Confusing Things Christians Say - Week 5 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
Confusing Things Christians Say
Week 4 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
So in the series we're trying to slow down these things. We hear all the time in church in our culture, sometimes in the Bible. Trying to figure out exactly what these things mean. So we can enjoy them in our hearts and apply them in our lives.
And here we get to tackle, maybe the most famous one of them all. “Hate the sin. Love the sinner.” Give me a big thumbs up if you heard that before? Yeah, almost all of you have. right? You heard it in church, you heard it from Christian people, even here it out in the community. And have you seen the musical “Hamilton” before? Smash Broadway Hit? What shows up right in the middle of Hamilton? This is how, you know, it's mainstream. “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” It struck me the other day. I think the reason why that's such a common phrase that you hear these days is because all of us sooner or later can find a person that we really, really love. Who's doing something that we really, really hate.
Has this happened to you yet in life? You see someone that you care about, I meanly your deeply concerned about. You just can't dismiss them or kick them to the curb. You love them deeply and yet the choices they're making the path that they're on the things that you're doing you just know are not good for them, it's not good for their present or their future. When you love someone. But you can't. Yeah even close to like what they're doing. Well, you understand the emotional attention of hating the sin but loving the sinner.
You know, maybe you have a brother or sister or son, or daughter or a grandchild, who's just in that super rebellious phase, And you, I mean, you love them, you do anything for them, but you just hate how everything is a fight, they're running with the wrong crowd, just getting drunk or high. On the weekends, they're throwing away their chance at a good education and their future and you can't just dismiss them. You can't possibly not care, but you also desperately so wish they would change the path that they're on.
Maybe have a buddy who's really great at his job but he's not really great at being a husband.
And his boss raves about him, but his wife's really frustrated with him. And he's investing the best of his time in the best of his energy. Not just to make ends meet and provide daily bread because that's what that's what fills him up on the inside. And it's that the only person he's married to the only children who will call him their father are suffering at home and you hate it that the priorities are backwards and people are getting hurt, you love him but you hate his choices.
How many of the friends that like to have a good time way too often? And the partying has turned into a problem. And there's the hangover and the need, and the bridges that are being burned, the opportunities that are being lost and you're not a teetotaler who says you can never have a drink. But this is a time when the line is a line and drinking becomes a problem and you just you hate it. You hate what addiction does to people?
Maybe someone in your family, who's just, they grew up in church. They know what the Bible says about, right and wrong. Yet, when it comes to religion or sexuality or relationships, it's just like they've pushed that to the side and they say that they're happy and they're living their truth. But you know enough about what God says that they are just like you and I will stand before a God who defines what is good and right and will be judged for the way that we live and you're scared. Scared for the future. Scared for Judgment Day that's coming.
Maybe you care about people like I do, we're doing anything that's like super destructive. It's just that they've lost sight of God.
It's work. Whether it's a cabin, whether it's Recreation, whether it's an education. They're so focused on that it excites them, but just bit by bit, you see them drifting from church in the Bible and prayer and Jesus and you know where that path leads. It might lead to a little bit more money and a little bit more success, but it leaves you in the end without the god that you truly need. Or maybe a family member or friends who's just gotten sucked into the dark and angry side of our Modern Age. They're passionate about politics, which is a great thing, because politics matter, but they've gotten just sucked into that part. That makes them angrier and angrier and more fearful and fearful and you wouldn't mind talking about the subject but for them it's like a button you push. Where you can have a dialogue and you can exchange ideas. It just gets so angry so fast, so defensive, so accusatory and you hate what it's done to them. They used to be a little more calm and even-tempered and objective, but now they're not. They’re just sucked into the latest talking points of their favorite new show.
So, it can happen with sex or substances or work.
Recreation all of us. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it will that you're going to love someone so deeply who's going to be doing something that you deeply like and dislike. And so no wonder the phrase is so common, but what should we do in those moments? Well, they say you should hate the sin, but love The Sinner.
