I think sometimes in all of our thinking, talking, exegesis, and what-have-you, we make the Gospel way too complicated. Maybe it’s because it makes us feel like better Christians to claim to understand the intricacies of God. Maybe it’s because the true Gospel is so simple that its hard for us to accept that as all we need. Whatever the reason, I’d like to suggest that we take a look at ourselves, and see if maybe we’re not appreciating the simplicity of Jesus.
First of all, I’d like to explain the title of this post. Leonardo da Vinci is quoted as saying “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Doesn’t this seem to be true? Who sounds more intelligent to you, the person who rambles for five minutes and never can quite spit out what they’re trying to say, or the person who says four words to make you completely understand what they mean? At least to me, the more concise you can be, the more intelligent you seem. I believe Jesus embodied this himself to demonstrate sophisticated simplicity for us. You never see Jesus rambling. In fact, I think parables are a very concise way of speaking. It would often take longer to convey the intrinsic message of the parable than to tell it and let the listener draw the conclusions.
Based on this, I think it is reasonable to believe that the Gospel operates in much the same way. God designed the entire experience with Jesus to be sophisticatedly simple. You’ll find people asking Jesus all the time, “What must I do…”, etc., and does Jesus give them a list? Nope. He says “Follow me.” In one regard, that’s so simple, yet can mean so many things for us as ‘followers.’
My worry about simplicity isn’t so much that we’ll get the core of it wrong, it’s that in a complicated Gospel, it’s easy for us to add things that don’t need to be there (see: Galatians). It can become easy for us to say “All you gotta do to be saved is have faith, plus go to church on Sunday, and pray no less than half an hour each day.” Sure, those are good things. If you pray for half an hour every day, God bless you, but hear this: if you have faith in Jesus as your Savior, you will NEVER BE MORE RIGHTEOUS THAN YOU ARE RIGHT NOW.
CanIGetAnAmen.
Paul says “I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness. (Phil 3:7-9)”
Let me end by quoting Judah Smith, pastor at The City Church in Seattle. He says in his sermon series The Original Freedom that, “It is nothing short of heresy to try to add to what Jesus has already finished.” Let us not get mixed up in the thinking that we need anything other than the abundant love of Christ, or that there’s anything we can do to become anymore righteous or worthy of God’s grace. Make it your goal this day to bask in the simplicity of Jesus.
