Heavy, Deep & Real ministries

Social media is such a double-edged sword!

On the one hand, it allows you to connect and stay in touch with people over great distances! I’m amazed that I work with pastors in India, South Africa, Uganda, Lebanon, Mexico, and more. With the push of a button, I can send a text that instantly gets to them. I can see them face-to-face via technology in real time. I can send a few bucks their way with an ap. It’s truly a blessing to be in touch with friends, family, and colleagues around the globe.

On the other hand, however, social media is one of the most evil places one can visit. It’s not just porn sites, gambling, sites, and other depraved places. It’s evil people saying and doing evil things to other people! You have people encouraging others to commit suicide! You have people scamming other people out of their life’s resources. You have people saying the most vulgar things to other people. It’s almost unbelievable what people do in such public spaces.

That said, it doesn’t surprise me when non-believers do this to one another or do it to those of us in the faith. What else would expect? What get’s my blood boiling is when so-called CHRISTIANS do it to other people whether they be in the faith or not.

There are Christian ministries I follow that are pretty hardcore when it comes to calling out other’s sins. And in fact, they are right; they see evil as God defines it, call it out, work to stop this evil, and feel they are the warriors of God on earth to defend God’s holiness.

But they always forget one thing: In God’s eyes everyone is redeemable.

For many of these “holy warriors” the sin that these evil people perpetrate is so debased that they’ve lost their right to be redeemed. They will point to places in the Bible that say God detests these people and they are not in fact loved by God at all because they have chosen evil.

Dang…

I’m really glad I don’t worship the God they’re talking about because their description of God is not what Jesus looks like at all!

The Jesus I know told the story of the Prodigal Son – the arrogant son who took an inheritance from his father that wasn’t his, blew it on the evils of wine, women and song, then came home with his tail between his legs only to find a father who had been pining for him to come home the whole time and rejoiced at his return no matter the evil he had done!

The story of the Prodigal Son was Jesus’ way of explaining who God is. He’s a Father who is heartbroken over the loss of one of His own – yes, His own! He created every single one of us in His image so we are all God’s creation. (We’ll get into the adoption into God’s family in a moment). Further, God and the heavens rejoice at the saving of one lost sinner regardless of the sin (Luke 15:7). God tells us plainly He wants none to perish and all to come home (2 Peter 3:9).

And to add some emphasis to this, Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9 that we have been saved by the grace of God and not by our own works so that none can boast. Paul is re-emphasizing that we all are sinner and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and that there is none righteous – not one! (Romans 3:10-12).

So, my colleagues out there hammering people for their evil sins, condemning them for their acts, acting as judge, jury, and executioner miss the point. Certainly, we are to call sin sin – we call out evil in our world.  But like Jesus taught us, we don’t then play judge – that’s God’s role so we don’t try to sit on His throne and usurp that authority. Jesus taught us that after we call out sin and evil, we seek repentance from the sinner by sharing the Gospel.

And what is the Gospel? We all are sinners deserving of hell yet Jesus came and paid the price of our sins by offering Himself as a blood sacrifice thus fulfilling the requirements of the law and thus for those who believe unto Him, they are reconciled to God.

Now, some do indeed repent and heaven rejoices! And some don’t and earn a one-way ticket to hell upon their death. My job as a preacher of the Gospel is not to determine their destination; my job is to tell them about Jesus and their need to repent and let them make their free-will decision.

So, yes, I agree with my colleagues that call out evil and have holy discontent over things such as child sex trafficking, drug cartels, terrorists, pedophiles, rapists, murders, and the rest. Where I draw a line and separate from my colleagues is in what we do with these people. My colleagues – at least the way they sound in their social media posts – seem to think these people should be thrown away. Their evil is so evil they have lost their right to redemption. I disagree. I think we take even the worst of the worst and try to get them to know Jesus.

That is not to say they shouldn’t pay earthly consequences for their actions – they should and that is absolutely biblical. But during their earthly penalty they must have the opportunity to hear the Gospel.

One of the arguments I saw recently in a post was that the idea of “Hate the sin love the sinner” is unbiblical and that these evil people are not adopted sons and daughters of God. They refer to Proverbs 6:16-19:

“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”

So, let me pose this question: The thief on the cross next to Jesus who recognized Jesus for who He is, recognized himself and a sinner, and asked Jesus not to forget him in His kingdom – did God detest him?

