Tag: selfishness

Saints, Sinners, and Sacrifice (Mark 8:31-38)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (New Revised Standard Version)

Saintly Sinners and Sinning Saints

People cannot be separated easily into the categories of saints or sinners. We are much more like saintly sinners or sinning saints. 

If we look closely, everyone is, at the same time, both beautiful and hideous; holy and depraved; full of faith and full of fear. And when it comes to the church, it is both the place of spiritual sensitivity toward others, as well as a den of decadent self-interested individuals. 

So, anyone searching for a church or a community that is a nice clean upward path of success with everything done to perfection with no one ever being hurt or unhappy, will be sorely disappointed. Such an organization or institution does not exist; and, it never did.

Yet, with that reality in mind, Jesus stands right alongside imperfect people, despite all their flaws, shallowness, and self-interest. Jesus is very well acquainted with people’s damaged emotions and open putrid spiritual abscesses. Yet, Christ treats everyone with mercy; Jesus never tires of rehabilitating and reforming.

Christ’s disciple, Peter, is the poster child for humanity’s mix of faith and failure. He stepped out of a boat in great faith and walked on the water, only to begin sinking because of his great fear. (Matthew 14:22-33)

It was Peter who made a bold and right confession of faith, and then turned around and bought into a satanic agenda. Yet, Jesus was right there, next to Peter all the way. Christ both rebukes and loves, all the while never abandoning us, but always working in and through us to accomplish good and right purposes.

The bald fact of the matter is that following Jesus involves pain and sacrifice. That’s the reality of living in a broken mixed-up world. What’s more, Christ’s Church is still imperfect and in the process of becoming holy. So, if we will admit it, we are all like Peter – a little devil who needs to get in line behind Jesus.

Everyone gets frustrated or disgusted with church, or really any consistent gathering of people. It’s easy to complain and even avoid others. It’s much harder to take up our cross and lose our life for the sake of Christ and others. We truly can choose to put love where love is not, even when we do not feel loved.

Imagine that your family has gathered for a holiday. Everyone is together. But you are struggling with tiredness and anger. Your spouse is sulking. Your teenage kids don’t want to be there. You worry about your aging parent. And you’re anxious about whether your crazy uncle is going to be nice or go on some weird political rant.

You want to be present, to celebrate the holiday. Your family is anything but a Hallmark card. Everyone’s hurts and hang-ups are not far from the surface. But you are together for a reason, to celebrate and experience joy. It may be a twisted human version of togetherness and spirituality, but it’s still a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that is to come. So, you deal with it all, and find some peace and satisfaction, transcending the carnal and experiencing the sacred.

In much the same way, the church gathers together in an imperfect way, a crazy mix of sinner and saint. But we gather in and around Jesus – and that makes all the difference. There’s a reason for doing this that is bigger than all our dysfunctional ways and dyspeptic attitudes. 

Jesus Christ is building his church, and he will keep it going until the end of the age. Fellow saints and sinners, Jesus isn’t finished with us yet!

The Sacrifice of Jesus Is Needed

Jesus openly stated openly that it is necessary for him to suffer deeply and die a cruel death. It’s God’s plan. But Peter didn’t like that plan, at all. So, he took Jesus aside and rebuked him, believing Jesus to be off his rocker for even suggesting such a terrible scenario. Jesus, however, turned the tables on Peter and rebuked him right back because being Christ-centered without being cross-centered is satanic.

Peter presumed to know what was best for Jesus. He believed the suffering of the cross would never happen. Peter’s perceptions were dim and limited. He did not the reality of how the world truly is; and that Jesus needed to offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the entire planet. 

Sometimes, like Peter, we may believe that the way I see and the way I perceive is the way things really are; or, at least, how I think they should be. 

Peter had been walking with Jesus for a few years, watching and enjoying him. It was all good. So, in his mind, it should never change; why try and fix something that isn’t broken? Oh my, but broken the world is!

Just because it was good for Peter did not mean it was good for everybody or should always be this way. If Peter had his way, we would likely be in hell. We, like Peter, are finite humans with limited understanding and perceptions.

One can easily slip into a satanic mode of believing that because something is going fine for me that everyone else is doing okay, too. I like it, I want it, so what’s the problem? 

