I’m not usually one to quote much of MacArthur’s stuff because he is pretty staunchly against miracles happening today.  However, his book “The Jesus You Can’t Ignore” is probably one of the only books I’ve ever found that Biblically deals with the fact that Jesus was not nice to the religious crowd.  In fact, He was pretty aggressive and quite mean by today’s standards.

I’m sure lots of people said that He wasn’t “walking in love”.

Let this quote grip you.

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“From the disciples perspective, Jesus’ restraint toward the appreciative crowds–not to mention his guarded (antagonistic) interaction with the religious bigwigs like Nicodemus–must have been mystifying.  In retrospect, John could certainly see why Jesus remained standoffish, and he even underlined it as clear evidence of Jesus’ omniscience.

Here is a practical lesson from this account: a positive response to Jesus should never be taken as proof of authentic trust in Him.

There is a shallow, fickle brand of “belief” that is not saving faith at all.

From the first public miracle He performed until this very day, there have always been people who “accept Christ” without truly loving Him, without submitting to His authority, and without abandoning their self-confidence and trust in their own good works.

This is what John describes at the end of John 2, and that becomes the transition into the story of Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was (at this point) one of those almost-believers to whom Jesus did not automatically commit Himself.

John makes a clever play on words in the closing verses of chapter 2.

The expression “many believed in His name” in verse 23 and the expression “Jesus did not commit Himself unto them” in verse 24 both use the same Greek verb.

(John 2:23-24)

John is saying that many responded to Jesus with a kind of enthusiasm that fell short of whole-hearted faith, so He didn’t completely trust them, either.

In other words, they SAID they believed Him, but He didn’t believe them.

He had no faith in their faith.”

- from John MacArthur, “The Jesus You Can’t Ignore”

“Go therefore, and hold conferences in all nations, baptizing them in your doctrines, teaching them to buy your books and sermons on the ‘next move of God’, and to leave their entire lives behind to come to the mega-churches all over the world that you will build.  And lo, I will anoint you, but just until the end of the conference.”

Wait!  That’s not what Jesus said to do…He said:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”– Matthew 28:19-20

Why do so many of us hop from conference to conference, meeting to meeting, church to church, doing all these nice, fluffy Christian things…and only act like we are ‘anointed’ when we are at church?

Have you ever noticed the fruit of listening to many of your favorite ministers? Do you get a stronger desire to read your Bible or do the things that Jesus said to do?  Does it make you want to spend time in prayer?

Or do you find yourself with an intense urge to buy the speaker’s latest book or their newest DVD sermon series?  Or perhaps wanting to leave everything you know behind and move to the mega-church that they speak at regularly so you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to go to the conference in your area next year?  All so that you can get the freshest “revelation” that they bring every week instead of getting your revelation from God Himself as you study His Word and put it into practice?

Legitimately take a moment and think about this.  The Lord spoke to me about this last night and it hit me like a brick in the face.

If listening to those that you listen to legitimately leads you into a deeper and more intense study of the Word of God, then keep at it!  However, if the only thing that you have found yourself doing is craving their next book, then Houston, we have a problem.

There are giant, very expensive church buildings all over the world that people are streaming to year after year…where there are legitimately amazing things happening…but at what cost?  And why?

Could it possibly be that the message that is coming out of many of these churches is not entirely portraying the Jesus of the Scriptures in an accurate light?

Could it possibly be that we have been deceived into believing a watered-down version of the Gospel that makes us think Jesus is simply concerned about making us happy?

Sorry to take a shotgun to your doctrine folks, but that’s called humanism.

“Humanism says that the end of all things is the happiness of man.  Christianity says that the end of all things is the glory of God.” -Paris Reidhead

Obviously God wants us to be happy—but unfortunately, much of the church has taken a Biblical truth and overemphasized it to the point that we have created God in our own image.

Do we realize that one of Jesus’ first major ‘ministry’ moves was to flip over the tables of the people that were doing business in the temples and then driving them out with a whip?  (John 2:13-23)

That certainly wouldn’t win very many popularity points…and if Jesus had written a few books and brought all of His most ‘anointed’ sermon sets with Him, He probably wouldn’t get too many people lining up at His product table after a move like that.

