Selling Cheap Jesus

By Lori Scharf

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The other day I started reading Not A Fan by Kyle Idleman. He starts off the book by talking about his preparation for an Easter sermon. He feels he needs to write something that will wow those who only come to church on Christmas and Easter (or as he calls them, Creasters); something cool and exciting that will bring them back for more.

Finally a thought crosses my mind: I wonder what Jesus taught whenever he had the big crowds. What I discovered would change me forever. Not just as a preacher, but as a follower of Christ. I found that when Jesus had a large crowd, he would most often preach a message that was likely to cause them to leave.

It’s easy to want to sensationalize Jesus. To try and convert people on the premise that “Being a follower of Christ is so much fun, you should try it!”

We have huge flashy worship services and hip young youth pastors convincing us to try their big cool youth group. We put so much time and money and LED light strips into trying to seem modern and exciting, that we lose sight of the real reason we should go to church.

I was raised in an extremely conservative church straight out of the 1800s. Skirts, head coverings, the King James Bible, the works. We even sang a cappella because instruments were too modern. Now, that may seem old-fashioned and strange to you (I get it); but there’s something about a room that’s filled with the blending voices of people praising God and nothing else. It’s powerful.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with a worship service that includes a worship team and maybe even a set of drums (oh the horror!), but I think there is a line between letting people use their talents to worship God, and turning it into a performance.

Jesus never had a light show and a smoke machine. Yet, he drew crowds of thousands. I guarantee that even back then, there were more entertaining things to do than listen to the words of some carpenter from Nazareth, but there was something that Jesus had that on one else did.

Truth.

Jesus said things that made the Jews uncomfortable. He taught that there was only one way into Heaven. Not money, not social status, not good deeds or sacrifices at the temple- none of that. The only way to Heaven was through him.

He taught about loving your enemy and forgiving those who wronged you. He said that you should not look down on the poor or those with lower social status, but to treat everyone with love and respect. He even went so far as to claim that he had come to fulfill the Law of Moses, and now even those who broke the law were capable of going to Heaven if they had faith in him.

The Sermon on the Mount is full of teachings on right and wrong; and though to us, 2000 years later, they are old truths that entire civilizations have been built on, they were once revolutionary ideas.

Do onto others as you would have them do onto you? Store up your treasures in Heaven rather than on Earth? Be a light to the world? Do not take vengeance on those who wronged you? What was this guy trying to pull?

It seems to me that today, 2000 years after Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, those ideas are almost as revolutionary as they were then. Sins like adultery, envy, revenge, selfishness and pride are all but the norm in our culture.

Even in our churches, leaders are afraid to take a strong stance on virtually any issue in fear of offending the wrong people.

Jesus was not a push-over. His stance on sexual immorality, greed, and pride were very clear: It is all sin.

He faced persecution for it too. There were multiple instances where a mob gathered to stone him, and he was eventually arrested and killed by those who didn’t agree with him.

So why are we trying to sell Jesus short?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Christians say “Well, that verse doesn’t actually mean what it says,” or “If Jesus was here today, he would say something different.”

Jesus was and is literally God. The Bible says he is beyond time and sees both the beginning and end of time at once. Don’t you think he knew exactly what our world would look like 2000 years from that time? The Bible also says, “He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”

So, you’re telling me that a God who sees all of time and never changes said something he didn’t really mean?

I’m sorry, I just can’t accept that.

Jesus lived and died so we could live without fear of man and proclaim truth, knowing that no matter what, out future was secured.

During his Sermon on the mount, Jesus said this:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16, ESV)

The truth is, following Jesus isn’t easy. While on earth, he warned that his followers would be hated by the world, but they would be rewarded in heaven.

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:29-30, ESV)

So, I encourage you to stop trying to sell Jesus like the newest hip and cool fad. To stop editing his life and words to make it suitable for modern audiences, but to present him as what we truly is.

Jesus is our Savior, the son of God who died for us, and the embodiment of holiness and truth.

Stop selling cheap Jesus, and sell salvation instead.

I’ll leave you with the words the Apostle Paul said to Timothy:

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God,… for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.” (2 Timothy 6-8, ESV)