There's a pause for a second and ask him ever thought deeply about those words. Hate. I mean, I know some Christian homes where mom would not let her Christian kids use the word hate under her roof. That's not a Christian word, right? God is a God of love. He tells us to love him with our whole heart, love our neighbor as ourself. So should that feeling, that visceral hate come out of a Christian heart? Or is it the wrong word for Christians to use? And let's be honest, I mean, will someone really feel the love? If you hate the way they live, every time I see you, I'm judging your lifestyle. Well, thanks, that makes me feel close too. You should. Should Christians be that judgmental towards the way that other people live and should we really hate the sinner? The one and only problem in the room, when all of us got sin and all of us got struggles, and we all have plenty to work on ourselves. Should we really be worrying about correcting and judging and changing and calling other people to repentance.
It's a good question. Is that a good biblical City? This, a good guide for Christians to live by “Hate the sin. But love The Sinner.” Well, there's the kind of questions I want to explore with you today. I want to grab a Bible and see what God says about that. Should his followers hate the way that people live? Should we be judgmental at times? Should we just love people like Jesus loved and how do we do it? If that's really what God wants. How can you dislike something in the heart? And yet deeply love people at the same time. Now I want to warn you today. This is an emotional topic, it can be intense thinking about love and hatred. This isn’t going to be a clappy, giggly sermon you’re allowed to laugh if you want, but you probably won't. But I think you, like me, and need to know what God wants us to do in those moments where someone we love is doing something we hate. So, let's start with some definitions. Grab a pen. And a love for you. I've just had to find a few words. So let's start with the word hate itself. Hate, it says you could probably guess means: the strongly dislike or even detest something.
It's a visceral and emotional word. That's not hate, whatever. That's not hate. Hey, you do you, it's your life? That's not hate. Now, when something inside of you, kind of Cringes Twitches is bothered when you loathe someone else's behavior. When that comes out of you, that's what he actually is.
He's probably begging the big question. “Does God, want you to feel that way? That the strong negative emotion in your heart when you look at other people? The Bible is an answer to that question. And the answer is: Yes. Surprising. First revelation to this is Jesus speaking to some first-century Christians. Here's what Jesus says.
But you have this in your favor, you say this word with me. Hey, it's the practices of the Nicolaitans which I also say this word with me, hate, now. Scholars debate, what the practices of the Nicolaitans where it seems like there was this guy named Nicholas. Some people think he was promoting a version of Christianity where you could do whatever you wanted sexually. It was very attractive but when Jesus looked at that, whether that was the situation or not, he says, I actually hate that.
Not surprising. Is this you, Christians? Jesus says, have this in your favor. I'm for this. I like the way you feel about this. You hate it, too.
When a Christian who is close to Christ sees the things that Christ hates They should also hate.
Christians According to Jesus should be known by the way they love each other, but according to this passage, there is also a plate frame, a deep dislike, a detesting in a loathing of the way that some people act.
Now, if that surprises you, it shouldn't.
Let's imagine for a second you and I were having a conversation and another person stepped into the room and just started like viciously and verbally abusing you. If I could watch that person standing against you and you looked at me with wide, scared eyes and I said,
Would you think of me as a good person?
If I was the boss and something toxic or abusive was happening under my watch and I said, well whatever.
Would you consider me a good leader? No.
No, I think you would want me to be mad about the sins that hurt people. I think you would want me to be emotional about it. You wouldn't think more of me, if I was detached emotionally from bad behavior? I think you would want me to be as angry as you are hurt. In fact, I think the more emotional you get about an injustice, the closer, you sometimes are to the heart of God, who hates Injustice. She sustained critique these Christians. He said, you have this in your favor. You hate it. But I also hate. So is that an accurate statement to hate the sin? Bible answer is absolutely.
