How to CHURCH // Called to Preach the Gospel

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from one

of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your faith

is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as you

engage the Word of God. Stay tuned from the message for ways to get

connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. Good morning,

everybody. My name Richie Fike. I'm the pastor here and you are

catching us kind of in the middle of a sermon series that we're doing called

how to Church. We're talking about this idea of what does it mean to

be a church, what does it require of us, what does it look

like? And the reason we're doing that is because our church is six months

old. In October of last year, we launched this thing and God has

just been so good and so faithful to us, and we've experienced his goodness

and his kindness. And honestly, when you look at these ten young souls

that stood up in front of us this morning and said I want to go

public, that is evidence to me that God is at work in our church

through moms and dads, through our children's ministry. My wife Dana is our

children's director, and you know, I love to shout her out because it

usually pays dividends for me. So she's doing an amazing job. So can

we do this morning before we before I stay another work, can we just

one more time applaud all of these kids that stood up and went public this

morning. It's been amazing. So our church is six months old and we're

trying to figure this word out, this word church, because it's a weighty

word. You know, when some people hear this word church, it brings

to my great joy and great peace, sense of identity, a sense of

purpose. And when other people hear this word, they think of abuse or

they think of harm. There's a kind of a phrase that we're using in

our culture now called church hurt. A lot of people have been hurt by

churches. So when we set out to do this thing called church, we

want to do it the right way and we kind of want to reclaim the

high ground of what the word means. Some of you today is your first

time ever being in church. You got invited by someone to be here.

Some of you this is the first time in a long time that you've been

in church. You've got invited, or you saw a flyer, or maybe

you've got a door hanger in the neighborhood somewhere around here. We just want

to say, we're so glad you're here. We're so pumped that you've come

on an Easter Sunday, and we hope that this won't be the only time

we get a chance to see your face. We really want to see people

get connected here, connected to relationship with one know they're connected with a relationship

to God. Because we're really trying to reclaim the high ground of this word

church. We want for people when they hear the name Movement Church, we

want for them to just have all smiles and listen. You could say what

you want about any other church, but those people at that movement church,

those people love God and those people love people, and that's what we're aiming

for. That's what we're fighting for. So when we say how to church,

we're not talking about how to Christian. We're not talking about how to

individually follow Jesus. We're talking about how to as a group of people together,

how we can do this thing together. What does it look like,

and so how we've structured this sermons there is again, if you haven't heard

any of these, you're catching up midway. We started with what we're called,

what the Bible says we're called. We moved into what we're called too.

There's just a certain amount of things that we're responsible for, and now

we're into the good stuff. What we're called to do. What does it

look like for us to do? What does that mean? And so anyway,

you caught us in the middle of this thing, and if you would

like to catch up, you can get on our podcast by the way,

this week And forgive me if this is a humble brag, it might not

be humble at all. It's just a brag. But this week there was

some poll that put out the top one hundred Christian podcast in the state of

Colorado. And I don't know how we got on this list, but we're

number fifteen on the list. So I'm just saying that's pretty cool. So

you can catch up with the podcast there. But today we're going to continue

with this how to Church series. What we're called to do? And the

first thing, the most important thing, the primary thing. It's the thing

that we have to do if we don't do anything else, well, we

have to do this thing really well. And it's this. We are called

to preach the good news. That's what Easter Sunday is all about, right,

the good news of Jesus Christ. Here we are celebrating the risen savior,

the good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus actually he told us that this

was our job. In Mark fifteen. He said, go into all the

world and preach the good news to everyone. So it's not segmented anymore.

This is for everyone. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved,

but anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. And so Jesus is saying,

I don't want that. I don't want for people to be condemned.

