{"id":39,"date":"2010-06-27T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T16:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/?p=39"},"modified":"2017-03-29T10:09:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T17:09:45","slug":"what-a-strange-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/27\/what-a-strange-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"What a Strange Religion!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke 9: 18-24 | June 27, 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being a Christian is a wonderful thing.\u00a0 To know the love of God in Christ, the hope we have as God’s forgiven children is a powerful thing. And when tough times come, I have heard more than one Christian say.\u00a0 I don’t know how people make it through without the Lord.<\/p>\n

But just imagine that the Holy Spirit had not yet brought you to believe the gospel.\u00a0 Just imagine you were on the outside looking in at this Christian faith.<\/p>\n

What would you think when you heard the words of our text? Listen again:\u00a0 (Read 18-24.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.\u201d
\n<\/em>23<\/sup><\/em><\/strong> And he said to all, \u201cIf anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24<\/sup><\/strong> For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it<\/em><\/p>\n

Across of suffering and death for this Jesus.\u00a0 Then this. Crosses of suffering for me.\u00a0 What would you think?\u00a0 How about this:\u00a0 What a strange religion!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We find Jesus doing what he often did.\u00a0 He got away from the busy-ness of the day.\u00a0 He got away from the crowds filled with those hoping to experience his healing touch.\u00a0 He got away to have a undisturbed heart to heart talk with His Father in heaven.<\/p>\n

Jesus then took advantage of these quiet moments \u00a0to teach his disciples.\u00a0 He began with a question.\u00a0 Who do people say I am?<\/em> You just heard them answer with the rumors that were circulating. Maybe he is John the Baptist of some other prophet of God come back to life. \u00a0Nice sounding, wouldn’t you say?\u00a0 But something like the kind of thing we hear about Jesus.\u00a0 He was a great religious teacher.\u00a0 He came down on religious hypocrisy.\u00a0 Fine sounding things that totally miss the mark.<\/p>\n

Yet Jesus says nothing about the people’s opinions.\u00a0 He is more interested in the answer to another question,\u00a0 a question that speaks to us today.\u00a0 Who do you say I am<\/span>, he asks his disciples. Not the crowds, not the religious leaders.\u00a0 But you.\u00a0 Who do you say I am?<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter stepped forward as he often did and spoke for the group.\u00a0 The Christ of God<\/span>.\u00a0 Bull’s eye.\u00a0 Woosh. Perfect shot, Peter. <\/em>And what they witnessed confirmed it.\u00a0 They had seen Jesus raise the daughter of Jairus back to life. They had seen him feed a crowd that could fill a small stadium with a little bread and fish.\u00a0 Who do you say I am?\u00a0 Without hesitation, the Christ of God.<\/p>\n

OK men, go out and tell the good news<\/em>. Right. Wrong. Instead Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell this to anyone.\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n

You see, the Christ they expected was not the Christ who stood before them. They and others expected one who would rise up in power as their king to overthrow their Roman rulers. No more soldiers marching through our land. No more taxes to Rome. No more Roman governors oppressing us.\u00a0 The Christ of God<\/em>.\u00a0 Such talk would only get in the way of what Jesus came to do as the Christ.<\/p>\n

And now for the first time he told them. He told them something that defied their expectations.\u00a0 There would be no glorious victory over the Romans.\u00a0 They would see no golden crown placed on his head in Jerusalem.\u00a0 Instead Jesus told them this.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine his disciples.\u00a0 Don’t tell us that!\u00a0 We don’t want to hear it. It makes no sense. In Matthew, we hear Peter rebuke Jesus.\u00a0 Never Lord.<\/span> Well if that’s how Jesus disciples reacted, think of the world in which we live.\u00a0 What a strange religion whose founder MUST suffer rejection and death<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But we know why he had to.\u00a0 It was God’s plan and purpose.\u00a0 Jesus would be the stone the builders rejected.\u00a0 And why? A three letter word with a big I in the middle.\u00a0 He had to because of my sin<\/strong>.\u00a0 He had to because of my angry words, my selfishness, my sinful failures to love my wife, my children, and the people around me. He had to suffer because that’s what my sin calls for.\u00a0 That’s what my guilt deserves.<\/p>\n

Yet there’s a much more important reason why he had to.\u00a0 He had to because of his love… his love that propelled him forward to lay down his life for us who don’t deserve it.\u00a0 He had to because of his Father’s love\u00a0 that would not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. And why?\u00a0 So that you and I could be justified, pronounced innocent of it all.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 So that you could go through life always moving closer to that bright shining city called heaven.<\/p>\n

