Don’t preach Jesus as a means to moralism or materialism.
If your preaching is not grounded in the gospel you will end up preaching Jesus as a means to either a moral life style, or to material gain. Both are less than the gospel demands or offers.
Jesus did not come to clean up our moral lives or to help us attain a new Cadillac.
It seems these two extremes enjoy an ebb and flow within the culture. While the 1960s saw the expansive growth of legalistic and fundamentalist churches, these ministries have all but dwindled out of the American landscape. Today’s religious trend, although seeming to give way before our eyes, is the television-broadcasted, stadium-filling, false gospel of prosperity.
Jesus has not come to clean up our lives. He’s come to mess them up in a way so radical we will no longer recognize them. His transformational power surpasses the best list of Do’s and Don’ts we could ever assemble. Jesus has not come to give us our best life now, but to call out cross-carrying disciples who have set their eyes on a higher prize.
Don’t preach Jesus as a means of moralism or materialism.
He’s more than all that.
