Becoming Red Letter Christian- Matthew 7:24-27

Ocean Grove Auditorium

Ocean Grove, NJ

July 30, 2006

Dr. Tony Campolo

Ocean Grove Auditorium

Ocean Grove, NJ

7:30 PM Service

July30, 2006

Becoming Red Letter Christians

  1. Matthew 7:24-27
  2. Politics: Everyone just tears down the opponents, doesn’t talk about themselves.
  3. The Church should talk about the issues, but should not be Partisan. Jesus transcends parties.
  4. Story of the name “Red Letter Christians”.
  5. “My platform is the things that Jesus said.” Nobody is quite as radical as Jesus.
  6. Going to be preaching on the beatitudes.
  7. Gandhi about the beatitudes “Everyone in the world knows what Jesus was teaching about in these scriptures, except for Christians.”
  8. Blessed are those who are spiritually connected to poor people. Over 2000 verses that call on us to respond to the needs of the poor.
  9. We all agree on one thing: Jesus cared about the poor people. Jesus called on us to care for the poor people.
  10. Plug for Eastern University.
  11. Front Page story of Christianity Today: Shane Claiborne calling young men and women to work among the poor. The Simple Way.
  12. How much money that goes into the church gets spent on the Church? How much goes out to those who are in need?
  13. Story of the man who took a tour in the oil refinery. Oil doesn’t get shipped out, is used to keep the refinery going. Commentary on the church.
  14. “The church is the only club in the world which exists for non-members.”
  15. Father of a student yelling at Tony because he is giving up everything he has and out on the street. “I don’t mind being a Christian up to a point.”
  16. Story of going to Haiti. Beggar kids.
  17. 1 John 3:17-18.
  18. William Sloane Coffin preached against the Vietnam War one Sunday. Colonel doesn’t stamp out because Coffin had spent the night of his wife’s death with him. That’s what gains legitimacy.
  19. We are supposed to be people who weep with those who weep. “Jesus wept.”
  20. Story of father: Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. “They better inherit it, that’s the only way they’re going to get it.”
  21. Story of being pastor as Jacobstown. Midweek prayer meeting. “The Blizzard of ’28”. God’s looking for people who will be faithful in little things.
  22. Story about father moving them so Tony would grow up with Jewish kids. Italians party and eat, Jews win Nobel Prize. Finding the minutes of the church right before it shut down. It’s not what you see that matters. It’s what God is doing under the radar that matters.
  23. 1 Corinthians 1:26
  24. AIDS epidemic. Christians aren’t showing mercy to those with AIDS.
  25. Story about women in Africa. “Pray that my Children die before I do.”
  26. Story about Tomas Borge. General in Sandinista army. When a prisoner, they raped and killed his wife in front of his eyes. When he was freed, he embraced one of those who killed his wife, and forgave him.
  27. Blessed are those who are merciful when it’s not deserved
  28. Story about the young woman who didn’t want to take communion unworthily
  29. Spirituality is not about the laws you keep, its about the love that you give
  30. Story about Charles Spurgeon and the man from Oxford that wanted to make a donation to Spurgeon’s ministry
  31. If you really love God, you will seek to do anything that pleases him
  32. Blessed are the pure in heart
  33. Bill Clinton said “Conservatives maintain lines that should never be crossed; liberals destroy lines that should have never existed.”
  34. Winston Churchill once said “you can always count on Americans to make the right decisions after they have exhausted all of the other possibilities.”
  35. We all need to be purified
  36. Luke Skywalker from Star Wars said “Everyone has a dark side”
  37. Blessed are the peacemakers
  38. Story about the young monk who went to Rome and saw the gladiator fights and yelled “In the name of Jesus STOP!”
  39. When Jesus said love your enemies, he probably meant don’t kill them
  40. You can put down your enemy by putting down evil with good
  41. Story about the man that said “for the most part I agree with Jesus”
  42. Story about Jonathan who said “everything I learned about radical Christianity, I learned from Tony Campolo…” and he went over to Jordan and Baghdad to give medical care to the wounded
  43. Story about the lady that told Tony “some people in my church think you’re a heretic
  44. You need to do what Jesus would do and stand up for those that are hurting. The church does a lot of hurting
  45. Story about Tony’s former student that told him to tell the students what it would cost if they follow Jesus
  46. The earliest Christian doctrine was not the Apostles’ Creed, it was “Jesus is Lord”
  47. A Christian isn’t somebody who just gets saved to go to heaven, a Christian is somebody through whom Jesus can do the incredibly important work that needs to be done in this world
  48. Jesus never asked us to be believers, he called us to be disciple
  49. Billy Graham always said “He is not Lord at all if He isn’t Lord of all.”

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