The Town

When we fail to realize that every single human being has been created in the image of God, we will ruin everything. James confronts the church regarding favoritism. He uses the example of the rich receiving preference over the poor. This example has many applications. A theme we will take a look at is the theology of Imago Dei. We are all created in the image of God. Every human being ought to be treated as such.

We have all been there. We are moved by the preaching, the music, and the fellowship. But when Monday comes, we can barely remember why we went to church outside of the fact that we are creatures of habit. When worship and our daily lives are not connected, we will ruin everything.

If men and women cannot be quick to listen, slow to speak and instead continually seethe in anger, they will ruin everything. Every Sunday, there is an epidemic across the world—hundreds of thousands of people are falling asleep in pews. But what is even worse is that there are millions whose eyes have been opened who have also fallen asleep in their faith. Many Christians are not inclined to hear God's Word on a Sunday morning. How will they then give a rip throughout the week?

If men and women cannot be broken before God and each other, they will ruin everything. There are times in our lives when God doesn't seem so good. James admits as much. But he tells us not to be deceived about God's character. You can sense James' pastoral nature when he encourages the church to not fall into the deception of believing that God is not good.

The devil certainly did not make you do it. If men and women are unwilling to own up to their sin, they will ruin everything. Whatever it is that you see in this combat zone you can be certain that the Devil probably doesn't even know your name. When you sin, it is because you made you do it. In this passage, you will be challenged to examine the various temptations in your life that you are continually playing with rather than putting to death. We will also see that we are not powerless; rather, we have been made powerful through Jesus Christ to walk away from temptation.

If the men and women aren't maturing in their faith, they will ruin everything. We are unwise. The generation that walks the earth today is lacking in wisdom and maturity. Statistics show that men are no longer the spiritual heads of their households but can school their buddies in a mean game of Modern Warfare. They know incredible button combinations on their Xbox controllers and computer keyboards. They are the leader of their online guild. For these men, the word, "halo" refers to a game to be played, not something you earn on a cloud in heaven.

James doesn't make it easy on us. If the church is unwilling to "count it all joy" it will fail. The first confrontation is to see how deep our joy goes. Church people love to talk about joy--until their lives are wrecked. Joy becomes an elusive concept when the wrecking ball smashes into the side of our American dreams.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for those 40 days in between the time Jesus rose from the grave and his ascension? We only have a few snippets of the euphoria that surrounded the followers of Jesus. Acts 1 gives us some insight as to their mindset. The Disciples believed that Jesus was going to usher in the fully realized Kingdom of God. There would be no more death, no more pain, and no more oppression. But in the middle of the euphoria and joy, Jesus says a couple of final words and begins to rise up into heaven. The disciples were very confused. They just stood there staring into heaven. It took two angels dressed in white to get everyone moving again! The writings of the New Testament demonstrate to us that the earliest Christians lived in expectancy. They really believed that Jesus would return at any moment. Christians are called to live as if Jesus will return at any moment. If we lived like this we could change the world! We must be living in expectancy because when Jesus returns he will m

Almost every single Jesus movie ever made will cause you to doubt how a man like the one portrayed on the screen could rule the universe. It is true that Jesus was poor, a peasant, and from a backwater part of the Roman Empire. However, he probably didn't have long hair and never wore blush on his cheeks. He left the halo in heaven and worked like a blue collar man. Even so, Jesus is no longer the peasant man. He is seated at the right hand of God, ruling the universe. Have you ever wondered what Jesus is doing right now? He gives us some ideas throughout the Bible. Jesus reigns from heaven, over all, by making intercession, while preparing a place for God's people, and while he is with us as we tell the world about him.

David was an adulterous murderer. Moses was a coward at one point. Solomon had no self control. Adam brought the whole ship down. Eli couldn't keep control of his sons. Aaron built idols. Balaam talked to donkeys. Elijah played hide and seek. It doesn't take long to see that all of the prophets, priests and kings of the Old Testament were not Messiah-ready. That is because they were only a type of the one who was to come. Jesus was the perfect prophet, priest, and king. He fulfilled all of these roles as the fulfillment of the Covenant promises that God had made throughout the Old Testament.

David was an adulterous murderer. Moses was a coward at one point. Solomon had no self control. Adam brought the whole ship down. Eli couldn't keep control of his sons. Aaron built idols. Balaam talked to donkeys. Elijah played hide and seek. It doesn't take long to see that all of the prophets, priests and kings of the Old Testament were not Messiah-ready. That is because they were only a type of the one who was to come. Jesus was the perfect prophet, priest, and king. He fulfilled all of these roles as the fulfillment of the Covenant promises that God had made throughout the Old Testament.