I want them to be saved. So go and preach the gospel. Paul,

one of the key writers of the New Testament, wrote a letter to

his protege Timothy, a young pastor in Ephesus who he knew would be forced

culturally to sort of water down the Gospel. And Paul says this to his

young friend. He says, I charge you and the presence of God and

of Christ, Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and

by his appearing and his kingdom. He says, preach the word, Preach

the word, be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke,

exhort with complete patience and teaching. And this was very important. This

is a very important admonition for Paul, because Christians in this day and age

were being persecuted. In fact, they were being murdered. If you were

to stand up and say I believe in Jesus Christ, it could put you

on a bad list. It could be the reason why you would be put

into terrible situations, painful situations. And that same writer, who faced that

same persecution, said this. He said, I'm not ashamed of this good

news about Jesus Christ. It is the power of God at work saving everyone

who believes. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, even if

it puts me in jail. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, even if

it puts me in chains. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. In Timothy,

you shouldn't be either. And these folks this morning that stood up before

us and went public, they are not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I wrote each one of them a little letter, and one of the

things I said to them was, from this moment on, because of your

profession in front of all of us, your faith in Jesus is personal,

but it's no longer private. Your faith in Jesus is personal, but it's

no longer private because you've gone public. And so now your responsibility is to

share the love of Jesus everywhere you go. That's what it's all about.

I'm not ashamed of the good news of Jesus Christ. I am a big

fan of joke structure. I know that kind of sounds like it's out of

left field, but I like a well written joke anybody else, And so

I love good news bad news jokes. Do you guys know good news bad

news jokes? Like, for example, a guys goes to the doctor and

the doctor says, well, listen, Bob, I've got good news and

I've got bad news. Right, Bob says, so what's the bad news?

Or he says what's the good news and he says, well, good

news is you've got twenty four hours to let he goes, oh my gosh,

that's the good news. What's the bad news. I meant to call

you yesterday, right, good news, bad news? How about this one?

He goes to a doctor. He says, I've got some good news

and bad news. What's the bad news? He says, Well, the

bad news is that you have a rare, inoperable medical condition and you only

have a few months to live, and it's going to be really painful and

hard. He goes, oh, well, what's the good news, And

he goes, did you see that receptionist in the lobby? We're dating?

All right? How about this one between a boss and an employee, or

actually between a father and a son. This one has actually happened to me.

When your child comes home and says, Dad, good news, your

airbags work perfectly. Right, come on, we know what the bad news

is. Or how about this one a boss and an employee. The boss

says to the employee, I've got good news, your past, your drug

screen. The bad news is you're pregnant. Okay, So we're called to

preach the good news and not the bad news. It's not a suggestion,

it's a mandate. It's the urgent reality that drives us to do everything we

do. The good news is what it's all about. So let me ask

you a question. If the Gospel is such good news, in fact,

if it's the best news that anyone's ever heard, why is it that everybody

doesn't believe it? Why is it that everybody isn't excited about the good news

of Jesus Christ. Why does the gospel sound like bad news to so many

people? Why do so many people reject the good news? If it's good

news, why would you reject it? Why does the gospel sound like bad

news to so many people? I sent that question via text to about twenty

people, and some great answers back, and so I want to share with

you some of these answers that I heard. One person said, because the

message that we aren't in control, or that we aren't enough to save ourselves

or to rule ourselves, or that we are needy and dependent, it goes

completely against modern thinking and sensibilities. Another person said, the message can be

awesome, but the messenger can suck. So I'm hoping that that won't be

me today. But right message with wrong delivery or wrong timing doesn't stick very

well. Another person said, people don't think of themselves as being that bad.

Another person said it's countercultural. We tell ourselves that we can do anything

if we believe in ourselves, and if anyone says otherwise, then they're just

being toxic. Right, Okay, So how did the gospel turn into bad

news? So today, what I'm going to give you is three reasons why

I think the Gospel can be heard felt, since you know, experienced as

bad news. And I'm going to give us three solutions to those problems with

me. So three reasons why, three solutions to fix it. Okay.

So the first is that the message of the Gospel is convoluted. The message

of the Gospel is convoluted. What does that word convoluted mean? It just

means over complicated. In fact, convoluted is a convoluted word, but it's

over complicated. I think that we have over complicated Salvation and we have undercomplicated

lordship. And what that has done is it's caused attention in people to go

I don't really understand what it is that you're offering me. I don't really

know what it is that you're asking of me. I don't really know what

I have to do to get to where you are, and I'm not sure

I even want to right, So there's kind of a there's a struggle there.

It's convoluted. Now, let me be clear about this, Christianity,

and for those of you Christians who have lived a long time, you can

give me a mm hmm if you believe this. But Christianity is no walk

in the park. And you would say that's right, Christianity. Friends,

if you're not a Christian and you're here today because somebody invited you, I

want you to know, there's not a Christian in this room who has it

easy. There's not one. All of us are at war with ourselves.

