Jordan and Kristen Ministries
Join us for life-altering teachings along with prayer for you and your needs! As the Bible teaches us in Matthew 18:19-20: "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in Heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." So please feel free to submit your prayer requests (preferably through the Facebook page), and Jordan and Kristen will pray over them personally.
Jordan and Kristen Ministries
Balancing Truth and Love: Speaking Up Against Sin Without Alienating Others
Can true Christian love mean staying silent about sin? On this episode of the Jordan and Kristen Rickards Show, we challenge the popular notion that compassion equates to permissiveness. Kristen recounts a fiery response to a friend's Facebook post that suggested Christians should refrain from speaking out on issues like abortion and religious beliefs. We dive into the heart of this controversy, questioning whether love can truly exist without truth, and how silence can lead to harmful consequences.
We tackle the misconception that being kind and creating relationships means we can't also stand firm in our beliefs. Kristen passionately argues that genuine love involves guiding others away from destructive paths, much like a parent would protect a child from danger. Tune in as we discuss how to speak the truth in love without alienating others, and why it's crucial for believers to balance compassion with the courage to express their convictions. This episode is a must-listen for anyone grappling with how to address sin in today's society while maintaining loving relationships.
Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of the Jordan and Kristen Rickards Show. Today's topic is calling out sin in a world that wants us to be silent. The world does not want us talking about sin. The church doesn't want to talk about sin. So, kristen, it is up to you and I to talk about talking about sin. That's right. But before we do that, can you open us up in prayer please?
Speaker 2:Thank you, lord. Thank you that you've given us a voice, lord, you've given us compassion. You've given us the things you put inside us. We are made in your image. But, god, you have also called us not to be silent and not to turn away when someone is going down a path. They shouldn't be because you love them, lord. You love us and you just have the best for us and you have our best interest at heart, lord. So help us to speak the truth in love, but to speak the truth and to know when we're supposed to do that, in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:All right. So today's message is inspired by a Facebook post that one of Kristen's friends, who shall remain nameless, put up, and it was this meme that she then commented on. So the meme says this I did not comment on.
Speaker 2:No, your friend commented on this okay.
Speaker 1:So the meme is you are not being asked to change your beliefs or religion. You're being asked to let people make their own decisions about their body, their religion, their love and so on. It doesn't affect you. Affect is spelled incorrectly. If you truly believe it is wrong, then let god judge them and worry about your judgment instead. And judgment is spelled wrong, and then your friend writes this. All of this, they will know. We are Christians by our love. By the way, before we get into this, what is it about social media that like infantilizes the way that we speak? This, all of this, or I am this. I was this many days old when I learned it's like I really that's a pet peeve of mine being in the flesh for a second.
Speaker 2:This, always this, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So, but more to the point, your friend writes they will know we are Christians by our love. So she's agreeing with this person and basically saying that to be a Christian, to exercise true love, is to I don't know be silent about abortion and religion and how everyone else lives their lives, because it doesn't affect us. Kristen, Kristen, Kristen, the Christian, you brought this up. Why don't you go ahead with it?
Speaker 2:Oh, this just really fired me up today, because it's just the enemy's lies. It's this person who I don't really even know that well, I'm sure they mean, well, I'm sure they have a good heart, but clearly, clearly, the enemy is feeding these lies and Christians, or people who call themselves some version of Christian, are just taking the bait. And it is what the enemy wants us to do. He wants us to remain silent so that he can lead all these people into the pit of hell.
Speaker 2:Now here's the thing we confuse compassion and God's love for letting someone do something wrong. It's like if you have a child and there's a ledge or something, and if the child walks off the ledge, they're going to fall and die. Right, I know that's a very extreme example, but I'm trying to draw a point here. Well, you love the child, but the child's like I want to go off the ledge. Should you just let the child go off the ledge or should you say no? You know, it's that compassion, part of loving. Yes, now we have to do it in a certain way. We can't just scream at people and tell them you're living in sin, you're living wrong. I'm not suggesting we do that.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of friends and people that I feel that I'm able to influence because I have created a relationship. I am kind to them, but they also know where I stand and the problem is we've done the first part reaching out, being lovely, loving lovely also loving to someone but then they never know where we stand because we're afraid to offend them. And I see this a lot in you know, as a kid actor, I would see a lot of other kids that call themselves Christians being in, frankly, in media projects that were very sinful and did not draw the line because they wanted to influence. How are you influencing if you're the one being influenced? And that's probably another tangent.
Speaker 1:So here's what this appeals to. Okay, first of all, the enemy wants you to be silent. So anytime you hear someone saying that Christians need to shut up about something, you know where that's coming from, and I'll tell you what's at the root of it is it's a combination of fear and idolatry, because we want to be popular. Ok, we don't want to offend the world, we want to have this sort of watered down, inoffensive version of Christianity that allows us to still be part of the world, in the world and of the world. And that's where this is coming from, and it's this attitude. It's one thing in politics to say, well, the government shouldn't interfere if something's not causing third party harm, but here this person says it doesn't affect you, okay, well, first of all. First of all, there are lots of things that don't affect me that I still need to call out. I mean, you know, slavery didn't affect a lot of other people who still fought against slavery and, in fact, who've continued to fight against modern day slavery. I am not at risk of being aborted, but other people are, and so, since those people don't have a voice for themselves, it is incumbent upon me to be a voice, and it's incumbent upon the church to be a voice, and I'm sorry if that makes some people uncomfortable, but I'm not going to be silent on it.
