A Strategic Partnership

God’s strategy to reach the world has always been through relationships.  Over and over again we see how Christ’s impact on a person was always felt by family and friends.  It was experienced by those in their spheres of influence.  Whether it was a swindler named Zacchaeus (Luke 19), a royal official with a dying son (John 4), a tax collector named Matthew (Mark 2), a Centurion named Cornelius (Acts 10), a businesswoman named Lydia (Acts 16), or a recently unemployed Philippian jailor (Acts 16), the impact of what God had done was felt most by family and friends.  

You have been invited to align with the mission of Christ to impact the eternal destiny of someone you love!  Jesus Christ has great things in store for you.  He wants to use you to change the world.  Changing the world may seem like a daunting task until you realize that you don’t have to change the entire world…you just start with your world.  We all have a unique responsibility\opportunity to share in Christ’s mission (See Matthew 28:16-20) right where we live.

God has called all of us to partner with Him on this mission to redeem a lost world.  What an honor it is to partner with the Savior of the world!  This is not something to be taken lightly.  Our tendency is to start making excuse and sidestepping the opportunity to change our world for Christ by saying things like, “I can’t do it.  I have tried before and failed.  I am not very good with words.  I still have a lot of questions myself.”  Some even give into satan’s big lie wondering how they can influence someone else for Christ after doing some of the things they have done in the past.  Surely their past history has disqualified them from being used by God.

Not according to scripture.  The truth is, with your story, the Word of God, and a sensitivity to God’s Spirit, you can develop the ability to impact my world for Christ.  It happens as you begin to realize that “Witness” is not something I do, it is who I am.

Sharing Christ with our world must be a Christian’s top priority.  It won’t just happen.  We must be intentional.  Just remember, you have been recruited by Jesus himself to help change the world, beginning right where you live, and it happens one person at a time, one conversation at a time, one relationship at a time.

 

 

 

 

The most important question anyone will ever answer…

Belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is foundational to the Christian faith.  You have to ask yourself “did the resurrection really happen?”  Some would love to argue against the resurrection, but study the facts.  The disciples didn’t just take their belief in the resurrection to the grave.  Their confidence in the resurrection of Christ is what put them in the grave.  So, what do you do with that?

At some point, all of us have to ask, could what Jesus said be true?  And if it is, what am I going to do about it?  Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)  You don’t have to agree with Jesus’ claim.  You don’t have to believe it, but Jesus said, “I am the way”.  He did not say, I am one of many ways.  He said, “I am the way”.  He said “I am the truth”.  He did not say that He was part of the truth or one of many truths.  He said, “I am the truth and the life” and “no one comes to the Father except through me”.

No matter how you look at it, this is a very exclusive claim from Jesus.  He said other things like, I and the Father are one.  You only get to Him through me.  There is no other way to heaven.  Mohammad didn’t make these claims.  Buddha didn’t make these claims.  Confucius didn’t make these claims.  Only Jesus made that claim.

Study the evidence.  Take a look at what Jesus taught and the miracles He performed.  Consider the resurrection and the powerful claims that He made.  Who do you say that He is?

Is Jesus a liar?  If that is the case, He was a pretty good liar.  He fooled all the disciples into leaving their homes, their families, and their livelihood and then to go to their grave proclaiming faith in Him.

If what Jesus said was not true, then maybe He was certifiably crazy on the level of David Koresh or Jim Jones.  Or maybe, just maybe, He is who He said; The Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.  There are really only three options; Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?

Who is Jesus?  How do you answer that question verbally, intellectually, or by the way that you live?  You really need to give this question, and the answer, your thoughtful consideration.  It is the most important question you will ever answer in life.

 

What you believe will impact your future…forever!

 

What you believe is important.  Because what you believe determines how you behave.  I am convinced that beliefs have eternal significance.  If that is the case, then discovering and living the truth is something that matters more than anything else in life.  In fact, discovering truth and applying truth in your daily life should be a priority worthy of your time and attention.

Nobody wants to base their life on a lie.  That’s why we must be willing to invest the time and energy to determine and to apply truth in every corner of our lives.  As you go through life, different people are going to tell you different things.  Not all of them are true.  When it comes to matters of eternal significance, this is important enough for you to seek the truth for yourself, don’t you think?

This is bigger than what your grandma said, even though what grandma said may be true.  You need to find out for yourself.  It is possible that grandma might have believed a lie.  Don’t you think that if there is anything in life you want to get right it’s this?

