“But go and learn what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Matthew 9:13
Several years ago, two Bible college students; Mike Yankoski and Sam Purvis sought to put their faith in Christ to the test by living on the streets as homeless people in 5 major cities in the United States. For Mike needed to know if his faith in God was real; if he could actually be the Christian, he said he was, apart from the comforts he’d always known. So, with only a bag on his back, a guitar in his hand, and Sam by his side, he set out.
After meals from garbage cans and dumpsters, night after night Mike and Sam found their beds under bridges and on the streets of America. They were forced to depend on the generosity and kindness of strangers as they panhandled to sustain their existence. For more than five months, the pair experienced firsthand the extreme pangs of hunger, the constant uncertainty and danger of living on the streets; along with exhaustion, depression, and social rejection.
What did they learn? They learned not only about the plight of the homeless, but they learned that the church itself made little difference when it came to outreach of the unlovely.
In a book chronicling their homeless experiences; entitled, “Under the Overpass”; Mike writes:
“One night in Phoenix, Arizona, we stretched out our sleeping bags in front of a church’s main doors hoping that early the next morning we would be awakened by a kindhearted churchgoer wondering if he could help us in some way. A simple, obvious plan, we thought, but it didn’t work.”[1]
For when they awoke early the next morning on the front of the church steps, they were surprised to find that the church service was already under way; and that no one from the church had awoken them from their sleep; no one had offered to help them in any way. Soon Mike and Sam realized that while they slept, the entire congregation, along with the pastor; in an effort to avoid them had entered into the church building through the side door and then proceeded with their worship service.
This tragedy occurs sadly for many reasons, not the least of which is because in the church’s rush to maintain its own self-righteous respectability; by its avoidance of those with messed up lives who exist all around them, they’ve failed to see the greatness involved in reaching out to those whom society deems as repugnant: to the indigent; to the prostitutes, the alcoholics, the drug addicts, homosexuals, the poor and yes, even the homeless.
Remarkably, these are the very people upon which Jesus focused so much of his attention.
Yet this is not the Jesus we portray to the world by our actions, or rather our inaction. Instead we have presented a Norman Rockwell view of Jesus to the world; a view that is incongruous with the Jesus of the Scriptures; a Jesus that is only interested the respectable of society; a Jesus who is the Lord only of those who have it all together. A view that sees church as being only for those who are influential; only for those whom our culture deems as important or significant.
Thus, it is not unusual to find supposedly “good churches” in rundown neighborhoods throughout the cities of America who maintain the highest Christian standards but who have little to no impact upon the world in which it exists; churches who have good theology and doctrine, but who do nothing with them; churches who are obsessed with their own brand of goodness; churches like the church in Laodicea, whose goodness amounts to what is “good for nothing”.
Churches whose worship consists of nothing more than a weekly gathering of smug self-righteous individuals who come merely to celebrate how “right” they are. Churches who make a good show of worship on Sunday within the comfort of their own stained-glass menagerie; all the while ignoring the needy souls sleeping on their very doorstep.
Perhaps it is for these reasons more than any other that George Gallup Sr. could say:
“Never in the history of the United States of America has Christianity made such in-roads, while making so little difference in how people live.”
Perhaps this why, in the Christian world, there’s a whole lot of things going on, but no lives being changed? There’s a whole lot of thunder, but no rain!
In a song entitled, “If We are the Body”, the Christian group Casting Crowns® poses this question to the church:
“If we are the Body: Why aren’t His arms reaching; why aren’t His hands healing; why aren’t His words teaching? And if we are the Body: Why aren’t His feet going? Why is His love not showing them there is a way?”[2]
The answer is multi-faceted, I’m sure! But the stony reality is that often the church today, bears little resemblance to the God it says it worships on a weekly basis.
