The Gospel is not a Buffet

I love to eat at china buffet restaurants. There is just something about having all of that selection. I can take some chicken here, maybe some steak there; toss it all on a bed of fried rice and I am one satisfied patron. There are some areas of our lives as Christians (and really for people in general) where choice can be a good things.

Golden Corral is another current favorite when I’m looking to stuff myself so full that I can barely drive home. A little seafood here, a slice of pizza there; finished off with some ice cream with a variety of delicious toppings.

There is one place; however, that Christians should not be looking for multiple choice options. If you hadn’t guessed by now, surely you see where this is going. We cannot compromise the true Gospel message by making it into a buffet. 

My favorite food is steak. Maybe a friend of mine decides his favorite food is spaghetti. We could argue all day, back and forth, about which is truly better because ultimately the answer is subjective. You might even say in this case, spaghetti is right for him and steak is right for me and both of us need to accept each other’s food decisions. In that context it’s perfectly fine.

But ultimate moral truth is not subjective. God’s truth is not up for debate. We cannot take issues of subjective taste and apply them to Truth claims as it relates to God*(paraphrase). For the Christian, any idea against the wisdom of God is wrong. 

Some will see this as intolerant. Christ certainly expected we who follow to receive some guff for this. When he told us to take up our cross and follow him, he wasn’t asking us to pick up a fluffy pillow. Rather, he was telling us to pick up this representation of death and follow him down the hard path ahead.

As Christians today in the U.S. we often get so comfortable that we forget the real message of Christianity is not prosperity and riches for everyone. That isn’t to say God could not grant us favor, and in fact he often does. But, we must not forget the essential truth of the Gospel is that we are sinners, fallen from God’s grace and it is only by the cross of Christ, through his blood, that God’s wrath was withheld from us. 

We walk around saying we are saved, but as R.C. Sproul asks, “what are we saved from?” Most of us do not think about this with any more than a passing brain wave. We are saved from WRATH. 

“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23:

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal live in Jesus Christ our  LORD.” Romans 6:23

Genesis 2:17- “But of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you may not take; for on the day when you take of it, you will surely DIE.”

Have we really ever stopped to read that closely. Our nature is sin. Our lives are pathetic without the cross of Christ. Christ being fully God and fully man, living a perfect life without sin, accepted God’s wrath on our behalf, and sacrificed himself in the most painful of ways, that we might believe on Him and have our sin nature forgiven; past, present and future. 

Pastor Mike Fabarez makes a good point in his sermon “Head Games” regarding what exactly is so hard about this truth for the world to grasp. I will use my own example in place of his to get the same point across. 

The other day I was trying to connect a Wi-Fi router in our house. There are few things more evil in this world than home networking, and I decided to tackle it full force having been successful in Muskogee on my mom’s router. I had the device, I had the instructions, but the thing just would not work properly. Whether she said it or not I can’t remember, but I’m sure Juliet was thinking, “Chris just call tech support and have them walk you through it!” 

She killed time playing with my new iPad that I got that day for a few hours before I fwas finally successful. But, do you see? It was my pride and inability to accept HELP that prevented me from potentially saving a major headache. (Fabarez example is computer related, but this story did really happen to me).

He points out in the message that it is our desire to EARN every thing as humans that often drives us away from the free gift of God which is salvation in Christ. Did you catch the second half of Romans 6:23?

“...but the GIFT of God is eternal life.” You see, salvation is God’s gift to human kind (though totally undeserved).

“For God so loved the world that he GAVE his only son, that WHOSOEVER believes will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

There is something so elementary, and yet so profound in there. I’m sure that was the first verse many of us memorized. I still remember my Mema teaching it to me in her Sunday School class. I remember struggling with the word “perish,” not knowing what it meant at the time. 

Friends, I point all of this out to get to this point. The Gospel is not to be compromised for the sake of mankind. If mankind is completely fallen, why would we want to bend over backwards to satisfy its own sinful desires. We have been offered the ultimate gift of God, who loved us enough to rid us of sin once and for all, if we only accept. 

It will sound intolerant for Christians to stand firm for the true Gospel. We cannot stand for anymore of the falsified gospel preached by so many false prophets in our world today. We cannot let a “fluffy” Christianity replace the True Christianity. The one that calls the world to repentance, not the one that rewards its behavior by stepping on glass around non-Christians and fellow Christians, refusing to call sin what it is. 

I’m not saying we shouldn’t love people. We are all in this together as they say. But even in Christ’s ultimate moments of love, there was rebuke of sin. 

Does your church preach that we should let anyone preach, regardless of calling? Does your church preach that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but not fully man and fully God? Does your church deny the virgin birth? Do they deny the resurrection? Does your church hide Hell in favor of universal salvation to all? Do they promote promiscuous lifestyles among members by not rebuking them in the fashion Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 5:8 when he says, “Let us then keep the feast, not with the old leaven, and not with the leaven of evil thoughts and acts, but with the unleavened bread of true thoughts and right feelings?”