The problem is that we too easily view life through selfish lenses. In such a state, we fail to:

  • see other people’s needs
  • perceive a lost world with any sense of reality
  • understand that Jesus has an agenda different from our own

Our limited perceptions come out in saying things such as:

  • “Oh, she’s just depressed because she is avoiding responsibility.” 
  • “People on government welfare are lazy.” 
  • “He’s addicted because he doesn’t want to help himself.” 
  • “They’re picketing because they’re a bunch of malcontents.”

Statements like those are legion, and betray a satanic worldview devoid of grace. It’s a compulsive need to find blame. It’s a belief that if there’s personal suffering, there must be personal sin. 

We belong to one human family, and therefore, we are all in this life together. One person’s joys are our joys; one person’s struggles are our struggles. The detachment we can have toward other humans is completely foreign to the words of Jesus. 

The Christian life always involves suffering, and Jesus invites us to follow him in his way of sacrifice.

The Sacrifice of Christ’s Followers Is Needed

There is a way to reverse a satanic agenda and demonic thinking: self-denial. Jesus issued an invitation to fall in line behind him and walk with him in his suffering. 

Self-denial is not so much doing something like giving up chocolate for Lent; rather, it’s giving up on ourselves as our own masters. It’s a decision to make the words and ways of Jesus the guiding direction for life. It’s the choice to quit holding onto the way I believe things ought to be, and take the time to listen to Jesus.

The logic of Jesus is relentless. Life comes through death. We give up our lives to find life. It’s unhelpful to adulterate our lives by serving the gods of success and perfectionism. Jesus invites us to quit our moonlighting job with the world, and go all in with him. In this way, we find abundant life. 

Jesus was encouraging not only submission to suffering, but also an embrace of suffering. In doing so, we find reward and joy. For those familiar with this path, suffering is a blessing. In walking this road, they find the true purpose and meaning of life. 

Few people suffered as much as the nineteenth-century missionary medical doctor to Africa, David Livingstone.  He was a pioneer explorer who opened up the interior of Africa to the outside world. He had two reasons for doing so: To take the good news of Christ’s suffering to the African people; and, to open Africa to legitimate trade, so that the illicit slave trade would end. 

Dr. Livingstone’s hand was bitten and maimed by a lion. His wife died while on the mission field. The one house he built was destroyed in a fire. He was often wracked with dysentery and fever, or some other illness in the jungle. 

Someone once commented to him that he had sacrificed a lot for following Jesus. His response: “Sacrifice? The only sacrifice is to live outside the will of God.” When asked what helped him get through the hardship, he said,  “The words of Jesus to take up my cross are always ringing in my ears.”

We may mistakenly believe that we must watch out for ourselves; push for our personal preferences; that if I accept the invitation to follow Jesus in the way of self-denial, I will be miserable and people will walk all over me. Those thoughts are merely demonic whispers in the ear.

There are two differing ways of thinking and acting: 

  1. The way of success, perfection, and a pain-free life as the evidence of God’s working. 
  2. The way of suffering as right and necessary in order to connect with God and be in solidarity with those who suffer. 

Suffering, rejection, and execution did not fit into Peter’s church growth plan. But according to Jesus, we do not exist only for ourselves, to be in some sort of spiritual country club. We exist to follow Jesus in his path of sacrifice and suffering for a world of people who desperately need to know the grace of forgiveness, and the mercy of Christ.

Since Jesus died, we are to die to ourselves. Since Christ lives, we are to live a new life. In God’s upside-down kingdom, joy comes through suffering. We follow Jesus as the mix of sinner and saint that we are. Amen.

Be Real, Not Fake (Titus 1:5-16)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Exploring Church Ministry Blog, Year ALeave a comment

The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. 

An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. 

Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” This saying is true.

Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. (New International Version)

Everything in life needs some decency and order – including the church. The bulk of the Apostle Paul’s letter to Titus gives needed instructions about structuring the life of the church, along with some warnings about those who would attempt to disrupt that good order.

One of the most important aspects of church life and organization is to appoint competent persons with good character and sound doctrine to oversee and serve the congregation. The leaders of the church are to be mature, unselfish, concerned for the common good of all the parishioners, and able to handle Holy Scripture by strengthening the faithful and rebuking the faithless.

It takes solidly worthy leaders to counter people who are opposed to doing and believing things that are inconsistent with apostolic teaching. Paul had neither the tolerance nor the patience for rebellious folk who sought to deceive the faithful. So, he told Titus to silence, rebuke, and put a stop to such persons.

