Leadership in Context with Keith Tucci
Episode 035
False Presuppositions, pt2
This week we continue our conversation on false presuppositions that I believe some people are making, especially when we look at Andy Stanley’s new book, Irresistible, and his belief that we should “unhitch” ourselves from the Old Testament.
Presupposition #1: Jesus was an accepted and beloved figure in His culture.
(We discussed this last week. I would encourage you to listen to the podcast HERE.)
Presupposition #2: If we preach the gospel and people are offended, then we did a bad job.
I am not saying that it is not possible to do a bad job preaching the gospel. I’m not saying that we won’t offend some people in their flesh. What I am saying is, there is a place where we preach the gospel and people are offended because they need to be offended.The gospel offends their place of sin.
This is important because we have a whole generation of young believers, young Christians, who are thinking like this. It is called antinomianism. It’s being lawless. It’s making up the rules as you go. There are times when Jesus preached out of complete love, and people were offended. There are times when you will do the same, and people will be offended. Your job is to do your due diligence to make sure you are preaching biblically, your heart is right, your hands are clean, and then you preach the things that need to be preached.
Romans 4:15
For the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.
If there is no speed limit, you can go as fast as you want and nothing is wrong. The law convicts us.If we don’t respond to conviction, the law condemns us. It tells us that we are lost and we are under wrath. It is better to find out that we are under wrath now than to stand before God surprised someday.
Romans 5:13
For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed (or put to their account)when there is no law.
Again, when there is no violation, there is nothing for us to be charged with. Part of preaching the gospel is not only to warn people that there is wrath laid to their account, but to also redeem people and tell them that the account has been paid in full. People can be offended by this. I think that most people who did not have a Christian background, those not raised in the church, encountered some degree of offense the first time they heard the gospel.
In order for a person to be found, they have to be lost.We are trying to find people who have no concept that they are lost. The preaching of the gospel should produce an understanding that they are lost.
Romans 5:20
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase…
God piled the law on so men could see how offensive they were to God and that they had no ability to please God. There was nothing they could do to obtain salvation. God piled this on, hoping that we would break, that Christ would be our stumbling stone, and we would come to Him.
…but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
In the hyper-grace movement, I’m hearing a lot about grace, but I’m not seeing grace. I believe their definition of grace is “divine slack,” instead of God’s definition of grace as “divine empowerment.”
Where sin increases, grace abounds. How to do you get grace moving? How do you get abounding grace? You get more grace when you get more forgiveness. But you can’t get more forgiveness unless you understand that there is sin. You can’t understand there is sin unless you stumble over the law.
This presupposition is affecting young ministers as they listen to voices like Stanley’s. They are believing that if they are really doing a good job and they are laying the gospel out there, then people will not be offended with them.
Problem #1:People will be offended.
Problem #2:You are putting yourself in a position where you are purposely not going to do or say something for fear of people being offended. Because if they are offended, then you have done something wrong.
We have to lift that barrier off our shoulders. Not that we should take liberties to offend people! But let the Word be offensive. It is a sword. We need to swing the sword.
Side note:The offense should come from the Word. It should not come from our carrying on or our church services being run sloppily or things that are not being done right or preaching that is out of context.
Let’s lose this presupposition that if I am really godly and I do a good job of preaching the gospel, then everyone is going to be happy and no one is going to get offended. It didn’t work for Jesus. It didn’t work for anyone else in the Bible. It’s not going to work for you.
Next week, I’ll continue with yet another presupposition.
Join us next week as Keith Tucci continues to put leadership truth in the context of the local church. And as always, please like, share, rate/review, and invite others to listen. See you next week!
