“Contagious Christianity”

**INTRODUCTION 

Welcome to "Key to the Kingdom." I am Bret McCasland. When we are sick with something contagious, we are careful to not get around other people. We don't want them to catch something that will make them sick. Likewise, we do not want to catch something contagious from someone else and become sick ourselves. And that certainly makes sense, and that is the right thing to do. Well, think about that from a spiritual standpoint. If we are living the kind of life Jesus wants us to live, then hopefully we will want others to see it and to live in the same way. Hopefully we are living in submission to Jesus and living a life of faithful obedience to the Lord; and if so, we want others to do the same. In other words, we want them to catch a spiritual, contagious lifestyle. On “Key to the Kingdom,” today, we will notice what that kind of lifestyle looks like. We will consider how we are saved to live a life that honors God and that proclaims to the world we belong to the Lord. I hope you will join us for the next few minutes. We will open up our Bibles and study together what it looks like to be a contagious Christian.

**LESSON

A few years ago, this world experienced something we certainly do not want to experience again. You might remember it as COVID-19. It was a major infection that went around all over the world, a virus infection, and we had to stay inside for a period of time. When we did go out, we had to wear a mask. We had to practice social distancing. And the purpose of all of that was so that we do not get infected, we do not catch what somebody else has, and we certainly do not want to infect other people. And no doubt, those are days which we do not want to relive any time soon. It's dangerous to be in contagious situations. We want to avoid them at all cost. And yet there is one scenario in which being contagious is a good thing. We call it contagious Christianity. It is living the kind of life that others can see Jesus living in us. It is a way to live in such a way that attracts them to the Lord. And contagious Christianity is something we do want to spread to other people. We want others to recognize what Jesus has done for us to the point they want that very same thing for themselves. Yes, we are to want the same sin forgiving, soul saving blood of Jesus Christ, which has infected us, to infect the lives of other people. In other words, we want to be contagious Christians. We want others to catch what we have. And so we ask the question, well, what does contagious Christianity look like? A contagious Christian lifestyle is short lived if it is emotion driven. Perhaps we have all been in situations, before, where we were excited about something that was going on around us, and our emotions were at a heightened level. We were excited. We were anxious to experience what was happening. But after that event or that experience passed, then our emotions begin to taper down just a little bit and they came back into a normal level. And certainly there are some exceptions to those general statements, but we understand the emotional highs and lows of life and we can give examples. But being a Christian is not like that. It is not short lived. The zeal and the enthusiasm which we have for Jesus Christ and for what He has done for us is to be ongoing. It is also to be ever-growing. In other words, that type of zeal, that type of excitement for the Lord is to be contagious. On several occasions in the New Testament, we read about people receiving the Lord's salvation; and that's a good thing. They were excited to receive it. They welcome the Good News story of Jesus Christ. But their zeal, or their enthusiasm, for the Lord over a period of time began to become less and less. That emotional high did not last very long. I think specifically about the Christians over in a place called Laodicea; we read about them in Revelation chapter 3, and that's what had happened to them. In fact, Jesus, in that passage, says, you are neither hot nor are you cold, but you are lukewarm. They were not excited about Jesus, but yet they had not totally abandoned Him. They were somewhere in the middle. They were lukewarm. They could either take Him or leave Him, we might say. Well, a true conversion to Jesus Christ will result in a deep seated love for the Lord. It will result in a great desire and passion to be His representative in this world. Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, He gave His disciples two commands to follow; or to commissions, we might call them. They were things that Jesus wanted them to do. One is found in the Gospel of Matthew. The other is found in the Book of Acts. Listen to the first one, here in Matthew 28, beginning with verse 19; it's called the Great Commission. <Jesus told them, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”> Jesus told these disciples to, as you are going out into the world, teach, baptize and make disciples. They were to go, in their normal activities of life, see the needs of people around them, to share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ, and to immerse them into Christ; and then begin to teach and to disciple them in the ways of the Lord. And that was something they were commissioned to do. That was a commandment they were to follow after Jesus left. Well, here is another passage of Scripture very similar to this one. It is found in Acts chapter 1, verse 8. Again, Jesus gave it to the disciples, the last words that we have recorded of Jesus speaking to them. We find these words, He told them, <"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”> Well, again, that statement was very similar to the first one, in Matthew, but the disciples were to be right where they were, in Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. They were then to spread to the other parts of Judah, then to Samaria, to the north, and then to various other places. And as they went, they were to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. They were to tell others what they had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. And as they did that, hopefully, other people would catch the sense of this is something good. This is something that I need in my life. Well, like these early disciples, as Christians today, we are to have that same kind of passion to tell the story of Jesus Christ. In fact, He would present this very same plea, or commission, to us. Now, these are not pleas to be considered, but rather they are pleas to be obeyed. These same words, teach and baptize and make disciples, and, as you are going, be My witnesses, all of those things are to be a part of those who are following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. They are to be at the foundation of who we are. They are to be the driving force behind how we live and how we interact with other people. Those ideas and those concepts are to be in our hearts and on our minds on a daily basis. And we are to live in such a way, hopefully, other people will catch what we've got, because we are living as contagious Christians. You know, Jesus had a ministry that attracted other people to Him. He was passionate about doing His Father's will. He was passionate about representing His Father in this world, and people saw that. And they went to Jesus and they wanted what He had to offer. I think about the words in Matthew chapter 20, in verses 25 through 28. The text tells us, <Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”> The primary purpose for which Jesus came into this world was to serve people, as He just stated. And He was the greatest servant of all time, and He did that by making the greatest sacrifice of all time. Just as He stated in regards to Himself, He came to be the ransom, to set people free from the sin in their life. What a great act of service! And because of that, He was the greatest person who ever lived! You know, likewise, if we are passionate about something, there is not much which will discourage us. It will take a big effort to pull us away from that about which we are passionate. We might have a great deal of zeal or passion for our children, for our grandchildren, for our job, our spouse, a hobby or a number of other things, and we invest a great deal of time and attention into those things or into those people. And we live with great passion. We make them a priority. