Apr 25 2021 Our Christianity Has to Get Back to Being About Jesus!

Lord, we are unable to serve You in our own ways – we must rely on the grace that was poured out in Jesus. We have died with You and are raised with You and have the power to live the new life of the resurrection of Jesus through us. We have this power, even as broken vessels, that Your life would shine through.

When Peter was asked – Peter, do you love Me? Yes, Lord, You know that I love You!

And each time – Jesus told him – feed My sheep. Take care of My people. Peter, you demonstrate Your love for Me by taking care of My people.

John, in his epistle – how can you say you love God whom you have not seen when you do not love the person sitting next to you… my paraphrase – when you do not love your brother and sister in Christ. In order to love God, we must learn to love one another.

We are moving into reconnecting with people –

In talking about how to love one another – I’d like to address the elephant in the room in the Christian world -

Matthew 12:25 And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.

We live in a divided country – that is not news! All you do is turn on the news and that is obvious. We know there are many responses for that – I won’t talk about that! (probably a relief for some!)

I believe that the divisive spirit in our world has infected the church. It has found its way into the Christian world.

As Christians, we need to not be conforming to the culture around us – and many have – conformed to the divisive spirit in the culture. And most are not aware of it. We don’t even know it sometimes. There are so many issues and problems in our world – and we are so focused on those that we’ve ignored what is going on in our own Christian world.

Christians are to be the salt and light of the world! We are to be different! As salt and light – like outside agents, getting scattered into the world – influencing the meat/flavoring it from the outside – we are to be different from the world – a critique to the world – a protest to the divisive attitudes in the world – but the problem is, we become a MIRROR of the world.

Francis Chan has a book on unity in the church – I listened to a podcast on this – haven’t read the book.

He was discipled into a divisive attitude and he shared how God had to humble and change him.

One of the causes, he mentions this – of division – theological and doctrinal differences. These become an issue because of attitudes of superiority.

He shares how he openly viewed charismatic Christians as harmful – until he got to know some leaders – and then he was humbled – what was I thinking? These people love Jesus!

There are a lot of Christians and leaders out there on Twitter/Facebook/blogs calling other leaders “false teachers.” People do this – because they understand that as Christians, we are called to stand for the truth and there are false teachings that have to be called out. HOWEVER – I am convinced that the Bible is very very clear – truly truly clear – (quoting Jesus) what KIND of false teaching is to be called out! What rises to the level of false teaching?

What the Bible basically says – what it comes down to – the kind of teaching to be called out is that which comes to the level of first order things – essentials of the Christian life – the Christian life – the Creeds.

The writers went against the teachings that distorted the gospels or the character of Christ. It is not about charismatic churches or when the rapture will happen – it is okay to debate and discuss and have differing opinions – but we think that anything that differs from our views is false teaching. The Church – throughout the centuries, has laid out what is essential doctrine.

Division

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree together, to end your divisions, and to be united by the same mind and purpose. (1Cor. 1:10 NET)

All agree! We think, we can’t have differences of opinion – what does that mean? Look at the context! There are factions in Corinth – Some say I am of Peter, others, Apollos, some Paul – you have divided Christ!

When Paul comes in and says – all agree to end your divisions and be united – what he is coming at are the people who are dividing Christ – in doing this, they are making an assault on the gospel! That is what has to end.

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited.

(Rom. 12:16 NET)

As Christians, sometimes people think that their tweets and posts show how committed they are to God’s word – and so they go after others – and usually, those others are just as committed to God’s word as you are – and they have a different understanding from you – and when we go after other Christians – while the world is watching – AND THE WORLD IS WATCHING! People will ask you about this! Why do Christians always argue with one another? Why so many fights? And it needs to change in our world!

This is a personal thing of mine – but I don’t think many Christians realize the destructive nature of it all – it is an assault on the gospel.

Solution? Love is the perfect bond of unity! So we need to develop a different way of learning to love one another – We need to look at how Jesus did it. Am I loving people the way He loved people, in the stories of the gospels?

