August 28, 2009
Should I Believe in Jesus?
Posted by Garry
I am really honored to be joining the Summit staff. My deepest desire is that I will serve Christ well in helping move people toward the kind of community God intended from the beginning.
One of my absolute favorite scriptures is the exchange between Jesus and John the Baptist in Luke 7. John is about to be put to death for aligning himself with Jesus.
John sent word back to Jesus saying, “Are you the one who has come, or should we expect someone else?”
This is the same John who baptized Jesus and heard the voice of God say, “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.” This is the same John who proclaimed that someone greater would be coming than John himself, and pointed to Jesus.
This is the same John asking, essentially, “Are you the one I worship?”
Jesus answers, “Go back and tell John the blind receive sight, the lame walk, and the good news is preached to the poor." Jesus is saying that compassion, love, justice, and mercy can be seen.
God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus answers John’s question by pointing to this tangible display of God’s intention for creation—the blind seeing, the lame walking, the good news spreading—mercy lived out in human community.
This is my vision for Summit and the multi-site campus (as it is my vision for the Church as a whole)—that when someone asks us, “Should I believe in Jesus,” our answers will be the same. We will be able to point to the tangible display of God’s intentions. Displays that we, the hands and feet of Christ, are working and praying and sweating to bring about—His kingdom of compassion, love, justice, and mercy, lived out in our human community.
