and it filled the whole, the people that were waiting in the upper room and praying and talking, calling on Christ and the Holy spirit came and filled their lives.

It was the first time that it ever happened that way, but it wasn't the last time that the Holy spirit began working in the life of people that called on Christ as Lord and savior.

Today, if you call on Christ as Lord and savior, then the Holy spirit is working in your life.

Amen.

So what did this salvation plan look like in the new covenant?

I'll tell you.

It was very simple.

It was all wrapped up in Jesus.

The why behind the salvation plan was love.

John chapter three, verse number 16 says for this is how God loved the world.

He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

God said, I love you.

So I'm sending my son to you to save you.

And Jesus by choice comes to be the savior of the world.

Who was it that they were believing on.

It was in fact, Jesus, Jesus, in his own words was speaking to a woman by the name of Martha.

And he said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

If he's self identifying as I'm the one that G that God the father was speaking of, I'm the resurrection and the life.

Anyone who believes in me we'll live even after dying.

Well, how does this happen?

How does one believe in the Lord?

Jesus as savior?

Well, first you believe then you confess the believing is the internal revelation of what God is doing in your life.

The confession is the external expression of the thing that the revelation that has happened within your heart, Romans 10 says, if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead believing confessing,

You will be saved

For.

It is by believing in your heart that you're made right with God, the internal revelation of what he is, who he is and what he has done is the thing that makes you right with God.

But it's by openly confessing your faith that you are saved.

He says, this is the process by which you are saved.

And I'm telling you today that if you have never made Jesus, your Lord and savior, this is what you need to do today in order to make heaven, your eternal home in order to have the Holy spirit working in your life in this world, until you make heaven, your home,

Praise, God being saved as awesome.

It's when we turn from our path

To his is when we give up our will and accept

His will.

And the

Good news is that salvation is not hard to achieve.

It's not hard to be saved.

Not at all.

God wants

Us to be saved and he made it easy

For us to be saved.

And it's

This deal that we'll ever get on this planet because we get to give him our junk and he gives us his righteousness.

He, he, he gives us his goodness in our life.

We get to live better than we deserve.

We get to live within a context of peace that this world cannot and does not offer.

We have a joy in our heart.

That is, that is seen, that is known.

And that empowers us.

The joy of the Lord is our strength, praise God.

And when our time on earth

Over eternity is spent in heaven as our home.

There's no hindrances.

There, there are no hangups.

There, there are no

No issues.

There.

Heaven is a beautiful, perfect place.

And salvation

Chin is a beautiful state to live within, but it doesn't make all of our issues disappear

When we get saved.

That doesn't mean that everything is perfect and golden from that point forward.

And in some lives, we're a little stronger in this area and a little weaker over here, or maybe we're strong in this area, but weak over there, but we're all struggling

Somewhere.

And that makes

Living saved kind of interesting,

But it also can be

Confusing and even frustrating

At times because you can be saved, but struggling saved, but struggling.

And none of us really want to admit it, but we could all be described that way.

At some point in life, you put your faith in Jesus and, and you're, you're, you're trying to be upbeat.

You're trying to live generously.

You're trying to bring hope to people and trying to bring blessing to people's lives.

You're trying to do good things.

And yet you're still dealing with things like certain addictions in your world or certain compulsive behaviors that you can't seem to walk away from, or maybe you're dealing with depression or anxiety in your life.

And those things are, are, are, are struggles that you have in this world.

Maybe you even get in, you've gotten into some, uh, relationships that aren't really the best relationships for you.

And you're, you're, you're working to disentangle yourself from this other person.

That's just, you know, they're not good for you.

And you know, that's not the right thing in the eyes of God.

You can even have doubts about God, does he exist?

Is he good?

What, what, what is he?

Who is he?

And how can he truly relate to my life?

Can I, and do I believe those things or, or maybe even fear about life and how do I go from here to there?

And can I go from here to there?

You can be strong in one area and struggling in another area, strong and faith, but struggling to love other people around you, maybe strong in love, but really struggling to stay positive in life for maybe you're strong and belief you say, I absolutely believe, but you're struggling to be generous with your life.

Maybe you're strong in integrity.

