"What Do We Do with Sin?" By General Pastor Peter F. Paine September 6th,
2015
I am glad to be here with you
today. I don’t know what I’m going to
do. Malcolm said, “We don’t either,” but
I do know that my heart is full and I’m very, very thankful for the privilege
to be here with you today, and Rod Williams.
I look out, and I see José here today.
José was recently in Norfolk, Virginia—José Galvez, and probably all of
you know José, and many of you have known José for many years. But, you may not know that when José was in
Kirgizstan about two and half years ago, he met someone, and she has been
building a relationship with Jesus Christ, and with a lot of the ladies in the
church, and with myself, and others in the church. I didn’t know if this was going to be a
friendship, or a relationship, but, about a year and a half ago, she said she
wanted to be baptized in Jesus’ name.
And so she was baptized in Jesus’ name--not a year and a half ago; it
took a long time. We tried to get to
Kirgizstan, and that didn’t happen, and she tried to get to the United States,
and that didn’t happen, but, finally, a little over a month ago, she was able
to get baptized in Jesus’ name, and, as they were talking, they started to make
plans to get married. Now, I thought,
“That might happen in a year. That might
happen in two years. It might,” but what
did happen was, she was talking with immigration, and she was talking to José,
and José was talking to Nazira—I think José was talking to the Lord, too—they
ended up getting married, So José and Nazira are here today as husband and
wife. I’m going to be as plain as I know
how to be: I came here today, partially
because I knew that would be shock to some of you, and I understand that. You say, “Well, what does that have to do
with me?” Well, normally, when I preach
a message, I preach a message where it has a story, and a Scripture, and a
story, and a point, and a point, and a story, and a Scripture. I think today, I think today I’ll just tell
some stories, and see if there’s some time left for some Scriptures. Cedric C., how you doing,
man? I saw Barb B., I thought I was in
California; I see Cedric, I think I’m in Florida. Anyone else want to surprise me here? Jay H., before I go any further, many of you
know Jay, and some of you haven’t met Jay yet, but Jay’s been a faithful
brother in our ministry for many, many years.
Jay’s one of four boys, and Jay’s mom and dad are still living, and,
unfortunately, just a handful of days ago—I don’t remember exactly what day it
happened—but, Jay’s oldest brother, Scott, who had just celebrated his sixtieth
birthday, went to sleep—I believe it was Thursday night, but I’m not positive
about that—and he didn’t wake up. So,
Jay is traveling here with Pat T., right now.
Jay is going to go on to be with his family in Iowa, so please keep Jay
and his family in your prayers. Scott
wasn’t sick; there was no indication of this coming or happening. Scott hadn’t been feeling sick in any way
that Jay knows of… It was a very big shock;
sixty years old. I remember when sixty was
old. Young people, stick around long
enough, and you’ll say that, too. I
remember when my dad was sixty, and we had a boat. I was still in high school. He and my mom started late; my dad was sixty
when I was in high school, and my dad tried to waterski. I thought, “Why are you doing that, dad? You’re sixty!
I’m not even sure if we should let you in the boat!” But he waterskied, and did pretty good. Now I’m passed sixty, and I think, “How did
he do it?” So, I said I was going to tell you
some stories. Here’s one: There was this mom that went to prison, and
she was there to visit a man who had murdered her son. The inmate was surprised when he came into
the visiting room and saw the mother—he recognized her from the trial. When he sat down at the table, she said, “I
came here today to forgive you.” He
said, “Thank you.” She said, “No, don’t
thank me. It’s not for you. I’m doing it for me, because, you see, my
heart has been getting very, very hard, and I realize that the only way for me
to soften it is to forgive you. I was also thinking about a story
I heard several years ago. It’s a story
of a pastor and his wife, and they had a wonderful church, church family. It was a small church, a loving church;
everyone knew each other very well. The
son of this pastor and his wife grew up in the church, and he was a great young
man. He did everything right. He never disappointed his parents; he never
embarrassed them; he never did anything that would cause the pastor to hang his
head and say, “Yeah, my son did that.”