Which means that's that second phrase. Love The Sinner. Now I want you to write down the definition of the word love too because our culture is so confused about what this means. At the same time that we live in a cancel culture where we have to find everyone who is discriminatory or abusive, which is good at the same time, we're like calling stuff out. Our culture, also tells us that if you're really loving and if you're really like Jesus, well then you should support people and you shouldn't judge people and you should be for people. You should encourage and be there for people. You should honor their truth, he should support them, whatever decisions they make. But that's going to ask you today. Is that true? Does loving another human being mean applauding for, however, they choose to live?
Imagine a mom with a little three-year-old. Loves her kid, gave birth to him. Raised him. Changed his diapers, got up at 2:17 a.m. when he was crying to feed him a sacrificed. Countless hours and years of her life, she did have wrinkles before the kid or gray hairs but now she does, she adores him. So if she loves him, will she just do whatever is in that three year, olds heart for breakfast. That's not love. That's enabling, that's bad parenting. If a mother truly loves her son, she might let him follow. What's in his heart or she might stand up and say no, no, no. That's not how we behave. That's not how we talk to our father. That's not how we treat our sister.
Yeah, I think you instinctively know the real definition of love, the Bible's definition of love which is this love. According to the Bible, whatever is best.
Whatever is best for a person that's love.
Judging someone for the way they live. Might be best. Calling them out, correcting them and intervention of parents saying, “Stop.” or No, where you going to sit on the timeout. That's love.
And sometimes encouraging someone, lifting them up. Being there. Supporting them, forgiving them. Whatever is best, is the real definition of love because this is what we learned from God in Hebrews 12:6, God is our heavenly father and it says in that verse the Lord disciplines the one he loves. Heavenly father does what's best? He builds us up and he calls us out because that's what love does. And so when the phrase hate the sin, you know, I'm just deeply, disliking what you're doing? But I'm still choosing to do what's best for you. You don't like the way you're living. That's his beautiful, narrow, biblical road that God wants all of us to walk.
Now, if we had 100 extra hours in the service, and if I’m buying time on TV, for Time of Grace, wasn't a financial issue, I would try to talk through all the individual questions you have about that. Like all my son is doing this, or my best friend is doing that. Or my sister is living like that. Well, what's best?
It's a big question, right? Like, what do I say? How often do I say it? I'm concerned about how much he's drinking it, or bringing it up. Every time she has a drink. Do I call her out every night? Like these are, these are really difficult questions that take a lot of wisdom. So, I'd encourage you this, I'm find another person who's passionate about this definition of love, like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna cut this person out of my life, but I also gotta do something, say something and just dialogue about this question, what's best?
Do we give them money to help them out to pay their bail? What's best? Do we give them a ride because he lost his license after his third DUI, or do we make him walk. So he realizes that alcohol is destroying his life. What's best?
He moved in with his boyfriend. Would we say his parents? What's best?
My grandson has been on a soccer field more times this year than he's been in a church service. What's best you to ask hard questions? But God says that if we ask him for wisdom, he will give it. So let this be your North Star, as you think about the people that you love and care about to love the sinner means to do what's best? So ask God to guide you on the past, what is best?
I got to warn you.
This might be the narrowest road you ever walk on.
To have a strong emotion in your heart where you just can't be okay with someone's behavior and yet be selfless and sacrificial enough to serve them is like a tightrope that very few of us walk. Well, It's a delicate, step by step-wise path. And there are gaping chasms on either side. Where far too many Christians have fallen off. So maybe I can't define exactly what's best for your situation. But, I want to warn you today about two big dangers or ditches that lots of Christians fall into, right? These. Now, here's the first one, I want to warn you that when you see someone living a lifestyle that God does not approve of, you don't say that it's bad.
Instead of hating it said of the testing it, instead of loathing, there are choices for you. I know you kind of get used to it.
No one's perfect. We're only human, you know, it could be complicated and emotional. If you have a tough conversation with someone, you love it. So you just start to, I don't know, get numb or calloused or used to the thing that God is very emotional about it.
