Sermon Notes  12/31/23

1.       Wanting to give this congregation three gifts for the new year.

a.       Comes from my personal journey of taking Jesus more seriously.

b.       Looking at Jesus as a sincere person

c.       Looking at Jesus as a person with REAL beliefs

2.       I want to believe what Jesus believes.

a.       Following Jesus means I want to love what Jesus loves and do what Jesus does… but that requires me to believe what Jesus believes.

b.       If I am willing to adopt Jesus’ beliefs as my own, I need to act as if he is telling me the truth, and as if he really knows what he is talking about.

c.       If Jesus knows what he is talking about, and if he is telling me the truth… then I only have one thing left to do…

3.       I want to Believe Jesus

a.       Can we believe in Jesus if we don’t simply believe him?

b.       Some of the things that Jesus says are hard… but if I believe he is telling the truth, then that helps me to see his way as true reality, and my way as a faulty imitation.

c.       The truth is… Jesus’ teachings demand that I believe him (Banquet parable)

d.       But how can one believe what Jesus says?

4.       “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”      - Mark 1:15

a.       Jesus believes that the kingdom is here and now… it is at hand

                                    i.    This means we cannot ignore it… or His teachings about it. (Occupation)

b.      The kingdom is God’s way of living… of believing

                                     i.      That means that we don’t just know about it… we live it out

c.       The majority of Jesus’ teachings are not about repenting of sins… but of repenting of belief systems… of mindsets.

                                       i.      No one gets into the kingdom without a few belief systems dying along the way.

5.       The Kingdom will NEVER be good news to us… unless we repent. 

a.       We will reject this kingdom… unless we repent of the old one.

Read final thoughts.

If we are going to really take Jesus seriously… then we must take his words seriously. We must at least consider that he is more than a religious textbook to be learned, tested on, and disregarded. We must see Jesus as the leader of a belief system. The leader of OUR belief system. We must see Jesus’ words as a worldview to be adopted, and not the author of a few teachings to be ignored. We cannot ignore these words, and pretend to love the man who spoke them. If we do, then we will miss out on the meaningful life Christ intends... now and for eternity. For no one would ever enter the kingdom of God unless they believe it is a good one. And no one will believe that the kingdom of God is a good kingdom unless they repent of their own old and broken kingdom. We must repent… not so that we can earn Jesus… so that we can believe Jesus. Repenting of sins is good as far as it goes… but repenting of belief systems is much more difficult… and long lasting. This year, may we believe Jesus, and repent of our controlling nature that ill only “love our neighbor as ourselves” if our neighbor acts the same way we would act. This year may we believe Jesus, and repent of our anger, so that the words “forgive seventy times seven” becomes a joyful act of freedom, as opposed to a silly and overly simple suggestion. This year may we believe Jesus, and repent of our addiction to anxiety, so that instead of rejecting Jesus’ plea to “worry not”, we can embrace his trusting perspective as our own, and be like the sparrows that he feeds. The examples are endless, because essentially each of Jesus’ teachings requires us to repent, to trust, and to believe, in order to enjoy the good news of the kingdom. Practically everything Jesus said boils down to “HEY! God is here, things are changing. And you will miss this wonderful Kingdom, unless you turn around from your old Kingdom first. So turn! Quick! I want this news to be good to you!”

And to each of you who looks at your life and thinks that because you do not have addictions, or tragedies, or flaws or traumas, or crippling shame to be wiped away… you need to look deeper.

We each have our own perspective which kicks God out and keeps us on the throne of our lives. We all have an addiction to a way of thinking that puts us first and God last. The thing about addictions is that we are powerless to break them without God’s help… and God only works with helpless people. No more should we say “Well this is all well and good for you, but I don’t have problems… I am just normal.” No… everyone repents, everyone has a core belief that must die… so that they can find a new core belief that relies ON Jesus.

Remember… Jesus died, because we ALL die. In fact… he claimed that none of us were really alive anyway. He rose again, so that we can ALL rise again. You have dead beliefs inside of you… you really do, and Jesus wants to destroy them on his cross and bury them in his tomb, so that you, clothed in His righteousness, can rise again, believing in His kingdom, instead of your own.

So what is your belief… what conviction do you have that contradicts Jesus? Let’s pray for this now.