This Sunday is part two of a message I shared last week redefining Good Religion. Sunday we will look at a very familiar story from Luke 10, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The context of this parable is Jesus and an expert of the Jewish law are discussing how a person can inherit eternal life. Another way to say that is, what is a good religion? Jesus and the man agree that good religion is loving God and loving your neighbor. But the expert of the law wants to justify himself and what has been his typical religious practice of neighboring, so he asks the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds by sharing the parable of the Good Samaritan. I’m assuming we are all familiar with the account. Jesus closes the discussion by asking the expert a different question. A better question. The more important question: “Who was the neighbor to the man who fell to the hands of robbers?” Jesus masterfully connects Good Religion first, to love for God, which, if sincere, will be accompanied by a sacrificial love for others.
It is easy to think of religion as something we do in a sanctuary building or on a mountain top experience. Jesus teaches us that true religion is as practical as meeting the needs of others who can never repay our kindnesses. That is a true neighbor! Join me this Sunday for part two of Good Religion.

“Good Religion” in many ways seems to be an oxymoron. Can religion be good? I know that seems like a strange comment coming from a Baptist preacher who has devoted his life in service to a religious organization. To be honest, I’ve always struggled with the term religion and have bristled when people have referred to me as a religious person. Why is that? There are two reasons why I think I hold that position to the term “religion.” First, Jesus himself condemned religion. Jesus saw religion as a bad attempt to come to God on our terms and was more about self-promotion than the glory of God. Secondly, I’ve seen too many people hurt by overly religious people. The crusades are a vivid example from world history, but I’ve also personally seen wounds inflicted on others through religious judgement and because of self-promotion. For the culture we are trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the concept of religion is a barrier for them to come to Christ. Can religion be good?
This Sunday we are going to visit the book of Nehemiah where we will see the aftermath of religion gone bad and how good religion is reestablished. The man Nehemiah began his life in a position of service to others. Through his faithful service God saw qualities in his life that God tapped into to lead the nation toward a good religion. As he led the effort to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem Nehemiah faced opposition, to which he responded by giving each family and groups of families the responsibility to not only build but to defend the area closest to them. In these developments we see the dynamics of good religion. Nehemiah’s rallying cry was, “As I follow God, follow me and invite others to follow you in obedience to the Lord.”
Good religion is not complicated – it’s simple. Good religion is not top down – it’s as grass roots as it gets. Good religion can’t be compared to secular organizations – it must be understood as a spiritual organism. Good religion is not trapped in the confines of tradition – it organically adapts to relate the Gospel to the culture the church exists in. Nehemiah was a spiritually minded leader who saw the necessity of enabling other spiritually minded leaders of people. The church today must do the same thing. My message title, “Good religion needs someone to follow,” implies that same truth. The focus of our ministry is to help all people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, and in the process, spiritually minded. It takes spiritually minded leaders to do this at every level of the ministry. This Sunday, ask God to reveal to you a spiritually minded person that you could gravitate toward – a person that could help you and others grow in Christ-likeness. As you the body do this, those who God desires to lead our church to practice Good Religion will become self-evident. Good Religion Needs Someone to Follow.

Sunday we wrap up our Summer Sermon Series, The Journey of Faith, with the 15th message of the series: Jesus – The Object of Our Faith. From Hebrews 11 we have looked into the lives of people commended for their faith. These were less than perfect people, often with a small faith.
What I hope we have learned through this amazing chapter is that the most important thing in the Journey of Faith is not the person demonstrating the faith (us), which can often have small or weak faith, but the most important thing is the object of our faith, which must be Jesus.
The teaching from Hebrews 11 continues into Chapter 12:1-3 where we see this clearly. The Hebrew’s writer calls us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” A little bit of faith in a big God is an awesome thing. Join me this Sunday for the conclusion to our summer series.

The Journey of Faith in Hebrews 11 wraps up by giving a cursory mention to 6 more people by name and then alludes to several other unnamed heroes of faith. I think it’s fair to ask how these people ended up being included in Hebrews 11 because they all have what I would call an imperfect faith. But if you’re like me, you can relate to people who struggle with their faith because we understand how imperfect we all are, including our faith.
We often talk about people having a lot of faith, but I would suggest that is a wrong way to think about faith. The scriptural dynamics of faith are summed up in Matthew 17:20 “. . .Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Small faith can do great things when the object of that faith is in our BIG God. Likewise, the faith of the people in the closing verses of Hebrews 11, as imperfect as it was, was placed in the God of heaven and resulted in God doing great things.
The faith equation has to work like this: I can do nothing, but I believe God can do everything. Sometimes our frailties will result in a wavering faith, but as long as that faith comes back to the belief that God, as the object of our faith, can do anything, God will keep his promises. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see. This week we will see people that struggled with an imperfect faith in a perfect God who is working in our lives to accomplish the completion of our faith in Christ.

It is easy to be defined by the worst thing you have ever done in your life. I’m sure we are all familiar with the “Coldplay kiss Cam” incident where two people, married to two different people, were caught in a romantic pose on a live kiss Cam at a Coldplay concert. Unfortunately, those two people will be defined for a very long time, if not the rest of their lives, for that very public indiscretion. Society through the media and social media may peg people with a certain identity, but that is not what the Gospel does. The Gospel provides a way to be free from past indiscretions and find a new identity through our relationship with Christ.
On the Journey of Faith this week we look at Hebrews 11:31 and the person of Rahab. Rahab is identified in Scripture as a prostitute, but the fact that she is included in the Hall of Fame of Faith in Hebrews 11 means that she overcame that identity to be known as a person commended for her faith. Rahab is an example for us that no matter how colorful our past may be, through faith we can have a better Second Act. If you have been held captive by something from your past, know that it is God’s desire to provide a better future for you. Your life does not have to be defined by the worst thing you ever did, but through faith in the Gospel of Christ, God will write a second act to your life that glorifies him. Join me this Sunday to see how God writes a better second act for your life.

