A Neutered Gospel?

Last night, I had the opportunity to teach the college group at church. While I was extremely nervous, (because I always freak out when I talk in front of people) I really did enjoy the experience. I received a ton of good feedback from people at the church. For those of you who were there and supported me...Thank you s much, I love you all.  For those of you who were not there and are curious, here is a small recap of the lesson from last night:

As I was coming home from Kentucky, I spent some time thinking about why I am not content with my life right now. I'm just not happy. I've been in some bad relationships and done some things I'm not proud of. But few people know about these things, while I'm out at school and work, I appear to be a happy normal red haired kid. I'm very good at hiding my own sin and my own shame.  I think many of us are doing the same thing as well.

But hiding ourselves is not what we see in the Bible. Mark 4:22 says, "For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light." (ESV) Everything we do is now known by Christ. He knows our deepest darkest sins, thoughts, motives, and actions. Yet we continue to hide ourselves from others, and from Christ. And we shouldn't be like that. We need to be transparent; we need to quit turning our back to Christ and others. We do this because we want to show others that we don't sin, or that our sin is small.Charles Spurgeon said, "If your sin is small, then your savior is small. If your sin is big then your savior is big" We have a big and great savior in Jesus. So we need to take joy not in the fact that our sins are small or not real, but that they ARE real, and that our savior is real.  The only way fr us to remember this is to have the gospel preached to us over, and over again. Preached to us in a way that it offends us.

But we don't do that. Why? We don't like to preach a gospel that offends people. We preach a watered down gospel. I really think we do this so we are not confrontational and so we do not get ourselves in trouble. The truth is you cannot preach the gospel without getting into trouble. Because the gospel is offensive. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Matthew 10:34-36)

Preaching the gospel is preaching with a sword. It is offensive. The gospel is offensive. That's just what the gospel is. It is both beautiful and offensive. But we don't like to preach a offensive gospel, we just want to dress it up and teach a watered down gospel. When we do that, when we try to stay safe with the gospel, we neuter the gospel. We cut off the offense, and by doing that we cut off the beautiful part as well.

Then I start to think, why do we do that? I think it is because we have a wrong view of Jesus. Jesus is not some Galilean peasant hippie, walking around in his sandals drinking Starbucks, looking for nice people to do aromatherapy and talk about his feelings. We need a bigger Jesus than that. And we see this in Revelation 19.

"Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."

That is the Jesus we worship. That is the Jesus we need to preach to each other. A Jesus that offends people and a Jesus that is not safe. But the same Jesus that knows all our sins, motives, thoughts, and actions and frees us from hiding.  We need to stop neutering the gospel and robbing it of is offense and therefore its beauty as well. We are called to be bold ambassadors of Christ and it's time we start doing it.