Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

In spite of his faith Bishop John Rucyahana, humanly speaking had a reason to hate. Bishop John, a Tutsi Rwandan, left his homeland at the age of 14 because of the genocide that was taking place. The genocide continued in Rwanda for many years. In the early 90’s, the Hutus of Rwanda brutally raped and killed his own niece. In the mid 90’s Bishop John felt God’s call to return to Rwanda. Upon returning to Rwanda, he found sun bleached bones littering the streets and open graves fouling the air.

Bishop John worked with others to begin the Umuvumu Project, which has brought together thousands of perpetrators and victims of the genocide, offering the offenders the opportunity to confess their crimes and victims the chance to forgive. It is amazing enough that Bishop John would speak to Hutu perpetrators of genocide. It is even more amazing when you consider that the group did to his own family. It is even more amazing to think that he is seeking to find ways to offer the offenders forgiveness and reconciliation.

Where did he get this idea? What gives him strength to carry out this noble mission? Jesus. Jesus shows us what many would called madness when he illustrated and prescribed “Love your enemies.”

Can you name the twelve disciples? Chances are probably not. But whether you know them all or not you probably know five - the big three, Peter, James and John, the doubter Thomas, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. Not only was Judas one of the disciples, but apparently he is seen as one who can handle responsible and so he is placed in charge of the finances of the disciples and Jesus. He was gifted and no doubt had a lot of opportunity to hear and learn from Jesus and do great things for the Kingdom of God. But he also criticized other believers as he did with Mary who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet. John 12: 4But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5"Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.[

Are we ever like Judas? Do we ever wish that Jesus was something that he is not? On Wednesday there was a man at the corner of Kenwood and Maryland with a sandwhich board that said Jesus said one man and one woman. Boy did that tick some people off. While I don’t necessarily agree with his tactics many were upset because they want to do what they want to do. They want freedom. And they want their friends to be able to do what they want to do. And so standing right beside the man was someone from LGBT with their flag. People drove by in the cars honking, not honking in agreement but in disagreement. How do I know? It was the hand gestures that they gave that showed their hatred of Jesus. Apparently a lot of people want Jesus to be someone he is not. Have you ever wished that Jesus hadn’t said some of the things he said. Like honor your father and mother. Like take care of the poor. Don’t steal someone else’s work. Or maybe you wish he said things that he didn’t say, Like you don’t have to listen to the government when they are just being stupid like with the drinking age. Have you ever felt like that what you have done is unforgivable?

If you have ever had a Judas in your life, someone who is close to you, someone who knows how you feel, what you believe and what you stand for, who trashes you for his or her own personal gain. You know what Jesus was going through with Judas. And you know what Jesus is going through with you and me. The now deceased atheist comedian George Carlin often was condescending toward Christianity. He said like many do that Christianity is a crutch, an easy way out to life. While I disagree because what can be on eof the most difficult things to do is to forgive someone when they don’t deserve to be forgiven. Like Jesus does for you and me. One of the most difficult things is not to love someone who loves you, not to love someone who is in peril but that you will never really see, but to love someone who has openly demonstrated hatred of you. Like Jesus has done for the world, you and me included. Romans 5:8-10 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

The madness of Christ turns the world upside down. He allows people to make mistakes. He doesn’t put us in armor suits and hi-jack our brains. He gives us the opportunity to express freedom and love in our lives. And we all know that we have used that freedom and used his love to perpetuate and scheme for sin. And when we do this Jesus throws out his hand and dies. God dies for the ungodly. God forgives the unforgivable. God loves the unlovable. And that is what is driving Satan mad. Because love conquers all.

So who/what are you going to conquer with God’s love?

　

 

a]" 6He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. priests, and said to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? (Matthew 26:14-5) He was found out. He thought he was getting away with something but it was clear to Jesus. And so as Jesus, Judas and the other disciples are eating the celebration Passover Meal Jesus announces: (Matthew 26:21And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." 22They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?" 23Jesus replied, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." 25Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, "Surely not I, Rabbi?" Jesus answered, "Yes, it is you."[a] He was bold rebellious. Some believe he was angry at Jesus for not being a political leader. He became a hypocrite. And he feigned friendship with the kiss of betrayal. After the betrayal he had a boat load of money that he would never spend. In fact, in remorse he returned it. He had come to the first part of repentance, that of being truly sorry for his sin but he never made it to the second part of repentance, that of receiving forgiveness from God which was readily available. And so we see that he was money hungry, craving more and more of it. He profited off of Jesus. He was also a thief not just craving the money but taking the money. He had guts. He had influence. He was sly. The evidence of these characteristics is seen as he is able to make his way to the chief

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

I was talking with a friend this past week on skype this past and he could tell that there was something different about me since the last time he saw me. He said he could see it in my face. Well what has changed over the last couple of months is that I have lost 15 pounds and still have about another 5 to 10 to go. Most of us have something about ourselves that we would like to change. Maybe it is our physical appearance. Maybe it is an addiction to something like gambling, drugs or pornography. Maybe it is financial situation that we would like to have an extreme makeover. Maybe we have so much anxiety going on in our life. We think about all the bad things that could happen and we are on the edge. Most of us have at least one thing that we would like to change but most of us never will. Why? Because we have come to believe a cultural assumption that says, “I can never change. I am who I am. I am what I am.” And you know why we have come to believe this myth that I can never change? Because we have tried! We have tried and failed. In fact we have tried and tried again and failed. New Year’s came around and we vowed to change and we did, for a couple of weeks and now we are back to our old self. Do you know that the whole concept of “I can never change” stands in radical opposition to what the Bible says. A big part of Christianity is Life Change, not just for an eternity but also for now.