None of that. He grew up, he was
fine; he didn’t everything great. He graduated
high school. He had a Christian
testimony, both in church, and in school, and in the community. So, he went off for two years, in the
service, and had come home on leave several times and visited with his church
family, and his natural family, maintained his testimony while he was in the
military, and, after he had completed his two years of active duty time, and
started his reserve time, he decided to move back home, and he was active in
the church again. But, while he was in
the service, there was a young lady who came to church. She gave her heart and life to Jesus
Christ. She was baptized; she was really
serving the Lord, and the church family had embraced her. Everything was fine. But, this young lady that got baptized, she
had a past; she was a prostitute.
Everyone in town knew it. I mean,
those that didn’t know her, had heard of her.
When she got saved, it was sort of a stir in the community, as well as
in the church. But they were the type of
people to embrace her, and they did a good job as a church family, and they did
what church families do; they embraced her.
But, you see, this pastor’s son took up with her, and they started
dating, and one thing led to another, and now they’re engaged. And there was a split about to take place in
the church, because some people were really finding this unacceptable, because
the son had been studying in ministry, and there was a possibility that he was
going to be the pastor of that church. Everybody
liked him; he assisted his father. It
was a potential—it was possible that he would become the pastor, and then
what? They would have to deal with this
reality. The pastor prayed for wisdom;
he said, “How am I going to deal with this?
This is my church family, and I love them, and they’re hurting, and they
don’t know why. Lord, grant me
wisdom.” He prayed, and the answer came,
and he knew what to do, how to direct them.
He said, “I’m not going to answer people individually; I’m going to do
it from the pulpit.” And he said, “I
understand that a lot of you are troubled, and I prayed for wisdom, and now I
think I understand why you’re troubled.
It’s because you don’t believe that the blood of Jesus Christ can really
cover sin, and I’m going to tell you today, it can.” And I’ve got another story I want
to tell you. This one’s a little more recent.
Rod and I had a cup of coffee this morning before we came to church,
with Colin Powell and Tom Brokaw. They
were on television, we were just… And
Tom Brokaw asked Colin Powell, “What do you think about Hillary Clinton?”
because, you know, Colin Powell was a secretary of state, and Hillary Clinton
was a secretary of state. And Tom Brokaw
asked Colin Powell, “Well, what do you think about the E-mail situation with
Hillary Clinton, and her using her private server to send classified
E-mails?” I was curious as to how Colin
Powell would answer this, because I’ve always considered him to be a very
intelligent and wise man—I still do, and this confirmed it once again. Colin Powell said, “That’s not for me to
comment on, because there are two inspector-generals currently, with their
teams, investigating this, and I’m sure they’ll bring comment when the time is
right. Next question.” Colin Powell.
We were singing this morning, and
there’s a line in one of the songs that really grabbed me. I confess, I don’t understand every line in
this song, like the, “Loves like a hurricane, stings like a bee…” Or was that Cassius Clay that said that? But there’s a line in that song that says, “I
don’t have time to maintain these regrets/When I think about the way/He loves
us.” “I don’t have time to maintain
these regrets/When I think about the way/He loves us.” I was talking to some friends at dinner
recently, and I reminisced a little bit about my father, and some of you that
know me, and have heard me preach more than once, you know that I sometimes
tell family stories from my childhood, and, if you’ve heard some stories about
my father, you might have started to put together a picture of the man that I
talk about. Some of you have even met my
father. He passed away in 1996, but some
of you have met him; he came to church several times prior to his passing. I’ve had a lot of people tell me about how
great my dad was. Pete S., I heard
something in church recently that I think you’ll appreciate. Your son, Scott, was talking, and he was
talking about his father. For those of you
who don’t know, Pete, that’s Scott’s father.
He said, “My father is probably the smartest man I ever met.” I thought, “Pete should be here right now.” Some of you long to hear those words, and you
know what I mean. Some of you, your
children are still too young; they’re still learning. May God bless you. Somebody said, “When are you going to start
preaching?” I’m almost there. I said to these friends I was having dinner
with recently, I said, “You know, I choose to embrace certain memories of my
father, but there are some memories I wish I could forget.” I’m just paraphrasing what I said. I remember the hurtful words he said when he
drank too much. I remember him missing
my high school graduation, only for me to come home and find that he had drank
too much that morning and forgot that there was a high school graduation. You see, we all make choices, don’t we? Those of you who have heard me tell loving
memories of my father, those are all true, all real; those are the ones I
choose to embrace. I only brought up
those that I just talked about to make a point:
we make choices, as a family, don’t we?
