When Good isn't Good Enough

My son has reached the age where he has been taught the classic, "Stop, Drop and Roll" technique for addressing being on fire.  This is a good thing.  If my son ever finds himself in a situation where his pants have begun to burn and smolder, it will be very beneficial for him to know what to do.  Not to mention it is fun to watch him demonstrate his SDaR technique in our living room.

Valuable as it may be, SDaR misses a very important point that ultimately is much more vital to my sons survival.  Practically speaking, the likelihood of my five year old spontaneously catching fire while playing on the swing set is highly unlikely.  What is much more probable is that while we are sleeping there is an electrical fire that starts somewhere in our house.  With our house ablaze my son may very well find some sort of fire on his clothes.  And if that is to occur....he has to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!! 

If you were to find yourself in a burning house all the SDaR in the world will not save you if you do not first get out of the source of the fire.  No matter how effectively and rapidly you roll back and forth on the floor you will eventually burn up.  Get away from the fire, and THEN deal with your smoldering pants.  To reverse that vital process is the height of absurdity. 

In the Gospel of John the ministry of Jesus really gets going when he comes to the Festival of the Booths and calls out all the hyper religious people for being great rule followers who are still destined for destruction.  The Jewish religious establishment prided itself on doing all the right things the right way, but Jesus tells them it is all for naught.  Their behavior is not going to stave off destruction. 

Clearly he was a popular fellow......

Behaving morally, ethically, kindly, etc, are all nice and commendable things.  My preference is to have neighbors who do NOT rob me in the middle of the night and set my house on fire.  The reasons that they do not behave in such a manner are, in some ways, immaterial to me.  If my neighbor believes he is being monitored by aliens who will shoot him with space lasers if he mistreats me, the end, self-centered result is that my day to day life is more pleasant because I have a neighbor who acts appropriately. 

Good behavior is our Stop Drop and Roll.  In a vacuum it is a good thing to know and put into practice.  But what if we are ultimately in the middle of a blazing inferno? 

In John 8 Jesus is beginning to get to the crux of his argument.  That these moral and good behaving people cannot follow Jesus and are going to die in their sins(verse 21).  To understand the context of what Jesus is saying we must recognize the context of the environment that Jesus is stating this.  Everything about this Festival is in proclaiming how righteous and good they all are because of how they follow all the rules.  Their self-styled "goodness" is based on the belief that following the clearly laid out rules justifies themselves in the eyes of God.  They treat religious law as a sort of road map that guarantees that they will arrive at their desired destination. 

With that sort of imagery in mind Jesus says, "You cannot follow where I am going".  Which means, "There is no human road map that you can control and manipulate that will save you".  What will save them?  Believe in the Son of Man who will be raised up(verse 28).  Through the finished work of Christ on the cross(the raised up Son of Man) we can be saved from death.  There is no other way.

If you are sit in a burning house your inevitable life trajectory is destruction.  Before you do anything else, get out!  The natural state of our lives is death.  No matter what good we do, what rules we adhere to, what ethically justifiable behaviors we practice, we are headed to a fire. 

Does this mean that "good" behavior is pointless?  Of course not.  Even if you get out of the burning house you still have to deal with the embers before they cause you damage.  But if you reverse the process of salvation first, THEN regeneration(Holy("good") lives), you aren't doing anything at all.  Rolling around on the ground won't get you out of the house.  Getting out of the house makes the rolling around effective. 

You will never be good enough to get out of the fire. 

Group Think and Peer Pressure

We lack the strength of our convictions.  In so many ways, in so many places, we substitute individual thinking(and risk taking) for the safety of "group think".  When instead of personally defended facts and figures we lean on the ambiguous concept of "consensus" we are abdicating our responsibility to be independent moral agents and thinkers.  And here is the great inherent risk in such cowardice; Agreeing with the group will not protect you when your individual choices come home to roost. 

