The Gospel That Offends

The Gospel That Offends

I once had a conversation with a friend about what we saw as the most important aspect of the church. He said, “The most important thing is that we don’t offend anyone.”

How does a church that worships Jesus come to that conclusion? Let’s look at that for a minute. Jesus offended people everywhere He went. He told His disciples that offense was inevitable (Lk 17) and I Peter literally calls the Gospel of Jesus “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”. The truth is that Jesus often went way out of His way to offend people.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we should insult people and behave badly towards them. I mean, the church is about love and grace, right? Yet, we have this awkward realization that the Gospel is offensive to a large portion of the people. And, here’s the hard part about that: God designed it that way.

So, what do we do? Do we stop preaching the Gospel? Of course not. We must come to terms with the reality that the Gospel MUST be preached by the followers of Jesus and that the Gospel absolutely WILL offend some. So, let’s look at why the Gospel is so offensive to the world.

Here’s what the world is teaching our young people. In fact, we can confidently say that here is an entire generation out there that has grown up believing these false statements.

1 - Being happy is the highest goal.

2 - Loving yourself is a virtue.

3 - You are perfect just as you are.

4 - Follow your heart.

5 - There is no God.

Here is the message of the Gospel:

1 - Put others first.

2 - Pride is a sin.

3 - You must change.

4 - Your heart is desperately wicked.

5 - God is real.

How do we preach THAT Gospel to THOSE people? We will look at that tomorrow.