Family vacations are a blast in the Parish household. Especially the long car rides. With four boys in the back seat, the trips can get rather interesting. A few month ago we packed up the kids and headed towards our favorite vacation destination, Destin Florida. Our boys love the big water park in Destin and we’re very excited about where we were headed.

The boys started out for the first leg of the trip just fine, actually well behaved. Then Abel touched Luke, and Luke didnt like the way Abel looked at him. Lincoln began to hum a tune and Andy got irritated and began shouting at Linc. It seemed like the littlest things got under the boys skin with one another.

The huge excitement of looking forward to the water park began to pale in comparison to the smallest annoyances. They were more focused on trivial things rather than realizing that they were headed to one of their favorite places on earth and just enjoying the ride!

For the church of Jesus Christ, we are just like kids in the backseat of a car on a long ride headed towards a spectacular destination. But instead of basking in that excitement and encouraging our brothers and sisters as we travel down life’s road, we can begin to lose focus of the destination and let trival things get in the way. Instead of sitting back and enjoying the ride, and focusing on reaching others to join us, we can all too often begin to complain and fight among one another.

Sadly, the consequences of this happening inside of the church are much more detrimental than my kids fighting inside of a car. We are on a road headed towards eternity. And our hope is that God would draw others to join us as we head towards our final destination to be with God the Father. But when we fight amongst ourselves, and look for reasons to stir up strife within the body, we become a stumbling block to those who do not know Christ.

I can tell you with great assurance that if we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker and before getting in, they saw our four boys holding a Wrestlemania in the back seat, they would never get in the car with us! In much the same way, we misrepresent Jesus to the outside world when we focus more on our personal preferences and what we don’t like rather than looking ahead and anticipating our Heavenly reward!

The scriptures say that if we have a problem with another brother or sister, we are to immediately put an end to it before it can escalate by confronting that person in love to settle the matter. That is one of the marks of a mature Christian. Troubles arise when we begin to neglect the teachings of scripture, and instead of bravely confronting issues in love, we cower and chose instead to slander, gossip and complain.

It is not the lost individuals outside of the church that are the greatest threat to the mission of Christ. It is the people within the walls of the church who choose to tear people down rather than rejoicing in their own salvation and seeking to build up the body. Wherever the truth of God’s word is spoken, and the church is advancing, darkness will always raise its head, even inside of the church. Stephen, one of the men chosen by the apostles to serve the church, faced this problem.

Stephen was described as a man that was full of the Spirit of God. He was a man who stood on truth. Stephen was doing great signs and wonders empowered by the Spirit and proclaiming the risen Christ, and people began to rise up against him. But it was not a group of atheist that had a problem with Stephen. It was the people who claimed to be religious, but in truth preferred to serve a God of their own makings, not the Christ that Stephen preached and the scriptures spoke of. And they hated Stephen for the truth he preached.

“And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.  Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen.  But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.” Acts 6:8-10.

Instead of being the church and focusing on the mission of Christ, these religious men chose to slander Stephen. Instead of seeking unity, they pursued an agenda of division. Instead of taking the time to search the scriptures and their hearts to see if what Stephen was saying was actually true, they stiffened their necks and began to falsely accuse Stephen of blasphemy. They began to start whispering campaigns to stir up dissension rather than approaching Stephen in love to gain understanding. When the whispers and false accusations against Stephen had grown into a mob, only then were these men brave enough to confront Stephen with their drummed up charges.

“Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”  And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council,” Acts 6:11-12.

It was not that Stephen was preaching a false Gospel. Rather, the problem was that they did not want to believe the Gospel Stephen was preaching. Perhaps it was pride the filled their hearts, as they feared having to admit they were wrong. Perhaps they were so steeped in the religious traditions of the temple that they feared change. Or maybe their hearts were just rocks of stone. Regardless of their reasoning, the church was not glorifying Christ to the outside world, they were causing massive internal problems and stifling the truth of the Gospel that Stephen preached. Their hypocracy continued to grow.

“…and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law,  for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” Acts 6:13-14.

These religious leaders continued to stir people up within the church behind the scenes. They began to take truth out of context. One of the charges against Stephen was that they claimed Jesus said he would destroy the temple, their sacred place of worship. I would imagine that Stephen may have quoted Jesus to them when He had said;

“Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19.

No doubt Jesus had said He would destroy the temple, but their building was not what Christ was talking about. In context, Jesus was speaking of His own body and His resurrection that would follow three days later. The religious leaders had not taken the time to understand. Instead, they rose up in ignorance. They assigned their own meaning to what Stephen was saying instead of taking the time to understand the truth Stephen was speaking. And they were more focused on the internal things that they disagreed with rather than the mandate and honor of making Christ name great among the nations. These religious leaders missed out on the joy of living for Jesus because they were to consumed with living for themselves.

The Old Testament Prophets were persecuted for preaching the truth. Jesus was crucified for preaching the truth. And the Apostles and Stephen were killed for preaching the truth. Whenever truth is preached, opposition will rear its head. Because in our flesh we don’t want truth, we want life, Church, and even at times God to conform to our personal preferences. It is the human condition.

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,” 2 Timothy 4:3.

But when this takes places within the walls of the church, three things happen. First we neglect the truth of the scriptures, which halts our sanctification. Secondly, we become ineffective in reaching the lost world for Christ because our focus is misdirected. And thirdly, we become just like the religious leaders who stoned Stephen.

Pastors, Elders, Deacons, and congregants alike, we are own worst enemy at times. Rather than seeking to divide the body of Christ over back seat squabbles, we should take every opportunity to seek unity! Instead of arguing over our opinions of Biblical doctrines and the runnings of the church, we should go to one another in love and filter everything through the Word of God, letting it be our guide. And where there is misunderstanding in the church, we should all as the children of God come together in love to seek truth together as the body.

That trip to the water park in Destin did not happen for our boys, at least not that day. As we traveled the road on the way to a place that should have brought joy to our kids, squabbling from the kids in the backseat was so bad that as punishment, we said no to going to the water park. They were crushed, because they thought that was where they were going. I gave many chances for our kids to repent as I pleaded with them to stop arguing. But they were to focused on themselves to take joy in where they were headed.

Just because they were in the car didn’t mean they deserved to go to the water park. The little hearts and attitudes were dependant on the reward. And in the same way, name on a role or bodies on a pew do not serve as a punch ticket to Heaven.

The church is not comprised of people who slander, gossip, and seek to cause division. The church is comprised of new people, who through the love of Christ now desire above all else to love one another to serve the Lord.

“Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy; No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.” Psalm 101:5

The church is a transformed people with new desires. And although we fall into error at times and make mistakes, the children of God learn from their mistakes and repent of them. They don’t practice divisive tactics. They are seekers of unity and lovers of truth. Let us as brothers and sisters not merely come to church. Lets be the church. The road is long, and we are in the backseat together following after Christ. Let our focus be upon Him, the mission of making His name great, and the eternal joy that is to come.

It was A.W. Tozer who said, ““What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” If we understand God and His glorious Gospel rightly, our world view is changed radically. So many believers live a Christianity that is full of confusion, doubt, and frustration with God. And much of this frustration is due to the fact that a great majority of American Christianity is plagued by a low view of God.

