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Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

The Choice: Narrow vs. Wide Gates

Introduction
I couldn’t sleep last night.  I was very tired.  I worked outside in my garden all day Saturday and I was physically tired.  I went to bed early.  I fell asleep fast.  But I woke up just a couple hours later with this sermon and you on my mind.  In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus said we all have a choice to make.  Listen to what He said. 

Matthew 7:13-14
13 “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14 But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”

The Way of Eternal Life
Jesus used gates and roads as a metaphor for eternal life and eternal damnation.  The narrow gate and difficult road represents the way of life that leads to eternal life in heaven.  The narrowness of the gate represents the exclusive nature of the path to eternal life.  Jesus is the only way to eternal life.  Jesus explicitly said so in John 14:6 - “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So, some will not go to heaven because they either reject Christ or never deliberately choose Him.  Jesus said the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult.  Living a life that adheres to Jesus' teachings requires self-discipline, sacrifice, and a willingness to go against the prevailing norms and values of society. This path is not the easiest, but it is the one that leads to true life.

Jesus wants everyone to have eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.  (I want that for you too!)  But the reality is:  the gate is narrow and the road is difficult and few people ever find it. 

The Highway to Hell
Most people choose the wide gate and take the highway to hell.  It's the route that seems easiest and most convenient, requiring little to no sacrifice or change.  It aligns with our natural desires and the immediate gratification of our wants without considering the long-term consequences.  

And besides, it’s the road most people choose.  You don’t even have to think about it.  You just go along with the crowd.  It requires no discipline, no self-examination, no repentance or transformation. 

Yeah, it’s easy; it’s convenient; and it offers the false promise of freedom.  But it’s a lie!  While the gate is wide and the path is easy, it leads to spiritual death, separation from God, and eternal punishment in Hell. 

And I woke up last night full of sorrow and concern for the multitudes of people traveling on the
highway to hell and for the very few who choose the narrow, difficult road to heaven.  
I lay in my bed thinking about how I may have failed to do my part to encourage others to choose the right path–the one that leads to Heaven.  I lay there thinking about everyone who would be sitting in my congregation  or watching online the next morning to hear this sermon, as well as everyone who might read it on my blog.  And I thought about how so many think you are walking on a path that leads to eternal life in heaven when you are not.  Maybe you think you're going to heaven because:

  • You were baptized as a baby, (or as an adult), or
  • You go to church, or
  • Your parents or grandparents were great Christians, or
  • You believe God exists, or
  • Because you’re a good person, or
  • Because you just believe everyone goes to heaven.

Listen to me.  No.  Don’t listen to me; listen to Jesus.  Jesus says it right here in our Scripture.  “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”

Few Ever Find It
Most people think it’s so easy.  They say:  Just be a good person.  Go to church if you want to.  Be nice.  You’ll go to heaven.  But Jesus says:  “The gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”

You see, the idea here is, you can have good intentions and still miss the gate to life.  You can’t just casually walk through life assuming you’ll stumble through the right gate.  No sir.  You might still miss it.  You may think you went through the right gate but realize too late you chose the wrong one.  If you want to be one of the few people who find the gateway to eternal life, you better get serious about it.  You better study it so you'll recognize the right gate and the right path when you see it.  you better choose wisely.

People get serious about all kinds of things in this life.  They’ll work hard to achieve goals like:

  • Athletic achievements
  • Educational Achievements
  • Finding a mate to spend their life with 
  • Building a successful career,
  • Home ownership
  • Health and wellness
  • Travel and adventure

Perhaps you can think how you have strived for some of these in your own life.

People plan and save and study and invest themselves in all kinds of things–some things that are good and important.  But the most important thing, the thing that will literally last for all eternity, so many people approach carelessly, as if this most important thing just happens automatically.  Few things worth having just happen automatically.  You have to be committed and strive for it.

How to Find the Narrow Gate
If you really wanted to be a winning athlete, you would intentionally train to succeed.  You might practice daily to get good, maybe workout to grow stronger; you might even change the way you eat to become healthier and fuel your body. 

There are things you can do to help you be one of the few who finds the narrow gate Jesus says leads to eternal life.  And I suggest everyone be dedicated to spiritual training.

  1. Repent and seek forgiveness - Acknowledge your sins and mistakes, repent, and seek God's forgiveness. This process of turning away from sin is crucial in finding the narrow gate.  You will never find the gate until you decide to start looking.  And repentance is the the first step.