We can all agree that one day we will die.  That is one of the few certainties of life.  We will spend eternity someplace.  So, what does it take to experience eternal life?

To begin your exploration, I would like to invite you to consider four aspects of the life of Jesus.  Take an objective look at Jesus Christ and consider what He taught.  No matter what you think about Christianity, you’ve got to admit that if people lived the way Jesus taught, this world would be a much better place.

Look at the miracles Jesus performed.  Could it have been that through the power of God that Jesus performed so many miracles?  Even Jesus’ enemies couldn’t deny the validity of these miracles.  They couldn’t explain what He did.  They just wanted him to stop.

And then there was the greatest miracle of all, the resurrection, which validates all that Jesus said and did.  Jesus was God in the flesh and became sin for us.  He shed His blood and died in our place as the sacrifice for our sins.  The Bible says that on the third day God raised him from the dead.  This is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion of the world.  Did it really happen?  Study the facts, then decide for yourself, what do you believe?

 

All the religions of the world cannot be equally true….

 

All of us must choose a foundation for truth for our lives.  You have to take a leap of faith in some direction.  We all place our faith in someone or something.  I have chosen to place my faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ birth was the fulfillment of hundreds of years of prophecy.  He predicted His own death, burial and resurrection, and then He pulled it off.  No one else has ever done that.  I have studied the evidence and I am 100% at peace with basing my life on the foundation of God’s Word and I have placed my trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ for my eternal salvation.

I am not a Christian because of my heritage, because of convenience, because of peer pressure, or any other reason apart from the fact that I have studied the evidence, I believe, with all of my heart, that the message of Christianity is true.

I am not saying that Christians have always gotten everything right.  There are things in the history of Christianity that I am not proud of.  Christians have disappointed me personally.  The church is not perfect, but that all has to do with people.  My confidence and trust is in Jesus Christ, not His followers.  How about you?  Where have you placed your trust and confidence?  And on what basis have you made that decision?

There can be elements of truth in many different religions of the world, but they cannot all be equally true.  For example, most world religions teach that life is sacred.  Most religions would teach that there is more to life than this life.  In most world religions there are consistencies in regard to morality, ethics, and standards of behavior.  There is a degree of truth in most major world religions, but it would be impossible to say they could all be true because they make claims that are inconsistent with one another.

One major world religion does not believe in a god and they don’t believe in any type of eternal existence.  Another speaks of an impersonal god and can only be approached through countless sub-deities, statutes, or idols.  Neither can provide hope for forgiveness of sin or any kind of supernatural involvement in the lives of individuals.

Christianity, on the other hand, teaches that there is the potential of complete forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, and there is hope, counsel and support from a very personal God, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  These are very different perspectives that cannot be equally true.  More next time…

 

 

What must I do to be saved?

Paul and Silas had been beaten up and thrown in jail.  There they were in prison and about midnight and they decided to have a worship service.  They start singing hymns and praising God.  Not what you might expect.  According to scripture, God sent an earthquake that miraculously broke open the prison doors.  The chains fell off all of the prisoners, including Paul and Silas, and all were free to escape.

As you might expect, the jailer freaked out.  He knew he would be put to death if all of the prisoners escaped.  No job security there.  The jailer had pulled out his own sword and was about to kill himself when Paul shouted, “Don’t do it!  We are all still here!” (See Acts 16:16-34)  The jailer then asked Paul and Silas one of the most important questions that a person can ever ask.  He wanted an answer to one simple question.  “What must I do to be saved?”

“What must I do to be saved?”  The answer to that question depends on who you ask.  You’ll get a lot of different answers to this question today.  You’ll hear a lot of different opinions because there are so many different beliefs.  The problem is that all beliefs cannot be equally true.

Many people today often do not embrace the idea of absolute truth, especially when it comes to spiritual matters and issues of eternity.  You will often hear people say things like, “It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere.”  Anything that is undesirable is discarded, whether it is true or not.  Many argue that it is intolerant and narrow-minded to think there is only one way to Heaven. There is a definite perception today that truth is in the eye of the beholder.  Some contend that we’re all on different paths, but we are headed to the same destination anyway.  Others are convinced that if you’re sincere, you will be fine, no matter what you believe.

More and more people are adopting belief systems like these.  Are they true?  They tell us that approximately 53% of Americans believe that if a person is generally good, he’ll go to heaven.  Is that right?  About 57% of evangelical church members said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life.  Can this be true?  Are all world religions basically the same and mostly true?

