Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. – 1 John 2:6 NLT

The 19th-century British evangelist Rodney (Gypsy) Smith once said, “There are five Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian—but most people never read the first four.” The reason so many people doubt Christianity today is because many have not seen the authentic life change in those who claim to be believers. It’s easy to go to church, hear three points and a poem, shake everyone’s hand and bid everyone a good week, but it is difficult to actually surrender the details of our lives to Christ so that He can be revealed in our day to day living.  As the quote above relates, why should people bother with the four Gospels if they can’t get around the life of the Christian believer.

So the question to pose is to the Christian: What kind of Jesus are you revealing to the world this week? Is it your ‘personal pet Jesus’ that overlooks the things you do, ‘denominational Jesus’ that fits nicely within your traditions, or the actual, authentic, historical Jesus of the Bible?  I’m reminded of a story where a young boy named Joe brought his friend for the first time to church. The teacher ask the class, “Who would you like to be like?” The young friend, not knowing who Jesus is, said Joe. The teacher, trying to set the boy up for the Sunday School answer, stated, “Wouldn’t you like to be like Jesus?” The young friend said, “Yes! If he is anything like Joe.” Would someone say that about you this week?

John 14:19   Because I live, you will live too.

This past week for Christians was like our Super Bowl. Everything that is foundational to the Christian faith comes together in this one week in light of Christ’s death on the Cross and His Resurrection. These two significant events have changed the course of history and impacted the lives of millions.

The Cross of Jesus has turned a symbol of shame, guilt and death made famous by the Roman Empire into a symbol of grace, love and forgiveness made famous in Jesus. The Judge took the punishment for the sins of humanity and offers forgiveness to all who will come and ask for it. Without the cross there is no salvation from sin. Christ has become our Passover Lamb. Jesus did what the rest of us can’t do and could never do!

The Resurrection of Jesus is the only hope for humanity. When you consider that Jesus has defeated death then we have to ask ourselves what could give humanity greater hope? Jesus is the only “religious” leader that has defeated mankind’s greatest foe and fear and then came back to talk about it. Logically it makes sense that if the Resurrection of Jesus is true then what He offers no one else can come close to offering. The cornerstone of the Christian faith is the fact and reality that Jesus came back to life, and in doing this has inaugurated a new beginning for New Creation.

Good Friday is a somber moment remembering the suffering the Lord did for us, but hope has come in the dawning of a new age in the Resurrection of Jesus. Just like in the Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West died there was a celebration, that should be our attitude on Easter. Death has been defeated and a new life has been offered in Christ.

Jesus said, “Because I live, you will live too.” John 14:19

This week is what is known as Holy Week or Passion Week. It is the last week in the life of Christ before His Death, Burial, and Resurrection. It is what we believers would say is the most important week in human history because during this week we see love at its finest, evil at its darkest, and victory over the enemy of death at its greatest.

On what is known as Good Friday (good for us, but terrible for Jesus) the most innocent, sinless, pure person who has ever lived offered Himself as a sacrifice to satisfy ultimate justice and also a ransom to the powers of darkness for the rest of us to be set free. At the cross, both mercy and grace merge. Mercy, in that, none of us have to receive that which we do deserve, and Grace, in that, we can receive that which we don’t deserve. Our sin debt was addressed and Christ paid it in full. Then, not only did Christ die for us, but on the 3^rd day Christ lived for us again. He came back to life to usher in God’s New World that doesn’t come by force or hype, but comes through the individual transformation of those who follow Him in self-giving love. Christ presently lives in the hearts of His true followers and will one day come again to fully consummate the change that His resurrection accomplished and began. I encourage any skeptic to challenge the evidence of history because there is full support of Christ’s resurrection.

Also, on a personal scale, it is because of the resurrection I personally place my faith in Christ because if Christ did indeed come back to life, again see the evidence, then He and only He is qualified to answer the question of what happens when we die. No other religious leader of history has those credentials if in fact Christ came back to life. Everything hinges on the reality of Christ’s resurrection. It is the corner post of Christian belief in which all other elements of Christian faith depend. 