If everyone says that drinking bleach is good for you, there is no healing to be found when you lie in a hospital bed and say, "But but but, the "experts" said it was ok". 

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living".   How much of life today is not worth living!  Sitting in our comfortable bubbles we expect others to do our thinking for us.  If something a bunch of people say sounds good to us, it is good enough.  Whether scientifically, politically, personally, religiously, we are in a constant tension of trying to pretend that truth is created by trending hashtagged phrases on social media.

And it is killing us.

Internally and externally. 

Here is the thing about truth;  It has no problems with being questioned!  If you question someone, or, something, and the response is mockery, ridicule, and general offendedness, then it should be a red flag that truth may not be found in such claims.  Stop asking yourself, "What do others believe?" and start asking, "What is true?"

In John 7:48 the Pharisees are furious that people are listening to Jesus.  Does one of their leaders stand up and say, "Here is my 5 point argument, with Torah footnotes, that show in detail why Jesus is a crazy person, feel free to critique my points!" ?  No, they say, "Do any of us leaders believe him??  Of course not!!!" 

No one is willing to put their individual name on the line.  They just hide behind their group think.  They never seem to want to respond to anything Jesus specifically states, they just keep arguing that the "consensus" by those who "know better" is that Jesus is a crazy person. 

We are made as individuals.  We are responsible to respond to truth claims as individuals.  Either Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross for our sins and rose again, or, He is not.  There is no arguing about what other people might think.  Too often we defer our personal responsibilities by arguing about peripheral details.  Like, "What about aborigine Joe from 4000 BC?", or, "But 'those' people don't act very nice(in my opinion)". 

You, and you alone, have to address who Christ is.  Or, not.  Again, it is you and you alone who is responsible.

Don't drink bleach because someone else said it was ok.  And, don't avoid bleach because someone else said you should.  The double edge sword is if you make any decision because someone told you to, you will eventually question the reasoning.  If a friend tells you to not drink bleach and that is the only reason you don't, what if you find out that friend is a liar?  You might throw out his reasonably good point of not drinking bleach.

Make your own decisions.

 

Rabble Rousers in the Church

If you follow the Christian Sub-Culture you probably know who Mark Driscoll is, and, the church he started, Mars Hill.  You probably are also aware that the whole thing is currently imploding. 

A quick overview....
- Driscoll founded Mars Hill about 20 years ago as a basically brand new Christian in the most unchurhed city in America(Seattle)

-  With a brash and engaging style Driscoll oversaw explosive growth that quickly led to him being the new "IT" guy in evangelicalism. 

-  He wrote a number of "best sellers" that detailed the churches growth and his theology.  These books were treated as "Church Growth Manuals" for many young pastors coming up who wanted to emulate MD's success. 

-  MD oversaw a church planting network(Acts 29) that has planted hundreds of churches world wide in just over a decade. 

-  In the last two years the bloom has fallen off the rose as destructively unhealthy leadership by MD and his "executive" elders has come to light. 


A couple of general thoughts and reminders....

- The Bible is littered with flawed people who would be kicked out of most churches for their sinful behavior if they were doing it today.

-  God still used these broken sinful people for His purposes...not that He ever gave a pass for their culpability, but His sovereignty ruled over the sin.  God even chose a murderous adulterer(King David) to be the line through which the Messiah would come. 

- Even our greatest sins and failures do not limit the redemptive power of the Cross.  As Paul says, as long as Christ is preached.... EVEN when it was done for selfish ambition!!!


Personal Responses and Convictions......

- If Acts 29 or Mark Driscoll have been a blessing to you in any way at any point....GREAT.  We are capable of benefitting from God's work, even when the vessel that delivered it is tragically flawed.  We don't stop reading the Psalms because David was a pretty screwed up guy.

