Because I need to hear it every single day.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
"Do you know Jesus?" the woman asked me.
"Yes, I do."
"Do you sin?"
"Yeah. Every day... Probably more than I realize."
"THEN YOU'RE A CHILD OF THE DEVIL AND YOU DON'T KNOW JESUS."
Well.
If you are anything like me—and I know I am—
then there are two things you should know about this woman.
The first thing
is that she is affiliated with a man who calls himself Brother Jed.
"I don't know how the whorehouses in this town stay open—
all of you sorority girls are giving it away for free!"
I'll concede to three points:
1. His message was a call to repentance.
2. His words were full of hatred, judgment, bigotry, and condemnation.
3. His delivery was classless, tactless, graceless, and, most importantly, Christ-less.
The second thing
is that she believes her own lie.
On Monday afternoon, this warped view of the gospel manifested itself in condemnations shouted at each passing college student:
"You are all going to hell!"
"You are living sinful, wicked lifestyles!"
"You have to stop sinning in order to be with God!"
And I'm standing there, like:
"That's not necessarily true..."
"That's a pretty bold generalization..."
"That's... wait—
—what?"
LISTEN UP:
If you are someone who thinks you have to get your shenanigans together before God wants anything to do with you, you need to ask yourself two very important questions:
FIRST:
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
[that you could ever get your shenanigans together on your own]
SECOND:
WHO DO YOU THINK GOD IS?
[that He couldn't handle your shenanigans at its worst]
I want you to think about something for a moment;
I want you to think about how wonderful it would be if there were not hateful, judgmental, hypocritical words being spoken every day by people who claim to follow Jesus Christ.
And I want you to think about precisely how you would feel if every church worldwide was calling out to you in a loud, resounding voice, saying,
I want you to think about how wonderful it would be if there were not hateful, judgmental, hypocritical words being spoken every day by people who claim to follow Jesus Christ.
And I want you to think about precisely how you would feel if every church worldwide was calling out to you in a loud, resounding voice, saying,
"COME AS YOU ARE."
I mean, COME ON.
We are CHRISTIANS.
Followers of that man called JESUS.
AND THIS IS HOW HE DID CHURCH:
Jesus was chilling in his house, hanging out with thugs and mafia members and prostitutes. And some really arrogant religious guys were like, "What the what? Why is he eating supper with all those sketchy people?" And Jesus was like, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
[Mark 2:15-17, almost entirely paraphrased. Except for that part where Jesus talks... that part is legit.]
Okay, listen...
Listen.
LISTEN.
LISTEN TO ME:
THIS IS THE GOOD NEWS!
AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE,
BUT I KNOW YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS.
I KNOW YOU NEED TO HEAR IT BECAUSE ALL OF US NEED TO.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU ARE, WHERE YOU'VE BEEN, OR WHAT YOU'VE DONE—
THIS IS FOR YOU.
Listen.
LISTEN.
LISTEN TO ME:
THIS IS THE GOOD NEWS!
AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE,
BUT I KNOW YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS.
I KNOW YOU NEED TO HEAR IT BECAUSE ALL OF US NEED TO.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU ARE, WHERE YOU'VE BEEN, OR WHAT YOU'VE DONE—
THIS IS FOR YOU.
T H I S I S T H E G O O D N E W S :
*
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
[Romans 3:23-24]
*
For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[Romans 6:23]
*
God shows his love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[Romans 5:8]
*
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.
[Ephesians 2:8]
*
If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works;
otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
[Romans 11:6]
*
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
[Romans 10:9]
*
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus
from the law of sin and death.
[Romans 8:1-2]
*
It sounds like the woman you quoted at the beginning was thinking of 1 John 3.4-10 when she told you that if you sin you're a child of the devil and don't know Jesus. I'd be curious to know what you think of that passage, and where you think that woman might have gone wrong in her thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's the difference between practicing sin and sinning. Practicing sin is a habitual, conscious lifestyle that doesn't admit fault. I told her that I sin everyday because I'm a broken human living in a fallen world, but I understand my desperate need for repentance and forgiveness. I also recognize that I'll never be perfect in this life and I'm free from toiling after perfection by my own strength because of what Christ did on the cross.
DeleteI talked to her for about an hour, but it only took a few minutes to realize that her view of the gospel was very based on being good enough. She straight up told me that she hadn't sinned since she heard about Jesus 35 years ago. To which I responded, "Pride?"
Yeah, I think that's about right in terms of what John is getting at. There does seem to be a difference between sinning and practicing sin, and you put it. The former is unavoidable (but we grow in it), but the latter is incompatible with life in Jesus.
DeleteThis is beautiful, Grace! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteImportant note: You can love and be with sinners (because we are all obviously sinners). But that does not mean you should participate in said sin! If you can LIFT PEOPLE UP, then lift them up... if they DRAG YOU DOWN it is NOT wrong NOT to surround yourself with those people.
ReplyDeleteOh, I most definitely agree. I'm not condoning sin in any way. It's a huge problem, but we're not the solution— Christ is.
DeleteFaith without works is dead. James 2:20. You cannot expect to be saved by the grace alone. You must repent and change your way of thinking.
ReplyDeleteI cannot expect to be saved by grace alone? What about Ephesians 2? It says we were DEAD in our sins. Dead men can't do much to save themselves... Verses 4 and 5 say, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved."
DeleteNow, hear me out: I'm NOT saying that we, as Christ-followers, just have a Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free card that allows us to keep on sinning. That's NOT what I'm saying. But check out Titus 3:3-5
"For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, ***not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy [Yay!] by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit."
Our salvation has NOTHING to do with our actions and EVERYTHING to do with Christ's love. And just a few verses after that, Paul talks about what happens after we are saved by Christ:
"The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works." [Titus 3:8]
I fully agree with you that we need to repent and change our ways of thinking; we're called to be devoted to good works! But this happens AFTER we've been saved by grace. 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says that IF someone is in Christ, THEN he is a new creation. It's all about Christ transforming us, not us being good enough on our own.
Nicely written Grace, thanks!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! I love how you Answered the questions posted in these comments. Definitely helped me put into words what I think about the topic of grace and works. Thanks for writing this!
ReplyDeletehhmmm.... I just can't say how wonderful this is... I'm just realizing more and more how much I DONT have a grasp on grace and how it takes part in my life. I hardly knew what the word meant a year ago and my mind is still trying to wrap around this wonderful word "grace". Looks like you were named after a pretty awesome concept :) Thank you for all your wisdom in all these entries. They are really helping to clear some question and show me more scripture to look into. Thank you so much Grace!!
ReplyDelete