Friday, February 23, 2007

Should We Serve Sinners?

Proverbs 29:23 "A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit."

There are three areas a servant should humble themselves...

~To the Savior
~To the saint
~To the sinner

Most people have no trouble humbling themselves to the Lord or to fellow saints but they find it hard to humble themselves to the sinner.

Do you want to know how I know this? Well....partly from watching other saved people and how they treat sinners and partly because I used to be unkind to sinners and think I was better than them. I'm ashamed to admit this to anyone but I thought that in order to help others...you had to have been through what that person is involved in in order to be able to help that person. By that I mean that I didn't feel I could help a person if I had never been involved in witchcraft or been a Satan worshipper or in a cult such as the Jehovah Witnesses.

Maybe you've never been this way. I pray you haven't. I pray you've always humbled yourself to sinners. If you have then praise the Lord and good for you.

I'm afraid that is a lot of the problem in churches today. Saints are not doing their part to help the sinner. Am I saying to yoke up with them? No...of course not. But we need to reach out to them and show them the love of Christ.

Jesus Christ is our example who we are to pattern our lives after. He was the humblest man to walk the face of the earth. Yes He is God but He also walked as a man. yet He was humble toward sinners. He ate with them. He talked with them and He healed them from their diseases. How many of us would even let ourselves be seen talking to someone with so much sin in their lives that it was evident on the outside.

Leprosy in the Scriptures is a picture or a type of sin. He was seen talking with men and women with Leprosy so bad that they looked disgusting. Yet He took time to talk to them and try to help them. We are afraid to even walk up to and talk to that Satan worshipper that is dressed in all black and has piercings all over their bodies. We're afraid to be seen talking to a person who is so poor they find themselves sleeping in parks and standing on the side of the road holding signs that say "I'm hungry...will work for food" and are needing help. These people are full of "leprosy" or sin. Yet we are so high and mighty in our spirit it seems that we can't take time out to try to help them or give the Lord a chance to heal these people of their "disease".

Somewhere in your life some saint reached out to you when you were a sinner and you're saved today as a result of it. May we all get convicted in this area of our Christian lives and humble ourselves to the sinner.

Proverbs 15:33 "The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility."

11 comments:

Kristi said...

It has always bothered me to see a Christian think themselves better than the sinner by making fun of them (to their face or behind their back) or not having anything to do with them at all. How can a Christian pray for a sinner with that kind of attitude? I'll admit that I was once like that, but Praise the Lord, God troubled my heart about it.

But you know, I've seen Christians treat other Christians the same way. Of course, that's probably a whole other topic, but it's true.

~Kristi

Sis. Julie said...

Sis. Kristi....you are so right about how Christians sometimes treat other Christians. I have a whole other post on that subject that I'll be posting later as the Lord leads.

Anonymous said...

I say yes we should serve sinners that may be the only time that some will become Christians. I put something on yesterdays post but I guess that it didn't go through. I was thinking about teaching a lesson on this thought this week.
Bro Tim

Anonymous said...

This was excellent Sis. Julie! I have been where you have been also, to my shame! Christ came to heal the sick (the sinner) - and so should we!! Thank God Christ did not think as I did!!!

Miss Ashley said...

If you ever go to NYC, I believe you can get the full realization of this point.. It is so weird how it hard for us to completely abase ourselves in order to help someone, who in reality, desperately needs EXACTLY what we have! Thank you, Julie. I am SO enjoying your posts. You have a lot of wisdom that this young girl is so happy to soak in.

One quick story..

When I went to NYC on a mission trip my sophomore year in college, I realized the complete value of this point. I will NEVER be able to get the image out of my mind of a terrible cold, sick, weak, and feeble black woman, who lay on the streets of "5th Avenue" in NYC, the richest portion of the City. It was so hard to see a lately in complete destitution and despair (she was so weak she couldn't walk, much less move) right in the heart of the RICHEST place in America, probably! It literally brings tears to my eyes, and the only thing I had to offer her was the tract I had in my hand, attatched to an Oatmeal Square.

Let us never forget that just because we have Jesus, our life isn't over.. we must be JESUS here on earth.. thank you for reminding me of us.

Have a great day.. and please keep the posts coming. They are so encouraging, uplifting, and Convicting!

Unknown said...

A couple of years ago, I went through great conviction over this very topic! I actually had a deacon's wife laugh at me because I went to a baby shower of an unsaved young mother. Her mom and dad were members of our church but she wasn't. I went to her shower to encourage her mom and with the express intention of loving on her and showing her the love of Jesus. When I told the lady from my church that, she put her finger to her mouth and made that awful gagging noise! I couldn't believe it! It was so hard for me to get over that, but it showed me something - I certainly NEVER wanted to be that self righteous! God help our churches!

Susannah said...

Isn't it interesting that sinners were comfortable around Jesus, but the Pharisees (spiritual men) were not? Your post is a great reminder that we can't expect the same kind of responses from the unsaved, as we would expect from the saved. Have a blessed weekend!

Susannah said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Rita Loca said...

Thank goodness Christ came to serve the sinner or else we would all still be unsaved!!!

John J. Kaiser said...

Excellent post, and great blog. I will be sue to keep checking in!

-J. Kaiser

Sis. Julie said...

I think we have all been guilty of not having compassion for and serving sinners. I'm thankful to see so many comments. Thank you all.

jkaisersquire...I'm glad you enjoyed your visit here...thank you for stopping by. I'll look forward to hearing from you again soon.

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