Tag: 2022 Amplify Outreach Conference

Jesus lived 33 years, walking on water as it recognized its creator King and became a solid. He turned water into wine. He welcomed sinners and the marginalized into his company. And then, he died—that is, until death died. Until sin apologized. Until the earth rocked and reeled like a drunken man. Until the sun could no longer stand seeing its own creator crucified to a tree, so it pulled the shade across the noonday. They laid him in a borrowed tomb, but early Sunday morning, before the sun got up, the Son pulled one foot out of eternity, stepped back into time, and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18).

If we are going to present a compelling alternative to non-Christian sexual ethics today, we need to recover a New Testament understanding of brotherly and sisterly love. Everywhere I go, I meet brothers and sisters in Christ who are trusting that Jesus’ love is better than any human love, leaving same-sex sexual relationships to follow Jesus. If someone leaves a gay relationship to enter the church, they should find more love and not less.

Good things happen when we get a grasp of the gospel, that the crucified Christ is also the risen Lord. In our newfound reason to unite, the instinct to separate falls away, social media is transformed from platforms that are destructive into opportunities for gospel witness, and we begin to love people well enough to tell them the good news of Jesus, even as our own fears are cast out (1 John 4:18).

Losses tend to turn out to be wins in disguise. Remember, we are the death and resurrection people. The gospel calls us to a cheerful confidence to jump into the fray, and to a cheerful humility to lose well (if we must), knowing that the Father can take painful losses and raise them up to be gospel wins.

Secularism has said that if we had more education, more science and better government, we’d have a good life. But the COVID pandemic showed us that science alone wasn’t enough to guarantee a good life. The War in Ukraine has shown us that education and good government aren’t enough either. As Sayers says, “It’s as if the tide of the gospel has gone so far out that the sheer weight of the gospel is going to come rushing back in.” This is not a threat to the gospel, but an opportunity. There is a vacuum out there that longs to be filled.

“On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God” (Acts 13:44). Everybody showed up: all the seniors, all the young people, regardless of color and background. Almost the whole city came to hear Paul preach. And what did he say? What was Paul’s secret?

We are not left alone with our questions. It is not up to us to solve the riddles of our existence. We have a helper, a divine instructor. He will save us from the cul-de-sac of confusion and the dead end of doubt. He does this by enrolling us in the primary course of his university: Jesus Christ.