We make choices what we focus on; we make choices how we deal with
things. It looks like, after my stories,
there’s enough time to bring a little message, so, if you’ll bear with me, I’ll
ask you to come with me to the Gospel of Luke.
I only have a handful of Scriptures; it looks like five of them
today. Five passages. As I was prayerfully thinking about this
message, I was thinking about this; I was thinking, “What is it that we, as a
church family, do?” I came up with an
idea, and I haven’t run it by all the church leadership, yet; I haven’t talked
with Parrish and Andy; I haven’t talked to our church board, yet, but I think
they’ll embrace it. I’ve got this idea;
tell me what you think. If anybody hurts
our feelings, we dismiss them from church.
If anybody sins, we tell them to leave.
If Peter was in our church, and he cursed in the town square, we’d say,
“You’re no longer welcome in Christian Fellowship.” I think I’ve got a good plan, here. I think this is going to work. I think what we’ll end up with is the perfect
church. There won’t be a pastor, there
won’t be ushers, there won’t be singers…
But, other than that, I think it’s a perfect plan. You won’t have to pay any rent, because you
won’t need a building. There’s some
uncomfortable chuckles in the room. But,
what do we do with sin? I mean, we’re a
church family, after all, and we’re not embracing sin, are we? Anybody here think that what we, as a church
family, should do is say, “Let’s sin, and then celebrate?” And, by the way, if anybody might be
thinking, “Is he calling someone here a sinner today?” Let me just address that, so you don’t
misunderstand: Yeah, I’m calling you a
sinner. And, let me walk over here a
second (walking over so that he can face his reflection in the mirror), and I’m
calling you a sinner. Anybody here want to challenge me on
that? Because, if you do, I’ve got some
Scriptures that we could go to, and remind you that the Bible tells us we’re
all sinners (Romans 3:23), and, if you say you’re not, then you’re a liar, and
that’s a sin (1 John 1:8-10), so… So,
we’re sinners. So, what do we do with
sin? I mean, we’re a church, right? How do we handle it? We’ve all been offended, and, even if this is
your first time, we’ve probably managed to offend you somehow, already; maybe
one of my stories has offended you. We
all find somebody, somewhere, somehow, someplace, sometime that we don’t like
what they did, and we think they’re wrong.
Quite frankly, we’re offended by their presence. I’ve been there. Okay, one more childhood story,
and I hope this will make sense to you.
I was about six when we got brand new living room carpet. The carpet that preceded this carpet didn’t
have much padding, if it had any padding at all. But the new carpet, it had a thick
padding. I mean a spongy, thick padding. I mean, when you walked on it, you felt like
you were wearing P. F. Flyers. It was
great; it was awesome. It was spongy,
bouncy, thick wool carpet over a great…
Oh! It was awesome! You felt like you were walking on air when
you walked in the living room; it was really cool! So, I did what a six-year-old should do, I
thought, which was, I was doing my tumbling routine on the carpet. I was rolling down the living room, and I was
rolling back. I was doing somersaults,
and I was having a party on this brand new carpet in our living room. My older brother Jim went in the kitchen, and
I could hear him talking to our father.
He said, “Dad! Dad!” (That’s how Jim talks in my mind.) “Dad!”
If Jim was here, I probably wouldn’t do that, but, he’s not, so,
“Dad! Pete’s out there in the living
room, rolling around on the brand-new carpet.”
And my dad came out of the kitchen, and put his hands on his hips, and
he looked, and he walked back in the kitchen, and I could hear him say to Jim,
“You’re right, Jim, he is!” You see, Jim
wanted me kicked out of the living room, but, somehow my dad thought that that
was my living room, too, that I was just as welcome to be in it as Jim
was. The fact was that Jim found it
unacceptable that I was rolling on this new carpet; my dad thought, “That’s
probably what I’d be doing if I was six.
