Christian (6) – The Behaved and the Misbehaved

I hope you enjoyed the past two weeks as we talked about raising God’s daughters and sons. Obviously we couldn’t cover everything related to parenting, but hopefully the messages have given you some tools to be the best parents possible for your kids. Today we are going to continue our series Christian. Last time we were talking about grace and truth and we said that Jesus embodied the tension between grace and truth. Therefore as His body, churches and Christians should too, but they tend to swing toward one or the other. It’s easy to be a church of truth or a church of grace. But when churches take either of those routes, we can sense that something is wrong, something’s missing.

Wherever Jesus went, he was followed by tax collectors and sinners—all the worst people in his society. The marginalized, messed-up, and hated flocked to Jesus. People who were nothing like him, liked him. Imagine if, today, people like that flocked to the church. They should. If the church acted like Jesus, they would. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day complained that all these sinners were always around him. They assumed his proximity to these sinners meant that he condoned their sin. But Jesus never worried about being found guilty by association. Instead, he fully embodied God’s truth and God’s grace.

Moving Forward

If the church is to embody both truth and grace as Jesus did, we can’t respond to repentant sinners with the self-righteous disgust displayed by the Pharisees. Like Jesus, sin should break our hearts because it breaks people. Repentance should stir our hearts. We should do everything we can to make it easy for those who are turning to God.

Discussion Questions

1. Most of us are familiar with the parable of the prodigal son. Did today’s message give you a different perspective on the story? If so, talk about what you learned.

2. When you read the story of the prodigal son, do you relate more to behaving or misbehaving brother? Why?

3. Do you worry that when the church welcomes sinners it appears to condone sin? How should the church manage that tension?

4. Read Romans 3:23–24. What insight do these verses provide about the Pharisees and sinners in the crowd listening to Jesus?

5. Think of a person who needs your grace. What and demonstrate God’s love?