Only Christ Matters Series

I think in practical terms that means that we ought to memorize at least a handful of Scriptures that we can use to explain the basics of the gospel. It also means that we take some time to think about how Jesus has impacted our lives and how to best communicate that to others. If you’ve never done that, then for you that should be the main application that you make in your life as a result of listening to this message this morning. And if you need some help with that, I’d be happy to help you and I’m sure there are many others here this morning that could also do that.

• But I must do that with gentleness and respect

My guess is that probably most of us have witnessed well-meaning Christians who have seem to forgotten Peter’s instructions here. This really fits in with what we learned last week when Peter instructed wives to win their unbelieving husbands to the Lord without nagging and badgering them.

As we discussed last week, if someone has been exposed to the gospel and rejected the idea of putting their faith in Jesus, just continuing to beat them over the head with the Bible isn’t going to be effective. In those cases, we just need to love the other person and trust God to do the work of drawing that person to Himself.

There is certainly a balance here between being bold in our proclamation of the gospel, which is clearly taught and modeled in the Bible, and going so far that we cross the line of being gentle and treating the other person with respect. That’s why we need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and ask Him to guide us in this area.

INSPIRATION

There is no doubt that it is easy to look around at the world around us and get angry. We live in a culture that isn’t very hospitable to genuine disciples of Jesus for the most part. So even when we do good, the people around us will still often revile us and try to hurt us. And it’s so easy to give into our anger and respond in kind. But Jesus has called us to live differently. He has called us to bless our enemies and to love those enemies the same way that He loved us when we were His enemies.

But there isn’t a single person here this morning that can do that on his or her own. I can’t do that and neither can you. But when I choose to honor Jesus as Lord by fearing His displeasure more than I fear the disdain of man, when I choose to live like “only Christ matters”, then He will empower and enable me to live like that.

Can you imagine the impact that we could make in our culture as disciples of Jesus if we all lived our lives like that on a consistent basis? Can you imagine how many people would want to know what or who it is in our lives that enables us to live that kind of life in which we bless people when they mistreat us? Can you imagine how many opportunities we would have to tell people about the reason for the hope that is in us?

ACTION

As we close this morning, I want to encourage all of us to consider doing two things as a result of what we’ve learned this morning.