Pastor Joe Sanders - July 24, 2011
From Hanging out with Jesus to Belief
Its easy to understand why so many people want the Jesus story (ie- the Gospels) to be about a nice, safe, religious Jesus. A Christmas and Easter Jesus. A non-committal, non-requirement Jesus. Because if you read the Gospel of John in the plainest, simplest way possible and take it all at face value, its hard. Very hard. Every time we slip into a less-than-follow-me-with-everything Jesus, Christ says something hard to rattle us back to reality. As much as we'd like to continue to hang out with Jesus, to be in his vicinity and say that, "yeah, I know that guy", he won't let us. He makes startling claims about himself, his work, his origin, his Father, and his destination. The good news about this difficulty is that its a leap of faith not into darkness but into light. He calls us to the difficult proposition of following him to the very end but he makes it clear that that's where we find light and life and hope and God himself.
Scripture References: John 8:12-30