I’m getting a lot of mileage out of the story I told back on June 15 about our pastor’s handling of someone who injected profanity into our Zoom worship service. The pastor told us all: “Do you know that it is your unedited self that God loves?” I shared it just the other day with a relatively new Christian participating with us in a Bible study.

I also shared this companion story. It’s a 4-minute video I strongly encourage you to watch.

The short version of the video is this. Matt Chandler had taken a friend who was not yet a believer to a concert at a church. After the concert, the pastor proceeded to talk about the evils of illicit sex. To illustrate his point, he had a beautiful rose which he passed to the audience, inviting as many people as possible to touch the rose, admire the rose, smell the rose. After a few minutes, this pastor said, “Where’s my rose?” When he got it back, it was all torn up from all the handling. And the pastor’s point was, “Who wants this rose now? Who wants the rose?” And Matt, who is telling this story said that he was angry, very angry, that the pastor was missing the whole point of the gospel. Matt said:

Jesus wants the rose!

Even if you’ve read this far and know the punch line, I still encourage you to watch the video. It’s powerful, and the message is powerful. Right out of the Bible.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5.21, NKJV)

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8, NKJV)