Your integrity is high, but you really struggle hard with pride in your life, struggling to pray or struggle or strong rather in prayer.

But often your prayers include the area of struggle because you've got that addiction that you're trying to deal with and trying to get away from and break free from you can be saved and struggling.

And whether you're a believer today or not, this is true of your life.

And it impacts how we treat others and how we even see ourselves.

When we're talking about others toward others.

We judge usually based on our own strengths, the area in which we're strong, we judge other people and we are, well, we can be harsh.

We say things like, well, they should just get over it.

Well, they should just

Stop that.

Oh, you have an addiction in your life.

Stop.

You got that issue that you're trying to get over.

Stop doing that.

Or you should just start doing this.

I always struggle when people start sentences with the words, well, they should just, what that means is you don't have a clue about the reality of the situation and the nuances of their life, because any nothing's just adjust.

They should just, It seems easy to overcome and the areas of our own strength.

But for instance, my, my brother and sister are good examples of this.

My brother, when he was growing up, he had a time in his life where he stuttered quite a bit and my sister did not have a timer.

She stuttered.

And so my brother would say, would get her attention and say, Hey, Reagan.

And she said, what

Did did?

And Reagan with all the love and compassion in her heart would say, well, just say it Dawson.

Just say it, Dawson, just speak it.

She still talks like that sometimes.

And if Dawson could say it, he would have said it.

He is trying to say it.

He's not trying to stutter.

He was trying to say it now.

Thankfully Dawson has outgrown that and to some extent, so it was Reagan.

And so lovey Reagan, and it's easy for us to write off people with weaknesses in our area of strength.

We say, well, if they were going to get over it, they would've just gotten over it by now.

So they should have just dealt with it at that point.

So we write them off toward ourselves.

We often judge ourselves based on our weaknesses, not our strengths.

And we can also be harsh.

We say things well, I'm just not good enough.

I'm just not, I just don't stay clean enough.

I'm just not sober enough.

I'm just not nice enough.

I don't treat my family well enough.

I'm just, I'm not good enough to hit a particular standard that I'm thinking or an areas of faith.

I don't have enough faith.

I just don't believe enough.

And there are even some theological teachings out there that say that it's your faith that allows you to break into other areas of, of godly existence.

I'm just going to say, when you get some of God, you get all of God, you don't get a Parson part and parcel of him.

You get all of him.

And, and we write ourselves off and we say, well, I don't know that I can be a Christian.

I don't know that God can love me.

I don't know that I can do good in life.

I don't know.

And I write myself off because I'm judging myself based on my weaknesses.

It's a lose, lose proposition, but I would encourage you today.

Hold off on the, write off, hold off on the right off in your life.

Jesus did not write off one of the most prolific writers of new Testament scripture when he could have Paul writes over two thirds of the new Testament.

He is a prolific writer.

He is Paul, the apostle, and we all would agree that Paul was saved that he was right with Christ.

But Paul confesses to, for the world to read in Romans chapter 15, chapter seven, verse 15, he says, I don't really understand myself for, I want to do what is right, but I don't do it instead.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

I do what I hate.

I hope there's nobody in this room or online or an initial seeding that can identify with that.

But I can, I can identify with that.

He goes on and says, I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature.

I want to do what is right.

So I know what it is.

I've identified it, but I can't.

I want to do what is good.

I've identified it.

I know what it is, but I don't, I don't want to do what is wrong.

I see wrong.

I know it's wrong.

And I do it anyway.

22, I love God's law.

Oh, okay.

So it's not that he hates God or doesn't care about the word of God or the laws of God or what God says we should or should not do.

I love all those things with all my heart, but there is another power within me.

That's at war with my mind, the power that makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

And then Paul, the apostle says, Oh, what a miserable person I am, who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death.

And I thank God that Paul understands that there is one who has defeated sin and death.

And that's, that's the one.

And he's the one who will deliver us from this life of sin and death.

Can we say amen to that?

Amen.

Now Paul never one time excuses, sin.

He never, one time says it's okay to do wrong, but he admits that he doesn't always do the right thing either he's saved, but he is still struggling in some areas and Christ did not write him off.

And Paul didn't write himself off.

And I'm grateful for that because I know the areas in which I fail when I know to do right.