- Who are you attaching yourself to?  Our celebrity driven culture is excessively unhealthy.  When we begin to follow man instead of Christ, we are setting ourselves up for a fall.   Even if Driscoll did not have any of these problems, we should have never been so undiscerning by how much "worship" we were giving him.  And this includes anyone else out there.  Whether it is your favorite theologian, or, your local pastor.  They are flawed people that God can do great things through, but everything they do and teach must be weighed against the Cross and God's word. 


Moving Forward....

So what now?  I hope a lesson we can draw from all of this is that sin that is allowed to fester becomes more and more damaging with a far greater fall out.  To borrow from a good law enforcement statement, "If you see something, say something".   One of the red flags at Mars Hill was when they bylaws were changed in a way that consolidated "absolute" power with Mark Driscoll.  This is unbiblical.  Should Elders lead the church.  Absolutely.  Is it an authoritarian unaccountable paradigm.  Never.  If you are a part of a church, and leadership is unaccountable, treats members as a bunch of little children who have invalid opinions....run for the hills. 

In John chapter 7 the Pharisees are furious about what Jesus has been saying and how the people are seemingly "buying into it".  They say, that mob, they know nothing!!  Only these high and mighty self-righteous guys are able to really know what is going on.  Everyone else is a bunch of idiots.  But it was actually the "mob" who got what was really going on! 

Read your bible, test everything you hear according to God's word.  Love and trust your leadership, EVEN when they make mistakes.  But don't excuse sin and mistakes just because someone is a leader.  Nip it in the butt.  And if it doesn't change.  They can't be leaders.

Use this image to ask yourself how your leaders are doing

How Much Beating my Kids is Too Much?

There is nothing more important to do as a parent than loving your kids.  The things you do for them, whether buying them toys, teaching them to read, feeding them, etc, are all nothing more than generic utilitarian practices when they are not rooted and shaped by a deep and abiding love. 

But don't forget that beatings are essential as well.  Not just beatings for punishment, but beatings for the pure sake of the importance of teaching kids that you are in charge.  Nothing helps a child develop a healthy sense of authority than using your superior strength to push them around.  In our house we actually schedule beatings by the clock.  10am....everyone line up for their beating....2pm...same thing.

If you haven't called child service yet, thanks for trusting in my unrelenting sarcasm.....

No matter how much you think you are loving your kids, throwing in a few random beatings(even if you think they are justified) has an odd way of derailing your whole showing them love philosophy.  Beating your kids and loving your kids are really just not able to be mutually practiced. 

Sadly we often practice a Christianity like this.  God loves you, but can't wait to beat you!  There He is, the cosmic score keeper, waiting for his chance to drop the hammer on you.  We create endless rules and regulations that we use to justify our behavior towards others and to create a sense of moral superiority to those who don't live up to our standards.  This develops an exhausting and painful Christianity that constantly tears down, but never builds up.

No matter how many times I say, "I love you son", it will not mitigate the beatings he receives.  Either he will develop an unhealthy concept of love that he will one day give to others(becoming a beater of children himself), or, he will become so destroyed by this experience that he will never fully function as a healthy adult. 

When we say, "God loves you", but then follow it up with telling someone how unlovable they are, we are creating either a fearful and beat up Christian, or, create not a Christian at all.

In Matthew 16:5-12 Jesus warns His disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees.  Just a little bit of their influence can destroy anything else that is good that you may be trying to do.  And what were the Pharisees all about?  Rules, rules and more rules.  And their "superior" ability to follow the rules made them prideful in themselves and abusive towards those who didn't live up to them.

Jesus is quite clear, and the New Testament reaffirms, that the abuses of legalism are incongruent with following Jesus.  The message of Christ is that while we were still sinners, He died for us!  It doesn't say, "You were pretty bad, but you got your act together and Jesus was like, ok, I can do this for you now".  The radical nature of the Gospel is that God offers us not a list of rules to exhaustingly follow, but, instead to experience a love that transforms us.

