Picture this: a wild, homeless man gathers crowds in the woods to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He wears animal fur, eats bugs and yells a lot. When crowds gather, he welcomes them by calling them “broods of vipers” and impatiently inquires who sent them. He tells of a new Kingdom that is soon to take power and roughly explains that everything the crowds have ever put their hope in is coming to an end, that they must repent and prove it by their faith in this new way of righteousness and that anyone who refuses to do so is going to be cut down and tossed in fire.
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Can you even imagine?
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Now ask yourself, how did we go from this powerful, painful, self-sacrificing gospel of Jesus delivered by an undignified homeless man to the soft, relevant, all-accepting gospel we hear today delivered by paid men who are pictures of cultural relevance?
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The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is still as powerful, painful and self-sacrificing as it was when John boldly proclaimed it. The Gospel of the Kingdom hasn’t changed. We have.
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John the Baptist was anything but relevant. He did everything to point to Jesus except pretend to be a citizen of the world he lived in.
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Will we ever love Jesus enough to renounce our worship of this kingdom in order to walk people into the Gospel of HIS Kingdom?
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