Are we really willing to be Protestants?

There are three basic paths in Christianity, as we have seen. The Roman Catholic path is the Bible PLUS tradition. The path we might best identify as Liberal Protestantism embraces the historical-critical method and elevates human reason above Scripture to reduce the authority of some parts of Scripture, so we can think of that position as the Bible MINUS. The authentic Protestant position makes Scripture alone the basis for all evaluation, and so is neither the Bible PLUS nor the Bible MINUS, but simply, going by the Bible.

Get the setting: Jesus is headed out of Jericho. A crowd has gathered. They are clustered round Jesus. Two blind men are sitting by the road. They cannot see but they are able to hear.

...Voices...

...A crowd is approaching. Talking. Bits of conversation. Then they understand.

Jesus is coming up the street!

They have heard of this Jesus; everyone has. This is the One who does mighty deeds for God. If there is any hope for these two blind men, anywhere on planet earth for healing now, it is in this Person. Opportunity has come to this very street!

Let's gather round the Word of God today and listen for the truth about Jesus Christ. We will investigate Romans 8:1-17, to see what insights are there given about victory in Jesus. This section is drawn from one of Paul's extended discussions, so we'll begin by surveying the material immediately preceding and following. We'll look at Romans 7:14-25 and also briefly consider 8:18-39 and then dive in at the beginning of chapter eight.

We've been busy. Morning and evening goes by, then another. As if a blink, two-thousand and fifteen is headed for the history books.

About this time each year some become dispirited and depressed. Hope ebbs. They feel isolated and failed and alone. People gather with loved ones for the holidays but others have experienced collapsed relationships. Their season is very solitary. Gloom enshrouds them. Some experience seasonal affective disorder from lack of sunlight. Daylight is short, the night is long, and a string of failures seems to choke them. It may be gloriously white outside, but theirs is a dark Christmas.

Christians bring good news. We preach the gospel. God has shown us a better way and we live it. We strive to keep growing spiritually, all while recognizing none of us have quite arrived.

Our lives are busy. Few of us may feel our experience offers any serious model of Christian order. But my guess is that while we see ourselves as quite inadequate, most of our lives are like islands of peace compared to those of unbelievers. We think we're just barely making things work, but imagine what it would be to live in the home of the unbeliever!

Still, as Christians we are experience a remarkable kind of peace. Being a Christian has advantages for living even though we don't become followers of Jesus for the loaves and fishes.

Through the Bible, God has come to His people to tell us about things we could not know any other way. The person in the world, knowing almost nothing of God, may feel the world will basically last forever. But what do we believe? God destroyed this world once with a flood of water and He is going to destroy it a final time with a flood of fire. We believe the Bible and so we believe this warning that the world is going to be destroyed.

Think of it. Part of our message is that destruction, an absolute and final destruction, is coming.

Is this good news? Someone could put it in kind of a bare-metal way, that the Christian message is, "Hello. Your world is going to be destroyed." First off, since most people know nothing about the Christian experience, nothing about what our loving Father God has told us is coming, such a message might be received as pretty bad news. But it may be that Heaven will open a way for you to share how what looks like bad news to them is actually good news.

Today is my last time leading our Sabbath worship with you as your pastor. Transition is upon us all.

The word heaven has sent us today is simple. Receive and deliver. After Paul had received what the Lord gave to Him to give to His church, Paul turned round and did exactly that--he gave it to the church. You and I are Christians. We are Christians of the last days. The name we go by is Seventh-day Adventist. We do not use that designation at random; we have a purpose. The name highlights neglected truths.

In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says,

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me."

Likely, all of us recognize these words. The 20th verse of Revelation three is part of Jesus' appeal to His end-time church. Now, our focus today is not particularly on that or the other six messages to the churches. But we will look at Jesus appeal here.