Jesus Is A Liberal?

by Aaron

I get some bizarre emails from some bizarre people (that would be you). People are always asking my opinions on things I really have no idea about (like stocks, cars, unladen weight of European swallows), but every once in a while I get a question about something I do know about (cookies, Jesus, or Spiderman). I was kind of happy this week when someone asked me this question, "I just saw a bumper sticker that said, 'Jesus was a liberal,' what do you think about that?" Now that is something I can answer because they asked, "what do you think about that," and if I know anything, it is that I have opinions about everything.
 
For a very long time people have been trying to attach Jesus to their cause to give it validity; these causes can be good, like the abolition of slavery or the civil rights movement, or they can be bad like burning people at a stake for opposing views or trying to justify slavery. Almost every cause has a "god" attached to it in one form or another to try to make it more valid. It seems as though most people can't hold their opinions strongly enough without dragging God into it.
 
So what do I think about the bumper sticker? I think that if you are liberal and you have to drag Jesus into it, maybe you don't have enough conviction in your cause to begin with. This is also true for conservatives who say the same things, so don't think I am only picking on one group of people…I am picking on everyone (it's fun).
 
The point of following Jesus means we follow Jesus, we don't make Him follow us. We do not get to say, "I like this set of beliefs, therefore Jesus must like this set of beliefs." Maybe Jesus sees the things you like as idolatry, maybe He is sickened by how many things we tolerate as healthy today that are destroying us, maybe Jesus is calling us to repent of ourselves and our causes and actually follow Him and the things plainly laid out in the Scriptures.
 
In 2014 we will be going through the Sermon on the Mount, and I am going to steal my own thunder by taking the wrap up to one of my messages…but in Joshua 5 God's people are entering into the promised land and we read  Joshua 5:13- When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” There's the question. War is coming and Joshua asks "whose side are you on?"
 
V14 And he said, “No;"  No is the word "neither." "Which side are you on, you have to choose side A or side B." And God says "I choose option C." V14-15 And he said, “No but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
 
Our impulse is to say, "whose side are you on," but Jesus is on His own side and we must understand His holiness because only that will give us the larger perspective that we all need.