The Gospel

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Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on May 14, 2021
Posted in: The Mindful Minute. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

What would Jesus do? If only we would be more like Jesus, the world would be a better place. Jesus would never be a democrat. Jesus would never be a republican. ALL you have to do is believe in Jesus and then be the best person you can be. Over the course of almost 14 years in ministry, I have heard all of these phrases at some point come out of the mouth of Christians and non-Christians alike; and the conclusion I’ve come to is this…Do we know who Jesus really is anymore? These popular sayings range from really cool Christian catch phrases to a completely false teaching of who Jesus is. So, when I hear things like “be like Jesus,” I often follow up with the question of “who is Jesus?” I think it’s worth noting that I DO NOT ask “who is Jesus to you.” That would imply that the character of Christ is pliable to fit our specific wants and desires. I want to know if the person knows who the Jesus of scripture is- the ONLY Jesus there is. These other notions about Christ are nothing short of a man-made, self idealistic dream of a genie in a bottle here to grant our every wish and desire; loosely backed by pieced together scripture taken out of context to fit our preconceived social or political notions. The truth is, there is only ONE Jesus, ONE Christ, ONE savior of mankind; and He is the Jesus found in the pages of God’s perfect and infallible word, not taken out of context, but alive with all the truth, mercy, and grace that point to Him on every single page- whether it steps on our toes or not. So, will the real savior of mankind please stand up?

I think it’s helpful to expose a couple of these popular false Jesuses in order to better understand the real Jesus that reigns at the right hand of the Father. First, there’s the Jesus of only truth or as I like to call him Rambo Jesus. Now, hear me- Jesus is truth, but Rambo Jesus is the representation that Jesus is ONLY truth, often filtered through legalistic scripture that never takes into account the situation for which it was written and tends to gloss over the mountains of scripture that depict God’s grace through His son. This Jesus is wielded like a weapon in order to put people in their place or have an epic “mic drop” moment as some non-Christian is “schooled” with theological might. The person wielding Rambo Jesus often does not understand or has lost sight of what the real Jesus did for them on a cross, after all, we aren’t born into our faith. At some point, we had to acknowledge our own sinfulness and repent of that sin. I have often felt that one of the most crippling aspects a Christian life can have is the lack of true understanding & acknowledgement of our sinful nature. Yes, the truth is important. God has set standards and expectations of us which Jesus taught. Jesus demonstrated righteous anger in the temple when He drove out the money changers, but the real Jesus is not one dimensional. The Jesus of scripture is much bigger than that. Rambo Jesus is not Jesus at all.

Then you have the Jesus of only grace, or as I call him Hippy Jesus (you know- peace, love, and whole wheat kind of thing). So many truths today. It really is mind blowing. We are living in a world where truth is now whatever you want it to be according to many. If you don’t like what’s going on in your life, change it. Declare your situation to not be true. In fact declare whatever, whoever, and however you want life to be and THAT can be truth. There are so many dangers in this line of thought. Personal “truth”, just because it is declared by a person, is in no way reality; but there are plenty of people attempting to push legislation to make it legal (notice I didn’t say true). In fact, the very definition of truth is: “that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.” We have seen this spill over into the realm of spiritual life as well. Hippy Jesus is an active attempt to shape the image and character of Christ to look like whatever the currently accepted “truth” is. This often comes with justifying our sins through scripture, particularly the words of Jesus, as they are pieced together, completely out of context, in order to make it seem like Jesus condones or is in some way ok with our sinful actions (i.e “I haven’t killed anybody”). When confronted, you hear things like “Jesus loves everyone,” “Jesus doesn’t care what we believe as long as we believe,” (see, I told you John 3:16 can be dangerous if not taught correctly) or my personal favorite (thick sarcasm inserted here) “Jesus just wants me to be happy” (Thanks to the toxic & heretical prosperity gospel message). Hippy Jesus is the one that Mahatma Gandhi mistakenly took to be the real Jesus when he quipped that “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians…” Yes, Jesus was a force for social justice. Yes, Jesus loved the world. Yes, Jesus healed the sick. And yes, Christians should be doing all of this. But that is not ALL Christians should be doing. Yes, Jesus dined with sinners, forgave the adulterous woman, and healed the lame man; but Jesus ALSO did not want them to stay where they are. He told sinners to go and sin no more, called out the woman at the well for her lifestyle, and told the masses wanting another free, miracle meal that HE was the bread of life. And when they realized Jesus wasn’t just handing things out, they left Him. God wants to save His people and He did that through Jesus and that requires difficult and often times uncomfortable realizations about ourselves and how we live. The Jesus of scripture is much bigger than that. Hippy Jesus is not Jesus at all.

