The name of our church is Redeemer (read more about that here), and that name is one of many attributed to Jesus. Why so much focus on Jesus? Simply because there’s nothing better to centre our lives upon. This isn’t just true for us individually, but it’s also the best way we can serve Chorlton and Manchester. This is because Jesus offers us so much. Here’s an overview of what He promises to those who follow Him:
A new status.
All our mistakes and shortcomings and guilt and shame are removed from us. Now this by itself is amazing, but we aren’t just left as a blank slate or in some kind of neutral state. We are also given all the virtue and integrity and worthiness and purity from God Himself. So God Himself takes on our brokenness and gives us His goodness.
All the red ink spilled in our own personal ledger books, listing our debts to others, to ourselves, that’s now all wiped out and there’s no record of the penalty against us anymore. In its place is a new book with unlimited potential. Even when we mess up (and we will continue to mess up) we will find that our ledger is still clean.
A new heart.
We have the ability now to live the way we truly want to. More than that, to desire to live that way. God’s desires become ours, so we get freed from living for ourselves, for pride, or money, or sex, and now are enabled to live for something greater. We will still make mistakes, but now we are no longer slaves to them. This is because God Himself comes to dwell within us, called the Holy Spirit. Through Him, we are freed from that power of brokenness and freed to live for goodness.
The Bible says that for those who follow Jesus, they have become something new. A new creation. This new creation has the freedom we’ve always hoped for. Our old hearts were like stone, dead and cold. But Jesus gives us the new heart of a new creation, and that makes us alive in ways we’ve never known before.
A new world.
We know that not only are we broken, but our entire world is broken: our families, communities, city. Within each one of us is a hope that maybe the world isn’t as bad as it seems. For those who follow Jesus, we get to be a part of remaking this world into something new. Just like how we are made new, individually, through Jesus, one day our whole world will be made new through Jesus.
When this new world comes, those who have a new status and a new heart will be made completely new. The penalty and power of our brokenness are done away with, but in this new world, its presence will be destroyed. The mistakes we still make now and our current struggles in life won’t plague us anymore. This new world won’t have death or crying or mourning, but everything—everything—will be completely made new. The old has gone the new has come.
A new status, a new heart, a new world.
As followers of Jesus, we aren’t just waiting for that new world to come, our task as Redeemer, a a church in Chorlton, is to reflect this new world in our everyday lives throughout our neighbourhood and Manchester.
This is what Jesus offers and this is why we think it’s important to centre our lives around Him. If this is all true, why would we choose to live for anything else?