Were you are amazed as I was watching Nik Wallenda cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope?
In addition to listening to his constant stream of praise to our Savior, just the magnitude (or, perhaps idiocy) of what he was doing was shocking. He walked across Niagara Falls on a cable. The pictures and video were nothing short of astonishing.
But, during that entire walk, he was never in danger. He was tethered to a safety line. If he had fallen, he’d have only been embarrassed, not dead. The stunt was still incredible – my heart was beating rapidly as I watched – but Nik Wallenda was never really in danger.
But you and I walk a tightrope every day as Christians in this God-forsaking, Christ-denying world. Each of us has a friend, a family member, a loved one who has embraced sin and unrighteousness, and we are forced to walk a spiritual tightrope which has no safety tether.
We have to walk the fine line between love and acceptance. We must love our children who reject our faith, even though we do not accept that rejection. We must love homosexuals without blessing homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle. When people we love decide to live together before marriage, we must not say that it is okay, but we must also not communicate personal rejection.
And that is not easy to do, is it?
We have a tendency to fall off the cable to one side or the other. We sometimes let our love for the person overwhelm our convictions. I’ve seen it more than once when a loved one “comes out of the closet.” Suddenly, lifelong biblical convictions are abandoned to maintain the relationship. I’ve also seen people lean to the other side – equally deadly. They withhold love, friendship or any kind of relationship because of the other’s sin.
It is one of our most difficult tasks, walking the tightrope between acceptance of the sin and rejection of the sinner. We ought do neither, but our tendency is to lean off balance one way or another.
And the world we live in rejects that this balance is acceptable. I have ministered to several homosexuals in my 30 years as a pastor. I can honestly tell you that I have not mistreated a single one of them. I stated what the Bible states – sin is sin. But I was respectful, decent and friendly to each. Yet, in this world, I am labeled a homophobe because I continue to preach that same-sex relationships are sin. It is demanded of us that we give not only love and kindness, but also acceptance – that we declare that which we have called sin to be fine and dandy.
Many, and some big names among them, have gone the acceptance route. Not wanting to be rejected by culture, or by sinners in that culture, they have accepted sin and sacrificed biblical convictions to do so. I know “evangelical” churches where people living together outside of marriage are allowed to teach Sunday School classes. “God loves you just like you are, so we accept you as you are and do not ask you to change.” And those who do this pride themselves on their love and acceptance.
Those who care about what the Bible says cannot accept sin so easily. We must always seek to walk the tightrope and keep our balance between loving people and accepting sin.
Love is focused on the person and the relationship. I believe every sinner needs to experience love, grace and kindness from Christians, regardless of how we feel about the sin. We do not call names, or treat people with contempt, or rejoice in peoples’ suffering. We must demonstrate the love that Christ showed us – while we were still sinners – to the world around us. We ought to be relentlessly loving to the worst of sinners.
Acceptance is focused on behavior. We simply cannot accept sin. Sin, by its very nature, is destructive to human beings. We must not accept sin in our lives any more than we would accept a cancer in our bodies. When we are diagnosed with cancer, we do not accept it. We fight. We change our diet. We get chemo and radiation. We do radical surgery. We know that accepting cancer leads to death. To live, we must fight it.
Christians never accept sin because we know it is a spiritual cancer. We fight sin! (Well, to be correct, we accept the fact that Christ defeated sin – but you understand the metaphor, right?) We realize that lust or greed or pride are soul-destroying and we accept the healing of Christ against them. We do not coddle sin or ignore it. We battle it in the power of Christ. And the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. It fixes what sin broke and heals all the diseases of the soul that sin creates.
We must walk that tightrope on a daily basis. We are called to love and minister to people whose lifestyles we utterly (and rightly) reject. That might be easy when you are ministering to the homeless or passing out tracts on Bourbon Street. It is a little harder to maintain the balance in a relationship with a family member or friend.
I wish I had four easy steps to share with you on how to maintain the balance. Frankly, I find it hard and perhaps some of you have some wisdom to share. I do have some thoughts.
1) Remember it is about the sinner and his (or her) relationship with Christ, not about how I feel!
It is easy when a friend or loved one sins to make it about my feelings, my hurt, my pain. But, as a blood-bought, redeemed saint, my job is not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life for others, as Christ did. My response needs to be governed by God’s love, not my hurt.
2) I am an ambassador for Christ. I cannot approve what he has condemned.
As a pastor, or as a friend, or a father, or a husband, or a…whatever, my ultimate responsibility is to represent Christ and his truth, not to have people like me. If someone hates me for upholding the standard of truth, they hated my Savior first, and for the same thing. I cannot, by my actions or attitudes, tell a sinner that their sin is no big deal to God.
3) Keep lines of communication open.
Silence, in a time like this, is not golden, it is poison. It breeds anger and bitterness. Keep talking. Keep trying.
4) Go all Yoda on the situation.
Sorry, the line from Star Wars came to mind. Luke looked at the sinking ship and despaired because it was too big a task for him. Yoda, in his Eastern mystic/New Age way said,
“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”
We do not trust in an impersonal, mystical and imaginary force; we trust in a living God. But when he works in us and through us, “a powerful ally he is.” He can do mighty works of power in people’s hearts. He can change lives, transform hearts. There is no problem you face that he cannot handle. So trust him!
