Avoid a sugar coated gospel

Luke 5:31-32

“And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

When Jesus confronted the Pharisees and called them whitewashed tombs, full of dead men’s bones (Matthew 23:27), I can only imagine how his disciples looked at him in shock.

The same man who healed those others would not touch, who moved with compassion, spoke scalding truth to the Pharisees.

Maybe people called him “judgmental.”

Maybe one of the disciples even whispered that he should’ve simply prayed for them, and said nothing.

Yet, he spoke the truth, he spoke it plainly.

Even if it was uncomfortable for those around him to hear, he did not hush truth in order to keep those around him happy.

He wasn’t tolerant.

He didn’t condone.

He flipped tables in his house because they had made a house of prayer into a den of thieves.

He never left anyone the same.

He didn’t wash feet and then leave them to go back to what they had been doing.

He didn’t “get them.”

Everything he touched, he changed.

He called out sin.

And he opened his arms with compassion to the sinner. But he didn’t invite them to draw nigh, so that they could continue on in the same lifestyle.

He called them OUT.

Go and sin no more.

Jesus didn’t do things that were comfortable.

And living and loving like him isn’t going to be comfortable either.

The Jesus of this world and the Jesus of the Bible are two different people. The Jesus of this world is tolerant, non judgmental, and “gets you.”

The Jesus of the Bible is love, is compassionate, but is also JUST, and HOLY, and is willing to take a stand against evil and call it out, and doesn’t leave you as he found you.

The gospel is hope.

The gospel is love.

But sometimes it’s not a “warm and fuzzy message.”

If the gospel “felt good” or “got you,” there would be no reason to repent and go and sin no more. You would just get to stay in the same hopeless place you’ve always been. Had Jesus left me as he found me, I would’ve never known hope or peace. There is joy in his presence. So if that means I must be uncomfortable so that I can know him deeper, then so be it.

The Jesus of this world may be comfortable to your flesh. But this is not truth. Jesus loves you, and died for you, but he hates sin. He wants you to leave it behind, and follow him.

You didn’t need saving if your Savior doesn’t change your life.

"Avoid a sugar coated gospel.

Seek the gospel that rips up, wounds and even kills, for that's the gospel that makes alive again." - CH Spurgeon

I can get a “warm and fuzzy” message from a fortune cookie. I need truth from Jesus, even if it isn’t comfortable or popular.