The truth is the Jesus of scripture, the REAL Jesus, is both truth and grace. John 1:14 says it best:

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Jesus is not a political figure, nor a mascot for a social justice movement. He is much, much bigger than that. He is the savior of ALL mankind, not just the ones we deem worthy, but those who He has established a relationship. The message of the gospel is going to step on our toes, it is going to give us a gut punch at times, and it is going to call out the way we live. The message of the gospel is also going to love you when you feel unlovable, give you worth when you feel worthless, and lift you up when everyone else has let you down. The true Jesus calls us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take in the stranger, visit & care for the sick and the criminal; and He calls us to do so whether we find them worthy or not because HE finds them worthy. This is not possible following Rambo Jesus, only by following the REAL Jesus can this happen. The true Jesus ALSO calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross every day, and follow Him. He tells us that HE is way, the truth, and the life and only through HIM can we get to the Father and that is going to cost us our selfish desires. This is not possible following Hippy Jesus, only by following the REAL Jesus can this happen.

It is my honest hope and prayer that we can come together and begin displaying the truth, grace, and character of the Jesus found in God’s Word- not a Jesus used as a weapon, but as a means to show the world the grace of love and peace as well as offering the truth of the hope and eternal salvation that comes from turning away from our sins and giving our lives to Him. “If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.” At the same time, we can take all the mission trips we want and feed all the hungry people in the world; but unless we share the the gospel of Jesus Christ, these are all just temporary fixes to a very eternal problem. I have grown weary of world focused on self. So, will the real Jesus please stand up?

In Christ Alone,
Rev. Bro. Coach

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What If We Actually Allowed God to Speak?

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on December 18, 2020
Posted in: The Mindful Minute. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

It’s an interesting question you know. What if we actually allowed God to speak into our lives? I mean really speak- allowed Him to call us out, to convict us when we were wrong. We don’t like being wrong, have you noticed? We don’t like the idea that what we are doing or saying is not correct, and it gets worse the older we get. At least when we are younger, we can claim some level of naivety. As we get older, though, we are supposed to be experienced….wise….knowledgeable. That is definitely true to a certain extent. Between my wife and I we have 5 college degrees, yet when our first son started crying and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong, we called our parents who do not have college degrees. What they do have is a lot of wisdom and experience that we do not and it’s valuable. But, I think we all too often make the mistake of thinking that we are done learning, done growing- especially when it comes to our spiritual walk.

Today, let me be blunt to the believer and say what many don’t want hear. WE ARE NOT DONE! We haven’t figured it out yet. God is still working on us, in us, and through us. We haven’t graduated to Christian Emeritus. We are still on a journey of growing and being sanctified. and we need to come to grips with the fact that our spiritual walk did not end at salvation and it will not be be over until God calls us home. The free gift of salvation is a lifelong process that will cost us a lot- mainly our pride.

The church (not the gospel) is in a desperate need of a reboot, a reboot that I alluded to in last week’s article (shameless plug- go read it). We have a unique opportunity to get ourselves back on track to following Christ, sacrificing our wants & our desires so that they would align with God’s wants & desires for our lives. That is going to require us to admit and face some very difficult things that are going to be damaging to our ego. So many people approach church with the mentality “what have you done for me lately.” While they would never say it out loud, their actions, their words to others, their attitude toward church is “I want to be entertained with good music that I like and am used to. I want to hear good preaching that is funny, light hearted, and make me feel good about myself afterwards. I want to be noticed and spoken to by the right people and if I can’t get that week in and week out, I’m leaving.” This is not a problem localized to any one area. This is the lament of pastors EVERYWHERE!!! I’ve seen it in so many places- this is not the mark of maturing Christians- it is well….to be honest, infantile.

