Our warped definition of Christianity is disastrous

What, and how, we think is important; very important.  What we believe in, and what we believe about important topics and issues profoundly shapes who we are.  But there is more to it than what and how we think.  It is absolutely true that an individual cannot be a Christian if they do not believe in Jesus Christ, in other words, they believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that he lived, died, and was raised to new life in order to set us free from sin (enslavement to, and debt because of).  {See John 3:16 as an example of this explained in one sentence}  Belief is not the end of the road.  Belief has to be accompanied by repentance {a turning away from sinful behavior} and has to lead to righteous living {by the power of the Holy Spirit} in order for belief to be effective.  In order for it to be real.  A belief in Jesus which does not change the trajectory of a person's life, in ways both small and great, is meaningless.  Herein lies the problem.  Consider the two passages of Scripture below which together illustrate the absolute necessity of "fruit" (ethical behavior) and give nine prime examples of what it looks like:

Matthew 7:16-20 New International Version (NIV)
16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Galatians 5:22-24 New International Version (NIV)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

To say, "I am a Christian" is not enough.  To have a particular political viewpoint is not enough (and often misleading).  To know the key words one should say in order to "sound like a Christian" is not enough.  To attend a church at Christmas and Easter, or even more often, is not enough.  To own a Bible, or even read it, is not enough.  To give money to Christian charities, or the Church itself, is not enough.  A person could have all of those things, and outwardly look the part, but without love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; they would have nothing. {See 1 Corinthians 11}  Don't get me wrong, someone who goes to church, reads a Bible, and gives money to Christian charities is better off than someone who doesn't; but only if those factors eventually lead to the radical change of mind and heart that gives evidence to the presence of the Holy Spirit and results in the outflow from that person's life of the fruit of the Spirit.  If a person remains "associated with" Christianity, but never moves forward, they will actually be worse off on the Day of Judgment for having known better without acting.  {See Hebrews 6:7-8}

The Church in America, in particular, has a self-identification problem.  We've allowed cultural distinctions and political viewpoints to more strongly define our view of what Christianity is than righteous living.  We've minimized the immorality that doesn't bother us, pride, lust, and greed in particular, and allowed ourselves to accept the delusion that anyone who looks the part and is on "our side" in the Culture War is Christian enough.  The Word of God says otherwise.  We will be known by God by our fruit, judged as genuine believers in Jesus, or not, by it. 

Those who mimic the look of being a Christian, without the heart-motivated acts of righteousness to go with it, are either self-deluded or charlatans, either a danger to themselves or to the church as a whole.  As long as we accept those who are "like us" as being good enough because we view Christianity as cultural/political feud to be won, rather than a call to self-sacrificially serve the Kingdom of God that must be obeyed, we will continue to warp Christianity into something which is was never intended to be, with disastrous consequences.

Sermon Video: "Be merciful" - Luke 6:32-36

As Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount continues, Jesus further explains the command to "love your enemies" and "do to others" that proceeded this passage by raising the bar of ethical conduct far beyond a simple return of love for love and good for good.  As followers of Jesus, we must love those who do not love us, do good to those who have done no good thing for us, and give to those from whom we expect nothing in return.  Why the drastic moral upgrade beyond basic human tribal behavior?  Because our Heavenly Father has demonstrated that same level of love through his mercy to the world, us in particular.  As we take up our own cross to follow Jesus, we imitate the mercy of Christ and accept the risk that our efforts will be spurned or taken advantage of; the reward is great, to be known, here and now as a child of God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

The progression of our faith - II Peter 1:5-7

In our Bible study today we talked about the list that Peter wrote when he was talking about our efforts to "participate in the divine nature" through God's power and our knowledge of his Son, and ultimately to "escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." (vs. 4)  That sounds great, but how are we to make any progress from the fallen state which God saved us from through Christ to the elevated state that God has promised we will one day attain through his power?  Where do we begin such a journey?
There are several lists of virtues in the New Testament whose order would not seem to be overly significant.  The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, for example, are not listed in any ascending or descending order.  Here, however, in II Peter, the list is set up from the beginning of our journey, faith, to its eventual conclusion, love.  The journey must begin with faith.  We cannot approach God any other way because of our sinful rebellion against his holiness. 
Once someone becomes a believers in Jesus Christ, a Christian, where do they begin in the process of becoming Christ-like?  The first step is goodness; begin by doing that which is kind, generous, merciful, etc. and let your new found faith put down roots.  The next step is knowledge.  One needs to learn WHEN to do this or that, HOW to do it, and WHY.  Our motives become significant as well as our wisdom as we learn the difference between absolute truth and the freedom that we have in Christ to judge in debatable matters.  The attainment of knowledge leads to the realization that self-control is necessary as well.  Once we learn the depth of what it takes to act in goodness, we need to learn to control ourselves so that our progress is forward (and not 3 steps forward, 2 steps back) and doesn't self-destruct in fits of anger, jealousy, pride, anxiety, or fear.  Self-control is one of the hardest things to learn for any Christian, a difficult step to move beyond.  How can we possibly continue to have self-control when life throws curve balls at us?  Now we need perseverance.  We need the ability to do the right thing, in wisdom and self-control even when the circumstances of life are working against us.
When we have come this far, we can begin to glimpse the mind and heart of God, we can begin to understand what godliness is all about.  Why would God send his Son to die for our sins, why would God create us in the first place?  Understanding God's motives helps us to live in imitation of our savior.  It is only now, when we have made so much progress in fixing our own flaws (through the Holy Spirit's power and God's patience with us) that we can understand why we should care about other people.  Brotherly love costs us something.  It is easy to love those who love you back, but we are called to a higher standard.  We must show kindness to strangers, to those who can do nothing to repay us, and we must show kindness to our families, to those with whom we have a history.  And now, at the end of the list comes the word that our world places at the beginning: love.  We don't know what love really is in our culture.  We use love when we mean lust, we use love when we mean "a mutually beneficial arrangement", and we use love when we intend to toss it away when it now longer serves our purpose.  The Christian knows love because Christ died for our sins while we were still in rebellion against God.  The love at the top of Peter's list is a self-sacrificial love that puts others first at great cost to itself.  That this love is far removed when the kind people talk about every day is no surprise to any who observe the shallow and self-centered "love" that fails time and time again to stand in the face of adversity. 
How does the Christian advance in his or her faith and reach toward being like Christ?  By adding to faith with goodness, then knowledge, and then self-control, and perseverance, and godliness, then brotherly kindness, and finally love.