I live in the South, and I was raised in a Bible-beating, I mean Bible-believing church.  What I see and hear from the average “conservative” church these days disturbs me deeply.  My dear hubby turned on the television the other morning and found a local preacher broadcasting his church’s sermon.  I knew I wouldn’t like it, but  I listened along.  Here is what I heard in a nutshell:  1. Look at all the people “out there” who are hurting the cause of Christ.  (At this point he told stories including the governor of South Carolina and other anonymous “big sinner Christians.”)  2. People are watching you, so you better be good.  If not, you’ll hurt the cause of Christ too.  3.  Stop pretending you are good to everyone at church.  Let’s be real with each other.

Okay, I know that may be an unfair summary, but it is pretty close.  Anyone ever heard a sermon (or a thousand sermons) on a similar theme?  Each sentence is laden with guilt and brimming over with “try harder.”  At the same time, there is a sprinkle of “but let’s be real, we aren’t perfect” thrown in.  Anyone besides me see the inconsistency here?

Let me put this bluntly and simply.  This is NOT the gospel.  And those of us who are still listening to sermons like the above weekly or those of us who still have those “tapes” ingrained in our minds from growin up on them, well, we need to stop and rewind and record over.  Listening to this false gospel week after week or day after day is like a steady diet of fast food and junk.  It is the church’s equivalent to Fast Food Nation, and it is just as unhealthy and detrimental spiritually.  It has lulled the American church fast asleep in its fat, happy self.

Romans 1:16 says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel , because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyon who believes. . .”  Gospel is a greek word that means good news.  The true gospel of Jesus liberates and it is powerful and it changes lives and it is good news.  The problem is that the “evangelical” church in America is often not proclaiming this gospel at all.  Depending on the denomination, the “gospel” has a twist and a slant, but it is often a far cry from the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me illustrate.  I’ll start with some of the problems with the above-mentioned, typical sermon.  First of all, how can we expect our church members to “be honest and real with each other” when we are not doing the same?  When we talk about “those awful sinners out there”, we give everyone the idea that the church is not for sinners, not big ones anyway.  Oh, we can talk about some things we used to struggle with “back in college” or in our before-Christ days.  We can even talk about acceptable sins such as yelling at our kids or working too much.  These “sins” can be overlooked.    This dear preacher I was listening to was doing exactly what he was telling his congregation NOT to do.  He was pretending to be better than he is.  This is my deepest struggle as well.  We all want to be better than we are.  We all want a formula to guarantee life will work for us, that our marriage will stay together, that our kids will turn out okay, and that we will do enough to be  pleasing to God or at least feel pretty good about ourselves.  Again, I say to myself and to you:  this is NOT the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is not good news at all.

The gospel always has to start with “me.”  Jesus said in Matthew 9:12-13, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”  The gospel starts with this:  I am a big sinner.  Me.  I am.  Not those people out there.  That only serves to make me feel better about myself.  That only gives me a false sense of self-righteousness, and I do not need more of my own righteousness.  I have plenty of that, and it smells bad to those around me.  I need the righteousness of Jesus.

I am a big sinner, a much bigger one than I realize.  I remember something my graduate teacher, Larry Crabb, told our class.  He told us that we all need to remember that within ourselves we are a whole lot more like Adolph Hitler than we are like Jesus Christ.  And this “big sinner” stuff is not laden with a ton of self-imposed guilt:  “I’m so bad, I’m so bad, I’m so bad.”  No, not at all.  It just is true, that’s all. 

And when we start there, we can embrace the good news.  I am wildly and deeply loved and cared for.  I am sick, and there is a doctor!  I am a sinner and Jesus came for me.  He doesn’t expect me to start being good and stop needing him.  I will always need Jesus, and this pleases him.  This is the way he designed it to be.  I can tell others about my failures to love, the ones that happened this week and this morning.  How I would rather my kids just leave me alone for awhile than to care about them.  That I want my life to work more than I want to know Jesus.  That I struggle deeply with lust, discontentment, depression, despair, anger, whatever it may be.  That Jesus meets me in a real way in the real life I really live, and he has not only forgiven me and cleansed me, but he has also clothed me in his righteousness and goodness.  Now that is good news that I am not ashamed to proclaim.  That is the powerful stuff.