I’m continuing with the thought: Why I DON’T start the gospel with, “You are a sinner.”
Please read this entire post. If you just read part of it, you’ll get the wrong idea about what I’m saying.
Our guilt before God is going to mean NOTHING to anyone until they get over what they see as God’s guilt before us.
Here’s what I’m talking about. That secret (or not so secret) thought that says: Yeah, I might be a sinner. But if I am, God is a much bigger sinner. After all, how could He allow… [fill in the blank]?
Spend time with hurting people, and you’ll eventually discover that the Richter Scale of evil goes far beyond anything the darkest horror film can portray. Maybe you’ve seen it. Maybe you’ve lived it. If you’re paying attention, you’ve been shaken to the core, just as I have.
Why, God? How can You allow it?
I get it when people abandon God. I DON’T agree, but I get it. They don’t know the God I know.
Hear what I’m saying: I believe with all my heart that God is good. But many people do not. Even Christians, if pushed hard enough by life, many times will have doubts.
Is God good? That is the central question this generation is asking. I believe we need to start the gospel there, answering that question.
I plan to say more in upcoming posts, but first let me ask you a question: How has God treated you in your place of deepest hurt and pain?
One more thought: An infant only knows to cry. Mom knows how to comfort.
Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Nehemiah
New question: Which king did the niece of Mordecai marry?
You are a sinner. You need Jesus because He paid for your sins.
That’s the standard gospel message, and for years I pushed some version of that. But not so much any more.
What happened? Have I become a heretic?
I don’t think so. I still believe in Jesus. I still believe in sin. But I’ve come to see the gospel as something much more complete that what I previously peddled. Leading with “you are a sinner” robs people of most of the beauty of the gospel.
The New Testament Greek word for gospel is euangellion which means, “good message” or “good news.” I’m not sure that leading with “you are a sinner” really qualifies as “good news.” In addition, I don’t think it’s a good way to summarize the message of the Bible or the collective experience of God’s people.
I’m going to say more about this in upcoming posts, but let me pose a question to you. What do you like most about Jesus? How would you express that to the people you care about?
Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Jonah
New question: Sanballat opposed which Israeli leader?
Fast forward 500 years. Imagine yourself…surrounded by the best of friends, walking around with the wide-eyed wonder of a four-year-old and the wisdom of a sage. You are fully present, engaged with life—having fun, in charge, getting it right every time, and deeply at peace.
This is the you that wins.
Guess what? If you’ve said yes to Jesus, this you already exists. In fact, anything that isn’t that—isn’t you. This is the true you, the you that was created to live forever.
Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Eli thought Hannah was drunk
New question: They threw me overboard, and then the sea grew calm. Who am I?
Let me ask you a question: Which is easier to put together? A 100-piece jigsaw puzzle or a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle? And which, when finished, would give you a greater sense of satisfaction?
You and I are like a jigsaw puzzle in this sense: All of us are broken into pieces that need to be put back together. That’s a reality of living in a fallen world. My friend Steve Freitag puts it this way: “Some of us are cracked. Some of us are broken. Some of us are shattered. And some of us are pulverized.”
Here’s the gospel good news: Jesus puts back together the shattered pieces of our lives.
Yes, some of us are more like that 10,000 piece puzzle. We’ve endured a lot of hurt; it will take time and care to put those pieces back together.
And that’s okay. Wherever you are on that continuum, just don’t pretend you’re put together when you’re really leaving the pieces in the box. Hand those pieces—one-by-one—to Jesus, and watch what He does with your life.
Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Ruth was David’s was his great-grandmother.
New question: What did Eli mistakenly believe about Hannah when he first saw her?
Adapted from a Flickr photo by thskyt, Creative Commons License
Sorry folks, I know this one is long, but I think worth the read.
Maturity is, in part, the ability to know when the story isn’t finished.
In the Bible book of 2 Kings, we read the story of a woman from the village of Shunem. This was a woman with a secret dream. Deep in her heart, she longed to have a child, but as the years went by her dream slowly died. She and her husband had money, and the things money could buy in those days. But she didn’t have what she wanted most: a family.
She spoke to no one about this secret dream. She buried it deep inside. Time passed. The dream died, and she did her best to move on with life. She grew cautious, not daring to dream any more.
Then the prophet Elisha came through the village. Being hospitable, she and her husband invited him in for a meal. A friendship started. They felt so much at home with one another that this old couple even built guest quarters onto their home so Elisha would have a place to stay.
Elisha talked to them. “You’ve done all these nice things for me, what can I do for you?”
The woman said, “I don’t need anything. I have everything money can buy.”
But Elisha had an assistant, and that assistant saw through her answer. “She wants a child,” he whispered to Elisha.
Aha! Elisha saw an opportunity for God. “A year from now,” he said, “you will hold a son in your arms.”
“No,” she said. “No.”
I pause here. Why would she say no?
Why would any of us say no?
Could it be that we’ve had our hopes raised and then dashed one time too many? Could it be that we’ve seen our dreams die, and the process of bringing them back to life is just too painful? Could it be that we’ve settled for second best because that’s all we know.
She said, “No.”
But God said, “Yes.” And a year later, her home was filled with the joy that a new child brings.
