Three things:
1) Dogs bark.
2) Ducks quack.
3) Sinners sin.
When dogs bark, we don't say, "that's just not right, dogs just shouldn't do that," because we know it's in the nature of dogs to bark. When ducks quack, we don't think that anything is out of the ordinary, because that's what ducks do. So why do we become so incredulous when sinners, whose nature it is to sin, sin?
In our own culture, we think things are getting worse and worse. And you know what, perhaps it's true that more people are pushing more buttons and are blatantly committing more and more sins. And sometimes I think some of it is a result of Christians laying down the law, trying to get sinners to stop their doggone sinning! See, it really has the opposite effect of what's intended! Law doesn't stop sin. The Apostle Paul called the law "the ministry of death" and "the ministry of condemnation" (see 2 Cor 3:4-11) for good reasons!
Rom 7:8-11
But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
When groups of Christians go around raising a fuss about the various sins of the world, it doesn't seem to have a such a redeeming effect upon sinners! Does it? I guess one of my questions that I keep asking is... is there not yet enough evidence out there that shows that our holier than thou stance against the virus of sin only serves to strengthen the virus, rather than kill it? Whether it comes in the form of politics, or from the pulpit, or in one-on-one relationships with unredeemed people, do our rules, laws and policies really help out when it comes to redeeming the culture?
And I don't mean conforming the people of our culture into moral behavior. I mean redeeming the people of our culture. I mean bringing people into a true, living relationship with God through Jesus. I mean, if we stick up our noses at the bad things people do, does that really help out in the matter of people coming to know God?
Have we (the church) lost the plot? When Jesus redeemed us individually, was it His plan for us to then get on out there and make a big fuss about all the sin that's in the world? Is it His purpose for us to be worried about the state of our culture, and to therefore go out and protest all the barking dogs and quacking ducks? (the sinning sinners). Is JESUS running around worried about all the sin that's going on in the world?
Or is our mission and ministry towards sinners of a different nature?
As I already noted (and have noted lots of times in the past and will continue to note in the future), the ministry of death and condemnation (the law) has never done one thing to redeem a human being. Never! It can't! "For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law" (Gal 3:21). The law condemns. The 'Letter' kills.
But the Spirit gives life, and it's solely because we're "in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God - and righteousness and sanctification and redemption..." that we can even begin to walk in the fullness of the life and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that we've been given!
And it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). Jesus, "being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (Phil 2:6-8).
Do we understand all that God did in order to redeem us? I've only touched on the tip of the iceberg here! And yet somehow we think our laws and protests and avoidance of sinners is going to be what saves our culture?
I think Rom 5:8 must have been rewritten in some people's Bibles to say, "while we were still sinners, Christ avoided us and wrote protest letters to us about our behavior and made a big stink of our sins."
Instead, Jesus came to meet us where we were at. His big stink was with the holier-than-thou's, as far as I can see it. But to the sinners, to those dogs who barked and to those ducks who quacked, he didn't place a muzzle on them to try to get them to conform. Rather, He touched them and came to live in them and gave them a brand new nature! He did all of this as a gift of grace.
What I really want to get at here is that His ministry toward us carries on through us towards others. Not that we're going to go through a physical death, burial and resurrection as Jesus did in order to meet others where they're at, but spiritually speaking, with His life and grace in us, we can look at sinners in the same way He does. We can bring to them this message of God's peace and goodwill toward mankind.
Instead of rehashing the ministry of death and condemnation, we have a different ministry. The ministry of reconciliation.
2 Cor 5:18-21
Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation , that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
What do you think? Has the church lost the plot? If God's good and holy law has this effect on people: "sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire" and "when the commandment came, sin revived and I died," then do we really expect man-made laws and 'moral standards' to have any more desirous of an effect on unredeemed people?