Certainly, this thief devised wicked schemes, rushed into evil, and stirred up conflict in the community or they wouldn’t have been crucifying him. To get crucified for stealing he must have really messed up. Yet, Jesus tells him that today that the thief would be with Him in paradise.

How do we deal with this? Is there a conflict in Scripture? Did God change? No and NO! The proverb says the Lord hates these things that people do not the people themselves. Same thing when scripture says He finds homosexuals et all detestable. It’s the acts of the people. Does God get angry with us for disobeying? Certainly, we see that throughout scripture. But does He hate us? I don’t even think He hated the first generation He wiped out in the flood. Scripture says He was grieved for making them because they turned out so evil! There is a difference between being grieved and hating!

We have to be VERY careful not to put words into God’s mouth! Not to interpret scripture to fit our narrative or even our cultural context!

In today’s American church culture, we rank sin. This sin is worse than that sin but certainly not as bad as this other one! That is not how sin works.

James wrote in chapter 2 verse 10 these words, “Whoever breaks one commandment is guilty of breaking them all. … For whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”

In the Jewish context – the context in which our Rabbi Jesus lived, preached, healed, shepherded, and ministered – the Law (Torah) was on thing not 613 different commands. You either followed it or you didn’t. So, for us to say that I’m better than so-n-so because at least I didn’t break that law is ludicrous.

Jesus made it quite clear in His teaching that every single one of us needs a savior because not one of us is innocent. Every one of us has broken the moral law – the law that is unchanging from the beginning to the end.

So, no, the pedophile is no worse than the liar. Without confessing and repenting they are both going to hell. Yet, if the pedophile repents and the liar does not, the pedophile will be in heaven with the rest of us redeemed sinners and the liar will be in hell probably wondering what the heck happened.

But these sinners are not adopted sons and daughters of the Most High! Agreed – until you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior you are not adopted into God’s family. But as we have clearly seen, God has the adoption papers ready to sign. He just needs someone to go show these sinners the way home.

In my ministry I work with felons of every flavor. Some are just addicts who when to jail for pushing drugs. Some have domestic violence charges. Some have long criminal histories going back to their youth for pretty much every crime under the sun, including murder. And some are sex offenders and pedophiles. I can’t tell you that all of them want to follow Jesus – they don’t. In fact, of the 40 or so men I preach to every Tuesday night, less than half are bought into the faith.

However, I’ve learned a few things in this ministry during the past 8 years or so I’ve been doing it.

First, people who have hit rock bottom and have lost everything realize they need Jesus and deserve a chance to meet Him no matter what their crime.

Second, the most sold out for Christ that I have met are the pedophiles. They are so full of guilt and shame they struggle to accept Jesus’ forgiveness because they cannot forgive themselves. Yet, they want nothing more than to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to be the people God created them to be instead of the monsters that they turned out to be. They hate themselves for what they did and truly want to repent. I believe they deserve a chance.

Third, the addicts are the ones that are the farthest of Jesus in that they praise Him with their lips but their hearts are far away. They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. It’s very difficult to make them love Jesus more than their addiction. But they, too, deserve to be discipled in their walk to follow Jesus.

Nearly to a person every felon I met (there are a few exceptions) admit they got what they deserved for their crimes. While they are frustrated how hard it is to re-enter society given their criminal records, they understand that you reap what you sow and it’s a price they pay for being stupid.

Fourth, God’s hand it not too short. I have seen the most miraculous transformations while preaching, discipling, and mentoring these men. Hardcore lifetime criminals coming to Christ and turning their lives around. God is still at work every day!!

Lastly, God’s Word never returns to Him empty. To be honest, there are nights I am there preaching and if feels as if I’m preaching at the walls. But then someone will come up to me afterwards and tell me what the message meant to them and how the Holy Spirit moved them. I’m usually stunned by this – I know I shouldn’t be – because in my humanness it felt as if they were all zombies! God will not be denied!!

So, my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I would urge you to be slow to judge, eager to share the gospel, and not throw people away just because they did evil. You, too, did evil and imagine if God jus threw you away as easily as you would your fellow sinner.