Chapter 2: Too Hungry for Words

Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Gospel

I just want to say one thing right off the bat. This chapter is crazy and there is no way I can fit everything in this little blog post. Prepare to get rocked.

How dedicated are you to learning about God and spending time with him?
Dedicated enough to spend 8 hours in a bible study? Enough to give up your job for weeks at a time? This is the dedication of Christians in countries where Christianity is illegal. Now look at America. We complain that church isn't over soon enough and we are ticked off because we might miss kick off of our favorite football team. Really? Unfortunately this is how many people act...
The environment of the church needs some major work in some areas and radical Christianity is where it starts.

Who He Really Is
The gospel reveals the glory of God and that he is the sovereign Creator of all things. He is righteous in all his way, just in all his wrath, and loving toward all he has made. Do you ever wonder if we intentionally mask some of God's attributes? If you look at the Christian marketplace, you see songs, paintings, and books that all talk about God's love. Every where we turn we see people saying what a loving Father God is. While this is completely true, this is only part of who God really is. So many times people like to look away when people start to mention God as a righteous judge.
In his wrath he hates sin, but now you ask, "What happened to 'God hates the sin and loves the sinner'?" Well the Bible happened to this phrase. There is a psalm that says "The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong." Yeahhhhh.
Far too often we enjoy our little cliches and ignore God as a judge who damns us. It is time to make a change and start to recognize God as he really is in the Bible.
In our sinful state, we are not ready to give God what he asks for because our hearts are set against him. God's revelation in the gospel not only reveals who he is, but it also reveals who we are.

Who We Really Are
We are all born sinners. We are all born wanting to rebel against God. God has given us the free will to choose and we always find ways to mess it up. Think about it, when God commands the sea to calm, it calms. When he commands the clouds to part, the clouds part. All of creation listens to every word that God speaks, except us. We have the audacity to look in God's face and say "No" when the rest of creation obeys without question.
Our situation may seem pretty sad at this point, but it kind of is. We are all sinners and we can only overcome that sin with the works of Christ. This leads us to the next section...

What (or Whom) We Really Need
Jesus. We. Need. Jesus.
Now I'm sure you are now thinking,"Yes, I need Jesus. I know he died for me on the cross and payed the price" and you end it there. That's not even half of it. When Jesus was sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane he was not afraid of what the Roman soldiers were going to do to him.
There are many examples of people singing at the gallows and Christians singing as they are being executed. Did they have more courage than Jesus? No, I don't think so.
There is one thing that those Christians did not have to face.
Divine Wrath.

Jesus took all of the wrath of God when he died on the cross. The cup Jesus took was the cup filled with the wrath of God, not some wooden cross with nails. We talk down the crucifixion so much and belittle it to just the cross. Jesus paid so much for all of the sins in the world; past, present, and future. One pastor described it like this:
Imagine you and I were standing a short hundred yards away from a dam of water ten thousand miles high and ten thousand miles wide. all of sudden that dam was breached, and a torrential flood of water came crashing toward us. Right before it reached our feet, the ground in front of us opened up and swallowed it all. At the Cross, Christ drank the full cup of the wrath of God, and when he had downed the last drop, he turned the cup over and cried out, "It is finished."

Now I'm going to tackle the last part of the chapter. I'm just going to go over it quickly and point out some of the main points.

After David talks about the price that Jesus paid, he asks us what we have done with this message of the Gospel. He presents the idea that we have turned the Gospel into a shrink wrapped package. For example, come up front, repeat this prayer, sign this sheet, and you are a Christian! Now this might bother some people, but just think about it. Don't we make it that way? I know that I have seen this and I'm not saying that this is a sin to come to Jesus that way, but it's just an observation that has been made. Shouldn't there be a little more passion in coming to Christ rather than just repeating a prayer and walking out the door?

The next idea we are presented with is the idea that we "accept" Jesus in to our hearts. Think about it. We have been fed this idea for our all of our lives that we need to "accept" Jesus. As if Jesus, Son of God, needs our acceptance. If anything, we should be praying for Jesus to accept us. Just another interesting observation.

Now you may be thinking that we need to be radically obedient to Jesus in order to "earn" his salvation. Not true. In the Bible it says we are saved by grace, through faith, so that no one can boast. Nothing we can do can earn us a spot in Heaven. We are fallen and it is only by God's grace that we can have salvation. We are eternally dependent on him and cannot do anything without his strength. This reinforces the idea that in everything we do, we need to give glory to God. We can do nothing without him. Thank goodness that it is by grace we are saved, and not our small little works.