A few weeks ago after chapel my dad came over to me. He informed me that my sister had sent with him a present to give me. I have two sisters both are younger than me but the only one that would send me a gift would be my youngest sister. I was with a friend of mine and she was planning on driving me over to the dining hall for lunch because I have had some recent car trouble. Not wanting to make my friend and her brother late I asked my dad how long it would take. He assured me it would not take long to follow him out of the chapel and down the hall to his office. I was curious as to what my sister could have sent me. She is 9 and will be 10 soon and I could only imagine the crude piece of artwork or the colorfully drawn picture or candy she may have sent. I followed my father into his office and he brought me a plastic lunch bag with a wad of jewelry in it. At first I thought she had cleaned out her jewelry box and sent me the stuff she didn't want. I am an artist and I collect old jewelry and glue it to things sometimes. My dad said, "she sent you work." with a joking smile on his face. He quoted my sister saying, "She said you have untangled her necklaces before and she was wondering if you could do it again because you are so good at it." I took the jewelry with a laugh, put it in my backpack, and went to lunch.
I was sitting in a class and I was considering what to post. To be honest I was having trouble deciding what God wanted me to talk about. I have been thinking about our world and how crazy twisted our ideas have become. Our viewpoints and belief systems have became so tangled in the lies that the devil feeds our children and adults through media, schooling, and overall culture transitions. I began to wonder how we could get our ideas so tangled in the lies of the devil and how we got so far off track? Then I remembered the wad of jewelry in my backpack. Our world has become like that tangled mess of jewels. It is up to Christians to untangle this mess because God has gifted us the ability to be "good at it". It is or job to sort the beautiful things God has created out of the knots we as sinful people have tied them into.
But how does it get to this point? How do we take the beautifully perfect jewels God has given us and turned them into such a tangled mess? There are a few ways, but at the root of it all is the devil and the lies he so sweetly whispers in our ears and we so foolishly believe. Another way is because like the jewelry the issues of today remain untouched by the Christian community. We fail to utter a sound about being pro life or how homosexuality is a sin along with a host of other issues but those are just two of the bigger more current ones. Why don't we speak out about these issues. It's as if our lips are glued shut with the sticky paste of political correctness or the fact that these subjects are dirty. How dare we send warnings to a dirty world full of sin? We wouldn't want all of those nasty sinners dirtying up our beautiful clean heaven one day. NEWS FLASH. We are those dirty, filthy sinners.
This post is a wakeup call. We are going to take a look at Christ and how he dealt with the devil's twisted words and then how he ministered to this twisted world we live in. We are also going to see how we can live by his example because Christ set the standard for how Christians should behave towards the lost world.
Luke 4:1-13
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” 12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Luke 5:27-32
27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.
29 And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. 30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Alright lets break this down. In the first passage is about the temptation of Christ and how the devil twisted even the word of God in verses 10 and 11. Because Christ is God, this tactic of trickery did not phase him. He combated the devil and his temptations with scripture and untangled the twisted words of the devil's knotted tongue. We should test all things against the true scriptures. The devil will whisper lies of false justifications for sins and he will sometimes use scripture to prove his points, but they will always have knotted strings attached. As Christians it is our job to find those lies he feeds to the people of this world and speak out against them to begin untying the lies we believe as a society.
The second passage of scripture is an example of how we can behave as Christians who have been in the church a while. It is also a reminder of how Christ associated himself with sinners, and we need to also keep in mind that he was not one. The very people who judged a sinless Christ for associating with filthy sinners were dirty themselves because we are all stained with sin. Only Christ can cleanse us from our sin. We need not allow ourselves to become like the Pharisees and scribes in this text, and judge others who are trying to be like Christ by witnessing to those who need Him. We do not need to worry about getting our hands dirty because they already are, and what has made them clean is the only thing that can cleanse those we call "sinners". Sinners are not going to dirty up heaven any more that you would so share with them Christ's blood and sacrifice so they too can become spotless.
Overall, this is meant to be an encouragement. As Christians we need to untangle the lies of Satan that plague our world by speaking out against the lies with truth. Also we should not be afraid that those who believe in the lies are going to dirty up our heaven because we are just as filthy as them before Christ. Lastly, we should be intentional to talk to those people who are sinners as Christ did because as Christians we are called to be like Him.