We're at war with the world. We're at war with temptations and struggles,

and we're trying our very best to fight for the life that God wants for

us. Christianity is not a walk in the park. And in fact,

I believe that the two hardest words that Jesus ever spoke, the most difficult,

the most challenging, the most hard to obey words that Jesus ever spoke.

And he spoke it to a lot of people. He spoke it to

prostitutes, he spoke it to tax collectors, he spoke it to rich young

rulers, and a woman at the well and there were these two words right

here, follow me. Man. That is a gut check as a gut

check phrase right now there, follow me, because if I'm following you,

then it means I'm not leading anymore. If I'm following you, it means

I'm surrendering my control to you. And Jesus said it all the time,

follow me. He would just walk up to people and just say, hey,

you follow me, and they would quit their job on the spot and

follow this man because there was something about him that was so real and so

significant that they wanted to know where are you headed? And the only way

for me to know is if I go with you? Follow me? Follow

me. And there's a word for the kind of relationship that this phrase starts

in us, and that word is lord. Lord. And that's not a

word that we use a lot. If you ever watch like a period piece,

like you know, something in the early centuries, they say hello,

my lord, right everything's my lord, oh, my lord, And so

they use it very casually. When we say lord, we mean it very

tensely. We mean the person who will lead my life, the person who

has my allegiance, the person who has my devotion. Lord Lord is a

gut check word. It's a gut check word and it requires faith. And

Guy's faith is at the core of what the Gospel is all about. Faith

is at the core of it. It's compoundingly difficult for us in twenty twenty

four because we don't get to see Jesus face to face. We don't get

to see and we don't get to touch his hands. We don't get to

experience the risen Savior in the flesh like they did in the Bible. And

Jesus said something about that. He said this in John twenty He said,

you believe because you've seen Me. But blessed are those who who have believed

but who have not seen Me. That's all of us, anybody in this

room that professes Christianity. Jesus says, it is a miracle that you believe

in him. Blessed are you who have not seen Lordship is incredibly difficult.

It's incredibly hard. Christianity is hard. If you're not hearing anything else today,

I want you to hear me. Christianity is hard, okay. And

so if you feel like Christianity is too hard, you're doing it right,

Okay. You're like, I don't think I'm doing this Christian thing right.

No, no, you're doing it right. It's hard. It is the

lifelong experience of yielding yourself to the leadership of God. Embracing Jesus as the

Lord of your life is not easy. Neither is grasping the complexity of the

character and nature of God. One person said that knowing God is like having

a beautiful diamond in your hand and you hold it still and you get a

good look at it, and right when you think you understand it, you

just turn it by one degree and now it's totally different, and you're seeing

all of this incredible complexity that makes this beautiful gem what it is. And

life with God is just it's a constant turning of that beautiful gem and getting

to know the power and the weight and the profound nature of who God is.

All of this Christianity stuff. It's really really hard. But you know

what's not hard. Salvation is not hard. Salvation should not be hard.

It should not be convoluted. It should not be over complicated. Salvation should

be so clear and so clean. It should not be complicated. The message

is convoluted, and so let's make it simple. So what I'm gonna do

today. And I'm doing this for two reasons. Number one, I'm doing

it for the Christians in the room. I read a stat that said that

ninety percent of Christians in America do not know how to present the Gospel.

They do not know how to say, here's what I believe and here's why

I believe it. So, if you're a Christian in the room, think

of this as me trying to help train you so that you can clearly communicate

the Gospel. And if you're not a Christian in the room, and maybe

you've been kind of looking down your nose at Christians, maybe you've been looking

up and being curious about what it is that we believed, I just want

to make it so clear to you today, this is what Christianity is.

Okay with me? Everybody say amen? If you're with me, all right,

So let's talk about this word. Here's a word that is It's another

one of these impassed gut check moments, because the word that we use in

Christianity is this one, saved. Saved. Are you saved? Hey,

I'm saved? Are you saved? Right? We like Christians use this word.

