The Becoming Part 1 (Sunday, May 1, 2011)

The Becoming - Part One (Sky94 Service): Listen Here

As I said in the previous post  - which I posted just a few minutes earlier, so you might have missed it - I'm revising my new direction ever so slightly. Go here for more details.

On the note, I really encourage you to listen to this sermon. The story behind this series is pretty cool. Pastor Jason's band - Go Project - has a new album coming out on May 17th (you should all download it off iTunes, because it's going to be sweet) and, as he explains at the beginning of this sermon, his goal is to prepare the hearts of his congregation for this album, since music is an extension of his ministry. Anyway, I'm going to unabashedly promote their music in this post and recommend that everyone reading this go and check out their Facebook page (which is linked along the right-hand column of this blog) and listen to some of the music on their BandPage (I recommend "Like an Alien," which is a single for this upcoming album along with "Storms Don't Last Forever" and "Unidentified." I also recommend "Hatin' on Me," which is from a previous album.)

Back to the sermon itself, this was one that, for me, really hit home. The topic is salvation, which sounds really basic at first. However, it's one of those messages that I feel each person relates to a little differently and this makes it rather complex. This idea of salvation seems simple, but each person has come to Christ from a different path. Each person has had certain influences in their lives that shape how they view salvation, and with all this theological mumbo-jumbo floating around, at the end of the day it's difficult to say what salvation really is. That being said, Pastor Jason does a great job of describing salvation as a lifelong journey (of becoming like Christ), rather than a prayer at some point in your life when you felt you needed Jesus. It's a daily commitment and relationship, not a "one night stand" (Jason's words); it's a beginning, rather than an end.

Supplementary Recommendations:
I'd recommend the book Your Own Jesus: A God Insistent on Making It Personal by Mark Hall for more insight on this idea of "becoming like Christ." Mark Hall (another pastor who supplements his ministry with music. You might recognize him as the lead singer of Casting Crowns) does a great job of working through people's testimonies to show how God shapes your life continuously and how each person has to have "their own Jesus" rather than "their pastor's Jesus" or "their parent's Jesus" or simply "someone else's Jesus."