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, whatsoever. But here's a question for us to consider, what about our passion for the Lord? Is our zeal for what was important to Jesus important to us? Jesus was very passionate about doing His Father's will. He knew that He was His Father's representative upon this earth, and He wanted to please His Father. Everything He said and did came from His Father. He was, for example, very zealous about the temple. He wanted it to be used for the right purposes. But one time He saw people misusing and abusing the temple. They were exchanging money and buying and selling animals and all sorts of things, and so He ran them out of the temple. And as He was doing that, the disciples noticed it was a fulfillment of Psalm 69, verse 9: <Zeal for Your house has consumed me.> We see that, also, with His own statement in John chapter 4, verse 34: <My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.> The point very simply is this; Jesus thrived on doing what His Father wanted Him to do. It was His food. It was His nourishment. Jesus even spent some 40 days in the wilderness, by Himself, preparing to go in to His Father's ministry. He was nourishing Himself on God's will for Him, as He was about to begin His public ministry. Well, not only was Jesus passionate about His Father's will, He was passionate about people. He came to serve and to minister to people, both physically and spiritually. He saw the needs of those who were around Him, and He provided what they needed. In a great summary statement about Jesus' ministry, we find these words in Matthew 9, verses 35 and following: <Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.> Jesus went everywhere teaching the Good News of the kingdom. In their villages, in their places of worship, their synagogues, He told about that Good News story. He also ministered to the people physically. He would heal their diseases. He would make them better. He had compassion upon those who were harassed, helpless, who were searching for some kind of meaning or significance or purpose for their life. Yes, Jesus was passionate about people. I also think about the man called Saul, who later became known as the Apostle Paul. He was a very passionate and zealous man, as well. He was a man who thought he was doing what God wanted him to do, by persecuting and even putting to death those who belong to the way of the Lord. But after his conversion to Jesus Christ, he realized he was going in the wrong direction, and so he changed. But he wrote this, about that period of time in his life, in Galatians 1, verse 13: <For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the Church of God and tried to destroy it.> You know, Saul, at that time, was passionate about doing what he thought was right, but it all changed. Jesus Christ changed him, and he began to go in the exact opposite direction. And as he did, he had even more passion and more zeal for telling other people about Jesus. When I think about Paul, and that zeal and the passion he had, I think about it being summarized in a statement he wrote in Philippians chapter 3, beginning with verse 8. <"I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ -the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ -yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead."> Paul, as he was known then, was a very zealous man. He was zealous about sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. He was zealous about knowing the Lord as his savior. And everything else he had done in the past was considered garbage or waste compared to knowing Jesus Christ. We might even say Paul, as he would write this, was sold-out for Jesus. He was all in, when it came to living for Jesus Christ; and he allowed what Jesus had done for him to change him completely. In a similar way, I hope that has happens to us. As Christians, we are contagious people. We want others to see and to catch what we have. We are sold-out, we are all-in for Jesus Christ; and nobody can question us, in regards to how we feel about Jesus and the salvation we have received. You know, unless the passion of Jesus becomes our passion, then our interest in sharing our faith will be short lived. With that in mind, we ask the question, well, what does that look like? Our passion for Jesus and our passion to represent Him to other people is based upon three promises which He has made to us. First of all, if we're a contagious Christian, we will stand firmly on the promise of His salvation. In Luke, 19, verse 10, Jesus said of Himself, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” That's good news, isn't it! Jesus came to this earth to save you, to save me, to save all people. He came to save us from sin, from Satan and from eternal separation. Jesus did what nobody else had done in the past and nobody else will do in the future. He saved us by the giving of His own life. And our response to that is to believe upon Jesus as the one and only Son of God, to believe that He is the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings; He is the Savior of this world. And then, we totally submit to Jesus by being sold-out to Him, by being baptized into Him, submitting ourselves to Christ, as we die to ourselves and to the sin in this world and we begin to live with great passion and zeal and enthusiasm for the salvation He has now given to us. And we live with a great deal of thought given to, I'm not only being saved from something bad, but I'm being saved for something good. Something good is going to come in my life and it's going to be an example to other people. Well then, secondly, as contagious Christians, we base our life upon the promise of His presence. In the last part of that Great Commission, we read a moment ago, Jesus stated, in verse 20, “Surely I am with you to the very end of the age.” Well, that promise has not left us. It is still true for our lives. And His presence in our life is confirmed by the Holy Spirit, which we receive at our baptism (Acts chapter 2 and verse 38). The Spirit reminds us of God's love for us. The Spirit reminds us we belong to God and He belongs to us. In realizing the blessing, the promise of our salvation, and of the large presence in our life, we then can appreciate the promise of His return. And that's the third thing upon which we base our lives as contagious Christians, the promise that Jesus is coming back, the promise of His return. And with full confidence, we anticipate the day when Jesus returns to bring together all of those who are part of God's family. In order to relieve some of His disciples anxiety, He shared with them a very reassuring passage before He went into heaven. It’s found in John chapter 14, beginning with verse 1. Let me just share that with us. <”Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in Me. My Father's house has many rooms, and if that were not so, would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you?”> Then at the end of that passage, He said, <“If I'm going away, then I'm coming back to receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be, also.”> Well, that promise of His return still applies to us. As we can be certain today that Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a tomb and then rose again, we can also be certain of the fact that He is waiting to receive us into that eternal and heavenly home; and that is a promise we can count on. That is a promise we can anticipate with great assurance. To become a contagious Christian is to passionately pursue becoming Jesus' representative in this world; and I hope we're doing that, today. It does not have to be in a mission field halfway around the world. We don't have to move to another country and live among an indigenous group of people. The people with whom we live and work, they need to see us representing Jesus Christ in our daily lives. They need to witness how Jesus has made a difference in us. Let us be reminded, as Christians today, of the great sacrifice Jesus made, and let us allow that to make a difference in our life so that we can become contagious Christians to other people in this world.

