21 Days...21 Reasons

21 Days

 21 Reasons to Come

21 Chapters

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

On Sunday September 4 2011 at 11:00AM at Immanuel Chapel in Upton, MA Pastor Mark Marquis will begin a series of sermons on the Gospel of John. 

That’s 21 days from today.

I therefore want to encourage all my nearby friends and acquaintances that are not otherwise committed to a local church, to consider coming to hear this series of messages.  Listening to solid, Biblical preaching through a book of the Bible is one of the best ways to begin to understand the Bible and its contents.  It is free.  It is only an hour.  It may change your life. 

But if those aren’t enough reasons, allow me to add a few more.  Taking a verse or thought from each of the 21 chapters of John, I would like to give you 21 more reasons to plan on attending this series of sermons. 

Reason #1:  Your life is not God-centered enough.  Neither is mine.  Seriously.  Take an honest assessment of your life right now.  Are you as close to God as you ought to be?  Does something of the Divine Presence attend your every action?  Are you so filled with God’s Spirit that the aroma of Christ sweetens the very atmosphere around you?  I, for one, am not there yet.  What we need is to draw near to the Lord.  And that is precisely what John calls us to. 

The Gospel of John teaches us to draw near to God, because it presents a God who draws near to us.  In John’s Gospel…God draws near.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 2, 14).”  John’s Gospel simply does not allow us to hold God at a comfortable distance.  The true God is a God who comes close to us, sometimes painfully close.  John is saying to us “You, yes you, can know God…and here He is…allow me to introduce you…here is Jesus Christ.” 

            In a sense, all of my problems stem from 1 fundamental problem: I really don’t know God.  Others have apparently come to a similar conclusion.  A famous 19^th century preacher in London, Dr. Martyn-Lloyd Jones, once said this near the beginning of his series of sermons on the gospel of John:

 "Do you know what is the matter with us?  I will tell you.  We, none of us, really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!  The trouble with all of us is that we do not know enough about him.  So John says: "The thing you need above everything is to be brought to this knowledge of him - who he is, what he has done, and what he has made possible for us."

             My life is not God-centered enough.  It is not Christ-centered enough.  Far too often it is “self” centered, “sin” centered or just “stuff” centered.  But a Christian is “Savior” centered.  That’s what I want to be.  And that then is my first reason why you should plan to come and hear this series.  Tune in tomorrow for reason #2.