Next time we will dig deeper as we explore the answer to the age old question, “What must I do to be saved?”

 

 

Separating Spectators from Participants

In some ways, baptism separates the spectators from the participants in the Gospel story.  Those who are baptized have chosen to become active participants in the Gospel as they say yes to the invitation to know and follow Jesus Christ.  They have said yes to baptism as a step of obedience to Christ.  In some ways, baptism reveals the separation between those who stand on the sidelines only knowing about God and those who have chosen to step across the line by entering into a relationship with Him personally.

Baptism is a sacred vow of the believer to follow Christ.  There are some distinct similarities to a marriage relationship.  According to Romans 6:3, we “become part of Christ when we are baptized.”  We are choosing to align our lives with that of Jesus Christ.  We are uniting with Him and committing ourselves to love and obey Him all the days of our lives.

In baptism, we are participating symbolically in the death of our old sinful self, a burial, and a resurrection to new life as it is found only in Jesus Christ.  That’s why we encourage immersion as the preferred method of baptism.  In immersion all three symbols are present: death, burial and resurrection.  If you have never been baptized, and you profess Christ as your Savior, I hope you will give the matter serious and prayerful consideration.

Baptism is not something to be taken lightly.  You don’t have to know the Bible from cover to cover in order to be baptized.  You don’t have to understand everything.  You don’t have to have all of the answers.  You don’t have to be perfect.  The two primary qualities needed for baptism are faith and obedience.

We see one example after another of people coming to faith and following it up with an immediate response of obedience in the book of the Acts (Acts 2:36, 41, 8:35, 36, 38, and 16:29-33).  We need to remember that baptism has no power, in and of itself, to save anyone.  Scripture is abundantly clear that salvation is found in Christ alone.  Baptism is an important declaration of faith as you publicly identify with the One who saves you.

Baptism is a step of obedience in what we hope will be a lifetime of obedience.  Apart from the cross of Jesus Christ, baptism has no significance.  But if baptism is important enough for Jesus to model and command, don’t you think it is important enough for us to obey?

When you love someone you want the world to know.

When you choose to make a commitment to marry someone you love, it is typically not long until you want to go public with that decision.  Over thirty years ago, I decided to marry the girl of my dreams.  Once we were engaged, we both wanted to tell all of our friends.  I am sure we would have been glad to Text, Tweet or Post our commitment, but there was no such thing back then.

When you enter into a relationship that you are excited about, you want the world to know.  Christian Baptism is a public declaration of faith in Jesus Christ.  It’s one thing to say, in the privacy of your own heart, that you’re a sinner in need of a savior.  It’s quite another to walk out of the shadows and stand up publicly to declare that you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

When it comes to baptism, people sometimes tend to lean toward one of two extremes.  Either they see baptism as an act of ultimate importance or they perceive it as of little or no importance at all.  One person says, “I am saved because I was baptized.”  The other says, “I am saved, so I don’t need to be baptized.”  The challenge is to come to a Biblical understanding about baptism, which actually lands between these two extremes.

There is no saving merit in water baptism.  Salvation is found only in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  But once a person admits their sin and turns to Christ for salvation, baptism is a step of obedience that is taken to proclaim to the world that he or she is a follower of Christ.  Some speculate that this step is so important that, with the exception of the thief on the cross, every single convert in the New Testament was baptized.

The only New Testament convert that we know was not baptized was the thief on the cross.  It is interesting that the first person to respond to the crucified Christ was a person who had no creed to recite, no pledge to make, and no doctrine to agree with.  He was just a common criminal who caught a glimpse of who Jesus is and he believed.  As far as we know, this guy never went to church, never gave an offering, and was never baptized.  He just said one prayer.  But that prayer was enough.  He reminds us of the simplicity of the Gospel.  More next time…

You are called to be an Ambassador.

Paul speaks to the mission of every Christian in 2 Corinthians 5.  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”  If you claim Jesus as your Savior, I hope there is a distinct difference between what is and what was in your life.  Christians are brand-new people on the inside.  The Spirit of God has given us new life and we are not the same anymore.  We are not just reformed, rehabilitated, or reeducated—we are re-created (Paul said we are a new creation), living in a daily vital union with Jesus Christ.  When you come to Christ, you don’t just turn over a new leaf, you begin a new life with a new Master that brings a new perspective on life.

