Today’s message was on the offensiveness of the gospel, which becomes apparent when we start out by asking a typical human question: “What’s in it for me?” Consider Mary, the mother of Jesus, and John the Baptist – people who gave up much to obey God and suffered greatly as a result. Obeying God will have painful consequences so long as this world is under the reign of the enemy. The kingdom of God is not like this world, and when we bring this opposing Kingdom into the world we will find strong resistance, and it will cost us something.