All About Jesus

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Sunday’s communion talk, Thom’s sermon, and Corri’s brain.

Sunday’s communion talk was based on 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

The questions presented were, “What did Paul mean by this?” and “How does this passage relate to communion?”

How often do we get caught up in the “what” and forget about the “who” and the “why”?

As a Christian, my words and actions should be pointing people towards Jesus. Not drawing them to myself, or my particular congregation, but to Jesus. Teaching them about His love, His sacrifice, and His saving grace. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 was telling the people about Jesus and how their history pointed to Him. In Acts 5, the apostles were arrested by the Temple guards for preaching Jesus, and when released told not to speak in His name anymore. They continued on preaching the message of Jesus the Messiah. Think about Philip teaching the eunuch in Act 8. It didn’t say he taught him doctrine or rituals. He taught him about Jesus. When Paul preached in Antioch in Act 13, he told them who Jesus was and what He had done. In all of these examples, Jesus was taught, and Jesus is what the people responded to.

Two of Thom’s quotes from his sermon really stood out to me yesterday. One was, “It is our job to promote Christ. He is the main issue, not the church.” We are all a part of the body of Christ. We have Him as our head, and if we are in Him and display that, we will naturally draw others to Him. We are in Him, and He is in us. The church is a product of Jesus’s love for us. It was created by His love to show His love.

Thom also pointed out how they preached Jesus in Acts 2. Then he said, “Our practice has been to convert people to the “Church of Christ” instead of to Christ.” There again, we focus so much on the what, we forget about the who and why. We get so hung up on telling others what they aren’t doing right, we forget to actually make sure we are showing them Jesus. Romans 14:12-13, 17-19 reads, “Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God. So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall….For the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.” We aren’t supposed to spend all of our time criticizing and critiquing. We are supposed to build one another up. Look at ourselves and our actions and how they affect those around us, instead of worrying about how theirs make us feel. Turn the focus off of how you have offended me, and figure out what I can do to edify you.

I think sometimes we preach with our lips the goodness of God, His mercy and grace, but we forget to show it with our actions . We tell people that Jesus loves them, but we don’t show them, or we put conditions on it. Or maybe we tell them Jesus loves them, but our actions show that we don’t love them. And if we have Jesus in our heart, how can we not love them? For we were told 1 John 4:7-8: “Let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” We often stop there. But in the following verses, John says God showed His love by giving us Jesus. And that if we love each other God is in us. He sent His Spirit to live in us “as proof that we live in Him and He in us.”

1 John even says the false prophets will be the ones who don’t acknowledge the truth about Jesus. Nothing about rituals or traditions or dos and don’ts. They won’t preach Jesus. It all goes back to Jesus.

Y’all, that’s what it’s all about. Jesus. I can’t stress that enough. Sharing Him, and following Him, and being like Him as much as is humanly possible. The way we treat people. Everything we say, everything we do, everything we are. It’s all about Jesus.