Jesus Alone: Rejecting False Gods and Embracing His Kingdom

They brought this message first to the Jews and then to the Greeks. And some received this message with gladness and others, as we talked about last week, were furious. They were furious because Paul and Barnabas shared this message of grace, this unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor of God. They said that you can be right with God. You can be God's children, not because you've lived a good life, not because you've earned it or deserved it, but simply through repentance and faith. And this sat really poorly with the people who had organized their lives around what they thought they could do to earn God's favor. [00:16:41] (47 seconds)  #GraceNotWorks

This is something that we, as people, are very prone to do. See, we try and fit Jesus into our pre-existing systems. We have some understanding of how it is that the world works, some understanding of what we need to do and how it is that we get ahead, that we win, how the world works. And so when we hear about Jesus for the first time, there's this inclination to try and take Jesus and sort of squish him into that system that we already have as best we can. [00:21:22] (37 seconds)  #JesusBeyondSystems

One of the things that we do, that we are inclined to do, is to use Jesus as a means to get to the god that we really actually want to worship. One of the most obvious places that we see this is in what is broadly called the prosperity gospel, right? Jesus came to make you healthy and rich. And if you'll just send a faith gift of $50 today, then you can begin receiving the blessings of God, right? You've heard these sorts of things before. Our being healthy becomes the ultimate goal. Being wealthy is the ultimate goal, and suffering is bad. [00:23:00] (42 seconds)  #ProsperityGospelCritique

Do you see what the ultimate goal is here? The ultimate goal isn't Jesus, but Jesus is the tool that you use to get to the ultimate goal. We use Jesus as a means to get to the god that we really actually want to worship. Being a good parent is another pretty common one. I want to be a really good parent. And so I'm going to teach my kids about Jesus so that I will be a good parent. Again, what's the goal? What's the thing that you're actually working for? Being seen and feeling like a good parent. [00:23:49] (46 seconds)  #ParentingWithPurpose

Another false god that we might be tempted to worship is achievement, the praise of others. This Christianity thing, this is something that I can be really good at. I can't be good at sports. I'm not really all that smart. But man, being a Christian, that's something I can be really good at. And people will tell me that I'm doing good at it. And I can win the praise and affirmation of other people by being a really good Christian and a really good follower of Jesus. Again, it's the praise and affirmation of people that we really want, but we're using Jesus to get there. [00:24:40] (36 seconds)  #FaithNotFame

But you're trying to take something big and shove it into your house. And a lot of times that's what we try and do with Jesus is we try and figure out how can I make Jesus fit into this life, this house that I've already built with the minimum required number of changes. But there's a problem. Jesus doesn't fit into our systems. Jesus doesn't fit into our worldviews. Jesus isn't Zeus. He isn't one God among many or even the most powerful God. He is God alone above and before and at the end of all things. [00:25:59] (41 seconds)  #JesusIsSovereign

There is no space for us to worship Jesus and Zeus or Jesus and Jupiter or Jesus and Baal. But rather, he says in Isaiah 44, thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last. And besides me, there is no God. There is no other God that we can worship alongside of him. There is no greater end that we can use him to achieve. He is the greatest end. He is the first and the last. And when we follow him, Jesus and his kingdom becomes that end that we are waiting for and that we are hoping for. [00:26:41] (43 seconds)  #SeekGodFirst

You need those things. Yeah, I need this. I need, I got to have this. But he continues. And he says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So all of those things that we think we need, those aren't actually what we need. What we need is God. What we need is to know and be known by our creator. And if we have that, then all of those other things sort themselves out eventually. But if we don't have that, we can have all of those other things and it doesn't matter. [00:28:04] (49 seconds)  #ChristOverEverything

What does it look like to live as if the God of money can't actually give us anything? What does it look like to live as if the God of success, it can't actually satisfy us? We learn to see that Jesus isn't just a tool that we use to get what we really want, but he becomes the thing that we really want. We learn to see our celebration and our sufferings both in terms of how it is that he is redeeming and restoring all things. [00:32:45] (28 seconds)  #MakeDisciples

And the pursuit of them ends only in death. And so Jesus has come to accomplish what we could not, and to save us from our failure to do so. And he invites us into his kingdom, a kingdom that operates on an entirely different wavelength, an entirely different set of rules. It is an entirely different way of being. And that is a large part of our life together as a church, is figuring out, what does this look like? How do we do this? Because each generation, each culture, each place has different challenges that they face in doing so. [00:34:01] (46 seconds)  #EmpoweredByGod