I might like to try it now!” So,
I let you laugh a little at my expense, but, what do we do with sin? What do we do when someone does something
that we don’t understand? What do we do
when somebody does something that we do understand, and it’s wrong? In Luke chapter fifteen, Jesus was dealing
with some folks, and I know you’re familiar with this passage, but I’m not
going to start in verse eleven like you might expect; what I’m going to do,
instead, is actually start in verse one: Luke 15:1-2 Then drew near unto him all the publicans
and sinners for to hear him. And the
Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying… So, have you got the
picture? You’ve got these people that
the Pharisees aren’t impressed with. Luke 15:2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured,
saying, This man receiveth sinners… Here’s
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—the Pharisees and scribes, these religious
folks, these church folks, are murmuring about Jesus, and how He’s dealing with
sinners! “He’s got these publicans,
these sinners, and He’s talking to them, and they’re listening to Him!” and the
scribes and the Pharisees are beside themselves. “He should be talking to us; He’s talking to
them! Why isn’t He talking to perfect
people, instead of those sinners, those publicans?” Luke 15:3-5 And he spake this parable unto them, saying,
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not
leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost,
until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders… Can
you picture a shepherd, putting a sheep, unless it has a broken leg, putting it
on his shoulders? This is some kind of
affection for this lost sheep, isn’t it?
Put it on his shoulders, rejoicing! Luke 15:6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together
his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found
my sheep which was lost. Again,
can you imagine the shepherds, going, “Well, that’s kind of what we do, isn’t
it? You had a hundred sheep; you lost
one, you put it on your shoulder, and now you want us to have a party.” “Rejoice with me! I found my lost sheep!” I imagine some of the shepherds were saying,
“He’s a little wacko. He’s a little
crazy. He carried this sheep in, like a
prize, and said to the other guys, who do the same thing…” They’re all smelling the sheep, you
know. I mean, it’s not like they don’t
understand what it is they do. Luke 15:7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be
in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just
persons, which need no repentance. Well,
we know everyone needs repentance, but, Jesus was giving them a little grace, a
little space, a little room; that’s what I think. Luke 15:8-9 Either what woman having ten pieces of
silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house,
and seek diligently till she find it? And
when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together,
saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Again,
Jesus is going a little overboard, don’t you think? I mean, don’t you think He’s dramatizing this
a little much? I mean, it was her piece
of silver; she already had it. She
didn’t have a party then. But, now she’s
lost it, she misplaced it, she lights a candle, she sweeps around until she
finds it, and now she wants to throw a party for this piece of silver. I think Jesus is sort of overplaying His hand
a little bit. I think he’s making a big to-do
about nothing, but, He’s got an audience, and He’s trying to teach them
something. He'’ trying to teach them,
“What do we do with this sinner?” Luke 15:11-12 And he said, A
certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father,
give me the portion of goods that falleth to me… I’m
not going to read that, but, if you’re taking notes, we’re going all the way to
the end of the chapter, verse thirty-two.
So, perhaps you’re very, very familiar with this passage, with the
father with two sons; it’s often referred to as the Parable of the Prodigal
Son. Sometimes we hear it preached on
from the perspective of the father’s love for the prodigal. And I think that’s exactly true; I think
there’s a great message in that point of the father’s love for the
prodigal. But now we’ve been reminded of
the audience that Christ was speaking to that day, and their heart wasn’t
rejoicing for the lost that was found, for the sinner that was redeemed. They had hardness of heart. They were, in this parable, the older
brother. They had their arms crossed,
and they weren’t happy at all. The
younger brother did all the sinning in the story. He took the money, he went to town, he wasted
it on riotous living. We could detail
that, but I don’t think we need to. He
did everything wrong you could do. He
did everything wrong you could do. And
the older brother’s out in the field, working hard, doing his chores. Come in early, staying late. Probably doing extra work, because his
brother’s gone. The parable doesn’t say
that, but you could sort of put that in there if you think it fits; I think it
does. He’s probably doing extra work
this whole time his younger brother’s out…
Maybe even some people carrying messages back, “You know what he’s
doing? How he’s dragging your family
name through the mud?” The older
brother’s getting more bitter by the day, and then the younger brother gets
hungry and comes back. I sort of leaped
through some passages, some verses there.
But, the younger brother comes to himself, he gets hungry, he comes
back, and the father sees him a long way off.
The father doesn’t waste a moment.
He doesn’t fold his arms; he doesn’t say, “Well, let’s see what he has
to say for himself.” Instead, he says,
“Kill the fatted calf. Put the ring on
his finger. Get sandals for his feet.” The older brother, out in the field, hears
some music. He doesn’t ask the father
why. He doesn’t ask the father why; he
asks one of the servants, “What’s going on?”
