The world can make us feel better but Jesus can make us be better.
What is the difference between daytime pop psychology talk shows and the Gospel? I find there is a strain of thinking among Christians that does not sound much different than the encouraging words of Oprah. It is a teaching that comes from the “everybody’s a winner” 80’s. I know this time well. On my shelf back home I have two trophies from first grade. They are bowling trophies one for the lowest team score and one for the lowest individual score, but by golly I still got a trophy. Is this an accurate reflection of the Gospel...? “You didn’t quite come to faith in me, you didn’t repent of your sins... but by golly you can have salvation too.” I call it the Stuart Smalley sermon, Stuart Smalley was a 90’s spoof TV psychologist who used to open his show by saying “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog gone it... people like me”. To be honest, everyone needs an encouragement from time to time. Speaking positive words over your life is great and we should do it. Everyone should do it; there are physical and mental benefits to keeping a positive outlook on your own life and yourself. To the credit of this strain of thinking, it must be stated that the extreme opposite is unhelpful and that is the strain of teaching that says you should deny yourselves all joy and emotion and you should hide yourself away in some desert cave and think nothing of yourself. This is also unhelpful. But is the Good news of Jesus Christ really that you are “Good enough, Smart enough, and people like you”?
As a secular counsellor of young people who had gone through horrific abuses and failures I taught this very message. My goal was to lift their spirits and their self image as best as I could. I would do it through constant encouragement and constantly pointing out the good that they had done while giving negative attention to the bad things. The goal was to get them to a point where they did believe they were good enough and smart enough. It worked but not completely. In those brief moments when I could also speak the gospel of Jesus Christ the truth was made complete and if they accepted it their treatment was far more successful. We know this to be true with the success of Gospel based recovery and training programs such as “teen Challenge”.
The true gospel is different. Jesus does not say lift yourself up and be content with which you are; in fact he says “deny yourself”. He doesn’t say you’re going to be well liked in fact; he says people will hate you on account of him if you are bold enough to share his truth. It’s true that encouragement and a positive outlook are essential to living a happy and fulfilled life now, the best life now, but these are not the requirements for eternity, nor are they the requirements to live a life that is impactful for the kingdom.
I’ve heard many people say that “Jesus just wants us to have a good time”. That Jesus must be OK with partying and getting a little drunk, I mean that guy turned water into wine. I’ve seen the Jesus is my “homeboy” t Shirts (OK so actually I owned the “Jesus is my homeboy” T Shirt). Is Jesus really my anything...? I mean does he really belong to me, or is it the other way round. I was surprised at the amount of Christians who said, during a recent campaign against prostitution in our community, things like, “It’s not so bad if it’s their choice”, “we shouldn’t judge”, “yes it’s wrong but we need to focus more on what we are for rather than what we are against”, meanwhile we deny the fact that God values human life and we let women and girls be objectified and trafficked. But some Christians actually argued that we should sit by and do nothing. Some also say that God never expected us to be perfect, which is funny because if he didn’t why would he send his own son to die on a Cross so that we could be made perfect? Seems like a waste if God truly was OK with our imperfection. Still others say Jesus loves me just the way I am.
When I hear that, I come to Mat 7:21: Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
Mat 7:23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Yes, Jesus said that, he called people “evil doers” as he called others a brood of vipers. I would argue to the unrepentant sinner who has never given his life to Christ and never thrown off sin, that God loves you just the way he created you to be, but sin got in the way and changed you, so much so that he would say “I never knew you”. See sin causes a chasm between you and God, you may call on him, but if you have not changed the way you live and confessed your sins to him that chasm still exists. God does indeed love you, but he loves you because he created you with the potential to be in a relationship with him, that is what he wants, he wants you to throw off that stuff that keeps you from him and he wants you to come back to him, to allow him to wash you clean of your sins. He is not happy with you just the way you are if you are still walking away from him; he wants you to change direction, away from worldliness and towards him.
Now in order to do that we have to stop praising ourselves constantly and take a moment to be honest with ourselves. Are we really good enough? The psalmist and Paul both say “No one is righteous no not one.” John says if we say we have no sin “we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”. While encouragement is great for building us up for life in this world if we understand the Gospel fully then we move beyond just simply making ourselves feel better about our failings and mistakes and covering them up with positive thinking and we come to Christ who will convict us of our sins, bring us sorrow, bring us to our knees and then he will pick us up. If we let Christ pick us up he will lift us up higher than we could have done ourselves. In this we are built up for eternity.
I think the Gospel offers something much more than worldly encouragement and success. It offers more than happiness and contentment with this life. It offers us the chance not to feel better but to be better. It says not that we should understand our own abilities and qualities but that we should rely fully on God and his infinite abilities and love. Our abilities and goodness can be pretty positive but they are nothing compared to his. It’s like we have a choice between riding our own old rusty push bike to the coast, or we can ride with our friend in his personal luxury leer jet. Jesus offers us something far better than personal fulfilment in this life, he offers us more than high self esteem, and worldly happiness, he offers us life and life to the fullest, not through us but through him, we just have to willing to put aside all our stuff, all our sin, all our selfishness, and hang on to him for the ride, let him take us there and let go of ourselves.