Non Christians don't use this word. People who are not a believer in

Jesus Christ are not walking around thinking and wondering if they're saved. They're not

thinking about it. But we say it very commonly. So the question is

saved from what? Saved from what? And this is where we get to

the big idea of the Bible. Here it is the big idea of the

Bible is that the holiness of God, that beautiful jem that as you turn

it you find out more and more about him. The holiness of God and

the sinfulness of man cannot coexist. The holiness of God, God and the

sinfulness of man are separated forever and ever. That's the idea. And so

we were designed as human beings. We were designed to be in community,

in communion, in relationship with God. We were designed to know Him,

to walk with him. God could have just made a bunch of puppets that

do whatever he tells them to do. They're animatronic instead of animated. He

could have just made a bunch of you know, sort of thoughtless followers.

But instead he endowed you and I with something that no other creature on the

planet has, and that is choice. He gave you the ability to choose

him or not. He gave you the ability to choose everything that he has

to offer you or not. He didn't have to do that. But the

reason he did it is because he loves you. He loves you. He

gave you agency, free will, he gave you independence. He made it

so that you could choose him. The problem is that that capacity for choice,

it almost always leads us to self. It almost always leads us to

self, self centeredness, self preservation, self importance, self absorption, self

protection. In fact, if you are a parent in the room, you

know that the first thing that your child exhibited that you didn't teach them was

selfishness. Mine, but I did not teach you that, honey, Where

did you get that from? They got it from deep inside of them right

mine. That thing is just who we are as human beings. The me

monster is real. A preference for self is the absolute opposite of God.

When you think about God, you have to think of him through the lens

of selflessness. God is selfless, He's not selfish. We're selfish. That's

who we are. The biblical word for selfishness or a preference for self,

do you know what it is? It's sin, that's all It is so.

If you've ever been curious why Christians think that you're a sinner, it's

because you're a sinner. Sorry to tell you. You have a sinful nature.

And I think if you were to be honest with yourself about your instincts,

about what matters most to you, if no one was leading you,

the thing that you would gravitate to the most would be self. It would

be self serving, self preservation, self protection. It would be self.

And you're not alone, You're not weird. All of us are the same

way. This is who we are. None of us can stand our humanity

up against the greatness of God. So sin has caused this massive chasm between

a human being and a holy God. It's caused this incredible chasm the holiness

of God the sinfulness of man, and it could not change unless something super

natural happened. And that's where we get to the best word I'm going to

say all day, Jesus. The most important word I'm going to say all

day is Jesus. Because the only way for that chasm, for that distance,

for that disconnection to get fixed, is because Jesus. It's because of

him. That's why we celebrate Christmas every year. Because God came from heaven

to earth. He left the majesty of heaven for the mess of earth.

That's what he did, and it's why all of you know the most famous

Bible verse ever. Right, Come on, I bet you could even say

it without me saying it for you, John, Right, And what does

John three sixteen say? For God so loved the world that he gave his

only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have

everlasting life. And the word most of us look at there is loved.

And that's cool. But the word I want you to really concentrate on is

this one gave. He loved the world so much that he gave. Why

because God is selfless. Selfish people take, selfless people give right and so

God gave, and so that's who he is. God gaves. Let's talk

about what it means when we say that God gave Jesus. You have to

understand that you know Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. And this is

the complicated part of our Christianity. In fact, it took them three hundred

years to figure out how to articulate this with one word. But God the

Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. They are

all God. They are three distinct roles, but they are one God.

Is this freaking anybody out? Like it's a crazy idea to think about.

And the word we use is trinity. But the idea is that from the

beginning of time, before the beginning of time, there was the Trinity,

there was God. So God sent part of himself to the world. He

sent Jesus down from heaven to earth. He gave his son. Why he

gave him because he came and lived a human life for thirty years. He

was fully human, Jesus Christ, that Jesus of Nazareth came and lived on

the earth. There is not a reputable historian on the earth who would refute

the truth of what I just said. Jesus Christ was a human being who

lived on the earth. You don't have to have faith to believe that it's

just historically true. Here's the part where you have to have faith in his

humanity because it was mixed with divinity, because he was fully human and fully

God. Jesus was confronted with sin. He was confronted with the opportunity to

prefer self. He was confronted with every opportunity that is common to you and

I to chase after gratification or satisfaction or satiation, to feel something, to

feel alive. Jesus was confronted with everything that you and I have ever been

confronted with, and he never bid the apple. He never himself over anyone

else, never once. He never sinned. He modeled the ethic of heaven.