We sing about the Jesus that forgave, in an unforgettable and dramatic way, the woman caught in adultery, yet if such a woman known to us in our community were to visit our church on Sunday, many would silently disapprove. We might find ourselves, secretly in the hidden recesses of our heart and mind, loathing her presence among us. We offer up prayers to the God of grace who forgave the diminutive Zaccheus for his greed, corruption and theft as a Roman tax collector, yet if the owner of the town automotive shop who we suspect overcharged us for unnecessary repairs, slips into the side pew beside us, we might ignore his existence and with self-justifying bitterness treat him as though he were an interloper trespassing upon sacred private property.
And yet, in our self-deluded spiritual blindness, we see no correlation between Biblical history and our present reality. And what’s worse, it never occurs to us to ask ourselves, just what Jesus it is, we say we are worshiping on Sunday morning.
Therefore, it’s not difficult to imagine why the church in America has so often failed to make even a concerted spiritual dent in the evil culture surrounding it. We might as well be honest with our communities and hang a sign on some of our churches which reveals the true nature of how some of us feel:
“People with messed up lives are unwelcome here!”
If some churches were that boldly honest about how they feel, at least then they would save the lost the agony of being disappointed when, thinking that those in the steepled building cared, they wouldn’t be disillusioned when they discovered that the opposite is true.
At least with a sign of this nature scrawled across the front of our buildings, the unsaved would finally get an honest assessment of how things truly are. Is that too harsh? Perhaps. But at least, if this happened the world would know that we’ve finally removed every semblance of pretense from our church life.
Of course, in this, on one hand, I am being facetious. Yet, on the other, I’m deadly serious! Something needs to change in our churches. The problem is we don’t want to change; we’re comfortable right where we are.
This ungodly contentedness is often accompanied by our own sense of inflated importance. And although we drape this attitude in a false humility when we visit church, we cannot help but make mental comparisons of ourselves with others in our community; always coming to the conclusion that they just don’t quite measure up to our standards. And then with an attitude of repose and civility, we isolate ourselves from those whom we deem unworthy of our time or attention, saying to ourselves “I’m so glad I’m not like him or her.”
This attitude is a dragon in our churches today; devouring our passion for the lost; our loyalty to Christ and the lives of those truly in need. Truth be told, this dragon has been slithering around churches for centuries. It propelled Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the church, and then lie in an early grave; it created Diotrephes into a hindrance for the Apostle Paul and moved James to rebuke the churches for loving the respectable over the unlovely.
The worst part is that it has often destroyed our testimony for Christ and at times even hindered the work of God.
I think it remarkable, that our respectability has left us woefully unprepared to address an issue with which our world confronts us. How do we stand against homosexuality itself, while reaching at the same time, those who are enslaved by it?
We seem to gravitate toward two extremes. We either completely surrender Biblical truth, by telling homosexuals that how they live is acceptable to God; and, under the guise of “love”, completely capitulate to the societal norms of our current corrupt culture. Or, on the other hand, we shift to the extreme right, and take a strong stand against homosexuality, but then offer no hope to those caught within it.
Neither position is a biblical one.
Let me say categorically we must have the courage to call sin what it is. We do no favors to those enslaved to such a lifestyle by offering to them a supposed legitimacy that completely contradicts Scripture, simply to assuage their guilt. We show no biblical loyalty through this capitulation when seeking to protect ourselves from the shaming monikers of political correctness that are used with abandon by the progressive left to marginalize anyone who believes that homosexuality is immoral.
Again, we must have the courage of conviction to stand where the Bible does on this issue without compromise. Homosexuality in all of its forms is immoral perversion. It is sin. It is sexual slavery according to the authority of Scripture (Romans 1:24-27)
I say that without blushing.
However, it is also a sin for which there is a solution. For Jesus’ death and resurrection has the power to free those caught within it’s grip.
This is Paul’s position in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, for he not only acknowledges what it is and where it ultimately leads, but he also reveals the fact that the gospel has the power to completely transform those who, for all of their lives, have lived in such darkness.
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
In this one Scripture, Paul gives an accurate description of sin and where it leads, as well as, an accurate description of what has changed when those, who are guilty of living in such a way, put their trust in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. They are washed, sanctified, and justified before God through the working of the Holy Spirit.