So God is in someone's priority. But they say they're Christian but man, the way they're living, Jesus barely shows up. Well, lots of people do that. She's going to a Christian High School and her texts are filled with. Oh my God, and Jesus, like that name isn't sacred and holy. You get used to it. Well, you don't make it to church once or twice or eight times in a row. Hey, we're busy. Well, you trash-talk the authorities, your mom, your dad, the president, the government's. Hey, welcome to America. You're hurting your body. You moved in together and you're sexually intimate before the wedding day. Well, hey, that's the majority of people. You're not giving generously to the poor while you live in this big, beautiful, suburban house now so event and you gossip when the wine is poured and you're on the table with the girls, you just get used to things I get used to these things.
And sometimes when you're used to these things, when you see them,
But strong emotion that deep dislike and to testing it starts to dissipate in your heart. And you end up saying, well, It's not that bad.
But I gotta tell you to believe that in your heart is so disrespectful to Jesus.
Thank you. Imagine if you could like, teleport back to the Friday when Jesus was tortured and put on a cross and tell him that sin isn't that bad? You know, boom, you're there just as a soldier lifts, a meaty fist and smashes Jesus in the face.
His eyes were swollen, shut. He's bleeding out of his nose. They've stripped him shamefully. They squeeze the crown of thorns into his head and you're watching as that first, Hammer comes up and put some metal through human flesh. Jesus winces and cries out in pain. But he looks at you with this one, open eye and he says, I'm doing this for sin.
I'm paying for all the times when my father was not your priority, I'm suffering for all those times. God's name was just something small and something you used in vain. I'm paying for those people who thought that sex was their thing to define. And you look at Jesus and you say, It's not that bad.
Can you imagine telling Jesus that he's wrong about the seriousness of sin?
Can you fathom looking a holy God and the eye and telling him that he's the one who needs to change his mind about how bad it is?
Could you look the angels in the face and tell them that they need to be more like us? Instead of us be more like them.
And it's so easy to do to get used to sin, but I pray that you don't
Drinking and driving is not the only problem.
Getting drunk is. Bowing down to a little gold statue is not the only problem. Letting God's slip as your priority and passion and your time in your heart and in your hands is also a problem agree with God, but sin is bad, your sin, there's our sin.
And there's the other side.
Some of us know that sin is bad at the soul, who sins, is the one who will die. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. The New Testament says Jesus said be perfect because God is perfect and some of us know that and we believe that. But here's our problem, it's the other Danger. That we don't do what's best?
Instead of loving people who are doing things we dislike, we keep our distance. And we talk about them, but we don't talk to them. We get together with our friends, you don't live those Lifestyles and we vent and complain about those people who are doing those things. But what any of them say that we've loved them, even though we disagree with them,
The Pharisees are famous for this. Many of their morals were Biblically correct, but they didn't love tax collectors. They kept their distance.
Let me share a table with someone who is sexually immoral. They stayed away.
Jesus came with his love and his Holiness. You said, that's not, that's not best. God kept his distance, from everyone who was sitting, there would be no Christmas, there would be no Christianity.
I don't warn you, if you're passionate about, good biblical Doctrine. If you know that there is a conservative version that cannot be changed or updated, please, please, please hold on to the truth but don't let go of Grace.
Don't just wag a finger about those people. Do what’s best.
And such a narrow road rope to walk.
But you can walk it.
With the help of Jesus today, you don't have to fall to this side or the other, you don't have to get used to sin. You want to keep your distance from Sinners. You can do the Holy Spirit to hate and love at the same time.
I think of the stunning story of Dan Cathy,
Some of you might know Dan Cathy was the former CEO of Chick-fil-A. Famous restaurant that sells Christian chicken according to some And about 10 years ago, you might remember the cultural firestorm that was discovered that the Dan Cathy with the billions that he had made was donating to Christian ministries that supported a traditional Christian version of gender, sexuality and marriage.
And when the news came out, the boycotts began.
