Pastor Carlos A. Morales: Recent Episodes
Carlos A. Morales
Sharing the gospel, teaching, and general conversation to inspire spiritual growth, studies, and a more intimate relationship with God.
Sermon on the Mountainside Jesus’s best-known lesson is called the Sermon on the Mount—the mount being the location where he begins to teach his disciples about a new way of life. He is in the midst of bringing God’s kingdom to earth’s landfill, and such things make people uncomfortable. Like the ideas of Chavez, this stuff runs counter to the ways people think. It says up is down and trash is treasure. He begins to introduce us to the great kingdom paradox: at the end of me, I find real life in him. Matthew 5:1 tells us that Jesus sees the crowds, climbs a mountain, and sits down to teach. If you’re like me, you tend to skip over that scene-setting stuff to get to the red-letter words in your Bible—the actual sayings of Jesus. But let’s look a little deeper. We find that if Jesus climbed a mountain, this is probably happening just above the Sea of Galilee. There were revolutionaries in those times, and a lot of them laid low in those mountains, avoiding arrest. So this makes sense. Jesus is another revolutionary who has come up the mountainside. He is saying, “Down with the kingdom of this world and up with the kingdom of God.” And the new kingdom has new rules, many of which are just the reverse of the old ways. Some New Testament scholars call this Jesus manifesto the “Great Reversal” for obvious reasons. Even today it all seems counterintuitive. But Jesus doesn’t want to talk about tangible rules or laws. He isn’t into current events either. Nothing about the Romans here. All that is on the surface of life, and Jesus wants to go a little deeper to what’s inside us—what makes the surface the way it is. The kingdom of God begins as an inside job. Jesus launches his sermon with a list of very striking paradoxes. For our purposes we will look at four of these statements that sound ridiculous at first blush but start to make sense once you think a little deeper and compare your personal experience.
So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. Hebrews 3:15
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Luke 19:8
After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” Nehemiah 4:14
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18 I recently read an article that began with the following paragraph: Change or Die. What if you were given that choice? … What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act? If you didn’t, your time would end soon—a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?1 According to the article, the odds are nine to one against you changing— even in the face of certain death. The author based that statistic on a wellknown study by Dr. Edward Miller, former CEO of the hospital at, and former dean of, the medical school at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Miller studied patients whose heart disease was so severe they had to undergo bypass surgery—a traumatic and expensive procedure that can cost more than $100,000 if complications arise. About 600,000 people have bypasses every year in the United States, and 1.3 million heart patients have angioplasties. These procedures provide a real chance for change for the patients. Because of the surgeries, they can now, through lifestyle changes, stave off pain and even death, if they’re willing to act on the opportunity. But they don’t, says Dr. Miller’s research: If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle. And that’s been studied over and over and over again. And so we’re missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t. In our lives, if a sudden awakening calls attention to our heart disease, I hope we realize something is wrong. Following that, we have to allow brutal honesty to do its work in our hearts—essentially bypassing the lies we’ve believed or told ourselves. Then we, like the heart patients, have an opportunity to act. Put another way, awakening happens to us, honesty happens in us, but nothing really changes unless action comes out of us.
When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.
Answer: What does it mean to be a born-again Christian? The classic passage from the Bible that answers this question is John 3:1-21. The Lord Jesus Christ is talking to Nicodemus, a prominent Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin (the ruling body of the Jews). Nicodemus had come to Jesus at night with some questions.
As Jesus talked with Nicodemus, He said, “‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’ ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again”’” (John 3:3-7).
The phrase "born again" literally means "born from above." Nicodemus had a real need. He needed a change of his heart—a spiritual transformation. New birth, being born again, is an act of God whereby eternal life is imparted to the person who believes (2 Corinthians 5:17; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:3; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1-4, 18). John 1:12, 13 indicates that being "born again" also carries the idea of "becoming children of God" through trust in the name of Jesus Christ.
The question logically comes, "Why does a person need to be born again?" The apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:1 says, "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins" (NKJV). To the Romans he wrote, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Sinners are spiritually “dead”; when they receive spiritual life through faith in Christ, the Bible likens it to a rebirth. Only those who are born again have their sins forgiven and have a relationship with God.
How does that come to be? Ephesians 2:8-9 states, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." When one is saved, he/she has been born again, spiritually renewed, and is now a child of God by right of new birth. Trusting in Jesus Christ, the One who paid the penalty of sin when He died on the cross, is the means to be "born again." "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If you have never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, will you consider the prompting of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to your heart? You need to be born again. Will you pray the prayer of repentance and become a new creation in Christ today? "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God" (John 1:12-13).
If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and be born again, here is a sample prayer. Remember, saying this prayer or any other prayer will not save you. It is only trusting in Christ that can save you from sin. This prayer is simply a way to express to God your faith in Him and thank Him for providing for your salvation. "God, I know that I have sinned against you and am deserving of punishment. But Jesus Christ took the punishment that I deserve so that through faith in Him I could be forgiven. I place my trust in You for salvation. Thank You for Your wonderful grace and forgiveness—the gift of eternal life! Amen!"
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I began the first chapter with a simple question: “Are you a follower of Jesus?” We have looked at a number of encounters that Jesus had with people during his time on earth. These were defining moments for each of them as it was revealed if they were fans or followers. After studying some of these encounters in Scripture, maybe you’ve decided that you need to take a closer look at where you stand with Jesus. I want you to know it has not been my objective to cause true followers of Christ to doubt or question their standing with God. It’s my hope that as we looked at what separates fans from followers that you have been affirmed in your faith and confirmed in your commitment as a follower. But I know there are many of you who have called yourselves Christians (by definition Christ-followers), but as you have honestly defined what you have with Jesus, it has become clear that you aren’t following Christ.
In Acts chapter 1 Jesus promises his followers that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit, and the rest of Acts documents what God can do with Spirit-filled followers. In chapter 4 two of Jesus’ closest followers, Peter and John, are brought before the spiritual leaders. And these guys can’t figure out why these followers of Jesus are making such a difference. They didn’t have the right theological training or religious credentials. The spiritual leaders are scratching their heads trying to figure out how such ordinary men are doing such extraordinary things. So they questioned them.
We’ve looked at a number of encounters in the Gospels where Jesus challenged people to define their relationship with him. He was intentionally separating the fans from the followers. For disciples, this defining moment had to come when Jesus ascended into heaven leaving them here to advance his kingdom to the ends of the earth. If they were only fans of Jesus, one of two things would happen. They would go back to their old lives and resume their former careers. Show’s over, it’s time to go home. Or they would try to carry out this mission God gave them, but because they would depend on their own strength and efforts, it would end in utter and complete failure and Jesus would disappear into human history.