And this is so important. I want you to hear this. I

want you to believe this and understand this. Jesus was not attracted to the

most successful, to the most prominent. He was not attracted to the people

that had it all figured out. Jesus was attracted and always had time for

people who desperately needed him. Jesus found the hurting, the lowly, the

broken. He looked at children in the eyes and dignified them as people.

He treated women with incredible value. Jesus modeled the ethic of heaven that no

one is too far gone for the grace of God, that there's nothing you

have ever done in your life that disqualifies you from receiving the grace that He

has to offer. And all the Christians ought to say amen. He modeled

the ethic of heaven, and he preached the good news. Jesus did exactly

what we are supposed to do as a church. He preached the good news.

That's what he did. And so let me ask you a question.

If Jesus modeled the ethic of heaven, if he preached the good news,

if he loved people, served people, healed people, then why was he

crucified? Why would this man who did such good for the world, why

would he become public enemy number one? Why would this happen? How could

the generosity and kindness of God be treated with such contempt? Why why would

the good news sound like bad news to some of the people in his time?

First of all, Jesus had no interest, no time, no passion,

no really concern for the religious leaders of his day. That's the first

thing. The religious leaders of his day were pompous and heirs, and they

were the kind of people that felt that they had a grasp on God.

And Jesus came to say, that's wrong. You're not supposed to have a

grasp on God. You're supposed to let Him have a grasp on you.

That's the idea. And so Jesus came and he just turned everything upside down,

and he said, listen, you guys that think you have all the

answers all of your questions are wrong. In the first place, Jesus made

enemies with those people. He made enemies with the religious leaders of his day

because they didn't like what he preached, and so they hatched a plan to

eliminate him. They got one of his best friends, they got named Judas.

They gave him thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus, and he did

it. And so Jesus got taken before this sort of midnight church committee meeting.

Anybody ever been to a church committee meeting, they're terrible, Okay,

and this is where it all started. Okay, this is where church committee

haes got their source. Okay. So they went to this midnight church committee

meeting and it was terrible. They lied about him. It was just all

they did bad things. And then they sent him before a politician named Conscious

Pilot, and they said, we want you to go ahead and put this

guy to death. Pilot didn't want to do it. He said, this

guy's innocent, he hasn't done anything wrong. And they said we want you

to kill him. So Conscious Pilot sentences Jesus to death. This man who

left the majesty of Heaven for the mess of earth. Was now about to

die a sinner's death. What kind of a death was it? Was it

a quiet death? Was it a dignified death? Was it a painless death?

No? It was very public. It was very bloody, very painful,

very shameful. The people of Jerusalem hurled insults at him, and rocks

and they threw things at him. They whipped him, and they nailed his

hands and his feet to across and he died. I know, I said

it was going to keep it simple as I talk about this, but I

need to show you an SAT word? Is that? Okay? Can I

show you an sat word? Because what Jesus did for us this is like

a seven dollars word. Okay, do you know what I'm saying that this

is an expensive word. What Jesus did for us is he became here.

It is the propitiation. Anybody used this word in a sentence in the last

two months, No, okay, the propitiation. What that means is substitute.

Jesus stood in our place and took our death, all of that self

preference that we're guilty of. He took the blame for it. And he

said, I'm going to get up on this cross and I'm going to die,

so you don't have to. That's what propitiation means. One way or

another, the sin of our life is going to get paid for and death.

One way or another. The Bible says that the wages of sin is

death. So you know what, you know what sin costs you death,

that's the idea. Jesus said, I'll pay the cost. I'll be the

propitiation. And so what he did was the canyon between holiness and humanity.

It could only be bridged by his divinity, and so God gave his son

to bridge that canyon to cross it. Jesus crossed the bridge, and so

he breathed his last human breath on a Friday night. And Friday night sometime

late at night, and so because Saturday was the sabbath, nobody could really

attend to Jesus's body, and so they pulled him off the cross, and

a guy that was a Roman centurion and another guy named Nicodemus who had had

a conversation with Jesus, they got together and they put him in a new

tomb, and they put a stone in front of it, and those religious

leaders who had had Jesus killed. They went to Pilot and they said,

listen, we've heard Jesus talk about this whole idea of resurrection, and so

what we want you to do is we want you to put armed guards in

front of the tomb so that they don't go and steal his body and then

pretend like he resurrected. And it's a good thing that they did that,

because if those armed guards hadn't been there, then nobody would have seen what

happened. What happened is why we're here this morning. What happened is why

Easter is so powerful, and we hear about it in Matthew twenty eight.