Let’s take a peak into 1 Cor 6 so I can show you what I am talking about: 9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. That is a radical transformation! And I know maybe some of you are saying, “I see that in the Bible but I don’t see it in my life. I’m stuck in the same negative behavior.” Here is what we need to do: We need to start changing our thinking to change our action. We need to change the way we think. There was an even an article about this in the Milwaukee JS within the last couple of weeks. It talked about white kids not being able to play basketball as well as black kids because they think they can’t. And it talked about black kids not being able to do math as well as white kids because they think they can’t. So I will ask us all: Do I need to change my thinking?

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Flypaper. Gum. Tape. Super glue. These are all sticky things. Our culture has some commonly held assumptions that are sticky. They are hard to get away from and they are false. Today we are continuing our series, Avoiding Culture’s Flytraps. In this series we are looking at commonly held assumption in our particular culture that are incorrect. It can be a sticky situation as they assumptions look to pull us in and entrap us like a Venus Flytrap plant. Two weeks ago we talked about relativism - that it doesn’t matter what you believe. Relativism also proclaims that are no absolutes to which I asked, “are you absolutely sure?“ I closed that message with three absolutes. 1) There is a God. 2) That God is not me or you. 3) No matter what you have done, said, thought, schemed God loves you so much that he died in your place and rose again to life so that you might live with him forever. Last week we began to look at the cultural assumption that All Roads Lead to Heaven. We considered that the truth is exclusive by its very nature. And so to say that Christianity and Islam and Buddhism, for example really all teach the same, is to stipulate that all religions are about is morality and ethics. But we need more than a religious system for morality and ethics, we need a Savior from sin. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. We started looking at Jesus’ resume . And as we did so we were looking him fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah, the Savior of the world. We noted that the probability of someone being able to keep just eight of the hundreds of prophecies in the OT was 1/10

Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad. She stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated in Medina. The Quran says that a man is to have no more than four wives. While the actual number of wives that Muhammed varies according to different sources, but every source mentions way more than four. Joseph Smith is convicted of “fortune telling.” According to court records he admits that he was wrong and that he will not work for an honest living. He then goes back to his practices as he translates the golden tablets into the Book of Mormon. In John 8 Jesus tells his enemies can you point to anything in my life that doesn’t stand up to the standard of perfection. In John 8:47 Jesus’ critics stood in silence. 17.

We are going to continue to look at Jesus’ resume today and see why he alone could say, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

As we turn to page two of Jesus resume, the page is entitled miracles. You do realize that very few of Jesus’ miracles were done without a large audience. Our gospel reading, Mark 5:21-43, illustrates a time when Jesus healed in front of a great crowd and a time when he healed with just a few. (review the account) For the most part, people saw the miracles. They weren’t done in a vacuum, or a hidden closet but in the laboratory of the public eye. Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand right in front of the five thousand. Jesus changed the water into wine right there at the wedding. These weren’t covert operations. The were examples of love in action.

Part 3. His life. If you look at the leaders of other religions you might be shocked to find such thing as immorality. Like Mohammad marrying a

Part 4 Death of Jesus. It was a horrible death. There was no crime committed but a claim to be the son of God a claim of blasphemy. Don’t you think if what Jesus said and stood for were false, he would have said so. Like maybe when the soldiers were stretching his arms out and getting ready to pound in the nails. Don’t you think he would have said before he went through this nerve wrenching pain he would have confessed and said, “I was only joking. I’m really just a carpenter’s son, a construction worker. Sorry you took this so seriously. This is not a good way to spend a Friday. But he never backed down from the claim.

The final part of the resume is his resurrection. The acid test of deity is to conquer death don’t you think. To conquer his own death. On Easter morning the tomb is empty. Maybe his enemies stole it. Perhaps. But when the disciples started to tell others about the resurrection and people started to follow. Don’t you think the enemies could just the body and squelch this teaching. How about the disciples stealing his body. But history tells us that at left 10 of the 11 left died a martyr death for proclamation of the resurrection. Dying for a life? I don’t think so. At least one of the ten would have cracked. “Let me show you the body.” But it never happened because they didn’t have the body. There were hundreds of eyewitnesses to Jesus after his resurrection. How about the other religions? No other religions founder claims to conquer the grave. Muhammed, Buddha still in the grave. Jesus backs up his claim “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” by the resurrection.

But isn’t it arrogant to say that he is the only way. Maybe some Christians are arrogant by the way the say and act. But Christians have no reason to be arrogant. We are all on the same sinking boat of sin. We are saved by grace, undeserved love. We don’t make the claim, Jesus did. As we review back over the resume of Jesus do we see arrogance? No, we see someone who puts the needs of others before his own. When he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It was out of arrogance but out of compassion. Our sin separates us from God. For Jesus not to tell us “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” would not be loving and compassionate. He would haven’t done us any favors.

Here is the deal. If all that we needed was a religious system to make us better people that would be fine but you and I don’t need a religious system but a Savior. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people alive. We are sinners not in need of a system but a Savior but Jesus is unique, a one and only, the Savior with the name above all names. The only name that leads to heaven. Amen.