Jesus is not dead. He has risen from the grave by his own power. He crushed sin and death. The resurrection proved that Jesus was indeed who he claimed to be. In the resurrection we see the dual nature of Christ very clearly. His body, like any other body, was buried in a tomb and was laid there without life. Jesus was fully dead. But God did not stay in the grave. He brought life back to his body with as much ease as when he created all things. Paul says that we are to be pitied above all others if Jesus did not defeat the grave. There is no Christianity if there is no resurrection. Jesus rose to prove he was God, to rule all heaven and earth, to foreshadow our resurrection, and to cause us to live in the power of the resurrection.

Jesus did not lord his omnipotence over us. As we drove nails into his hands he forgave us. As our sin was placed on his back he paid the ransom. He was made a sin-offering for his enemies and we were his enemies. Without the cross there is no Christianity. Isn't it interesting that the word "crux" comes from crucifixion? The Cross really is the centerpiece of what we believe and who Jesus is. Jesus died to reveal God's justice and absorb His wrath, as the final sacrifice, for our justification, to redeem us from the curse of the law, to remove sin, to bring reconciliation, and to defeat Satan.

The virgin birth is crucial to the early church confessional statements. It is a centerpiece of the Gospel story. It was foretold by a prophet some 700 years before the incarnation. It's vital to who Jesus is. It was necessary, it is central to the Christian faith, it was expected, and it means God came to earth.

God did not leave mankind in sin and misery even after they directly disobeyed him in the Garden of Eden. He immediately stepped into history and promised us a Redeemer who would crush Satan's head. In order for this to happen, a man, a second Adam, would have to do what the first Adam was unable to do. No man could keep God's law once sin entered the world. So God became man. Jesus did not cease to be God. He wasn't a man who became god-like. He wasn't an apparition. He was a real man, born of a real woman with a real genealogy. Jesus had two natures, God and man, in one person without any confusion, composition, or conversion. He laid aside some of his divine attributes only to be used at the direction of the Holy Spirit. He took on flesh, experienced all that we experience, and became one of us—only perfect. By becoming man, the Son of God became the perfect atoning sacrifice for our sins. As the God-man, he satisfied divine justice on the cross. Jesus was God dwelling among humans as a human.

There is no other person like Jesus Christ. A man who was God. A man who claimed to be God. A God-man who backed up his claims by defeating death and rising from the grave on his own authority and power. No other man has changed the world like Jesus. He really is the God who became man.This is the extraordinary claim of Christianity. This is the beginning of our journey as we examine the claims of Jesus. The crux of Christianity is the claims and actions of Jesus Christ. The entire church ought to shut its doors if any one of Jesus' claims can be proved false. We worship Jesus as God. We call him God. We trust in him as God. He is the crux of Christianity.

The argument goes something like this: if God is all powerful and good and loving, how come he allows people to suffer, evil dictators to rule, tragic deaths, disease, orphans, and other horrible catastrophes? Couldn't he just stop the evil? How can there be an all powerful God and evil existing in the same universe. It is easy to theologize. Indeed, good theology will be like a healing balm in the midst of intense grief. But we cannot assume to have all of the answers. The bottom line is that God is sovereign and we are not sovereign. Because only one of us is sovereign only one of us will have all of the answers. Since no man is sovereign, no man can answer some of these divine mysteries. We have to look to the Scriptures to see what answers God has given us and then decide whether or not we want to believe and trust those answers.

So why do we need to understand what election and predestination is? Does it really matter? The simple answer is that the Bible refers to predestination and so it matters. In the English Standard Version of the Bible, the word predestined appears in Romans chapter 8. In both verses 28 and 29, the Apostle Paul talks about how God has predestined us to be conformed to His Son. Paul also talks about predestination in Ephesians chapter 1. In both verses 5 and 11, Paul uses the word predestined to talk about God's choosing of his people to be adopted sons. Since it is discussed by the words of the Bible, we should likewise discuss the topic. This then puts the responsibility on us to understand what it is and how it applies to our lives and theology (our understanding of God).

One of the greatest prayers offered to us in the gospels is Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17. Here, we read that Christ asks that his disciples, and all those who would come to believe in him, would be one! The appeal for Christian unity is a large theme of this great prayer offered to the Father from His Son. Christ goes on to ask that we might be one, even as He and the Father are one—that is, that the church might display the same type of unity that the Son and Father display in the Trinity. We know that the prayers of Jesus Christ are efficacious (producing the desired effect) and that they are powerful! Yet as we look across the landscape of Christianity, we see, at least in its visible form, more division, fragmentation and more separation than at any other time in its history. Some recent statistics claim that the number of distinct Protestant denominations in America alone well over 2,000. This immediately raises a host of questions, including: "If Christ is the only way, why so many denominatio