And yet miraculously, multitudes of people still followed Him throughout His earthly ministry.  Granted then He preached the “eat My flesh and drink My blood” sermon (John 6:25-70 ) which dwindled His followers to just a select few again…but there was something about what He carried that truly demonstrated His Lordship, His Divine Love, and His Power that made Him so irresistible to people who were legitimately hungry for something real…

There is this side of the Jesus of the Gospels that has intrigued me for the last several years–and the more I read the Bible the more I find that Jesus was not this gentle, easy-going, chum of a guy who was super nice to everybody.  He was hands-down the most intense man who ever walked this earth.  He called the religious leaders of His day the sons of satan…broods of vipers…hypocrites…

I have a hard time believing that the Jesus of the Scriptures would be very readily welcomed into most of our churches today.  He certainly would not be invited to speak at our “glory, signs, and wonders” conferences or to very many Sunday morning services.  He would make too many people angry because of the message He would bring.

His message demanded that the lives of those who heard it followed Him wholeheartedly and without compromise.

He openly rebuked those who only came to Him for the miracles.

He aggressively destroyed the works of the devil everywhere He went…not just when He had some special “leading” of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38 ).

Jesus demonstrated what a man who is entirely sold out to God can do.

He upset every establishment that He came across…because so many of them became so focused on themselves, their little empires,  and the rules they had put in place that they neglected even doing the simple things that God had commanded them.

The intensity of Christ is something that very few people will dare to speak about.  It makes many pastors and leaders uncomfortable.  It makes those steeped in religion squirm with an uneasy feeling that ‘rebellion’ is afoot.  The Jesus of the Gospels was a man who completely turned everything upside down and made no apologies for it.  He was a revolutionary at the core and ABSOLUTE FREEDOM and LOVE were His weapons of choice.

Everybody likes the Jesus that performs the miracles and loves people in a way that doesn’t demand that they abandon their cozy little lives.  Everybody likes to talk about how Jesus welcomed little children into His arms and the Jesus who multiplied food for thousands and thousands of people.  Everybody likes the Jesus who calmed the storm that the disciples had found themselves in.  Everybody likes the Jesus who healed all the sick and set the demonized free from their torment.  Everybody likes the Jesus that died just for them.  Everybody likes the Jesus who gave up everything of Himself, all of His divinity, just for them.

The trouble with all of this is that while these things are all part of Christ’s character…they are only one part.

Nobody likes to talk about the Jesus who told teenage boys to leave their family and their jobs to follow Him (Luke 5:1-11 ).  Nobody likes the Jesus who told a man to leave his dead father and not worry about setting up funeral arrangements (Matt. 8:20-21 ), or the man who simply wanted to say goodbye to his parents before following Jesus that if he turned back, he wouldn’t be worthy to enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:61-62 ).

Today, He would be called disrespectful and dishonoring to the family.

Nobody likes to talk about the fact that right after He calmed the storm, He rebuked His own followers for having no faith (Mark 4:40 ).

Today, He would be told that He “wasn’t speaking things that edify and build up the church.”

Nobody likes to talk about the Jesus that viciously rebuked and drove out those who bought and sold in the temple (Matthew 21:12-17 , Matthew 21:23-27 , Mark 11:15-19 ,Mark 11:27-33, Luke 19:45-48, John 2:13-23 )

Today, He would be told that He “wasn’t walking in love.”  How ironic that Love Himself would probably get labeled with a statement like that.

Nobody likes to talk about the Jesus who called the religious leaders of His day the most defaming, slanderous, cruel names of the day and likened them to satan himself.  He called them blind hypocrites and snakes in their own temples (Matthew 23).  Nobody likes to talk about the Jesus that openly refuted the teaching of the rulers of the very synagogues He was teaching in.  Or the fact that in the book of Acts, when the disciples were forbidden to speak and teach in the name of Jesus, they DISOBEYED and said they had to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:17-33).

Today, Jesus and His disciples would be told they were being rebellious for “not honoring authority and their leaders” and that Jesus needed to “stop speaking death and condemnation over them”.

Nobody likes the Jesus who publicly rebuked His followers who were not able to get a boy healed and delivered from demons, even proceeding to say that they had no faith and that they were perverse (Luke 9:37-41).

Today, He would be told He was “too harsh and that everybody isn’t on His level” and that He “didn’t learn what He knows right away”.

Nobody likes the Jesus who told a rich young man to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor (Luke 18:18-23).

Today, He would be told that “God wants us to have nice things and to prosper us”.  (I’m not saying that He doesn’t…I think you get my point, though.)

Nobody likes the Jesus that said that if we don’t hate our families, our own lives, and leave everything that we know to follow Him, that we can’t even be His disciple (Luke 14:25-34).

Today, He would be told “you need to rephrase that nasty word ‘hate’, people will get a bad impression” and to “not take things so seriously”.

Nobody likes the Jesus who likened those who heard His words but didn’t put them into practiceto false prophets and fools…and that everything these evildoers had tried to establish would come crashing down (Matt. 7:15-27).