As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If Christianity is true then it is of immanent and infinite importance, if it is not true, then of no importance at all, but the one thing it can never be is moderately important.

Matthew 28:18-20

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Church, according to the Scripture, is a family of faith where forgiven sinners rejoice in the grace given them in Jesus, and who seek to follow Christ authentically in their daily lives. Now are all Christians living that way? No! But that is what the Church is designed to be. For those who maybe skeptics, as I have been, make sure you don’t confuse Christians for Christ. Christians may do you wrong because we are still a work in progress, but Christ is the One to seek because He can fill your hearts to overflowing.

Jesus, before returning to Heaven, gave a very famous statement regarding what His church was to be about in the future. It is called the Great Commission. It is called The Great Commission because 1) It is given to us by Jesus 2) It is an invitation to work with Jesus not just for Jesus. Jesus is at work through the lives of obedient believers who are surrendered to Him. He wants us to be partners in His work. We are to be about telling others the Good News that is in Jesus such that in Jesus forgiveness of any and all sins can be obtained, that a new beginning for life can be received, and an eternal hope and future given by placing faith in the Risen Lord. Also, we are to be teaching, applying and implementing Christ’s teachings in our daily lives and decisions. We are to be lights of hope in a dark world, and messengers of grace so that as we await His return may His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Love is a most confusing term these days because what many call “love” isn’t love at all. So today to get a better understanding of what love actually is I will let the Apostle Paul speak for himself.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 HOLMAN

If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. Butwhen the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child,
I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man,
I put aside childish things.

For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Peter 4:17

For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household;

Hebrews 10:23-25

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

As a pastor I hear many complaints on a weekly level about how our country and society is turning away from God. This of course is not new news, but one has to begin to ask why is there such a turn in our culture away from God? First, we can say that humans are rebellious to God and a turning away from God is to be expected. This is true without question, but secondly, we as Christians need to be open to what part we play in this downward spiral.

Many Christians may want to reject that we as believers have any part to play, but they would be downright wrong. Jesus called His followers to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). When the light goes dim the rest of the room gets darker. I believe this has a lot to say about why our country is getting darker in its moral compass. Followers of Christ are simply not being the light. The lack of commitment in churches is astounding, particularly when you ask what those believers say that believe. If a believer truly believes that Christ died for them to make them right before God, how in the world can so much other stuff come before God, worship, and learning His truth that should shape our lives? How many “Christians” go to church either because they feel guilty because they haven’t been in a while, or there was nothing more entertaining on their calendar that Sunday? There is nothing wrong with missing church every so often to go on vacation, etc., but when rodeos, baseball, the mall, and the like become regular replacements for worship then you believer have become the major part of society’s problem. When parents make God only an option, when there’s nothing better going on, then don’t come whining to your local pastor when your kids grow up making poor choices that reflect that God’s only an option to them. Remember you taught them to make such choices. If you do this for only a few generations you can begin to see how the moral sands begin to shift.

Joshua 24:15
… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Every day we are faced with choices to make. Some of us like making decisions and some of us run from making decisions in our lives. We are faced with choices in how we are going to spend our time, money, educational goals, etc. that one day will make up the sum of our life. One day all of us will look back and see what kind of life we lived based on the culmination of choices we made throughout our lives. This is important to remember because it is in this thought that often forces us to reconsider what choices we are making. The choices we make today create the legacy we leave behind tomorrow.

In Scripture, Joshua made a declaration that as for he and his household they were going to choose to serve the Lord. In the context of this verse he was giving the people an ultimatum of going back to their old ways and serving foreign deities or making a conscious decision to serve the only living God that brought them out of Egypt. So here is the question for us today? What god are you serving in your life? Is it the god of self or is it the only living God? I’ve noticed in my own life that when I choose to serve the living Lord that I am proud of the decisions that I make in doing so. Our choices are derivative of whom we serve in our hearts. May I encourage all of us to serve Jesus.