  2. Commit to Live for Jesus - Jesus chose you.  But you have to choose Jesus.  You have to consciously decide to be His disciple–to apply Jesus' teachings in your daily life, including loving your neighbor, forgiving others, practicing humility, and serving those in need.

  3. Join a faith community - Being part of a church or a spiritual community provides support, accountability, and encouragement as you strive to live a life that reflects Jesus' teachings.  Worship together.  Study together in a small group.  Serve together.  Jesus and the original Twelve Disciples worked together as a group.  If Jesus and the Twelve needed to be in a group, what makes you think you can do it alone?

  4. Read the Bible - Regularly reading and studying the Bible helps you understand God's principles and Jesus' teachings. This knowledge is foundational to discerning the narrow path.  It’s the only way you are going to know which gate to go through and which path to follow in life.

  5. Pray - Prayer is a powerful way to communicate with God, seek His guidance, and express your desire to follow Him. It aligns your heart with God's will.  Prayer is the heart of walking on the right path with Jesus. 

Closing
Some of you are already doing these things.
Some of you need to do better.
Some of you need to take a good hard look at your life and recognize, you’re just blindly walking through life along with everyone else, and you don’t even realize you are traveling on the highway to hell.
You better wake up now, before it’s too late and you find yourself suffering for all eternity!

 

Monday, August 14, 2023

What is Consecration?

Introduction
Probably one of the best known verses of Scripture in the whole Bible—memorized by people all over the world—is John 3:16. Say it with me.

John 3:16 (NIV)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus Himself, the one and only Son of God, spoke these beautiful words that summarize His mission.  If there was one verse that could sum up the whole story of the Bible, John 3:16 would probably do it best.  But most don’t know the full historical context of this verse.  It is grounded in the whole story of Scripture, going all the way back through Genesis.

In the wild and disturbing story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son, Isaac, on Mount Mariah.  Then, as Abraham’s knife is poised to slaughter his son, God stops Abraham and provides a ram to take Isaac’s place. 

In Exodus, we find the Israelites living in slavery in Egypt.  God sends Moses to deliver them, but Pharaoh refuses to let them go.  So God sends 10 plagues to torture the Egyptians and convince them to let God’s people go.  The was blood and frogs and gnats and flies.  All of Egypt’s livestock died.  Then there was boils, hail, locusts, and darkness.  And do you remember the last plague?  It was the most terrible of all…  Every firstborn son not sheltered in a home marked by the blood of a Passover lamb died in a single night.  Every male offspring, from the livestock to the servants and all the way up to Pharoah’s own son, died in that single night.  It was a costly sacrifice brought on by the hard hearted, stubborn Pharoah who would not submit to the God of Israel and let the Israelites go free.

A Day to Remember
It was a day to remember forever.  God does not take death lightly--even the death of those who would be called His enemies.  Jesus said Our Heavenly Father knows and cares if even a single sparrow dies.  How much more when the entire nation of Egypt—every family—loses their first born sons.  It’s devastating.  But that was the cost of that nation’s sin and the cost of Israel’s freedom.

So God wanted His people in Israel to remember that day forever.  He gave them a special way to remember and honor God for saving them. We read about it in Exodus 13:1-5

Exodus 13:1-5
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Dedicate to me every firstborn among the Israelites. The first offspring to be born, of both humans and animals, belongs to me.”

So Moses said to the people, “This is a day to remember forever—the day you left Egypt, the place of your slavery. Today the Lord has brought you out by the power of his mighty hand. (Remember, eat no food containing yeast.) On this day in early spring, in the month of Abib, you have been set free. You must celebrate this event in this month each year after the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. (He swore to your ancestors that he would give you this land—a land flowing with milk and honey.)

Passover
This passage is the institution of the Passover Feast.  These instructions were given to the Israelites over 3,000 years ago and they have been celebrated by the Hebrew people every year since then as a way to honor God and thank Him for delivering them from slavery in Egypt.  It was a costly deliverance—the death of every Egyptian first born son.  In recognition, the Hebrew people were to eat a special Passover meal and dedicate back to God the first-born male of every Israelite family—both humans and animals.

