The Parables of the Lost

My Blogging has slowed right down eh? I started so strong too but here is a thought i never want to lose.

I've been thinking about the sermon last week for this whole week. One whole week. It might have had to do with me having to lead worship but i think there was something more. Something I couldn't yet grasp and wrap my mind around. For background, the sermon was about the parables of the lost (sheep, coin, and son) found in Luke and R. Seetoh talked about how the main point was this: God rejoices when a sinner repents and in the last parable about the prodigal son, the main point is this, will those who have this "self righteousness" join and celebrate when a sinner repents?

Well anyways I had alot of thoughts running through my head, most of which are very incoherent and didn't come out in proper phrases. One of the first ones I had was this:
God cares and rejoices more when sinners repent than about the whole church.
This sure puts a different spin on sharing the gospel. Not to say he doesn't "care" about his church, but he cares a heck of a lot for those outside of the church too...maybe even more. So when we stand up against things like homosexuality and abortion, is that right?

To be honest, I don't support these kinds of picketing. Why? well for starters, the world isn't ever going to head back towards perfection. It's only going to get gradually worse. Secondly, why do we need to protect our "religious rights"? This view of the church being outside of the world and trying not to "get dirtied" by the world is a very broad interpretation of being in this world and not of this world and is a very hypocritical stance. For example, it seems like the practice homosexuality and abortions are unforgiveable sins...

Well let's not go into that any further because I am just going to get on a soap box like most bloggers and lets try to avoid that. But anyways, the point is that God loves sinners who are 'outside' or not 'saved'. This got me kind of depressed because the conclusion was that he didn't love his church as much :(

How wrong I was...

At this point, i think it would be wise to split this post into at least two because it is getting quite lengthy to read.