Healthy, Part 1

Aug 19, 2018

Through God’s love, we can be healthy. In Ephesians 3:16-21 Paul prays that the Ephesian believers would be “made complete” by their receiving and responding to the love of God, expressed through Jesus. To be “made complete” or “filled” speaks of enjoying full health lacking nothing.

When I receive the love of God, by repenting and turning to faith in Jesus, I will find new spiritual life. Then I will respond by loving God and others with all I’ve got.

A healthy spiritual life is at peace with God, with self, and with others.

No longer do I feel the need to get something or to prove something to be at peace about who I am, to find fulfillment in life, and to enjoy relationships.

A healthy spiritual life will benefit God, self, and others.
We cannot understand this in the way that God wants us to without a basic understanding of the Good News of Jesus.

Healthy Part 1 – Salvation: God’s love is a gift to me
In Scripture, we discover a narrative of redemption that brings us truth, and informs our view of everything.
1. Where did we come from? From God: the One and the relational (Creation)

What does God want for us? We see healthy peace in the Garden before sin.

Genesis 1:26-31 God created humanity with loving purpose by design.

The one, true, living God. He is infinite in power, goodness, and holiness and yet also personal and loving, a God who speaks to us.

God in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who are all equally God and who have loved, adored, served, and enjoyed one another from all eternity.

John 1:1-4 He would not have created us to get the joy of mutual love and service, because He already had that. Rather, He created us to share in His love and service. God knew love within the trinity, not with humans first. Love, friendship, and community are intrinsic to God and at the heart of all reality.

John 17:20-24 The persons of the Trinity love and serve one another – they are “other-oriented.”

Conclusions: God created you and saved you because He loves you. You are a child of the one true living God, full of love, who is in control. You are created in His image.
2. Why did things go so wrong? Because of sin: bondage and condemnation (Fall)

What happened to us and what went wrong with the world? Adam & Eve found consequences to their mistakes.

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-13 We chose to break relationship with God. We covered up and hid. God sought us.

Sin reaps two terrible consequences. One consequence is spiritual bondage (Romans 6:15-18). Trying to find fulfillment, ultimate pleasure, in anything but God leads us to a loss of control which is a form of slavery. The second basic consequence of sin is condemnation (Romans 6:23). We are not just suffering because of sin; we are guilty because of sin.

A separation between us and God, and a separation in our human relationships, comes a consequence of our mistakes.

Conclusion: We are in need of a help to remove our guilt and restore our relationship with God & others.

The following two points are intertwined spiritual truths that we may experience now and will see ultimate fulfillment of in the future when Jesus Christ returns.

3. What will put things right? Christ: incarnation, substitution, restoration (Redemption)

What God has done in Jesus Christ to put things right? Good News of salvation by faith, in God’s grace

Romans 3:22-25, 4:25, 5:6, 8-11 We are all in this together. God has gifted us a way to new spiritual health.

Ephesians 2:4-7 God loves us so much that He gave us new life through Jesus.

Incarnation – God gave us love by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth for us.

Substitution – Jesus took our sin on Himself, paying the penalty for us accepting the condemnation & rejection we deserved.

Restoration – Jesus will accomplish the eventual restoration of all that has gone wrong in our world.

Conclusion: Jesus, the Son of God, has made a way for our guilt to be removed and our relationships to be restored.

4. How can I be put right? Through faith: grace and trust (Restoration)

John 3:3-7 “born again”

Ephesians 2:8-9 “When you believed,”

A response from me is imperative. Mark 1:15 Acts 3:19, 16:31 “We must transfer our trust away from ourselves,” and place it in our Savior.

Jesus died for our sins and rose again from the grave. By faith in him, our sins can be forgiven and we can be assured of living forever with God and one day being raised from the dead like Christ.

Philippians 1:6 “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it,”

Conclusions: My response to God determines my health. It will shape my “state of being” and my “actions”.

Our understanding of these truths is directly linked to our spiritual good health.

“To You oh Lord do I lift up my soul,” – Psalms 25:1 or NLT “O Lord, I give my life to you, I trust in you, my God!”

What to do: Receive the love of God and respond to it by repentance and faith. Let the way you view yourself and your world be changed by this reality.

Through God’s love we can be healthy. When I receive the love of God, by repenting and turning to faith in Jesus, I will find new spiritual life. Then I will respond by loving God and others with all I’ve got.

A healthy spiritual life is at peace with God, with self, and with others.

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