The Gospel of Expectations

Try an experiment. Run your car completely out of gas - absolutely empty tank. Then yell at your car to "Go!" Kick it if it doesn't suddenly start going. Criticize it for not going, for misbehaving, for not acting like a car. Create a snarky meme for your car's uncarlike behavior and post it on Facebook. Complain that there are too many cars out there that don't go. "Back in my day, cars knew how to go!" Keep your kids away from this car, lest they get any ideas about becoming lazy. Blame the government, print a cleverly insulting t-shirt that makes you feel superior to the car, and tell the car that if it can get itself up and take itself to a gas station and pay for the gas itself, then it will all be OK.

So, how did that work out for you? It's ridiculous! It's kind of like Pharaoh forcing the Hebrew slaves to make brick without providing them with straw.

Now self-examine ... do you do the same thing with unbelievers by expecting them to live like believers, even though they don't have the power of the Holy Spirit within them? Do you expect "saved behavior" from unsaved people? Do you criticize the unsaved for living unsaved, for not acting like a Christ-follower? Do you keep your kids away, blame the system, post insults, or wear t-shirts that make you feel superior? Do you tell the unsaved to get themselves up and come to your church and fill themselves up, and then it will all be OK? It's just as ridiculous as yelling at a car without gas for not going anywhere!

Don't be surprised that unsaved people act unsaved. Don't be shocked, bewildered, overwhelmed, or disappointed. Don't judge ... no matter what. Of course unsaved people live like unsaved people. The only people who deserve criticism are the saved people who lived as if they are unsaved. It is Jesus who transforms us and the Holy Spirit who changes how we live, not us. Therefore, to criticize an unsaved person for living like an unsaved person is to tell them that the Gospel is about cleaning up your own act. That brings as much hope as telling a car to fill itself up or telling slaves to make bricks without straw.

Don't lie about the Gospel by wagging your finger at the unsaved. Don't in any way suggest Jesus came so that they could fix their own lives and live like Christ without new birth or the indwelling Holy Spirit. Don't criticize the prostitute or the drug addict for not having enough character to remain pure and clean. Save your criticism for those Jesus criticized - the finger-wagging hypocrites. The sinner's sin is still sin ... it's no less sin, and it's fair to call it "sin." But that's what sinners do, so don't act so surprised or offended.

And now we have freedom! Once we shed ourselves from the Gospel of Fix-yourselves-up, now it is safe to listen to and love people before they live like Jesus. We have the Gospel of Jesus-transforms-us.

By the way, we don't fully live like Jesus, either.