The Gentleness of Bold Preaching

Calling Sinners to Repentance in the True Hope of Jesus Christ

Good Morning!

One of the downsides of being a Christian is that we do not have the freedom to let the truth work for us. We live in a world where most people don’t really have much compunction shading things toward their point of view. A little touch here and there so that the story becomes one where they are the champion and everyone else comes short. These are things which can frustrate believers as we live and breathe in a world soaked in sin. There are times when our faith in the risen Christ and love of those things that are good can get in the way of advancement at work, opportunities for extracurricular fun, whether that be sport, hobbies, competitions, or whatever.

Much temptation awaits.

For today’s prayer and worship help I want to come at this question with a positive message. Telling the truth, maintaining the truth, and accepting the truth should be a central part of the identity of every single believer in the Lord Jesus. The church shouldn’t be a place where we struggle to deal with the same fight against untrustworthiness and vanity that we do out in the domain of the prince of the power of the air. I’m not naïve enough not to recognize that we have sinners in the body of Christ. However, as Paul writes in Romans 6 we are to be found as those who love the word, and who seek to put to death the old man, and be conformed to the image of our Savior. Our fallibleness is not something we should lean into, rather we who rest in the grace of Jesus should more readily deal with sin and turn away from its lies. It is in the hope of the gospel that we live and move and have our being. The way this works itself out in the subject at hand is that as Christians we are to be those who value truth above all things primarily because we live in the household of the God of truth. It is the currency of our faith. We live in the full assurance of redemption because the Lord’s word is always yeah and amen in Himself.

Living in complete integrity is one way that we express the second table of the law to our neighbor. You’ve heard me say before that we cannot love our neighbor until we love ourselves first. At first glance that sounds kind of arrogant bordering on selfish. However, the more we learn to center our own soul in the covenant promises the more we are drawn to see the blessing of Christ’s words to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. Truly His grace is sufficient for all of our needs. The more we understand that, and see the loving honesty of Jesus’s dealings with sinners in His earthly ministry, the easier it is for us to comprehend why we should come along side all men with a tongue and heart that speaks only a desire for the best for the other person, which is defined then not by what is best for us in them, but what is best for them in Christ. There is a higher view of their personhood involved in this way of thinking. We only desire for the individual to transcend their sinfulness and embrace the true vision of their identity as a redeemed human being being remade by the power of the indwelling Spirit.

That all might sound a bit too pious. Yet, here we see the positive side of truth-telling in love witnessed to us in places like John 4 and John 8. In both of those passages Jesus is dealing with women caught up in sexual sin. The former is cohabitating with the latest in a series of men, and the later was engaged in a more traditional form of adultery. When Jesus comes to them we do not see Him either downplay their sin or treat them as pagans of the worst sort. They are sinners and Christ came to save sinners. He sounds a clear note, unmistakable in it’s warmth and power. In both cases these ladies are brought into the kingdom of God and follow the one who called them out. We see many people fail in evangelism in that they speak the gospel as a means of conformity to a way of life rather than as the way to life.

There is a sense in which understanding the difference between those two things is central to what we are talking about when we conversate about this call to love your neighbor with the truth. You yourself came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because you were convicted of your transgression and rebellion against God Almighty and heard and saw by the virtue of the inward work of the Holy Spirit that your only hope was going to be the one who calls the weary and heavy laden and gifts and grants them rest in Him. It wasn’t your forsaking sin and then being a good person which recommends you to Christ. It was your recognizing that the only hope for a sinner is Jesus and His finished work on the cross and the redemption He purchased for you by His blood. To tell someone to stop sinning so that they can be saved is like instructing a blind person to see.

Another way to think about this is to consider Paul’s confrontation of Peter as recounted to us in the book of Galatians. As long as the Rock was among the gentiles he ate pork and shellfish and had a good old time. Yet, as soon as the Jews showed up Peter acted like he had never met a gentile before. The Apostle to the Gentiles reacted in kind. He showed up Peter as the hypocrite that he was. By his actions he was showing that God had a different standard for the gentiles than he did for the Jews. He was acting in hatred against his neighbor by requiring of them something God Himself never had.

In closing, we need to make clear as well that the idea that a person needs to only be offered a good life in Christ without the warning against sin is just as unloving. To tell a sinner that he or she can remain in their sin and live an abundant life in Jesus is a lie. Our message is to those who are perishing. If we would see them thrive in this day and the next than we cannot mince words when it comes time to be honest about what breaking the law leads to, not only according to Romans 1 does it lead to destruction and troubles in this moment, it eternally does so in the day of judgment to come. If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, in the whole truth of God, we muse show forth the joy of gospel grace, of the eternal blessings which we experience now and in the future in Christ. We are to speak boldly, with surety and without fear of man, yet in a spirit which shows the gentleness of a dove.

Here’s a closing word:

https://founders.org/articles/the-source-of-biblical-boldness/

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church