Daily Dose of the Word of God - Beyond Sunday Ep. 3

Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach

Transcript

Jeff Klein 0:06 

Welcome to Elmhurst CRC's daily dose in the Word of God. It's Monday, September 11. This is Jeff Klein, here with another version of Beyond Sundays, an encouragement to live out your faith from Monday through Friday.

Jeff Klein  0:20 

I was in my car years ago to go to downtown Wheaton (the city where I live), and on the way down there, there's tons of four-way stop signs and one way streets. When I got to the second four way stop sign at the intersection, the car across from me took off through the stop sign and almost turned into me as I proceeded forward. I blew the horn loudly and I waved my hand at him. But as he turned, I recognized him; it was a dad from Joseph's (my son) baseball team. I went on with my day and didn't think much about it. When we started baseball practice later in the day (the first practice since the stop sign incident), he started telling the story loudly to all the coaches. From his perspective, I was the one that blew through the stop sign and almost hit him. He also told everyone that I flipped him off, which was not true.

Jeff Klein 1:12 

You know why I love telling this story? Because he knew I'm a pastor and wanted to smear me a bit. That little incident got me thinking about how important our everyday lives are when it comes to following Jesus - when it comes to putting Jesus on display. People are watching. They're waiting for us to slip up and they're drawing conclusions about Jesus and about our faith based on the way we live our everyday lives. This even includes how we drive our cars.

Jeff Klein  1:41 

Marshall McLuhan was one of the most influential communication theorists of his generation. Regarding media, he coined the phrase, "the medium is the message." What did he mean by that? Well, a medium is a vehicle through which something is communicated or conveyed. Television is one way to communicate a message, radio is another. McLuhan believed that the means or medium of communication was intimately connected, or related to the message and how it was perceived. Jesus is the perfect medium for the message that God wanted to send to humanity. Jesus came and put on display that God loved his people, and wanted to be with them and to live with them. His lifestyle, actually earned him a hearing for the message of the Kingdom that he came to proclaim and to present.

Jeff Klein  2:30  

Most of us want the message, the gospel, to go out to the entire world. We want to see the Great Commission fulfilled and want to see people come to know Jesus. But what about the way we live, makes the message compelling and believable? First Peter, chapter 3, we learned about living questionable lives. Peter says, "we should set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts and always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks." So it starts by demonstrating that Christ is the Lord of our lives by how we live. And then when people ask about what's going on with you, we get to give an answer because our lives are the perfect medium for the message of the gospel to travel across. So this week as you're living your life, driving your car, going to your office, running your business - how well will your life and the way you live it provide a medium for the message of Jesus?