A low view of God is marked by a high view of man. It is the belief that God is in the Heavens on bended knee with a tear trickling down his eye just begging for fallen man to “accept Him” into their hearts. A low view of God places God in the role of a mere beggar and man as the one who is ultimately in control of how eternity will play out. A low view is God would say that man is capable of saving himself by finding the power within to change his mind, clean up his act, and decide to follow Jesus.

Again, a low view of God exalts man and belittles the sovereign God of the universe. People with a low view of God genuinely think that man is innately good. If someone with this view were asked, “Why should God let you into Heaven?” They would reply by saying something like, “Because I’m a good person.” Or, “Because I go to church.” Or, “Because I decided in my heart to follow Jesus.” But do you see the one constant in each of these statements? It is the underlying belief that my salvation is attained by me. Basically, it is the line of thinking that God owes me salvation because I earned it by doing something.

When we have a low view of God, we feel entitled that God would bless us because in our eyes, we think we have in some way earned His blessings.

Here is the danger. A low view of God leads people to feel like God owes it to them to bless their lives because they consider themselves worthy of His blessings. So when life gets rocky for a person with a low view of God, their whole world view is thrown into chaos. If they lose a job, lose their home, get cancer, or experience the death of a loved one, a person with a low view of God will immediately begin to question God in their mind.

They begin to ask things like, “Why would God allow this to tragedy happen?” 

Or maybe, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?”

A low view of God paints Him as the bad guy in our lives when tragedy strikes. We end up placing God on trial demanding that he account to us for His actions in disrupting our lives. It is to say to God, “I deserve a great life due to my wonderful works, and you failed to live up to your end of the deal.”

 When we hold a low view of God, we demand of God that He answer the ultimate question, “God, why did you not give me what I deserved?”

But when a person asks this question, they do not understand the reality of who we truly are in light of who God is as revealed in scripture. The reality is that we are not the center of the universe. The reality is that contrary to what many believers think, we are not the good guys. We are so very depraved in our sinful natures that God describes us as being spiritually dead.

“You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins.” Colossians 2:13.

We are incapable of saving ourselves from our sin. A proper study of the law of Moses and the Old Testament reveals that God’s many laws were given not to save us, but to show us how wretched, sinful, and inept at even coming close to pleasing Him we truly are. The Apostle Paul described to the Galatians who were priding themselves on their attempts at keeping Gods law that if they were to break just one of God’s laws one time, that alone was enough to damn them.

We’ve not just broken one of God’s laws, we’ve broken them all. Repeatedly. Not only do we commit these crimes against God, but we do not want to turn from them. No one in their flesh even has the power to seek God or understand His ways.

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12.

A pastor once told of driving past a church sign that read, “Salvation, so easy a caveman can do it.” But this is Biblically inaccurate. A more correct statement would be, “So radically depraved and dead in sin was I that it was an utter impossibility for me.” Salvation, only a supernatural work of God could do it!

Consider how John 1:13 speaks of how a child of God is born.

“…children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” John 1:13.

We are not Christian because our parents were Christian. We are not Christian because our parents had us baptized as a child. And we are not even Christ due to a decision we made for Jesus. This is what the verse above states. And many people with a low view of God will rail against this. Because so desperately in our flesh do we want to take credit in some part for our own salvation. But the scriptures are clear. We are so corrupt in sin, that our natural flesh doesn’t even want God. And if salvation were left up to the decision of man, we would never come to Him.

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” Jeremiah 12:22-23.

Jeremiah puts it very logically. A person born an Ethiopian by birth cannot change his skin color nor a leopard change the spots it was born with. Because it is part of their nature. To change the DNA of a creature would require a supernatural work. In the same way, you and I were born with a sin nature. We are unable to change this. A leopard could not simply decide he did not like his spots and will them to just go away. Nor can a spiritually dead sinner decide to just change the desires of their heart to being loving the righteousness. We are sin lovers and God haters by nature.

I use this example all the time when a person tells me that they decided to live for Christ and walked the church aisle in baptism. If you walked the aisle to commit your life to God, it is only because God first regenerated your heart Himself and saved you in your seat. The only reason you could desire to live for Him is because He first set His affections on you and supernaturally changed your sinful nature. It is because He first loved us that we are even able to love Him.

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19.

Again, we must seek to obtain a high view of God through our study of Him throughout scripture. So back to the question. When we hit hard times and basically in one way or another inquire of God, “Why have you not given me the blessings I deserve?” It is a dangerous plea to ask God to give us what we deserve.

The scriptures are clear. We deserve nothing but the wrath of God. As Isaiah writes, all of our good works laid before a Holy and Righteous God are as filthy rags. It would be like being arrested for murder and trying to buy your freedom from the judge with a candy bar wrapper. We have absolutely nothing to offer God. We have nothing to bargain with.

“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” Romans 11:35.

The Apostle Paul describes our hopeless state before God in Ephesians.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Ephesians 2:1-2.

Dead. Disobedient. Living in and for the passions of our flesh. And children who abided not under the love of God, but under His Righteous wrath. That is what we deserved. But God sent His only Son to become our substitute, based on nothing we had done, but based only on His grace and mercy. God slaughtered His Son Jesus so that we may be seen as righteous.  The scriptures, after describing us as spiritually dead, do not go on to say, “But some people made a decision to follow Jesus.” Or, “But some people changed their evil ways.”

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4-5.

God is the giver of life. God is the changer of hearts. God is the savior of the world. 

That is a right view of the Gospel. Now let me explain briefly how this high view of God will radically change a person’s world view. Now, when an individual faces the tragedies of life such as cancer or death, no longer can they shake their fists at God and ask the question, “Why have I not received from you what I deserve!” When we understand the undeserved grace of God-given in light of our sin, we can rightly say;

“I deserved Hell, but instead you allowed cancer…..PRAISE GOD HE DIDN”T GIVE ME WHAT I DESERVED!”

“I deserved condemnation and wrath, but instead you allowed heartache….PRAISE GOD HE DIDN’T GIVE ME WHAT I DESERVED!

When we understand that were hopelessly lost and undeserving of God, yet He saved us from His wrath that incurred by our nature, then every tragedy that we face in light of this Gospel reality can be viewed as amazing grace! In light of what we deserved, even the worst of situations can be used as a reminder that God spared us from what we rightly deserved! And it is through holding a high view of God that the Christian can have joy in the Lord even in the most painful of circumstances.

“I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:12-13.

Every Christians knows that we are to be witnesses for Christ. This is a central message that is preached in one way or another each Sunday morning.  I have anchored this truth many times to my own congregation by referring to 1 Peter 2:9.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood…” 1 Peter 2:9.

The text is straight forward and needs little interpretation. If we are truly the chosen of God, His redeemed people, then we also are to be His royal priesthood. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, then you are to proclaim of His grace to the world. We can go elsewhere for proof of this high priestly calling such as the book of Romans.

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Romans 10:14.

Francis of Assisi is credited with the famous quote, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” Basically stating that simply living out our faith is enough, and preaching Jesus with words to others is a last resort. But however popular this saying may be, it is quite faulty and goes directly against what the Apostle Paul was relaying in Romans and against the scriptures as a whole.

Beginning with the prophets all the way to the post resurrection Apostles, the model for leading others to Christ has always been the preaching of the Word of God. It is not enough to live a moral life. Just as Peter and John said standing before the Sanhedrin on trial in the book of Acts (Acts 4:20), we must not be reserved about speaking of the one who saved us.