Orthodox icon of St. Titus the Apostle, the first Bishop of Crete

The rebellious persons, however, were not so easy to spot for many in the church – which is why Paul instructed Titus to deal with false teachers forcefully. They were not the real article, but came across as genuine.

Sometimes, you cannot tell a fake by the external appearance. In Christianity, and within the church, a person might give a good outward performance, but actually not be the real deal because they are full of bitterness and death on the inside with a heart far from God.

A sobering reality for devoted believers in God is that the church and Christianity can have people who are religious on the outside but not really Christ followers on the inside. Claiming to know God isn’t the same as actually knowing the Lord. It’s like putting perfume in a vase – it might smell like flowers but the flowers aren’t really there.  

The Apostle was pointed about how to handle those of the “circumcision group” because they were legalists who put heavy spiritual loads on people and were unwilling to help them carry those burdens. Paul, following the example of the Lord Jesus, was always laboring and challenging people into a genuine, real righteousness from the heart that would submit to God’s kingdom. 

And, much like Jesus before him, Paul kept having the Judaizers in the church undermining him, talking behind his back, and stirring up resentment against him. 

The rebellious people of the circumcision group were not helping believers know God better through active service, but only tried to talk a good line. Paul pointed them out to Titus because such persons were not strengthening the faith of others and enabling them to live a sound spiritual life.

The Judaizers did not practice what they preached – and even what they taught was neither gentle, nor had any grace. People need one another in the church to truly live for God; but if there are double standards, then heavy loads aren’t getting carried because some individuals think they are above helping, or think too little of themselves and believe God could not use them. 

In both cases the person declares, “Someone should do something!” Someone should give, someone should pray, someone should visit, someone should tell that person about Christ, someone should help. To which Paul (and Jesus) would say that someone is you.

We may believe we are genuine and think we are being helpful when we really are not. Whenever we plaster on fake smiles, only obey and serve when others are looking, and/or pretend like everything is just peachy keen when we are dying inside, then we are in the same category as the Judaizers. We have become in need of putting aside how we look to others and ask the God of grace to have mercy on us. 

It’s possible to be so obsessed about the right thing to say that we never say what is really on the inside because we think it isn’t spiritual enough and we fear looking bad. We then put up a spiritual façade, live into a false self, thereby and eventually becoming a false teacher.

The rebellious in the church are those who seek power, status, authority, and prestige. Respect and honor from others is everything to them, so they want the positions of prominence and insist on being recognized for whatever they say or do in the church.

But facades will not work for Christianity. The church is about integrity, mission, worship, and service – and not about acting with the spectator in mind, and seeking to elicit praise and respect from others. For such persons, it does not matter what’s on the inside as long as the outside looks good. 

Instead of being a liar (one whose outward actions and inner dispositions don’t match) and an evil brute (not acting with anyone else’s needs in mind or at heart) and a lazy glutton (always receiving but never giving) instead be a servant of others with a good character, a basic understanding of Holy Scripture, and a heart to know and love God. 

If there is a job that no one wants to do, I’ll do that job.

If there’s a lonely person, I’ll be with them.

If there’s a parking space up close, I’ll park in the back of the lot.

If there’s a need is someone’s life, I’ll meet that need.

If there’s a hardship someone has to endure, I’ll help carry that hardship.

If there’s a sacrifice to be made, I’ll make that sacrifice. Amen.

Let Go and Give (Isaiah 58:1-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
    they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
    and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
    and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. (New International Version)

Let Go of the Hypocrisy and Get Real

Isaiah’s prophecy came to a community in conflict. The root of the issue was a hypocritical gap between the people’s conduct and their worship. They wondered why God had not noticed their pious fasting – why their actions before the Lord had gone unseen. Isaiah made it clear that their practice of fasting and their rituals of worship were ineffective because it was all self-serving instead of serving others.

Let Go of the Food and Get Generous

True fasting does not abstain from food just to get noticed (by God and/or others) but has the aim of a generous spirit and a giving heart. Both abstinence and generosity are necessary in the practice of fasting. 

Fasting is a much neglected spiritual practice today, so we need to make sense of the reason to do without food for a set amount of time. Fasting ought to put us in touch with our vulnerability; it should remind us of our mortality and our frailties. That’s why fasting is so often associated with the upcoming season of Lent.