And I do wrong anyway.

And I know what wrong is.

And yet I still do what I know to be wrong.

And, and God, doesn't cut me off.

And he's saying to me, if you don't cut you off, I won't cut you off.

I believe he's calling that to you.

So what is your struggle today?

What is your,

Your issue today?

What's the sin that is besetting you or are knocking you off track today?

Maybe it seems overwhelming.

Maybe it seems like it's pointless to fight it or are hopeless if you did.

It was just, what difference would it make?

Anyway,

Don't write yourself off.

One of the most beautiful moments I've had in

Many years of ministry happened in this church

A little over a year ago in the foyer

Sitting there, I was standing there and there was a gentlemen who had walked in and I walked over to him and I said, Hey, how you doing?

And he looked at me and you know, I'm not accustomed to actual honesty in those moments.

And he said to me, I'm hung over, but I'm here.

And again, he kind of threw me for a loop for a moment.

I was like, pardon me?

And he said it louder.

I said, I'm hung over.

He didn't actually do that.

That's just for a fact, cause it's funny.

But he said, I'm hung over,

But I'm here now.

What are you saying is, Hey, I drank too much last night.

I know that I did.

And he had the right.

He could have written himself off.

He could have said, I don't feel good enough to get up this morning to go to church.

He could have said, should I go to church, hung over?

I know a lot of people who would have said no to that.

He there's, there's some who would say, do they even want me to come to church?

If I'm hung over?

The answer is yes, yes, yes.

Every time, yes, we do want you to come to church.

But, but here he is saying, I have had a reason to write myself off.

Maybe not from God, maybe not from church and everything else completely.

But from this moment in Christ and he is saying, I am not 100% in myself, but I'm going to bring what I have to the table and see what Jesus can do with it in this moment.

And I honor that today.

It was a beautiful, beautiful moment.

And I thought it was amazing that he trusted me enough

To share that with me

And then trusted me enough to give me permission to share it with you

Today.

And here's

The greatest news ever given to humanity.

Salvation.

Isn't hard to receive.

It's freely offered to those who believe, but it does not all, uh, do away with or erase every issue that you may have.

The Holy spirit working in our lives gives us power to overcome sin and live better than we could on our own.

The struggle is real and the struggle may be long, but Jesus Christ himself struggled.

We don't doubt whether he was saved.

He was salvation personified.

So, but in the garden, he's praying and he's sweating as it were drops of blood.

And he says, Hey father, I'm okay.

If we can come up with another plan right now, I'm cool.

If you want to shift up and throw an audible here and I don't have to go to the cross.

And then he says, but not my will, but yours be done.

Why was he saying your will be done?

He was saying, I'm willing to, to the cross, if that's what you desire, because I know what's on the other side of the cross is worth the pain of the cross, the suffering of the cross, the struggle that I'm going through right now will be worth it in the end.

See your struggle is real, whatever it may be.

And there may be people around you saying, well, your struggle is not real.

Your struggle is not valid.

It's not their right to say that your, your struggle is real in your life.

But there is something more worthwhile on the other side of the street.

It's there

Because here and hear me carefully, your struggle will end.

Your salvation lasts

Forever.

At seven.

Any point in this life, you will either go to a place where the Holy spirit allows you to overcome the situation and the struggle.

You will simply outlast the struggle.

In some situations, I don't know how it will become, but at some point you will come through the struggle and come out in victory and you will live life in victory, but there will be another struggle at some

Point until

Jesus takes you from time into eternity.

And there,

Your struggle is over.

There will be no more struggle,

Not a little one, not a big one.

It will be perfect as hell.

Heaven is your home.

And you spend eternity with Jesus Christ, your Lord and savior.

In that moment, you'll be more beautiful than ever more free than ever.

You'll be stronger than ever.

And there will be no more tug of failure or sin or disappointment or anger or frustration in your life.

And you will live out the words of the Psalmist.

He says, weeping may endure for a night.

There is a struggle and it will may last for a night.

But joy comes in the morning.

Friday night, Jesus was placed into a tomb, but Sunday morning was coming.

Jesus spent three days in a cold and a dark place.

But when the sun broke over the horizon on that Sunday morning, Jesus Christ got up and he never

Went down again.