2 Cor. 10:3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

If we can learn this – we live in the world, but don’t go about doing our Christian work, demolishing strongholds the SAME WAY THE WORLD DOES IT. There IS a battle to be fought. We are engaged in a real battle taking place on this earth – but it is clear from scripture that we are not to do it in any way like the world does it. God has an entirely different way.

A third way – we might say to do it. In the book of Acts, the followers of Christ are called followers of the Way. We need to live this out.

⁵ We destroy arguments (speculations) and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We live in a world of speculations, lofty opinions raised up against the knowledge of God – and THAT Is the battle God wants us to engage in.

What we have done – we have raised up speculations and lofty opinions against one another – and that is a terrible thing! We have conformed to the way of the world in this.

Every issue out country is facing now – there are many – every issue has its solution based in the gospel of Jesus Christ! HARD STOP!

I do not simply mean that our only responsibility in this world is to share a presentation of the gospel with others – yes, we are to do that – but the gospel is so much more than sharing a presentation – it is so much more than that!

The story of the birth, life, teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus – AND – what all of that means for a broken world and a broken creation – AND – how Christians must live out that story in the world and how that story and why that story is good news – gospel – to the world!

That is how – it is in living out that story - performing and proclaiming – that we engage in this battle in divine ways –

Jesus gives us a preview – a movie trailer – to the gospel:

Luke 4:18 ¹⁸ "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." ²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ Then he began to tell them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read."

Good news! Release to the captives! Here is what Luke is doing – HERE is the gospel – and he goes back to Isaiah – they would have understood the context of what was going on – and we will see what the gospel is in this passage in Isaiah – so he starts it off with Jesus’ ministry – the rest of the book goes on to describe how Jesus fulfills this passage in Isaiah – so within the gospel of Luke – the problems of our world existed then – and we see how Jesus addressed the issue of Racism – with the good Samaritan and Gentiles –

Social Justice – Oppression – Political powers of Rome – immorality – violence – we see how Jesus addressed each of these – and to go out and live out the gospel the same.

Mark – 1:1 – the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

That is how it begins – What is the gospel? Just start in verse 1! This is where it starts and then you have sixteen chapters that tell you what the gospel is – what the good news is – and in all 16 of those chapters, we see the birth, life, teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus – and we see the same thing in the other 3 gospels as well.

This affects every aspect of our lives – not just one thing the church does – it will affect everything. We see how Jesus confronts the dark forces with the Temptation in the Wilderness. That is so important - and Jesus shows how to do that. We see Jesus dealing with demons and forces of darkness. Then we see how Jesus addresses immoral people. There are so many stories – and we see Jesus responding to Roman political power, injustice – and the religious leaders and their systems.

If the gospel is the answer to the world’s problems – and I believe it is – we need to proclaim that good news and live out the good news – HOW? By living out the gospel of Jesus. SO when Jesus says – love your enemy, what do we do? As we engage the world, we love our enemy! We proclaim the gospel of Jesus by proclaiming the gospels of Jesus – it is all there. Our proclamation handed to us – to communicate – to teach others –

One of the most powerful gospel presentations in our lifetime – it may have been Campus Crusade – made the movie Jesus – and took that movie – and showed it to hundreds of millions of people around the world – and for many it was the first time they really heard the story of the gospel and saw it – there is so much power in how Jesus lived and dealt with people. Too often, we get into HOW we present it.

But people cannot hear what Jesus did without it profoundly impacting them. They may have all kinds of reasons not to become a Christian, but no one can hear how He lived and died and rose without being impacted by it.

Our Christianity has to get back to being about Jesus – first and foremost – we have allowed all this other stuff to take center stage.

That is why Paul told the Corinthians, you have divided Christ – you have taken Jesus out of the whole thing when He is the center – not your church doctrine, statement of faith – how you worship – it is about JESUS!

1 Cor. 1:

We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.