Gospel proclamation is not only a mandate to be followed by God, but preaching Christ to the lost is the heart cry and passion of a person who has truly seen the beauty of Christ. It is not as if they are under a burden to speak of Christ, but rather the new nature that now lives in them has produced a desire to speak of the Lord. Jeremiah expressed this new nature very well.

“If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” Jeremiah 20:9.

Once again, we know through the Word of God that sharing the Gospel with others is commanded by God and one of the signs of genuine faith. Our own redeemed hearts should testify to this new desire. However, I feel at times that ministers, myself included, have done a poor job at actually instructing others on how to do this. It is one thing to tell others to preach the Gospel to their lost friends and neighbors, but it’s another thing to actually disciple them on how to go about this task.

Take my six-year-old son Lincoln for example. Last year, Linc really wanted to learn how to ride his bike with no training wheels. It was something he desired to do. Imagine if I had told Lincoln to just go and begin riding His bike. I did not take time with him to teach him how to do this, I merely gave an order. Although riding the bike was a desire of his little heart, Lincoln would have had a very hard time.

So where do we begin? Knowing that God commands us to be His royal priesthood and preach the Word, how do we get this conversation with a lost person rolling? Many have begun by asking their lost friends if they would rather go to Heaven or Hell. But I honestly don’t know of anyone who would choose Hell. Also, if we use this method of attempting to lead a person to Christ with this proverbial “carrot on a string” tactic, then we neglect to show them the beauty of Christ. In doing this, we teach others to seek God for His gifts and not for God Himself.

Others would make a bee line to the Gospels. Possibly John 3:16 in particular.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

Although this verse displays such a wonderful truth, it begs the question, “What have I been saved from?” It is impossible to have a deep appreciation of your own salvation if you do not have a proper understanding of why you needed saving to begin with. In order to understand the rich mercy and grace of God, we must first have an understanding of our terminal condition before God.

When sharing the Gospel with a lost person, we don’t start with the beauty of Christ, we must begin with the depravity of man. Because in knowing this, Christ’s beauty is magnified. And to do this, we must always point our hearers back to the law. Many of the great theologians throughout history have attested to their dependence on God’s law to help see our great need for a savior.

“I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law. The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within. They must be slain by the law before they can be made alive by the gospel.” -Charles Spurgeon

“The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the Law; and it is because the Law has not been preached that we have had so much superficial evangelism. True evangelism must always start by preaching the law.” -Martyn Lloyd Jones

“Unless we see our shortcomings in the light of the Law and holiness of God, we do not see them as sin at all.” -J.I. Packer

“The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin.” John Bunyan

“God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the Law is preached and man’s corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God’s grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God’s Law.” John Macarthur

“The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God’s Law and show the nature of sin.” Martin Luther

“The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His Moral Law.” Jonathan Edwards.

A cancer patient does not see his need for a doctor until he has first seen the diagnosis that he is terminal. Likewise, it is an impossibility to rightly see Christ as savior and treasure if we do not understand our need for Him. The law of God was not given to save man. The law does not have that power. Rather, God gave His laws to Moses to reveal to man the cancer within. God have the law as a mirror of sorts to show us how wicked and unable to save ourselves we truly are.

“Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised.” Galatians 3:19.

In a day and age where the predominant post modern belief is that good people go to Heaven, we desperately need to inform others that yes, a good person does indeed deserve eternal life! But the great problem is that according to scripture, none of us is good. Due to the fall of Adam, we were born wicked and condemned.

“The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.” Psalm 58:3.

Many self-righteous people would scoff at this thought of a little baby not being seen as innocent before God. But I would beg the question, “Who taught your baby that biting another child or throwing a temper tantrum was a proper way to get a toy they want?” No one teaches this reaction, they are mere side effects of our depraved nature from birth.

Upon taking a person through the Ten Commandments, they will soon realize that it is not just that they have broken one of God’s laws, but rather every one of them! Paul ran into this same issue in dealing with the church in Galatia wherein people would pride themselves in morality or being a “good person.” Paul responded by saying this;

“But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. ” Galatians 3:10-11.

The law shows us that we are under the curse of sin. We are born with this malady. Notice Paul points out that “cursed is everyone who does not obey ALL OF THE COMMANDS.” In short, Paul is telling us that if we were to break only one of God’s laws only one time, that alone is enough to condemn us and separate us from God forever. The problem in our culture today is we no longer have a proper understanding of the Holiness of God. We do not comprehend the depths of His righteousness. It is not just that God dislikes sin. God is so very Holy, He cannot have anything to do with sin! We get a broad picture of this throughout the Old Testament with all the washings and blood sacrifice rituals the people of God had to go through in order to come into His presence.

God’s wrath burns not merely against our sinful actions. God’s wrath burns against who we are. We are corrupt from head to toe. There is nothing good in us. Even the things we do that we would call good, without the blood of Christ upon a person, are viewed by God as filthy rags.

Imagine a person who was eaten up with leprosy. Their skin was rotting off of their body and bloody sores were on every patch of skin. So in order to make this person more presentable, you wrap them in the finest clothes and spray the best perfume on them. You have changed their outside for only a moment. Because it is just a matter of time before the blood of their sores begins to show through those nice clothes, and the rot of their skin begins to overpower the perfume. Those once good clothes are quickly viewed as filthy rags due to the leprosy.

Our good works are viewed as filthy before God because they don’t solve the problem (Isaiah 64:6). Sin has corrupted us completely. Just as fellowship with someone who has leprosy would be for them to be cured of leprosy, the mandate for fellowship with God is perfect Holiness! We do not just need cover up a few sins, we are in need of being made into a totally new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48.

When we understand the seriousness of God’s law in light of our inability to uphold even one of them, we then begin to see the depths of our problem. We cannot save ourselves. It’s not just that we are sick, we are terminal. Every one of us deserving of death for the breaking of God’s law. And if anyone would scoff at this or deem it to be too extreme, they only belittle the unfathomable Holiness of God and prove to have no understanding of the depths of His great righteousness. We are born into sin, enemies of God.

Did you know that the night-time stars are still in place even in the day time? Due to the light, the stars cannot be seen. But against the black backdrop of night, in the dark the shine the brightest. This  bleak picture of our depravity must be painted to a lost person. Because like the stars in the sky, their light can only be seen in the darkness.

God can not merely forgive our trespasses without a price being paid. If an earthly judge simply let a murderer go with no punishment, he would be viewed as an unjust judge. The only person that would think that to be good and fair would be the murderer who got off with no consequences.

Before God, we are like that murderer, deserving of the death sentence. And God is not an unjust judge. Therefore a price must be paid for the crime. So how do we escape this punishment that we rightly deserve?

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Jesus imputed to the children of God His righteousness by living the perfect life that we could not live and upholding all of God’s laws perfectly, and took upon Himself our sins, enduring on the cross the wrath that we deserved. Therefore when God looks upon the children of God, He does not see anything in you or I that would merit our pardon, but rather God sees the blood of His own Son. We are saved by the grace of God and not by anything in ourselves. Jesus commands those who believe in Him to repent and turn from their sins. And in our corrupt nature, we do not have the power to do this. But Christ gives the believer a new nature. It is not by own works that we muster up a repentant heart. But rather, it is made possible by the Holy Spirit of God-given to the believer in Christ Jesus. Even the new heart and the faithful obedience we live as believers is not produced in ourselves, but is a supernatural working of God.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:26-27.

