Today I tried to preach a sermon....

Well today I got up in front of my church and tried to teach about my thoughts on the genius of Jesus, I was half nervous and half exited to share some of my thoughts and feelings about Jesus, I defiantly have a heart for teaching, I think that as soon as I get my auto-cad degree that I will probably start perusing some kind of theological degree. I have a certain view point on Christianity, and have a passion for history, which has to lead me somewhere, right? Well here is some of my thoughts about the genius of Jesus;

Prayer:

Jesus if you would show yourself to us in this community today,

For I know that you are already here with us,

Help us feel your presence,

Help us feel your genius today,

Help us be a true community all in relation to you,

Open our minds to your will,

And open our hearts to the love that you have for us,

And in this New Year lead us to be a community of disciples fulfilling your mission.

In my journey I have been around the block, so to say, in the spiritual realm.

I have been involved in many different paths trying to find my way to God;

Ever since I was very young I had a strong yearning to seek God.

And I'm not going to deny some of the awesome moments that I went through and the fact that I truly believe God was there with me, in fact I know that he was.

Another thing that I know is that it was all to lead me here,

To be in communion with you all,

and to be in communion with my King, or if I may say, my president Jesus.

No other spiritual practice or path speaks so eloquently to all aspects of our lives,

teaching us how not only to get our selves right with God but almost more importantly giving ourselves to our neighbors and focusing all of our intentions on LOVE.

So speaking to the genius of Jesus I want us to look at 3 verses today if you have a bible with you today please open them to Mark 2:15,

For me this is a great example of the way that Jesus thinks,

To help us understand this let us look at the context of this passage,

As I understand it in Jesus’ time most of the Pharisees blamed the occupation and fall of Israel to Rome on the sinners and nonreligious Jews,

They felt like if only the people of Israel could be more religious and clean like them they could rise again,

And more over the idea of communing and eating with them was blasphemous,

They could not be brought down to the level of sinners that would corrupt them and ruin them in God’s eyes,

So Jesus’ thinking is that we not only need to stoop to the level of sinners we need to eat with them and show them the love of God,

He is not thinking about his reputation,

He is not thinking about bringing Israel back to its once held glory,

He is thinking about Gods healing love right then and right there.

On to our second passage Mark 4:21-25 please follow along,

For this passage I would like to read out of the Message Bible,

It really helped me understand what Jesus is trying to say,

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To bring it into context Jesus is talking to a large crowd,

so large that he decided to get out on to a boat to speak while the crowd listened from the edge of the Sea of Galilee

he is talking about how to live life to this group first using a farmer as a metaphor,

something that they are all very familiar with,

with most everyone in those times having to grow most of their food,

and then the metaphor of a lamp which was a staple for all households,

but it is that last point that he makes is what gets me,

Generosity that is Jesus’ way,

That is Gods way.

Lets move on, Mark 10:17 once again from the Message

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The context here is that someone is trying to understand how to gain eternal life,

To understand how to get into Gods Kingdom,

And Jesus turns right around and tell the rich man that he needs to give it all away,

I would argue that this is the last thing that he was expecting to hear,

I think that Jesus saw right thru the man and saw that he wasn’t ready to let God take control,

Genius,

Which leads me to my next point,

The Great Reversal, what a great thought, what a genius way of putting it,

The ones with the most , last

The ones with the least, first

This is the way it is in Jesus’ upside down Kingdom,

I mean in our culture we see things and have been taught things in a certain way,

That we want to be on top with the few, the rich, that’s success, right?

We don’t want to mingle with those who have the least,

The riff-raff, the unclean, the non religious, right?

We see hundreds of adds a day that tell us we need more,

Which means we need more money, right?

Jesus says no,

We don’t, we need to be with the least, Eat with them,

Mingle with them, Love them, count our selves among them,

and with our generosity show them Gods healing love.