Word of Life Church Podcast

We would prefer to think there is never any conflict between our family and our faith. But this is not always the case. Sometimes we find the family we're born into is in conflict with the kingdom we have been reborn into. Jesus himself experience this conflict. His family didn't really get what he was doing. They did believe that he could be the Messiah, they simply didn't think he could be the Messiah the way he was going about it. They didn't believe he could be Messiah and preach "love your enemies" at the same time. And although Jesus' family didn't immediately understand the gospel of his kingdom, they eventually understood. They were all present at Pentecost. His brother James became the first pastor. Jesus' love for his family never waned, but he also knew he had to subordinate his natural family to his kingdom vocation.

To follow Jesus is revolutionary. That's not hyperbole; it's the absolute truth. To live the Jesus way is the most revolutionary thing a person can do. To follow Jesus' practice radical love, forgiveness, hospitality, and humility, and to join God's alternative society that is formed around Jesus Christ is life-changing. It's revolutionary! in the 1970′s, the Jesus Revolution was a genuine move of the Spirit of God. It was a real revolution. It's strength was that it was a return to radical focus on Jesus. It's weakness was that it was largely separated from the church. When the Jesus Revolution finally did connect with the church, it was swallowed up by conventional evangelicalism and lost its radical edge. We are at the brink of another cultural Jesus Revolution. We can't settle for a tame, domesticated, conventional Christianity. We need to be a little bit rebellious, a little bit dangerous. We should dare to be a Jesus revolutionary!

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to speak the truth lovingly, to speak words that build up, to put away anger, wrath, and slander, and to forgive one another. How do we live this out in our homes particularly in the context of marriage? In this message, Pastor Derek Vreeland offers a helpful tool to empower couples to communicate in such a way that brings resolution to conflicts and forgiveness to torn relationships. Following these guidelines, couples can express the peace of God at home.

By far the most common way we're formed in faith is we receive it from our parents. There are Christian conversions from other religions and non-religious backgrounds, but these are more rare. Many of us are Christians because are parents were also Christians. We are all formed by tradition with choices made by parents, in our language, in our culture, etc. But we don't just give our kids a Bible and expect them to be Christian. They need the understanding and experience of Christian tradition!

The greatest challenge that we face in passing on our Christian faith to our children and our grandchildren is the growing tide of secularism in America. Secularism is the idea that stemmed from the Enlightenment that God must be restricted to the private realm. But the private spirituality of the solitary, self-styled Christian will not withstand secularism. To live as a Christian in the 21st century West will require the organized faith community of the Church with its sacred traditions. The Enlightenment that introduced the modern age taught us to think individually. But the Biblical way of thinking is corporately and generationally. Christian tradition is how Christian faith is passed on from generation to generation. It is true that tradition must be kept alive by the Spirit. But rejection tradition wholesale leads to the evaporation of faith. This is why at Word of Life Church we are recovering and rehabilitating the word "tradition." Our grandchildren will not be Christians because of an emotional experience. They will be Christian by the process of formation through the traditions of prayer, scripture, sacrament, worship, creed, and calendar.

In life, it's easy for us to assign labels to people. It's how we identify ourselves inside a group. But often, even without realizing it, we put label on other people in order to negate them. We reduce them to a category. We put labels on ourselves that we have to live up to (or down to). Once you adopt a "pressure group label" you have to live up to the expectations of the group. Self-adopting a pressure group label is pledging allegiance to group-think hostility. When we, as Christians, label people and view them as a category rather than a person, we misjudge them. Our self-righteousness can require us to categorically exclude a sinful person from our presence. When viewed as a person however, our righteousness compels us to receive and forgive sinners.

The degree to which the Sermon on the Mount has been ignored by Christians is scandalous. We want Jesus to die for us, but leave our world alone, especially if we are on top of the world. But Jesus has no intention of leaving our world alone- he fully intends to change it! What Jesus preached in his sermons and what Jesus did on his cross are one in the same! In the Sermon on the Mount and on the cross Jesus re-oriented the world from an axis of power enforced by violence to an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. To critique the enforcement of violence in our culture will draw the ire of many. And often, it's hard to be truly compelling about loving and forgiving our enemies when we don't have real and deadly enemies. But Martin Luther King, Jr DID have real, deadly enemies. But he taught, and practiced, the Jesus way of loving and forgiving your enemies. It was a message that would ultimately bring his death, but he changed the world!

Jesus is forming a movement of people who will join him in announcing and enacting the Kingdom of God. An important understanding about Jesus is the way in which he selects his followers. Jesus does not seem to be very concerned about our categories of "good people" and "bad people". Instead, he divides people into the proud and the humble. The shocking thing is who joins Jesus' new movement. It's not the insiders, but the outsiders. It's not the righteous, but sinners. The moment Simon self-identified as a sinner, he qualified to become a disciple. Jesus spent very little time condemning moral transgressions. The emphasis of Jesus' ministry was to be with people, to share a table with them. Teaching people how to encounter Jesus Christ and live in his presence will do far more to produce real transformation than trying to apply the law. Christianity is not a Bible study or a moral code, it's an encounter with Jesus Christ!

After Jesus completed his 40 days of prayer and fasting in the wilderness, he soon returned to his hometown of Nazareth. Initially, Jesus was well received by his own people. They were brimming with excitement and great anticipation that their hometown kid might really be the long foretold messiah. But Jesus quickly realizes that the people in his hometown really just want to see him do miracles. They want Jesus to be a spectacle and do tricks for them. Jesus also knows that it is virtually impossible to be a prophet in your hometown. The prophet always challenges the idea of "us vs. them". When the hometown crowd hears one of their own challenge the idea that God is not on their side, they quickly turn on him.

John the Baptist called on Israel to repent in preparation for the Messiah. When people began asking what it was they should do, everything John said had to do with money. When you are willing to rethink what you do with your money... you've repented! John doesn't mention any other sins, but he continually stresses economic repentance. Why? Because he is trying to prepare a people who will follow Messiah into a new kingdom. The greatest obstacle to entering the kingdom of God is the tyranny of economic self-interest.