Our culture is corrupt, and so is the church overall. Light is still seeping out from underneath the closed doors, with a few Christians who have gone into the world to share the good news that where evil abounds, grace much more abounds. Unlike Elon Musk's take and others on recent attacks on the Christian faith trying to comprehend the light, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Many churches are built on the sand of today's society and will fall as a result, but the church that is eternally built on the person and words of Jesus will be the only structure standing when others have fallen because of the shaken.
Good news is subjective. So, let's put a few things in perspective to the eternal word of God that cause people to see that the good news is truly good news and not charismatic hype or a political system fueled by the false hope of a better tomorrow through man's efforts without divine empowerment.
The good news has been watered down over the decades that anyone can slap a Christian sticker on their product, and no one blinks an eye to its authenticity. Many identify as secular or cultural Christians; it's part of our heritage and culture, so we are Christian.
Do you remember when gospel music had the gospel in it and not another genre of secular music without Christ? Even today's Christian music can often be thrown to the wayside as unbiblical, unenlightened, feeling good to the soul, but nothing of eternal value. Plenty of Sunday worship songs can be sung to your girlfriend or boyfriend while drunk at the bar on Saturday night. No one would know; it was written about the Father and the Son because songs have become gender-neutral and romantic.
I'm not hopeless; I offer Jesus' solution to a dark world and a darkened church, so keep reading, and we will get to the good part. First, allow me to deliver the bad news, and then the good news will outshine everything else.
Jesus always talked about the first will be last and the last will be first. But listening to most Christian sermons and podcasts today, they direct us on how to be first, not last. Paul, an apostle of Jesus, even mentioned his place at the end of the procession while all the other ministers got to be first! But Paul chose the way of Jesus and not the way of the world.
Paul and those aligned with Jesus did everything they could not to become celebrity Christians. It is inevitable with God's gifting and people's need to worship someone or something. But we are to follow the way of Jesus, who was found to have no fixed reputation. Is Jesus from God or Nazareth? Did Jesus get his power from God or the devil? The disciples tore their clothes in protest when they were being unjustly promoted to godlike status. Give honor where honor is due. But the greatest honor always belongs to the Father and his Son.
Celebrity Christianity must be rejected and redirected. All good gifts are from above. How can any one of us take credit for a gift? Sure, we give ourselves to the gift, but without it first being a gift, no one would take notice. Christian celebrity pastors need humbling. But what about those secular, cultural Christians in music, sports, and movies, which we seem to follow more closely than the head of the church, Jesus?
When was the church displaced from the Rock of Jesus to the sand of change? Why do churches have mission and vision statements that do not align with Christ's mission? All churches in every nation and at all times in the past two thousand years have the same great commission: Go into all the world and preach the gospel. We have the same vision: a ready bride without spots, wrinkles, or anything else waiting for her beloved husband to claim his inheritance in the saints and nations.
CEOs and marketers are leading our churches. Instead of teaching us how to die so we may have a better resurrection, we are being propped up and puppets like the movie "Weekend at Bernie's." We are twice dead and are carried along with every new wind of the doctrines of demons and traditions of men.
The church is to be more like a hospice where we know we are dying but are also being made alive in Christ, prepared for a new world and new heavens. Our churches, a holy nation, were the first nation to open our borders to the unvetted. We were the first to set up DEI initiatives contrary to God's word. The church has built our buildings and watched our gates in vain. All because we don't want the world to smell our decaying flesh and ultimate death, an aroma to God but a stink to those who are perishing. Death to self and alive in Christ doesn't fit our marketing plans.
We have rebranded Christ Jesus and become unfaithful in our public relations role to preach the good news. Why and how have we rebranded Jesus Christ, you ask?
For one thing, we need to know that Christianity is not a pretty religion. Christianity begins with a man beaten to a pulp, placed on a cross, with nails in the wrists and feet until his heart bursts. Christ's followers are found kneeling at the cross, asking to die with him, washing in the blood of the Lamb, and then getting up for a life of servanthood. Christianity is not a marketable religion. No one seeks the cross. No one seeks God, not one. Everyone seeks his own.
