Imagining a World Transformed by Christ's Love

We all do our best during the Christmas season to engage the imagination of our children. But the interesting thing is, for us adults, for us grownups, I think it's easy for us to forget. In fact, I think we're quick to forget that everything surrounding the first Christmas, everything surrounding the birth of Jesus was, was literally unimaginable. No one was looking forward to. No one was thinking it was gonna happen. No one was praying for her. Nobody was wishing for a Virgin Galilee peasant girl to give birth to a son. [00:08:00]

And no one would imagine that her son would become such a threat to the temple and ultimately a threat to the Roman Empire, at least regionally, that he'd be arrested, crucified, and buried. And seriously, no one, not even his closest followers, not even his mother imagined that he would be raised from the dead or that his movement would actually outlast the temple in the empire, the, the, and that the empire that crucified him. [00:02:13]

We don't have to imagine any of that because here we are. We are here because of all of that. And regardless of what you believe about the different parts of the story, what's undeniable is here we are and the church is all over the world, small and large and different languages and different traditions and different customs. But during this season, men and women all over the world since that time have worshiped and recognized Jesus as the son of God, a God who came to earth to live among us, to show us the way forward. [00:03:31]

He said, I speaking of himself, he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. And nobody, no one of any generation, no one comes to the Father speaking of God the Father. No one comes to the Father except through me who would say such a thing. Of course, there are many things that Jesus said that when you read him, you're like, who would say such a thing? In fact, it's one of the reasons that his followers eventually abandoned him. [00:05:16]

Imagine a world, imagine your world. Imagine our world where people are skeptical of what we believe that a man was raised from the dead, who was sent from God to illustrate God, to be God, to be worshiped as a God. Imagine a world, our world, your world, where people rightly so are skeptical of some of the things we believe, but are amazed at how well we treat. Talk about care for support and show up for one another. [00:08:00]

Imagine a world where people outside of our faith tradition who are skeptical of what we believe are anxious to hire us, work for us, live next door to us, marry their sons and daughters off to us because we're Christians, because of our predictable and our extraordinary character, because of our work ethic, because of our self-control, because of our reliability, because of because of our honesty. [00:09:44]

Imagine a world where Christians embraced the way of Christ, the way of Jesus, the ways of Jesus, the posture and the tone and the humility of Jesus. A world where it was evident that we were as committed to behaving correctly as we are believing correctly. Maybe it's just me, is that too much for us to imagine, especially at Christmas when we celebrate God became one of us, to show us the way forward, the way to live, the way to be better people, to create a better world. [00:11:09]

Once upon a time, not the beginning of a fairytale, the beginning of history, once upon a time, the others first culture of the church stood in sharp contrast to the me first bite and devour culture that the church was birthed in. Where, where might determine what was right, where women were considered property, where children were disposable and had no value and no honor. They didn't even name children sometimes until later to make sure they were the children that they ultimately wanted to have. [00:13:25]

And somehow that took hold once upon a time there were communities of Jesus followers who literally, and this is our problem, because we look at it, it's too much, it demands too much. There's some way to kind of navigate away from that or exegete that away. Surely we can't take that literally, surely just Jesus didn't mean that. Surely if we actually did this stuff, you know, the, it just, the world wouldn't work. Our lives wouldn't work. [00:17:58]

And the church grew and grew and grew. And what became started off as suspicious, became curious. And then it was like an avalanche. People from every segment of life flocked to the eccle of Jesus. Again, not primarily because of what Christians believed, but because of the way, but they lived their lives. Now. They had a little bit of an advantage. They had mostly disadvantages. In fact, it was almost, it was 99% disadvantage. [00:19:41]

And this is why we've talked about it before. This is why the early followers of Jesus were eventually dubbed or called or branded Christian. It, it was a slur. It wasn't, it wasn't a word that the Jesus followers adopted for themselves. This is what they were called by the outside world. And it was 100% a political term. It was not a religious term. Christian was actually Latin political terminology. A follower of Caesar was a ani. [00:32:21]

Imagine a world where believers chose to live as followers every single day, followers of the way, the way and the ways of Jesus who came not to be served, but to serve, give his life for you. For me, a ransom for many. The apostle Paul who thought all of this was nonsense. Are you kidding me? This is nonsense. This is a cult. It's a sect. It's it's deluding Judaism. It's deluding the ways of the our forefathers. [00:33:21]