Does this mean there is no place for rules?  Anything goes?  Of course not.  I don't beat my kids up, but I also don't let them act inappropriately.  While the Pharisee would want to beat up their kid who messes up, Jesus picks them up, out of their mess and says, "I love you, let me help you" 

The Law of God is still valid, but how we apply it and how we practice it needs to radically change.  The Law is not a hurdle that we must leap to justify ourselves, but a mountain that we can be carried over.  In Love. 

The other day my son said something rude to an employee at Walmart.  As we were leaving she said, "Have a nice day!"  To which he responded "Nah nah nah nah"(said as snottily as possible).  I stopped in my tracks and explained to him that it was unacceptable and that he had to say he was sorry.  He refused.  After profusely apologizing for my sons behavior I had to leave(my ice cream was melting). When we got home I had a long talk with my son about how hurtful and rude it was and how sad I was that he would do that.  He didn't have much to say at that time....but the next day the miracle occurred. 

During breakfast he stopped eating and looked at me, "Dad, are you still sad about what I said to that worker yesterday?  Because I am too, I am sorry that I did that, I won't do it again."

Only four years old and his little heart was learning to break over what his father's heart broke over.  Not because I beat him, not because I yelled at him, but because I loved him and showed him in my words how much I cared about the person he "hurt".  When we are loved deeply and experience that love consistently, it shapes our heart towards the agent of that love. 

That is Christ in us and for us.  His heart breaks over our sin, BECAUSE he loves us.  And His love for us shapes us towards loving what He loves.

Where is the yeast of the Pharisees in your life? 

Defiled Churches

I bet you like the way your church "does" church.  Well, at the very least, you like it enough that you call it your church.  But how would you feel if your church made some significant changes?  I don't mean that they stopped preaching from the Bible but instead utilized the Koran, or, the Book of Mormon.  The type of significant changes I am referring to are...

1. Changing the type of music

2. Changing the order of service

3. Dropping something like the midweek evening services to replace it with something like small group home bible studies.

4. Your pastor stopped wearing robes/collar and began to dress "casual"

How would you react to those sorts of changes?  Or, how do you feel about churches that do those things differently than you do? 

Nothing seems to get Christians riled up more than how they "do" church.  There seems to be this streak of antagonism within the Church today that seems to say we can't really be happy with our church(or theological/doctrinal positions) unless we can prove that our way of doing things is the superior True Christiantm way of doing things. 

While certainly there are some areas of stark division that are important to define(such as divinity of Christ, salvation by Christ alone, etc) we have made every issue into a "die on this hill" battle cry.  And we look like idiots and destroy our witness when we do so.

A number of years ago I had a friend who was consulting with a struggling church.  They were demographically much closer to death than college and very old fashioned in their church practices(hymns, organ music, bell choirs, etc).  If something did not change relatively soon the church would have to close their doors.  The unchurched in their area were mostly young professionals with families and they had been wholly incapable at reaching them. 

The suggestion was offered that they needed to consider changing their church service "style".  Cutting back on traditional hymns and men and women in full three piece suit get ups and adding contemporary music and dressing more casually to help foster a more inviting atmosphere to the young and unchurched. 

One particular curmudgeon was infuriated by the suggestion.  There is no way he could stand by and let such terrible things transpire.  The consultant than painted a picture of what could happen if they did so by describing a young single mother in the area who would be more willing to come to a service that seemed more able to communicate with her and that what a wonderful hope it could be for her to get to hear the gospel and respond in faith.  He then asked the old curmudgeon if the possibility of seeing this young lady come to Christ was worth giving up on some traditions?  

The one word response; "NO!"

In Matthew 15 Jesus and his disciples are eating....WITHOUT WASHING THEIR HANDS!!!!  While mothers everywhere may have gagged a bit, the Pharisees went one step farther.  They called Jesus out for letting his disciples defile themselves, SPIRITUALLY, by doing so.  Their complaints weren't about hygiene, but that it had been common TRADITIONAL practice that a truly spiritual and good Jewish person washed his hands to protect himself from spiritual defilement.