The Pagan cultures all around Israel were known to practice human sacrifice.  Whereas God stopped Abraham and would not allow Abraham to actually sacrifice his son, Isaac, other non-Israelite people often did sacrifice their first-born sons (as well as other children).  Child/human sacrifice is one of the reasons the Bible says God drove other nations out of the Promised Land and gave it to the Israelites instead.  Those other nations sacrificed their children, thinking it would please and manipulate their gods into helping them.  But the one true God of the Bible abhors human sacrifice. He forbids anyone to do it.  And if you think how people made these evil sacrifice thinking they could manipulate their gods with them, you get an even deeper sense of how evil they are.  They do not trust God and think they should and can perform some type of magic to control their gods.  But the one true God is sovereign and we cannot and should not try to control Him--especially by taking the life of a child or any other person.

So God didn’t ask the Israelites to actually place their children on the Temple altar and sacrifice them.  Rather, God instructed them to “dedicate” or consecrate them to God.  Since God had purchased the Israelites at the cost of every first born son of Egypt, now the Israelites honored God by consecrating to Him their firstborn sons.

Consecrate
Consecrate is a special word for a special action.  To consecrate means to make or declare something sacred—dedicated formally to a religious or divine purpose.

When something is consecrated, it is dedicated for a holy purpose.  For instance, our altar is consecrated for use in religious services in our church.  It would be out of place to use this altar for just any old purpose.  Right?  We wouldn’t take it home and use it as a breakfast table in our house.  That would be disrespectful and sacrilegious.  That’s not what it was made for; it has been dedicated to be used for Christian worship services.  The only meal we place upon this table is a sacred meal—Holy Communion—dedicated to remember Jesus.  That is what it means to consecrate something.  It is to set it apart for God’s divine purpsoses.

We are here today on Consecration Sunday.  It is a day set aside to consecrate ourselves and our gifts to God for the coming year.  I have asked each of you to complete a Stewardship Survey and to indicate how you will serve God with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness.  You have had time to prayerfully consider what you will dedicate to the Lord.  We have not required you to dedicate any certain amount.  I’ve instructed you over the last several weeks about the biblical standards, but what you choose to give is a matter of prayer between you and God.  And today you have a chance to consecrate what you have chosen to give. 


In a moment, I will ask each of you to come forward and lay your survey upon the altar.  What you lay upon the altar, you consecrate to God.  It is set apart as holy for the Lord.  Therefore, it should only be used for His glory.  You shouldn’t take it back to use however you please.  It is for God.

John 3:16
But now we come back to John 3:16—that verse we love so much because it makes God’s Word in the Bible so simple.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Who is it who gave?  It is God.

What did He give?  Jesus, His one and only son.

Who did God give Jesus for?  For the whole world.  That includes you and me.

Why did God give us Jesus? 
So that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Just like the Israelites in Exodus, we have been delivered from slavery.
But our slavery wasn’t to a Pharoah in Egypt.  Our slavery was to sin and death.
Our sin separates us from God and corrupts our whole world.  We are spiritually dead.
But, praise God, through Jesus we can be delivered from our slavery.
When we repent of our sin and trust Jesus to save, He does and we have freedom and eternal life.

Won’t you repent and turn to Jesus today?  Ask Jesus to forgive you.  Trust Him to save you.
Dedicate your life to serve Him as Lord.  Please join me in the Wesley Covenant Prayer as a way to consecrate ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Closing – Wesley Covenant Prayer
“I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

Monday, June 26, 2023

Jesus Heals Ten Lepers

Introduction
My church is getting ready for Vacation Bible School which starts this week. This message is what we will teach on the fourth day, the story of when Jesus Heals Ten Lepers.  Our theme is: JESUS IS FULL OF HEALING.

When I was a kid, my parents used to fight a lot.  Mostly it was just shouting and name calling and verbal violence.  Sometimes it turned physical.  As a kid, I didn’t know any better.  I just thought that’s the way all families were.  It’s all I’d ever known.  It wasn’t until I was a little older and spent more time outside my home in my friend’s homes, maybe spending the night at their house.  Their parents didn’t fight like mine.  Eventually, my family was the unusual one.  Families aren’t supposed to fight all the time.

We live in a broken world.  But this is all we’ve ever known.  The only world we’ve ever known is full of families that are broken.  It’s also a place where people get sick—where cancer and heart attacks and strokes happen and people suffer and die.  But that’s not the way God meant the world to be.  It’s this way because human sin has wrecked all creation.