When witnessing to your lost friends and family, begin by taking them to the law of God. Show them through the mirror of the law that there are not only sick with sin, but terminal. A realization of God’s standards and our inability serves as a road sign to the cross. You cannot see the brightness of the savior unless you view Him against the blackness of our soul. God did not save us from only sin. God didn’t even save us from ourselves. God saved us from God. God saved us from His own righteous wrath. And in this realization, we can rightly see how great the grace and mercy of God through Christ truly is in our lives. Oh, what a savior we have in Jesus!

Now more than ever, it is crucial that professing Christians be grounded in their faith. More than that, believers in Jesus need to be able to articulate what they believe, and why they believe it pertaining to the Gospel. The key to evangelising the lost and to reaching others for Christ is and always has been Gospel proclamation. It is not enough to just live your Christianity in hopes that others will see Jesus. Beginning with Abraham and the prophets all the way through the resurrection of Christ and the apostles preaching, the bold proclamation of God’s Word has always been God’s means of saving lost sinners. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Romans 10:14. 

However, it is impossible to preach about a savior that you do not know yourself. It does no good to profess to be a follower of Jesus when the extent of your own relationship with Him consists of only Sunday morning and Wednesday evening prayer meeting.

Preaching Christ should always begin with absolute truth. As was stated in the previous blog, our world must believe in absolute truth. That means that the Word of God is not up for interpretation. It must be interpreted by taking the in the scriptures as a whole and not by ripping verses out of context. Imagine that you went to the movie theaters to see the movie Rocky for the first time. You were late the movie and you walked in right at the part where Rocky was walking down the street with his black leather jacket on bouncing a rubber ball. You decided after that scene that you did not want to finish the movie, so you left the theater. On the way home, a friend calls you to ask what the movie was about. And based on the very little you saw, you say that it was about a bum bouncing a rubber ball. You would have been totally wrong! You would have drawn conclusions about the movie as a whole based on only seeing one tiny portion!

This is exactly what is happening in our society today. Especially in light of the recent Supreme Court legalization of same-sex marriage. For those that are in favor of the ruling, many have succumbed to choosing only parts of the Bible and misusing scripture in order to justify their cause.  One of the most prevalent misuses of the Bible comes about from a misunderstanding of the Old Testament. More specifically, a misunderstanding of the law.

Those seeking to justify practicing lifestyles of sin will ask the question, “What about the many old testament laws?”

Gay rights activist will constantly point to the Old Testament and book such as Leviticus, making the argument that there are many Old Testament laws we do not adhere to in our present day and age. Therefore, they conclude their point by saying, “So why do Christians cry out against homosexuality and not other laws such as dietary restrictions or not cutting hair?” Unfortunately, there are many professing Christians that have no idea how to combat this argument. They are faithful in their religious duties, but have no understanding of the scriptures as a whole.

The laws given in the Old Testament were a diagnostic of our sin. They were not given to be the cure. The law was given as a mirror to show us the sickness of our sin nature. Imagine that you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have chicken pocks. You shake your head in disbelief saying to him, “That can’t be true, I am perfectly healthy!” Then the doctor holds up a mirror in which you then see innumerable little red pock marks all over your body.

We are the same way when it comes to realizing our total depravity before our Holy God.  In our flesh, we tend to think that we are good people, ignoring the smallest of our sins and focusing on the sickness of others. All the while, we think we are one of the good guys. God’s people back in the days of Moses had the same problem as we do. They couldn’t see the sickness of their own sins. They were like a man with chicken pocks walking around thinking that they were in perfect health. But God gave Moses the law. When Moses brought down the Ten Commandments from atop of Mount Sinai, for the first time, the people saw through the statutes of the law how wicked and sick they truly were before God.

The law did not bring salvation or become a means to justification before God, but rather it brought into light the knowledge and realization of our sins.

“because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20.

The law was given so that the weight of our transgressions against the Lord might be felt by us, and that our great need for the grace of God would be made clear.

“The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,” Romans 5:20.

The law became our teacher, not our savior, showing us the depravity of our own souls. The law took our eyes off of our own works in trying to earn our salvation by showing us we can’t, therefore pointing us to look for a way to be saved from our disease. The law points us to Jesus.

“Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.” Galatians 3:24.

Again, an understanding of the reality of absolute truth is vital in understanding the concept of the law. God is perfectly Holy in every aspect. There are no flaws in Him. And He makes no mistakes. Therefore, His standards are much higher than ours. God’s standards for His children are not merely to be mostly good. His standards are spotless perfection.

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48.

The absolute truth is that God expects and demands total perfection from His creation. God does not and cannot tolerate any sin. Our problem is not just that we have sinned. Our problem is that we have never done anything but sin. Through the giving of the law in the Old Testament, God held a mirror before sinful man and exposed us for the criminals that we truly are in the sight of God. And no matter how hard we try, even the most religious of men due to their sin nature cannot uphold the laws of God perfectly. The Scribes and Pharisees in the New Testament did their best to uphold all of God’s laws. In fact, they most likely did it better than anyone. They knew the scriptures and were students of the Torah. They were known as the most righteous of men in their culture. But even they fell short of God’s standards. Even they could not uphold the weight of God’s perfect law.

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20.

Jesus told His disciples that if they were to have any hope of inheriting eternal life, their righteous must only match that of the scribes and Pharisees, but that it must exceed it! Jesus was saying in order to inherit eternal life, you must uphold the laws of God better than the most religious of men walking the earth today! And again, not just uphold God’s laws, but be able to uphold and keep every one of them perfectly. In short, Jesus was telling them the only way to be viewed as righteous in the sight of God was to be sinless.

This magnifies our problem. Even the sins that we view as tiny in our fallen eyes sentence us to eternal death when viewed through the laws of God. Take the sin of lying for example. We may think nothing of the sin of lying. A little white lie may seem innocent and harmless to us. But consider the consequences for lying as the authority by which we transgress against becomes greater.

If you lie to a stranger, there is little to no harm.

If you lie to your spouse, it could create marital problems.

If you lie to a police officer, it could land you in jail.

If you lie to the Government, that is considered treason and could warrant a physical death sentence.

And if you tell a lie before the God of the universe, the consequences are of an eternal nature.

God cannot simply just forgive and forget our sins. To do this would make Him unjust. If a murder had killed your whole family, and the judge decided to just let him go free because he had done some good deeds, you would have to say that just was extremely unjust. A crime such as murder cannot merely be dismissed. In order to uphold justice, there must be a punishment for the crime.

God is a righteous and just God. Therefore even the smallest of our sins is a major transgression before the Holy God of all. So how does a righteous God save sinners like us for Himself without dismissing our sin? We are all lawbreakers. We all stand condemned before God due to the law of Moses. We cannot live up to even one of those laws. So how can a law-breaker be seen as righteous? How do we escape our own condemnation before God?

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4.

When someone uses the argument of modern-day humanity not obeying all of God’s law, they are correct! We can’t! But praise God the Father sent His son Jesus to live the perfect life that we could not live, and to take the condemnation and punishment that we all deserved. Jesus became the fulfillment of the law for us and He imputed His righteous track record to His children and took upon Himself their sins! Therefore, when God the Father looks down on upon a true follower of Jesus, He sees not his many sins, but the righteous blood of His Son Jesus!!

There is an old hymn that asks the question, “What did God see in me that He saved my soul?” The answer is that God saw nothing of any merit or worth in us! For those that are saved, God sees the merit, work, and worth of His Son Jesus upon the redeemed sinner!

