If Jesus Told the Truth?

On his blog, A Place for the God-Hungry, Jim Martin, pastor of Crestview Church of Christ in Waco, Texas, asks the question:

If Jesus walked into your church this Sunday and preached, what would he say?

Here's part of Jim's reflections on what Jesus might say to the "mature" in his congregation.

What would Jesus say?

I wonder if he would evaluate things differently than we do? He might say something like the following:
You do not evaluate your lives the way I do.
I am more concerned about whether or not these people love God and people than anything else.

You do not evaluate your church the way I do.
I am more concerned about you being my presence in this community rather than whether or not you may be happy with the way things are going.

You do not evaluate spiritual maturity the way I do.
Some of you have been Christians for a very long time. You need to be more mindful of the younger and less mature. Some of you have been Christians for a lesser amount of time. You need to be grateful that your forefathers pointed you to me. All of you need to remember that the bottom line is loving God and loving the people who you interact with.

You do not evaluate truth the way I do.
Sermon messages are not good if they seem to pass the popularity contest. There were times when I spoke and people walked away, wanting nothing more to do with me.

You do not ask the right questions.
You need to be asking in your families, in your church meetings, and among your leadership these questions: "What does Jesus want us to do? What would he do? What do we know about him that might help us know what to do?"

Maybe you too, need to think about this in light of your own life.

It makes me think and reflect about my preaching/teaching; about my words, my sermons, and the over all message these people hear. And even more so, about my own life and what it says. I think at times I let the system suck me in. Other times, I am very conscious of the fact that my role of much more of a disturber [in the best sense] than it is a comforter [in the worse sense]. I suspect that the large percentage [the cynical part of me would say the majority] of the people who sat in the pews of evangelical churches this last sunday have a picture of Jesus that is less than complete and therefore less than biblical. I suspect that many [and I'm talking people who profess to know Jesus] would be very uncomfortable if Jesus showed up and spoke like he did in the gospels.

This leads to the bigger and more inportant question - what are we going to do to change? Because lets's face it, many churches and many faithful attenders of church are not being obedient to the biblical command to make disciples.