Jesus, like he was wont to do, blasted them.  To sum it up(and do click the link and read the whole thing....) He points out that they have allowed MAN created traditions to supersede God's revealed truth. 

What traditions do you hold to that are man made?  And lets be brutally honest here.  No where does it say that an organ and Amazing Grace are the only way to worship in song.  Neither does it say that a guitar and 10,000 Reasons is better! 

The way you do church might be great.  But your style of doing church is not what matters.  What matters it the content of your service!

1)  Is Christ crucified preached?

2)  Is the Bible the center of your teaching?

3)  Is salvation by Christ alone taught?

4)  Are people challenged and encouraged to love each other, to bear with one another, and to grow in maturity?

5) Does your service try its best to honor God FIRST and to also communicate effectively to those who need it?

If those things are not true of your church service then it does not matter if your style is objectively "good".  And if those five things are the natural position of the hearts of your churches leadership, then style will never be permanently static!

Here is a great place of conviction for you and your church.  When was the last time an unchurched person visited on a Sunday morning....AND CAME BACK?!?!

So where do you fall on the spectrum of man made traditions?  What are you willing to change, and what you are not?

Who do you love like?

We should treat sin like a disease.

Like its cancer.

Yah, you heard me right.  Sin should be treated like cancer.  You know, destructive, murdering, disgusting cancer.

And we should treat people who sin like they have cancer.

We should cry with them when they are hurting.

We should hold them when they are sad.

We should be quick to offer help when they ask for it.  But don't force them to take our help, because having cancer is exhausting and painful and sometimes they need some space.

We should pray for them every day.

Our hearts should break for the pain they are going through.

We should weep with them when the medicine sometimes feels worse then the disease.

And we should also remember that cancer isn't contagious. You can't get it by spending time with them and holding their hand, or, hugging them.

 There are two distinctly diametrically opposed ways of loving people.  We can love them in the law.  Or, we can love them in Grace.

Loving people in the law looks like this:
1)  High expectations of what WE think they should be doing FOR us
2) Consequences(withholding our love, anger, punishment, bitterness) when they fail to meet our expectations.
3) Always on the look out for "mistakes"
4) Treating them differently depending on the day and/or our mood
5) What have you done for me lately attitude


Loving people in Grace looks like this:
1) High belief in who they are regardless of what they do for us
2) Actions of love(service, sacrifice, patience, caring) even when they aren't at their "best"
3) Always on the look out for reasons to encourage and praise
4) Consistent treatment and attitude towards them that has nothing to do with our mood or the day
5) What have I done for YOU lately attitude

People are treated like objects all the time.  Even when we are generally "nice" enough people, we have a tendency to often look through a lens that defines that persons value by the value we perceive they are giving us.  When that value diminishes(in our eyes) we replace them with something "better". 

We have created a list of "do's and dont's" in our interpersonal relationships by which we base our love actions towards that person.  When they hurt us, make us angry, act incorrectly...we justify our poor treatment of them because they are getting what they deserve.  They didn't live up to the "law", and now its time to pay the piper. 

What is even more terrible about this approach to love, is that we rarely ever have enough personal introspection to fairly evaluate how little we live up to the standards we apply to other people.  And, we become self-righteous because of it.  We say, "look at all that I have done to deserve you acting in a way that I want, and you aren't doing it, you are a bad person!!"  And this self-righteous attitude becomes the basis for us playing the martyr.  "Oh, look at poor little me, I am such a good son/friend/employee/spouse, and they aren't treating me like it, I deserve better!!"

How do you approach people in your life who aren't living up to expectations?  Who are in sin?  Sin in general, sin against others, sin against YOU?  Is it time to make them pay for their bad behavior?

The Pharisees were great at the law.  And they were great at viewing everyone through that lens.  They were the first to judge other people, to call for punishment, to ostracize people for not being the "right kind" of person. 