We are no longer under the laws of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ has set us free from the laws of Moses, otherwise known as the laws of sin and death. We are no longer bound to the law of Moses, but because Jesus paid our fine, we our bound to Christ!

“Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.  But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” Romans 7:4-6.

We could have never been good enough. Humanity has no hope of salvation by works nor by good deeds. For if we could inherit eternal life by trying to uphold God’s law on our own, then there would have been no need for Jesus to come and die for us! We are saved by nothing we do, but by the grace of God alone!

“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Galatians 2:21.

Now many may argue, “If Christ absorbed the wrath incurred by the law, then we are free to take advantage of God’s grace and continue on in our sins!” But this is not true. Paul addressed this very issue.

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:1-4.

Baptism is a symbol of the internal, supernatural change that Christ has wrought inside of our sinful hearts! Not only does Jesus save His children from their sins, but He places in them a new heart. Not a sinless heart, but rather a heart that now despises sin and desires to walk in righteousness.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:26-27.

The Christian can and will fall into sin, but due to the new nature dwelling within them, they cannot and will not fall into an habitual practice or lifestyle of sin.

“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” 1 John 3:9.

The many Old Testament laws were given to show us our desperate need for a savior. We have died to the old laws that we now may live for Christ, not walking in deliberate practices of sin!

“For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.” Galatians 2:19.

We are not saved by our adherence to the law, but by our new nature in Christ. Again, the law was given not to show us how we can save ourselves, but rather to show us that we are totally incapable of saving ourselves without someone to become our substitute. We had no hope of salvation or being seen as righteous in the sight of God without the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ!

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Christians do not pick and choose the laws of the Old Testament. The truth is we can’t, because even the smallest law broken condemns us in the sight of God. But due to Jesus becoming and fulfilling the law that we could not and imputing His righteousness upon the children of God, we are no longer bound to the law of sin and death, but rather we are bound to the one who redeemed us from the law, our savior Christ Jesus! And in our salvation from the old law, we are given by the grace of God a heart of flesh to replace the old heart of stone, no longer able to continually walk in sin, but rather, now striving to please our redeemer and the one who granted us freedom from sin! Why would anyone not want to live for this savior!!

Humanity does not determine morality, and we do not hold the keys to absolute truth. God does. Instead of railing against God for our inability to live up to His standards, perhaps we should see ourselves in light of the absolute truth of God’s Word. That we were rightly condemned by our sin nature. God would have been right and just to damn the lot of us, for there is nothing good in us. But because of His great love, God sent His only Son to take the wrath that we deserved so that we would be saved from ourselves. A right view of mankind produces a right view of God. And a right view of God can only result in a heart of praise and gratitude. Praise God for the diagnostic of the law. But rejoice in worship that Jesus became our cure!

Let me begin by saying as Paul, I consider myself to be the chief of sinners. I have no righteousness to call my own. I am simply one beggar reaching out to other beggars like myself to tell you that someone took me in. He took me off the streets called sin that I once loved. He cleaned me up. He gave me a home. And He adopted me as His son. I deserved none of that, and did nothing to earn it. But He saved me from my former life and the sins I thought I once loved. You see, I had never experienced life apart from the streets of my sin. I thought that was as good as it could get. But this man introduced me to a life I could have never imagined, and to a joy I would have never otherwise found without meeting Him. His name is Jesus.

We are living in a culture where the majority would say that there is no one single truth. Our extremely postmodern society would say that truth is ultimately determined by each individual. This past week, our Supreme Court attempted to redefined the definition of marriage. Again, this is just proof of this prevailing postmodern mindset where no truth is set in stone, and things can be easily redefined according to how a person feels inside.

The subject of same sex marriage has been a major dividing line not only within church and state, but between professing believers as well. There are many misconceptions as a result of culture attempting to redefine what God has clearly defined throughout scripture, that being marriage consisting of one man and one woman.

“He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” Matthew 19:4-5.

I write this blog not out of anger or in an attempt to degrade anyone. Rather, I want to take this opportunity to answer some questions that I see many professing believers asking in light of the recent wide-spread support of same sex marriage.

One supporter of gay marriage recently wrote, “We all have sins in our lives. So why is this sin so singled out? And how can it be sin if two people are in love?”

Romans 3 is crystal clear. That all have sinned, every one of us, and as a result stand guilty before God. But there is a misconception of sin in relation to the true believer in our world today.

“Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

Homosexuality is not the only sin mentioned in the above verse. There are many sins listed. And each of them threaten to separate us from God for eternity. We tend to place sin on a rating scale where big sins are bad but things like gossip or a little white lie are innocent sins.

“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8.

This verse seems to be a repeat of sorts of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, but there are a few different sins listed. One of them is the sin of lying. Our world thinks nothing of a little white lie today, but that only shows how very wicked and evil we are at heart. Even habitual liars be separated from God for eternity.

What is the point? It is this; that the true Christian can and will fall into sin, but due to their new nature in Christ they cannot continue in that sin as a way of life.

“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” 1 John 3:9.

Any practice of sin, which is a lifestyle of sin, be it homosexuality, lying, gossip, slander, or whatever, according to God’s word, proves that the person doesn’t know God! If a person can deliberately continue walking in a lifestyle of sin, then they prove that the truth is not in them and the sacrifice of Christ crucified does not apply to them.

“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,”  Hebrews 10:26.

A Christian strives to avoid sin, they do not willingly run towards it.

As Christians we sin. But the difference is that a Christian weeps over their sin. It pierces their heart that they have transgressed against God. The Christian mourns sin in their life, they don’t institutionalize and celebrate it.

Some would ask, “How can it be sin for two people to love each other?”

Lets address this question by stating something that will make the postmodernist cringe. There is a such thing as absolute truth. And every truth is always defined by the creator of that truth. In 1869, when Walter Camp came up with the sport of football, he coined certain terms that were true to the sport he created. When a point was scored, it was called a touchdown. When a player was knocked down by someone on the opposing team, it was called a tackle. Now imagine that all the sudden, you decided when a point was scored, you would call it a home run instead of a touchdown merely because you liked the sound of it better. Anyone would tell you that you can not redefine the sport of football based on how you felt! There is an absolute truth that defines the game.

Many people are calling gay marriage a redefinition of marriage. But you cannot redefine absolute truth. You cannot call a touchdown a home run.

In the same way, God created the concept of marriage. And God had a purpose in His design, that we would procreate and that His glory might spread to all nations of the earth through His image bearers. It is not unloving or indicative of a bigot to hold to the Biblical concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman. Rather, it is just acknowledging absolute truth. Our world affirms absolute truth in all areas of life, except when it pertains to the Bible.

Again, the question on the table is “How can love between two people be called sin?” Again, we must continually think of absolute truth. Humanity does not define sin, we embody it. We don’t make the rules as it pertains to creation based on how we feel in our hearts.

Ill give you an example. We have four boys and they all love to swim. Luke and Abel are four years old and just beginning to learn to swim. Whenever we go swimming in a pool, my oldest Andy and Lincoln will play in the deep end of the pool. And Luke always wants to jump in the deep end with them and play. But his mother and I forbid it. We have made a rule for him that he is not allowed to go to the deep end. Now being only four years old, Luke doesn’t understand this. All he knows is that in his heart, he desperately wants to go and play in the deep end of the pool with his older brothers. He thinks Lacy and I are being unfair in not allowing him to go. In his mind, playing in the deep end of the pool makes him happy. Therefore, mom and dad must be against his happiness.

