A Few More Questions

Our question for this last Sunday was “Did Jesus really do what He said He did?” I suggested that the question is not as much about our ability to trust in the reliability or historicity of Jesus and the gospels. It is more about our cynicism that sees Jesus through the lens of what others have said He said or how often we attach something to the way of Jesus or even what the church has done historically that does not seem to line up with the way of Jesus.

At the end of our time on Sunday we took some questions, which is always a lot of fun for me and I hope you all are enjoying it as well. There were a few questions left over and I wanted to reply to two of them.

First of all, someone asked where my red shoe laces are that I used to wear with my retro Converse. This is a very deep question with some serious ramifications. Two reasons . . . 1) I did receive a fair amount of razzing for my shoe laces and I won’t name names (Stacy, Lauren, Cory, etc.) and 2) It is summer and I will wear my $3 Old Navy sandals until sometime in October/November.

The second question is this, “How do we live as followers of Jesus in a world that follows materialism, money, things . . . ?” This is simply a fabulous question. There are a couple of thoughts I would throw out for us to think about. One is that the gospel is about the redemption of all things (Col. 1). When we come to follow Jesus and experience the forgiveness of God and when we submit to the leadership of Jesus in our lives, we begin to reorient our lives around the values of the kingdom of God – grace, forgiveness, justice, mercy, hope, generosity, etc. In other words, money and things are not the issue as much as what we worship.
 
My second thought is much more practical and is from the Acts 2.42 idea from Sunday night. You/I/we need people in our lives who will help us study the teachings of Jesus and who will pray with us and eat with us and do life with us so that we can talk about who really is the king of our lives – Jesus or ______???

Keep the conversation going!

Brad Jackson serves as the Pastor of The Table

• 's blog