Without Apology

Recently, I told someone that I like to preach the Gospel without apology.  I thought about that a little and the ramifications of doing such.  I made a decision early on beginning in my student ministry years that I would preach and teach the truth from the Gospel, without beating around the bush and without coating it to make it easy to swallow.  That decision has led me to say things at times that if I took a split second to actually think about what was about to come out of my mouth, I may not have said it.

There have been and always will be people who take offense to the truth of the Gospel.  The Gospel can be offensive.  Especially to those who have been spoon fed a majority of their lives.   No one likes to be told that God detests the lukewarm believer. We don’t like our faith to be challenged.  We would rather use Luke 17:6 (mustard seed sized faith) as an excuse to be lazy in our faith.  We don’t like to believe that God knowingly and willingly crushed Jesus on the cross so that we may have life (Isaiah 53:10).  It’s no secret that we like to go to church and leave feeling uplifted and good about ourselves and what we received from the service.  But some people have a problem with being told that it’s not about what you got out of it, it’s about what you gave God in it.

I encourage you pastor, teacher, leader, church attender……do not be afraid to speak the truth even if it may offend someone.  If it’s God’s truth, whether good, bad or ugly, in the end, it’s all beautiful because it’s the Gospel.  And never….ever….ever apologize for speaking the truth about the Gospel.