Had you heard that we've discovered an 11th Commandment? It's true. Recently some archaeologists were going over the two surviving tablets of the Law and they found an additional commandment concealed in the decorative etching at the bottom. When they translated the Hebrew into English,it said "Thou Shalt Not Offend."
I'm joking about the archeologists! Unfortunately, I'm not joking about the new commandment- at least in the minds of this generation. Take one step back for a bit of perspective and you realize that most of us aren't competing for souls- or even fruit, or holiness, or service. We are competing with everybody else to be liked. It's almost as though we have this pink sheet of paper pinned to our backs, pleading "Like me. Please." We will offer tacit approval of depraved choices, deny Jesus, or abandon a friend to Hell, but we dare not risk offending anybody. If they don't like us, we'll never reach them. Isn't that biblical?
When did the people of God begin worrying about what other people think of us? Good grief! In His inaugural sermon that launched the church, Jesus reassured us "Happy are you when people insult you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you because of me." Jesus didn't care if people liked him. His example said, "It is what it is! This is what God is like, whether you approve or not."
Of course he loved people tirelessly, but he didn't fawn all over them trying to schmooze them. He called some people hypocrites and told others to stop sinning. He drove the money changers out of the temple with a whip. He rebuked Peter's sinful excuses, and called him Satan. He did controversial things. Some people overlooked all this because he had amazing power to help. Others got so mad they wanted to kill Him.
Today, many of Christ's churches are competing for the Miss Congeniality Award. What can we do to make you like us? Can we endorse Global Warming to win your approval? Can we change the subject when the topic of sin comes up? Can we serve you lattes in the winter and ice cream in the summer? Can we make the sermons shorter and talk endlessly about motion pictures and TV shows? Then will you like me?
Hey, can we be finally be honest with ourselves and face the facts? You know this: as hard as we've tried, most people still don't like us. And the ones who do like us are not being transformed by faith. They're simply tolerating our convictions that are apparently so backwards that even we'd rather not talk about them.
Take a look at the US Church today and you quickly see that everything is up for grabs- everything! Some "Bible" churches won't even mention the virgin birth lest intellectuals be offended. Other Christians are asking if one man-one woman is really the biblical standard for marriage. Some churches have banned the word "sin" from their Sunday vocabulary. The world doesn't know God, but they know this: when everything is up for debate, nothing seriously matters.
Simon Peter, Paul the apostle, James the brother of Christ, and Simon Peter were just a few of the First Century saints who died prematurely. They didn't contract cancer or AIDS. They were murdered by the large numbers of people who were offended and didn't like them. But in the short time they lived here, their lives called down so much power from Heaven that they changed their world.
Good News: God loves you. If your ministry pleases Him, you'll win some of your neighbors whether they like you or not. Let's take the stupid signs off our backs and stop acting like a bunch of losers.
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