They are no longer what they were.
The gospel has the power to completely transform the sexually immoral, the idolaters, the adulterers, prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, and the greedy. As well as, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers. In Christ, one is completely washed, sanctified and justified by faith.
Do you believe this Christian? Do you believe this church? We say we do, but then live as if we don’t. How so, you ask?
We bar the doors of our churches to these kinds people. O, perhaps not literally but with our petulant, sour attitudes. When a former homosexual comes into our fellowship who has genuinely repented and who has accepted Jesus by faith just as we have; we continue to treat them as though the gospel has had no effect. And by so doing, we secretly deny what we say we believe.
We treat them like second-class citizens in the family God. We may deny them membership in the body or secretly balk if they seek to serve in the church. We withhold our friendship and fellowship from them. We keep our distance; we are embarrassed to associate with them. We fail to demonstrate hospitality to them; refusing ever to have them in our home or near our kids. We judge their every move; gossiping in secret behind their back; and generally treating them with suspicion; secretly disliking the fact that they’re in the church at all.
We never fully accept them as brothers and sisters in Christ, treating them as though they were somehow tainted; that the gospel had had no effect upon their position before God. And by these attitudes, we actually end up denying the power of the gospel. Living as though the gospel is only for those with “acceptable sins”; for only the “best of sinners” and not for the “worst”.
And by these attitudes we demonstrate the very thing for which the Apostle Paul rebuked Peter in Galatians 2:11-14.
Church…hear me now!
We must be very careful at this point that we do not fall into the same ditch. Believing that the gospel, is only for those just like me.
Do you remember the vision that Peter was given in Acts 10? In his vision, a sheet was let down from heaven with all kinds of unclean animals that were unlawful for a Jew to eat. A voice from heaven said, “Arise Peter, kill and eat.” Peter refused. Then God said to him, “Do not call unclean, what I have cleansed.” Shortly after, Peter found himself in the house of a Gentile, something a Jew was never allowed to do, since it made him ceremonially unclean.
God was telling Peter through the vision of the unclean animals and through the providential arrival of Cornelius’ men at his door that the gospel was intended by God, to be for everyone, not just for Jews. The gospel is for all, not just for people who are just like me.
I wonder today, as the church, do we really believe that?
In an effort to remain faithful in regard to what the Bible teaches about the sin of homosexuality, have we fallen into the opposite ditch? Have we allowed the dragon respectability to cloud our view of the gospel? I wonder, if we haven’t done what Peter did, accepting the same misguided view the church wrestled with, so long ago?
The flawed belief that the gospel is only for people who are just like me.
Yes, we must call homosexuality what it is! We must not allow those who are living in such a way, openly, and unrepentant to live a lie; to live in the church as though there’s nothing wrong with their lifestyle. Certainly, we would not allow adulterers, murderers or swindlers to remain in their lifestyles in the church unchallenged, either. For one cannot claim to be a believer and live in open, unrepentant sin, as Paul has just taught us in 1 Corinthians. The apostle John teaches us the very same thing…you cannot practice sin as a lifestyle while at the same time claiming fellowship with God. We must call sin what it is. And we must not hesitate to do so, even when it costs us to do it.
But at the same time, we must also beware of calling “unclean, what God has cleansed”, by the blood of his dear son. All those who have accepted Jesus are a new creation in Christ, all that is old has passed away, everything has become new.
When a homosexual genuinely accepts Jesus as their Savior…they are no longer a homosexual…they are no longer what they were…God, by his grace; through the working of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, has washed; sanctified and justified them. He has seated them with Christ in heavenly places. And far be it from us, that we should call unclean what God has cleansed. For then it is not only a person for whom Christ died that we have denied…we have denied the very heart of the gospel itself and everything that comes with it.
For then it is we, not them, who have sinned.
[1] Under the Overpass – A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America. By Mike Yankoski. Multnomah Publishers: Sisters, Oregon. Copywrite, 2005.
[2] Lyrics by Mark Hall performed by Casting Crowns®. Beach Street Records, 2003.