It is not fashionable to confront others about their sins.
It can even be dangerous as two street preachers recently learned as they preached
sin at a gay pride event in Seattle.
Consequently, many want to keep the message positive – sanitized of anything
negative. Sin is negative, but sin is inseparable from the Gospel. The Gospel
of salvation is not complete without mention of what we have been saved from! Without
an understanding of sin and punishment, the Gospel will seem meaningless,
perhaps even foolish. Grace has no meaning apart from an awareness of our need for grace. Besides, if we don’t see
our need for forgiveness, the idea that God will forgive us is offensive.
When the church was most Spirit-empowered, there was no
hesitation to confront the sinner with his sin. In his first evangelistic
sermon, Peter pulled no punches:
- “Therefore let all Israel be assured [in light of
the miraculous and biblical attestation] and of this: God has made this
Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
Why didn’t Peter keep the message
positive? Why did he have to mention “Jesus, whom you crucified?” That would only turn off his audience or even send
them into a violent rage, wouldn’t it? No! Instead, they were convicted of
their sin, as Peter’s next words indicate:
- When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart
and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for
all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” With many
other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves
from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were
baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
I think that we have a distorted
view of love. Perhaps instead of enabling, the most loving thing we can do is
to “cut [them] to the heart?” The results argue in favor of this.
Peter also informed his “cut”
audience that they had to “Repent and be baptized.” However, people tend to
think that they are good and deserving. Therefore, they think that there is
nothing they need to repent from. Oprah claims:
- A
mistake we humans make is believing that there is only one way…There are
many paths to what you call God…There couldn’t possibly be just one way…Do
you think that if you never heard the name of Jesus but lived with a
loving heart…you wouldn’t get to heaven?...Does God care about the heart
or if you call His Son ‘Jesus?’”
Oprah, as do many other Western
gurus, believes that God knows that we are basically good people who possess a
“loving heart.” Result – the loving heart enters heaven!
Therefore, our preaching has to
first demonstrate that we are not
entitled by our allegedly “loving heart” to any of God’s blessings. As long as
we think we are entitled, grace can no longer be grace but a payment that we
deserve from God by virtue of our goodness (Rom. 4:1-12).
In his next sermon, Peter once
again pounds his listeners about their sin:
- The
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his
servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you
disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You
disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be
released to you. You killed the author of life,
but God raised him from the dead. (Acts 3:13-15)
Quite a heavy indictment! We don’t know the fruitage of this
sermon, because Peter was immediately whisked away to court. However, before he
was grabbed, he preached the only solution for their sin and guilt:
- Repent,
then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of
refreshing may come from the Lord. (Acts 3:19)
Peter understood faith (3:16). However, it seems that he
wanted to emphasize the flip side of the faith coin – repentance. Faith and
repentance are inseparable. In order to turn to the Savior – our new life - in
faith, we automatically turn from the old life of sin. It is impossible to turn
to God without also turning away from something else at the same
time! Peter understood that in order to turn to the light, it was imperative to
turn from the darkness, and the Jewish people needed to know that they were in
darkness, even though they were children of the covenant.
Even before the Sanhedrin, he confronted the leadership with
their sin:
- “It is
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but
whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus
is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the
cornerstone (Psalm 118:22).’” (Acts 4:10-11)
Peter was filled with the Holy
Spirit. Consequently, he feared God and not men. I think that we need to always
pray and examine ourselves. We need to ask God to reveal to us whether we are
unduly concerned about the opinions of others at the expense of the opinions of
our Lord. Peter brought this message home on his next visit to the Sanhedrin:
- “We
must obey God rather than human beings! The God of
our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging
him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as
Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and
forgive their sins. (Acts 5:29-31)
According to Peter, even the
Sanhedrin had to repent in order to receive the mercy of God. One pastor told
me that Israel
had their own covenant and therefore didn’t need Jesus. However, the entire New
Testament demises such a notion. According to Peter, Jesus’ death and
resurrection are essential to the forgiveness of all sins, not simply Gentile sins!
Stephen was also filled with the
Spirit, but this didn’t lead him to preach a kinder and gentler gospel. He
devoted a lengthy sermon (Acts 6 and 7) to show his self-righteous opposition
what great sinners they were:
- “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are
still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist
the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not
persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the
Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have
received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
(Acts 7:51-53)
In order to make his point, Stephen
rehearsed the rebellious history of Israel, made plain by Scripture.
With this he was preaching to the choir and the choir was listening. He was building
a bridge to his ultimate point – that his protagonists were “just like your
ancestors!”
All of this doesn’t mean I’m ready
to wade into the midst of a gay pride event with a bullhorn. However, it does
mean that preaching sin cannot be separated from the Gospel. Stephen’s sermon
also suggests that it might be difficult to preach sin and repentance without
first having established a beachhead – areas of agreement.
Peter’s and Stephen’s listeners
all shared the same Scriptures. This made the accusation of sin easier than it
would be at the gay pride rally. I think that this means that we must be in
prayer about how and when we speak about sin, but not whether we will speak about it.
