Theology Made Simple

The Concerns of Jesus, Part 4

From the time Satan gave the first ego-centered temptation to Adam and Eve in the Garden, man's ego has been his indefatigable enemy through the ages. I think it no exaggeration to say that all sin derives from man's self-centered desires. Child psychologists give us good reason to admire and pity the first-grade school teacher. It is at the age of about six that children first arrive at the "Look at me" stage. However, if it is difficult to deal with a six-year-old who is the center of his world, look around and see what difficulties we face in dealing with a generation that has been taught to demand its personal rights, and constant adoring attention, above all other considerations. From the well-coiffured televangelist to the prancing "hot-dog" on the football field, we are bombarded by the message of "Look at me".

If this was only the antics of the grown-up six-year-olds of our society, it would be annoying, but not harmful. The trouble is that they are simply the exhibitionists of an underlying philosophy which eats at the heart of every institution, including the church, in our society. Someone said, "Men don't want to be rich, just richer than anyone else." The media driven desire to be more attractive, and have a nicer body, so you can be admired; the hunger for headlines and recognition, and the hedonistic desire to have all our animal desires instantly gratified, is reminiscent of the debaucheries of ancient Rome and Greece. Our entire society seems to be degenerating morally on the wings of the super egos that we worship, and a self-centered world of which we are the center.

You can wag your head at the superficiality of such thinking, but when you realize that every church problem through the ages has been spawned by men's ego, and that every family break-up springs from self-centered causes, and that the flames of international conflict have been lit and fanned by sensitive diplomatic egotism, the problem cannot be called superficial. You may say, "That is too general a statement. Not all of these problems were caused by ego-centricism." I answer that the percentage that are not is so small that it is inconsequential. It's like saying it was the shiny beauty of the apple that caused the sin of Adam and Eve. We know better.

The dramatic contrast between the thinking which drives our society today, and the primary concerns of Jesus of Nazareth, is so graphic that many preachers and church leaders are desperately trying to piously repaint the picture of Jesus to better fit with our current world. It won't work! "Blessed are the poor in spirit" would never fly as a Super Bowl commercial, nor even as a sermon title on the marquee of a "market driven church."

Jesus was never concerned with His self-image. He taught His disciples to not be like the religious leaders who paraded their piety for all to see. He taught them to deny self and take up the cross of service and follow Him. He preached, as the very first principle of His earthly ministry, that the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to the humble of heart...the "poor in Spirit". Many church leaders today find this so out of line with our modern world that it cannot be sold to people today. As a result, we find preachers and church leaders everywhere desperately trying to reinterpret Christ's teaching to fit the acceptable patterns of our present world. In a great article by Gary Gilley he said, "In their church growth methodologies, more attention is paid to market strategy, business techniques, and demographics than to New Testament instruction." In another place he says they have their "finger on the pulse of Americans' wants and desires."

If this were an isolated methodology being used by a few growth conscious churches and church leaders to build mega-churches, it would be bad enough. But, unfortunately, it has become a popular norm for preachers who feel they must build bigger churches, or they are failing their profession, and only by swelling their numbers, by any means, can they truly be spreading the Gospel. The trouble in all of this is that the methods of swelling the numbers involve ignoring the first sermon preached by Jesus on that far away mountain in Galilee twenty centuries ago.

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