Sunday message

I am pretty fired up about Sundays message. Kept me up half the night thinking about it. Dove tails in nicely with where we are in 1st Samuel. Feel like i am loading the space shuttle with rocket fuel.

Follower

When Jesus was on the earth, He really didn’t follow anyone. In fact, the only way for people to be around Jesus was to follow Him. Sure He would go eat here, or hang out there, but He didn’t stay there. He invited people to follow Him. He was always on a mission. So if you wanted to be with Him, you had to follow after Him.

And here we are today. I have talked with so many pastors. And I am hearing the same thing. People don’t seem to follow after Christ as determined and faithfully as they could. And that strikes me. In America, there are churches and church services everywhere, including online. The quality of preaching and worship and ministry has never been at a higher level. We have air conditioning and donuts and really comfortable chairs in our churches. Yet people just don’t seem to be committed to church. But if you took one of our churches and dropped it into some foreign countries, that church would probably either get burned down for their anti-Christian sentiment, or you would have multiple services because of the vast difference in standards of available excellence. I think we have found it is easier to program Christ to follow us than it is for us to follow after Christ.

Following Christ, though, can’t be confused with going to church right? It’s not everything, but it’s a big thing. We find Jesus was always hanging around at churches. Why? Because that’s where people centralized themselves around the things of God. The New Testament established that having 3,000 people at a service wasn’t all that bad. And the idea of having people saved and added to the…wait for it…church daily was a great thing. The church is still vital. But it seems that vitality is not valued as much any more.

For me, I feel a bit sad writing this. The church is a grand and glorious place. I am a follower of Christ. And following Him always leads me to a place where other followers “congregate”. It is a launch pad of sorts. It’s where we all start over and place Jesus in front of us again and re-establish ourselves as the followers and Him as the followed.

In the coming weeks, my sincere prayer is that Legacy would be one place among many where people place again the value and importance of gathering with other followers around Jesus, the One worth following. And in our pursuit, I pray we will celebrate being on the path of Christ.