Watering Down The Gospel

"How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him"

~1 Kings 18:21

We face the same temptation today, that Elijah confronted Israel with on Mount Carmel in 850 BC.  It continues to be an issue today for both churches and Christians.  We are trying to follow Christ while accommodating our culture.  

How do we compromise today? We try and make the Bible "palatable" for our culture by watering down the gospel.  We certainly don't want to appear to be "intolerant" or "non-inclusive."  So churches soften sin's edges, avoid talking about consequences, and try to present Jesus as some kind of life coach rather than our Lord and Savior.  

As individuals, we stay silent at work, avoid talking about anything relating to faith, and we're often pressured to accept behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our faith.  We avoid uncomfortable topics by embracing an "all paths lead to God" philosophy.  But this isn't love-- it's cowardice disguised as compassion. And it is hard for us to defend this behavior, when Jesus so often confronted and challenged sin.  All you need to do is to look at how harshly Paul criticized early churches when they did the same kinds of things the churches of today are doing.  He even publicly rebuked Peter!  

When we allow this cultural accommodation to seep into our personal lives and into our churches, what makes us any different than non-believers?   How would anybody be able to see any difference between church and world when we pick and choose what aspects of God's Word we're going to follow, and which ones we're going to ignore?  Are we followers of Christ or not?  

It weakens believers.  When we soften the edged of sin, new Christians don't learn there's a very well defined line between what is right and wrong and what is moral and immoral.  Mature believers get discouraged when they see their faith being transformed by the world rather than the world being transformed by the Word of God. Most importantly, it dishonors God by suggesting His Word needs our editing and improvement.  And let me be clear on this point.  If we're teaching anything besides the whole Gospel, we're teaching a false Gospel.  

Elijah's challenge echoes today: "How long will you waver?" Choose Christ completely. Practically: preach the whole counsel of God, call sin what it is, proclaim Jesus as the only way. Live by biblical principles, not cultural trends. We must be more concerned with God's approval than man's. 

The gospel needs our faithfulness, not our improvements.

~Pastor Todd Creason