Through fasting we remember that if we are not fed, we will die. Standing before God hungry, we realize that we are dependent creatures in desperate need of the Lord. By fasting, we discern that we are poor, and called to be rich in a way the world does not understand.

We are empty, called to be filled with the fullness of God. We are physically hungry, called to taste the goodness that can be ours in Christ, as we get in touch with a hunger for God.

Fasting, however, does not end with abstinence from food; and it is not merely a private individual thing. The spiritual discipline of fasting is meant to open our eyes and our hearts to the truly needy among us and in the world.  We are to be open to both the spiritual needs of people, and their very real material needs.

“When you see people freezing outside in the frigidity of unbelief, without the warmth of faith, impoverished and homeless, lead them home to the church and clothe them with the work of incorruption, so that, wrapped in the mantle of Christ, they will not remain in the grave.”

St. Jerome (347-430, C.E.)

Isaiah also addresses the very real daily tangible needs of people for the basic necessities of life. The message is this: Fasting is to personally abstain from food in order to provide food for another. 

Let Go of the Ego and Get to Praying & Repenting

Just as abstinence from and provision for food are two sides of the same coin, so fasting and prayer are, as well. We are to stop eating in order to take that time to pray and to give. Letting go of a meal puts the food that would have been eaten into the pantry for the needy. Fasting from lunch at our jobs can be done, not just to get more work accomplished, but so that we might share both our food and our friendship with those in need.

The prophecy of Isaiah has intimate connections between worship, fasting, justice, and reconciliation. They are meant to be a seamless whole, indivisible, enjoying a close bond that makes for powerful and effective ministry. All of this enables us to get back in touch with the real meaning of repentance:

  • To repair a broken relationship with God or with another person
  • To grieve over the reality of a certain situation
  • To devote oneself to service
  • To experience new life and spiritual growth

Isaiah wanted people to repent of both their individual sins and their social sins. Truth be told, we must all deal openly and honestly with our own complicity in the sins of our world, our nation, our church, and our families. The worship that God desires is inescapably corporate as well as compellingly personal. To ensure that all people around us flourish as human beings is both an obligation and a necessity to our collective fulfillment as God’s people.

The result of true fasting is a repentance that produces the fruit of renewal and restoration. Fasting connects us to God, and then leads us to repair and rebuild what has been broken and torn down. 

Let Go of Your “Precious” and Get Committed to God and Others

We fast to practice repentance, attach ourselves to God, and become more generous toward others. In the Lord of the Rings movies, Smeagol was much too attached to the power of the ring; it was his “precious,” and he was willing to do anything not to lose it or let it go.

Yet, we must all decide that we are going to let that precious thing go, at least for a time, whatever it may be. Each year at this time, before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, I decide in what ways I will practice fasting. In past years, I have abstained from buying certain things or watching TV. This year, however, I am going to do what fasting really is: abstaining from food for a set time. 

For most of the history of the church, Christians were expected to observe regular fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, every week, year round.  When the season of Lent came, the church was united in their commitment to use the forty days as a time of introspection, confession, and fasting in order to prepare for the miracle of forgiveness on Good Friday and its life-giving power on Easter. It was understood to be a time of confronting sin, purging bad desires, yearning for forgiveness, and developing godly habits of living.   

For me, I think the least I can do is fast two meals a week – one on Wednesday and one on Friday (if not the whole days) to not only be in solidarity with the faithful that have gone before us, but in order to let the season of Lent do what it is intended to do.

I encourage you to consider implementing some sort of regular fast through Lent, if for no other reason, to fulfill the spirit and intent of Isaiah’s message to us so that we all connect deeply with Christ in purposeful Christian living.

Merciful God and Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done – leaving us bereft of good. O Lord, have mercy upon us and restore us according to your grace, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Get Rid of Sin (1 Corinthians 6:1-11)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
The Apostle Paul at his Desk, by Rembrandt, 1657

When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels, to say nothing of ordinary matters? If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one person wise enough to decide between brothers and sisters? Instead, brothers and sisters go to court against one another, and this before the unbelievers.

In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and brothers and sisters at that.

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (New Revised Standard Version)

The one constant which every Church and each Christian will have to deal with until Jesus returns is the ever-present reality of sin. 

