According to Forbes magazine, there are 946 billionaires in the world, and interestingly enough, nearly 2/3rds of them made their money from “scratch.” Hundreds of “rags to riches” stories. Stories that we Americans love, because they give us hope that we too can possibly achieve even our wildest dreams.

This time of year, there is another story circulating widely. One that is quite different than your typical “rags to riches” tale. In fact, this story is in polar opposition. This is the story of One who joyfully set aside riches in order to take on the filthy, poverty-stricken rags of humanity (Philippians 2:6-11). The story of “the One,” Jesus. Some have rightly titled it, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” It is the greatest story ever, because it’s true… and because although it’s unlike anything we’d ever expect, it speaks of everything we need, desperately.

God took on human flesh. And He did it quite strangely. Jesus… born into a lower-class Jewish family, with an earthly dad who had little respect in his own community… didn’t do anything “spectacular” for 30 years, at least according to our definitions of spectacular. He lived ridiculously simple, as a carpenter… didn’t tell anyone who He was, or what He was about to do… didn’t even try to make a Name for Himself… for 30 years.

Finally, around 30, He started “doing something.” Did some real insane miracles too. Probably more outlandish was the way He carried Himself during His ministry. He’d heal people, raise people from the dead, then say ridiculous things like “don’t tell anyone what just happened to you.” WHAT? Why would we not tell anyone?!?!

He’d kick out demons. The demons would scream like little schoolgirls, “You are the Son of God! You are the Son of God!” Jesus would reply, “Shut up. Don’t tell anyone who I am.”

He’d heal people, and thousands would flock to Him. This would be the PERFECT time to rally a movement. But, what would Jesus do when the crowds got big? Leave… Of course!

Why? Didn’t Jesus want to make massive world impact?

Why did He do it like this? I’ll tell you why. Because unlike these so-called “preachers” on television, who love money and hype, nobody could rightfully question what/Who really made Jesus passionate. Nobody looked at Jesus and said, “OH Jesus, you’re just happy because you got that new chariot.” “YEAH Jesus, you talk about joy, please… you got joy just cause you got that fancy crib to go home to.” “SURE Jesus, I could love people too if I had as much respect in society as you do.” “OK Jesus, you talk about peace… but not everyone can have an easy life like you got. You don’t know what suffering is!”

No person in history has EVER had more JOY than Jesus… No one’s ever had more PEACE than Jesus, more PATIENCE, more PASSION… more LOVE…. And He didn’t get it the way we think it comes.

Jesus came down to our level, to show us what we’ve been missing for thousands of years. Yea, we’ve been chasing after satisfaction, happiness, joy… etc… etc… But all of that comes from one thing… Connection with God, PERIOD. Even while the nails pierced His wrists and feet, He had more passion than any man had ever dreamed possible. By faith, you can have that passion, right here, right now. Because Jesus did more than show us what we’re missing, He made it all possible by taking our sin and separation from God on Himself, and defeated it!

This Christmas, let us worship this Jesus, who willingly went from riches to rags. Let us therefore also live like Him (Philippians 2:3-5), humbling ourselves so that others may come to know and love Christ more.

I’m gonna make this one short, because I really want to spend more time reading what YOU have to say!

OK, ascertaining the true meaning of Christmas is easy, right? We all know it’s about God coming to us, taking on human flesh in order to save everyone who wants to be with Him, right here, right now, and forever.

SO, are you prepared to celebrate that? When you get together with family and friends… and whoever, will the festivities of your gathering march to the heartbeat of Christ? Or will you merely have nice decorations, sweet gifts, delicious food, and great conversation?

I come from an amazing family, but even our past Christmases haven’t been Christ-centered enough. So, this year we have decided to prepare. We’re gonna prepare to take turns reading the Christmas story from the Bible, pray one-by-one, and sing a song. I’m excited…

What about you?

Let’s break it down like this… How about you respond to any or all of these questions:

1. Who do you usually spend Christmas with, and where?

2. How do you usually celebrate?

3. Does your celebration passionately get at the heart of the meaning of Christmas? If yes, how so? If not, why not?

4. What are some ways you can personally be prepared and also prepare others, including those you will get together with, to radically enjoy the reality that God came to us in order to save us?

“Church is an organism, NOT an organization.”

Take a step back… reflect on the implication of this statement… Every living organism has at least ONE thing in common… they all reproduce… or die off. They all multiply… or become extinct.

Depressingly, today very few churches in America are multiplying. I’m not talkin’ about splitting, or dividing. That is just appalling! I’m talkin’ about churches that live up to their identity as an organism and give birth to churches regularly, frequently, effectively… They give birth to churches that give birth to new churches, and so on and so forth.

Most churches in America have a “come to us” mentality. “Our pastor(s) will evangelize you!”

