Motivation

1. This presentation looks at the Motivation required to Effect Change in the Sinner. Motivation Studies on The Books of Romans and Galatians: Part 5 Abe Simpson

2. The Gospel: Central Theme of Romans & Galatians • Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. • Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. Revelation 14:6

3. The Gospel was being Challenged by Another Gospel. • Gal 1:6, 7 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. The Just shall live by faith in Anything other than Jesus Christ

5. How is Change effected in the sinner? The Carnal Mind is replaced by the Mind of Christ The Flesh is brought under the control of the Mind

6. Mind of Christ Need strong Motivation • Learning Experience • Growing Experience – Plant • Darkness is removed by shinning the light Pro 4:18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Sunrise) • What needs Changing • Perceptions • Attitudes • Habits • Value system • Reasoning; etc. Carnal Mind

7. What motivates the Christian? What happened on the cross? • 2Co 5:14, 15 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. • Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. • Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

8. Incarnation • "Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:6-8, R.V., margin). Quoted in God’s Amazing Grace by EGW p178 • Christ being God emptied Himself of those attributes that gives God an advantage over us when facing our situation. • Omniscience; Omnipotence; Omnipresence.

9. Omniscience • 1 John 3:20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. • Colossians 2:3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. • Man is limited in knowledge Deut. 29:29 • And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. Luke 2:52 • But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Mark 13:32

10. Omniscience “The child Jesus did not receive instruction in the synagogue schools. His mother was His first human teacher. From her lips and from the scrolls of the prophets, He learned of heavenly things. The very words which He Himself had spoken to Moses for Israel He was now taught at His mother's knee. Thus to Jesus the significance of the word and the works of God was unfolded, as He was trying to understand the reason of things. Heavenly beings were His attendants, and the culture of holy thoughts and communings was His. From the first dawning of intelligence He was constantly growing in spiritual grace and knowledge of truth. Every child may gain knowledge as Jesus did.” DA 71

11. Omnipotence • Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? Isaiah 40:28 • Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, John 4:6 • The Son can do nothing of himself, John 5:19 “When Jesus was awakened to meet the storm, He was in perfect peace. There was no trace of fear in word or look, for no fear was in His heart. But He rested not in the possession of almighty power. It was not as the "Master of earth and sea and sky" that He reposed in quiet. That power He had laid down, and He says, "I can of Mine own self do nothing." John 5:30. He trusted in the Father's might. It was in faith--faith in God's love and care--that Jesus rested, and the power of that word which stilled the storm was the power of God.” DA 336 “There is no one who can explain the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Yet we know that He came to this earth and lived as a man among men. The man Christ Jesus was not the Lord God Almighty, yet Christ and the Father are one” EGW Comments SDA BC Vol 5 p 1129

12. As Jesus overcame so can we overcome!!! While on Earth After Resurrection Before Birth Omniscient Colossians 2:3 Omnipotent Matthew 28:18 Omniscient Omnipotent Limited knowledge Laid down His Power Omnipresence

13. Jesus took our sins & died! • 2Co 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. • 1Pe 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. • Joh 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. • Gen 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

14. ‘My sins’ Who does Me, My refer too? • Physical pain not the suffering of the cross! • Psalms help us look into the mental, spiritual and emotional experience of Jesus. • Psa 69:21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (See Matt 27:34) • Psa 69:5 O God, thou knowestmy foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee. Did Jesus Sin? Jesus made Himself fully responsible and accountable for the sins of the world. Our sin became His Sin.

15. ‘Forgiveness’ • Shop keeper. • Since Jesus has taken our sin, we no longer have any sin. • ‘For’ our sin He ‘gives’ us His righteousness. • We are accepted before God as if we had never sinned. • 1Pe 1:18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; • 1Pe 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: ( How precious is your blood?)

16. The experience of the cross • Isa 59:1, 2Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. • Sin separates the sinner from God • Our sins hides God’s face from us • God will not hear the sinner. • Did this experience happen to Jesus on the cross?

17. The experience of the cross • Psa 22:1My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? (see Matt 27:46) • Was Jesus separated from His Father? • Psa 22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. • Was Jesus Heard? • Psa 88:14 LORD, why castest thou off my soul? whyhidest thou thy face from me? • Could Jesus see His Father’s face?

18. 2 T 209 “Oh, was there ever suffering and sorrow like that endured by the dying Saviour! It was the sense of His Father’s displeasure which made His cup so bitter. It was not bodily suffering which so ended the life of Christ upon the cross. It was the crushing weight of the sins of the world and a sense of His Father’s wrath. The Father’s glory and sustaining presence had left Him, and despair pressed its crushing weight of darkness upon Him and forced from His pale and quivering lips the anguished cry: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?”