I'm going to read this for us. Matthew twenty eight says this early on

Sunday morning, as the new Day was dawning, Mary Magdalen and the other

Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake,

for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone

and sat on it. Can you imagine that scene? They walk up and

there's just this angel sitting on a stone. What's up, guys, what

y'all do? Like? What a random moment. I love that verse three.

His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow.

The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into

a dead faint. Then the angel spoke to the women. He said,

don't be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus who was crucified. It's

confirming. But I love this verse, and I mean, this is one

of the most significant verses in all of Christianity. He isn't here. Come

on, that's got to give you goosebumps. He isn't here. He's risen

from the dead, just as he said would happened. Come see where his

body was laying. And now go quickly and tell his disciples that he has

risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee.

You will see him there. Remember what I have told you. One of

the things I love about this section is that two women who had just come

really to put spices and anointing on Jesus's carcass. That's why they were there.

They became the first evangelist of Christianity. These two women ran to tell

these guys who were sunken and who were low the disciples of Jesus who thought

it was all over. They ran to tell these guys, He's alive.

He's alive. It's amazing. Easter isn't just about the death of Jesus.

He didn't just die for our sins. He conquered death for us so that

we don't have to. And this right here, this moment, right here

is where I think most of the people who get Christianity confused. This is

sort of the crossroads moment of it, because what happens to us as human

beings is we start attaching things to Christianity right here at this moment, we

say, oh, wow, he conquered death for us, so we don't

have to. And what we start to do is we say, so now

I have to behave like a Christian. I have to now change everything about

who I am. If I'm going to be a good Christian, I have

to now attach this new sort of religiosity to my faith in Jesus. And

that's where we get to the question of is it good news or is it

bad news? Because if I tell you, Jesus loves you so much,

but you have to change everything about yourself. Jesus loves you, but everything

you do is wrong. Jesus loves you, and so if you expect to

get into heaven, you better perform for him. That's not Christianity, that's

not the gospel. That's not what it is to understand the grace of the

cross of Jesus Christ. The whole purpose of the Good News is to point

out to you that the direction you're headed without belief is headed towards death.

That's the point. You without Jesus are walking towards death, and Jesus somewhere

behind you is saying, hey, stop, turn turn around, come this

way, Hey, hey stop, come this way. By the way,

there's a word for what I just said. You're walking in a certain direction,

you stop, you turn around, and you walk the other direction.

You what that word is. The word is repent. Now listen, I'm

sure you've probably heard someone yelling at you to repent with anger and like nostril

flares right, like, that's not the idea. This word repent is a

father who sees his son running towards an oncoming train. Repent, ah,

my son. It's not hey, repent, repent, you sinner. That's

not who our God is. That's not who Jesus is repent. Oh stop,

turn around, come the other way. That's what this word means,

and it is the beginning of faith. The moment that you stop walking in

the direction of death and you start walking in the direction of life. That's

what repentance is. That's what repentance is, access to life. And so

there's this moment for all of us, for every person who's ever accepted Jesus

as their savior, there's a moment where you say to yourself, I want

whatever God wants to give me, whatever it is that he wants to offer

to me, I want to receive it today. And that is when you

begin to believe. And friends, this is the thing that you have to

understand. Christianity is not about knowing. It's about believing. You can't know

your way to heaven. It's just not going to work. You believe you

have faith, why because blessed to those who believe it who have not seen.

If I see something, I don't have to believe it, and there's

not going to be any faith in heaven. Think about that. There'll be

no reason for faith in heaven. There'll be no reason for belief in heaven.

They'll just be knowledge. But on this side of eternity, faith,

belief, those are the fuel of what it is to be a Christian.

And I just want to make it so simple. Look at this in Romans

ten. If you ever want to know what is the actual formula for salvation,

it's so simple. It's all about that word believe. Look at this.

If you openly declare, which our friends did this morning, that Jesus

is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

then you will be saved from all of that disconnection, from all of

that trouble, from all of that sorrow, from all of that trauma,

you will be saved. So if the message is convoluted, let's make it

simple. So I just want to ask you three questions. Number one,

do you believe that Jesus is Lord? You don't have to answer out loud.