It is good to be back home after a quick trip to South Asia. Thank you for sending me and praying for me while I was away. I thank God that my travel and accommodations went smoothly and, by God’s guidance, I was able to accomplish all of what I wanted to do, as well as some additional opportunities.

This Sunday we continue on the Journey of Faith by looking at just one verse from Hebrews 11 – verse 30, on the life of Joshua. If you read that verse you will notice there is no mention of Joshua, so why am I preaching on him? Even though he is not mentioned, the reason the people of Israel were victorious over Jericho was because they followed a leader who lived out genuine faith and challenged them to live by faith. That leader was Joshua.
Joshua had some big shoes to fill, Moses. Joseph was not like Moses, but he didn’t let that deter him from influencing the lives of others to accomplish great things in God’s name. Joshua is one of the best examples in all of ancient leadership literature that properly motivates others to do what they otherwise would not do. As you read this, you may be thinking, “This is all fine, but I’m not a leader.” You may not have a leadership title or position, but I guarantee you that each of us have people we influence, and Joshua is a great role model of giving faith inspired influence on others; our children, grandchildren, neighbors and younger believers in the church. Joshua lived his life in a way that prepared him, no matter the circumstances, to be a godly influence on other people. Join me this Sunday as we look into the life of Joseph to help us be a godly influence on other people.

Our Journey of Faith series takes an interesting turn on the path this week as we look into the life of Moses. We need to be reminded that the book of Hebrews is written to a group of Christians facing opposition and even persecution for their faith in Christ. Moses, and his parents are commended for their faith in times of opposition, and even though it was centuries before the life of Christ, Moses looked to the promised Messiah in faith. It was that faith in the promise of God that caused Moses to despise all the things he could have had from living in the Egyptian palace, seeing a greater value in what God was offering him.

We will do everything in life motivated by one of two things: Love or Fear. The love that believers in God show is an expression of their faith in God to provide in the now, and to fulfil the future promises he makes to us. In Exodus 1 & 2 we see the love for God that the enslaved Israelites had and that Moses himself had, which led them to a vibrant and bold faith in God to do only what God can do. While they had a lot of reasons to live with fear, they chose not to because they loved God and trusted him to meet their needs. That is the kind of faith we all need to have as we walk life’s journey. Join me this Sunday as we see Faith that Dispels Fear.

This Sunday the Journey of Faith takes us to the life of Joseph, and in particular the concluding comments on his life in Genesis 50. Hebrews 11 devotes only one verse, Verse 22, to the rather lengthy record of his life in the book of Genesis, and that one verse references the last two things that are said about him. Joseph stands alone in the account of the patriarchs of Israel in that he lived his entire life above reproach. Joseph is actually considered by many to be a type of Jesus in the Old Testament because he is one of the few people that nothing negative is recorded about him. Joseph was not perfect like Christ but there are many comparisons between his life and the life of Jesus in the New Testament.
Joseph lived with what I would call a growing faith in that he always lived with faith, but we see that faith grow tremendously throughout the ups and downs of his life. What was Joseph’s secret to experiencing a growing faith? It is really quite simple: Joseph knew what his place was in relation to the place of God in his life. Join me this Sunday as we trace some of the places where we see Joseph’s faith grow and perhaps see the way for our faith to grow through the ups and downs of our lives.

Sometimes life can be exhausting! Life has so many demands and expectations to be met that sometimes there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do them all. Part of the reason this happens to us is because we seek the meaning and significance of life in those things that we can do in our own strength. When we do that, we will be exhausted not only physically but we will become jaded spiritually. The Journey of Faith will bring us true rest. First rest spiritually, which will lead us to finding rest in all the other areas of life.
This week we look at the life of Jacob who was commended for his faith, even though he lived a good portion of his life in self-sufficiency and seeking significance apart from God. Jacob is another example of, “it’s not how you start, but how you finish that matters.” Hebrews 11:21 reminds us that toward the end of his life, Jacob rested on his staff and worshiped God. That means he learned to rest on God to provide, stopping his self-efforts and finding his significance in God alone. Join me this Sunday as we see how the journey of faith can bring you true rest.

As we continue through the Hall of Fame of Faith this Sunday, we are looking at the life of Isaac, the son of Abraham and father of Jacob. Isaac is one of those people that flies under the radar. There is not a lot written about him compared to others in the Hall of Fame and he seems like an inconsequential figure, until you really start to look at his life.
The writer of Hebrews devotes one short sentence to Isaac that commends him for blessing his two sons for their future. Isaac was not a passive person, nor was his life inconsequential. Isaac was a strong-willed person who resisted God in the pursuit for the things he really wanted in life – things that were contrary to God’s revealed will. At the end of his life Isaac finally repented of his determined rebellion and acted in faith. Isaac is a classic example of “it’s not about how you start in life, it’s about how you finish.” While I don’t recommend waiting until the end to surrender to God’s revealed will (it caused a lot of problems for Isaac), it is never too late to make a fresh start with God. In an act of faith, repent to trust God in a deeper way that leads to your growth. Join me this Sunday as we gain valuable life lessons from Isaac.