Remembering Who We Are: A People Set Free

On Sunday, Sharon Dowd preached at church. She is our pastor for community outreach. Her message was a challenge to the Church to be more real, because we are a people set free. Here are some highlights that I think are germane.

• "...if the gospel is true at all, it has to be true for people who are stuck in slavery to habits and addictions and circumstances that suck the life out of them. A gospel that is good news only after you die is not very good news."

• "What God may have done thousands of years ago may be interesting, but desperate people want to know what God has done lately."

• "Nice is not good news because it is not true. Nice doesn't set people free. What sets people free is truth."

• "Those nice religious people are just like us. They can't hear the good news of freedom because they don't think they need it."

• "Unbelievers are not the only people in bondage. Religious people are also in bondage."

• "For most of us, the way to freedom and life runs through the valley of the shadow of death--death to hiding, death to control, death to carefully cultivated self-concealment. But hey--those things are killing you anyway, so what do you have to lose? It doesn't really take much faith to swap the dead weight you're carrying for the life that Jesus offers you."