There’s nothing about being a Christian that is simple or easy. We live in a time where being a Christian doesn't just make you different, it makes you look in the wrong, hurtful, and hateful because of the world's compass of morality. It makes us look a lot like the first century church who was constantly batting the culture of the day simply by following Jesus.
So WHAT’S THE POINT of all this?
If you're a Christian, and you call yourself a follower of Jesus, what’s the point of standing for such an unpopular opinion? If you are not a Christian
and you're new to this whole church thing
,what's the point of being here?
What is the core of why we're here? When you strip away all of the outworking of having a Christian Faith, you are left with the point: Jesus. All of this is about Jesus. And, if it's about Jesus, it's not about us.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE AMERICAN CULTURAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH
- God made you.
- You sinned and messed stuff up for yourself.
- God wanted to make you better,
so He sent Jesus to make you better.
- If you pray a prayer at church, 1 time,
then hH fixes you.
- Then you keep working hard and harder
more and more to make him happy with how much you’re Fixed
It almost sounds like the gospel from the Bible, but it’s a watered down lie.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE
- God created you, simply because He wanted you.
He wanted love.
- We screwed it up.
But, sin didn’t just ruin our lives… Sin separated us from God.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Falling short of the Glory of God
means that we are separated from him.
- God so didn’t want to be separated from you
that he sent Jesus to pay the price for your sin
and give you a way back to Him.
It’s not about God fixing you
because he wanted you to be better. He paid the price for you
because it was the only way To Get You Back!
- God takes us from death to life.
Salvation is not just fixing us, it's making us new.
Ephesians 2:1-5
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
4 BUT
because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Salvation is about God
doing whatever it took to draw you back to Him.
- God invites us into a life worth living.
He invites us to be a part of His much bigger purpose and story.
Ephesians 2:6-10
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:6-10
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The story doesn’t end when you become a Christian…
it’s just the beginning.
After salvation,
God pulls us out of living for meaningless stuff,
and makes us a part of His Story.
It's pulling you out of the temporary and into the eternal!
THAT'S THE POINT OF CHOOSING TO LIVE IN
A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS. IT'S ABOUT JESUS. HE CHANGES EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, MAKING YOU A NEW CREATION, AND THEN WANTS TO LIVE LIFE WITH YOU!
