Latest sermon from Life Between Sundays series.

A true measure of living life between Sundays is how one handles missional living and evangelism. Here is a great article discussing that theme.

Evangelism in Every “Place” « Provocations & Pantings.

How do we communicate important information through all the clutter? We have to remember that most people do not have the same passion for your product/design/information as you do.

“Writing Wednesdays” #2: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned.

How do we honor our spouse in marriage?

A great note on false hope and security in our attitudes of faith.

PERSEVERE: Having False security in Salvation….

I am teaching this Sunday at Hill Country Bible Church Southwest on the rich, young ruler and how we give up the things that are easy but hold onto things that give us a false sense of security. We rely on so much in this world and never fully trust in the security of Jesus.

If you lost everything tonight, would you still follow Jesus?

So often we take a word in our vocabulary and shrink it and misuse it until that word no longer has meaning. “Awesome” is one of those words. It is used for everything. “Lunch was awesome”, that show was awesome”, “my shoes are awesome”. Awesome means to inspire awe. How do shoes inspire awe? Now that everything can be awesome then nothing really is. It is overused and misused to the point of losing all meaning.

“Church” is another one of those words and I learned tonight how we skew the meaning. As a group of people starting a new “church” we can sometimes find our discussions going to buildings, systems, programs and other actions and things. But something happened tonight, we all realized, with great clarity, that church is a creation of Jesus, built with and by his people.

It is not as though we did not know this, but it just became crystal clear. We understand that we use facilities, systems and some programs but those are simply tools in which help and grow and mature the church. The church would still be the church without all those things. Just us gathering together makes one expression of The Church built by Jesus. We are part of something bigger. This understanding of church keeps our eyes on people and not things. It changes the way we measure success. It takes the burden away from impressing and entertaining people.

The church is people focused on people. Everything else is just a means to get there. Now that is awesome.

The church has been known for many years to be a place where the list of DON’Ts is posted. The church spends so much time telling everyone what not to do. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t dance, and so on. The job of the church is not to make sin inaccessible but instead to make Jesus accessible.

When the church tells a guy not to sleep with his girlfriend, the message seems to say, “You shouldn’t have fun.” When the church tells two men that it is wrong to be in a homosexual relationship then it seems to be judgmental. When the church tells a person not to blow money on luxury items, then it seems hypocritical. All of the “stop signs” the church posts may be well intentioned but it also stops people from seeking Jesus.

When the church is not making Jesus accessible, then it is simply moralizing people without life transformation. We do not need to “clean” people up first, but simple show the love and compassion of Jesus to others. Jesus will take care of helping people through each issue. If I had to be perfect before I met Jesus I would never have approached.

When the church is simply putting up “stop signs” to keep people away from sin, then the result is a building full of hypocrites trying to make everyone look like them. How you dress, the words you use and the way you act must all conform to their image. The Bible calls us to be conformed to the image of Jesus. Take the “stop signs” down and put up the directional arrow to Jesus. It is the only path worth following.

http://natenavarro.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/love-looks-like-a-landrover/