Jesus was crucified. That statement is a historical fact. Yet when you fast forward through 2,000 years of human history to today, you find a movement built not on the teachings of his enemies but on His own teachings.

Caesar is dead, the empire he forged has fallen, and the priesthood that orchestrated it all has become a relic of a bygone faith, but the Church exists on every continent and is comprised of billions of people. Jesus launched something that has outlived the empires, kingdoms, and ideologies that sought to destroy it.

The reason? The Church is a movement with unstoppable power because Jesus is alive.

Kentucky, The Land of Tomorrow. It was once the starting point that sparked a faith movement and can be again. When we share Jesus, the Church can be the Light that shines in the darkness, the Help for the helpless, and the Hope for the hopeless.

Love God and love your neighbor. Jesus established this as the framework for His followers to interpret Scripture and solidified this as the epicenter of their faith. Jesus then issued a new command, to love as He loved. He removed religious loopholes and made it clear - our capacity to love is based on this - we can love because Jesus first loved us.

Jesus was hated and rejected by the most religious people because He loved and accepted the least religious people. Jesus demonstrated His love for His Father by loving people at their worst while the religious misinterpreted Scripture — which led to misrepresenting God and mistreating people.

When we misunderstand God we end up mistreating people and you cannot be right with God if you are not right with people.

God told Samuel in the Old Testament that people tend to look at outward appearances. We base our lives on things we can see and know. But God points us somewhere different. If we want to know why people are the way they are, why we do the things we do, and how to fix it, God directs us to look at our own hearts and then back to Him. If you find your heart broken, He is able to give a new one to any who asks.

God’s plan to change the world has always been people. He started with 11 men, and from that core group launched a movement that altered human history. We are His Plan A to reach and bring hope to the people around us and the world, and there is no Plan B. Our purpose, your purpose, is to love God, love people, and make disciples. God’s plan is to reach people with people. His plan to reach those around you IS you.

Jesus came to give us eternal life and a better life. But you can be the recipient of eternal life, and never experience the latter. Because of Jesus, forgiveness is free, but freedom, experiencing the life he died to bring us, comes with a cost. Will you pay it?

Jesus loved stories. He used them all the time to help people better understand who God was and how God saw them. Out of the many stories He told, few are as popular as the story of The Prodigal Son. A story of two brothers, more alike than they knew. Both lost, both seeing and using their father as a means to an end. A story we can all relate to. In this story, Jesus redefines who God is and redefines what it means to be far from God. A story of hope, forgiveness, and love. A story of coming home.

Jesus was incredibly tolerant of the “sinners” around him. The people who got it wrong, the rejects, the ones that you’d be hard pressed to find in a pew on Sunday morning. This is the type of person you’d find at a party with Jesus. But he consistently set himself at odds with the “good people,” the saints, i.e. the self-righteous.

It’s a group we’ve all been a part of. Whenever we talk about, judge, or condemn anyone because they fall short of a standard, we join the very tribe that Jesus was so at odds with. We become unlike God, because the worst form of unrighteousness is self-righteousness.

Self-righteousness: a comparison that ends in arrogance. It allows us to hide our shortcomings in the shadow of someone else’s shortcomings. Self-righteousness grants us a free pass to deceive ourselves and those around us. It says “I’m better than you because I’m better at _____.” And it always undermines our relationships with God and people.