How to Prepare Loved Ones for Hardship

In our “Frequently Asked Questions” series last week, Pastor Tim tackled the difficult question: how to prepare our loved one for hardship. He took his lead from Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples at the last supper. Jesus knew that he was about to undergo the greatest suffering of his life, but his thought was for his friends and disciples, whom he knew would be devastated.

When hurt and challenges come into our lives, the natural response is fight or flight. It is quite common to withdraw from those we love when we experience loss. Just as Jesus urged his disciples to pursue unity and to take care of one another, we need to resist the urge to withdraw. Instead we must engage deeper with one another, trusting God’s Spirit, the comforter, to do in us what we cannot do ourselves.

Life is God’s statement that he still has a plan. To safely navigate the waters of loss and grief, lean into God and trust him even if you don’t understand.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

For the last few weeks, I’ve argued that God does away with the good deed vs. bad deed system that many people still hold on to. I have argued that it’s not “good” people who go to heaven, but “forgiven” people who go to heaven. I have also argued that we don’t want what is fair because the Bible demands perfect. What we really want is grace and mercy.

I recently had a discussion with someone regarding their question about why Jesus had to die. They said things like, “I have been hurt in the past by people who I eventually forgave; and I never had to die. And the people I forgave never had to die. So I realize I am not a perfect person and that I have lots of sins, but even by a human court of law I don’t deserve to be in jail. So if all my sins don’t even deserve jail, why would Jesus have to die in order to forgive me? Why kind of system is that?”

This last week, I argued that Jesus had to die because he is pure justice. In a system of pure justice, wrongs cannot go unpunished. I think we all know this which is why we long for justice and why we get upset when guilty people get off scot-free. And since the beginning, God has said that every sin has a consequence, namely death—separation from God and one another. So because God is just, our sins created a debt that demanded a payment. Yet all of us have sinned and we were not struck down by lightening. It’s because God decided to delay the payment on our debt; which is why we call God merciful. In His mercy He decided that He would not demand payment immediately when we sin, but will delay it. God delayed payment until Jesus died on the cross in our place—grace. God decided that He would send payment to pay off the debt. And the payment was his son Jesus. So in the cross we can see these three streams coming together—justice, mercy, and grace.

In summary, I gave us a phrase to answer the question: Why did Jesus have to die? There was a debt that was delayed, but ultimately paid by Jesus on the cross.

Please share your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? Can you relate? Does this make sense?

Do Politics and Religion Mix?

Politics are all the rage as an election looms. Historically, the American church has taken many political stances. This begs the question: what is right? Is there one issue that Christianity can get 100% behind?  Our church believes that every church has a right to speak out on political issues and our voice is comprised of many different viewpoints: some that agree, some that disagree. Whether we think similarly or not, we nurture honest discussion and lifelong friendships.

This past weekend Pastor Tim brought up the important question: do religion and politics mix? He looked at Luke 20:23 – 25, in which Jesus was confronted with a controversial political question and how he responded: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”

The implications behind this statement are two-fold. Number one, Christians are called to be good citizens and fulfill their civic duty, such as paying taxes and voting. Secondly, we must recognize that everything that we have and are belongs to God and that he has a very specific mission for us: to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus taught (Matthew 28:18-20).

The Bible does give us an outline for how true societal change takes place: by men and women surrendering themselves to the Kingdom way outlined by Jesus.

Is God calling you to make changes in how you interact with our society? Have you been burring your head in the metaphorical sand, or raising arms about the wrong issues? We would like to encourage everyone in our congregation to vote and have forms available in the church office to do so.