LGBTQ groups organized boycotts outside of Chick-fil-a restaurants. Gay men would march on the sidewalks with signs and make out with each other in front of the restaurant to prove that there's no space for hate or homophobia in America.
And once the boycotts began, well then the people on the other side they snap back. One, Southern Governor launched, a counter boycott encouraging good traditional Christian, people to fill the drive through at Chick-fil-A, to drive up the profits and show those people what happens when you mess with the Christian church.
Classic right? Everyone picked aside and pointed fingers that he had at each other.
But Dan Cathy did not.
The man in the middle of the firestorm, in the midst of the mess, did something that no one saw coming.
He tracked down the number of the gay man and gay rights activist who was organizing the boycotts. His name was Shane.
And he found the number, he called the number. And when Shane picked up and it was Dan Cathy, he was shocked.
But he's way more shocked about what happened next?
Instead of threatening him with some lawsuit, instead of begging him to call off the boycotts the Dan Cathy. There's another word for it. He loved him.
He's sincerely, not us, some marketing ploy to back him down. He wanted to know about this man, who's life was so different than his. About what his family and his relationship. He listened more than he talked, he asked questions more than he lectured. He wanted to hear Shane's words even before he mentioned a single one of God's words,
The interaction was so powerful that Shane months later wrote a story that you could find on the internet, and I hope you find it. Here was the title, Dan and me. My coming out as a friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A.
This gay man who is used to being ignored by conservative Christians was finally loved by one.
And it moves him so deeply. He wrote a long letter. He hasn't changed his mind about sexuality, but he's thought twice about Christianity.
You might know a few years later, There's a horrible terrorist act in Orlando gay nightclub where 49 gay, men died. The next day, a local restaurant opens, its doors to give free food and drink to victims and those who are suffering. You don't, you know, restaurant was Chick-fil-A. You don't day. They gave up the free food and drink on a Sunday. And 70 years as a business, it had only been open one Sunday before that day.
But then, Cathy and everyone who follows the path of Jesus was not content, just to hate sin.
There were series of 11 centers.
So here's my last question. How do you get there?
Well, how do you avoid those two dangers, and walk this really narrow road that Jesus and his mature followers have walked
With an answer, that might offend you. And I can guarantee it's going to surprise you.
Here's the answer. I'm not sure if you've ever heard this in a church before
God hated you.
But He still chose to love you.
I think I made that up. I'm going crazy, but I didn't. Look what the Bible says, Psalm 5 verse 5. Speaking of God, it says God, you hate. All who do wrong.
God apparently is so good. He is so infinitely pure and holy he doesn't just hate the bad things that people do. It doesn't say God, you hate all.
It says God you hate all who do wrong. Psalm 11 verse 5 says God hates those who love violence and he hates them with a passion. Book of Malachi says, God says on Jacob. I've loved but you saw I have hated
Your God did not send Hitler's anti-Semitism to hell. He sent Hitler to hell. He sends people and not choices to hell. Because God knows that sinful people are not just controlled by some outside force. Instead, it is my heart, my head, my hands that commit sin. It's me. So the problem with the devil, put a gun to my head and made me say those selfish things. It's my heart that came out of the deepest part of who I am. God is so good and he hates that so much. The Bible says the shocking thing God you hate all who do wrong
But despite how he felt about sinful people.
God. Man, I can't get used to this. God loved.
God gave.
And God sent.
You just bite his lip and not unleash, his righteous anger. That else I will never understand in the heart of God that he would give us his best even though we were the worst
Some, you don't. When I was in high school I had a really bad addiction. I take a little piece of poster board and written a Bible passage that sat on my bookshelf and stared back at me, a thousand nights in a row. When I hated my own behavior. Here's what that passage said, I'll show it to you. Christ Jesus came into the world. To save sinners.
Of whom I am the worst.