He didn’t have a close enough relationship with the father to go to him,
he just said to one of the servants, “What’s going on at the house? What’s going on?” “Well, your younger brother…” The servant knew. “Your younger brother’s back.” “Oh, really?
Huh. I hope they’re killing
him.” Now, I’m not sure, but I don’t
think this takes place in Texas, but if it did take place in Texas, then they
could have said, “Well, he needed killing,” and then killed him, and then that
would have been that. In fact, actually,
if you understand the custom of the day, he was dead. But the father broke all the rules, didn’t
he? The father broke all the rules in
this story. He didn’t have to receive
the younger brother back, his younger son.
He could have said, “You’re dead to me.
Go eat in the pigpen.” Remember
how humble the young man’s heart was when he came back, the younger
brother? “Maybe I could be a hired
servant. Maybe I could be a hired
servant. Just an hourly wage. No benefits or anything, just a hired
servant.” The father broke the rules; he
brought him back. The story reminds us that,
if we’re not careful, we could be the older brother, out in the field. We could have all the right credits to our
name, we can do everything right, make every service; come early, stay late. You
ever do a job in church—boy, I wish I could tell you this was one I’d never
done—you ever been picking up the chairs after the service, or washing the
windows, mopping the floor, or doing something, and you’re thinking, “Where’s
everybody else?” Anybody? Looks like lots of us. It’s easy to find fault with them,
right? Especially if you see them a
little while later and they’ve got ice cream on their face. “You were at Dairy Queen? And I was mopping your floor?” I know I’m an old guy. There’s an old movie; I hope somebody here
has heard of it or saw it, “Cool Hand Luke.”
He says, “Luke,” the warden says, “What you doing there, Luke?” “Putting the dirt in your hole, boss.” If you saw it, you know right where I’m
at. Luke can’t do anything right. Because the boss had told him to dig a
hole. “What’s that dirt doing in my
hole?” He’s looking at a flat piece of
hard ground. “I don’t know, boss.” See, the warden has put Luke in his place,
and Luke needs a little humbling. Luke
needs a little humbling. If you haven’t
seen the movie, it’s just about a guy in prison, and the warden is going to
“help” Luke. I know this isn’t a normal
message, but there is a message here.
It’s up to you whether you want it or not. The warden’s going to “help” Luke, so he
teaches him a lesson by saying, “There’s some dirt in my hole.” Of course, if you look, you don’t see a hole,
but Luke’s smart enough to exactly what he means when the warden says, “What’s
that dirt doing in my hole, Luke? You’d
better get it out.” Like twelve hours
later, maybe, twelve hours of back-breaking digging, he’s got a nice hole dug,
that’s when the boss says—I don’t remember how he said it, right now, but—“Why
isn’t that dirt in my hole, Luke?” “I
don’t know, boss.” Luke can’t get it
right. Whatever he says is wrong. I was in boot camp, and the drill instructor
said—company commander, we called them back then; now I think you call them
best friends—the company commander told us to stand at attention, and he left
the room. He came back; it seemed like a
long time. It was probably fifteen
minutes, but fifteen minutes at attention in an empty room, you know, he wasn’t
even there. He went out and got
coffee. He came back, and he said, “ARE
YOU ALL TIRED OF STANDING AT ATTENTION?”
Pretty obvious answer to that question; we said, “Yes, sir!” in unison,
all of us. He said, “YES, SIR? WELL THAT
MEANS YOU NEED SOME MORE PRACTICE AT IT.
STAND AT ATTENTION.” And he left
the room. So, he came back fifteen
minutes later; he asked the same question, “ARE YOU ALL TIRED OF STANDING AT
ATTENTION?” We figured now we know the
answer to this question. We said, in
unison, “No, sir!” He said, “YOU LIKE
IT? KEEP STANDING AT ATTENTION.” Sometimes church is like that, we just can’t
seem to get it right. We try; we think
we know the rules, we think we know the answers, but we’ve got dirt in the
boss’s hole, and he wants it out, and then he wants it back in. We’re just going through the motions, but we
don’t seem to quite know how to deal with this thing called sin. Well,
Paul was writing to the Church at Galatia, and he said: Galatians 6:1 Brethren, if a man
be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual… That’s
you. “Ye which are spiritual.” That’s us.
