It wasn't long ago that the most quoted verse in the Bible was John 3:16. "For God so loved the world," it says, "that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." What a beautiful verse. What a message---of hope, love, and salvation. If everyone in the world were to hear and know just one verse in the Bible, may that be it. And yet this verse that gives us such hope is no longer the most quoted verse in the Bible. Wanna know what is? Matthew 7:1. Do you know it? It says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." How sad that this has taken place of the Gospel. How sad that so many perceive this verse as a necessary weapon to ward off Christians, or to label them as a whole. And how sad that so many Christians deem it so important to prove that they're not judgemental and in turn sacrifice the Gospel to do so.
This last Summer I went on a missions trip to Chicago with the youth group, and of all my time there there is one event that I will never forget. We were all split into groups one afternoon and sent out into the city on a mission in which we had to find a meal with only $2 to spend. We were also supposed to go around in our designated neighborhood and ask the people there their thoughts about it. My kids and I were assigned to Lakeside, a predominantly homosexual neighborhood, and we were assigned the day before pride week began nonetheless. As we were walking down the street we met a man named Rod. By "met" I suppose I probably mean more of "stumbled upon" as it was midafternoon and he was already totally and completely wasted. He stopped us to ask if we knew where the hospital was. Being visitors we of course did not, and he began to walk on. But as he walked on he also began to wander into the street, into traffic, and this struck concern into us. This guy was drunk and was probably going to get hit by a car. So we called him back to us and started talking to him while Doug, one of our pastors, called around to different shelters to see if Rod could stay somewhere until he slept off the booze.
The amazing thing about drunkenness is that if someone has enough booze in them, they'll tell you ANYTHING. With a little prodding, Rod began to tell us about himself. He was visiting from Phoenix and staying with a guy he met online. However, with him being drunk he didn't remember where he was actually staying and he kept saying he couldn't call anyone because the phone in his pocket wasn't his. The more he talked, the more he spilled, and it wasn't long before his insecurities came bursting forth. He starting talking---nearly crying---about how he was old (only 27) and fat (not really), and no man would ever love him, and how much he just wanted to die. He told us about how his older brother used to molest him and how his parents had essentially disowned him because of his homosexual lifestyle. He told us that just earlier that day someone had come up to him and told him he was an abomination and that he was going to hell. And this, my friends, is where things began to change in the interaction.
Throughout his story he kept intermittently asking us why we were helping him. He didn't understand it. Everyone else walked right past him or ran away scared, yet there we were talking to him, trying to keep him from wandering off and getting hurt. He was amazed by this. But then THE question came that turned things around. After he had told us about the people who called him an abomination, he asked me if I myself thought homosexuality is a sin. I answered with hesitation, but also with honesty, and said "Well, I do believe it's a sin." He immediately shut down. "I don't like you anymore," he said. "You need to go to church. Go away." And he repeated this several times. I kept asking him why he didn't like me anymore. After all, I liked him. And I tried to explain to him that I believe pride is a sin too, and murder, and lust, and so on. I tried to explain that we're all sinners and to tell him of God's love for all of us. But he just didn't want to talk to me anymore. So he walked off. But he didn't get very far, because as he was going down the sidewalk he stumbled against an open gate and fell down with a crash, disappearing from view as he fell into someone's yard. We ran to help him up, took the liquor from his hand and dumped it out, and stayed with him while Doug continued to find a place for him to go. We didn't really get anywhere from there, and eventually we had to send him off with a policeman for the sake of his own safety. He probably hated us for that, but I hope he understands someday. And I hope one day he'll realize how much God loves him.
This experience spoke loudly to me of Matthew 7:1, of the misconception that is often held concerning the words "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." There is a vast difference between being judgemental and judging something as being right or wrong, and a lot of people tend to confuse the two. It is not wrong to call something that God declares to be a sin, a sin. It is, however, wrong to declare it out of pride, with the belief that you are better than them because of the sin they committed. I can honestly say that when I told Rod homosexuality is a sin, it was not done with pride but out of love. I do not think I am better than Rod. I feel for him. If I were him, had lived his life, and had gone through the terrible things that he's gone through, I would probably struggle with the same things.
Rod, like many people, automatically judged a statement of truth to be a judgemental statement. He believed me to be judgemental because I said it. But really, he reacted so strongly and negatively to it because of the guilt that it made him feel. No one wants to feel guilty. No one likes to feel guilty. But when sin is in our lives, we all
need to feel guilty, because we need repentence and redemption from that sin. That guilt is the working of the Holy Spirit to lead us to Him. This is why I honestly believe that me telling him that homosexuality is a sin was a loving thing to do, despite the fact that it was perceived as judgemental. Rod believes that his sexuality is his identity. Being gay is "who he is." Society condones his sin. It encourages him to embrace it. To not be ashamed of it. To continue in a lifestyle that is clearly destroying him. People think they're doing good by condoning homosexuality and accepting people for "who they are." The problem is that that is not who they are, and condoning it is not what's best for them. Condoning sin does not offer them healing, it just pushes them deeper into a lifestyle that is harming them.
Now if I were to just go around telling people that there is sin in their lives---pointing out condemnation without hope---then that too would do not good and in it itself is not a loving thing to do. Because whenever we point out sin we must also point out the grace that is given to us through the blood of Jesus Christ. So is Rod's homosexual lifestyle a sin? Yes. And is it okay to tell him that? If you truly care for him and are seeking to offer hope, then yes. But remember that Rod is also not just a gay man. He is so much more and doesn't even know it. He is a man who is created in the image of God and loved completely and wholly by God. Christ died to save him, and if Rod were the only person alive on this earth, God still would have layed down His life for him so that he would be made righteous, so that he could be healed and made whole, so that he could live eternally with Christ. So whenever you come across someone whose actions or beliefs you disapprove of, remember that just as Christ died for you and me (who by the way are also SINNERS), he also died for the homosexual, the adulterer, the murderer, the terrorist. He died for the Muslim and the Jew, the Hindu and the Buddhist. Christ died for all of us, but we are also each responsible for accepting that free gift of salvation, and sometimes the first step to leading a person to that point is to point out sin...to declare the very law that Christ himself died to set us free from---because we need to know that we need to be saved from it.
So if you are a Christian and reading this, I beg of you not to shy away from taking a stance on these things. Don't shy away from speaking God's truth into the lives of others just because you are afraid of being labeled as "judgemental." As a Christian you are called to love in spite of sin, but you are also called to judge what is right from what is wrong and to keep others accountable for their actions. And remember that sometimes you are doing far worse when you say nothing at all than you would be if you were to say something that might be perceived wrongly. After all, it's not about you. It's not about what people think of you. It's about loving God and loving others. And sometimes (though not in all circumstances) the most loving thing you can do for a person is to tell them exactly what they don't want to hear...because when it concerns the Gospel, it's what they
need to hear.
