Bold Love Series- Message # 5 – Resource: Bold Love, Dr. Dan Allender

LOVING AN ORDINARY SINNER!

Let me tell you a love story.... about the quality of love that changes the world.

"He was 76 and she was 66 when the stroke took away her ability to walk, talk, read, write, cook, sew, paint, teach Sunday School, and be everyone's calm voice of reason in the storm. 2 weeks after they told him that the long term goal for her was that she learn to turn herself over in bed, he stopped eating. This man fasted and prayed for 10 days. No one knew- not even her.

When she checked out of the rehab center a month later, she could walk with a walker and she could dress and feed herself with little help. In the next 15 months, he learned to cook (and find the best take-outs in town), to check her blood sugar, to pay the bills and balance the checkbook, and to keep her appointments straight. You should have seen those strong, work worn, mechanic's fingers tenderly combing her hair and fixing it in the ponytail style he devised.

When they told him he needed surgery for lung cancer, he said that if he could have "just one more good year" to help her get better, he wouldn't bother with the surgery. One night in the Critical Care Unit, they took a portable phone to his bed and he spoke with her one last time, "Sugar," he said, "I'm thinking about you all the time. I can't wait to be home with you. I love you and it's going to be all right." As he spoke his pain-ravaged face was shining with love. She said the only word the stroke had left her, "no, no, no, no," but he heard her meaning.

Grown men wept uncontrollably at his grave side. Women standing there wondered if their men would stand by them with that kind of sacrificial love. That gentle, enduring love wasn't a new idea to him- though- he learned it from his Heavenly Father. I learned it from mine.

                                                                                                            -Joyce Morse; Douglas, GA.

This kind of love flows from God's heart. For several weeks we have been talking about love.

-          Love, the awesome feeling, the mark of the child of God, unconditional and forgiving, costly, and extravagant

-          Love, the warriors response to a loveless world sustained by heavenly courage, growing out of our call to Christ, passionate because of our convictions, and cleverly cunning as it reaches out to others.

We have talked about boldly loving an evil person with the hope of seeing him change into the person God wants him to be. The tone of that message was confrontation. Today I want to balance the perspective a bit.

My topic....     Loving an ordinary sinner!

In the course of living we will encounter people that are outright evil: hard, cold, and destructive. But more often we will encounter people who are just ordinary sinners- those who are foolish, consumed with trivialities and self-centered. Ordinary sinners are quite capable of acting in evil way, but mostly they are just deceived and blind to their own peril. They are less coldly evil than they are insensitive to the hurt they may be inflicting on others!

When Jesus saw evil persons He rebuked them sharply. As you read the Gospels, you will find that He did not do this often which leads me to think that He didn't see most people as malicious. His most confrontational words are reserved for religious leaders who used their position to enrich themselves, who did not do what they asked others to do, and who refused to work towards justice. This He saw as evil!

When He met ordinary sinners, He told stories that helped them to see the error of their ways. He told a lot of stories because the world is full of blind and/or foolish people who are headed for destruction, whose sinful choices were bringing destruction to their friends and family. Beyond the stories that exposed their sin, He also extended ACCEPTANCE to sinners, seeing them as people first, who needed a Savior.

So, today I want to talk about the most common expression of love towards others - loving those who are ordinary sinners.

How do we love the ordinary sinner? Jesus teaches us....

MATT. 9:36   When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Ordinary sinners are confused, searching, often blundering, quite lost people who desperately need answers, but who are, to use a Biblical phrase, "the blind following the blind." An ordinary sinner can be hard to love for many reasons, but let's take a look at three major ones.

1. He is filled with ENVY.

Think, for a moment, how much time you spent this week comparing yourself to someone else imagining that you had what they had and believing that you deserved it at least as much as he did or even more!

            "If I had his wife....If I had his luck.... If I had his house, job, advantages, skills, etc."

This is the universal myth of “the greener grass on the other side of the fence.” Life looks better at someone else's place, with another’s education and background, with a different family, etc. According to the Bible, this envy causes all kinds of problems.