Speaker 1:You know there's sins, kristen, that you can commit, and those are the obvious ones, but there's sins of omission also, and where there's evil in the world, and evil that absolutely does affect other people in particular, I would suggest it's the wrong thing, it's a sinful thing to be quiet, because we're not called to be quiet, we're not called to be timid, we're not really called to be popular. We are called to live righteous lives, yes, but also to speak truth, to speak light into darkness. That is the goal. And so, with this person here, this friend of yours, who's all this, all of this, they'll know we are Christians by our love. Yeah, that's true, and it goes beyond.
Speaker 1:You know, going to church and saying nice things, yeah, be charitable, that's important. You know, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house, the sick, all of those things, do those things, but speak against evil where you see it also. So I totally reject this idea that we're supposed to, that the loving thing to do is for us to shut up and watch the world decay and sit in the silence. Because I gotta tell you something. The world isn't shutting up about it.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say we're the ones that are showing that we really have no platform by doing this. We're, you know, the other people. The other side knows what they believe in and is passionate and strong about it. We need to be just as even more so passionate about what we believe and why we believe it. And if we're silent, then they're you know, the enemy can just take over. It's the David and Goliath story. We've got to. We fight against, not flesh and blood. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:We're not angry at the people who are sinning because, honestly, because we all have been so silent, a lot of people don't even know it's a sin. I mean, this goes back to when you and I talked One time I heard in a church that I visited. They goes back to when you and I talked one time I heard in a church that I visited. They said well, we don't want to tell people it's wrong to live together before marriage because we don't want to offend anybody. It's like those people don't even know that it's a sin to live together before marriage. So that's a perfect example. People don't even know what's a sin anymore because we've been so silent on it and wishy-washy and we need to draw the line in the sand.
Speaker 1:And what happens is, when you remain silent, it creates this vacuum effect, and it's not like that area stays silent. It just gets filled in with someone else's voice. It gets filled in with Hollywood, with the media, with the secularists, with all these people who have their own ideas that they want to impose on everybody else, or their own ideas that they want to advance. Okay, so what they're really saying is don't compete in the arena of ideas. That's. That's the idea behind being silent.
Speaker 2:The other thing I would add to that is if you're either being influenced or influencing, there is no middle ground. So if you're taking the stand that I'm not going to to, I'm just not, I'm going to shut up, I'm not going to influence that person, then you are going to be influenced, you're going to be pulled into the tide.
Speaker 1:I think I was being hypercritical when I was correcting their spelling earlier, so I want to repent of that. It just does kind of get me when I think I see one of like I don't want to say our enemies, because it's not. I don't like to see the world that way, but when I see somebody who is doing something that I think is is deleterious to the faith uh it it. It does cause me to be less charitable, which is not what I should do, so I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2:I know and that's the thing what fires me up is it's not this person. I don't really even know this person. It's just more than an acquaintance. I don't even know who this person is. They just popped up on my Facebook feed. I believe that people this is what the enemy. We have to be mad at the enemy because this person is probably an example of people who think oh, we want to love people, I want to be Christ-like, and the Christ-like thing is remaining silent. Now, the Holy Spirit might give you different ways to be quiet and then all of a sudden influence somebody, but just to say by showing someone love is to be totally silent, is just wrong.
Speaker 1:Well, if that was the case, then we wouldn't even have a New Testament, because what would Jesus have said?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He'd have healed a few people. We've gotten zero message, and that would have been that.
Speaker 2:But that's what's happened in our churches, in our life, in our Christian interactions. We have wanted to accept. We need to accept the sinner, not the sin. So we all have sinned and fallen short. We're not pious saying, you know, oh, I don't do that, or whatever. That's not the point here. It's we build each other up. Iron sharpens iron. We accept the people into the church who are just don't know about God yet or don't know, but they're not going to know right from wrong. We're not loving them. Okay, we're not loving them by having them come into our churches and into our interactions and that sort of things and just not telling them what God says, what the word of God says. We're doing them a huge disservice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not just in the church, but in your everyday life. Oh, absolutely All right. Kristen, why don't you wrap us up here?
Speaker 2:All right. Well, thank you, lord. Thank you, god, for your mercy and your forgiveness and compassion and, as I just said, we have all sinned and fallen short of your glory, lord, I don't sit here saying, pointing a finger and saying you know, lord, I repent of any time that I have stayed silent, although I think my issue might be the opposite. Sometimes I don't really even think I ever stay silent. But, god, we just honor you and praise you. We just want to see you, your kingdom, come to this earth and we just want people to know you, lord, and we want to love them the way you have called us to love them by speaking the truth in love, but still speaking that truth In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:Amen, good job, sweetie.
Speaker 2:You too.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time, as always. Until then, be blessed and be a blessing. Bye.