Do you believe that Jesus is Lord? Do you believe that God raised

Jesus from the dead. And are you willing to declare that belief out loud?

Because if the answer to all three of these questions is yes, I'll

see you in heaven. Amen. If the answer to these three questions is

yes, we can play some tennis I'm not playing pickleball with you in heaven.

We can play some tennis in heaven, Okay. So, because this

is the good news, this is the good news. The Gospel of Jesus

Christ is the best news. And if you believe in the good news,

then you are saved. Now, If every Christian on the planet, if

every Christian on the planet could articulate faith in Jesus the way I just did,

if you could articulate your Christianity the way that I just did, I

wonder if this word would be so heavy. I wonder if this word would

be so divisive. I wonder if this word would cause many people to recoil,

if all of us could articulate the Gospel the way we're supposed to.

What are we called to do? We're called to preach the Gospel and we

have to preach it right. So the first reason that I think that people

think of the Gospel as bad news is because it's become convoluted. The message

is convoluted. Here's the second reason the church is confused. You ever had

a conversation with someone who doesn't really know what they believe, and as they're

talking with you about it, they're like arguing with themselves, and then you

know, it just made it like confused people are confusing. Have you ever

had a conversation with a confused person? It's very confusing, right, So

maybe the right answer is the church isn't just confused, but it's confusing to

a lot of people. As I asked that question to my friends about you

know, why do you think the message has become bad news? Four kind

of categories popped up, and so I'm gonna show you what they are.

Affiliations, denominations, expectations, and orientation. And know they didn't say those

words to me. I just you know, figured out how to make it

all rhyme. Okay, but let's listen to these comments. Because so many

Christians are trusting and promoting unqualified politicians with deeply harmful agendas that use the faith

to manipulate people into getting them elected. That's one person's reason for why the

gospel has become bad news. Isn't that interesting? How about this? A

lot of people I know get hung up on all the different kinds of Christianity

there are in the world. How can so many Christians believe so many different

things about Jesus? Good question? This person said, I think this question

specifically has more to do with the example that the church at large sets.

We don't model or live out what we sing and preach on Sunday mornings.

Nobody wants to say amen to that. I got it. If God loves

us so much, why is he so angry with us? If he's not

angry with us, then why is he more involved? Life's pretty hard down

here, real answers from real people. The Church is confused, and it's

confusing. So let's make it clear. I just want to make it clear

today. So let's talk about these issues. Affiliations Number one the idea of

Christian nationalism, which is a thing. This is something that a lot of

people are offended by. That first answer, by the way, was a

response from my sister Katie, who lives in New Orleans and just is not

willing or interested yet to follow Jesus as her and her main hang up for

why she can't follow Jesus is because of the sort of right wing Christian nationalism

that she is so offended by. Christian nationalism. This idea is not new.

It's the Americans didn't come up with it. In fact, it's been

around as long as the Roman government supported Christianity. Whenever that happened, people

were at war with the question of what matters most to you, your Christianity

or your nationalism, your Christianity or your Americanism, your Christianity or your Republicanism,

your Christianity or your democratic status. Like you have to wrestle, we

have to wrestle with what matters most. And the idea for Christians is that

Christianity has to trump everything, that God has to be above the list,

not even on it. Amen. And so I just want to clarify this.

Affiliations. We are not and will not be affiliated with any political party.

Our allegiance is to the Kingdom of God. The Trilags is not our

battleground. It's our mission field, and we intend to put resources and passion

into making it better. All right, that's affiliations. Here's denominations. People

are always hung up on why can't you Christians get this figured out? Why

are there like four thousand different denominations? And I can't answer that question succinctly.

So I'll just say what matters is what unites us, not what divides

us. That's what matters. On Friday night, we did a good Friday

Service at Holy Trinity Anglican Service, and it was so cool because they practice

their Christianity very differently than we do. It's a lot of spoken word,

it's a lot of really heavy scriptural content, and it was very meditative and

it was beautiful, and three different churches got together on Friday night to celebrate

what we share in common. That Jesus Christ is Lord. There is more

that unites us than divides us. So God doesn't have many churches. He

has one church, and the movement church is a community of faith within the

greater body. That confuses people is expectations. This is where church hurt comes

from. Church hurt happens because you have an expectation of your church that they

never intended to follow through on, or your church has an expectation of you

that you never intended to follow through on. Right, And so I have

been really working hard as the pastor of this church since we got started to

really lay out clear expectations of one another, like this is what we expect

of you, and this is what we want you to expect of us.

