It’s Complicated

I’m reading a book about climate change, by a scientist. And his over-arching theme is: it’s complicated. We have societal ills, one of which is a growing number of persons with mental illness living on the streets. How do you fix it? Give them housing they can’t take care of; give them medications they don’t want to take; give them money to buy what? It’s complicated.

A few years back a mega-church chose to get involved in Africa, to solve some of the humanitarian problems and in so doing, to share the Gospel. But their fixes created more problems, because they didn’t understand the problems well to begin with. Why? Because it’s complicated. 

But the Gospel isn’t complicated. Oh, it’s involved. It involves a long story. But the story isn’t that complicated, and the gist of the Gospel, the Good News, is simple enough for a child to understand.

God does not ask us to build a ladder by which we can climb to His level (through doing good works, or learning the right verses). It would take a ladder tall enough to reach all the way to a holy heaven where God lives. There is no such ladder. If we try to get to God by climbing a “righteous” ladder, we will find in the end that the ladder is leaning against the wrong structure.

Instead, God lowered a ladder from heaven, on which Jesus came down to our level. He became like us, so that He could bear our sins, so that He could give us, freely (called “grace”) His righteousness. By faith, not in my own ladder-climbing skills, but in what Jesus has done for me, based on His faithfulness, not mine - I can receive salvation as a gift. It’s the reverse of what we would expect. But it’s not complicated.

Now, trying to live a good life in they world, and at the same time living for Jesus - well, that’s complicated. It’s like standing in two rowboats in the water, the left leg in one boat, the right let in the other. Someone’s going to get wet. Or, as Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters.” It’s complicated.

Or, trying to belong to a church where everybody wants to serve, but also always be happy. That’s complicated. Service takes sacrifice, and sacrifice is hard, like dying to self, and we find it difficult to die to self (like Jesus did for us), so, it’s complicated.