Jesus Is to Be Believed, Not Marketed

Have you been thinking about Christianity, and about the Lord Jesus himself, as a popular movement which is worth getting on board with? And this is perhaps more of a temptation today, as Christianity is on the rise amongst young people, and there is so much out there on YouTube and other places promoting Christianity, promoting Christ.

But is there a danger in the way that we approach Christ—that we do not believe in him, we merely see him as someone worth taking an interest in? And Christianity is something which is a useful tool for whatever ideologies we may want to promote—and it happens on both the left and the right. Jesus is used to promote both liberal and conservative policies and worldviews. But that is not what Jesus is about.

He does have an effect on politics, he does have an effect on our worldviews, but first and foremost he is someone to be believed in, not someone to be marketed.

And it also speaks into the way that we should be thinking about church. We may think that the best way to function as Christians, in terms of evangelism and location, is to be prominent and shrewd in terms of public relations, and making sure that we are on brand. And yet that is not what the Lord Jesus is about at all.

We are speaking in terms of supernatural things here. We are talking in terms of spiritual, out-of-this-world, divine things here. And seeing the Lord Jesus go to Galilee, and gather around himself people from that area—uneducated men—should be a great encouragement to us, that our work need not be big hitters and movers and shakers in this world.

We may feel totally irrelevant, being in Aberystwyth, thinking it is the big cities where we should be. And yet, although there is a place for churches to be in London and the other big cities—it is definitely important, and one of us may end up there one day—that is not to say it is wrong. But on the other hand, Christians do not go to big cities out of a sense of pragmatism, neglecting villages and obscure, out-of-the-way places.

This movement that the Lord Jesus started—yes, it really did take over the world, and Jesus really has become a public figure. I mean, to say he is a public figure is a gross understatement—there is no one more famous than the Lord Jesus. But that was not his aim. That is not why he came. He did not come to be famous—he came to save his people from their sins.