Jesus came to make the world right again.  Jesus is Lord of all the earth.  And everywhere He walks, the Kingdom of God starts to break in and take over our broken world. 

In the Bible, we see a lot of stories where Jesus healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and caused the lame to walk.  It was a natural thing to happen.  You see, there is no sickness, blindness, or lameness in God’s Kingdom.  And when the King comes, these things are banished.  What is it that Jesus said so often?  "The Kingdom of God (of Heaven) is near."  And there is no sin. sickness, sorrow, or death in God's Kingdom.  So whenever Jesus bring the Kingdom close, those other things naturally disappear.

Luke 17:11-19
11 
As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. 12 As he entered a village there, ten men with leprosy stood at a distance, 13 crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

14 He looked at them and said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.

15 One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” 16 He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan.

17 Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

Jesus Heals Ten Lepers
Leprosy was a terrible disease.  People with leprosy had sores all over their bodies.  Sometimes leprosy caused people to go blind or to limp or to hurt very badly.  It also made them very lonely.  The disease was very contagious, so lepers couldn’t be around other people.  They lived as outcasts in camps together away from the rest of society—even their own families.  Anytime they went away from their leprosy colony, they had to ring bells and yell, “Stay away!  I’m unclean!”  It was so embarrassing!  And most people in those days also though people got leprosy because they had done something bad.  People said, “God would only let someone catch leprosy if they’d done something really bad.  They must deserve it.”

But then in our story, Jesus is different.  These 10 lepers were in agony and full of shame.  But Jesus knows this isn’t the way God’s world is supposed to be.  And Jesus knows these lepers aren’t sick because they did something wrong.  They’re sick because we all live in a broken world.  And Jesus came to bring God’s mercy and healing.  He came to forgive sins and make the broken world right again.

So when the lepers cry out:  “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  He is glad to heal them.  The passage doesn’t say how Jesus heals them.  It seems like it was just and instantaneous thing.  Otherwise, the passage would tell how he gave them some medicine, said a pray over them, or something else.  But Luke doesn’t tell us how Jesus healed them.  He just said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy. (vs14)

That tells us two things.  First, when Jesus heals, it doesn’t have to be some elaborate ceremony.  It doesn’t require oil or music or even a fancy prayer.  It just takes our desire to be healed and Jesus’ power and consent to heal us.

The second thing the stories shows is healing comes as we obey.  Jesus told the lepers to go show themselves to the priests.  That was what the Old Testament Law that God gave required.  If someone had leprosy and then they were healed, they went to the priest to be examined and pronounced clean.  And Luke 17:14 points out: “As they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.  So they had to do something.  It wasn’t much.  But they had to obey Jesus command to go.  And as they did, hey were healed.

So when we are in need of healing—whether it is physical healing, emotional or spiritual healing—we should take not of these two insights.  First, trust in Jesus.  Don’t expect some magical ceremony that makes you feel like healing is taking place.  It’s not religion that heals.  It’s Jesus that heals.  And Jesus is not interested in fancy religion.  Jesus main concern is bringing God’s Kingdom on earth.  It’s just like the words we pray in the Lord’s prayer:  "Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

So only two main things are needed to receive God’s healing through Jesus Christ:  Faith that Jesus is Lord and our obedience.  We need to do what He says.

Jesus is powerful!  He is full of mercy and grace and kindness and healing.  When we don’t feel well, when someone we love is in the hospital, we can pray to Jesus.  He will always answer us with love.  Like the tenth leper, we thank God for healing us.  Even more, we thank God for taking away our sins when Jesus died on the cross in our place!  Jesus healed our sinful lives.  He forgives us when we make bad choices and sin by disobeying the Ten Commandments God gave us.

The 1 in 10 Gratitude Principle
There’s another important principle I’ve learned over the years from this story I want to share with you.  I call it the 1 in 10 gratitude principle.  You see, only 1 of the 10 lepers came back to tell Jesus thank you. It’s not that the other 9 weren’t grateful.  I bet they were grateful to be healed.  But only one—a Samaritan—came back to actually say “Thank you.”  And that’s the way it it is so much of the time.  Only about 1 in 10 people know how and takes the time to really express their thankfulness in ways that tells you they really are thankful.

