"But what if the patient ignores the negative diagnosis and refuses to take the cure?" you may be wondering.

Even then, a good doctor will not keep yelling "you're gonna die!" Why? Because a patient may take one pill to stop the doctor from yelling, but only a belief in the value of the cure will get them to take the pill at home.

Emphasizing bad news can sometimes get people to stop doing bad things – but only temporarily. Most of the time, it just inspires them to hide their sins, not stop them. But either way, there's no salvation in it.

To use my previous illustration about convincing people sin is bad, a doctor can convince a patient they have a disease, they can even convince a patient to stop engaging in the behavior that caused the disease. But unless the patient takes the cure, they're still going to die.

Good News Builds a Great Church

I'd rather have religious people get mad at me and my church for loving sinners too much than to be accepted by a holy huddle of self-righteous churches that agree on the sins we're against.

There's so salvation in not sinning. All that will do is convince people they're in right relationship with God, even if they're not. The Pharisees were great at that and they were Jesus' biggest enemies.

People find salvation by turning towards Jesus. Even when we're sinners. Especially when we're sinners.

Remember, that's what they called Jesus. Friend of sinners.