James 3:16      ...where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

James 4:1-3    What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

At the center of our being is a God-given desire for beauty, justice, peace, love, and perfection. He causes us to hunger after these things so that we will be drawn to Him because He is all of them and more! However, in our state of spiritual deadness, we go after things that will bring temporary relief for the ache of the soul. We try to fill a God-shaped desire with things exclusively of this world. This is the great sin of ordinary people. We want Heaven now! It seems that someone else has found paradise; or at least a little bit of it and so we want it. We envy them.

Where does this envy take us?

Not into beauty, peace, justice, love, or perfection! Envy brings separation. I cannot rejoice in your blessing if, in my heart, I want it for myself and feel cheated because I think I deserve it at least as much as you do. Envy is a sin that deadens love. It is a serious breach of God’s plan for us.

So serious is envy that it makes God’s Top Ten list of directions for godly living!

Exodus 20:17             “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Ordinary sinners are deceived by Satan and by the values of this world into believing that Heaven is available now and so they envy those who appear to have created a little Heaven on earth.

2. An ordinary sinner is living in DENIAL of his true condition.

Facing ourselves and telling the truth is one of the most difficult things to do. A sign of great maturity is the ability to accept responsibility for things done wrong -without blaming anyone else.

Spiritually, we want to avoid our sinfulness. An ordinary sinner wants to think that sin is not real. In a way, he prefers his naivete to reality, but God won’t let us pretend forever. Suffering grabs us and shakes us. Reality roars at us sooner or later. For some an awakening results. For many, many more, the result of encountering the roar of reality is a deeper dive into denial.

We attempt to live in our illusions refusing to see what is before us; even in our own life.

∙          A person enslaved to alcohol can insist while he weaves on his feet that he can stop anytime he wants to.

∙          A wife whose husband is cheating on her will choose to believe that he is working late night after night.

∙          A couple whose marriage is in shambles will smile in public and tell you how much they really do love each other.

These sinners think that if they wish hard enough, their dreams will come true! This myth is sold by self-help gurus, in American folk tales, and even by preachers who confuse genuine faith that rests solidly on the power and purpose of God with faith in faith that says, “If you can think it, you can make it real!”

Christians play the denial game. They hide their fears behind brave words that they learn at church. Sometimes they just flatly refuse to admit to their sin, calling it by so many other names: failure, weakness, personality flaw, uniqueness, etc.

The sadness about denial is that it is like a vaccination. As long as I deny that I sin and that the world is held in the grip of Satan, I will not reach out to the Cross of Christ where my healing is found.

God’s cure for the sickness of denial is found in a great passage... 1 JOHN 1:9

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

We must look straight on at life’s ugly reality EVEN in our own life and embrace grace as our only HOPE!

3. Ordinary sinners are frequently living in poor judgement.

This is a complication of the first two problems....

If I am filled with envy, I will tend to look for "healing" for my soul in the wrong places. I may choose to spend the best hours of my life pursuing $$ so I can buy the happiness that the rich seem to enjoy. In the course of that pursuit of riches I will probably be guilty of ignoring my family. I may even become dishonest.

God’s Wisdom – 1 Timothy 6:9-10 People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

OR my envy of another’s man’s wife might lead me to the foolishness of an affair, to act like a teenager. The affair is sinful, but it isn’t rooted in all-consuming lust. It is the expression of a sinful nature that because of deception exercises poor judgement.

Denying the truth of the situation in which I find myself, will lead to further complications of poor judgement. If I won’t look at the suffering of my life or the suffering that I am causing by my choices....

I will refuse to listen to the advice and/or counsel of others. I will think of myself above the need for help.

Then I will fall ever deeper into situations that are very damaging to me, to my family, to my Christian testimony. gain... not because I am a terribly evil person, but because I am an ordinary sinner, full of self.

The ordinary sinful person’s greatest need is for someone to love them with a

bold, courageous, truthful, compassionate, enduring love!

The envy, the denial, and the poor judgment of the ordinary sinner finds healing only in TRUTH; the truth told them by the Spirit and by those who love them.

We see this in two stories from the Gospels -

            The first is the story of Zacchaeus - Luke 19:1-9 PB 1630

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. Luke 19:1-9

            The second is the story of an unnamed woman ‘caught in the act of adultery.’ - John 8: 2-11 PB 1661

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

                                    John 8:2-11

HOW DO WE LOVE AN ORDINARY SINNER?

a. We give them the gift of a covering of their sin.