When in reality, I love my son more than he will ever know. And I want nothing but his safety and happiness. My rules are never to harm or hinder Luke’s fun, even though at this point in time he can’t see that. My rules are to keep him safe and are set in place because I know that the pleasure that is so alluring to him now could ultimately lead to his death. And I want my son to have a long, joy filled life.

We are like four-year old children at times. We view the word of God as a hinderance to the desires of our hearts. But God even warns us about listening to our hearts.

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Jeremiah 17:9.

God does not give us commands in an attempt to be some kind of cosmic kill joy. God knows you better than you know yourself. He sees the pitfalls that we do not. God did not create marriage as an absolute truth to hurt us, but rather to say, “Look I designed you and the concept of marriage to bring you into greater joy and to protect you!” The commands of God are for the greater joy of His children and for His ultimate glory!

In closing, how are we to react as the church to this celebration of gay marriage. I am ashamed to say that many church going Christians who hold fast to the Biblical concept of marriage are totally wrong in their approach to this issue. They tend to vilify those who are living in a lifestyle of sin while priding themselves on their supposed self righteousness. When in truth, we should have the attitude of 1 Corinthians 6. After Paul had listed the many sins that are an abomination before God, just so there would be no self righteous people patting themselves on the back for their piety, he said this;

“Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11.

Here is the approach we take when talking to a person practicing sin.

“I am the chief of sinners. I was worse than them all. I have no righteousness to boast in, and I was lost in my sins. But I want to tell you that there is a greater joy than the sins you are living in. Trust me I know, because I was loving and chasing sins of my own. But Jesus saved me! And the more I know of Him through His word, the more my heart begins to desire the righteousness that I one hated, and despise the sins I once loved. Let me tell you about my Jesus!”

People will argue that God is love and therefore, we should just love all people. Absolutely we should love all people. But getting them to realize the absolute truth of God’s Word is the most loving thing we could do for them. God is love, but God is also wrath. And those who spit at His commands and redefine His truths as a deliberate practice of life are abiding under that wrath.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Romans 1:18.

The most unloving thing that a Christian can do is to celebrate another persons sin with them. It would be like my son Luke getting excited that I finally gave in and told him to run and jump in the deep end of the pool. As he jumps in with a huge smile on his face, I celebrate and applaud him. All the while knowing that his temporary happiness will soon lead to his death. To applaud and celebrate a person practicing a lifestyle of sin may seem loving to them for the moment, but the wrath of God and Spiritual death are the absolute Biblical truth of their future.

There is a much greater joy found in knowing Christ. When King David in the Psalms described his relationship with God as being as desiring as sweet honey on his lips, that was not just puffed up speech. When a person says that they find no joy in the commands of God, that is not an invitation for Christians to bash them. But rather, it is an opportunity to preach the word of God to them and show them the supernatural beauty of Christ throughout the scriptures.

There is an absolute truth in the universe, and His name is Jesus Christ. And as Christians we all fall short, and we all sin. But we do not celebrate our sin. And we certainly do not institutionalize it. We weep over sins and seek to put them to death as we strive towards pleasing our Heavenly Father. Because for the true Christian, pleasing the Father is what brings true Joy to our souls.

“Why do Christians keep making a big deal about gay marriage”, some may ask. The true Christian continues to plead and cry out against sin just as a loving father would plead with his son who is playing ball in the street to get out of the road before an oncoming car hits him. Christians oppose gay marriage not because we hate people, but because we love them. And more importantly, we love and believe firmly in the absolute truth of the word of God.

Love your neighbor enough to preach the Gospel to them not in judgement, but out of a heart of love. Be transparent, not condemning, when it comes to the topic of sin. Show them that we all have fallen short, even you, and have chased the fleeting pleasures of the world. But do not compromise the absolute truth of God’s Word. Love others enough to warn them of the wrath that abides on all those who practice any sin with no repentance. As one beggar relating to another, show them that there is a better way in knowing Jesus. And He is in the business of rescuing beggars like you and me. Life in Christ is more beautiful than life on the streets called sin.

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
1 John 5:3

You’re either a Summer or a Winter person. I myself tend to look forward to the leaves changing color and the first chill of fall. I’m one of those Winter people. The scorching heat combined with the constant swarm of gnats flying around in your face (it’s a South Georgia thing) make Summer time a burden to bear. But the worst part about Summer is the rapidly growing weeds that begin to sprout all over our yard. Sure, the lawnmower does a fine job of cutting them down to size. After a good grass cutting, it even appears as if the weeds have disappeared. But only for a short time. You cannot simply lop off the head of the weeds and expect to eliminate the problem. To steal a line from Barney Fife, in order to “Nip it in the bud” you have to attack the root. Then and only then will you have any hope of destroying the weed itself.

In modern evangelical circles, this is known as fruit verses root ministry. And sadly, much of Christian ministry is directed at the fruit, or the head of the weed rather than getting to the root of the problem.

Take for example a church that has a shortage of the father’s of families attending. So in order to get more daddy’s to come to church with their families, they decide to hold a daddy and daughter dance. Or a daddy and son fun day. Odds are that the church would have an influx of dads coming to the church on that day. There might even be a few that decide to come to a Sunday morning service for a few weeks. But only the fruit of the problem has been addressed. The root still remains. Therefore, this is not the solution.

Consider a pastor who sees that many couples in his congregation are having marital problems. So in order to attempt to fix the issue, he decides to preach a series of lectures on how to strengthen your marriage. In the sermons, he addresses things like being attentive to your spouse, not being selfish, and learning to forgive the past. And while all of these things are good in and of themselves, the are only addressing the fruits of the issue. Therefore, the root still remains as does the problem at its core.

Many Christians with well intentions witness to others in the same way you would go fishing. They put a nice tag line on Christianity. Something to catch the persons interest. If they are going through a bad marriage, the bait is “Jesus will improve your marriage.” If they are going through financial difficulties, the bait is “Jesus will bless your finances.” And on the list goes. Basically, we offer quick and easy sounding solutions for the fruit, which can be seen and observed. But we neglect to look deeper at the root problems.

The side effect of this is that many people come to Jesus in hopes that their problems will be fixed, and grow discouraged and disappointed when that doesn’t happen.

So what is the root of all of these problems?

The root problem in all marital trials is that Christ is not the center.

The root problem of why people don’t attend church is because Christ is not a priority in their lives.

The reason we are never satisfied is because we don’t find our ultimate satisfaction in Christ.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:12-13.

This verse, especially the final sentence has been grotesquely twisted out of its original context in our world today. When we hear, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, we think of goals or achievements. I have seen sports figures quote this verse as if it pertains to their ability to win the big game. But this is not the context. Paul is addressing something that is foreign to us today. And that is absolute and total contentment in Christ regardless of the problems in our life.

The root of all of humanities problems is a lack of Christ.

Imagine a man who gets caught in the act of adultery. Out of guilt, he goes to see his pastor. He admits that his actions were wrong. But as the preacher continues to press the man, he snaps and says to the preacher, “But you don’t know the woman I have to put up with!”

The adulterous man was willing to address the fruit sin, which is one the surface. But when the preacher began to scratch at the root, he got defensive. The root of his problem was that he was selfish in his thinking. Basically, he was saying, “I deserve to be happy. I deserve better. My wife is not satisfying my needs, so I am justified in finding other ways to meet them.”

