This is the third in a series called, “Things you can’t
say in church (but you should).” And I
want to emphasis that last part in parenthesis “(but you should)”. You see, some people think you can’t say
certain things in church, but these are things you absolutely should say, you
must say, if you are to be the Church that Jesus Christ established.
You see Church is a funny thing. On the one hand, the Church was established
by Jesus Christ in the Bible as the gathering of all who believe in Him, who
are wholeheartedly committed to the great commission to make disciples of Jesus
Christ throughout the entire world. On
the other hand, church is also a cultural phenomenon… White, southern church culture…
Many in the world today are sick and tired of the church, by which
they are (not necessarily) talking about the Church Jesus Christ established in
the New Testament; they are usually talking about the church culture that
(often) has little or nothing to do with the Church Jesus Christ
established. There are often a lot of weeds
mixed in with the wheat of the Church and it can be really hard to tell the
difference.
I’ve mentioned two things already that some people think you can’t
say in church, but you really should—“I’m broken,” and “I’m on fire!” I want to add one more today. Some people think you can’t say, “You’ve
sinned, but I still love you.” Some people
think you can’t say that in church, but you really should. I think you absolutely must, because it is an
essential part of being the Church Jesus Christ established in the New
Testament. It follows the example of
Christ.
Luke 15:1-7
1 Tax collectors and other notorious
sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.2 This made
the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating
with such sinful people—even eating with them!
3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If
a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he
leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one
that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has
found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When
he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice
with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In
the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and
returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t
strayed away!
The religious leaders of Jesus day didn’t like that Jesus quite
often hung around with people they deemed sinners. They believed sin was like a contagious
disease, that just being in the presence of a sinner you could catch the
disease of sin. Jesus, who was the Son of
God, tells a parable (actually three parable, because the whole the chapter is)
about how God sent him to save a world full of sinners. Jesus came to save the people the religious
leaders deemed sinners who were unworthy and that no respectable person would associate with. Jesus even came
to save the religious leaders who are sinners too (but are blind because think
they aren’t sinners). The point of all
this for our purposes today is this: Jesus came to save sinners because He loves
us. You see, Jesus was basically saying to the whole world, “You’ve sinned,
but I still love you!”
You migt think it strange in the parable that the shepherd would leave the 99 good sheep to search after just one sheep. But Jesus is saying we are all sheep who have strayed off the path of righteousness. If the shepherd (Jesus) didn't come and find us, there would be no 99 good sheep. Every sheep has wandered off the path at some point, and the shepherd brought them back. How hypocritical, then, for the 99 to complain if the shepherd goes off searching for another lost sheep.
Everything Jesus said and did—including how he died on the cross—was
a way of saying, “You’ve sinned, but I still love you!” Romans 5:8 sums it up for us, “God showed his
great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
But many people today think you can’t say that in church, but you absolutely
should; you must if we are to be the Church Jesus Christ wants us to be.
Some people today are just like the Pharisees and religious
leaders in Jesus day. They think going
to church is all about being a good, respectable person and following all the rules. They always try to do the right thing (even
if doing the right thing is sometimes more about keeping up appearances than
pleasing God) Furthermore, they often confuse God’s rules for holy living with
what society says is the right way to live.
So they can often do some very terrible things—segregation, neglecting
the poor, etc.—all in the name of being a good person who follows the
rules. So they think you can’t say, “You’ve
sinned, but I still love you.” They don’t
love people who have sinned. They’re ok
with being judgmental and pointing out how people sin, but they don’t love sinners (they may say it with their lips, but they don’t really love them in their
heart). There have always been self-righteous judgmental people in church—all the way back to Jesus time. And Jesus came and pointed those Pharisees out. He told them,
“You’ve sinned, but I still love you.” Unfortunately, the religious leaders didn't want to hear that and so they crucified him.
But because the church throughout history has so often been full
of self-righteous, judgmental people, we’ve come to a place today where there
are so many people in our world (and even in the church) who err in a whole
different way. There are many who have
concluded that you can’t even say, “You’ve sinned” anymore. There are so many people who say, “The Bible
says ‘judge not, lest ye be judged.’”
And so they’ve concluded that Jesus doesn’t even want us to tell people
they’ve sin (because that would be judging).
A lot of people say nowadays, Jesus just wants us to love people (and
leave the whole part about sin out).
And so it’s come to a place where the world we live in just says
you should welcome everyone and just accept them for who they are. We’re not allowed to tell people, “You’ve
sinned” anymore. And we see all kinds of
behaviors accepted by our culture that the Bible deems unacceptable and even repulsive
to God. Is that how Jesus treated people?
(pause…)
There should be no doubt that Jesus loved people. He proved his love by dying for us on the
cross; not because we deserved it, but because we desperately needed it and
Jesus loved us. So his example is worth following. Here’s how Jesus loved people. He loved people enough to go be with
sinners-even eat with them. He did this,
even though it put him at odds with the self-righteous religious leaders. He was willing to leave 99 “good” sheep to go
find the one foolish sheep that got himself lost. At the same time, he never pretended the
sinners he sought were not lost, were not sinners. For example, once a woman was caught in the
very act of adultery. They dragged her int the city square and asked Jesus, "The Law of Moses says we should stone her. What do you say?" Jesus said, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." Then he stopped and began writing in the dirt. We don't know what he wrote, the Bible doesn't say. Some have speculated he began writing out all the sins the people in the crowd had committed. At any rate, everyone in the crowd began to drop their stones and walk away. When everyone was gone, Jesus asked, "Woman, has no one condemned you?" "No, my Lord," she said. "Then neither do I. Go and sin no more." (John 8)
Recently, the local news showed some surveillance video of a vigilant school bus driver
who saved a child from a terrible accident. The bus had stopped to let a child off and the video shows the bus doors opening and the child is about to run down the steps out the door. But the bus driver suddenly slammed the doors shut and grabbed the child's shoulder and yanked him away from the door just as a speeding car wooshed by the bus doors. Apparently, the car driver got impatient with the bus driver and sped around the right side of the bus just as the doors of the bus were about to open. If the bus driver had not been paying attention and stopped the child, the child would have certainly been killed or terribly maimed. What
would you have done? I think we would have all screamed and reached out to stop the child if we were in that situation. That is, in a sense, what we are doing when we tell someone they've sinned (or their about to sin).
The Bible teaches us that sin is terrible. It destroys your life. It destroys other people’s lives. It destroys the world. And God hates sin, so it destroys a sinners
relationship with God, who is the source of life and love and peace and
hope. To refuse to tell someone, “You’ve
sinned” is not much different from refusing to scream, “Watch out! You’re about to walk
out in front of a speeding car!” It’s
actually worse, because the consequences of sin are eternal. So if we truly do love someone, we must say, “You’ve sinned.” To do otherwise is not loving at all, but
terrible and hateful.
At the same time, we must never forget the last part of the
statement: “You’ve sinned, but I
still love you.” We must never
forget we’ve all sinned. We’ve all fallen
short of the glory of God. You’ve
sinned. I’ve sinned. And your sins are
no worse than mine. I have no reason to
think myself better than you and you’ve no reason to think yourself better than
me or anyone else.
Conclusion
So don’t ever neglect to say, “You’ve sinned,
but I still love you.” That’s who were
are—the Church—and that’s what we say and how we live. It’s not optional. It’s what Jesus does for us and what we are
called to do for the world.
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