Oh, How He Loves

I am thankful that we serve a God who has come to give us His nature, and to enable us to experience His love and to walk in His joy.  And, He has placed us in this world to walk in compassion and live in community.  Here is what 1 Peter 4 says:
8And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "love will cover a multitude of sins."9Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.10As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.11If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Because we possess the presence of Almighty God as believers in Christ, we can carry the gospel message in a compelling manner.   We can be convinced of the reliability of the content of God's truth, and we can learn to communicate it effectively, within the context of the situations we face. And we can be motivated to reach out with Christ's compassion.   If we have fervent love for other people, we can be people who represent Jesus well, allowing Him to work through us to draw people to Himself.

In Ephesians 4, we encounter a passage about the growth of Christians and how we are to reflect the presence of the Lord in our lives.  Paul is talking about the leadership that has been appointed over the body of Christ and He describes God's goals for us:
14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ--16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

The man set up shop in a common area at James Madison University in Virginia, a school named after a champion of free speech and religious freedom.  So, this preacher decided to exercise those rights.   The Blaze has a story, which states, "According to reports on social media, the radical preacher was telling gay individuals that they were going to hell."

Apparently, there was a student who began to play the guitar and students started singing David Crowder's worship song, "How He Loves" as the man attempted to preach.  The incident was captured on camera, and as of this morning, it was approaching 850,000 views.

The report stated that other video captured him also yelling toward a large body of students, including those who identified as Christians, saying they were headed “straight to hell” for living a life of sin.

After the song was over, the student reportedly said, "Jesus loves you all!”

The man said, “No, you don’t believe in Christians...Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. You sinners don’t love Jesus. You sinners hate Jesus!”

“God doesn’t hear your praise!” he later said.

“He doesn’t?” one student asked.

“No, not if you have sin in your life,” the man responded.

“So he doesn’t forgive us?” the student countered.

“Not if you have sin in your life. No,” the preacher answered.

The title of the video says, "Homophobic Preacher drowned out by Love and Tolerance."  That's the way that the press by and large has been spinning this story.  For us as Christians, it can cause us to think about content, context, and compassion.

First of all, I can't evaluate the motivation of this preacher.   He apparently was attempting to point sinful behavior and perhaps bring about repentance in the lives of the students.   And, of course, because he mentioned homosexuality, that was the subject that gained the most attention, even though he apparently was taking the students to task for all forms of sin.   There may have been some truth in the content.   For us, we recognize that a central message that the Bible teaches is that we are all sinners and need a Savior.  And, as the Crowder song drives home, we serve a God who loves us so much that He wants to bring us into a relationship with Himself.   The Gospel is a message of God's love for humanity - a love so strong that He doesn't want to leave us in our sin and has provided a way out of our sinfulness.

But, there are some issues with context in this situation.   No one can speak for the motivation of the preacher, but apparently he was not connecting with his audience.   In our adherence to truth, we have to make sure that we are not repelling the people that we are trying to win.  There is a place for confrontation in cultural dialogue, but we have to make sure that we know when to adopt that posture, as opposed to building relationship and earning the right to point out the sin of another.

Ultimately, the impromptu performance of this song was a demonstration of compassion.  I have not regarded this wonderful song as some sort of political statement or celebration of tolerance.  Fact is, because Jesus loves us so much - because "He loves us so,"  He reaches out with compassion and desires to come into our lives, to forgive us of our sins and free us from the power of sin.  And, in order for us to experience His forgiveness, we have to acknowledge our need for Him.   There is a place for talking about sin, for relating Biblical truth.  As the Bible says, we are called to speak the truth - in love.