Matthew 22: 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. (NIV)
Decisions. How does one decide to "Love your neighbor?" Lots of ways to go here, but let me pick one that has resulted in a lot of debate in my house lately: sin. How do you love someone you know has committed sin? Scripture says, just as you love yourself. After all, scripture says we've all sinned and fallen short of God's requirements (Rom 3:23). What if its a real "bad" sin as my young friend Reed Garick would call it? Rom 6:23 says they are all bad - sorry Reed! So should we let an obvious sinner join the church? Of course! How could we prevent a sinner from joining? We would have no members. That's NOT the end of the answer, however, and you must read further!
Failure to correct sin is a failure to love others as you love yourself. In a simplistic example, when my kids were young, if they failed to stop at the end of the driveway and continued to run into the street, I tore their butts up (YES it them a lot more than it hurt me and yes it left temporary marks! - why? because they had to understand that disobedience has consequences they never want to experience again! ). Why? Because I couldn't ever give them the freedom to play outside if I couldn't trust them to obey the rules of staying in the yard. Obviously my job as a parent was to protect them from a danger they didn't fully comprehend as toddlers.
Scripture provides this mandate as we mature into adulthood as well. Matt 18:15 “If your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Dealing with sin is to be direct, confrontational, and decisive, yet done in love. In another example, Paul took on the Corinthians. He took at least 3 chapters, as we divided it later, to dress them down about sexual immorality that had crept into the church. Yet he said "21 What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?" (1 Cor 4). Notice he didn't ignore the issue or gossip about it behind their backs. No, he confronted them in love. He went on to state that an unrepentant sinner had to be driven out of the church - a very steep consequence, but necessary to keep one bad person from dragging others into sin.
Jesus set the example of confronting sin in love. Recall the woman "caught" in the act of adultery (imagine THAT scene...). He ended that confrontation with all in the temple that day with "“Go now and leave your life of sin" (John 8:21 NIV). Wow. He didn't give her the option to keep on, or to just dress differently, or just not do it around others that might me insulted, he demanded an immediate complete change in lifestyle!
So, all sin is bad and failure to confront it is a failure to love properly. My personal problem is that I'm good at confrontation "with a rod" - just ask my kids. I'm not very good at confrontation in love, yet I'm commanded to be so. Unfortunately, the homosexual community has brought that particular sin into the political spotlight and then condems Christians for singling out that particular sin. We're discussing it because they brought it up! Yet let us not be guilty of treating that particular sin any differently than adultery, pornography, foul language, gossip, cheating, stealing, slandering, obesity,... Well, you get the picture.
We're all sinners and in need of repentance. We need to love others by ensure they're not "playing in traffic." Failing to "go to your brother or sister" is to doom them to suffering the earthly consequences of sin and perhaps eternal consequences as well. Yet for me to do this in love, I need to be led by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise I'll show up with the rod of discipline and drive them away without truly communicating. As Jesus said, "“This kind can come out only by prayer" (Mark 9:29).
No comments:
Post a Comment