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Why Jesus Treated Sinners Differently Than We Do · Relish: a Christian podcast

• 0:00
  So how does it feel to be a preacher now? You know, you had your first sermon
• 0:05
  on the 31st of May here at Kelowna Mennonite. And how do you feel?
• 0:10
  What is your favorite Bible word and why?
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  How should we treat sinful people? Are there jobs that Christians shouldn't do?
• 0:20
  Relish. Pleasing or zestful flavor. A quantity just sufficient to flavor,
• 0:26
  to be pleased or gratified by, enjoy.
• 0:29
  We are hoping that what we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life.
• 0:35
  Welcome back to another episode of Relish. I am your host, Roan Miller.
• 0:39
  This is Pastor Don Patterson. It is. Don, how are you doing today?
• 0:42
  We're doing good. It's been a busy, busy time of year. I thought once school
• 0:46
  was out, everything would slow down. No.
• 0:49
  Yep. That's not bad for us. At all. This is not bad for us.
• 0:53
  So I have a question for you right off, you know, getting out of the chute.
• 0:57
  Okay. So how does it feel to be a preacher now? You know, you had your first
• 1:02
  sermon on the 31st of May here at Kelowna Mennonite. And how do you feel? Get good feedback?
• 1:10
  Yeah, I got a lot of good feedback from the church and from family members that
• 1:15
  watched it online or some of them came.
• 1:20
  But yeah i think i was it was definitely something else that we like the week
• 1:25
  leading up to it for me it was,
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  if i knew that was the the week i was gonna have when like the sunday i was
• 1:33
  preaching i might have asked you can i get a different yeah let's go for a different
• 1:37
  date yeah yeah um but wow yeah,
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  You graduated the week before, and you had state golf.
• 1:46
  State golf on Tuesday, Wednesday.
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  Thursday was AP English test. That had to be made up because I was too busy to take it before. Yes.
• 1:56
  And then that was that night, a baseball game that night, which I hadn't swung
• 2:01
  a bat until the baseball game. Right.
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  And no practice ahead of time, just walked up to the plate. Yep. Home run, right?
• 2:09
  Not that night. but okay yeah i just had to put it out there that uh yeah that's
• 2:15
  something now that you've done you can say you've reached message yeah yeah.
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  Overall, it went better than I was maybe expecting.
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  Praise the Lord. I'm glad to hear that. You didn't get nervous and melt underneath
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  the pulpit and have to be swept up.
• 2:34
  It's good when you don't have total meltdowns. Yeah.
• 2:40
  All righty. Well, getting into the questions here for you. What is your favorite Bible word and why?
• 2:49
  Oh.
• 2:51
  Bible word would have to be agape. Shalom's right behind it, though.
• 2:56
  Yeah. Yeah, agape. And the reason I use.
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  The Greek word is because it actually talks more about it than if we say, oh, love.
• 3:10
  Yeah. I mean, love. In our English language, I'm almost thinking that love has become sort of a nine.
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  It really has no meaning. It has nothing. It's nothing.
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  But in the Greek, that agape word has that sacrificial love that we identify with Christ.
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  And to think that we could maybe live towards that as human beings towards each
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  other, I think that's a very powerful word. Shalom's right after it.
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  And that's Old Testament word for peace, but it has the connotations of,
• 3:44
  I desire that the broken pieces in your life come together.
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  It's a blessing. so um yeah shalom's right there peace maybe you could peace
• 3:56
  love show them yeah maybe you could add some words to the webster dictionary and,
• 4:02
  make english a little more colorful yes yes i think we should i think we should
• 4:07
  do that for love yeah i really think we have uh.
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  We need to have words that reflect all those biblical connotations that we can
• 4:20
  use. Yeah, a new word for love. I will read a lot different. It would.
• 4:24
  Yeah, especially when you get to John 21 and you realize, oh,
• 4:27
  there's two different words for love being used in that passage between what,
• 4:32
  Jesus is asking of Peter and what Peter responds.
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  So, yeah, and I think we've covered that in this study before. Yeah.
• 4:40
  That, that's very powerful using those two different words. Yeah.
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  How should we treat sinful people? That's a good one because often we treat
• 4:54
  them like the Old Testament does.
• 4:57
  Yeah. Sinful people, well, we put them on the outside. There you go.
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  The trouble is we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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  John 1 John 1.9.