1 PET. 4:8      Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

PRO 10:12      Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.  

            The Message: Hatred starts fights, but love pulls a quilt over the bickering.

At this moment, there are many of you saying to yourselves, "I thought Jerry told us that love meant exposing the sinner and confronting them with the truth about their behavior."

In those situations where sin is deliberate, continuous, abusive, and repetitive; that is the course that bold love will choose!

In those situations where the sin is of the moment, the evidence of an ordinary human heart prone to fail, love will provide a protective environment for recovery and healing. Tragically in many Christian circles there is great skill in rebuke and confrontation, but little in the area of providing a covering for sin that allows for change in God’s good time!

It takes a wise and Spirit-filled Christian to know when to confront and when to cover!

*ill-    Let me illustrate by using the loving relationship that I enjoy with Bev, my wife. She knows that I am committed to excellence and have high expectations. She also knows that because of this passion I can be short-tempered and speak too sharply to people.

From time to time I am unloving and say things that are hard or harsh, as some of you know! Bev realizes that I am not an evil man. So she wisely chose not to confront me in the moment of my intemperance. Instead, she covers my sin by interceding on my behalf with those I wound. Then, in an appropriate moment, she urges me to take a second look, to think it through. Her patient love and intercession on my behalf time and time again has allowed me to hear Holy Spirit's reprimand. His voice leads me to to repent and apologize. The gift of LOVE provides me with a covering while I am coming to repentance!

Dr. Allender writes, "When we provide a covering for sin, we make a conscious choice to wait, prayerfully and patiently."

Sometimes by providing a covering we allow sin to develop to a ripened state where the sinner can no longer escape into denial. His sin is too obvious to ignore anymore.

Sometimes by covering we discover that the Holy Spirit creates an opportunity when with gentle, yet truthful words, we can lead a person straight to the wonderful place of repentance and restoration.

Take note of this, the covering we provide is not a cover-up!

If we become part of a cover-up, we enter into the sin. We attempt to deceive others about the other person's sinfulness.

Let me go back to my illustration with Bev. She must not make excuses for my intemperate outbursts. "Jerry’s just that way. We have to accept his actions. That's just the way he acts!" That is a cover-up. Covering over will cause her to speak truthfully without excusing sin, which gives time for God to work and bring repentance.

b. We give the ordinary sinner the gift of instruction.

Galatians 6:1 NLT directs us to gentle instruction. Listen:

Dear brothers and sisters, if another Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.

Proverbs 25:11-12      A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is a wise man's rebuke to a listening ear.

The Lord Jesus Christ was primarily known in the Gospels as a Teacher. He taught with simple stories. He taught by his actions of compassion. He taught by the way in which he lived.

Christian, as you and I walk with God, growing fruitful in the character of the Spirit, we must become teachers. The values that shape our financial decisions, the choices of recreation, the time we invest in worship, the way that we handle disappointments, the people that we choose as close friends; all of these are ways that we teach. The best teaching is not in the telling, but in the showing!

We also teach consciously by listening to the Holy Spirit and sharing the wisdom He gives to us, in the appropriate moment.

Let's live at a life that is committed to bold love! But, please be careful. I am concerned about the ability that each of us has to disguise meanness, selfishness, and revenge in the wrappings of "speaking the truth in love." The church has more than its share of spiritual Rambos, armed with a big Bible that becomes a weapon of awesome destruction when used as a club! One writer says, "If you love to confront, don't!"

I would add that unless you have taken time to invest in building a relationship with an individual, you have little right to walk into his life to set things right.   I underline this fact once again, most of the people who hurt us are not evil people nor are they fools, they are just ordinary sinners like you and like me.

Let's give them the gift of covering over sin while we wait for it to ripen and while we pray for the Holy Spirit to bring conviction and instruction. Even as we walk in love, let's commit ourselves to living lives that teach in word and actions.

Lord, teach us to love boldly; to reach out to the sinners around us with the love that showed to us while we walked in envy, denial, and poor judgement. Before we swing the sword that deals a cutting blow, let us weep with those who are broken by their sins, victimized by Satan who so hates the beauty of your Creation. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Jerry Scott 2008
www.WashingtonAG.com