As churches, we need to stop worrying about being culturally relevant and trendy and be more concerned about being biblically accurate. Sure, the culturally relevant church is usually big. It has a lot of members because it’s appealing. You can come and never have to worry about being offended by God’s Word. You never have to worry about feeling bad for your sinfulness. Repentance is only for the unsaved, right? You can catch young, hip worship and a youth group that will spend more time improving their dodgeball game on Wednesdays instead of their spiritual walk. [*Disclaimer: I am not throwing shade at every mega church. If you want to see a huge church do it right, check out The Village Church pastored by Matt Chandler in Houston- big church, great biblical preaching, no smoke and light shows, just truth.] But, what if we allowed God and not culture to speak into our lives. What if instead of church hopping to avoid dealing with our sin, we no longer become content with messages that tickle our ears? What if we adopted a very realistic view of our human condition and instead of getting offended, we decide to dig in and allow God to mold & shape us. So many of the same people who will complain about cancel culture, will bail on a church the moment God starts trying to shape them and deal with sin and pride in their lives. They often blame the pastor for not feeding them when in truth, they just didn’t care for what was on the menu- His truth. The gospel is a message of exoneration in the fact that, thanks to Christ, we do not have to pay the price for our sins. It is not a message that we get to do whatever we want after we accept Christ because we no longer have responsibility. The gospel is a message of hope, but also one of transformation. Jesus loves us way too much to leave us where we are. If we expect to encounter God’s Word without being convicted, then we don’t have a realistic view of our own sinfulness and need to for that very gospel. The bible is convicting because we are sinners. We need to swallow our pride, allow God to speak truth into our lives, and acknowledge who we are- sinners saved by grace. In fact, if you think about it, if we do not have a desire for the bible to correct us (which means biblical preaching) then we are failing to acknowledge the need for a Savior.

Christians, let’s swallow our pride, admit that we are sinners in need of God’s constant love and correction, and join together on a journey of sanctification as we grow in Christ and become mature disciples instead of lifelong spiritual infants.

In Christ Alone,
Rev. Bro. Coach

Eliminating the 3rd Chair

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on November 13, 2020
Posted in: The Mindful Minute. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

At this point, you’ve clicked on this article for one of two reasons: 1) You follow this blog and you wanted to see what is rattling around my brain today or 2) You really want to know what I have against chairs. That’s fair, so let me offer some background. There is an evangelistic message that I use when I am invited to speak and occasionally I will use it at church called the 4 Chairs. I didn’t write it nor did I put it together. I first heard it years ago when I heard Adrian Despres present it at a youth conference. I became friends with Adrian (we have a mutual friend that we were unaware of at the time) and I eventually got the courage up to ask if it was ok that I use the 4 Chairs as an evangelistic tool when I spoke. He was very excited and graciously told me he would love for me to use it.

So, without going into the whole thing, here is what each chair represents: Chair number 1 represents those who are completely sold out, believers of Christ, pursuing holiness and growing in their faith daily- not perfect Christians (there is no such thing) but definitely growing. Chair number 2 represents Christians who have gotten comfortable. They attend church, but don’t care to miss for frivolous things. They have growth spurts, but its not necessarily an on-going process. They are believers, but it is often compartmentalized as a Sunday and/or Wednesday thing that doesn’t always make an appearance in their life outside of church unless specifically asked about. They absolutely believe in evangelism, but tend to shy away from doing evangelism themselves. They are satisfied staying where they are until they realize that by staying still, they have moved farther away from Christ, so they catch up (hence the growth spurts). This, unfortunately is where most members of churches are today, especially here in American where we don’t suffer the hard persecution that other countries face. And before pride gets the best of you, ALL OF US have spent time in this chair. Chair 4 (yes, I know I skipped chair 3) are those who know without a shadow of a doubt that they are not Christian. They are what we consider lost people. They act like lost people, they rely on themselves, but something you need to consider as a believer- many of them are wonderful people who are as “good” or better humans than a lot of believers. They love others, they help people in need, they smile at you, and they are great students, neighbors, family members, etc… This is why the gospel is so important to reach them- we can’t be good enough to get to Heaven, and the message of the gospel is that we ALL need a savior.