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  So, we have to, I think we as Christians in this generation need to start understanding
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  that we're of all sinned and are in need of grace, God's grace.
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  So, I want to treat the sinner the way I want to be treated,
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  because I'm a sinner too.
• 5:32
  That being invitational then to say, hey, you know, I found what Jesus can do for me and my sin.
• 5:42
  And I invite you to it. So it should be, we should treat sinners more like Jesus did.
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  And sit down with them and have lunch with them and greet them as fellow human
• 5:54
  beings and walk them towards Jesus.
• 6:01
  So that's really how we ought to treat sinners. I think we have a hard time doing that.
• 6:08
  Right. Because we're afraid, just like the Pharisees in Jesus' time, it might rub off on us.
• 6:16
  We get messed up like they're messed up. And so,
• 6:21
  yeah, we tend to be a little Pharisaical about how we treat sinners. Yeah.
• 6:27
  So, yeah, we should treat them like Jesus did.
• 6:32
  Yeah. And you have to be, you have to be conscious of like their habits and
• 6:37
  kind of what they, what they do. So as you don't do the same.
• 6:41
  Right. It's kind of a balancing act between.
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  And that's an important piece because while Jesus still ate and drank with sinners,
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  he made it very clear that if you don't take care of your sin,
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  you won't be in the kingdom.
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  Right. And so you're right.
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  You've got to be careful, walk mindfully, mindfully maybe, into this greeting and this interaction.
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  But Jesus did it. So why shouldn't we be? Yeah, because he was Jesus.
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  But I think that's part. I root the question all the way back in to the fact
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  that we should be reflecting more of Jesus.
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  In other words, as we interact with the world around us, we should look more like Jesus to them.
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  And act like Jesus to them. We should be so much like Jesus,
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  we're called Christ-like.
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  That's where Christians started.
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  Because these individuals.
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  Didn't promote themselves, but projected Jesus into the community where they lived. Yeah. At AOC.
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  You mentioned grace when you were answering that question. And there's actually a question on here.
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  What is grace? And why is grace important? God's riches at Christ's expense.
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  So we have to realize that grace that's been extended from God to us was purchased
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  at the price of Christ's life.
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  And so it will cover our sin. We have to accept it. It's a gift.
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  And it is...
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  It takes away our sin. It covers our sin. It gives us a buy on what we would have to pay for our sin.
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  That's grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. So it covers that sin.
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  It's sort of connected to mercy. Mercy is not receiving what we do deserve.
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  And so I think sometimes we forget that our sin really deserves condemnation.
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  I mean, the things that we do that miss, sin is missing the mark that God has for us as individuals.
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  When we sin and miss that mark that God would have us be and do, that's sin.
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  That is going against God. It's going against his principles.
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  It's going against his values and, if you will, tarnishing.
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  His image. So that's sin.
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  Grace is when we accept that gift of God through Jesus Christ and it covers that sin.
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  And mercy is the fact that we don't get all the penalty we do deserve.
• 9:52
  So, really sounds like a good deal, doesn't it? Yeah.
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  I know the first day of NYF every year in Sunday school when you get the new students in,
• 10:06
  that was the very first thing that our sponsors went over was,
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  got to know the difference between grace and mercy. Yes.
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  That's the only time they ever used the chalkboard. Then you could have answered
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  the question. I could have.
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  Only time they ever used the chalkboard. And when you graduate,
• 10:22
  they said that's the most important thing that you take away. It is.
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  It is. And not only take away, but give away.
• 10:32
  Yeah. And so it's something that you take with you. It's something we walk into in our Christian life.
• 10:38
  We don't carry around, we're not carrying around grudges because of grace.
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  In other words, we've been forgiven, we forgive.
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  And so a person that's not forgiving, you wonder, maybe they need to do a little
• 10:53
  work there and get back on task again.
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  Have we done it well? No, we haven't done it well. We can work on that.
• 11:04
  I think we all can work on that a little bit more.
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  Mercy and grace.
• 11:11
  Yeah. Did I catch most of that? Got it. And you know it so you can check the
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  answer. Yeah, that's good.
• 11:20
  Alrighty, are there, I think we'll close with this one, are there jobs that
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  Christians shouldn't do? Well, no.
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  Yeah, executioners.
• 11:34
  As one of them. I was just sort of going for, yeah, executioners probably should.
