Yesterday we talked about how the love of Jesus, it helps.
Jesus helped people who were blind.
Helped people who were sick.
Helped people who were hungry.
But one interesting aspect of Jesus' life is that
he didn't help everyone in those ways
There were sick people who came to him that he did not heal.
He didn't heal all the blind people in the world at the time.
There were people who were begging for him to come to their town
and instead of coming to their town to help them,
he turned around and he walked away in the other direction.
Jesus didn't help everyone with their physical needs.
But there is one way
that Jesus provided help to everything.
There's one thing that Jesus did for every single person on earth.
He forgave their sins.
He paid the bill for them to get into heaven so that
whoever believes in him will not perish,
but will end up with eternal life with him.
That is the one way that he helped everyone.
And if that is the primary way that Jesus loved everyone,
keeping their focus on heaven,
making sure there was nothing at all getting in the way of
getting to the feast that God has prepared for them,
then it's important also for us to consider
what it looks like when we have that same priority.
When our same priority is giving everyone
that same gift.
And it's important to know what it looks like when we give that gift.
And how to give that gift
when we're talking with our friends
and our family and our neighbor.
And even people we don't see eye to eye with all the time.
There's a cartoon that's been on
TV since 1996 called "Arthur."
Arthur has been on PBS, Public Broadcasting, since 1996.
It was a favorite of my kids'
when they were that age and they were watching those things.
But this last year for the first time,
the cartoon Arthur celebrated gay marriage.
And so one of Arthur's male teachers
got married to another man.
So they were celebrating gay marriage.
So I want you to imagine that you're in a,
you're in a place where there are a lot of
people that you don't normally interact with.
Like you're at a sporting event or at a concert
or you're shopping, you know. Or something like that.
And you happen to strike up a conversation with somebody.
And the topic of this
Arthur episode comes up in which there's gay marriage.
And the person looks at you and says, "Man, isn't that great?
"You know, it's great that we're finally being so progressive in our world.
"And so progressive in what we're teaching our children and
"you know, my kid's teacher even showed that episode
"in school and it was really great.
"My son came home talking about it.
"And it's just really, really awesome that we're doing this type of thing."
And then imagine the person turns to you and says,
"And what do you think of gay marriage?"
What would you say?
Let's imagine that you respond by telling them that gay marriage is wrong.
As the Bible says it is.
And it says that it is just as wrong as lying,
cheating,
stealing,
greed,
arrogance
or physical intimacy between a man and a woman who arenot married.
All in the same category.
And let's imagine that after a little bit of back and forth,
you are able to successfully convince that,
that person that gay marriage is wrong and it shouldn't happen.
You have changed their mind.
Let's also imagine that at no point in that conversation
does the name Jesus ever come up.
And you never talk about Jesus
who forgives our sins or gives us a place in Heaven.
And let's imagine
that, how that conversation ends.
And what that person believes at that point
that they believe that homosexuality is wrong
but they do not believe that Jesus is their Savior from sin.
Let's imagine that that's what that person believes when that person dies.
Will that person end up in hell or Heaven?
That person will end up in hell.
Even though they believe,
correctly, that homosexuality is wrong.
Because they do not believe that Jesus
is the Savior of the world, or their Savior,
they will not end up in Heaven.
So even though you would have successfully
changed their mind about something that is important,
you wouldn't have actually loved them.
Because your primary goal was not to love them
forever.
Forever.
Now that's not to say that the question of whether or not
homosexuality is a sin isn't, I mean, it is an important one.
I'm just suggesting that maybe next time somebody
asks you what you think about homosexuality,
or what you think about abortion or
what you think about
any number of hot button topics in the world today.
Instead of first quickly answering the question,
maybe ask them a different one.
Instead, ask them
"Who do you think Jesus is?"
Ask them who they believe Jesus is.
Because if a person doesn't first care about who Jesus is,
they're not going to care about anything that he teaches.
They're just not.
In the Bible, in the book of James,
we're told to remember something.
It says,
And not because we are so successful at covering over a multitude of sins,
but because that's what Jesus did.
When he covered over the multitude of our sins on the cross.
We cannot save a sinner from the error of their ways
without pointing them to Jesus.
There's a whole world out there that is dying and they don't even know it.
But there is a Jesus
who saves them from them.
And we are the ones who have been commissioned,
commanded by Jesus
to go and share some very good news with them.
That there's life for them.
The Bible commands us to speak the truth
in love.
In other words, truth and love go hand in hand.
You can't have one without the other.
You can't have truth without love.
You can't have love without truth.
And God commands us to,
to share the love of Jesus so that others might find the truth of forgiveness.
The truth of freedom.
The truth of life and Heaven.
And all the wonderful things that God offers only through Jesus.
So I'd like to ask for your help
as a way to better equip our community of believers here.
What are some ways that you found helpful to share the love of Jesus with others?
It could be an attitude.
It could be an action.
It could be specific words that you use.
But if you have specific ways that,
that you share Jesus with others,
that you point people to the love of God that we see so clearly at the cross of Jesus.
As a way to open the door to wonderful opportunities
to talk about the truth of his Word,
please share them with the group
to make all of us stronger and better equipped
to go out into the world as witnesses
of the only truth
that sets us free.
See you tomorrow.