I think this might be an important principle for all the VBS volunteers to understand this week.  Our volunteers have already put in a lot of work getting ready for VBS.  And they’ll put in even more this week.  And Melissa Starling has already done so much work—it amazes me!  Melissa works a full-time job.  Plus, she’s a mom and a wife.  (And I know Robert is an unsung hero in all of this too; Robert works full-time too and then I’m sure he’s doing extra working as a great dad with his kids while Melissa does extra work for the church).  And Melissa has done such a fine job organizing VBS and getting everything ready for our volunteers.  It amazes me and we a we all appreciate Melissa and her family.

We will all work hard this week.  We’ll be good and tired at the end of it.  And there will be many who say thank you.  And that gratitude always feels good—to know people appreciate your hard work and to know you made a difference.

Even if you’re not working with VBS this week, whatever ways you serve Christ and make a difference in the world, it’s nice to be thanked.  Mom’s and Dad’s and grandparents, it’s nice to be thanked and you don’t always get the thanks you deserve.  Or if you work, people probably don’t tell you “Thank you” enough at work (or really show you that they do appreciate you).

That’s where the 1 in 10 principle has helped me.  You see, only 1 in 10 lepers came back to tell Jesus thank you.  So here’s a little trick I started doing many years ago in ministry.  I always figure for every one person who really shows their gratitude well for anything I’ve done, there are ten more who are thankful but just didn’t say it or don’t know how to say thanks in a really meaningful way.  So I just take that one person’s gratitude and multiply it by ten in my own heart.

If you ever feel like you don't get the thanks you deserve, take whatever thanks you receive and multiply it by ten.  It works for me.  Maybe it’ll work for you.

Closing
But it’s healthy to be a thankful person.  The more thankful you are, the more joyful you are.  Showing gratitude actually enhances your own appreciation for your gifts in life.  So I want to close today by giving you time to be thankful.  Take a minute to close your eyes and thank God for your blessings.  You may even want to go further and take 15 or 30 minutes to make a list of all the things for which you have to be thankful.

Here are some things you might consider:
Your health
Family
Church
Nation, etc.

And praise God!  We all can be thankful for what Jesus has done.  
Forgiving our sins and giving us eternal life…

Monday, May 15, 2023

We Are Family

Introduction
I’ve been reflecting a lot about my Mom and our relationship lately.  I guess because of Mother’s Day.  One thing I remember in particular is the day I left home to go off to college.  It was the day I “moved out” of my Mom’s house.

We went to eat lunch at the Texas Cattle Company in Macon.  I didn’t want orneed my Mom to go all the way up to Marietta to help me move in to college at Southern Tech.  Although she would have liked to, I felt I needed to do it on my own and she let me.

Even though I moved out of my Mom’s house, we remain connected. I visited every weekend and we talked often on the phone.  We were and are bound by love and always will be.  Regardless of whether we live in the same house, we will always be family.  I’m so thankful for all my Mom did for me—for her sacrifice, her love, her continued support—and for the legacy she passed on to me.

My relationship with my mom and my family are a good lead in to wwhat I want to share today.  I want to talk about family, but I want to broaden the concept of family beyond your biological family.  Jesus said family is deeper than blood relations. Jesus said in Matthew 12:50, “Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”

The Church is a family. We are connected to each other. And I want to discuss this connectionism among the followers of Christ in the Church.

Acts 15:22-29 tells about a special council the early followers of Christ held in Jerusalem to deal with an important issue in the growing Family of Christ, the Church.  You see, Jesus was Jewish.  The first disciples were Jewish.  The earliest followers were Jewish.  They followed Jewish religious customs laid out in the Old Testament.  (You know things like: don’t eat pork.  Don’t work on the Sabbath day.  Celebrate Passover.  Etc.) 

As the years went by, more and more non-Jewish people became Christians and started asking a legitimate question: Do non-Jewish people need to follow all the Jewish religious rules in order to be Christians?  And a really important issue was about circumcision.  Most Jews are circumcised at birth.  But if you became a Jew as an adult, you would need to be circumcised then.  So this was a important (and potentially painful) issue for the male gentiles who wanted to follow Christ.  Did they need to be circumcised and follow the Jewish laws of the Old Testament to be Christians?  So the Church had a big conference to discuss the issue and make a decision. Let’s read what they decided.

Acts 15:22
22 
Then the apostles and elders together with the whole church in Jerusalem chose delegates, and they sent them to Antioch of Syria with Paul and Barnabas to report on this decision. The men chosen were two of the church leaders—Judas (also called Barsabbas) and Silas. 

