There are no true “seekers.”
Not if what the Bible says is true: “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11 ESV).
Therefore, building your church around the idea that people are looking for the Christ of Scripture is a fool’s errand.
They aren’t.
They are looking for the Christ of their imagination or the Christ of contemporary culture, or Oprah Jesus or Santa Jesus or some version of Jesus that isn’t Jesus.
That’s what people are looking for.
And that’s why preaching the real Gospel – preaching the crucified Christ of Scripture – will always cause significant offence.
The Gospel wounds in order to heal.
That isn’t licence for people (or preachers) to be rude; it is simply a wake-up call to people (and preachers) who think that, by upgrading the lighting package and hiding the old people, we can somehow remove every practical barrier to men and women coming to church.
But it isn’t the lighting package.
It isn’t the old people.
It’s Jesus.
The real Jesus says that God is holy, we are sinners and HE HAS TO INTERVENE for our salvation.
Nobody is looking for that message.
But that is the truth.
And that is what happened.
Thanks be to God!
SDG,
Pastor Paul Carter
To listen to Pastor Paul’s Into The Word devotional podcast on the TGC Canada website, see here. You can also find it on iTunes.
