Should Sunday preaching be necessary?

There is a true story about a woman known as ‘Auntie Esther.’

She was an elderly medical doctor in Beijing, China. She was a Christian. During the Cultural Revolution years ago, she was called in by her superior at the hospital. At the time, she was in charge of eight hospital wards. The communists were cracking down on people who followed a different faith. She warned Esther to deny her faith and join the communist party or else she would face serious persecution. 

The consequences would be a job demotion and salary reduction. Esther refused. 

A few days later, she was woken up by four nurses who roughly pulled her from her bed and marched her over to the hospital. En route, they stopped off at the barber shop and shaved off her hair. At the hospital, she was confronted to deny her faith in Jesus and join the communist party. In front of her staff, she said, ‘I can’t deny Jesus. I love Jesus.’ At that point, they threw her to the ground, tore the stethoscope from her neck and shouted at her, ‘You are no longer Esther, you are now The Fool.’ 

For the next eleven years, she was made to live in the basement of the hospital. Her new job was that of cleaning the hospital floors and toilets. Her salary of 50 Yuan was reduced to 15 Yuan. With her salary she had to feed herself and buy the cleaning materials. Towards the end of life, she said, ‘When you have Jesus in your heart, it doesn’t matter what job you do or position you have. It only matters that you love him and are faithful and loyal to him.’ 

You never have to motivate anyone who's devoted.

No one has to motivate me to love my wife. 

How much of Sunday preaching is motivation to a people who lack devotion....I'm just asking??

WHAT THE FLIP??

There was once a family who experienced the most awful tragedy. A couple's son, Matthew, was involved in a fight after school with another teenage boy named Marcus. The fight turned into a blood bath when Marcus pulled a knife out and stabbed Matthew to death. He was 17. He was dead. Marcus, Matthew's murderer, an orphaned 19 year old gangster, was charged and found guilty.

Many have tried to explain the difference between mercy and grace. You can have mercy without grace, but you cannot have grace without mercy. Grace goes further than mercy ever will. If Matthew's parents decided to have mercy on their son's murderer, they would do three things. They would truly forgive him, they would drop all charges and they would allow him to go free. As a dad, I'm not even sure I could do that. I don't know if I could minister mercy to my son's murderer, let alone grace.

However, Matthew's parents made a decision to administer grace to Marcus. They made the decision to forgive him, to drop all the charges and for him to be free to go. They then adopted him as their son, gave him all of Matthew's belongings, all of Matthew's privileges, all of Matthew's possessions and treated him as their beloved son till the day they died.

  

They left Marcus the inheritance that would have gone to Matthew. From the day they decided to show grace to their son's murderer, to them, Marcus become their son and treated him and more importantly, they loved him as their only son. They decided to show him the measure of their goodness and to not treat him as his sin deserved. His actions demanded justice, except Marcus was met by the saving grace of a couple who decided to display their goodness towards him. For the rest of their days he was their son. And for the rest of his days he had something he'd never had before: loving parents who gave him the world! 

As I said, mercy would be almost impossible for me to give to someone who killed my boy. To show them grace would be out of the question. But the good news of the gospel, that is written about in the New Testament and is the foundation of the New Covenant that Jesus introduced, is that God himself has displayed towards us the immense riches of His grace. The perfect Father has forgiven us, adopted us, loved us with the same love that Jesus has and has left us an inheritance. He has given us a salvation is based on the finished work of His Son. He has given us peace with himself as a gift to all who would believe. He has saved us not because we are good, but because He is grace personified. You see, the truth is: Matthew's parents had tons of grace. Jesus is Grace.

I don’t care what you say: I am right!

There is a term that’s not too often used but practiced all the time – denominationalism. And NO, it’s not just a church thing. Although churches have split into ‘denominations’ over the past 2000 years; the term denominationalism is something practiced by almost everyone. The definition of the term goes something like this: If we agree, then we can have relationship. If we don’t agree, then we can’t be in relationship and hence, a split is formed and two denominations of people/groups are formed. Naturally, within the Christian church, many people have failed to agree on certain doctrines or beliefs and so splits occurred and different denominations were formed on the basis of people being in relationship with other people they agreed with.

This happens in friendships, businesses, companies, families, etc. Don’t fool yourself. You don’t have to be a Christian in order to practice denominationalism. Natural instinct is to hang out and share our lives with people with whom we’re in agreement with. Who wants to have a conflict of ideas? Which of us enjoy our values and beliefs challenged within our peer group? Not many.

I made friends with a guy who eventually told me in secret that he was gay. He’s had gay feelings from the time he was around 8 years old. He’s in his late thirties. He shared his story with me in one of the most open and honest ways I’ve ever experienced. He’s kissed men, he’s slept with men and he holds strongly to the belief that Jesus loves him. Really loves him.

Five years ago, my reaction would have been one of surprise, shock and avoidance. I would have smiled, left the table and really hoped I never bumped into him again while singing ‘Jesus loves me this I know’ while I climbed into my car. I would have resigned myself to the belief that because we don’t share the same values/beliefs on sexual orientation, then we cannot; we dare not hang out as I would be ‘compromising’ my own values.

I believe this is God’s idea of living: Being a people who are allowed to have a seriously different set of ideas, values and beliefs; but who are able to share their lives with each other, love each other, hang out together and not living with a secret agenda of trying to change the one another to conform to each other’s idea of what’s right.

Denomination is another word for division. Division is another word which means ‘broken relationship.’ That is so anti God it’s not funny.

It’s funny how Jesus sat at the same table and ate with hookers and thieves. He never tried to change them. He never alienated himself from them incase they’d ‘corrupt’ him. He drew them closer in fact. He healed them. He blessed them. He loved them.

I long for the day when Christ’s body will express Christ.