So we've talked a lot about that, But our expectation is for the people

of the movement church to find their place, their people, and their purpose.

That's it. We want to help you do ministry. We want you

to expect us to help you do that. And the last piece of confusion

is orientation. Here's what I mean by that. In this culture, in

this climate, very often people perceive Christian people like this, fingers pointed,

scowled faces mean old grandma, right, like just looking down our noses at

people judging them. And if Christians are like that, then that must mean

that Christians God must be like that. He's not. This is not who

our God is. Our God is not angry with people. He is not

different towards people. God loves you. We have a phrase that we've used

here a lot as kind of our slogan, and this is it. God

is for you, and so are we. We want people to know that

we want God's best for you, not from you, that God doesn't need

anything from you, He only wants good for you. So why has the

Gospel become bad news? First, the message is convoluted. Second, the

church is confused, and this is really important to hear. The third reason

is because the opposite is constant. The opposition is constant. The Bible talks

about a battle that's happening all the time all around us. It's a battle

between darkness and light. And he also talks about the one who is in

charge of darkness. We know who's in charge of light, God Jesus,

but who's in charge of darkness? And there's a phrase in the Bible that

describes who's in charge of the darkness. And that phrase is this the enemy.

He is the enemy of good by the way. He doesn't stand for

anything. The devil he stands against. That's who he is. So this

idea that God would be against you, that is a work that has been

spun up by the enemy to make us misunderstand who God is. The enemy

is against the Bible says that the thief comes only to steal and kill and

destroy. It's this, be sober minded, bewa your adversary, your enemy.

The devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

It says he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the

truth because there is no truth in him. So when he lies, he

speaks out of his own character. He is a liar and the father of

lies. But we've got some good news. The Bible is filled with all

kinds of spoilers, and so here's some good spoilers if you're curious. First,

in John, it says the light shines in the darkness, and the

darkness has not overcome it, nor will it ever. The devil will lose.

That's how it works. Psalm twenty four says, who is this King

of glory? The Lord's strong and mighty, the Lord invincible in battle.

He has not lost a fight yet. And Matthew says, to where Jesus

is speaking to Peter. He says, Hey, Peter, I'm going to

build something on your life that will be invincible. He says, you are,

Peter, And on this rock I will build my church. And the

gates of hell will not prevail against beautiful, incredible moment. What are we

saying that the opposition is constant? So let's make him tremble. That's the

idea, you guys. Maybe you never heard the story, but there's a

kind of an apocryphal story about Martin Luther, who's one of the church fathers,

and one night he's having a hard time. He's tossing and turning and

sleeping, and he wakes up in a cold sweat, and he looks over

and in the bed with him is Satan himself in the bed with Martin Luther.

And Martin Luther looks over and he goes, oh, it's just you,

and then he turns back over and goes back to sleep. Like we

are so consumed with this whole enemy thing. He doesn't have any power over

us. All he can do is confuse and accused. That's all he can

do. And all we can do is say, hey, bro, I

know your destiny. Okay, I know where you're headed, so you can

stop talking to me. I'm looking to Jesus. Somebody, say amen.

And if we do that, if we do those things, then all of

us can earn the right to share the gospel by loving and serving people.

Well, we can take back the high ground of the good news where it's

convoluted. Let's make it simple where it's confusing, Let's make it clear where

it's combated. Let's make the enemy tremble. The gospel isn't just good news.

It's the best news anyone's ever heard. That you were headed towards death,

but Jesus made away for life. It's called the gospel. So what's

God leading you to do next and how can we help? Would you send

us an email to info at Movementchurch dot co and tell us how we can

pray for you and help you take the next step in your spiritual journey.

If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, text the amount you like

to give to the number eight four three two one, or look us up

online at Movementchurch dot c. You can find the Movement Church on all social

media platforms, and we hope that you'll give us a follow God bless you,

and remember God is for you, and so are we.