Yet the story doesn’t end here.
The little boy started growing up. One day he followed his daddy out into the fields of the family farm, excited to help out with the harvest. But something happened. Something wasn’t right. The boy buckled over in pain.
I don’t know what it was. An aneurism perhaps, or a stroke, or encephalitis. I don’t know. His dad didn’t know either, but he knew he needed care, so he asked a farm worker to carry him home to his mom.
There at home, in mom’s arms, the little boy died.
I pause again, and I ask you: What kind of God do we serve?
I ask you now, because sooner or later life will put this question to you. You will lose something that you deeply care about, and the God you thought you knew and loved will seem terribly far away, aloof, uncaring, arbitrary, capricious.
It’s at that time we must make a choice. Are we going to pick up the broken pieces of our shattered dreams and carry them back to God? Or will we turn away from Him, perhaps forever?
The woman from Shunem chose to take her shattered life back to God. Understand this: She took it all. Her grief, her pain, her anger, her deep loss.
She laid her dead son down on the prophet’s bed in the guest quarters, and set off to find Elisha.
“Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?” she said as she poured out her grief to the man of God.
Now here is part of the secret of maturity. Maturity is, in part, the ability to know when the story isn’t finished.
God wasn’t finished. Read 2 Kings 4. The woman’s son was raised to life.
I don’t know what you’ve lost. And I don’t know how God will restore to you what is missing from your life. But I do know this: Your most fragile and precious dreams are eternally safe with God.
Will we take the plunge? Will we dance with Him? Will we open up our hearts so wide that maybe we will lose part of ourselves to God?
Many people want a god they can mold themselves and cast into whatever image fits their narrative. Maybe, on some level, all of us do.
But when we open the door to Jesus, we open the door to the God who is there, the real God, not some fluffy, huggable toy we can put on the shelf when we’re done with him.
When we let God be who He is, we discover that He is far better than anything we could have come up with on our own.
An amazing transformation takes place when God is no longer the enemy.
For so many years I stared down at my feet thinking, I am unworthy. I screw up. I can’t get it right.
Then one night I had a dream. In it, the sky parted, heaven began to appear, and I knew at the next moment I would see the face of God. I thought I would be afraid, but I wasn’t. Instead, I felt a different feeling—awe. Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, only a thousand times more.
This is what God tries so hard to get us to do: to stop, to look heavenward, to forget ourselves, to get lost in the wonder of Him.
Many unhappy people are trying to “dress up” for God.
God will like me if… I lust less, pray more, be nice, tow the line, yada yada.
So…here’s the question: How good do you gotta be before God actually likes having you around? And here’s the answer: Wrong question. God already likes you, and, yes, He’s perfectly aware of all of your little secrets, and, no, He’s not disgusted with you.
Little children don’t clean up for their parents. Their parents clean them up. Their parents dress them. God knows that we don’t have the ability to “dress up” for Him. That’s why He meets us where we are. His presence transforms us, and the only way—the only way—to get into His presence is to go there honestly, just as we are.
Guess what! You will not find it by following the crowd. Sorry. The crowd doesn’t have it.
It can be good to fit in, but you won’t find what Jesus offers by desperately trying to fit in. It’s great to be well liked, but pursuing popularity doesn’t deliver the beautiful life God designed for you. If you can better yourself, go for it! But keeping up with the Joneses (or whoever) will not empower you to advance in the kingdom of God.
Jesus likened the Kingdom to a treasure hidden in a field. It isn’t being hyped on an infomercial; it’s hidden. It’s NOT in the place where everybody else is looking.
If you want the best, you need to go beyond the slick and glossy good that’s peddled to the masses. The best is found somewhere else—in a place you don’t expect.
I’m all for accountability, safety in numbers, mentors, Christian peer review, and all of that. But at some point, you need to decide that you’re gonna go for what Jesus has for you even if no one—I mean no one—goes with you.
Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: He was struck with leprosy
New question: In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be “born again.” What other book in the New Testament uses the phrase “born again”?
At one point my faith was more artificial. It was manufactured. It centered around performance. It had a lot of sound, but not much muscle.
I think I was always looking for something—it wasn’t quite conscious, but subconsciously I knew something was missing, and I was always looking for it, but not finding it.
Early on, I thought it was all about answers. If I really, really knew my Bible. If I really understood theology and philosophy and apologetics, then I would be complete. Of course, it’s good to learn, but I found that learning more and more didn’t make me any more complete.
For a long time, I thought the answer was found in obedience. I found all kinds of obscure ways in which I wasn’t quite lining up with perfection, and worked hard to eradicate them. Hmm. It’s good to obey, but I didn’t find what I was looking for here.
I saw people around me who had supernatural experiences and gifts of various types. They stomped around like they owned the place, and for a while, I was impressed. But after a time, those things lost their glitter, and I realized this wasn’t what I was looking for.
I think the beginning of a turnaround for me was discovering that God likes me, that God likes hanging out with me. It took me a whole year just to take that in. That made it possible for me to invite Jesus into my real world where I lived every day. As I did that, I experienced something I didn’t expect: emotional healing, spiritual growth, personal transformation, new perspectives all rolled up into one.
I didn’t know it was a package deal. I never would have guessed that.
