So, I'll start off by saying that I have no level of official certification that recognizes me as a pastor or anything. However, I am a Bible believing Christian, and I feel like the Lord has really put it on my heart to share some things openly with people. I've honestly never written anything like this before, so this should be interesting.
If you are a crazy person like me and read or watch the news, you know of all the terrible things that are going on in the world right now. We are literally plagued with fear, war, uncertainty, terrorism, distrust, etc. etc. etc..... Through all of this information that is flowing through our homes, our phones, our computers, and our lives, opinions are being formed that can often cause us as humans to disagree on a lot of levels.
Now, as a side note: For those of us who are in America, I strongly feel like this is a BEAUTIFUL freedom that we need to embrace! The freedom to have our own opinions is huge, and I praise God constantly for the freedoms that we have here and also that other countries would begin to embrace some of those freedoms as well.
Having said that, as a Bible believing Christian, with the freedom to have opinions, we have to be very, very careful. The Bible is the living, breathing Word of God, and it doesn’t leave much for opinions, but instead gives pretty hard facts and truths from which we derive our opinions. There are a LOT of touchy subjects that God says are sinful, but the world says are okay. As Christians, we want to spread the message of God’s Truth, but sometimes we can be a little (or a lot) overbearing when communicating our stance on things like abortion, homosexuality, sex before marriage, false gods, etc. We know from reading our bibles that these are all sins.
Now let me ask you this: Does that make us (believers of Christ) better than those who refuse to acknowledge that these are sins? Well the bible says: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23), "Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who always does good and who never sins." (ECCLESIASTES 7:20)
So to answer that question, the answer is NO! We are no better than the adulterers, the murders, the worshipers of false gods, or any other human being on this planet! We are all sinners!!! There is no “level” of sin with God! Sin is anything that separates us from God. If I were keeping track, I could probably give you a list of sins that I’ve committed just today. Obviously, I’m not proud of that, but it’s good to at least have an awareness, right?
We also know that Jesus, the Son of God, was sent to Earth with one very specific purpose that we read in the ever so popular John 3:16: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
We are not perfect, but HE IS! Jesus took on all of our sin when he died on the cross. Please be careful how you interpret that. That doesn’t give us permission to sin, but it gives us hope and security that as long as we acknowledge our sins and pray for forgiveness, we can be with our Father in Heaven when we leave this Earth.
Not only does Jesus dying on the cross not give us permission to sin, but it also doesn’t give us permission to shame other sinners - EVER! Perhaps you’ll remember the adulteress who was brought before Jesus in John 8:1-11. The people said, “The law says we should stone her to death, but you're saying to forgive her. Do you want us to disobey the law?” They were trying to entrap Jesus. But what he did was so awesome! He said, “whoever has never sinned, throw the first stone.” and Jesus started writing things in the dirt… it doesn’t say what he was writing, but the fact that all these guys were dropping their stones one by one and walking away, I would imagine the writings were pretty targeted to the folks who wanted to stone this woman to death because of her sin.
We often forget about our own sin when we’re looking at others’ sin. My sin on you looks terrible, but my sin on me doesn’t look that bad, right? That’s a pretty dangerous mentality to have. I pray that we as Christians would never fall into that dangerous trap.
So with all that to say, how are we supposed to handle all these sinners and unbelievers around us? Fear not, brothers and sisters, The Book addressed this too! Here’s what Jesus said in Mark 12:29-31:
“Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
It was said again in John 13:34-35:
"So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."
Jesus didn’t give this as a suggestion. He gave it as a COMMANDMENT! There weren’t any exceptions to this commandment either. It is not our job to judge others (See Matthew 7:1-3). It is our job to LOVE others! This doesn’t mean that you need to agree with the ways of the world. But we also have to be very careful in remembering that it’s not our job to fix this world either. This world is not our home. We will not achieve world peace until Jesus comes back to rule and reign and cast the enemy into the pits of hell where he belongs. Our job is to lead others to Christ by showing them how Christ lived.
