I recently attended a New Breed event where we discussed biblical, missional, radical church planting. Even though everyone in the room were Christians that are feeling the call of God to plant new churches (or at least to be used by God to help spread the gospel) I still think many of the attendees were in varying degrees of shock when the speaker announced in a nonchalant tone that “if Jesus where walking the earth in the United States today, He would go to a gay bar.”
Every culture has sins that are considered taboo. People that practice these taboo sins are often looked down upon, or even outcast by the rest of their society, particularly by the religious. Many Christians today look at certain types of sinners and can’t get past their taboo sins and see a person whom God loves that needs to experience Jesus. How many of us would be willing to go hang out with homosexuals, or drug addicts, or prostitutes, or abortionists, or gang members, or whatever other taboo group of sinners you can think of? Could you go to their house to hang out with them, eat with them, and effectively share the love of God with them the way Jesus would?
When Jesus was walking the earth, He didn’t spend all his time at the temple and just talk with the people that were already religious. He went where the religious people of His day would never go, because good Jews didn’t hang out with “sinners”. Jesus didn’t care what people thought. He sought out the worst and most reviled sinners of the day. He went out to where the sinners were. He loved them, healed them, and made disciples of them.
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “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
Have you ever looked at a certain type of sin as being worse than your own? I know that I have. Many Christians at some point or another get into “pharisee mode”. We see someone that is struggling with some sin, and feel superior, or even think to ourselves: “I’m glad I’m not like them.“
10“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11“The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12“‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’
13“But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
14“I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Luke 18:10-14
The truth of the matter is that our pride and self righteousness are just as disgusting to God (Isaiah 64:6) as the taboo sins we think are so horrible. Even if we are not as “bad” of a sinner as someone else, God doesn’t grade on a curve. We are so prone to look at other humans and think, “I wish I was like them“, or “I’m glad I’m not like them“. However, when we measure ourselves against the standard of Jesus, we all fall short.
Ever since I attended that New Breed meeting a couple weeks ago, this has been on my mind. There are millions of people around us that will never set foot in a church, and for many different reasons. They are people that need Jesus, but when they look at Christians they don’t see Jesus. They’ve been hurt badly in the past by someone close to them that professed to be a Christian. They’ve met Bible thumping Christians that tell them how bad they are in an unloving way. They’ve seen the crazy people on TV trying to rip people off by selling them a chip of wood from the cross of Jesus or some other gimmick. Their gang feels more like a loving accepting family then the body of christ. Whenever there is an opportunity to protest some legal agenda that encourages some sin we don’t like, they see Christians at rallies holding signs that un-lovingly denounce their lifestyle and tell them they are going to hell.
When was the last time someone got saved because we successfully stopped some proposition that would allow gay marriage, or more abortions, or legalize marijuana, or whatever? I’m not saying we shouldn’t vote for things that are consistant with our beliefs, but that we should be more concerned with sharing God’s love with people, and letting them see the real Jesus through the way we conduct ourselves as we are guided by the Holy Spirit.
For whatever reasons, tons of people are turned off by the mention of Christianity, and these people aren’t going to come to a church to seek after God. Many people would feel just as uncomfortable coming into our churches as we would feel going into a gay bar. My prayer is that God will start a radical change in the hearts of believers. That He would stir our hearts to reach outside of our safe church walls, and bring Him into places where he isn’t truly known. Jesus commands us to go out into the all the world and make disciples; so let’s bring Jesus to them, and beg the Holy Sprit to touch them.