Is the church proactive or reactive? Do we preach judgement or grace? Do we truly believe all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? Or do we act as if there are some who are so fallen they do not deserve the free grace and forgiveness of God?
To start to answer these questions let take a quick trip down memory lane. Let begin by looking at the reason for the writing of the Gospel of John. This text was written to combat heresy that Jesus could not be both human and divine; He had to be one or the other. Church tradition and scripture teaches us that Jesus was both God and man. John wrote his Gospel to show that Jesus was divine, but he suffered in a human way; tasted human death and was raised to life eternal. How about another reaction, let’s look at the book of Revelation. This book was a hairs breath from being kept out of the Bible as we know it. However it was placed at the end because the Church Father did not know where it fit in the cannon.
Fast-forward to the twentieth century. In the 1950’s we in the American church were very judgmental of divorced individuals. I want to pause a moment and state that I believe there are Biblical reasons for divorce. However I would argue the majority of individuals in the church today are divorced for reasons other than Biblical reasons. So back to the 1950’s as a church many of us were down right rude to divorce women. Not only would we not allow them to teach Sunday school, we often would not allow them into our doors. Let’s go to the 1980’s the witch hunt was on for those who were living together outside of marriage. Now many churches have these individuals filling leadership roles. The 1990’s the big target was teen pregnancy; yet now many churches have ministries aimed at this population. I said all that to say this, when is the last time you Facebooked these issues, when is the last time you were unaccepting of these individuals? When is the last time you heard a sermon about the evil of these sins? Yet God says in the scripture He hates divorce. Paul speaks against heterosexual sex outside of marriage; yet we don’t tend to rail against this. One other thing Paul’s speaks against is gossip yet we wink at this in church and even make jokes. After all that’s just the church right; well it shouldn’t be.
Let’s take a minute and think about, Matthew 7. This is the famous do not judge less you be judged yourself. Also within this passage is how, can you remove the dust from your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own eye. The passage says we must remove the plank from our own eye. The planks that the church in America has is we no longer speak about the previous sins. We only zero in on what we see as the popular “sin”.
So how do we remove these planks? First we quit judging and extend grace and forgiveness. Second we quit screaming and protesting and come to the table of open, honest communication. Third we quit proof texting; citing texts which support our view. We preach the Bible in its entirety. Finally we do not wink away sin which we do not see as important. Let me ask you a question. If you knew the heterosexual couple sitting beside you was unwed yet living together would that bother you? Would you still vote for them to be on the church board? Let us remember that God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that who so ever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Our job is to be the hands and feet of Jesus. God’s job is to be judged; last time I checked we aint Him. Pastor Travis out.
