In three days this past weekend, three people were shot to death in my hometown of Jacksonville and many others were injured by gunfire. One was killed after a high school football game and two were killed while playing in a video game tournament.
This morning I joined hands with a group of people at my church to pray for the victims’ families, the city, its leaders and that churches would be the light of the gospel to a city that is hurting. A local politician has called for churches to step up. As my pastor said, “… the church must understand that to ‘step up’ means we must first kneel before God together, seeking His face, His will, while confessing our sins of complacency and self-promotion … Pray. Step up. Kneel down. Step outside and be the light in the darkness.” (David Tarkington – http://getreal.typepad.com/get_real_with_david_tarki/2018/08/if-pray-is-simply-a-trending-hashtag-we-are-doing-this-wrong.html)
How can we stop this kind of violence? To solve a problem or stop bad behavior, it is best to get to the source and tackle it there. Is the source the availability of guns? Is the source the cultural ethic within a group that says killing someone is a reasonable action? Is the source a breakdown in traditional family structure with two involved parents? Is the source untreated or ignored mental illness?
The source of this kind of violence may include all of these things, but at heart the source is sin. It is not popular to say that in our world. Many people don’t believe in sin, let alone God. Whether we like it or not, whether we think of ourselves as sinners or not, sin is a reality. All of us are sinners and are separated from God and the relationship he wants with us.
We call these acts “senseless violence.” While it seems senseless to most people, to the people pulling the trigger it made sense, if only in the moment. Most of us cannot understand that. Most of us value life too much to take it from a fellow human. Yet murder was the answer the shooters arrived at, including the shooter taking his own life at the gaming tournament.
How is a believer to respond? We must grieve. We must pray for all involved. We must pray that in the violence and the loss that God will be found, that people will feel the tug of the grace that He offers. We must love.
A believer must not compromise on Scripture; therefore, a believer cannot compromise on sin, but we also do not have the luxury of compromising on love. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Everything in the Bible hangs on loving God and loving others! We must offer love and grace to everyone.
We often cite part of a verse found in 1 John 4: “God is love.” (verse 8). But we sometimes miss the entire verse: “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” This is a beautiful verse, but it is also a deep theological statement. It describes an intimate relationship. It reveals God’s motivation for His actions from Creation to Redemption. It is personal. It is only by knowing God that we learn to love, and it is only by loving that we know God better.
God’s love for us prompted him to act. In verse 10 of 1 John 4 we find that love prompted God to send His Son as payment for our sin. Romans 5:8 reminds us that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Further in 1 John we are told that because God is love, “so also are we in this world.” (4:17) That is a bold statement that simply means if the world is going to see the love of God as a reality, it will see it in the actions of His people.
Verse 18 reminds us that there is no fear in love, that in fact, there is no room for fear because perfect love eliminates fear. We need not fear people who are different than us. We need not fear people who disagree with us. We need not fear ideologies or other belief systems. To disagree with someone does not mean discriminating against them or destroying them, but neither does loving someone mean condoning or approving of sin. However, we must love.
I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like in this situation. I couldn’t have prevented the shootings or taken a bullet aimed at someone else. I don’t know any of the victims’ families to reach out to personally. I can’t offer a hug or even a casserole. But I encounter people every day that I can love. I can focus on them and their need for a relationship with their Savior, rather than focus on their politics or their behavior or the way they dress or their perceived social standing. I can truly listen and truly respond. “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). We have no choice. We should want no choice.