If you are looking for Challenge 2010 – Verse 9, please click here.
If you are just now joining me for this series entitled “A New Thing”, please take some time to go back and read the previous posts, especially the first one. They are all background to today’s post. Click on the following links to read the previous posts.
I remember very vividly a time when divorce, regardless of the reason, was considered taboo. Those who divorced were made to feel as if they wore a huge, red ‘D’ on their forehead which shouted to the world the ugly reality of their situation. Their life situation effectively branded them as a bad person and they were often treated as an outcast. By the time I divorced in 1988, the huge red “D” had faded into a light shade of pink and the letter was no longer uppercase.
Even today, however, there remains a stigma associated with divorce among Christians, despite the fact that Christians divorce at a rate equal to that of those who are outside the church. Does God approve of divorce? No, but He does allow it. Is divorce a more serious sin than other sins? Not in God’s eyes.
According to the outsiders surveyed and reported upon in Kinnaman and Lyons’ book UnChristian, in today’s Christian circles the red “D” has changed to a huge red “H”. Homosexuality has seemingly become the unforgivable sin, according to these young people, ages 16-29. They see Christians as being antihomosexual.
When I first read the survey data, my immediate thought was something along the lines of, “Of course Christians are antihomosexual. God is pretty danged clear regarding His feelings about this lifestyle.” Yes, He is. So, before you get all riled up and think I have gone off my theological rocker, please read this entire piece.
Christians can easily quote passages like Romans 1: 26-27 (NIV) which says, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
There it is. God said it, not me. He is painfully clear that homosexual behavior is shameful and unnatural—-it is sin.
But, is it a worse sin than…..pride….or lying…..or gossip…….or murder……or adultery?
“Outsiders say our hostility toward gays—not just opposition to homosexual politics and behaviors but disdain for gay individuals—has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.” UnChristian p. 92.
The Christian mantra says that we love the sinner and hate the sin, but that is not the perception of those outside the church. Their perception is that we hate the sin AND the sinner. Take in a quote by Billy Graham on this issue from UnChristian. Yes, I said Billy Graham—the Billy Graham.
“I’m going to quote the Bible now, not myself, that it (homosexuality) is wrong, it’s a sin. But there are other sins. Why do we jump on that sin as though it’s the greatest sin? The greatest sin in the Bible is idolatry, worshipping other things besides the true and living God. Jealousy is a sin. Pride is a sin. All of these things are sins. But homosexuality is also a sin and needs to be dealt with and needs to be forgiven, and that’s why Christ came and died on the cross.” P. 96
Dear friends, we will never win anyone to Jesus unless we show the love of Jesus to them. On the rare occasion that Jesus ‘got rough’ with another person or group of people, it was almost exclusively reserved for the religious elite who considered most everyone to be beneath them. Jesus likened the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs that looked beautiful on the outside, but were full of dead bones on the inside.
God forbid that I would be so prideful as to think I could or should condemn or convict another person for their sin. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a person of sin. Shame on me and other Christians for trying to play Holy Spirit to a world that doesn’t know Jesus. My job is to show the love of Jesus to a lost world and share the gospel with them. Remember that those outside the church will know that we are Christ followers by our love—not by our condemnation and hatred of them.
Allow me to leave you with two additional quotes from UnChristian:
“In my humble understanding of Jesus in the New Testament, I see a man who sought to restore relationships, not destroy them. A man of compassion who was crazy in love with what the religious of his day deemed the ‘wrong crowd’.” Mike Foster, president of Ethur; founder, XXXchurch.com p. 113
“The Bible is clear: homosexual practice is inconsistent with Christian discipleship. But there is not a special judgment for homosexuals, and there is not a special righteousness for heterosexuals. For all of us, our only hope for the fracture in our soul is the cross of Christ.” Shayne Wheeler, pastor, All Souls Fellowship, Decatur, GA
We can love the sinner while taking care to share with them the truth about sin and the love of Jesus. The two actions are not mutually exclusive. The key is that we must do it in love and with grace. No matter what our pet sins may be, I need someone to do that for me and so do you. Let’s be Jesus to everyone we meet.
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