Friends and family do not let the complexity of this world confuse your priorities nor distract you.  Do not be deceived that a simple message of God’s grace through faith is simplistic.  Simple is not always simplistic. Complex need not be complicated.  Neither do you need me.  You need the Word of God that testifies of Jesus and the gospel, you need the rebirth and indwelling of the Holy Spirit and you need an intimate relationship with your Master.  You need the infallible Word of God.  So, today’s blog focuses on this simple truth that is in no way simplistic and the complex design that is not complicated and functions perfectly within the law of God.  It is all captured in the challenge to “Focus on Jesus and Follow His Plan.”

Jesus Christ, God coming to this world in the flesh immaculately conceived and miraculously born of a virgin, fulfilled prophecies and confirmed the Father’s plan to redeem the Creation.  Man has not gotten more intelligent than God.  Even by the end of Jesus’ ministry his disciples were struggling with this concept.  We should not be surprised to see professing Christians today still struggling with this truth.  But we should not struggle with it, if we have been crucified with Christ, buried, and raised in him, symbolically demonstrated through baptism.  Our whole message is to Focus on Jesus and Follow His Plan.  It really does come down to, “What do you believe and do because of Jesus?”

John 14:1-12, NIV

1. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 
2. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 
3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 
4. You know the way to the place where I am going.” 
5. Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 
6. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 
7. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 
8. Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 
9. Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 
10. Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 
11. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 
12. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 

As disciples of Jesus Christ, as human beings who have repented of their sins, accepted the gift of God in Christ Jesus, have been born again by the Spirit of God, and have crucified the flesh to become children of God, whose loyalty is to Jesus King of kings and Lord of lords, we have but one metric to which we must adhere.  Yes, that metric involves a transformation of life that is obedient to the law of God in Christ Jesus.  That one metric is to “Focus On Jesus and Follow His Plan.”

In today’s blog post I want to share a few scriptures to remind us of 1) our identity in Christ, 2) the power of the gospel, and 3) Jesus’ Great Commission to his disciples.  As disciples of Jesus, the Great Commission is transferable to us.  Do not fear, those things we have come to believe and understand are pleasing to the Father have not changed.  What is changing is the focus wherein we proclaim the priority of our message.  Our message is none other than the very same one which the Apostle Paul declared during his ministry.  Please do not think of these as “proof texts”.  They are verses that highlight the point contained in the whole of the Word of God.

The Message:  The Gospel

It is the good news of what God has done for us in the finished work through Jesus Christ.  It is not what we can do for ourselves.  Make no mistake, this message does not lead to antinomianism, glorification of the flesh, nor humanitarianism, only to God’s interests.  Response to this message requires repentance because no one is in right-standing from their human birth and must therefore be born again.  John 3 (Ye must be born again – Jesus)

The Apostle Paul’s Message to the Corinthians:  Jesus Christ and him crucified

1 Corinthians 2:1-5, NIV

1. And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 
2. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 
3. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 
4. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 
5. so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. 

1 Corinthians 15:1-8, NIV

1. Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 
2. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 
3. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 
4. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 
5. and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 
6. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 
7. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 
8. and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 

Our Identity In Christ: A New Creation containing the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, having exchanged the death of the flesh for life in the spirit  (You can add all the supporting texts from Romans, the gospels and elsewhere.)

2 Corinthians 5:14-21, NIV

14. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 
15. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 
16. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 
17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 
18. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 
19. that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 
20. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 
21. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

2 Corinthians 6:1-2, NIV  

1. As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 
2. For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. 

The Power of the Gospel:  Nothing but the gospel found in the blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient to save us

Romans 1:15-17, NIV

15. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. 
16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 
17. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” 

Jesus’ Great Commission:  Given to his disciples and therefore to us his disciples in this day

Matthew 28:18-20, NIV

18. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 
19. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 
20. and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” 

Focus on Jesus and Follow His Plan

In so doing:

1. You will be saved
2. You will abide in Jesus Christ the Vine
3. You will bear much fruit
4. You will be a productive slave for the King
5. You will please the Father in heaven