Let’s pause here to consider.  The early Church felt it was important to speak as one body.
Christians are in connection.  Not individuals.  Not even individual congregations.  The early Christians wanted everyone across the whole church to believe and practice the same thing (as far as it was possible).  So they made a decision and sent representatives with the official decision in a letter.

Acts 15:23
23 
This is the letter they took with them:

“This letter is from the apostles and elders, your brothers in Jerusalem. It is written to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings!

It's important to recognize that the Jerusalem council represented church congregations that spanned across a geographical area roughly the size of the Southeastern United States.  This was the Church--a large body of believers made up of hundreds of small local congregations that spanned throughout the middle east.  And they were all expected to follow the same rules.

Acts 15:24
24 
“We understand that some men from here have troubled you and upset you with their teaching, but we did not send them! 

In other words, some people have made proclamations that don't represent the official positions of the  connection/family.  They had no authority to say what they said.

Acts 15:25-27
25 
So we decided, having come to complete agreement, to send you official representatives, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We are sending Judas and Silas to confirm what we have decided concerning your question.

This is the official ruling for the connection.  Everyone in this family will follow the following ruling.

Acts 15:28-29
28 
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements:
 29 You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”

The Take Aways for Today
There are 3 main take aways I want you to see today from this Scripture.  
  1. The Church is Connectional
  2. It’s not about rules. It’s about grace.
  3. Christians have the simplest of rules.
Let's look at each of these.  First of all, the Church is connectional. Christianity is not an individualistic faith.  Contary to popular opinion in 21st century America, faith is not a private matter.  We are a community, a family.  What you do matters to me. And what I do affects you.  Thus, we live together, worship together, serve together, and make decisions together.  And here’s the hard part for most people in America.  Our connection even goes beyond our local church.

The Local Church
It’s easy to feel loyalty to your own local congregation.  It’s also easy to fall into a trap where all you care about is your own local congregation.  We may appreciate other churches in in our community, but we are tempted to see our own church as more important.  If we're not careful, we may even see other congregations as competition.  However, our local church is only one small part of God's great Church.  And each little part is important and we are all on the same team.  We are not competing against each other.  There are plenty of people in our community that aren't part of any church.  There's more than enough unchurched people to go around.  We need not fight over who goes to what church. Let us work to include those who are not going to any church.
 

Our Household – The Denomination (The UMC???)
My local church is belongs to the United Methodist Church.  However, there are a lot of question marks in that affiliation for us right now because our congregation is preparing to vote on whether we wish to remain in the UMC.  Many feel the UMC is not follow the household rules anymore and we are finding it unbearable to remain in the same house.


Going back to the family analogy.  Did you ever hear parents say something like:  "If you're going to live in my house, you have to follow my rules.  If you don't like it, go get your own house."  And if your parents said that to you and you decided to move out, you might need to have a conversation about what you get to take with you.  Maybe your parents would say: "You can't take the care your driving.  That belongs to us!"  But you might argue back and say, "Hey!  I worked and earned the money for this car and bought it myself.  Just because the title is in your name doesn't mean it's fair for you to say it's yours."  And you might have to work out how to divide everything up.

Well that's sort of where we are in the UMC right now.  We can no longer agree to follow rules of the house. Many congregations are wanting to move out and into another house, but we have to decide what property we can take with us.  

My hope is that once people get to decide where they want to live (whether it's in the UMC or another denomination), we will all be able to get along better.  Because whether we are in the same household (denomination) or not, we are still family (relate by the blood of Christ).  We should be able to live together in peace and unity in our own household and be good neighbors to our extended Christian family outside our denomination.

Our Tribe – Methodist
The next level up on the Christian family tree is our tribe, which more me is Methodist (or you might even say Wesleyan).  There are numerous denominational families that belong to the Methodist tribe.  We all are strongly influenced by the theology of John Wesley. Our share Wesleyan theology includes things like Infant Baptism, an important emphasis on grace, and strong sacramental theology, among other distinctives.  The Methodist tribe--which includes the UMC, GMC, Salvation Army, The Nazarenes, Evangelical Methodist Church, Wesleyan Church, and many others--have a lot more in common with each other than we do with denominations in other tribes like the Baptist, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic tribes.

