Putting up Roadblocks to Jesus

Imagine a car speeding towards a cliff - think Thelma and Louise without the suicidal element or that newish Star Trek without the one-eyed floating motorcycle policeman. I’ve often wondered where such roads-in-the-middle-of-nowhere are and why we put roads there. While driving on the Road to the Sun in Montana I wanted as many barriers, speed bumps and large, unmovable rocks between me and the cliff as possible. I want to see the view, to be sure, but I also wanted very clear obstacles to disrupt any driving into the abyss that seemed relatively easy. Now consider that these abyss(es?ees?i?) are relatively accurate representatives of where humanity is headed apart from faith in the Lordship of Jesus, his death, resurrection, reign and trusting in all that he commands. 

There has been a kind of Christianity, popular with us young kids, wherein a type of evangelism and even discipleship is adopted that seeks to remove any teachings, ethical norms, or biblical tones (that’s too harsh!) that might dissuade a young non-Christian from coming to believe in and worship Jesus. The idea is that the loving thing to do is to remove any and all obstacles to a person coming to believe in Jesus. Leave the fatal ethical constructs in place, the inhuman worldview, the incoherent secular dogmas, just get them to believe in a set of theoretical propositions or hold some sentimental feelings about Jesus. That’s the goal. That’s how to get people to become Christians. What you end up with is a really nice Christianity, relatively inoffensive, something that feels loving and which has the rather horrific side effect of allowing people to believe that they can keep any of the other stuff that the old curmudgeonly Christians called sin and unbelief, and still be good Christians. In other words this creates a nice, non-threatening neutered Christianity. It is a Christianity incapable of producing disciples who can stand in the midst a culture which rejects the ethical teaching of the Bible. It is a Christianity incapable of reigning in the overwhelming weight of our own suicidal desires. It is a Christianity incapable of producing a culture of robust truth, and rich beauty and loving, moral goodness. 

You know you’ve encountered such a neutered Christianity in a church when the only courageous stands you hear from the pulpit or in a church’s teaching has to do with what everybody in unbelieving mainstream culture already believes. This has its more nationalist-conservative versions and its more secular-liberal versions. It pops up in Texas looking one way and it pops up in Denver looking another, but wherever it pops up it creates a whole community of people who believe that they are Christians because they either have warm thoughts about Jesus or they’ve believed a set of isolated theoretical principles about who Jesus is, you know, way up in the sky somewhere. Neither version pushes into he corners of a person’s life. It never touches the ground. It never confronts with real-time cultural sins being committed right now. Its never concrete. 

It fails to produce real disciples of Jesus, disciples who repent of sin and unbelief, whose lives are growing in conformity to the teachings of Scripture and the good demands of Jesus. It produces Christians who largely look and act and believe just like their secularist neighbors. 

If a person can come to believe in Jesus without some of their deepest-held beliefs and desires and behaviors being confronted, then there is a very good chance that this person has not really come to Jesus. If real repentance from real sin is not pressed - if a person believes they can keep having sex with whomever they want (with consent of course) and that belief and behavior isn’t confronted in the process of coming to believe in Jesus, then they aren’t coming to Jesus. If a person’s financial habits are never confronted, their way of talking to or about people, their work ethic, how they treat their family or love their wife or discipline their children - then the things the Bible actually speaks to aren’t being addressed, and that should smell really fishy to us. The Jesus we meet in Scripture made demands, remarkable demands. He refused to serve anyone else’s agenda. He confronted those who would follow him in the most pointed and personal ways. Demanding a rich man sell everything to follow him in one place, demanding another leave his parents behind in another. Jesus made it hard to follow Jesus. Who are we to make it any easier?

This kind of Christian evangelism and mission is almost the complete opposite of older forms of Christianity, where the Law’s confrontation of our particular sins was essential to repentance and faith. Where does the Law condemn me? Where does the Law declare me guilty on account of the way I am living? It is precisely here that my need for the grace of God, and the kindness of God is made clear. It is here where the necessity of the cross is made plain. It is here where I can see the cost of believing in and following Jesus. The Law does not confront humans in abstract ways calling us to warmer feelings about Jesus. No, through the Law, God names, confronts and condemns our actual sins. The things we love and do. This never feels good, and is almost never considered loving in a culture like ours. But God saves us through the work of Jesus and calls us to repentance from sins and to faith in the person and work of Jesus. 

Conversion to Christianity happens when a person hits a roadblock and turns. They are driving into an abyss, and in the mercy of God the law of God comes like a big set of flashing lights and railing to call you to turn. Sure they’re annoying. They are in the way. The ministry of the church must be a ministry of putting things in the way - disruptive things, oftentimes painful things, but if coming to Jesus is easy - if it isn’t costly, then there is a very good change we’ve simply mislabeled the abyss and misunderstood the mission of God given to the church. This is, of course quite risky. Its how Christianity gets a bad reputation among the cool kids. But it is the remarkably devastating message that Jesus has given to the church- a message about his authority over all things, his death for our terrible sins, and his conquering of death - the penalty for all those sins. So church, do the work of the gospel: Put up roadblocks.