Praise the name of the Lord, praise God.

And so what about you?

What about you

In your situation?

You might struggle in this life and you may not overcome the struggle throughout your life, but at some point that's going to be over and your struggle may be things like, well, I'm trying to overcome an addiction or a situation I'm trying to overcome, uh, a situation with my family or friends or career and things of that nature.

Your struggle may be something like, I don't know if I understand everything about God and about heaven.

And, and I want, I

Want to have a full understanding before I step into those things.

But, but here's the problem you don't understand nor do I, everything about the present moment in which we're living.

I don't understand everything that's going on in this world right now, systems and the systems of the world, world and the ways things are working.

I, I don't even understand everything that's going on in my house right now.

I say things, people walk around my house and they talked to this new resident.

This woman that's moved into our house by the name of it, Alexa.

And, and she turns things on and off and she has no right to do so.

I don't understand how that works.

Some of them don't even understand why we're wearing the clothes that we are wearing in this very moment.

All I know is that Kristy said you're wearing this.

And it was so say that I've got to understand everything about God, about eternity, about heaven, about hell, about the idea that that Jesus could be.

It could die and then raise from the dead to comprehend all of that before I can believe on Jesus Christ as Lord and savior.

If you can't understand what you can see and experience how in the world could you possibly fully understand it, what you cannot see and will not experience outside of Christ.

I can't understand it all, but it's not by knowledge that you are saved.

It is by faith, that you are saved by grace, through faith applied to your life.

And so today, whatever your struggle may be, Jesus is not condemning you.

He's celebrating you.

He's calling to you.

Maybe, maybe you gave your life to Jesus at some point in the past, but you've walked away from him.

And you know that it's time to come home.

He's calling you right now, come home.

I love you.

And you might say, well, it's going to take me a long time to get back to where I was.

You don't have to go all the way back to where you were.

All you have to do is turn around and you're going to find that Jesus like a loving father is going to, has made his way from where he was to where you are.

And he says, I'm right here right now.

Now waiting for you.

And maybe you've never let Jesus be the Lord and savior for your life.

And if that's the case, I pray that today is the day that something is stirring in your heart.

And you're saying, no, I that I'm missing something.

And I think the thing I'm missing could be Jesus.

And so I'm going to take a step of faith today, and I'm going to put my trust in him.

I'm going to let his grace overwhelmed my life.

And I'm going to see what kind of difference that makes.

Maybe you're struggling today.

But remember the struggle is temporary.

Your salvation is permanent.

And this is the last thing I'm going to say before we pray a prayer of salvation.

Then I'm going to ask everybody to pray.

And if you say I'm already saved, I'm going to ask you to pray the loudest.

Because, because we don't want anybody to pray alone.

Number one, and there's somebody maybe sitting near you that needs to, they need to make this statement and everything in them right now there's a war, a spiritual war going on in them right now.

Part of them is saying, yes, I need to make this, this step.

And another part of them is saying, I don't know if I can.

And the idea that I'm going to have to externally express something in a room of people that I don't know, everybody here.

And I've been looking around us.

Some of y'all are crazy.

And so, I don't know.

I think I'm a little uncertain about that.

I'm going to say, we're all going to pray with you.

You're not going to be alone.

So here's what I'm going to say to you ready?

Don't make a permanent decision based on a temporary problem.

Your struggle within your salvation is for eternity by your heads with me, I'm going to ask us to pray together.

And if this is the first time or the first time in a long time, I invite you to make Jesus, your Lord and savior.

Let's pray, Lord Jesus.

I love you.

I believe that's you lived that's you died and that you Rose again.

So this Easter 2021, I declare that I repent of my sins.

Anything I've done, that's displeased you.

I turn away from it.

And I turn to you.

I accept you as my Lord and my savior.

And from this day forward, you are my God and I am your child in Jesus name.

Amen.

Can we thank God for what he's done in his house?

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

And if you're online, if you're an additional seating or if you're right here in this room, if you'll text save to the number that's on the screen, it will allow us to celebrate with you and will allow us to get you some information that will help you start your walk with Christ in a very strong and powerful way.

Right now, I invite you to stand with us and let's close this service in worship to our heavenly father in Jesus name.