The Church Universal 
The final level that includes every Christian, throughout all time, in every place, and in every denomination is the universal Church.  The rules for who belongs in this broadest category are very simple.  The chief requirement is that you repent of your sins and follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  All who do this are part of the extended Christian family we call the Catholic Church (AKA the Church Universal).  We can respect, appreciate, and work with all Christians—regardless of denomination--and we should.  We are all followers of the same Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior. 


It’s Not About Rules.  It’s All About Grace.
Following Jesus is not about rules; it’s all about God's grace.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says, God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

The Jerusalem Council rejected legalism that tried to say Christians needed to follow Jewish religious laws in order to be saved.  The Christian Church clarified that following Christ is not about rules; it's about receiving God's grace through Jesus Christ.

There are still people today who will try to say you’ve got to do certain things in order to be a real Christian.  Some Pentecostals (not all but some) say you must speak in tongues in order to show you are really a Christian.  Some Baptists (not all but some) say you must be fully immersed in a believers baptism in order to be a real Christian.  Some Seventh Day Adventists (not all by some) say true Christians worship on Saturday (the seventh day) and eat the kinds of food the Old Testaments says we should eat.  The Jerusalem Council settled this in Acts 15.  It’s not about rules.  It’s about God’s grace received thru Jesus Christ. 

And in order that Christians may all live together in unity and peace, the Jerusalem Council laid out the simplest of rules for early Christians to follow:
  1. Don’t eat meat sacrificed to idols.
  2. Don’t eat blood.
  3. Don’t eat meat from strangled animals.
  4. Abstain from sexual immorality.
Numbers 1, 2, and 3 have to do with maintaining connections with Jewish Christians and not being a stumbling block to anyone.  The Apostle Paul clarified this in 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10.  Meat in the first century was almost always butchered as part of a religious sacrifice.  Jews could only eat kosher meat sacrificed to Yahweh.  But most meat sold in gentile meat markets had been sacrificed to idols or pagan gods.  Jews found such meat to be abhorrent to their faith.  Thus, Paul said, Christians should avoid eating meat sacrificed to pagan gods because it might lead someone to think Christians believed in and were honor false gods.  Paul's reasoning was that false gods don't really exist so meat sacrificed to them was not polluted in any way, but it was the conscious of the people who knew about the meat that mattered.  Even if a Christian knew there was nothing wrong with eating the meat, they should protect the consciousness of others who might think it mattered.

In 21st century America, we don't have to worry that meat was sacrificed to an idol or false god.  Although, we might need to pray about and consider other issues, like whether the meat was processed in an ethical way or by a business that treats their workers fairly or one that is a good steward of the environment.

The fourth rule of the Jerusalem council deals with actual sin that is abhorrent to God and destructive to people, relationships, and communities.  The Jerusalem council instructs Christians to abstain from sexual immorality.  Jesus, The Apostle Paul, and the letter of Jude all agree Christians should abstain from sexual immorality.  No where in the Bible does it allow for the faithful to be sexually immoral.

So really, you could say there are just 2 broad rules all Christians should follow.  So from 613 Jewish laws in the Old Testament, Christians come down to just 2:
  1. Don’t be a stumbling block.
  2. Don’t be sexually immoral.
Of course, we understand that living faithfully for Jesus requires wisdom.  We must let the Holy Spirit guide us to discern what is the right thing to do in any situation.  But it really is simple. And God is full of grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Conclusion
Because of the Jerusalem Council’s decision, Gentile believers were welcomed into the Church.  They joined in droves.  Within a few years, there were more Gentile Christians than Jewish ones.

Have you joined the Church?  What does that mean?  First of all it means to repent of your sin and give your life to Christ.  Turn away from your own selfish way of living and turn to Jesus.  Let Him be Lord of your life.  Follow Him and He will save you.  

Second, be baptized. Baptism doesn't save you, but it is the outward and visible sign Jesus commanded His followers to use to initiate new believers into the household of God.  God imparts grace to us through baptism to help us live as He wants us to live.  

Third, when you join a local congregation, you promise to support the church with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness.  Using the family analogy, joining a local church is like getting married.  You stand before God and witnesses and promise to be faithful to the church.  You declaration makes it possible to move into a deeper relationship with the family of God because everyone knows you are truly committed.

If you’ve already done all these, take some time to reflect what it means for you and if you’re being faithful to the family.  

If you need to do any of these, I can help. I would love to talk with you help welcome you into the family of God.