Many struggle consistently in their intimacy with God, and in believing that God will answer their prayers. In fact probably the most common problem that people face is a sense of not being good enough, that somehow I'm not good enough, that there's something wrong with me and when I pray it doesn't look like God's going to answer. If you're living with this it's because there's some foundations are not built and established in your life and until they are, let me tell you this; you will continue in what you're struggling with.
So we're in a great day. Isn't it a great day to be alive? [Yes!] Great day to be alive. Great day to serve God. I want you to open your Bible for me in Ephesians 1, Verse 7. I want to share something I felt the Lord has just put on my heart, to do two or three messages on it, and I want to speak about the blood of Jesus. I want to talk about the blood of Jesus, and I reckon there's a heap of people haven't got a clue what it is, apart from it being a song and we talk about it in church and, you know, [sings] I am redeemed by the blood of the lamb.
Yeah, we know these songs, but I want us to get some understanding. Without understanding you won't have faith, and it's absolutely certain that if you're going to build a building, you need to make sure you've got something holding it up, and if the foundation's not much good, then when it gets a shake, down she goes. That's what we saw in Christchurch. We saw that - and it was actually completely predictable by the way. The surveyors had surveyed the whole area before the town plan was put out and they advanced and built, the geologists already knew where the places were that were unstable and what would happen if you built on there.
About 10 years ago a report was put out about what would happen, and it was almost accurate to exactly the locations, so isn't it amazing? And yet in spite of the knowledge, it didn't make any difference. People still built there. Isn't that amazing?
So buildings have to have foundations. Your life with God needs certain foundations in it. My experience in working with Christians over a long period of time is many struggle consistently in their intimacy with God, and consistently in believing that God will answer their prayers. In fact probably the most common problem that people face is a sense of not being good enough, that somehow I'm not good enough, that somehow there's something wrong with me, and somehow when I pray it doesn't look like God's going to answer. This is very common amongst Christians and it could well be that that's what you're living with.
If you're living with this, it's because there's some foundations are not built and established in your life, and until they are, let me tell you this; you will continue in what you're struggling with. It will not change. More meetings won't solve it, more Bible studies won't solve it. It requires revelation to your heart, and then application to your life of some things. Now I want to pick up one thing that is absolutely foundational to building your relationship with God, and it's also my observation over counselling people for many years, that people start with it and shift from it. This is a huge consequence in terms of how it works out in our Christian life.
Notice what it says here in Ephesians 1, Verse 7. We'll just keep coming back to this one over two or three Sundays. In Him, in Jesus Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to - look at that. Isn't that amazing - the riches, not poverty, rich! God is rich in what? Rich in kindness. Grace is about kindness. It's about favour. It's about God being good to you. God is very, very, very wealthy in grace, see?
So the problem is, what's all this thing about redemption and the blood? Now if you go out of church and into the streets, you don't hear people talking about redemption. You don't even hear them talking about the blood, and if you mention it then probably eyes will raise, so there's no concept out. The only place you'd hear about redemption perhaps, would be if you went to the bank and talked about your mortgage, and they would want you to redeem your mortgage, so they do know what redemption is in a financial sense.
But I found a lot of the church, if I was to ask everyone to say, what do you mean I'm redeemed, we would probably struggle with getting clarity about what that is, and what that means, and why it's important. So I want to lay a foundation around this, and see what the blood of Jesus has accomplished for us, and how specifically you apply it to your life, because what Jesus has done for us - we know He died for the sins of the world, but a lot of the world isn't saved. Have you noticed?