This is similar to how the church in Jerusalem did it for years, and they did not multiply the way they were designed to. It’s not until Acts chapter 11 that all of that starts to change, radically! Sunday, we looked at the Antioch church in Acts 11:19-30, and 13:1-3, and how it multiplied in just over 1 year, because “when disciples engage society, multiplying churches are born.” The Jerusalem church leaders didn’t even have a church planting strategy for Antioch. It just happened… Then it happened again. And again. And again…

Want to hear about a modern-day example of this phenomenon? OK, think about the church movement in China. Around 1950, when Mao Zedong came into power, there were only about 2 million Christians in China. However, the government decided that Christianity needed to be totally annihilated, so what did they do? They booted out all foreign missionaries, brutally murdered the best of the best church leaders, destroyed Christian institutions, demolished Christian meetings, and declared that those who promote these ideas would be killed.

What do you think happened next? Their pastors are dead… No more buildings… No more Bible schools…

Here’s what they did. They did exactly what the simple disciples who started the Antioch church did. They said to themselves, “We know this Jesus thing is true, and everyone needs Him!” So they started engaging society in the workplaces, marketplaces, wherever they happened to be. They made relationships and shared a very short and simple message about Jesus: who He is, what He did, and what it means for us.

Before I tell you what happened next, think about how counter-cultural this Jesus message was to this country? Think about it… This is not something they were likely to believe. It goes against everything they were taught their whole lives. Oh yea, and it would possibly mean they would be murdered in cold blood if they chose to believe it…

So what happened? Tens and hundreds and thousands and millions of Chinese started believing it and turned their lives toward Christ. Multiplying churches were born over night, and those churches planted new churches, and those new churches planted more new churches and so on and so forth.

By the 1980’s there were around 60 million Christians in China. That’s a 58 million increase in 30 years!

WOW!

Every church is meant to multiply, over and over and over. That means we need you to step up and do your part. “When disciples engage society, multiplying churches are born.”

Here are my questions for you (please respond to any or all of them):

1. Have you ever been part of a multiplying church? If so, can you tell us a quick story?

2. How do you feel about sharing the Gospel with other people? Are you nervous? Are you doing it frequently? Why or why not? We will learn a lot by you sharing your struggles. We’ve all been there!

3. What is at least one way that YOU can engage society with the Gospel? Give us an example how you want to do this at work, at school, at the gym, while you’re shopping, on the phone, online, or wherever…

4 weeks ago I preached a sermon called “False Beliefs Among Us” (http://www.youtube.com/EkklesiaDetroit). First we went deep into Acts chapter 10. We learned about Peter, and how he and the rest of the Jesus worshiping Jews had this really big problem: they had a long list of false religious beliefs that were causing them to not reach out to non-Jews. They had all kinds of wrong beliefs about what it takes to follow Jesus. They consciously and subconsciously assumed, “Hey, the non-Jews don’t follow these rules, so of course they can’t follow Jesus!” Their false beliefs caused them to be judgmental. They were so blinded by their religiosity that they didn’t even realize they were flagrantly rejecting the mission God commanded they live out.

In chapter 10, God metaphorically smacks Peter in the face 3 times with a 2 by 4 and says something to the effect of, “Peter you’re wrong, and I want you to change immediately.” Eventually Peter gets it, goes to the house of one of those people the Jews considered “wicked sinners,” and bam, the Gospel begins to spread like a virus. Tens, thousands, and eventually millions of people, from all kinds of messed-up backgrounds find Jesus, and are radically transformed!

Next we looked at our situation in America: millions of modern-day disciples dangerously infected with false teachings propagated by men and women infatuated with religion. Many of these people are appallingly judgmental, and the great tragedy is that they are keeping people out of the Kingdom of God. Of course many of these people who call themselves Christians aren’t really Christians, but that’s a whole nother story.

Anyway, we examined 5 of the most common lies and what the Bible really has to say, which brings me to the topic of this post After this service, there was this one guy in our church who got into a conversation with another guy (not part of ekklesia). Our guy says something like, “You know, the concept of wearing fancy ‘church clothes’ on Sundays is a false religious teaching invented by people. It’s not in the Bible. In fact, many people who wear ‘church clothes’ are judging other people who don’t. This judgmentalism needs to stop because these judgmental people are keeping people out of the Kingdom of God.” Well, this other guy does not agree and they start to argue. The argument gets so heated that their screaming reaches the peak of their vocal cord capacity.

All this over “church clothes”? Now I’ll say, he’s not the only one from ekklesia who had an experience like this after that sermon. In fact, I personally had several experiences like this a few years back. So last week we dove into Romans 14. We learned that we shouldn’t argue over nonessentials. Those who understand the freedom we have in Christ (those whose consciouses are strong) shouldn’t judge those who misunderstand it (those whose consciouses are weak), and the weak must stop judging the strong. In fact, if the weak think something is a sin (even if it really isn’t), and then they do that thing, they’re actually sinning. So, the responsibility of the strong is to be willing to sacrifice our freedoms in order to love the weak. The big idea of the passage is “Loving the weak is more important than using our freedoms.”

Here’s a few questions for you:

1. Can you relate to this?

2. Does this mean that the strong must always compromise their freedoms for the weak, in every situation? Why or why not? Can you give any examples?

3. What do you think are some common false religious beliefs among Christians?