Sorry friends, but it has been awhile since we've posted new material. We will catch up on notes later this month. The PODCASTS are up for all of Corrie and Adam's latest talks. Here are Easter's notes.
OPEN w/ PRAYER
Story of the burrs/thorns at Ft Morgan in Alabama… found on
in the stuff when we went on Spring Break to Iowa.
·
Thorns are painful… and they are part of the
“curse” of sin.
OUR THORNS
We have
THORNS because we gave up the THRONE
When the Father created humans… He dubbed us “very good” …
He created us amazing… We were His prized possession… His crowning glory….
So incredible that He turned over the Throne of the earth to
us! He said for us to fill the earth and “rule”. He put us in charge of the
family business. He trusted us with the Throne… but we disobeyed & rejected
our authority to sit on earth’s THRONE.
Genesis 3
17 And to Adam GOD said, “Because you have listened to
the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You
shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you
shall eat the plants of the field.19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are
dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The devil was suddenly seated in authority, he was never
mean to have… he was given the THRONE and began to inflict us with “thorns.”
·
We
abdicated the THRONE and we were left with only THORNS.
MY THORNS
I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely experiences some
THORNS in my life…
·
Pain (physical) – broken bones… eye surgery…
appendix
·
Emotional pain – especially in relationships
(betrayal & arguments) that have led to… disappointment, depression, frustrations
& disillusionments
·
Pain can lead us into -- anger & addictions
·
And I’ve
tried to fix them all… and RULE on my own
But we can’t. Bible
reminds us over and over again “Thorns” are part of the curse…
·
Numbers 33 – Moses says thorns are “Punishment for
Israel’s disobedience”
·
Joshua 23 – Joshua describes “Israel’s enemies” as thorns
·
Proverbs 22 – Solomon describes thorns as the “consequences
for a crooked life”
·
Jeremiah 12 – Jeremiah says thorns are “the fierce anger of
the Lord”
·
Matthew 13 – Jesus describes thorns as “cares of the
world and the deceitfulness of riches”
·
Hebrews 6 – the writer describes a life full of
thorns & thistles as “worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to
be burned.”
·
Friends, our relationship w/ the one on Heaven’s
Throne was severed by sin.
Did you
know that most of the “thorns” that we experience in life are due to the fact
that we don’t realize who is on the Throne?
GAME OF THRONES
TV show about how every
Kingdom (7+) and every leader is vying for supremacy of the realm. Everyone
will do unspeakable things to gain POWER.
·
Lying
·
Cheating
·
Stealing
·
Killing
·
Turn family
against family
·
And they call it
“A Game.”
·
Trying to rule
without Real Authority
·
AND it rings true
because that’s what we try to do…
Let’s look at how the Bible describes the real “Game of
Thrones”
·
Genesis 1 – Throne belongs to humanity
·
Genesis 3 – Humanity gives Throne to the devil
·
4,000 years of human history – inflicts His
Thorns
·
Then, Jesus shows up.
·
Matthew 4 – the enemy tries to exercise his
Throne w/ Jesus “8 Again,
the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of
the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him,
“All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
·
Jesus begins to show us how to use heaven’s
authority to UNDO satan’s work.
· Acts
10:38 – Jesus steps into humanity to exercise the authority that we gave up “how God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and
healing all who were oppressed by the
devil, for God was with him.”
The Ultimate Battle for the THRONE was waged at the cross.
·
Enemy decides it’s time to KILL Jesus… to use
his ultimate weapon.
·
Share the “Easter Story”
o
Father’s plan all along… to retake the throne
o
To send Jesus… to bear our thorns
o
So that we could die & rise w/ Him & He
could live w/ us by His Spirit
·
Focus on “crown of thorns”
o
Matthew 27 8 And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on
him, 29 and twisting
together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in
his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying,
“Hail, King of the
Jews!”30 And they spit on him and took the reed and
struck him on the head.
o
Isaiah (53) tell us he… “bore our griefs” …
“carried our sorrows” …” was pierced for our sins” and that by these “wounds we
are healed”
JESUS
Jesus takes the curse and turns it on its head…
·
Removal of punishment
·
Removal of pain
·
Removal of enemies
·
Removal of consequences
·
Removal of God’s anger
·
Removal of the cares of this world
·
Removal of crooked nature
·
Removal of worthlessness
·
Removal of curse
·
Removal of judgment (fire)
·
Jesus put on the Crown of our Curse… the Crown of Thorns…
·
So that He could go inside of our judgment and
turn it upside down
·
So that He could go inside of our death and turn
it into life
·
Not just to die FOR us… but to die AND Resurrect
AS US!
·
So that IN
DEATH we could experience
o
Freedom
o
Health
o
Wholeness
o
Sonship
o
Worry Free
o
A new birth for those of us who believe
· For
those who are GOT fans… Like Jon Snow in season 6, our whole perspective on life is changed by our death in
Jesus!
ACTION
So how do we pull out our thorns? How do we regain our
authority?
·
We can’t… we shouldn’t… we never ever will!
This is the beauty of what Jesus did for us
·
This is the GOOD NEWS
·
Took us with Him to the cross…Took the
thorns/the curse upon himself
Our only job… Believe …Receive
·
He’s already done the hard work
IN RESURRECTION,
we now experience…
·
No longer the THORNS
·
But now, we can experience the THRONE
·
We experience God’s Reign and Authority
·
We experience our freedom and power
·
We can now Live Like Jesus in this world
·
In death we experience FREEDOM
·
In resurrection we experience AUTHORITY to undo
the curse.
·
It’s not that THORNS are fully gone, rather that
we don’t experience the consequences anymore! …punishment, judgment, orphan-hood
are removed!
·
1994 was
when I first experienced: love… freedom from guilt… confidence
·
Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive
together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and
raised us up with him and seated us
with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
·
The Easter story elevated us to a position of
authority we’d long lost. We can actually now RISE ABOVE the Thorns of this
life.
·
We can now go on the offensive.
·
You cannot do it on your own… you cannot ascend
and conquer without Jesus.
·
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And
this is not your own doing; it is the gift
of God,
·
We gain our freedom from Thorns & regain our
authority through faith alone.
·
Because
Jesus played the “Game of Thorns” …you and I can sit on our Throne.
Salvation Call
