Reality Christianity Sermon 1 - Love Series

Reality Christianity Sermon Series

Sermon #1 - Love

Pastor Aaron Kesson

July 6, 2008

Emmanuel United Methodist Church

● American’s are obsessed with reality tv

○ A recent search on Google for “reality television” resulted in 12,500,000 hits.

○ A growing trend in the U.S. to see more “reality” television shows (some lately like “baby borrowers”, “lockdown”, etc.)

○ There’s another type of reality out there that we, as Christian’s are called to proclaim.

- With this obsession with “reality”, what would happen if Christian’s were to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ more “real” to those around them?

● We are embarking on a new sermon series entitled “Reality Christianity”, we are going to look at how we can make Christ real to those around us by following His example and displaying the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

● Apprentice Slide

● This week, we are going to look at what it takes to be Apprentice’s of Christ. That is, following his lead and example

○ Think of the television show The Apprentice, has anyone seen it? (raise hands). If you haven’t, Donald Trump (we all know who he is), has a new television show that takes wannabe corporate executives and puts them through grueling tests to see if they are worthy enough to be Trump’s Apprentice. At the end, one lucky winner gets to take part in the Trump Corporation and become a left-hand man (or woman) to Donald Trump himself. Throughout the show, the contestants constantly try to please Trump in their efforts.

● There are some parallels we can make with the Christian walk, and there are some major differences as well when we follow Jesus as opposed to man. Let’s take a look at a few of those today:

● As you might have guessed, the main goal in The Apprentice is to make such an effort to please Donald Trump that he in turn grants you the position of becoming his apprentice.

○ The goal in the Christian’s life, according to Jesus is to love one another, as we have read in John 15.

○ Just as the contestants on The Apprentice focus their attention on pleasing Donald Trump, we as Christian’s need to keep our eyes focused on Christ.

○ I’ve preached from John 15 several times in the past, and every time I read it and/or preach it, I get more and more excited about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

- So, how do we make the love of Jesus more real to those around us?

- Look at John 15:13, Jesus says “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”

- The following verses then describe the disciples as being Jesus’ friends, as they are no longer called ‘servants’.

- Of course, we know that Jesus is speaking of himself here, but there is a larger message to be learned from this statement that applies to us today:

- The love of Christ has no boundaries, even to death we are commanded to ‘love one another’. This tells me that the love of Christ is not some cheap, one night stand kind of love, but an everlasting love that will never change no matter what happens.

■ When we begin to intimately realize that Jesus died for us, and was thinking of us when he died on the cross, we then begin to experience the meaning of true love.