He was fine in addressing the apparent fruit actions, but did not want to pick at the root of selfishness in his heart, because his satisfaction was what he treasured most.

Preaching self-help topical sermons will address get rid of the weeds for a time. They may even appear to be gone. But slowly, they will reappear. But the root of our problems stem from a weed infested heart. Our hearts are selfish, pridefully, me-centered, and wicked. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change a person’s heart.

I love how Jesus in the book of Matthew describes  a person who has truly seen Christ in their lives.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.” Matthew 13:44

Sin is valuing anything as more beautiful than Christ in our lives. Marriages fall apart and relationships crumble daily because people have not addressed the root of selfishness in their hearts and want the desires of their flesh more than Jesus. But when we truly see what a savior Jesus is, that He alone saved us from our spiritual death and rescued us from our own depravity, He becomes that treasure in the field.

From out of the ground of the earth comes the roots of all sorts of weeds. And in the same way, out of the human heart comes the roots of all evil.

“For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.” Matthew 15:19.

James describes the growth process of the root of sin in our hearts.

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:14-15.

The roots of sin grow very slowly. At first only tiny little desires spring from the grounds of our hearts. Then these desires grow into actions, and then actions being to corrupt the mind as what was once only a tiny little sin leads to full blown death. In Colossians chapter 3, Paul commands the church to rid themselves of what we would view as big sins such as adultery, sexual immorality, and impure desires. But Paul also says to get rid of what many see as small sins, such as malice, anger, and obscene talk, and gossip. Why pay attention to the seemingly small sins? Because the roots of evil start out small, but grow into large oaks. Only by seeing Jesus as the true treasure of our lives can all the ailments of our human condition be healed. And only by way of the preaching of the Gospel can the very roots of our maladies have any hope of elimination.

What if I were to tell you that I was a super fast swimmer. I go on to explain that I have been in hundreds of swimming races and have easily blown away my competition each and every time! But I don’t stop there. In fact, I begin to tell you how wonderful I am and how important my ability to beat every person that I race in a pool is to the sport of competitive swimming.

Impressed and maybe a bit put off by my arrogance, you ask me, “Who are the people who you have beaten in a competitive race?” With a proud look on my face, I point over to my four-year old twins and say, “I’ve raced them hundreds of times and beat them every time, therefore I am a wonderful, super fast swimmer!” You would say my twins are not the proper standard of measurement to rightly determine my swimming abilities. Bragging that I can beat a four-year old in a swimming contest would only make me look foolish and ignorant!

It’s quite easy to smirk at this silly little example and think that no one in their right mind would be so ignorant. However, this is the very problem that plagues a great number of professing Christians in America. If you were to ask a great majority of them, “Why would God allow you into His eternal Kingdom”, they would respond by telling you that they were good, Christian people. Some may answer the question by elaborating on the things they do to justify their self-professed goodness.

“I go to church.”

“I was baptized and repeated the sinners prayer.”

“I don’t cheat on my spouse.”

“I help people in need.”

The list is never-ending. And while all of these things are good things, none of them will warrant our salvation before God. When a person says that they are good, the question then must be asked, “Compared to whom?” Are you good compared to your next door neighbor who does not go to church? Are you good compared to the serial killer that you saw apprehended on the five o’clock news? If we say we are good, then their must be a standard of measurement for us to come to that conclusion. And that standard of measurement is other people. The apostle Paul addresses people like this who would measure themselves by comparing themselves to others.

“Oh, don’t worry; we wouldn’t dare say that we are as wonderful as these other men who tell you how important they are! But they are only comparing themselves with each other, using themselves as the standard of measurement. How ignorant!” 2 Corinthians 10:12.

The standard by which we measure our righteousness is not man, but God. Christ is the standard of measurement. Jesus tells us His standard for us in Matthew.

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48.

Perfection is the standard for measuring “goodness.” And put up against this high standard, we all fall exceedingly short. In fact, we don’t even come close. That is why Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “No one is good except God alone. (Luke 18:19). And when a person boasts of their goodness in an attempt to justify right standing before a Holy God, it is the very same thing as me telling you that I’m some great swimmer when my standard of measure is my kids. It is ignorant and foolish.

Think of it this way. The penalty for murder in our world is death. No one would argue this, because we all know that murderers in our world receive the death penalty by law. If you met someone and they were to tell you that they had murdered people, a sense of fear and disgust would come over you because of the horrendous nature of their crime. Not many would disagree that someone who kills others deserves the death penalty.

“When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But I now arraign you and set my accusations before you.” Psalm 50:21.

Notice in the verse above the problem of the people God is addressing. God says, “You thought I was exactly like you.” That is the crux of our problem. We tend to think God thinks and operates like us. Even when it comes to the laws of God. Consider what many would perceive as a tiny sin like gossiping about someone you don’t like. Someone may say, “I’m a good person because I only gossip sometimes, but I’ve never killed anyone!” But God’s standards and His laws are higher than ours. According to Jesus, if you hate someone, then you have committed murder.

“Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” 1 John 3:15.

Place yourself up against any of the ten commandments, and you will see that not only have you broken them, but you’ve broken them repeatedly throughout your life. Those commandments are God’s law. And if we have broken just one of those commandments just one time, then we are lawbreakers. When you break a law, there is always a fine that must be paid. The higher the law, the deeper the consequence for breaking that law will be. God’s laws are so much higher than man’s. Therefore, the penalty for transgressing against just one of the laws of God is death.

“For the wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23.

If we attempt to justify ourselves before God by pointing to the fact that we think we are good, then we are basically saying that we are willing to take on the law of God and that we can measure up to it with our supposed goodness. Look at what Paul says regarding this mindset;

“But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” Galatians 3:12-13.

Paul says that the law of God reveals us as cursed and depraved. And everyone who is under the curse of the law deserves to be crucified, which is to be hung on a tree. But if you think you can live up to the law of God and live by upholding them all, then Paul says you shall live by them indeed. But again, one transgression labels you as cursed and therefore deserving of death.

Are you beginning to see this bleak picture? No one is good. No one is even close. We are all evil and wicked by our fallen nature. Even the good works we do outside of a relationship with Jesus are viewed as filthy rags according to Isaiah. The law of God exposes us for what we really are. It removes our reliance on ourselves. It destroys the myth that all “good” people go to Heaven. Because when measured against the laws of God, we all deserve the death penalty.

So why is this so crucial to point out? Surly this is not a “feel good sermon.” In Acts chapters 2 and 3, we see Peter preaches three separate sermons to the unbelieving Jews. The first he preaches at Pentecost. And this is a synopsis of what He said to them in his first sermon.

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Acts 2:36

Peter then went to the temple with John where after healing a crippled man, the people began to marvel at Peter and John. But Peter was quick to tell them that God healed the man, not them. Then Peter delivers his second sermon of the day. Peter said to the Jews at the temple,

“…. and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” Acts 3:15.

This bold preaching of the resurrected Christ greatly offended the Sadducees, who were the Jewish leaders. They arrested Peter and John and put them on trial. And it was there in the court room of the Hall of Hewn Stone that Peter delivered his third sermon saying to the religious leaders,

….let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead” Acts 4:10.

