Wyoming Evangelist Pastor John Collins Sermon series: Buffet Christians
Evangelist Pastor
John Collins began a revival in Wyoming to spread the
truth of the Word of God,
bring back God,
and to fix the brokenness of
Christianity. Christianity
is indeed broken. Christians
are treating faith as a buffet,
caring for others as a pick
and choose menu, treating the Holy
Bible as if it is a book of suggested topics for
life and choosing
which passages to follow instead
of taking it all
in. Pastor John
Collins calls it out like it is: the
Bible
was written by people
who were inspired to write it by God
Himself. It isn’t fabricated, it
isn’t randomly written. The Bible
ties everything together,
Old to New Testaments. What Jesus
Christ taught, He meant. He meant
it when He said “Love your neighbor as yourself, do to others as you would have
done to you.” It wasn’t
new and those were God’s
words from the Old
Testament. Jesus spoke
them and taught by action. That does not mean that
you ignore
the guy struggling
to find a safe
place to sleep
because he
lost his home and can’t
get work but turn
around and help
out the other guy
who shows up asking
for money. It does not
mean that you care
for the person sitting next to you in the pew but not
the woman who
is drinking
to kill shakes at 9:00
am. It doesn’t mean sing in the choir on Sunday,
then Wednesday
go into the porn
store. It means that Christians
act like Christians
EVERY day, ALL the time,
not just when it suits to do so. Christians are not
supposed to act like hypocrites,
doing one thing
and saying
another.
Pastor John Collins puts it all quite plainly:
“Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which makes a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.’” Mark 12: 41-44.
You cannot only be a Christian when things are going good in your life and you cannot only
be a Christian
towards those whom you like and approve of. The
whole point of
being a Christian
is to be Christ-like
and believe
me, Jesus
was kind
to those whom He knew to be sinners
and those
whom He would not
approve of, which is the reason that He
was sent to earth, to
save those who were lost.
Jesus gave all that
He had down to His last breath, for us.
Many people take
their own lives
and situations too seriously and become defensive and ignore those who are around
them. Many people
justify their self-absorption
by claiming tragedy, turmoil, victimhood and obligations. You cannot justify acting nasty or dismissive to others because you
are not in a comfortable
situation or in a place
of stability.
God tests you on how you behave under pressure, under stress
and in the tough
situations. God tests
you all of the time
and if you really are interested
in how you are doing,
just go and read
the Sermon on the
Mount and see how you measure
up.
The words of
Christ when He spoke are not
to be dismissed,
they are to be obeyed
and that is how you will be
tested. God doesn’t
want you to wait
until you are happy and financially
stable to help another.
It is your suffering
that makes you able
to have compassion and it is
your willingness
to put another before
yourself
that makes you rich.
Be willing to be a
follower
of Christ
when no
one is looking and be willing
to open yourself up to
another when they are in
need. Not
everyone needs money
as charity.
There are so many lonely
people in this world that need love and faith. Be willing to offer
both freely
because God
knows that Jesus
always will.
“Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have the glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” Matthew 6:2”
It’s time for Christians, or those who
call themselves Christians to take
a good
long look at
themselves and how they portray themselves to others. People ARE watching. People
who have not been inside a church
for years do that because they don’t
feel comfortable with the double message
that is so often delivered by those inside the church to those
outside the church.
What little does it take to offer
yourself in truth, in kindness, and not be judgmental? Don’t offer your hand in kindness
and helpfulness then
turn it over to criticize
and withdraw from someone. Jesus
Christ came to save us all, He didn’t pick and choose to serve us from a buffet
of lesser sins. A sin is a sin in the
eyes of God, none greater, none lesser. It’s time for Christians to stand up
and take a fresh look at how they are measuring up in God’s eyes because that
is Who really matters, not the eyes of fellow church goers. Are we living a biblically correct life as a
Christian? Are we measuring ourselves
against the book that was given to us for that purpose?
We are all sinners, every one of us, pastors
and congregations alike. We all need to
get it right to get to heaven, to get back to God and to bring back God to
others. We have to change how we are
toward others in order to save ourselves.
It’s time to come back to the Cross.
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