If you are seeking strength and personal glory, Islam is your choice. If you seek intelligence and self-effort to nirvana, Buddhism is your choice. If you seek pageantry and endless stories of grandeur, Hinduism is your choice.
Judaism was a religion of blood and sacrifice, pointing to Jesus and his crucifixion. Judaism was replaced with a better covenant, but the blood and sacrifice are how we are forgiven and ultimately saved. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin, not with the blood of bulls and goats but with the blood of the spotless Lamb, the son of God, Jesus, who takes away the sin of the world, especially for the ones who believe and obey.
Christianity is not pretty. It is downright bloody and messy. Moses got a divorce over the blood in circumcising his two sons. If his ex-wife couldn't handle the blood of circumcision, no way would she handle what was to come.
Giving birth is not pretty. The born-again experience is not pretty. When Jesus died on the cross, his side was pierced, and out flowed blood and water for a new kind of man to be birthed: the born-again man.
But our Christian circles despise the blood and sacrifice of Christ. We don't even worship the slain Lamb of God anymore. We worship what we do not know. We are pulling from a cistern without water.
We have a picture of the born-again experience in Lazarus being raised from the dead after four full days of being dead. He was dead because of sin; the wages of sin is death, and every man is given once to die and then face judgment. But Lazarus got a second chance and was made alive; however, he was covered in grave clothes and stunk like he had been dead for a while. The disciples were in awe of the miracle, but no one was quick to help Lazarus out of his grace clothes.
The born-again experience doesn't resolve the sinful nature that is ever present in the flesh. Even though we become new creations, our new spirit takes issue with our old flesh. We do not conform to the flesh when we allow our spirit to lead. But if we stay stuck in our grave clothes after the born-again experience because no one wants to touch us with a twenty-foot pole, then how will we ever be free? For this reason, I am convinced that Christians practice birth control and do so up to the point of birth. We want to see the miracle but don't want the clean-up afterward. It is a burden to bear children, and it is a burden to raise children, but that is the burden we Christians are to bear.
Satan has gaslit our ministers into believing that grave clothes prove there was no true resurrection. It is relatively easy to become born again by believing in our hearts and confessing with our mouths that Jesus was raised from the grave and is Lord. But to be saved, we must walk out of the new salvation that is found in Christ alone.
Twice, Paul went into labor for the church, once to see people born again and a second time to see Christ fully formed in them. A born-again man doesn't become sinless. We have thoughts, emotions, and wills that need crucifying with Jesus conformed to the eternal word of God. We were crucified with him and must stay the course crucified with him through the same grace and faith given in the beginning.
Getting God into a person is a miracle, but the bigger miracle is getting sin out. God delivered all of Israel out of Egypt but was only able to get Egypt out of two who inherited the promised land smelling like milk and honey.
We rebrand Christ when we focus on the new birth and not on taking up the cross and following Jesus into eternity. We are born and crucified with Jesus but are saved when we cross the finish line still crucified with Jesus.
We rebrand the whole salvation package. God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise—the prophets of old who refused fame and fortune to declare an unpopular message of repentance. The disciples walked away from their lives to crucify themselves to a man who died on the cross. They followed a Jesus who manifested himself to them but the world and is now alive physically, sitting on the Father's right hand, making intercession for us. We walk by faith and not by sight.
But the church uses the same fruit the world uses to trap its prey—the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. It is good as you define good; it will make you wise so you are first, and you can have your best life now, whatever that looks like to you, whether rich and famous or hidden in the woods far away from everyone in a log cabin. We are marketing the same thing as the world, but the world is better at it. Why is the church seeking the same things as the world unless the world is in the church? Why do we seek and our prayers are about more food, drink (entertainment), and clothing? This life is a vapor, but we live like we have all the time in the world to get it right.