“Sin” isn’t a word that is much used anymore, even among many Christians. This is both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that we have expanded our vocabulary to better understand the concept and reality; and it’s bad because we sometimes label something as different than what it really is.

The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church confronts the presence of sin within the congregation. The reason why the letter is so long is that Paul painstakingly deals with every sin that had taken root in the community.

St. Paul at His Writing Desk by Rembrandt, 1630

In our New Testament lesson for today, Paul mentions some of those sins, especially tackling the unhealthy way the Christians were dealing with their internal strained relations of each other. One of the ways sin manifests itself is through confronting another’s sin with our own sin. Yeah, it gets complicated pretty quickly when that happens.

In other words, we too often try to meet a legitimate need through illegitimate means. That sort of practice is at the core of many a sinful attitude and action.

So then, there were those in the Corinthian Church who had legitimate grievances but sought to rectify the situation using secular means to handle a sacred need. Instead of focusing on restoration and relationship, utilizing the spiritual implements of gentleness and humility, they gave into the temptation for retribution through unrighteous persons who would level judgment.

None of this is intended for Christians to avoid the established court systems of the land. Rather, it is a warning not to punch somebody in the face when they slap you on the cheek. Seeking punishment isn’t the way of Christ. Reconciliation and restoration has been achieved through the cross of Christ – and Paul expected the Church to live as a new community based in mutual encouragement and accountability.

Paul clearly saw the shadowy places of the human heart and understood that light needed to come to those hidden areas. And he wasn’t about to sit back and let bitterness spread like gangrene in the Body of Christ.

Sin is both things we do (1 John 3:4), as well as things we leave undone (James 4:17). Sin is both the breaking of God’s commands, and the lack of conforming to the teachings of Jesus. 

Christians throughout the ages have generally understood that the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and Christ’s law of love (Luke 10:27) constitute a brief summary of God’s holy and moral instruction for humanity.  This is all based in the character of God as a holy and loving Being. 

Sin, then, may be defined as anything in a person which does not express, or is contrary to, the basic character of God. All sin, whether in our actions or inactions, is rooted in an attitude and activity of self-centeredness, of thinking about ourselves as the center of the universe, rather than God. 

The Apostle Paul, by Rembrandt, 1633

The consequence of this sin brings about an obsession with lust (1 John 8:34; Galatians 5:16); a broken relationship with God (Romans 3:23; Galatians 5:17); bondage to Satan (1 Timothy 3:6-7; 2 Timothy 2:26); death (Romans 6:23; 8:6); hardening of the heart (Hebrews 3:13); and deception (1 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:22, 26) just to a name a few.

This means that we are guilty of transgressing basic morality; we fail to live into being ethically virtuous people on any sort of consistent basis. Yes, I know this all sounds like a total Debbie-Downer. Well, actually, it’s total depravity. But being depraved doesn’t mean we are never capable of doing good; it just means that sin has profoundly touched everything in our lives, without exception.

The ironic paradox is that experiencing true joy and satisfaction comes through knowing how great our sin is. We live above sin by being set free from it through the grace of God in Jesus Christ. 

In order to be redeemed from sin, a provision must be made – and sin has been dealt with, once and for all, through the person and work of Jesus. Christ is our representative, taking our place with the retribution we deserved (Galatians 4:4-5; Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:9-15; Hebrews 2:17-18; 1 John 2:1).

Jesus Christ is our ultimate substitute (Romans 5:8); which resulted in our redemption (Galatians 5:13); which resulted in his sacrifice for sin satisfying all justice (Romans 3:25); which resulted in our reconciliation to God (Romans 5:10). 

Therefore the believer in Jesus is forgiven of sin because Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to deal with all the effects, consequences, and origin of sin. The sin issue has been handled decisively and definitively; the Christian is now complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).

Sin is awful. It ruins relationships and destroys everything it touches. Sin leaves terrible consequences in its wake and a bad aftertaste. Yet, sin does not have the last word; grace does. 

Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is the decisive blow to sin’s power. The Church is built on this foundation of grace and reconciliation between God and people. Anything less is neither Christian nor a Church but a country club of people plotting to get back at others while eating tartlets and talking gossip. 

The bad news is that sin is really bad; but the good news is that Christ is really good, and overcomes the worst that sin can throw at him. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.