**VIDEO CLIP

The greatest servant who ever lived was a man by the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. His Father sent Him to this earth to serve and to minister to people everywhere. And that's exactly what He did. He served people, and He did so in the name of His Father. He was sent as His Father's representative. And He ministered to people who were not like Him. He ministered to people who were less fortunate. He ministered to people who were overlooked and outcast and neglected. But that didn't matter. Jesus represented His Father's love. And as Christians today, we are called upon to do the same thing. No, we're not called upon to be Jesus, but we are to be His representative in this world. And there are people we meet, on a regular basis, that we're supposed to serve. And we serve those people, we minister to them. And we do so in the name of the Lord, to draw attention to Him and to not draw attention to ourselves; and, hopefully, other people will see that in us. It becomes contagious, a contagious Christian lifestyle. Hopefully other people will see something in us that they want to copy in their own life, and they begin to serve people and it becomes contagious and is passed on to one group of people, from one person to another. I would encourage us, today, to think about the importance of following the example of Jesus Christ to the point other people follow our example; and I would hope that our example is a good one to follow. Think about practicing a contagious Christian lifestyle, today.

**CONCLUSION

Thank you for joining us for today's broadcast. It is good to be reminded of the privileges we have, of living a life for Christ. I hope you are living in such a way that others are catching that same spirit of being a contagious Christian. This message is available to listen to or to view again. It is on our website at keytothekingdom.com. Other lessons are there, as well, and they can all be downloaded in audio, video or written formats. There is no cost to do so and there is no obligation required. While on the website I would encourage you to take a minute to look at some of the other things we offer. One minute and two minute video clips provide a devotional thought for the day. Bible studies and some of our basic beliefs are there as well. There are several ways to follow this mass media ministry. It can be found on Roku® television and also on Facebook®. You might even consider downloading the free app onto your smart-phone. All of these media tools are free to access, and I hope you will find the ones which are most convenient. Thank you again for being part of today's program. I hope you will tune in again at this same time next week, as we continue to study the Bible on “Key to the Kingdom.”