ARE YOU IN NEED OF A FAITH REFILL? - Part 2 of 2

Jesus gave John’s messengers a specific answer that holds the key to refilling any person’s faith. He said: “Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard – the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Luke 7:22)

I love the fact that Jesus didn’t respond to John’s question by dragging out His sermon file. Just think of all the ancient messianic prophesies He could have quoted and expounded upon. But no, He understood that John needed a lifeline, not a lecture. So He threw him one. He urged John to look again at what He, Jesus, was accomplishing.

You’re probably thinking, “But wait! It can’t be that simple. There has to be more to replenishing a person’s faith than that.” No, there isn’t. If there were, Jesus would have said so. He would have laid out a detailed plan or itemized a list of requirements. There’s no way He would have given a dear friend a flawed, incomplete answer, knowing it would doom him to further anxiety.

The good news is that nothing has changed. After all these years, faith refills are still free and can still be accomplished by focusing on Jesus. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.” 

-- Mark Atteberry in “Free Refill: Coming Back for More of Jesus” 

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“HE GETS US”

I’m used to commercials for beer and pickup trucks during football games. Another product has entered the advertising lineup: Jesus. The tagline is, “He gets us.” Jesus invited everyone to His table, we are told. Jesus was misunderstood. Jesus could handle disagreement. Jesus was a refugee. None of these claims is untrue on its face. The problem here is what these commercials leave out…

Misunderstood by his family, accused of demonic sorcery, betrayed by one of His closest followers, hung upon a Roman cross…. Yes, Jesus gets us all right. He gets that we are sinful, willful creatures bent on our own destruction. He gets that, left to our own devices, we will rebel against our created nature and, hence, against God. He gets us, and He loves us anyway. That is why He came to save us…

To reach people for Christ is a noble task, but who is this Christ? Most will agree that He was a wise teacher, a friend to sinners, a misunderstood prophet, a refugee. But He is also God-made-flesh, the embodiment of perfect humanity, the bearer of new life, and, yes, a judge. He gets us. After all, He became one of us, though not for free hugs and vague sentimentality, but to save us. Sin and death abound. The devil is loose in the land. What Western culture needs is not another bearer of its common values with a bit of religious window dressing, but a savior.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”  (Ephesians 1:7 NIV)

-- Excerpted from an article entitled “He Gets Us” by David F. Watson, Lead Editor of Firebrand Online Magazine

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THE CHURCH GATHERED AND SCATTERED – Part 2

The Puritans had the right idea. They did not apply the word “service” to the gathering of worship. For them the service began at the church door when the church meeting was over. There they crossed the threshold of life to go back into the world, and there the service began as an outgrowth of the renewal that had come as they worshipped together. Worship loses its essential Christian nature when it becomes an end in itself and does not send its worshipers out into the world to engage in Christian service -- to deal with the problems of the poor and the oppressed -- and Christian witness -- to make disciples of all nations.

The Jesus who invites us to worship is the same Jesus who proclaimed in His first sermon, as recorded in Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

-- Adapted from “Encountering Jesus” by Zan W. Holmes, Jr.

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THE CHURCH

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."  (Luke 19:10 NIV)

In God's benevolent economy, the church… provides a place of solace, a hotbed of godly values, a stage for spirited worship, an organism of relationships, and all the bountiful benefits Christians enjoy. But the church isn't the church so that we Christians can experience those perks. The church is the church so that other people can meet Jesus Christ and be captured by the Spirit and be incorporated into the Kingdom for eternity. A church exists, like Jesus, "to seek and to save the lost." The church is not in the business of coddling the cozy but rather of finding the fallen, and will inconvenience itself in order to reach out. The church exists to do what Jesus valued -- and did, Himself.

-- James D. Berkley in a sermon at First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Washington


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