So someone might say.\u00a0 What a strange religion<\/strong>.\u00a0 And we have to agree.\u00a0 It is strange. So strange to our way of thinking that it could only come from God.\u00a0 So strange that only God could bring us to stake our eternal life on its message.<\/p>\n

Yet there is something else strange and different about this religion.\u00a0 We don’t visit the tomb of some dead and gone founder.\u00a0 Think about it.\u00a0 Confucius, Mohammed, Buddha, Joseph Smith are all dead. Their bodies lie in dust, a memory and nothing more.\u00a0 But look to Jesus Christ. He suffered and died and then he rose. And now we worship the Christ who sits at the right hand of God.\u00a0 We worship Jesus Christ whose life gives ours real meaning and hope.<\/p>\n

But we’re not done.\u00a0 Jesus is not done with us here.\u00a0 As you listen to his words, again picture yourself on the outside looking in.\u00a0 What a strange religion,<\/strong> we could say.\u00a0 For Jesus does not just tell us about his cross.\u00a0 Our Lord also tells us about the crosses we must bear.<\/p>\n

Our Savior warmly invites each one of us.\u00a0 Come to me.\u00a0 Follow me.\u00a0 But he wants us to understand what comes with following him. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.<\/span>”\u00a0To follow Jesus means that we must deny ourselves<\/em>.\u00a0 Now \u00a0that doesn’t mean that we become like monks and put a wall between ourselves and the world.\u00a0 It doesn’t mean that we can’t have any fun and must walk around like a bunch of sourpusses.<\/p>\n

But it does mean this. We must deny that sinful, self-centered person that lives inside each of us.\u00a0 And that’s not easy.\u00a0 It’s not easy to say no that self which only cares about me.\u00a0 It’s not easy to say no to that sinful self that really doesn’t care whether its right or wrong, whether it honors God or dishonors him.\u00a0 It doesn’t care what it does to the people around me.\u00a0 If its fun or feels good or benefits me, that’s what counts.\u00a0 Well to follow Christ, means to deny that old self and take up our cross.<\/p>\n

The crosses we have around us are often pretty pieces of jewelry or decoration.\u00a0 But the only cross these people knew was an ugly instrument of torture and death used by the Romans on their fellow Jews. What a shocking description of what is required to follow Jesus.\u00a0 He must take up his cross daily<\/span>.<\/p>\n

What did Jesus mean?\u00a0 This cross is not made of wood like the one Jesus was made to carry.\u00a0 Instead it comes in many shapes and sizes.\u00a0 Yet they have one thing in common.\u00a0 They come our way because we belong to Christ.\u00a0 It can be the grief, the pressure, that young Christian gets because he or she chooses to not use his\/her body for sexual immorality. \u00a0It can be the label you get at work because you won’t go along with the way, we usually do things<\/em>.\u00a0 It can be the popularity you lose, the promotion that doesn’t come, the cutting remark made in class by that instructor because he knows you are a Christian.<\/p>\n

But crosses can also be what the name implies.\u00a0 It can mean losing your life for following Christ.\u00a0 That rarely happens in our land.\u00a0 But in places like Pakistan or Iraq Christians are sometimes targeted for death. Churches are bombed.\u00a0 Pastors are kidnapped.\u00a0 Many are afraid to come to worship. Those are heavy crosses to bear.<\/p>\n

But here is the great irony of this strange religion. 24<\/sup><\/span><\/em><\/strong> For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.<\/span><\/em> In other words the person who turns away from Christ to avoid those troubles, those crosses, he will lose so much more than he gains.\u00a0 He will lose the life that our Lord Jesus died to give.<\/p>\n

But whoever clings to Christ, even if costs him his life, will save his life.\u00a0 He will not lose it. Instead he will enjoy that life that Christ\u00a0 has for all who call on his name.<\/p>\n

So again we say, what a strange religion.\u00a0 It’s founder chose suffering and death on a cross.\u00a0 And we who follow must bear our own.\u00a0 To someone on the outside looking in, this Christian faith must hardly seem inviting. Yet knowing Christ, knowing his love, knowing the hope we have in him, makes it more than strange.\u00a0 It leads us follow.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 9: 18-24 | June 27, 2010 Being a Christian is a wonderful thing.\u00a0 To know the love of God in Christ, the hope we have as God’s forgiven children is a powerful thing. And when tough times come, I have heard more than one Christian say.\u00a0 I don’t know how people make it through without the Lord. But just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}