Random Thoughts About Jesus, Wagyu Steaks, and Mt. Everest
What simple and silly things words are. Let alone words for preaching the gospel. Mere finite letters compiled to signify infinite truth. John was on to something when he said, “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).
Isn’t it interesting that this is John’s last line in his Gospel? Do you think that even though he knew he was writing inspired and inerrant Scripture by the Holy Spirit that he also knew his personal limitations?
Pity Your Preachers
One of the hardest things about preaching the gospel is that you’re attempting to do the impossible. It’s not even that you’re trying to do the impossible but that you’re speaking about Someone who infinitely transcends us in glory. Yes, He took on flesh and humbled Himself by assuming our nature—but that “adds” to how glorious He is!1 We don’t deserve to even mention His Name. To dare to step up into the pulpit to spend 40 minutes talking about One who is eternal! Who do we preachers think we are?
The call to preach is similar to asking someone to “climb to the moon on a rope made of sand” or to pick up Mt. Everest with your bare hands and relocate it to Australia.2
Words, Words, Words…I’m so tired of words.
You must realize this: Scripture has to be inspired in order to sufficiently speak of its Main Character. If God really is infinite and eternal then uninspired finite words would be an insult, if not blasphemous, to be used to describe Him.
This is not to say that we should not use words. As surely as the Son took on human flesh, so surely does God use human words to reveal who He is. There is no such thing as “preach the gospel, if necessary use words”. That is blasphemous indeed!
Rather, what I’m trying to say is that in communicating to us it makes the most sense that God would make His Word inspired, inerrant, sufficient, and effectual. His Word must have the highest qualities because it speaks of The Most Glorious.
Back To The Foolishness of Preaching
To then get up and explain, illustrate, and apply that Scripture about that God and what He’s done is simply outrageous. It’s like daring to cook A5 Wagyu Tomahawk steak in an “Easy Bake” oven. Could you imagine doing such an atrocity to your customers who paid thousands of dollars for this one individual dish? What a disservice! What audacity!
Here is what’s even more unthinkable: God delights to use our preaching.
He relishes to use sinners, who are desperate for Jesus, to preach Jesus to other sinners.
Do We Delight To Hear Christ Preached?
Is it a trifling thing for us to go to church on Sunday to hear another sermon? Do we find going to a second service on Sunday evening too tiresome? When both sermons are heralding this Christ!?
I was about to say: “I don’t say that as a guilt-trip.” But, actually I do. We are guilty. It’s not that we’re sinning by not having evening worship but that this lack of desiring to hear of Jesus reveals the sin that is in our hearts because we don’t delight in the infinitely delightful one.
I honestly think that Jesus is so glorious that nothing but heaven is worthy of us getting to know Him. The reason why we don’t just live forever in this lifetime is because we literally have to be glorified in body & soul so that we might have increased capacity and infinite time to even scratch the service. Jesus is not someone we can master in 10,000 hours.3 Spending 10,000 hours in the most contemplative and prayerful reflections of Jesus in Scripture would be equivalent to a newborn baby saying that they’re ready to swim to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with no scuba gear.
No wonder why Paul says, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).
You can’t add glory to someone already infinite in glory but you see what I’m trying to say.
Not Austria. That’s way too close—and yet still impossible.
Sorry Malcolm Gladwell.