Paul goes on to remind us that God has given me a new mission: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:” (2 Cor. 5:18)  Because we have been reconciled to God, we have been given the privilege of encouraging others to be reconciled to Him as well.  That is a God-given responsibility for every Christian.

But there is more!  In 2 Corinthians 5:19-20 He tells us “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

An Ambassador is an official representative of one country to another.  As a believer, I am Christ’s Ambassadors to the world.  He is sending me to my world with His message of reconciliation.  The same thing could be said of any sincere Christ follower.  Jesus Christ is sending you to your world with His message of reconciliation.  This is an important responsibility that is not to be taken lightly.

If you will make yourself available, I think you will be amazed to see how God will use you.  You might be surprised at just how easy it is for you to impact your world for Christ.  Develop an awareness of the needs around you.  Pray for the lost.  Then say, “God, here I am.  I am available.  Use me.”  Be willing to tell others what Christ has done for you.  You might be surprised how even a simple invitation to church could change the life of someone you know.

How can I participate in Christ’s mission to reach the world?

Jesus associated with all kinds of people.  From a despised tax collector to the Roman Governor…from a widow to a prophet…from a rich man to a blind beggar…Jesus connected with all kinds of people from all walks of life.  Regardless of rich or how poor, how young or old, whether sinner or saint—Jesus cares equally for everyone.  People are what brought Christ to the earth in the first place.  The Bible tells us that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost and then He called His followers to continue what He began.

So, the question is, how can I participate in Christ’s mission to reach the world?  When Jesus healed a demon-possessed man, then He specifically told him, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19).  The gospel first impacts the life of an individual and then the individual spreads the gospel to those who are in their circles of influence.

When Jesus healed the politician’s son in John 4, John said that “…he and all his household believed”.  When Jesus called Levi (Matthew) to be His disciple, Mark recalled that, “while Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him”.  These were Matthew’s friends.  They were the people who knew him and he knew them.  They were in relationship with him.  These were people who He cared for.

If you truly care for someone, don’t you think it is important to help connect them to the incredible message of God’s amazing love?  Since Christ’s mission on earth was to seek and to save the lost, and since He has called us to continue what He began, we need to understand how we can participate in Christ’s mission to reach the world.

The answer is in relationships.  Most Christians I know can point back to the influence of one or more relationships that influenced their decision to choose to follow Christ.  Relationships form the foundation for the way the Kingdom of God is built.  Two thousand years after Christ ascended to the Father, I believe He is calling us to partner with Him by continuing what He started when He walked on the face of the earth.  We get to tell the people that God has supernaturally and specifically placed in our lives about His mercy, grace, and love.

Why are we here?

The purpose of the church was settled before the church ever began.  Jesus came to seek and save the lost. (See Luke 19:10)  Then Jesus made it clear that His mission is now our mission when He said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21b)  What that means is that we have been invited into the greatest initiative in human history!

The responsibility of the church is to help fulfill Christ’s mission to change the world and it happens one child, one teenager, one person at a time.  As followers of Jesus Christ, we have a responsibility to continue the work that Christ began.

The mission of the church has continued in every century over the past 2,000 years.  Sometimes the church has failed to focus on the mission.  Sometimes the mission has gotten lost in the clutter or pushed to the back burner in some ways.  But whenever the church gets on her knees to seek God’s direction, He will continually bring us back to our primary purpose, and that is to reconnect lost humanity with their Father in Heaven.

God’s strategy to reach the world has really never changed.  His strategy to change the world can be summed up in a word – Relationship.  God desired a relationship with His creation.  That relationship was damaged by sin.  Jesus made a way for that relationship to be restored.  And through relationship, we’ve been invited to share Christ with the world.

There is a lesson for us in an amazing story found in Mark 5.  It is the story of a man who was possessed by a demon, actually a legion of demons.  One day, this demon-possessed man had an encounter with Jesus.  Jesus cast the demons out of this man and an individual’s life was obviously changed.  The man who was delivered from demon possession was a new man.  Everybody could see it.  Nobody could argue with it.  A dramatic transformation had taken place.

As Jesus was about to get back into the boat and leave, the man who had been possessed by the demons begged Jesus to let him go along.  But Jesus did not let him.  Instead he told the man, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”  (Mark 5:19)

Has the Lord done anything for you?  Has the Lord had mercy on you?  Who have you told?