Jesus made a lot of claims about himself, and backed up his words with his actions.  On top of that a lot of the things we know about Jesus come through the prophesies that were fulfilled by him–how and where he was born, how he lived, how he died, and even coming back to life.  So the Bible is pretty clear about who Jesus is.

Now, thinking about all the different people who claim to believe in Jesus or to be his followers, can you really believe in Jesus if you don’t believe all the things that he said about himself or if your opinions about who you claim to follow don’t match up with the facts of Scripture?

In Matthew 7, Jesus said that on Judgment Day many people will claim to know him and will claim to have done great works in his name, but Jesus will say “Go away, I never knew you.”  The sad thing is it’s obviously religious people who will be making that claim because they will be telling of all the things they did for Jesus.  So just claiming to know Jesus and doing religious stuff won’t get you into Heaven.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a big motivator for me to make sure I know Jesus for real, for who he claims to be, and to focus on doing what he wants me to do and not just various religious acts.  Lots of people talk about having a relationship with Jesus.  Clearly having a relationship is more than just knowing somebody’s name or doing things in someones name.  So common sense would say, if you want a relationship with Jesus, don’t repeat some empty prayer and expect that will save you, but learn about who he is from what he said.  Then if you’re really willing to invest your life in a real relationship and maintain ongoing communication and caring (like you would for any other real life, love relationship), when Judgment Day comes, Jesus will recognize you and not have to say “Go away, I never knew you.”

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Jesus.  There’s something about that name.  To some it’s a name to be honored and respected.  To others, it’s fodder for cursing.  Lots of people claim to know who Jesus is, but there are tons of different opinions about him.  So how do you figure out who’s right?  How do you filter through all the opinions and get to the real Jesus?  And when you do, what difference does it make to you?  Does knowing the real Jesus make any difference to your everyday, real life?

PS. This talk is, kind of, a response to another talk that I had already come up with.  But I shared this talk (the second talk) first.  That’s why it’s labeled “part 2 – kind of.”  And I’ll post the first talk that I came up with next time.

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It’s not an Ordinary Nation.

The word ordain comes from the word order.  That’s what it means.  It can be like an order that a boss gives a worker or like putting things in alphabetical order.  When a church ordains a pastor.  They do a little of both.  That’s what happened to me.  My church made me a part of the leadership team along with other elders and deacons.  With a team committed to serving God with wisdom and humility the things that get done and the decisions that get made will be done with order and not disorder.  I also got orders from my Boss to step into this role and to serve the people of God’s church.  So I’m taking my orders to teach and to serve.  This talk is just a response to being assigned this new role.

But a pastor is just 1 role in the church.  Everybody in the church is supposed to be using their gifts to serve God as a team.  So what does it mean to serve God?  And how should we look at our own role as part of this team?

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Have you ever felt passion for something?  Do you feel a drive for anything in life?  What sets you on fire?  What really motivates you?  There are all sorts of things that we’re told we have to do out of responsibility…pay your taxes, vote, mow your lawn, obey the Golden Rule, go to church on Sundays.  But when it comes to religious stuff and all the things we are called to do as Christians, what God really wants is passion.  He wants to use the energy and drive that you have naturally and use your passion to accomplish great things!  He wants to give us all a mission from God that will set our hearts on fire.

This talk focuses a lot on youth and seeing kids and young people as an important and valuable part of the church.  Young people aren’t the future, they are part of the present, and we should treat them as such.

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Have you ever had a bad day?  I don’t mean like you got cut off in traffic or you had too much homework.  I mean things like losing a loved one or finding out you have cancer or losing your job.  We all have kinda bad days once in awhile.  But then there are those things that are just devastating.  What do you do with that?  How do you get through times when it seems like life is falling apart.

Maybe you’ve asked the question, “Where is God in all this?’  And people like to come up with all sorts of reasons why you might be facing trouble, when all you really wanted was someone to be close to you, to comfort you in your suffering.  Well, the Bible speaks to just that kind of situation, and gives plenty of examples of other people who have had to deal with true hardships.