Like a God should have just hated me. Should I was disgusted with me a holy God, infinitely more, to a guy like me to sinners like us to a murderer like Paul. What did God do? He sent Christ Jesus into the world to save even the worst of us. See, when we were the worst God decided to do what was best. The God who is love was revolted by what he saw yet. There was something so good and pure in his heart that he acted despite how he felt and He sent Jesus.
Jesus, when he suffered on that cross for your sin, and for my son, for the sins of the whole world, he died to change your situation so that it might change the father's emotion.
Jesus took to take everything that would make God hates you or detest you or loathe you and he separated it as far from you as the East is from the West. The Bible says that Jesus doesn't just give you a second chance to be better. He's taking everything that would make God not feel good about you and is gone. So, when God would look at me today, even when he looked at me back then, because of Jesus, there was nothing to hate. There was only a son to dearly loved.
And Christian singing in the best lyrics of their songs. What kind of love is this, that The God, Who is omniscient and all-knowing would not think about my sin. How can the God who sees everything at the same time? Not see the messed up things that you have done? The Bible. He says because The God Who hates Sinners also chose to love him. And I want to say, as clearly as I can, if you believe in Jesus, And if he didn't win today started, you can in this moment. If you believe in Jesus, when God looks at you, there's nothing to hate.
There's nothing to loathe. There's nothing to detest. There's nothing to correct instead. He sees you wrapped in the righteousness of Jesus and it just makes him smile. But the best parent when they look at their beloved kid.
There's a pastor named John Piper, who summarizes this challenging teaching in this way. He says, quote, If we don't understand that God finds US hateful and loathsome in our ugly sin, we won't be as stunned by what his love is for us. God saves millions of people who are loathsome to him in and of themselves until he saves them. And God makes those people, the apple of his eye which makes salvation stunningly. More that are you stunned by the cross when I think of how I treat people that I don't really like
And I look at the cross and I think about sin and God's holy heart. I can't I won't ever fathom, what that is? But I'm never going to let go.
And when I was 18, I graduated from a public high school in Green Bay decided to become a pastor and ended up at this Bible college in Minnesota with all the kids who had gone to Christian school when they were growing up for our like 101 crash course on Christian doctrine. We lovely called the dummy doctrine. For those of us with a ton of Bible and a professor who's a very, very German man named. Daniel Deutschlander. How about that for a German name? He was not, he gave me grief for speaking Spanish because he said we'll speak German in heaven. Mike, he's just practicing. No, remember being in his class. I mean, he was a tough teacher. My hand would ache from his test, but I remember something he told me about Jesus, when I was 18, he said, boys. Imagine a house is on fire. And you hear the cry of someone who's trapped inside. And the fire is just blazing so much that, you know, if you run inside to save them you might make it out but you won't make it out alive. The fire will take your very life and breath if that was the cry of your mother that you heard. Your best friend, your son, your daughter would you run in?
And we also said, yeah. I die for them.
He said, but what if it wasn't your kid, your parents? What was Mr Neighbor.
And the neighbor you borrow a tool from when you don't have one or a couple of eggs for us to be wave at the mailbox. Would you run in and give up your life for just a neighbor?
I mean to think, he said, but what if it wasn't just the neighbor. What if it was an enemy?
What if it was a person you deeply disliked someone who had deeply hurt you? Would you run into the flames and sacrifice your life to save them?
This professor looked at we young future pastors and he said, because that's what Christianity is.
A God who has been so hurt by the rebelliousness of humans and yet in this incomprehensible love. Ran down to earth to savey them even though it would cost him everything.
How do you look at someone and be heartbroken by their lifestyle and yet, poured yourself out, run towards them to do what's best?
You look at Christ.
So, Christianity is the guy who hated the sin.
I got well, the sinner.
That's right.
I've got it is so tempting to get used to sin.
Just easier that way in a sense. But as we think about your goodness and your holiness, we don't want to.
How the Bible says, we should wrestle within, we should put it to death. We should not conform to the pattern of this world, but we should put on the full armor of God. Fight the good fight and run this race to the finish line.
