This is What Happens When You Mess With God

Look, I like the baby version the best, do you hear me?

I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt.

Sin doesn't make God angry. Sin breaks God's heart. Oh, you're breaking his heart?

No, he's gonna break you.

Dear Lord, baby Jesus, or as our brothers to the south call you, Jesus. Dear Lord, baby Jesus, we also thank you for my wife's father, Chip. We hope that you can use your baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg, and dear tiny infant Jesus, we...

Hey, um, you know, sweetie,.

Jesus did grow up. You don't always have to call him baby. It's a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby.

Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grown-up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want. You know what I want?

I want you to do this grace good so that God will let us win tomorrow. Dear tiny Jesus,.

Your golden fleece diapers with your tiny little fat balled-up fist pawned...

He was a man. He had a beard.

Look, I like the baby version the best. Do you hear me? I win the races, and I get the money. Dear eight-pound, six-ounce, newborn infant Jesus, don't even know a word yet, just a little infant and so cuddly, but still omnipotent, thank you for all your power and your grace, dear baby God.

Amen.

A Baby Jesus Versus the Real Jesus

I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt because it says, like, I want to be formal, but I'm here to party, too. Because I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.

I like to picture Jesus as a ninja fighting off evil samurai.

I like to think of Jesus, like, with giant eagle's wings and singing lead vocals for Leonard Skinner with, like, an angel band. And I'm in the front row, and I'm hammered drunk.

Sin, Holy God, and the Reality of Human Guilt

In the new covenant, you know what we discover? That sin doesn't make God angry. Sin breaks God's heart.

Brokenness over our sin is appropriate because our sin is an affront to a holy God. Listen to what he says. Against you and you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgments.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being. You, you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. In other words, here's what God desires and God delights in, and yet, against you I've sinned.

Notice he didn't say against Bathsheba I've sinned, against Uriah I have sinned. No, against you, God, and ultimately against you only I have sinned. Because who was Uriah but the man that you created?

Who was Bathsheba but the servant of the Most High God? I sinned against you. A holy and a righteous God, and that's what worries me about the shack. That's what worries me about the rebels of the world.

That's what worries me about those who don't want to preach on sin because people already know that they're bad. No, we don't. We watch the nightly news and we think those people are bad, not us. We don't recognize that we have sinned against the holy and righteous God.

We don't get that. We don't see that. Turn with me, if you will, to Revelation chapter 19. I just love this. Maybe it says something about my character, but I despise the picture that's painted in our culture of this sissified, needy Jesus.

Amen? And that's who He is. He's a sissified, needy Jesus. He's just yearning for you. He's longing for you. He wants friendship and relationship with you. He needs you. Oh, you're breaking His heart.

No, He's going to break you. Newsflash. By definition, God is self-sustaining, self-existent, and self-sufficient. Therefore, by definition, He needs nothing. God does not need you. And He's going to prove it one day, because you're going to die and the world's going to keep on spinning at the same rate it was before you were here.

And somebody's going to get all your stuff. He's waiting for you, all right. Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, the one sitting on it, called Faithful and True.

And in righteousness, He judges and makes war. He judges and makes war! It's my God. Yeah, I got some issues, but that's all right. His eyes are like a flame of fire. On His head are many diadems. And He has a name written that no one knows but Himself.

He's clothed in a robe dipped in blood. And the name by which He is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.

And He will rue them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of the God Almighty On His robe and on His thigh, He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. That's my Jesus.

That's the God whom I serve, not the sissified Christ that's preached in pulpits around the United States of America. I serve the great God of the universe, who gets angry and pours out His wrath. I serve the great God of the universe, who demonstrated His wrath when He poured it out on His own Son.

And it amazes me that we believe this, that God would crush and kill His own Son, but let you slide. Not for a minute. The spotless, sinless Lamb of God suffered and bled and died because of the wrath of God.

That propitiation, the satisfaction of the righteous wrath of God, that's what was experienced on the cross. How dare we take that lightly? That's the one against whom you've sinned.