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"HIS NAME IS JESUS"
I. GOD IS NOT A NAME, BUT A TITLE.
A. Whatever is the controlling force of your life is your God.
1. For many people that would be their sex drive.
a. Their mind, life, and their conversations are always occupied withovertones.
b. In the days of yore, they would be known as worshippers of Venus, or Aphrodite, or Ashtoreth, Ishtar. All the same goddess, just the name given by the different cultures.
c. The temples built for this deity, were houses of prostitution.
d. Today Hugh Hephner could be classified as a high priest of this religion.
e. If you are purchasing or perusing magazine, or any of that type of magazines, or if you are drawn to movies, which are designed to stimulate you sexually, you are into idolatry. The worship of idols, and false gods.
f. The adult book stores, or the bath houses of San Francisco are the temples dedicated to these deities.
g. There are always those who find a way to make a fortune from the people who worship the various gods, as has Hugh Hephner.
2. For many it is riches and power.
a. Their lives are obsessed by the desire to be rich. They are always looking for a way to increase their riches, though often they have more than they could ever spend.
b. Moral principals are often set aside, and they will cheat, deceive, pressure, or use any other method to make a profit.
c. Ted Turner, or Donald Trump could be seen as high priests of this religion.
d. You see books advertised on How to be Rich, or How I became a millionaire.
e. The lottery, and Las Vegas appeal to the people looking for easy riches. Their are many elaborate temples built along the strip in Las Vegas for those who worship the god Mammon.
3. Still others are worshipping pleasure. Not necessarily pleasure, just any kind of pleasure, sensation, of excitement.
a. The pleasure of hooking the perfect wave.
b. The pleasure ofdown the slope.
c. The excitement of watching two men seeking to knock each other senseless.
d. The excitement of watching 22 men beating on each other as they try to move a ball down the field to cross a goal line.
e. You think of the great temples that have been constructed that the followers of Molech might gather together to worship their god.
B. Let it be noted that none of these things in and of themselves are wrong, or sinful.
1. God created your sex drive. His purpose was the perpetuation of the human race.
a. He gave us an attraction and a desire for the opposite sex and purposed that a man should leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and the two should become one, produce offspring, and provide a loving secure environment for the children to grow up in.
b. In it's place, it is a wonderful gift of God.
c. If you make your god, you will find that it will ultimately destroy you.
2. Money is not evil. God often blessed His servants with riches. It is the love of money that the scripture condemns. When it becomes the chief passion of your existence. When it takes the first place in your heart and begins to control you.
3. Pleasure in and of itself is not wrong. It is not a sin to go to a, or game. God is the one that gave you the capacity for pleasure. He designed you to enjoy different things.
a. The scripture reveals that God takes pleasure in certain things.
b. It's just that pleasure should not be the controlling passion of your life.
4. These things are all good, and proper, in their place, but their place is not to be the ruling passion of your life, when they begin to control your life, when you become a slave to them, they will then begin to destroy you.
5. God commanded, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
a. He is to be the supreme master passion of your life.
b. You are to love Him foremost, above and beyond all other gods and desires.
c. He wants the first place in your life.
d. He wants to be the first love of your life.
e. When this is so, your life is in balance. Every thing else falls into its proper secondary place, you become fulfilled and satisfied.
f. When these other things usurp the place of God in your life and actually become your god, then is when you begin to go to extremes, for you are constantly seeking for them to provide you with contentment and satisfaction which they are incapable of doing. You begin to indulge more and more until your life is obsessed, and finally destroyed.
C. These other gods all had their names. We are familiar with the names of these gods. Each culture worshipped the same gods only by different names. The Zeus of the Greeks, was called Jupiter by the Romans. The Venus of the Romans, was known as Aphrodite by the Greeks. The Nordic people had their names for the gods, as did the Indians, and the Babylonians. The gods were always the deifying of a certain principal, or passion.
II. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE TRUE AND LIVING GOD, THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE.
The God who created us, and demands our highest love and devotion.
A. When Moses was called by God to lead the children of Israel out from their bondage in Egypt, he said, "When I come to the children of Israel and say unto them the God of your fathers has sent me, and they shall say unto me, what is His name? What shall I say unto them? God answered Him I Am that I Am. Tell them that I AM hath sent you. Tell them that the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob has sent me unto you, this is My name forever.
B. The Hebrew name is Yahweh, often pronounced Jehovah. The literal meaning is the becoming one. I Am to you, whatever your need may be. I will become to you your joy, your strength, your power, your hope, your life.
C. The name is thus compounded with words that express the various needs of man.
1. When Abraham and Issac were going up the hill together for sacrifice, and Issac said, "Father here is the wood, and here is the fire, but where is the sacrifice, Abraham answered, "Jehovah-Jireh" The Lord will provide. Or more literally, I Am the provider.
2. Jehovah Shalom, I Am your peace.
3. Jehovah-shamah, I Am there.
4. Jehovah-tsidkenu, I Am your righteousness.
5. The Jeh or the Jah or the Jo at the beginning of a name, was often a shortened form of Jehovah.
a. Johanan means Jehovah is gracious.
b. Josiah meant whom Jehovah heals.
c. Joshua, Jehovah shua, or Jehovah is salvation.
III. YOU SHALL CALL HIS NAME JESUS, FOR HE SHALL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SIN.
A. The name Jesus is the Greek for the name Joshua. Thus the name means, I have become salvation.
B. Why is His name to be called Jesus? "He shall save His people from their sins."
C. The Greek word for sin, (harmatia) means to miss the mark. The mark if perfection. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." You say, "But nobody is perfect" You have just acknowledged what the scripture has declared is true. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous no not one."
1. That means that all men need salvation or someone to save them from their sin.
2. If we are not saved from our sin, then our sin will destroy us, for the wages of sin is death.
3. God has labeled everything that is destructive, as sin.
a. You may not agree with God's list.
b. You may think that you can get by with certain things that God has labeled sin, without it affecting you, but you are wrong, and some day you will wake up to the fact that it has slowly eaten away at your soul until you are lost.
D. His very name, implies His mission. He has come to be the Savior of the world.
1. One day as the religious people were finding fault with Him for eating with sinners, He replied, "For the Son of Man, has come to seek and to save those who are lost."
2. Peter in responding to the question as to by what power or what name they made the lame man to walk said,
ACTS 4:9 If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole;
ACTS 4:10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, [even] by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
ACTS 4:11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
ACTS 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
3. Paul in responding to the Phillipian jailer who had asked, "What must I do to be saved?" said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."
4. To the Romans he said, "If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
5. Salvation is related to the name of Jesus.
B. How can He save us from our sins?
1. He took the guilt of your sin, and died in your place.
2. To the believers in Phillipi Paul wrote,
Phl 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Phl 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Phl 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Phl 2:9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
Phl 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth;
Phl 2:11 And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
C. This brings up then the following issues.
1. Who is the controlling god of your life?
2. Have you received salvation from the consequences of your sin through Jesus Christ?
3. Would you like to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior today?
Verse-Reference
Square — [Jhn 1:1 KJV]
Abbreviate Books
Use SBL Abbrev.
