"Ezra, Maybe What You Believe Is Wrong"

Have you ever had one of those conversations where you started off thinking you were on the same page with someone, only to realize you were miles apart? This was a discovery I made several years ago as I sat eating chicken wings, close to midnight on a Friday evening in the east end of Toronto.

As someone who has always made a habit of connecting with strangers, I'd reached out to a popular motivational figure in Toronto after hearing him speak at an event in Nashville. He lived about fifteen minutes away from me, and to my surprise, was happy to meet up.

I soon discovered he had an ulterior motive. A half hour into our conversation, he shared about how he'd read some of my Christian material, and he too was a believer.

That's when he turned to me and said, "Ezra, I read your first book, What Kind of God Do I Serve? But I've got a question for you. You're a young guy, and I noticed you mentioned some mentors who have shaped your understanding of faith. How do you know your understanding is correct? How do you know you didn't just learn a bunch of stuff in Bible college that isn't true?"

He had a point. I was young, and I've certainly made my share of mistakes. Maybe my view of God wasn't right. So I asked him to share his perspective.

Happy to oblige, he launched into a multi-hour deep dive into why he was a member of the Unification Church.

In case you're unfamiliar, the Unification Church teaches that God’s goal is a sinless, family-centered world built on true love, but that this plan was broken by the Fall of Adam and Eve, understood mainly as a moral failure. Jesus is honored as the Messiah, yet they believe his mission was incomplete because he did not establish a restored family before his death. The church believes Sun Myung Moon and his wife fulfilled this role as “True Parents,” restoring humanity’s lineage, with salvation focused on healed families, moral living, and global unity under God.

To my new friend, Jesus was a good figure, but not God. His work propelled humanity forward, but it was insufficient.

Is Jesus Sufficient?

This insufficiency of Jesus issue was a problem the Apostle Paul covered in the book of Galatians.

Paul wrote this book in the early 50’s A.D., around fifteen years after the death of Christ. In those fifteen years, the church sprouted in regions all around the globe.

On his first missionary journey, Paul founded churches in the southern Galatian cities of Antioch, Iconic, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:14-14:23). He would pass through this region in all three of his missionary journeys. The Galatians to whom Paul was writing likely included these churches and others in the northern region as well.

The reason for Paul’s letter was “to convince the Galatians that the ‘other Gospel’ of justification by Christ and law-keeping was heretical.”^[1] Paul doesn't mince words. In Chapter 1, he skips his usual warm greetings and gets straight to the point, stating in Verse 6, “I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel,” before adding, “not that there is another.”

By clinging to an old system of belief, the Galatians were elevating the importance of their works and devaluing the work of Christ. The real problem with the Galatians’ position was not so much their legalism in keeping Old Testament law. The real issue was that they elevated their works as a means of personal salvation.  

The same thing every false religion, such as the Unification Church, does today.

Two Faulty Paths

The centerpiece of any Gospel distortion always begins with what a person does with Jesus. Inevitably, there are two chief routes people tend to take in distorting him.

The first is “The Jesus Plus Group.” People in this category agree that we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, but this offer comes with a long list of contingencies. Subtly, the emphasis becomes more about what we do than what Christ has done.

The second is “The All Good People to Jesus Group.” This is the most popular philosophy arising today. On the surface, this sounds inclusive. But sadly, it ultimately cheapens what Jesus has done on the cross.

If all good people can know God and are already on their way to receiving eternal life, why would Jesus die on the cross for our sins? Additionally, it points the glory away from Christ and towards self. It is the height of arrogance to declare that we do not need grace because we already have our own goodness.

Use the Right Filter

It's easy to fall into what Mark Batterson calls "the inverted gospel." Instead of following Jesus, you invite Jesus to follow you. Rather than filtering your view of God through the lens of Scripture, you filter Scripture through the lens of your personal ideals.

If this is where you're at today, let me just encourage you to recommit to placing Jesus at the center of your existence.

Because my Unification Church friend was unconvinced of the sufficiency of Jesus, he felt compelled to add a supplement. You will do the same.

If you are not convinced Jesus is enough, you will always try to fill the deepest void of your heart with something other than him. The moment you do this, the gospel will lose its power in your life. You'll start trying to do enough good works to earn God's favor, rather than playing the game of life from his favor.

Don't make that mistake. Let Jesus be enough this week and this coming year. Trust in his total sufficiency for your life, your marriage, your career, and your aspirations. Then, out of this sufficiency, do good works as an expression of worship to him.

Want to go deeper in 2026? Check out this new offer I'm featuring in this week's YouTube video.

[1] Alan Brown Class Notes