You're no match for the urges of sin, stop struggling
Everything will be all right, just give me your sins
Oh and I will still be here if you keep on sinning
This sounds nice beloved but it is not the Gospel. The Gospel speaks about carrying your own cross, crucifying the flesh, and dying to self. Not sin, give your sin to God and then sin again. Jesus did not tell the woman caught in adultery if you sin again just come on back and give me that one too. He said go and sin no more. Will we fail? Yes. Will He forgive us if we confess? Yes. That is not what Judah Smith is selling here beloved. It just is not. The jam concludes:
"This is all we have, this is all I have and this is all you have. We can play games, we can play church games. We can pretend like some people are better than others, and that's why they're blessed. Or we can all come to the honest conclusion that it's God, and it's God alone. The greatest challenge is not your discipline, your devotion or your focus. Your greatest challenge is believing and living the Gospel. Could it be that there's a God with a love so scandalous, so wide, so deep, so vast, so high, so expansive, so welcoming and so inclusive"? "Let Me have your sin, My Child." ".. and I give Him my sin, and I stand in this empty space of forgiveness and acceptance while Jesus walks off to the cross that I deserve. I see Him, I see Him walking to the post to be whipped. As I stand a free child, all the attention is turned now; and I feel the love of God saying "Go My child, live your life! I'll pay the price.." Where did we get off thinking that we were going to set ourselves free? It's still Jesus, It'll always be Jesus and it'll never stop being the power of Jesus. His blood is sufficient for your salvation. His blood is sufficient to sustain you, through every sin, and every challenge and every temptation. Jesus is enough." -- Judah Smith
The only one playing church games here is Judah Smith. By selling a half-baked, half-truth gospel meant to draw unsuspecting goats in to follow him. It is most certainly true that Jesus is enough. Remember this sermon jam sounds really convincing. Jesus is all we need for salvation but remember His first ministry word was still repent. There is none of that in this jam. Why not preach about a repentance so scandalous, so wide, so deep, so vast, so high, and so expansive? Because Judah Smith can't sell that because it requires something of us. But sloppy agape love that allows you to stop struggling with your sin and not worry about your future sin? Yeah that sells like cotton candy. I chose the key verse from the story of Barabbas because it reveals another application for the church today. We all have a choice beloved. Every single day and in every single thing we do. We can choose to release Jesus or we can choose to release Barabbas. We can choose to follow His Word or we can choose to act in rebellion and insurrection. This is a hard decision we all face, every minute of every day. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Sometimes we reflect to that hidden word in our heart and do not sin against our God. Other times we rebel and seek forgiveness from our savior through heartfelt confession. It is hard enough to resist the devil and the temptations of the flesh without the church teaching us to do the wrong thing. Look at the key verse. It was the religious leaders who stirred up the crowds against Jesus and for Barabbas. In many ways these are like the false teachers we see today directing us down the wrong path towards Barabbas. Insisting that the cross, which is the ultimate sight of both the love and wrath of God, is only about love. Judah Smith is not Barabbas in this verse beloved. He is the chief priest stirring up the crowd to release Barabbas.