• 11:40
  Yeah, I'd say we probably shouldn't be doing that job.
• 11:50
  I'm going through my head at other jobs that we shouldn't do.
• 11:54
  Like bartenders being kind of debated? It's been debated, yeah.
• 11:59
  Yeah, and,
• 12:03
  I, yeah, I would have a hard time doing that.
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  But I've heard of some bartenders that have quite an interesting clientele that
• 12:16
  they actually are influencing towards Christ.
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  And so, yeah.
• 12:23
  Yeah, not discotheque, strip club owner.
• 12:28
  That's probably one Christians ought to shy away from. Yeah.
• 12:40
  That sort of captures, you know,
• 12:41
  maybe not strip club owners and strippers and bars and all the things.
• 12:47
  Let's do that in broad strokes, okay?
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  Executioners. Yeah.
• 12:57
  You'd have a hard time making a case for being a bartender, a Christian bartender, but you almost could.
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  Uh but the uh yeah i'm not sure you can make a case for the others,
• 13:11
  yeah i don't think you should try thank you thank you i appreciate that we're not gonna try,
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  but those are the ones that came to mind right away i i i haven't uh yeah so
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  though i think i I think the flip side of it is,
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  as we enter any vocation, no matter what it is,
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  we enter it with a mindset of Christ.
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  Okay, so he's given us certain skills and abilities, and as he's given us these
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  skills and abilities, is it for your honor and glory?
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  No, it's for Christ's honor. It's for God's glory.
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  It's more than just us. In other words, as we go to Romans 12,
• 13:53
  this is the one that comes to my mind right away.
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  Is the fact that these things were not given just for us, but they're given
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  for something bigger. And so.
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  Just as many of us have one body,
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  with many members, and members do not all have the same function.
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  So in Christ we're many, and form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
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  We have different gifts according to the grace gift. Grace? Notice that? Grace is there?
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  Grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion
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  to his faith. In serving, let him serve. It's teaching, let him teach.
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  If it's encouraging, let him encourage.
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  It's contributed to the needs of others. Let him give generously.
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  If it's leadership, let him govern diligently. if it's mercy,
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  let him do it cheerfully.
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  I was thinking of an architect that I know that seems to specifically work with
• 14:56
  churches, and he's worked with our congregation.
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  It's as if he knows the intent of the people and the congregation.
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  I've seen him work with two different church buildings.
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  And he sort of captures what they want and makes it architecturally possible.
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  And like what he did with this building, you can't tell that there was an addition
• 15:23
  made two years ago. It's seamless.
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  And his heart is to serve the Lord that way.
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  So why not? And so I'm saying, you know, I don't know what, let's see,
• 15:36
  are you going to be a lawyer? Anyway, whatever this is.
• 15:39
  I don't know if I want to do seven years of school, but...
• 15:42
  I know somebody else that talked like that, too, and ended up doing seven or
• 15:47
  eight years of school. Right.
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  So be careful. These things happen.
• 15:54
  Yeah, giving it...
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  When we become Christians, we don't only become spiritually Christian,
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  we become physically Christian, and all the gifts and abilities we're given are God's.
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  We give our lives as an offering, if you will, to God, no matter what we're
• 16:16
  doing, whether we're farming a thousand acres or whether we're a banker,
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  that work we do as Christians is work we do to honor God.
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  And in the midst of that, I find God gives us specific blessings in that work,
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  because we're giving it to him.
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  It's his work. It's to his honor, to his glory, to manifest his kingdom, not our own.
• 16:44
  Yeah. So it's a major thing. Yeah.
• 16:47
  I can't get back to the executioner doing that or the script,
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  but in our vocation, we honor and glorify God. Mm-hmm.
• 16:57
  Very good. Thank you, Don, as always.
• 17:00
  Thank you for answering the questions. Thank you guys for sending them in.
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  And if we didn't get quite answered, you can always get back with us.
• 17:07
  I think we did pretty good this episode.
• 17:10
  I'm glad you're satisfied.
• 17:12
  Thank you guys, and we'll see
• 17:13
  you next time. Lord willing. Thank you for joining us for this podcast.
• 17:17
  Feel free to become part of this ministry by sharing it with others.
• 17:21
  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
• 17:24
  and is calling to us in our daily lives.
• 17:27
  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.