The good ones. The ones who
aren’t making any mistakes. Well,
I’d better get back to scripture. I told
you I was going to tell another story, but, I sort of made a liar out of myself,
didn’t I? How about Romans 6? What does it say about this sin thing? Galatians 6:1-2 What shall we say
then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to
sin, live any longer therein? So,
we’re not supposed to sin, yet, if we do, there’s forgiveness? Seems like we ought to. No we shouldn’t, and you know why. I’m digging around you today. I’m especially digging around—watch this—I’m
especially digging around those who have been doing it right for a long time,
because we’re the ones that forget what we’ve been forgiven of. You see, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’
chew, I don’t go with those that do; I’m pretty good. And, there’s examples of people that felt
that way in the Scripture. I fast. I tithe of all I get. You know, God, you really might want to put
my face on a poster, you know, “Be like Pete.
You ought to be more like Pete. That’s what you ought to be like.” Except God knows Pete and there’s no such
poster. But, how about us perfect
people, when we haven’t made any mistakes in a long time, when we’re not fresh
out of forgiveness. Anybody here need
forgiveness recently? Don’t raise your
hands. Anybody here need forgiveness
recently? I mean real recently? Maybe
today? Because those of us who are
thinking, “No, not me; I’ve been doing pretty good,” it’s pretty easy to find
fault with those who do. Considering
thyself, lest thou also be tempted. I
know I’m not preaching loud; I’m not preaching evangelistic, but, if you’ll let
this still water flow, it will run deep. So,
I think I was about to go to verse three here: A
lot of questions need to be asked at this point: How do you know that? Where were you? Who brought her to you? How did you find her? What were you doing? Why weren’t you in Temple? John 8:4-5 They say unto him, Master, this woman was
taken in adultery, in the very act. Now
Moses… They’re
going to quote Moses to Jesus; they don’t understand. That’s all you need to know: they’re going to quote Moses to Jesus; they
don’t get it. But, wait a minute, do we
ever quote Moses to Jesus? “But, Jesus,
the Law says…” You see, most of the time
that Jesus was in trouble, it was because of how He dealt with sinners. It’s quiet in here, Parrish; we were all
screaming and shouting and loving the Lord…
But, you see, most of the time that the religious folks—by the way, that’s
us… I
went to the doctor not too long ago, and I have carpal tunnel. Anybody ever have carpal tunnel? My hands hurt, and fall asleep, and I don’t
have good coordination, and it’s happening in both hands. My doctor, he’s an interesting guy—he’s a nut. I’ll give you an example, before I finish
this story, of what a nut he is. He’s a
retired Air Force colonel. He was a
doctor in the Air Force, and he knows I was in the Navy. So I had cancer removed from my face. They got it all; everything’s fine. It was a malignant melanoma, you know—Oh,
I’ll tell you a story about that. So,
when I had that malignant melanoma, they cut this thing off my face, and they
said, “We’ll send it out for biopsy, and, if you don’t hear from us by next
Friday, call us, and we’ll tell you what it is.
So, by the next Friday, I hadn’t heard from them—I wrote that on the
calendar—and I called, and I said, “Hey, did you hear anything about that thing
you cut off my face?” And the
receptionist, she must have been pretty new. She said, “Well the doctor’s on vacation; he
won’t be back until next week. He left
yesterday. But, let me look at your
chart.” And she said, “Ohhhh. You’ve got cancer, and you’ve got the bad
kind. Anyway, he’ll be back next
week.” I don’t think you’re supposed to
do that. I don’t think that’s in the
receptionist’s handbook. I just don’t
think you’re supposed to do that. So,
anyway, I called him, after he got back.
They had me come in; they cut it all out. So, now, when I get these ugly bumps on my
head, I’m supposed to tell my doctor.
So, I told my doctor—this is my new doctor, the nut—and so he— I’m
preaching, I’m not telling jokes; I’m preaching here. There’s a message here—so I told my doctor,
“I have this spot, and I had a malignant melanoma.” So he said, “Well, we’ve got to cut that
thing off. He did; he scooped it out
right there. I thought we were going to
talk about this for a minute; next thing I know, he’s putting gauze on my
face. He said, “You’ve got to hold that
there while I get some tape.” And then
I’m thinking, “I didn’t know you were packing.”
He had his knife; he must have had it in a pencil drawer or
something. He scooped that thing right
out of my face. That looked big. I’m thinking, “That’s got a root on it.” It looked like a tooth. I’m still preaching; stay with me. So, I called him when he told me to call him,
and he was in; he hadn’t gone on vacation.
