WE GIVE UP TOO SOON!

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We are all just a bunch of sinners saved by grace.  I trust you will not misunderstand what I am proposing in this BLOG.  I am in no way condoning sin.  The Pharisees who read this will delight in taking statements I will make and twist them to say that I condone sin.  I am not condoning sin, but I AM saying Jesus loves and uses sinners!



Contrary to what most people say, there are not just two or three sins in the Bible.  All sin is bad!  Because we are sinners and do sin, we tend to give up on ourselves and others too soon. There is nothing you could have done had you not blown it that you cannot still do.  A man said to me, “I’ve committed a certain sin, can I still preach?”  Why of course you can.  Take your Bible and find yourself a street corner and start preaching to the people who pass by.  Show up for your churches’ soul winning night and go person to person and give out the Gospel to the unsaved.


There are two positions in the entire Bible that certain sins would keep you from filling, but no work that you cannot do.  Every child of God should live for a purpose and never a position.  You may lose your position, but you can never lose your purpose.

A man preaches behind a pulpit, and he pastor’s a church.  He commits a sin that causes him to have to forfeit his right to pastor, but not his right to preach the Gospel to every creature.  When we think of preaching, we automatically think in terms of pastoring a church from behind a pulpit; but when God thinks of preaching, he thinks of house to house, person to person, street corner, bus route, jail ministry, nursing home, or a rescue mission.

There are things he might do to cause him to cease being a pastor or a deacon; but there is nothing that he cannot do now for God that he could do then.  The only difference is it will be harder to do it.  Here’s why – because folks will not pull for him.  However, don’t miss this; there is nothing he could have done that he cannot do.  We give up too soon!

PETER

Think about this with me.  It is the day of Pentecost and the Apostle Peter is preaching.  Can’t you just hear the critics saying, “Why, fifty days ago he denied the faith.  Fifty days ago he denied his church.  Fifty days ago he denied his Lord.”  Regardless of what we think, God chose Peter to preach on the day of Pentecost.  This really irks the Pharisees of their day and our day.  The gossip Internet forums can’t stand the thought of a sinner being used of God.
Some attempt to keep an up-to-date list of all of Brother Gray’s shortcomings.  They gasp, groan, and moan at the crude illustrations.  They cringe at the sarcasm and grimace at the smart aleck rhetorical comments.  They shake their heads at what they call cockiness; yet they marveled at the crowds, the conversions, the baptisms, and the blessings of God.

Our churches are nothing but a bunch of sinners who make a whale of a lot of mistakes, but who keep on after the unsaved, hoping to keep another sinner out of Hell.  We admit we are sinners.  We receive sinners.  We use sinners. We refuse to think we are better than anyone else. 

The successful local independent Baptist church preaches against sin, yet love the sinner.  They don’t keep a list of mistakes on the leadership.  They don’t publish the negatives.  They look at the positives of a person.  Yes, they preach against the sin and will continue to do so, but with as much zeal they will love the sinner.

PAUL

Can you imagine what the Apostle Paul went through?  Paul, before he was saved, was a persecutor and executioner of God’s people.  Wait a minute!  Paul hit the ground preaching.  Paul didn’t wait! He couldn’t take systematic theology.  

The truth is, when he went down to Jerusalem everybody was scared of him. He had people imprisoned and killed.  Then, he wanted to preach to the people he was formerly persecuting.  They didn’t want to have him preach to them, let alone fellowship with him.  However, Barnabas went to the people and calmed them down and said, “Believe me, you can trust this man.”

JOHN MARK and ONESIMUS

Paul said, “John Mark was profitable to me.”  Mark had been backslidden.   Mark had left the will of God for his life.   Mark had turned his back on the Apostle Paul; but he came back to God, and Paul said, “He is profitable to me.”   Hold it, that same word is used in the book of Philemon when Onesimus the slave, who had stolen from his boss Philemon, met Paul in jail at Rome.  Paul won him to Christ while in jail.  Paul wrote this letter back to Philemon asking Philemon to receive Onesimus back because he was “profitable.”  That’s the same word that Paul used about John Mark.

When the Scripture Luke chapter 15 says there is rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner that repents it does not say whether it is an unsaved man repenting or a saved man repenting.  Could it be either way? 



GOTTA LOVE A HEAVENLY FATHER WHO IS LONGSUFFERING!





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