The church is in a mess—even the true church built on the rock of Jesus. Let's not make excuses for it. Acknowledge it and point to Jesus, the perfect order of all things. We must give the church space to work out their salvation in the fear of the Lord. Jesus will perfect his own. We have a good foundation. We must tear down a few walls, but we will survive. But we must stop reimaging and rebranding. The world only loves its own. If the world loves us, we are not owned by Christ.
Let us not be a hype man for Christ. He doesn't need our hype. I recall a bible story that I thought was strange but humorous. Jesus spoke life and spirit; this woman called out and said blessed is the woman who gave you milk from her breast. Jesus responded by saying blessed is the man who does what I say. Jesus doesn't need our hype. He wants our repentance and obedience.
If we are going to stick with the image of Christ crucified, then we must conclude that we are all a people that come from the unclean, and even as believers, we sometimes have an unclean mouth that needs to be crucified. We need an Isaiah moment to quit comparing ourselves, thinking we are holier than thou, and compare ourselves with the holiness of God. Humility will be the fruit of our repentance.
We are God's spokesmen in the earth. We are his public relations. We are all called to the ministry of reconciliation. But we cannot change the message because we don't understand. Or do so-called damage control because the people of this world do not understand God's ways or motives.
God has and always will be misunderstood. God has a past that he is not ashamed of because his judgments are righteous. But people want to judge his past to cancel out the conviction they feel.
We must not give God a makeover. Whether or not we find his many attributes attractive, he is beautiful in all his glory. God doesn't need a press secretary to answer wrongly about his judgments. God doesn't need to explain his decisions. God doesn't require accountability or a third-party investigation. God needs us to be faithful and true to do what he says, and then we will see his beauty even in decisions we once saw as harsh and extreme.
God doesn't need the speech writers of today's churches with inclusive language giving a softer, kinder image. God doesn't need a third testament of new parables of relevancy. We have made Jesus more like a mascot for the team other than the sacrificial Lamb slain by God before the foundations of the world to save us from an eternity of hell and torment. The wrath of God was poured out upon Jesus so that those who believe in his name and hide under his wing in faith and obedience will not experience God's anger but only his comfort. But for those who do not obey or partially obey, then you remain an object of wrath to be poured out by God at any time but for sure after the first death.
We don't need to rebrand Christ for a new generation. We need to trust and obey the ancient ways of God. God needs Ambassadors of Christ in his church—ambassadors who live for Christ alone and not oneself. Ambassadors who stop following after the world instead pick up their cross to follow him, not knowing where they are going but ready for the journey. Not someone living under the law but has surrendered to giving it all to the only one who matters. A slave, someone bought with a price that could not be purchased with the things of this world but had to be imported, Jesus and his sinless blood.
As ambassadors, we are not to talk as influencers but as witnesses of a changed heart. We are to speak the truth gracefully and in love, knowing that we were lost but are now found. As ambassadors, we are to be wise as serpents, knowing we are not of this world and are not accepted in this world. We are to be harmless as doves; we don't bite when done wrong, but we shake it off as part of the price of being chosen by God to be his workmanship.
As ambassadors, we must be good soldiers who endure discomfort during war—marking the enemy but saving the lost. We should not worry about where we will eat, sleep, live, or what to wear because it is all taken care of in the job description. We are not to get caught up in things here today but are gone tomorrow. We are to be courageous in the face of fear and speak up, declaring every word of God as eternal as he has told us to.
As ambassadors of Christ, we must submit and live holy lives, or our witness will be ineffective in service to the Lord. Without holiness, no one sees the Lord or a need to come to the Lord for salvation. In our anger, we are to speak to the rock and not strike it. Either way, living water will come forth, but not to our credit if done in anger. We must be slow to anger in fearful moments and watch the sword of our mouth so we don't cut off the ears of those we witness. And we must allow the righteous in Christ by faith to become flesh so that our light is not so dim as our warnings go unheeded like righteous Lot, tormented by the sin around him but spoke up too late.