And he says, “We’ve got to talk.”
So I came in, and he says, “Oh, I got your file mixed up with someone
else. Yours is fine; it’s just a
barnacle.” I said, “Barnacle?” And he said, “Yeah, isn’t that what you
sailors get?” So, I had a barnacle on my
face, and sometimes we think it’s cancer, and sometimes it’s just a barnacle,
and sometimes we think someone ought to die for their sin, and they’ve just got
a barnacle that needs to be cut off. And
here’s the interesting thing: we don’t
always know; we can’t always tell from our perspective. We’re not always able to tell what God is
doing in someone’s life. So,
what is it we do with this sin? Do we
condemn? And then do we take it so lightly that we don’t care? You know, let’s swap wives, and, you know,
just run around and act crazy and don’t live right? But I think we need to live right. I think we need to do our best to do our best
to be good Christians. But I think when
we see our brother overtaken in a fault, that we should restore such a one with
a spirit of meekness, considering ourself, lest we also be tempted. And, I think, if we work on it, we’ll find a
balance where we can be a hospital for sinners and still a sanctuary for
saints. I think we can be both at the
same time. I think that we can do both,
and I think that, to be a great church, to be the church that God’s called us
to be, we must do both. I really believe
with all my heart that, at the end of the day, that we have to do both, that we
have to be able both to love our brother and our sister when they disappoint us
by sinning. And we have to be able to
rejoice with people when they’re doing well.
And we have to find a way to have a balance in it, and let God be the
judge. For, when we hear Christ say, “Judge not,” He says that with what judgment we judge,
we shall also be judged (Matthew 7:1-2).
Saints, I’s a tough thing to be a Christian in this day and age. People will frustrate us; they’ll hurt
us. Sometimes we’ll feel like we have to
take sides, because we love two people from church and they’re fighting with
each other. Maybe they got
divorced. Maybe you feel like you have
to pick one over the other. Maybe you
feel like, “You know what? How do you
deal with that?” And it might be hard
for some of you to hear this message—and I mean this sincerely, I’m not trying
to be clever—you’ve never really committed the “big” sins, but I’m struggling
to find the term, “big sin” in the Bible.
I’m struggling to find the ones that God winks at, the ones He doesn’t
really care about. I know, we could get
into a study about how God feels about this that and the other, but, I think,
pretty much, we’ve got to accept the fact that sin is sin. And some sins, because of our nature, we find
more offensive than others. Some sins,
because of our upbringing, we find more offensive than others. Some sins, because of our past sins, we find
more offensive than others. So, what do
we do in the body of Christ with sin? We
can’t ignore it. We have to call it what
it is; sin is sin, and we need to carve it out.
But, when it happens, or it’s our brother or sister that’s in sin, or it’s
our perception that they’re in sin—how about that? I’m
going to close in a moment, but before I do, I want to tell you this: when I look back over my life in ministry,
when I look back over my years before I was a pastor and as a pastor, and some
of you will want to shout hallelujah when I say this—some of you have been the
recipient of my misbehavior—I will tell that the times I’ve acted worst as a
Christian was when I had the perception of someone else’s sin and I thought it
was my job to deal with it. Colin Powell
said this morning, he said, “It’s not for me to comment on that.” I’m glad we had breakfast with him this
morning, Rod, I needed to hear him say that.
I think this might be the first time I’ve quoted Colin Powell in a
sermon, but he said, “It’s not for me to comment on that,” and I said, “That’s
what I was looking for, Lord. Thank You.” It’s not for me to comment on that, but it is
for me to pray on that. It is for me to
be a Christian on that. It is for me to
live and love with it, in terms of loving my brother or my sister, my mother,
my father, my son, my daughter, even if I perceive their sin. So,
as I close today, I want to ask you to pray with me. God Almighty, help us to be the church You’ve
called us to be. Help us to be, Lord,
able to see You in every situation. And,
when we find ourselves acting a little bit more like the scribes and the
Pharisees than You would have us to, help us, lord Jesus, to remember that
charity does cover a multitude of sins ( 1 Peter 4:8). Help us to now be judgmental in a way that
could cause someone to stumble. Not
taking it lightly, but letting You be God, and us be Your children. We thank You in Jesus’ name, and the church
said amen.
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