We’ve gotten into this habit of judging everybody we think is “worse” than us, but here’s the deal, Romans 2:1-3 straight up calls us out on judging others. “…you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things…” God didn’t put us here on earth to sit around condemning others, but to love others. We have to remember that without God, we are nothing. We can brag all day about the “good” things we’re doing, but God doesn’t care about them and they won’t get us into heaven. Take a look at Isaiah 64:6…”All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” A couple things you need to know here: 1) Our righteous acts = the “good” things we do and 2) In the bible, filthy rags are what we would now call a used feminine hygiene product. Did you catch that? God compares our “righteous acts” to filthy rags…gross, right? He sees our righteous works as totally unclean. Martin Luther said “The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man is that somehow he can make himself good enough to deserve to live forever with an all-holy God.” So who are we to judge someone’s speck in their eye when we have a plank sticking out of ours??
What I’m trying to get at is we are so incredibly undeserving of the love and mercy Christ pours into our lives. Ephesians 2 is probably one of my favorite chapters in the bible…it tells us that we were DEAD in sin, but through Christ, who is rich in mercy, He made us ALIVE in Him. And it’s by grace that we’ve been saved, not because of our good works so we can’t boast. It was God who loved us when we were dead in sin and it’s God who saved us when we were so undeserving.
Now that we have seen and experienced the love of Christ, we are called to spread the message of hope and love and grace. We aren’t called to condemn and judge, but to love and to be the light. To everybody. Whether they’re a crack addict, a porn star, someone who goes out and gets plastered all weekend long, or just simply a friend who doesn’t know Jesus, it is our calling to bring them the good news. That there is something bigger, something better than whatever is currently consuming their lives. Our message should be one of hope and love. It is our job to show people that it’s not about their works or their past sins, it’s about being saved by Christ. Madeline L’Engle said “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.” So my challenge for you is to embrace Matthew 5:16 and to be the light in a world of darkness.
The Set Apart 