Standing on a corner with a sign condemning people for anything unbiblical is not how we are called to love others. If we are telling other sinners that they are going to go to hell because of their sin, we might as well just pack it all up and throw our bibles out the window. By teaching this, you are essentially teaching that what Jesus did on the cross was pointless and did nothing for us. You also can’t under any circumstances argue that God “hates” anyone, because GOD IS LOVE! God hates sin, NOT SINNERS! He hates the acts, NOT THE PEOPLE! Big difference here, folks.
Jesus shared a table with sinners specifically citing that healthy people don’t need doctors, sick people do! (Mark 2:13-17). Don’t condemn those who sin and don’t know Christ, LOVE THEM! Lift them up! Be the light, and love others the way Jesus did! How do you do that? Well I prefer to smile. I smile a lot actually. A smile is the same in every language. It lets people know that, “I don’t care what your background is, I am going to show you kindness.” Because when that unbeliever or that person who has always had doubts about Christianity and the greatness that is the Good News meets me, I want them to say, “That Christian was really nice to me.” The last thing I want is for a non-believer to walk away from an encounter with me and think, “That’s why I don’t believe in God, because the people that do are rude, make me feel bad about myself, and I don’t want to be like them.”
So what’s the takeaway from this long ridiculous typed out sermon?
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR!
LOVE your fellow sinners!
LOVE the homosexuals!
LOVE the terrorists (Really?) Really!
LOVE those who think differently than you do!
LOVE the immigrants!
LOVE those who don’t believe in Jesus!
LOVE YOUR ENEMY! Pray for them!
Let us pray:
Lord, check our hearts. Let us be lights in this dark world so that those who don’t know You would be in awe and excited to learn about Your greatness. We know that we are not perfect and we all fall short of Your glory, but we are so thankful that You sent Your Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we can be with You for eternity in Heaven. But while we’re here, You gave us a mission to be fishers of men. We are called to lead our fellow sinners to You. Help us do that. Equip us with the strength and the courage and the grace that is required to live as a walking breathing example of our savior, Jesus Christ. When we fall short, because we know will, we pray that You would lovingly correct us, and that our shortcomings would never deter anyone from knowing You. When the opportunity presents itself to share Your Good News, I pray that the words and actions would come entirely from You. Bless my brothers and sisters and grant them the courage to fight the good fight and live how You have called us to live. In Jesus’ name I pray, AMEN!
If you are a crazy person like me and read or watch the news, you know of all the terrible things that are going on in the world right now. We are literally plagued with fear, war, uncertainty, terrorism, distrust, etc. etc. etc..... Through all of this information that is flowing through our homes, our phones, our computers, and our lives, opinions are being formed that can often cause us as humans to disagree on a lot of levels.
Now, as a side note: For those of us who are in America, I strongly feel like this is a BEAUTIFUL freedom that we need to embrace! The freedom to have our own opinions is huge, and I praise God constantly for the freedoms that we have here and also that other countries would begin to embrace some of those freedoms as well.
Having said that, as a Bible believing Christian, with the freedom to have opinions, we have to be very, very careful. The Bible is the living, breathing Word of God, and it doesn’t leave much for opinions, but instead gives pretty hard facts and truths from which we derive our opinions. There are a LOT of touchy subjects that God says are sinful, but the world says are okay. As Christians, we want to spread the message of God’s Truth, but sometimes we can be a little (or a lot) overbearing when communicating our stance on things like abortion, homosexuality, sex before marriage, false gods, etc. We know from reading our bibles that these are all sins.
Now let me ask you this: Does that make us (believers of Christ) better than those who refuse to acknowledge that these are sins? Well the bible says: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23), "Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who always does good and who never sins." (ECCLESIASTES 7:20)
So to answer that question, the answer is NO! We are no better than the adulterers, the murders, the worshipers of false gods, or any other human being on this planet! We are all sinners!!! There is no “level” of sin with God! Sin is anything that separates us from God. If I were keeping track, I could probably give you a list of sins that I’ve committed just today. Obviously, I’m not proud of that, but it’s good to at least have an awareness, right?
We also know that Jesus, the Son of God, was sent to Earth with one very specific purpose that we read in the ever so popular John 3:16: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
We are not perfect, but HE IS! Jesus took on all of our sin when he died on the cross. Please be careful how you interpret that. That doesn’t give us permission to sin, but it gives us hope and security that as long as we acknowledge our sins and pray for forgiveness, we can be with our Father in Heaven when we leave this Earth.