He follows that verse in with, “...I said to you that you were not to keep company with those who go after desires of the flesh; but I had not in mind the sinners who are outside the church, or those who have a desire for and take the property of others, or those who give worship to images; for it is not possible to keep away from such people without going out of the world completely...”

Do you see where this is going? 

“But the sense of my letter was that if a brother had the name of being one who went after desires of the flesh...you might not keep company with such a one or take food with him.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-11

Paul is saying that the church and Christians as a whole have got to stop compromising our values with those of the world and sometimes even with our fellow believers, because it has potential to grow within our churches. Like a cancer, one or two people not called to repentance can grow to 20, 30 or even 100, until finally a church is so Apostate or just plain ASLEEP that Christ spews them from his mouth. 

It’s time to WAKE UP. It’s time to stand firm on the Word of God. There are not many roads to the mountaintop as the eastern philosophies and new agers like to say. There is one way to the top.

“I am the way, the truth and the life, and NO one comes to the Father but by me.” John 14:6

I cannot understand how people can be super supportive of Jesus the moral teacher, and flat out ignore one of his most controversial and truth-bearing statements. Christ said he was God:

“Jesus said to him, Phillip, have I been with you all this time, and still you have no knowledge of me? He who has seen me, has seen the Father. Why do you say, Let us see the Father? have you not faith that I am in the Father and the Father is in me...” John 14:9-10

“Then Jesus said with a loud voice, He who has faith in me, has faith no in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me, sees him who sent me.” John 12:44-45

These are just a few of the times he outright said that he and the Father were one in the same. People skim past John 14:6 and push for John 14:27, 

“May peace be with you; my peace I give to you...” 

without really addressing the context of the chapter. Christ is saying that his peace is not the peace that the world is trying to offer. There is no peace apart from Christ. We can sit around negotiating at the UN and in our coffee shops all day, longing for peace that humanity and science can bring, but it is a LIE. Christ is the only bringer of peace, and that peace is for those who follow his commands, and believe upon him for salvation. For others, I’m afraid the loving hippie of a Jesus you’ve created is going to have some rather strong words when he gets back. And those words may be for some of us Christians too if we don’t stop believing in the False Christs of fluffy Christianity.

I have to trust and put my faith in my sincere belief that Christ was who he said, and that  the Bible is inerrant word of God.  Paul says the world will see it as foolish. The foolishness of Christians is alluded to well before our current time when Paul is speaking to a church that is not so different from some of our current churches. 

“...where is the man of this world who has love of discussion? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For because, by the purpose of God, the world, with all its wisdom, had not the knowledge of God, it was God’s pleasure, by so FOOLISH a thing as preaching, to give salvation to those who had faith in him.” 1 Corinthians 1:20-21

Paul is being rather humorous here, asking where the wisdom of all the wise people has gone. Where has it gone? God deliberately used something that would appear foolish to  confound the prideful and wise of the world, so that seeing the foolishness of the Gospel, those who still had belief in spite of foolish appearance on the surface would be saved, and be aware of the real TRUTH.

“But God made selection of the foolish things of this world so that he might put the wise to shame; and the feeble things that he might put to shame the strong; And the low things of this world , and the things without honor, did God make selection of, yes, even the things which are not, so that he might make as nothing the things which are: so that NO flesh might have glory before God.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

That last part is key. We are not to put our own desires and our own glory above the one to whom we owe everything. Above the one who were it not for grace, could have condemned us all, and been rightly justified in doing so. But, God is PLEASED to save ANYONE who clings to the Gospel, no matter how foolish it may appear to them at first. 

I can choose my preferences for food, clothing and other opinion based things of the world. But 2 + 2 will always equal 4. I can’t say that because I  strongly believe that 2 +  2 = 5 that my opinion is as valid as those saying 2 + 2= 4. There are absolute truths in this world, and the highest of these is God’s truth. 

Christians, quit sugar-coating the Gospel and stand up for your beliefs. Quit bending your preaching and discussions to the will of human desires, and talk about God---the easy to swallow and hard to swallow parts together. No one said being Christians was easy, and everyday that we get through without hardship is a blessing from God. Even the non-Christian has God to thank for their days of ease and blessing. For all are under the common grace of God, but only those trusting on his son, can be a part of that sweet gift of saving grace, which brings about true repentance, and a new creation in Christ.

Folks, their is only one path up the mountain that reaches the top. It is narrow, and many who see it will turn towards the broad paths that lead to destruction trying to make their climb easier. Religion is man seeking God by his own sinful means and prideful works. And it is by the grace of God we are saved, not of our own works or anything we could possibly do to earn it.

Christianity is God reaching out to man, though totally undeserving, and saying come unto me all you are weary, and I will give you rest. 

Be Blessed Friends,

Chris

Footnote *Mike Fabarez from “Head Games” sermon June 23, 2012 http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/focal-point/listen/head-games-part-1b-286339.html