Today, He would be told “judge not lest ye be judged!”

Nobody likes the fact that Jesus wasn’t interested in maintaining ‘ministry partners’…He wanted the very lives of His followers laid down at His feet, ready to serve every person that they came across and be willing to do anything that He said…even if it meant ‘eating His flesh and drinking His blood’.

This calm, complacent, seeker-sensitive, warm and fuzzy Jesus that is portrayed by mostchurches today is simply not the Jesus of the Scriptures.

Paul had something interesting to say to the Galatians about people who preach a different Jesus than the Christ of the Scriptures:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, so now I say again:  If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed! For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?  Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” – Galatians 1:6-10

Today, Paul would be told he was mean and that he needs to lighten up.

I present this all to you for one reason—to get you to really think about this message of Christ that you profess with your lips.  To get you to legitimately consider that maybe, just maybe, the things that you think you know about Jesus are more than a little bit skewed.  Skewed in the direction of a people-pleasing, super-nice, friendly-Sunday-morning Savior who looks more like a cosmic bell-hop who jumps through every hoop you present Him instead of the glorious, victorious, ruling, reigning, all-powerful, omniscient, death-conquering, disease-defeating, life-requiring Lord of All that He really is.

The message He told us to bring is “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (within reach)!”

The time for playing church is far over.  The life that Jesus has called us all to is one that will be full of victory, love, power, authority, adventure, excitement, persecution, joy, slander, tears, and so much more.

Comfortable is not part of this life in the Kingdom.

This is a war we have been born into…and the victory is ours through Christ.

It is time to lay aside the idol of a Jesus that man has created in our own image and bow our knee to all that He has for us.

Embrace your calling in Christ.  Run hard after that which God has put burning inside of you.  Abandon your fears and all forms of compromise.

Stop wasting your life with all of the things that the world runs after.

An idol is anything that gets your attention more than God.

The Jews missed Jesus the first time because they were expecting a conquering King that would come as a Lion — but they got a Lamb who loved on sinners and was humble as a servant.  It seems that now people are expecting a gentle Lamb but Scriptures point out that they will be getting the roaring Lion of Judah.

Think about it.

The frustrations of the path I have chosen have been many.  The hearts of those who are constantly coming in and out of my life continue to be revealed and my heart breaks when deception makes it’s slow, creeping way into the minds of its victim.  How it happens is something that I don’t quite understand…and as a human being I certainly do not claim to know everything or to be totally remiss of deception.  But didn’t James say that those who hear the Word of God and don’t DO it deceive themselves?  Could it really be that simple?  Whose fault is it then if deception is present?

Why is it that we think it’s okay to allow misunderstandings to sever relationships?  How do we move past the place of offenses and into the attainment of what Paul calls “the bond of peace”?  I suppose it comes when we die to ourselves…when we admit our faults in situations that have brought about dissensions.  Perhaps additionally it comes by reaching an understanding that no matter what we do, when we are truly following the Lord, there will be times when those whom we’ve been traveling with will go a different way.  Look at Paul and Barnabas.

These spiritual crossroads that we reach at different points in our lives are what end up shaping us.  They force us to examine our hearts as well as the fruit of those around us in order to establish the path to take when we reach an impasse.  In many cases, we are forced to make quick decisions that will define relationships and direction for a significant amount of time.

In others, we find ourselves wrestling through issues that may look a lot bigger than they are.  And all the while, the gentle whisper of Christ lingers on…”Come, follow Me.”

The road we travel will not always have the same people walking beside us.  Some will choose a different fork in the road than we will.  Others will turn back.  Still others will work to impede our progress.

The expectations of others will always be an unreachable goal and impossible to satisfy.  Our responsibility is to model Christ in all circumstances–we are ambassadors of the Kingdom of God on this Earth as He is in Heaven and have been recruited into the great Army of the Lord.

He is not looking for self-seeking servants with a seeker-sensitive message.  He is seeking love-motivated soldiers–warriors who will do anything for their King at a moment’s notice.

This is who we have chosen to be.  This is who we are.  This is our livelihood.  Nothing else matters.

We have accepted a call to lay our lives down for Him and His Kingdom.  No agenda of man or ploy of any devil can stop those who go low and simply say YES to the God of the universe.

The question is, will you say yes to the call to GO?

He already gave the call—”Come, follow Me.”

What most people might call “waiting on God” can simply be redefined as disobedience to His written Word.

He already said to go into all the nations and to make disciples.  When did we get to decide when we would think it’s okay to obey?