(The first few minutes got cut off of this talk, but it still holds together pretty well.)

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This is kind of a continuation of “Well FORGIVE me!”  It deals with the place of forgiveness in situations of repeated abuse.  Can you mesh forgiveness with justice?  Is there a way to give grace without promoting lawlessness?

I don’t mention this in the talk, but if you think about it, the answer to that questions was Jesus giving his life on the cross.  If God wanted to forgive everybody without any desire for change, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die.  God could have just said “I forgive everybody no matter what.”  And it would have allowed everybody to continue living wicked and selfish lives.  But then Heaven and Earth would both be places of eternal evil because the law would have been thrown away to make place for universal forgiveness.  But in making his ultimate sacrifice, Jesus demonstrated the legal consequence of our evil as a motivation for us to stop breaking God’s law and live a life in accordance with all God asks of us.  So if we are willing to turn away from our selfish lawlessness and obey God, he can forgive us and promote justice at the same time.

Jesus said “Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me.”  So if we truly care about Jesus and what he said and did for us, our lives must be changed out of our love for him.  We can’t live as enemies of God if we truly love him.  So when people say something like “Just ask Jesus into your heart” it’s never some mantra or empty religious ritual that saves you.  It’s the fact that the love Jesus demonstrated for us with his life, death, and resurrection, motivates us to return love to him and live lives that will make him happy.  We enter into a relationship of mutual love and find forgiveness, not as a technicality for some empty prayer, but out of deep desire for God to be reunited with us in purity and righteousness.

So real grace not only forgives a perpetrator, but also promotes his or her best interest, which is eternal righteousness in accordance with God’s law.

Get it?

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How many times have you heard someone say they’re sorry, but their tone clearly revealed that they weren’t sorry at all?  How many times have you been the person doing just that?  It seems like people in our culture have a difficult time actually allowing themselves to regret a wrong action or feel sorrow for hurting someone else or even admit that they did anything wrong.  We always like to come up with excuses for our behavior.  It seems even more difficult for some people to actually forgive when they’ve been hurt.  So what do we do with all that emotion?  And does giving or receiving forgiveness actually do us any good?  What do you think?

This talk I gave last year was an emotional one for me.  I even felt choked up listening to it again.  But I sure am glad to have learned some things about dealing with this stuff in my own life.  What experiences have you had that you’ve learned from?

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Most of us, as we’re growing up, learn all sorts of rules to live by–things we’re supposed to do, things we’re not supposed to do, and things we’re supposed to dream about and work for.  And it seems like somewhere along the way we forget the purpose of why we live the way we do and what we’re working for.  We somehow get the idea that having lots of toys or a big house or an important title will really make our hearts happy, and we trade off the things that could really bring happiness for stuff that is ultimately empty and unfulfilling.  So what is it that really makes life worth living?

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Have you ever been asked to do something crazy?  I know people who do wild fun things just for the adrenaline rush.  But have you ever been in a situation where you really had to decide to stretch beyond your comfort zone for a bigger purpose?  It can be a tough decision to make.  This talk is about just that kind of dilemma.

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Have you ever tried to switch the kind of milk you drink?  Like from 2% to skim.  I used to be a pure 2% milk drinker.  That’s what I grew up on, and the skim stuff was just way to watery.  I would never drink skim.  Or maybe you switched from drinking regular cola to diet.  It’s weird getting used to the different flavors or textures.  I did end up switching to skim milk because I figured I didn’t need that extra pat of butter in every cup.  I also tried switching to diet cola for awhile, but my body didn’t like that at all.  The Aspartame did nasty things in my digestive tract.  I don’t know if it was the aspartic acid or the phenylalanine or what, but after feeling sick every time I drank diet cola I did some research and found that Aspartame can have nasty effects on your bod.  I guess that’s why all the products that contain it have to have a warning label now.

Anyway, the point is that making any kind of change to your diet or routine can be difficult to get used to at first.  But there are some things that are well worth making a change for—like the benefits of regular exercise…and even talking about religious stuff.  Have you ever felt like you ought to change something?

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