That brings me to Chair 3- the most dangerous chair in this entire presentation, because the concept behind this chair is very real in our churches today. Chair 3 represents people who have at some point in time in their life been convinced that they are saved, but are not; and now they go through their lives thinking they are Heaven-bound but they aren’t. They sit in churches and hear the gospel preached and never respond to the invitation to accept Christ because they think it does not apply to them. This can happen for a multitude of reasons. Some think that salvation is inherited- their grandparents or parents are Christian so they are. You can identify this mindset because it is often accompanied by them telling you they’ve been Christians “their whole life.”

As a church, however, we need to take responsibility for eliminating this chair in our churches. Too many times, you see a kid walk the aisle at a VBS only to walk it every single year at VBS after that. As a a youth pastor, we see hundreds of students go forward at a conference because they feel convicted for something in their life. There is no doubt that many genuinely give their lives to Christ, but I have seen far too many come back and absolutely nothing changed in their lives. They just wanted to feel better in the moment- but no transformation. You see, you cannot encounter Christ and walk away the same person. Romans 6: 1-5 paints this picture:

What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Romans 6:1-5


I believe we have a responsibility to make sure this doesn’t happen. We, as the church, cannot rubber stamp salvations without putting in the effort to follow up with those new believers, not because they need us to be saved- that’s God’s job, but to talk through what salvation will mean for them. They need to know the road will be tough. They need to know that they will sacrifice things, actions, habits, friends, and sometimes even family. They need to know that this isn’t a decision that fixes all of their problems, that it’s not a quick escape plan, and there will be many more difficult times in their lives. How do we do that? Discipleship! Yeah, yeah, there I go with the D word again. Sorry, not sorry. If we do not take this step, then at the first sign of trouble or opposition they will learn the hard way and many walk completely away from the church deeming it a failure or worse questioning if this “Jesus stuff” is even real. These things happen all of the time and I am fearful how many people are walking around today thinking they are saved and Heaven-bound only to be in for an eternally rude awakening when they stand before the Lord in judgment and He says, “I never knew you.” I was told of a recent conversation between someone close to me and their friend. The friend identified himself as a Christian, but thinks he’s an agnostic or atheist. Those two things cannot co-exist and by identifying himself as Christian, he is convinced that he is saved.

You may think that I am taking a seemingly rigid view of this, but let me ask you- how upset would you be if you thought you were saved your whole life, only to find out you never had a relationship with Christ after it was too late? And how much worse is it, if a church was the one that gave you that false assurance because they did not follow up or disciple you? When you accept Christ, you CHANGE- simple as that. You desires begin looking like God’s desires. You WANT to grow, you WANT to be a part of the body, you WANT others to have the same salvation that you have. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, and see, the new has come.” So, yes, I am taking a rigid view of this because it is that important and no, this isn’t a Keith Jones crusade, I have taken my cues from Christ himself. Read Luke chapter 9, you will discover that Jesus talks people out of following Him as much as He brought people along to follow Him. He explained the cost and what it takes to follow Him. He made sure their commitment was genuine.

Truth is we won’t get them all. Some people don’t want life change, they only want temporary relief from guilt. Others will outright reject the gospel invitation, but we have a responsibility to reach as many as we can with the gospel of Jesus Christ and we definitely have a responsibility to make sure that we follow up and invest in the genuine growth of His disciples. That means making sure that no one walks away from us with a false understanding of their own salvation. This is not meant to make you question your salvation at all- it is intended to make you think- about your life and how the gospel is presented to others. If you feel like you may fall into this 3rd chair, I urge you not to waste another moment, talk to someone you trust and get on that path to follow Christ. My approach…my heart in writing this is if I am wrong in being this particular, then there is nothing to lose, I’ll see you in Heaven; but if I am right, if there are people destined for hell that think they are saved and I don’t say anything, that would be difficult to live with. Church, let’s put the work in. Let’s celebrate new life where there is new life. Let’s all make efforts to become believers in that first chair and let’s make every effort to eliminate the 3rd chair.

In Christ Alone,
Rev. Bro. Coach