Thoughts regarding this Past Sunday's sermon

In 2014 I want to be more intentional with my life. The people I talk to, my friends who I meet up with, and how sermons I hear impact my life. I've been a Christian for a very long time so I've listened to so many different kinds of sermons from different people. I don't want my ears to become dull to sermons just because it's use to listening to sermons. So I'm resolved to review the sermons I listen too (given I only listen to the Sunday sermon). I want to challenge myself to really think about the sermon, how I can apply it and maybe start a discussion about it. So here it goes...Sermon this past Sunday was from Alex Hong (here is his blogpost) and the title was "A Call to Commit and Follow Christ" (if you want to listen to it click here).

Here are my thoughts and my reflections on it.

It's so easy to say that you're a Christian.  So many people claim it because they grew up in a Christian home, their parents are Christians, or they at one point "said a prayer."  But sadly many who claims Christianity are not Christians, of course I can not tell you who are or are not for certain but there is a way to investigate to call out those who are not out.  Alex explained Matthew 7:13-27 (passage) very well.  There's only two choices people have in life; either enter the narrow gate or wide gate.  There's not middle ground or a secret side gate.  God tells us there are only two gates but of course people do not like the black and white of Christianity.  I'm not going to summarize Alex's sermon, you can listen to it yourself, but I will say that it did challenge me to think about my relationship with God.

Many times I think about the wide gate, the easy gate.  I see people around me that are "happy" and "enjoying" this life to the fullest...as this world would say.  And at times I wonder if they are truly happy or are they just pretending.  I wonder to myself if "I'm missing out" on life because I'm in the narrow gate; the gate that calls me to not indulge in sin, the gate that demands my full allegiance to Jesus, the gate that tells me I need to die to myself.  I understand why people listen to these false prophets that only preach about God's love and never sin because when you think about your sin it does something to you.  It makes you see that you do not deserve anything but hell.  And of course if you only think about that you will hate yourself.  But when you shine the gospel on that thinking you see the glory of the cross.  Alex said "the true happy ones are those who see their sins and understand their spiritual bankruptcy."  And that's so true.  People try so hard to make themselves happy...but in reality that can not be achieved apart from Jesus because true happiness comes from the true source of joy and that is Jesus.  God calls me to examine myself. Sin can be so deceitful that I may be blinded by the sins of my heart. I can be religious without being truly religious. I can make my foundation on the things that I do, the ministry I'm in. The way I talk or even what I know. But all those are shaky if it's not grounded on the finish work of Jesus and motivated from a grateful heart of what Jesus did.  Am I adding to the cross? Am I truly surrendering my life to Him or just a portion because I want to do what I want in life.  I don't even know if I'm making sense here but I do know that my happiness is not contingent on things, places or the people around me.  My happiness is on Jesus and even though I'm alone, going through problems, or even struggling with things...at the end of the day I have joy because I have Jesus.

What do you think?