I was talking to my uncle the other day who said that he had been in and out of church most of his life and had never been regular until these last few years, but he was taken aback at how Christians can argue over the silliest of things. I agreed! Over the years as a pastor, sadly, too many of my phone calls are not pertaining to theological questions, but where people have gotten upset over one thing or the other. This is NOT the Christian way!!!

First, I want to apologize to anyone who has been hurt by “church folk” and hope that you never judge Jesus by our brokenness. As a sinful follower of Jesus myself and part of those “church folk,” I may not always represent Him like I should, but that is why I need Him cause I’m still a work in progress. I am just one beggar telling other beggars where the bread is.

Second, if you are a believer, apologize to the world in how you have misrepresented Jesus by complaining or arguing over silly things. The truth be told when we stop and count our blessings there should be no complaining at all, only praise to our King.

Philippians 2:14-16 – Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—.

Philippians 2:14-16

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—.

I was talking to my uncle the other day who said that he had been in and out of church most of his life and had never been regular until these last few years, but he was taken aback at how Christians can argue over the silliest of things. I agreed! Over the years as a pastor, sadly, too many of my phone calls are not pertaining to theological questions, but where people have gotten upset over one thing or the other. This is NOT the Christian way!!!

First, I want to apologize to anyone who has been hurt by “church folk” and hope that you never judge Jesus by our brokenness. As a sinful follower of Jesus myself and part of those “church folk,” I may not always represent Him like I should, but that is why I need Him cause I’m still a work in progress. I am just one beggar telling other beggars where the bread is.

Second, if you are a believer, apologize to the world in how you have misrepresented Jesus by complaining or arguing over silly things. The truth be told when we stop and count our blessings there should be no complaining at all, only praise to our King.

Is Christianity and Socialism compatible? Many refer, in recent threads on social media that I have read, how the early church in its community shared its property and goods to give to those in need and the poor. Acts 4:32 “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” No question this was the case, but is this the type of socialism being advertised in our society today. Absolutely not!

The main difference between socialism versus capitalism is the free market based on ‘private owners for profit’ versus socialism which is an ‘economic system driven by the production, distribution, and exchange, owned and regulated, by the community’. Many would say this best describes the early church. I would only partially agree. The early church may best be described as a theocratic socialism where they pooled their resources to survive and care for the needs of their community, but this was driven by a love for God, not government mandate. Should churches still use these principles in doing missions for those in need? Absolutely! But a government driven society robs the believer of the ability of freely giving and puts their hard earned work and production into the hands of the government not God.

For instance, how can you freely give as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 9:7 which says, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.^” The “each man” gives it away that it is up to the individual to decide what to give not the community or society to dictate, but the church society is made up of individuals who freely give.

In a Socialistic society where the government controls what is given, not only will it reduce the quality of what is made in the production of goods because the individual has nothing to personally gain for better quality, no personal incentive in other words, but also it robs the person of freely giving what they have decided, the individual, in their heart to give. They have nothing of their own really because it is under the control of the community/government.

We need a capitalistic society so that we can earn what we can to be able to freely give, otherwise, our giving becomes stealing from the state. Sadly, too many are looking for the government to fill the shoes God ordained the Church to walk in, and Christians need to take ownership. It was the Church who started hospitals, modern science, and took seriously the poor and the importance of education. So a theocratic socialism, if you want to use that terminology, yes, but make NO mistake that this is not the kind of socialism that is on the ballot this year. Hopefully, I’ve explained the need for a capitalistic society for our communal giving as believers.

One final thought, the Bible teaches, “On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:8-10) Work is the source of provision. We need to focus on work, not welfare, because giving is a wonderful gift we should all do motivated by the love of God in our communities, but our giving to those who play the victim becomes enablement and sets our communities up for future failure.