Being back in Vegas my wife and I have had the opportunity to catch up with many friends. We have been burdened by how many have chosen to stop walking with Jesus. Now I want to make a distinction when I say walk away from Jesus. I do have some friends who have walked away from a church environment due to many different reasons. Some have walked away becuase they have been forced out by a pastor with an agenda. Some have simply found the church culture here irrelevant to their life. A small group of my friends have regulated themselves to meeting every Thursday (aside from some weeks when they cancel church due to a table that needs sanding) to talk about Jesus and drink beer. They call it: Beer Church. Now the big travesty here is that beer made in St. Louis is often the beer of choice. Choice of church name aside, I am more concerned with my friends who have looked at a irrelevant church culture as an excuse to not love Jesus.
"Christians are supposed to be loving. These people aren't loving, and they have the Holy Spirit!" This came out of the pious mouth of a good buddy of mine as we watched Monday Night Football the other night. My friend uses the excuse of Christians "suppossedly" not loving him as a reason for him to not love Jesus anymore. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if people sin against me, I am still a sinner. Right? And if people don't love me, I am still loved by God. Right? And God showed his love for me that while I was a sinner, that deserves to spend eternity away from him in hellfire, Christ died for me so that I could spend eternity with him in heaven. Right? So unless people not loving me produces a tomb with Jesus' decayed body, how does Christians not loving me justify my not loving Jesus?
You can get the sense of how I feel about my friend's decision. It deeply saddens me that many of my friends have simply waited for the first thing to go wrong in their life as an excuse to opt out of following Jesus. But, as I talked with my buddy I was deeply saddened by something else. My response to his many comments was simply this:
"Have you prayed for these people? Does it grieve you when people don't love you, becuase you realize that they haven't been touched by the love of God? Do you pray that God would reveal his love to them by the Holy Spirit that lives inside of them? Sure you get mad, people not being loving sucks. But has it made you sad? Due you love the world around you so much, that you realize that when people don't love it has a negative impact on the world? Or are you simply pissed that they have wronged you, and desire some sort of retribution? Have you been so deeply touched by the fact that while you were a sinner that Jesus died for you? Has this humbled you to realize that every bit of good about you is due to God's grace?"
My friend told me he was going to be firing these questions at me all night. Yet after being confronted with the gospel truth of the matter, he didn't ask me a single question the rest of the night. After being confronted with his lack of humility, and reception of the gospel for that matter, he couldn't muster the self-righteousness to put God in the dock anymore. After being confronted with the convicting, loving, and end-all mesage of the gospel as the answer and reason for his problem, he couldn't think of any more problems.
This makes me sad again becuase I wonder how much the gospel has been used as the central point of everything when my friend entered church. I wonder what his preacher said when talking about not sleeping with his girlfreind, or not getting drunk, or how to love. I wonder if his preacher made his and others sin the number one problem, and Jesus life and work on the cross the answer? I wonder if he even had ears to hear it.
The thing is that many people will come up with many reasons not to love Jesus. Even with as many reasons as you can find, YOU ARE STILL A SINNER, and as much as you may ignore it, JESUS DIED FOR SINNERS. So here's my plan for Vegas: keep telling people that they are sinners and this is their biggest problem in life. This is what hurts their relationships, their life, and keeps them from the best relationship of all: God. And keep telling people that Jesus died to destroy sin, and that this is the solution to their biggest problem. Through Jesus they get restored relationships, eternal life, and a relationship with God. that no matter what happens in life this is a truth they can hold as an anchor. When the world is against them, they can eb comforted that no one can separate them from the love of God in Jesus Christ. I'm hoping this catches on.
Matt
Recent Comments