You are not alone in the pain. He will carry you through. You do not have to fix this on your own. You are the agent of the living God. He will love through you and work in you.
Every one of us who loves God and his Word has to walk this tightrope. You have any wisdom you can share?
Oh, and anyone got one of those long poles Nik Wallenda used to keep his balance?
I’d really love any insights any of you have on maintaining this balance.
There are many times as we walk the tight rope we need to remember if your always looking down for the rope you will not make it across. That rope is called Faith and we need to look forward to make it across.
One of the things that helps me look forward is knowing that at the start of the Millennial Kingdom, I get to be enrolled in a Corrective Theology 101 class. Oh how Glorious of day that will be, I hear the instructors is pretty good.
We must accept, affirm, and validate people without condoning sinful behavior. It’s possible to do that. To communicate loving acceptance while rejecting sin. We must do that. To that we are called.
any suggestions on how?
I don’t think it’s that hard. We need to teach the Bible while loving our neighbor as ourselves. In that way we will strike a balance.
Not hard??
“…teach the Bible while loving our neighbor as ourselves…” “…strike a balance”???
Well, that may not be so hard for you, but for some of us, we probably love ourselves a little more than you do, I think…maybe.
Well, it can be if done in such a way as to communicate superiority. Our salvation is not merited, but is a gift given. If we communicate that in word and deed it may still provoke a negative response. But hopefully the positive responses we receive will occur more often.
The entire life of the Christian is one of repentance and forgiveness. All throughout our lives.
Sure, some sins may be more damaging than others (in this life) but they are all an affront to God.
Whether one has an addiction to porn (or even acts upon it), or just having trouble obeying traffic laws…it is sin, and is enough to separate one from the Living God…were it not for Jesus.
God’s law continually exposes our sinfulness, and Jesus continually forgives us. Anf the Holy Spirit works in us, for His purposes, through it all.
Great post. Thanks.
I wrestle with this issue often Dave, and I have written on it occasionally on my blog. My family and I had to go through this issue in a more personal way when one of my sisters cam out of the closet. My father is a pastor, and it created an awkward time in our family.
However, I can feel comfortable saying that while my sister knows we do not agree with her lifestyle, she does not feel loved any less by us because of it. I wish I could give specifics on how this can be done, but I am not entirely certain of it myself.
The only thing I know for certain is the Christ had the perfect balance of both grace and truth. He was full of both equally, and to magnify one or the other in our own life is to fall out of line with Christ. The only way to carry this out is through God. I also find myself praying over this often.
Good words.
” . . . this man welcomes sinners and eats with them . . . ” complained the scribes and Pharisees.
They were offended. Why? Because their sense of justice was offended.
They were the righteous ones, not the sinners and the tax collectors . . . they felt that THEY deserved Christ’s attention, not the OTHERS . . .
and so their sense of justice led to a separation in their minds between themselves and the sinners . . . they felt they were ‘better than’ the ones Christ had dined with and spent time with . . .
Does our sense of justice (which is infinitely better than chaos) get offended when we encounter the grace of God? Are we like the brother of the Prodigal Son who is angered when his father embraces his fallen brother?
And then the story of the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine to find the one in trouble and bring him to safety? Does this defy our logic of justice?
Recently a life-guard at a beach saw someone drowning just outside of his assigned area. He knew that his instructions were not to leave his post and help anyone in the nearby waters who was ‘outside’ of his assigned territory. But he could not obey. He could not watch that man die, not when he had the power to save his life. So he responded and saved the man. And accordingly, in justice he was fired from his job. He had stepped outside of what was allowed and left the ones in his care to go and save another . . . he was fired justly. But something in us ALL responded to that story with a recognition that what he had done may have been ‘wrong’ in the logic of justice, but that it was not wrong in the logic of grace.
justice, what is owed, calculation, division . . . we can and do humanly operate on this logic . . . . but Our God Who is indeed Just, is also a God of love and a God of grace;
and He does not follow the human logic of justice, but He has a way of being perfectly just and at the same time, being perfectly gracious and merciful and compassionate.
Christ’s parables help us to understand God’s ‘logic’ which does not so much contradict ours as it is so very far ABOVE ours. If we follow Christ, we come to understand a different way to respond to others in this world, because Christ’s encounter justice together with mercy and grace in a way we could not know, without Our Lord’s help.
This may have part of the answer Dave ” God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,”
It is not always us humans.
2 Timothy 2:24–26
24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
One of the things which I have discovered in trying to live the Christian life (I say trying and a poor one at that for many reasons) is that God has provided what are called feedback loops. Like the computer/auto pilot that controls a missile or a plane, there is built in self-correcting or automatic correcting mechanism. Go to far on the side of acceptance of sin, and one will come up against the wall of Divine judgmental reality. Go to far on the side of judgment and rejection, and one will come up against the wall of disaster, the end-result of indulgence. Homosexuality is a sin, and so is adultery, fornication, lying, lust, deceit, fraud, greed, and blasphemy. A true believer has a self-correcting agent in his or her life, the presence of the Holy Spirit, along with a book of instruction that is also designed to effect or produce balance in the life of a Christian.
Pharisees were sinners.
Jesus maintained the perfect balance of love and acceptance in his relations with Pharisees.
Emulate Jesus’ behavior with Pharisees when pondering HOW to balance love and acceptance with self-justifying sinners.