19. Psalm 88 describes the internal struggles of the heart experienced by Jesus on the cross. (Psalm 88:4 -16) • “I am counted (judged) with them that go down into the pit (bottomless pit): … like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. …LORD, why castest thou off my soul? whyhidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.” Jesus experienced the second death experience!!!

20. Jesus abandoned when He needed His Father most!!! DA 753 “Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. He was counted a transgressor, that He might redeem us from the condemnation of the law. The guilt of every descendent of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father’s mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see His Father’s reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt.”

21. “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isa 53:12 KJV) “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mat 10:28 KJV) God alone is able to destroy the soul in hell and this is what Jesus experienced on the cross.

22. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12:2 KJV) Jesus on the cross experienced what the unrepentant sinner will experience in the day of Judgement. Revelation 20:11, 12; Consider yourself standing before the Judgement throne of God.

23. Mat 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. DA 753 “Satan with fierce temptation wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared sin was so offensive to God that their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as man’s substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter and broke the heart of the Son of God.” “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” (Psa 69:20 KJV)

24. Steps to Christ 13 “It was to redeem us that Jesus lived and suffered and died. He became "a Man of Sorrows," that we might be made partakers of everlasting joy. God permitted His beloved Son, full of grace and truth, to come from a world of indescribable glory, to a world marred and blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow of death and the curse. He permitted Him to leave the bosom of His love, the adoration of the angels, to suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death. "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5. Behold Him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, upon the cross! The spotless Son of God took upon Himself the burden of sin. He who had been one with God, felt in His soul the awful separation that sin makes between God and man. This wrung from His lips the anguished cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46. It was the burden of sin, the sense of its terrible enormity, of its separation of the soul from God--it was this that broke the heart of the Son of God.”

25. 2 T 210,211 “In His dying agony, as He yields up His precious life, He has by faith alone to trust in Him whom it has ever been His joy to obey. He is not cheered with clear, bright rays of hope on the right hand nor on the left. All is enshrouded in oppressive gloom. Amid the awful darkness which is felt by sympathizing nature, the Redeemer drains the mysterious cup even to its dregs.”

26. The suffering of the Cross was not limited to Jesus on the cross • How did the angels feel? • Consider that Jesus as the Commander of the host of heaven was loved and worshipped by the angels. • He told Peter who wanted to defend Him against the guards who came for Him in Gethsemane: Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? (Mat 26:53 KJV) • A command from Jesus would have brought the angels to His rescue. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled: Jesus must die.

27. “It was difficult for the angels to endure the sight. They would have delivered Jesus, but the commanding angels forbade them, saying that it was a great ransom which was to be paid for man; “Prophesy, who smote Thee?” There was commotion among the angels. They would have rescued Him instantly; but their commanding angels restrained them.” EW 170 • “With amazement angels witnessed the Saviour’s despairing agony. The host of heaven veiled their faces from the fearful sight.” DA 753

28. How did the father feel? • Abraham – Father of Nations • “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” (Gen 22:2 KJV) • The Story of Redemption 45 - “Said the angel, “Think ye the Father yielded up His dearly beloved Son without a struggle ? No, No. It was even a struggle with the God of heaven, whither to let guilty man perish, or to give His blessed Son to die for Him.”

29. Who Suffered More? Father Son or

30. Why? • “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV) • Steps to Christ 13,14 - “But this great sacrifice was not made in order to create in the Father's heart a love for man, not to make Him willing to save. No, no! "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son." John 3:16. The Father loves us, not because of the great propitiation, but He provided the propitiation because He loves us. Christ was the medium through which He could pour out His infinite love upon a fallen world. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 Corinthians 5:19. God suffered with His Son. In the agony of Gethsemane, the death of Calvary, the heart of Infinite Love paid the price of our redemption. Jesus said, "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again." John 10:17. That is, "My Father has so loved you that He even loves Me more for giving My life to redeem you. In becoming your Substitute and Surety, by surrendering My life, by taking your liabilities, your transgressions, I am endeared to My Father; for by My sacrifice, God can be just, and yet the Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus."”

31. For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15

32. And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character. As Jesus opens before them the riches of redemption and the amazing achievements in the great controversy with Satan, the hearts of the ransomed thrill with more fervent devotion, and with more rapturous joy they sweep the harps of gold; and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices unite to swell the mighty chorus of praise. “And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” Revelation 5:13 The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love. GC 678 End