David Goggins doesn’t get that the Gospel is offensive
David Goggins is insane. The guy is a constant inspiration to thousands of people to get up and fight. Fight to get in shape, fight for a better life, fight against complacency, or depression or whatever. The woke left will never understand why people like him are so necessary. We need men, strong insane men, who are willing to push and to challenge themselves mentally and physically.
And if you pay attention, it’s clear that for Goggins all the push ups and running isn’t about his body, it’s about his soul. He wants to challenge himself and push himself to his limits to try to inspire others. But recently he posted a video of a young man who is dying of cancer explaining why he isn’t afraid to face death. Goggins prefaced the video with a disclaimer that he didn’t care if you believe in God or not, this video is about the attitude not God.
The young man explained that he isn’t afraid to face death because believing in Jesus is like someone who has taped their favorite sports team because they can't be there to watch the game. And before you start the tape you hear that they’ve already won. So you’re excited to see how they win. So you start the tape and the first thing you see is an interception. But it doesn’t bother you because you already know your team has won.
Absolutely beautiful and from a traditional Christian perspective 100% accurate. This is this young man’s third bout with cancer and it looks like this time the cancer is going to win. But for the Christian cancer, sickness, and death is already defeated by Christ through the resurrection. Death hurts but it is defeated, our team has already won the war no matter how many battles we lose.
Goggins was shocked at the toxic response to this. He posted another video freaking out on the trolls that went after this kid, apparently because of his belief in God. Goggins went through and deleted and blocked lots of toxic commentors so it isn’t possible to find. But Goggins keeps insisting this isn’t about God, it’s about attitude.
In this instance Goggins is simply wrong. It is about God. It can’t actually be about anything else. That’s what Goggins doesn’t get. It’s what many Americans don’t get about our cultural dilemma. Goggins is screaming f bombs at the soft people who went after this kid asking where is their humanity? Saying this explains the problems we have in our country. What he doesn’t understand is that this young man’s hope in Jesus is the key to unlocking true human potential. It isn’t about good attitude qua good attitude. It isn’t about staying hard no matter what. The message of Jesus is good news to those who need it specifically because it is true. That’s what makes it good news.
It isn’t inspiring news, or positive news. It isn’t the good news of how to stay hard. It’s just good news. It’s a message that says this:
Look at the world around you. It sucks. It’s full of evil people with power doing evil things. It’s full of death and destruction. But guess what, there is a kingdom where none of that is true and you can have access to it at any time. God’s kingdom is not about what you can do, it’s about what God has done and will continue to do in the world. His kingdom frees slaves, feeds the hungry, and gives parents to orphans. In His kingdom the mourners are comforted, the lost are found, and the broken are healed. That’s why this young man isn’t afraid. He lives under the rule of a different King than the powers of this world.
This young man isn’t inspiring. This young man is inspired. Inspired by a reality that has inspired countless people for thousands of years. The power that parted the Red sea, the power that brought down the walls of Jericho, and the power that raised Jesus from the dead. That’s what moves in this young man’s life. His faith isn’t inspiring, his faith is inspired by truth.
The culture wars are not neutral. We can’t renew our society through cleverness or better politics. MAGA may make America better for a little while, but it will not save anyone’s souls. This young man already lives in the promised land, in the undiscovered country of God’s rule and eternal shalom.
We definitely need guys like Goggins, but Goggins needs to understand why the trolls went after this kid. What he’s saying isn’t neutral and inoffensive. It’s highly offensive to everything the contemporary liberal west has come to understand about itself. This kid wasn’t being inspirational, he was being a disciple of Christ. Christ has never been neutral, he has always been divisive.
But the good news that he preached 2,000 years ago, and that the church has continued to preach ever since, is what we need now more than ever. Because He wasn’t preaching a message to inspire us, He was showing us where to find food in a world full of famine. He was giving us life that can’t be killed. And if you aren’t interested in any of that then it is offensive. The apostle Paul said that if Christ was not raised then we are to be most pitied. We are fools if Christ is not raised.
This is why we have always been hated, and why the good news is derided by those who will not listen to it. We do not preach neutrality, we preach the centrality of Christ. We do not preach to inspire, we preach to proclaim Christ and his kingdom that no political reality can touch. The good news is not inspirational. It is transformational, and that is what this sinful world really can’t stand.