Believe in Jesus and a gorgeous blonde will want you
"Use my soap, and I'll throw you a Marty Party"
Donald Miller used to use this amazing illustration about the church feeding into darwinistic theology by teaching that “if you get right with Jesus, your life will then be better.” He paralleled this by using dish soap advertisements.
Marketers would have us believe: “If you buy our dish soap, everything will be great in your life. You can have extremely clean hands. The extremely gorgeous blonde on this commercial will want you, or you can look like her in her perfect suburban home. Oh yeah, and by the way, your dishes will be really clean.”
This is what the church advertises when we say that if you meet Jesus, your life will be all good.
Then I think about my mom, who’s been in bed for the last 25+ years. She certainly is not perfect, but everyday she prays for healing, and everyday she stays in bed, praying for everyone she knows, because her relationship with Jesus has never been better.
And I think about a friend of mine I met with recently who has gone through a whole life of mierda (I just cursed in spanish; Carie would be so proud). He can’t even see God work anymore, but he’s served in church for years and has such a sacrificial giving heart.
It would be easy for me to get theological here and try to explain these things away by sharing all the sin in the lives of my mom and my friend You know, sin reaps consequences and all that…but then again, I’ll leave that for the seminary boys club. Then I think about Jesus, who was perfect in every way, yet he found himself hung on a tree, dying because of my sins – under a divine curse because of my broken communion with God.
So I guess this next Sunday morning when I preach about Jesus the week after I talked about sin, and two weeks after I talked about God, I can’t really say that “If you take Jesus, everything will be all great in your life. You’ll be all free of sin, and someone that looks like me will want you, or you can look and preach like me in my perfect little suburban church. Oh yeah, and Jesus will make everything go right too.” So what do I say?
I guess I will say that by accepting God’s precious gift of Christ, you are reconciled back to your creator because of the shed blood of Jesus. And that’s a very ugly picture, in case you haven’t seen “The Passion of the Christ”. And by being reconciled to Him, you’re able to work on making Him all you need. Because before that whole first man and first woman eating the fruit thing…
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You rock my world friend. You’re the man! I’m glad you’re not afraid to bring the Truth of the Cross. having Jesus in my life has messed me up for sure, and my life has not been perfect or sinless since. One thing I know is that God is using me and you, and everyone at FC,
to further His Kingdom despite how ridiculously stupid and selfish and……we are. Great use of “Mierda!” I can’t believe you swore in Espanol.
Hi – just watched a video clip that touched me. The premise was that we walk around with our idea of “the cross” and we wear symbols of it on a necklace or a tee shirt, put it on bible covers, fridge magnets and bumper stickers; we call it “beautiful”. The truth is, that “the cross HE took up on HIS back” was ugly, heavy, stained with his sweat and blood and tears. “The cross” was not for decoration, but for degradation, for submission, for breaking down under. And it transformed him from a man to something far greater, but only because of it’s bloody mess and the weight of it. Being transformed by the cross should not make us all bright, shiny, perfect, and “desireable” but should highlight the ugliness of our lives and therefore HIS grace and beauty. Wait, does that make sense? I’m trying to paraphrase someone else, I hope that came out right…