Not only does Jesus dying on the cross not give us permission to sin, but it also doesn’t give us permission to shame other sinners - EVER! Perhaps you’ll remember the adulteress who was brought before Jesus in John 8:1-11. The people said, “The law says we should stone her to death, but you're saying to forgive her. Do you want us to disobey the law?” They were trying to entrap Jesus. But what he did was so awesome! He said, “whoever has never sinned, throw the first stone.” and Jesus started writing things in the dirt… it doesn’t say what he was writing, but the fact that all these guys were dropping their stones one by one and walking away, I would imagine the writings were pretty targeted to the folks who wanted to stone this woman to death because of her sin.
We often forget about our own sin when we’re looking at others’ sin. My sin on you looks terrible, but my sin on me doesn’t look that bad, right? That’s a pretty dangerous mentality to have. I pray that we as Christians would never fall into that dangerous trap.
So with all that to say, how are we supposed to handle all these sinners and unbelievers around us? Fear not, brothers and sisters, The Book addressed this too! Here’s what Jesus said in Mark 12:29-31:
“Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
It was said again in John 13:34-35:
"So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."
Jesus didn’t give this as a suggestion. He gave it as a COMMANDMENT! There weren’t any exceptions to this commandment either. It is not our job to judge others (See Matthew 7:1-3). It is our job to LOVE others! This doesn’t mean that you need to agree with the ways of the world. But we also have to be very careful in remembering that it’s not our job to fix this world either. This world is not our home. We will not achieve world peace until Jesus comes back to rule and reign and cast the enemy into the pits of hell where he belongs. Our job is to lead others to Christ by showing them how Christ lived.
Standing on a corner with a sign condemning people for anything unbiblical is not how we are called to love others. If we are telling other sinners that they are going to go to hell because of their sin, we might as well just pack it all up and throw our bibles out the window. By teaching this, you are essentially teaching that what Jesus did on the cross was pointless and did nothing for us. You also can’t under any circumstances argue that God “hates” anyone, because GOD IS LOVE! God hates sin, NOT SINNERS! He hates the acts, NOT THE PEOPLE! Big difference here, folks.
Jesus shared a table with sinners specifically citing that healthy people don’t need doctors, sick people do! (Mark 2:13-17). Don’t condemn those who sin and don’t know Christ, LOVE THEM! Lift them up! Be the light, and love others the way Jesus did! How do you do that? Well I prefer to smile. I smile a lot actually. A smile is the same in every language. It lets people know that, “I don’t care what your background is, I am going to show you kindness.” Because when that unbeliever or that person who has always had doubts about Christianity and the greatness that is the Good News meets me, I want them to say, “That Christian was really nice to me.” The last thing I want is for a non-believer to walk away from an encounter with me and think, “That’s why I don’t believe in God, because the people that do are rude, make me feel bad about myself, and I don’t want to be like them.”
So what’s the takeaway from this long ridiculous typed out sermon?
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR!
LOVE your fellow sinners!
LOVE the homosexuals!
LOVE the terrorists (Really?) Really!
LOVE those who think differently than you do!
LOVE the immigrants!
LOVE those who don’t believe in Jesus!
LOVE YOUR ENEMY! Pray for them!
Let us pray:
Lord, check our hearts. Let us be lights in this dark world so that those who don’t know You would be in awe and excited to learn about Your greatness. We know that we are not perfect and we all fall short of Your glory, but we are so thankful that You sent Your Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we can be with You for eternity in Heaven. But while we’re here, You gave us a mission to be fishers of men. We are called to lead our fellow sinners to You. Help us do that. Equip us with the strength and the courage and the grace that is required to live as a walking breathing example of our savior, Jesus Christ. When we fall short, because we know will, we pray that You would lovingly correct us, and that our shortcomings would never deter anyone from knowing You. When the opportunity presents itself to share Your Good News, I pray that the words and actions would come entirely from You. Bless my brothers and sisters and grant them the courage to fight the good fight and live how You have called us to live. In Jesus’ name I pray, AMEN!
