Knowing Christ in 2011

I love it when the Bible authors reduce godliness into something compact and easy to grasp like the ten commandments, the beatitudes, and the Christian graces (2 Peter 1:5-7 for those not familiar with this one).  Jesus summarized the entire law of God by saying we should love God and love people.  There is certainly a need to examine and follow the entire word of the Lord.  It's just that we so often get overwhelmed and need a focal point.  That was the purpose of today's sermon; to give us focus for the coming year. 

What God desires most is being in relationship with his people  Being in any relationship involves certain standards of behavior and proper treatment of one another.  However, thinking that one will grow closer to another simply by following a list of do's and dont's is bound to fail.  To be a better husband I must focus on knowing my wife better and allowing that knowledge to dictate my speech and actions.  To be a better father I must focus on knowing my children.  To be a better neighbor I must focus on truly knowing my neighbors.

Coming to know God is a daunting task.  He is so . . . well, BIG!  Thankfully, he took the initiative and allowed himself to be known in the person of Jesus.  Growing in our relationship to Jesus moves us from performance based religion to developing a deeper love and appreciation for our Lord.  As our love for him grows we become what the law, in itself, was powerless to create.  By focusing our attention on knowing Christ our Lord we become the reflection of our affection.

One Word for the New Year

After the sermon today someone asked me what the one word was. I made a big deal about the one word in the introduction and told the congregation that I would not reveal the one word until the conclusion. I'm not sure if the person was just checking to make sure they had it right, or if I had completely failed to communicate. In the reciprocal reading we did from 1 Corinthians 13 the final line, . . . . that we all read together, . . . . and which formally ended the sermon was, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." I guess at that point I could have said, "And so the one word for the new year is love." I could have done that but thought just ending with the verse would be sufficient. I'm going to believe that the person who asked me that question had the word love in mind and was just checking to make sure that I hadn't slipped another word in when they weren't paying attention. I'm going to believe that, and if I'm wrong then just consider this an opportunity to put your love in practice. Love the preacher even when he does not make the point of his sermon clear. Either way I think this will work out well.