What is the difference between daytime pop psychology talk shows and the Gospel? I find there is a strain of thinking among Christians that does not sound much different than the encouraging words of Oprah. It is a teaching that comes from the “everybody’s a winner” 80’s. I know this time well. On my shelf back home I have two trophies from first grade. They are bowling trophies one for the lowest team score and one for the lowest individual score, but by golly I still got a trophy. Is this an accurate reflection of the Gospel...? “You didn’t quite come to faith in me, you didn’t repent of your sins... but by golly you can have salvation too.” I call it the Stuart Smalley sermon, Stuart Smalley was a 90’s spoof TV psychologist who used to open his show by saying “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog gone it... people like me”. To be honest, everyone needs an encouragement from time to time. Speaking positive words over your life is great and we should do it. Everyone should do it; there are physical and mental benefits to keeping a positive outlook on your own life and yourself. To the credit of this strain of thinking, it must be stated that the extreme opposite is unhelpful and that is the strain of teaching that says you should deny yourselves all joy and emotion and you should hide yourself away in some desert cave and think nothing of yourself. This is also unhelpful. But is the Good news of Jesus Christ really that you are “Good enough, Smart enough, and people like you”?
As a secular counsellor of young people who had gone through horrific abuses and failures I taught this very message. My goal was to lift their spirits and their self image as best as I could. I would do it through constant encouragement and constantly pointing out the good that they had done while giving negative attention to the bad things. The goal was to get them to a point where they did believe they were good enough and smart enough. It worked but not completely. In those brief moments when I could also speak the gospel of Jesus Christ the truth was made complete and if they accepted it their treatment was far more successful. We know this to be true with the success of Gospel based recovery and training programs such as “teen Challenge”.
The true gospel is different. Jesus does not say lift yourself up and be content with which you are; in fact he says “deny yourself”. He doesn’t say you’re going to be well liked in fact; he says people will hate you on account of him if you are bold enough to share his truth. It’s true that encouragement and a positive outlook are essential to living a happy and fulfilled life now, the best life now, but these are not the requirements for eternity, nor are they the requirements to live a life that is impactful for the kingdom.
I’ve heard many people say that “Jesus just wants us to have a good time”. That Jesus must be OK with partying and getting a little drunk, I mean that guy turned water into wine. I’ve seen the Jesus is my “homeboy” t Shirts (OK so actually I owned the “Jesus is my homeboy” T Shirt). Is Jesus really my anything...? I mean does he really belong to me, or is it the other way round. I was surprised at the amount of Christians who said, during a recent campaign against prostitution in our community, things like, “It’s not so bad if it’s their choice”, “we shouldn’t judge”, “yes it’s wrong but we need to focus more on what we are for rather than what we are against”, meanwhile we deny the fact that God values human life and we let women and girls be objectified and trafficked. But some Christians actually argued that we should sit by and do nothing. Some also say that God never expected us to be perfect, which is funny because if he didn’t why would he send his own son to die on a Cross so that we could be made perfect? Seems like a waste if God truly was OK with our imperfection. Still others say Jesus loves me just the way I am.
When I hear that, I come to Mat 7:21: Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
Mat 7:23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Yes, Jesus said that, he called people “evil doers” as he called others a brood of vipers. I would argue to the unrepentant sinner who has never given his life to Christ and never thrown off sin, that God loves you just the way he created you to be, but sin got in the way and changed you, so much so that he would say “I never knew you”. See sin causes a chasm between you and God, you may call on him, but if you have not changed the way you live and confessed your sins to him that chasm still exists. God does indeed love you, but he loves you because he created you with the potential to be in a relationship with him, that is what he wants, he wants you to throw off that stuff that keeps you from him and he wants you to come back to him, to allow him to wash you clean of your sins. He is not happy with you just the way you are if you are still walking away from him; he wants you to change direction, away from worldliness and towards him.
Now in order to do that we have to stop praising ourselves constantly and take a moment to be honest with ourselves. Are we really good enough? The psalmist and Paul both say “No one is righteous no not one.” John says if we say we have no sin “we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”. While encouragement is great for building us up for life in this world if we understand the Gospel fully then we move beyond just simply making ourselves feel better about our failings and mistakes and covering them up with positive thinking and we come to Christ who will convict us of our sins, bring us sorrow, bring us to our knees and then he will pick us up. If we let Christ pick us up he will lift us up higher than we could have done ourselves. In this we are built up for eternity.
I think the Gospel offers something much more than worldly encouragement and success. It offers more than happiness and contentment with this life. It offers us the chance not to feel better but to be better. It says not that we should understand our own abilities and qualities but that we should rely fully on God and his infinite abilities and love. Our abilities and goodness can be pretty positive but they are nothing compared to his. It’s like we have a choice between riding our own old rusty push bike to the coast, or we can ride with our friend in his personal luxury leer jet. Jesus offers us something far better than personal fulfilment in this life, he offers us more than high self esteem, and worldly happiness, he offers us life and life to the fullest, not through us but through him, we just have to willing to put aside all our stuff, all our sin, all our selfishness, and hang on to him for the ride, let him take us there and let go of ourselves.