Do you see a pattern in Peter’s preaching? He is not preaching a feel good sermon. He is not telling the people how good and valuable they are. Instead, Peter is pulling away the blinders of their tendencies to think of themselves as good, religious people, and letting them see themselves rightly.

They are murderers. They are criminals. They are condemned sinners. They are us.

It is impossible to see Christ as valued savior unless you understand your desperate need for a savior! Until you understand the bad news, it is impossible to understand the good news of the Gospel. We all deserve death. We are all under the death sentence. This is the bad news. That we have broken the laws of God. And the wages of those transgressions are death. Someone must pay for our crimes. And here is the good news.

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:3-4.

God sent His perfect Son Jesus to live the perfect life that was required of us, fulfilling all the requirements of the law. And in His death on the cross, for all who are called by His name, Christ imputes His perfect life onto the transgressor, and takes the punishment for his sins on the cross. Some people say that when they get to Heaven, God will see what a faithful servant they had been in life. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. For those that will stand justified, God will see nothing to warrant pardon from Him except the blood of His Son covering their sins.

That is why the old hymn rightly says, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.”

We have nothing to boast in but Christ.  We are saved by grace alone.

I was numb when I heard the news yesterday that a 21-year-old man named Dylan Roof had entered a prominent black church in Charleston South Carolina and murdered nine people. The body of Christ collectively mourns the loss of these saints. We pray for the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and ask for the peace of God that is beyond all comprehension to sooth their pain.

As we try to make sense of this horrible tragedy, many questions are left unanswered. What would cause someone to do such a horrible thing? What kind of depraved monster is Dylan Roof ? How can these questions be answered? In order to make sense of the chaos, perhaps we need to look deeper than what we see on the surface. Rather than using Dylan Roof as a target for throwing stones, maybe the answers lie in viewing Dylan Roof as a mirror.

“What would cause someone to do such a horrible thing?”

In short, the answer is sin.

“What kind of depraved monster is Dylan Roof?”

The same kind of depraved monster we all are.

Dylan Roof is not merely an example of a mentally disturbed kid. He is a by-product of the fall of Adam, just as we all are. It is easy to use events such as this as an opportunity to point fingers as “the bad people” and to view ourselves as the victims. But in doing this, we are only sedating ourselves from the truth of who we really are. The Dylan Roof’s of the world become our way of deflecting the blame of our own eternal condemnation before a Holy God.

The evils of man in this world should point us to our great need for a savior. And for those of us who know Jesus as Lord, our hearts should break. Because without the blood of Christ, we are all as guilty as Dylan Roof.

The Bible says we have all fallen short. We have all sinned. (Romans 3). We have a tendency to create a hierarchy of sins in order to make ourselves feel better. It’s common to hear things like, “I’m a sinner, but at least I don’t kill people.” As if God grades sin on the curve. The scary reality is that God is the epitome of what is good. It is frightening that God is Righteous and Holy. People may ask, “Why is it scary that God is good, righteous, and holy?”

And the answer is, because we are not.

So what does a good, righteous, and holy God do with depraved monsters like us? Jesus said if you have ever harbored hate in your heart for your brother, then in the eyes of God, you are guilty of murder (1 John 3:15). Revelation 21:8 says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. All have harbored hate at one time or another. All men have lied. All have sinned. No one is righteous, not one. Everyone one of us stand guilty before God.

We are the monsters in the mirror.

This may purpose the question, “My sins are not hurting anyone! Surly I am not deserving of death!” Consider this quote from evangelist Paul Washer.

“If I were to jingle some keys into the microphone, the sound would do nothing but irritate you. But if you were a man locked away and condemned to death, the sound of keys would be the hope of release, and sweet to your ears. I submit to you that men today think nothing of the preaching of the Gospel because they are ignorant to their own spiritual death sentence before God.” -Paul Washer

The problem is, as a way to sooth our consciences, we tend to stereotype people in our world as good guys and bad guys. But in reality, we are the bad guys. As one pastor rightly said, “If our existence were one big Western movie, everyone would be wearing a black cowboy hat except for Jesus.” Again, we are prone to think of our own sins and compare them to worse ones and think that God justifies us by our good works. But God is not like us. We justify our sins in comparison to others. We exalt ourselves above others for only telling a small white lie, or only gossiping. But consider the words of Jesus.

“And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” Luke 16:15.

I’ve heard people say that they just uphold the ten commandments and that will be their justification before God. The problem is, we have broken every one of those commandments. Jesus took the law of Moses to a whole new level. Man condemns adultery, but God views lust the same. Man condemns murder, but God views hatred as the same.

Paul pointed to people like this in the book of Galatians. The Judaizers, false teachers of the time, were looking down on others and priding themselves on their self perceived righteousness and their zeal for upholding the law of Moses. One of their laws was that men must be circumcised. And so they condemned every other man who was not circumcised as an evil sinner, but looked at themselves as righteous. Look what Paul says about their false justification.

“I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.” Galatians 5:3-4.

Basically Paul told them, “If adherence to the written law is going to be your savior, then be prepared to keep every one of them. Because if you break even one of these law even one single time, then you are damned for eternity.” His point was that all men stand condemned. All men are guilty. Even what we would consider to be the smallest sin in our fallen minds such as a little lie or some friendly gossip has marked our souls for Hell. Man’s standard of justice is fallen. But God’s standard for fellowship with Him is perfection.

And seeing that God’s standard is perfection, we begin to ourselves rightly. Like Dylan Roof, we all stand condemned, guilty, and deserving of death before God. Do you see the great delimna? If God is Holy and a God of justice, what is He to do with criminals like us?

If someone had murdered your whole family and then the judge didn’t punish them and let them walk free, you would have to say that judge was an unjust judge! In order to be considered a Just God, the Lord cannot let sin go unpunished! Someone has to pay for our lies, our gossip, our hatred, our murder! None of these sins can go unpunished, and they all warrant spiritual death in the eyes of our perfect God!

How can our injustices against God in the breaking of His laws be wiped away? How can our punishment as lawbreakers be satisfied? How can we escape the condemnation we have all heaped upon ourselves?

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-5.

God sent His perfect son to live the perfect life that we could not live. Jesus upheld all of the laws that we have broken. And in the cross of Christ, for those who He has called to Himself in repentance and faith, Jesus takes our death sentence and places it on Himself. And He imputes His righteousness to us. The only righteousness we have in life is only made possible by the shed blood of Jesus. Paul told the Galatians that no amount of good works or morality could save them or wipe away their past transgressions. They needed a pardon from death just as we do. And that only comes through the grace of God.

Jesus had to die so that we might be set free from the wages of our many sins. No adherence to the law can save us from our sins, only the grace of God. For if we could have saved ourselves, Christ would have not had to die. But we need a savior.

“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Galatians 2:21.

Continue to pray for Charleston and the families and friends of the victims of the horrible shooting. Pray God’s strength and peace upon the community. But instead of casting stones, pray also for Dylan Roof. Pray that God would open eyes and pierce his heart, showing him that he was deserving of the wrath of God long before he pulled that trigger. And he is in need of a pardon that only the grace of God through knowing Christ can bring. And if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, let the great reality of your own pardon from death press you into an overflowing gratitude of praise!

Imagine that I told you that I was a professional football player. Intrigued by my statement, you begin to ask many questions to validate my claim. “Are the practices hard? Do you train and workout daily? Do you interact regularly with your teammates? Do you constantly study the game of football to deepen your knowledge of the game, therefore making you a more valuable player?” