Selling Jesus

A while back I compared having Christ in my life as a valuable assett that I should be trying to sell to everyone else. At my home church in St. Louis I got pretty excited about designing t-shirts that we could wear that would draw attention and basically make people read a small bible verse and possibly engage someone into conversation. I thought we should approach life as selling Jesus all the time. We have the bible as our sales tool and the Holy Spirit as our guide.

I was pretty excited about today's message at Hope Fellowship. The following is the introduction piece I posted on my Cravetheword blog.

Jesus For Sale
Imaging selling the best product ever made. No defects, no competition, beyond a lifetime of guarantees. That would be Jesus. Today's sermon at Hope Fellowship (http://www.hopefellowship.net/) was the first installment over Jesus For Sale. The following are the outline notes to the sermon.

Matthew 5:13-16Salt and Light
13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

I salt just about everything I eat, even without tasting it. You can definitely tell the difference between the regular Morton's table salt and that low sodium Accent 60% less sodium substitute. Why bother. I think the same can be said about a Christ follower who goes to church on Sundays and really doesn't commit to developing that relationship and growing deeper in faith. This person is like the Accent salt substitute that can really turn some people off. I think vs. 14-16 basically say if you have Christ in your life don't hide it. Let everyone see how your life has changed and let it attract others to Christ as well. And a final note: Your relationship with Christ should produce good deeds, not good deeds proving that you are a Christ follower.

I'm really excited to be a part of this church. Every message is applicable in my life. There is never a condemning or guilted message. We found out today that when our new expansion opens in 2 months we will go from having 4 services with a seating capacity of 400 to having two services with seating for 1000. This eliminates that nice option of going on a Saturday night and sleeping in on a Sunday, but it will be a lot easier to recruit the people necessary to make thing run so smoothly.