Religion is not Christianity. In fact it is the denial of Christianity. Christianity says I need Jesus to do it for me. Religion says I will do it myself by performing the religion. Christianity is Jesus and Levi. It is a place, a relationship with God for messed up people where he offers forgiveness, adoption, acceptance, power to change. A church is a family of sinful people who are loved by God and precious to him. He invites everybody in, including me and you. There is not a single person in this room, a single person in this world, who isn’t messed up. There is no one who is perfect, least of all people who are relying on religion. There is nobody who doesn’t need this from Jesus.
Is Christianity all about being religious? Of course it isn’t ladies and gentlemen. If Christianity was about religion then Levi wouldn’t get a look in and neither would any person who was honest about their own failings of life and heart. Jesus Christ is the opposite of religion, he says in the Bible that he loathes religion, he confronts it all over the place, and He is Christianity.
Read moreThe Macedonian Vision; Acts 16:9-12
I don't think there is any certainty in ANY exegesis unless we are living out the gospel. God has a habit of revealing himself to those who don't just think about Him and talk about Him but who do what He says. Sitting in the study trying to answer the question in a purely theoretical, abstract way is probably never what God intended us to do with the Macedonian vision. I suspect we are meant to hear about it, and long for Joel-type visions and dreams as God stirs in us a passion desire to do the work of the gospel in fresh fields.
Read moreThe Message of Grace; Acts 14:1-7
the chief lesson from the narrative is that what was being opposed, and was also being confirmed by God with miraculous signs and wonders was the message of his grace. I take it that "the message of grace" in 14:3 and "the good news" in 14:7 are synonymous. The good news = the message of grace.
Read moreWorship and Evangelism
We know we are real worshippers of God when we are consistent in our praise of God and witness to Jesus at home and away, in the church and in the world. Where there is a discrepancy between the two, that discrepancy is unbelief. Worship and mission really are inseperable.
Read moreWhy I love the Church 2
Now when a believer – or a church – buys into the wrong foundations, it will develop the wrong sense of what it is for. I recently spoke to a conference of young ministers and about to be ministers and I asked them what the church is for. I was slightly surprised that few could give me a short, clear, biblical answer.
Here is a short, clear, biblical answer: most simply put, the purpose of the church is to go into all the world, making disciples of Jesus, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded (Matt 28).
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