We feel torn: We see people around us who are broken and hurting. We feel the need to help them, even to fix them. But we have two problems. First, in Matthew 7:1-6 Jesus clearly says,, "Do not judge." Second, we ourselves aren't keen on people trying to fix us. In this message we work through this conundrum.

In Acts 1, the disciples were excited with the prospect of Jesus "restoring the kingdom to Israel." They discover that Jesus had other things in mind.

The picture of spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4 is slightly different than what we see in 1 Corinthians 12 & Romans 12. In those passages the focus is on gifts given to people. In Ephesians the focus is on the people as gifts to the church.

 In 1 John 3:11-24 we see that Jesus is the measure of love: what it is, how to do it, and to whom we show it.

 Can you imagine being holy? God calls us to be holy - and wants to do the work in us. Based on 1 Peter 1:13-25

 His opponents accused Jesus of being a "friend of sinners," as if that were a bad thing. As a sinner, it's good for me to have a friend in Jesus. As I follow him, should I be a friend of sinners too?

 Jesus tells a story about two guys praying at the temple. One, the Pharisee, is sure of high own righteousness. He's a good guy. He avoids doing bad things and does the things we want our church people to do. The other guy, a tax collector, appears to have nothing going for him. He's a sinner and knows he's a sinner. But even knowing himself to be a sinner, he comes to God for mercy. Jesus commends the second guy, the sinner seeking mercy, not the guy whose life was centered on his own righteousness.

 Using the metaphor of a map, we consider both the destination and journey of this thing we call "Christianity."

 Whose word counts in your life? The word of Jesus, crucified and risen?

 From 2 Corinthians 4, we see that the way to spiritual power is through the weakness of the cross.