So Jesus calls them out...a lot... And He shows us a much different approach to loving others.  Grace.  Given not because of the goodness of the person receiving, but because of HIS goodness.  

Don't get me wrong.  He didn't pretend that sin didn't exist.  But he didn't treat people like they were sinners.  He treated them like someone who was hurting and needed to be loved.  Even when they weren't acting very loveable.  Why did the sick, the sinners, the hurting, come in droves to be near Jesus?  Because He was going to treat them as if they were His very own precious children.  They had lived their whole lives in the performance based approach to loving in the law.  Being told you aren't good enough over and over and over again was probably pretty exhausting.   

So what does this mean for us?

We have to be brutally honest with ourselves.  How are we loving the people in your life?  In the law?  Or, in Grace? 

A simple approach to being aware of this, and to begin to shape our hearts and actions to reflect this:

Write down the ways in which you show love towards people through words and actions.  For instance;  When I love someone, I smile at them.  When I love someone, I offer to help them.  When I love someone, I am really interested in what they have to say.  When I love someone, I put their wants/needs ahead of mine.

Perhaps you can write it all out on a notecard you keep on you at all times.  Especially if you are suspicious that you  have been a tad bit too legalistic.  And as you interact with this person, review your words and responses about what you recognize as being true signs of love.  Then, do those things instead of what you might actually feel like doing.  No matter what that person has or hasn't done that day/week/month/year.

Where this gets hard is when that person hasn't acted the best.  When they have sinned and hurt you.  But that is what Christ centered Grace is all about.  While we were still SINNERS He laid His life down for us.  So, die to self and love without condition!

Sin is like cancer.  And we need to treat sinners like cancer patients.  We don't sit around criticizing them all day long for having cancer.  We love them right where they are at.  One of the interesting things about cancer treatment and recovery is that a patients "support" network(friends and family) is so essential to success rate.  You can give all the best treatment in the world, but if that person feels alone and abandoned their chances at healing are greatly diminished.

And when you love someone who has cancer, you don't do it ONLY if they will just get well.  You love them because YOU LOVE THEM.  Its a great benefit and blessing that your love can help.

When someone in your life is sinning, not living up to expectations, hurting you, you need to stop loving them ONLY if they will get "better".  Love them because YOU LOVE THEM.  They can be given all the "help" in the world to "get better" but if they feel alone and abandoned, their chances of healing are greatly diminished.  It won't make them better, but you CAN make it worse.

Love because you have been loved.  Die to self every day and love because God is good, not because they are.

This is a true story about my life, and a good illustration of my point.....

How Offensive Is Jesus?

The great moral standard of our present age is tolerance.  Often, this tolerance is defined by not offending someone else with your words or actions.  To speak "negatively" of another's actions is considered a great transgression.  To be a civil and moral person is to be someone who not only doesn't speak poorly about another's behavior, but to also affirm it in some manner. 

My son's favorite phrase lately is, "You're a bully".  This is most often employed when I speak firmly with him about something he needs to stop doing, or, start doing.  Last night I told him it was time to go to bed.  Shockingly, this did not cause him to immediately jump up from his seat and run to the bathroom to brush his teeth.  After a few moments I spoke much more firmly, "Get up right now or there will be consequences.  When daddy says its time to go to bed we listen and obey"  To which he replied, "You're being a bully!"

We don't like being told what to do.  We don't like being told that what we are currently doing is not acceptable.  It infringes on our "rights".  Who do they think they are to tell us what to do???

Like a strong willed four year old we want to believe that there is no questioning our choices.  What I think is right must be right...because I think it!

Jesus is often wildly misrepresented as some sort of hippy do gooder singing "Kum Bay Yah" around a fire with his buddies.  And he just wants to chill with you and make you feel warm and fuzzy inside because he is alllll about love.  This Jesus we have created is one who has very little to say about behavior, sin, heaven, hell, or any other "messy" topic.  His greatest purpose is to teach us all to, as the theologians Bill and Ted would say, be excellent to each other.

