So I just got done listening to a
sermon podcast that Francis Chan preached at Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA. The sermon was titled "Making Sense of Your Life". The basic point of the sermon was: When you accepted Christ as your own did you make the life change or are you still sitting on the sidelines. Francis talked about a couple of mission trips he has been on and talked about how he went on them not because he is strong but because he is weak. He talked about going to India and China where christians in both places deal with persecution everyday. He talked about story after story of lives being lost or torn apart for the sake of Christ.
What struck me was how the people in China laughed when Francis told them that in the USA we don't get persecuted and how we have buildings that we have church in. He said they laughed so hard and asked how we got what we do in America out of what the Bible says a church is. You know I have to agree. How DID we get the way we "do" church from what we read in the Bible? Sometimes I have to wonder if we here in America were being persecuted would we take Jesus Christ more seriously? Or if we stopped hiding in our buildings and really reached out to the lost and sick would the world take Jesus more seriously? We get so caught up in all the wrong thing that we forget what God calls us to do and be. We are called to BE the church (ie. the HANDS and FEET of Christ) not to PLAY church. I think in so many ways we have missed the mark on this one.
The sad thing is tons of people are going to hell everyday because we care more about who's at our church, the color of the carpet, the music, or being comfortable then we do about saving the lost.
