There have been numerous articles criticizing Houston mega-church pastor Joel Osteen, the pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest church in America for not doing enough in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and for not letting people stay in the expansive church facility as a shelter.
In terms of his prosperity gospel theology, there are many reasons to criticize Osteen. I’m not a fan of him.
From the sermon Love, justice, and the heavenly way
The gospel is offensive.
God is perfect and righteous. And the only way for imperfect and unrighteous people to be with him was for Jesus to pay the price of sin. To absorb the wrath of God. And for some reason, the world is so twisted that that idea is offensive. That the Lord paid the penalty for our sin so we could be with him. But that’s not good enough. Because that takes the control away from us.
And people hate that idea. We’re fine with the love of God but we are not ok that sin needed to be atoned for.
“Atonement” is a theological word that gets mentioned. In short, atonement refers to the work that Christ has done for those who have faith in Him to earn their salvation.
I think people sometimes approach the gospel with skepticism. Jesus died for the sins of all who believe in him.
I know I used to ask was “why do we need this? Why do we have to believe in Jesus? Is sin such a big deal? Why is he the only way?”
A lot of people don’t want to be in a church because?
Because the church is full of?
Hypocrites.
Churches are filled with hypocrites.
Josh Benner 