In 1992, a Los Angeles cop saw a brown Cadillac El Dorado illegally parked. He wrote a ticket, then he reached inside the car’s open window to put the ticket on the dashboard. (They did that in those days.) The cop ignored the man in the driver’s seat, and that man didn’t complain about the ticket…because he was dead. He had been shot hours earlier, but he was still sitting up, albeit slightly slumped forward. The cop was only focused on the wrongful parking and didn’t notice anything else.
Most people around us are “dead in transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). That’s what should get our attention, not the small offense that we often notice first. They don’t just need a citation, they need a resurrection. They need to be born again. It’s not wrong to point out a sinner’s sin, but only do it to show him his need of Jesus. Don’t just leave the ticket and walk away.
(I'm preaching to myself.)