Good Company

So, I was really feeling like I needed to write about some comments that were recently published on certain folks’ blog sites. Evidently, there are a couple of people who like to say that the work we are doing here at C3 is from the devil and have compared staff members to satan. At first I was pretty mad at these comments, but then I realized we are in good company. You see, in Mark 3:22 Jesus was called the devil too. And what I find extremely interesting is who was doing the name calling; it was the religious elite, the “teachers of the law”. These were the guys who were supposed to be the closest to God yet they were calling God’s very own Son, the devil. Of course the question is why would they do that? Well, in part because the teachers of the law cared so much more about their rules, traditions and establishing a religion more than they cared about people. Jesus on the other hand came and turned those ideas upside down and it ticked the religious elite off. Jesus actually cared about those that didn’t spend all their time at the synagogue. In fact, He spent a ton of His time eating and hanging out with the vilest sinners around (Luke 15:1-2). In Mark 2 it even records Jesus going to a party with “notorious sinners”. But, why would He do that? Why would the most holy person who ever walked the earth hang out with those that are the farthest from Holiness? Jesus tells us in Mark 2:17 when He says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.” Jesus came not for the religious elite but for those that were the farthest from Him. To put it frankly, Jesus was a garbage picker. He came to this earth to the people who were considered the garbage of society and pulled them out. Personally, I think we at C3 have ticked the religious elite of Orlando off because we have decided to no longer be a social club or religious elite kind of church. Instead, we decided to “go out into the world” and pick out the garbage. I am sorry if you feel like your precious Southern Baptist Church was taken away from you. However, last time I checked it’s not your church, nor is it the Southern Baptist’s. Personally, I’m very thankful for Pastor Byron, our church and staff that clearly sees that God’s heart is not in creating a social order or massive colony. Instead His heart is getting out of the church building and going through the garbage cans of life.