With this Jesus in mind speaking about sin to a culture mired in it is mocked and called hypocritical.  Accusatory questions like, "Do you think anyone is going to listen to you when you are being bully?  Jesus just loved people, I thought you were supposed to be like him!" are heard quite often.  Any person bearing the name "Christian" who has ever spoken publicly about some issue has heard some form of these accusations.

If we are to be faithful witnesses, to be disciples of Christ, how ARE we supposed to conduct ourselves in a fallen world?

Jesus angered people.  They didn't crucify him because he was trying to host a drum circle while reciting love poetry.  So the question is, why did they crucify him, what made them so angry? 

1)  He blasphemed.  He said He was God.  He didn't just say He was there to teach people to be nicer.  He said, I AM.  He claimed divinity.  He acted in alignment with that claim by not just healing, but FORGIVING sins. 

Even today, the claim that there is a God, and that Jesus is God, is offensive.  Why?  We want to be God.  Or, we want God to be the one we can define and control.  The story of history is mankind constantly trying to assert their own divinity and power and the disastrous consequences that flow from that belief. 

Right now, Jesus is speaking to you.  You are not your own god, God alone is God.  That is offensive to us.  We shout, "you're a bully!!"  What we think is what we want to think.  We are in charge of our own lives.  How dare someone say otherwise.

2)  He said that what you think is good is not good at all.  We want to believe that we are good people.  And that our choices are therefore good.  Jesus cut right through self-righteousness and took what people thought was good enough to justify themselves in the great scales of eternal justice and said it was crap.  People hate that. 

The Pharisees were constantly getting called out by Jesus.  They had created a whole system of laws and rules to prove how good they were.  And Jesus said that they were white washed tombs.  They looked good, but there was nothing good in them.  Not in God's eyes. 

But I am not a religious Pharisee might be your defense.  You're wrong!  We ALL are religious Pharisees.  People love to say Jesus saved his harshest words for the religious leaders.  This is a misunderstanding of what Jesus was calling out.  He wasn't calling out a bunch of devout believers.  He was calling out false religiosity created by man to self-justify themselves. 

Whether you believe in God or not, or, practice any sort of religion, you have a bit of Pharisee in you.  There are a whole system of rules, morals and ethics, you hold yourself to in the attempt to be a "good enough" person.  And, when others don't live up to your standards, like the Pharisees, you look down on them for not being as good as you are.  Being self-righteous is soooo much fun.  That's why we all do it. 

Jesus was very offensively clear.  YOU ARE NOT A GOOD PERSON.  Nothing you do to prove you are good proves that you are good.  There is only one who is Good.  And that is Christ.  There is only one way for us to be Good.  To be in Christ.

This is very offensive.  The message of Christ is that you are not a good person.  Perhaps you do plenty of things that make you an enjoyable person to live next to and you operate as a beneficial member of your local society, but, at the end of the day, you are not truly Good.  Only a good legalist. 


Now, here is the problem for Christians.  In what ways are you being offensive?  Because we should be offensive like Christ was offensive.  Not just offensive.

If your message to someone is not about the all surpassing glory of Jesus and His goodness, then you are just being offensive. 

Let me give a brief conversation example.

Bad Example:
Christian:  What you are doing is wrong.  You are a sinner.  Yuck

Good Example:
Christian:  Only Jesus is Lord.  Anything we choose to put on the throne before Him leads to death. 

Both can be viewed as offensive.  But only one talks to the world like Jesus talked to the world.  You do not share Truth with people by complaining about their particular sins.  You share Truth with them by speaking about He who is the Truth and how that shapes how we view ALL the things in our lives. 

Be offensive like Jesus.  Don't JUST be offensive.

Not exactly what I mean, but who doesn't love this guy?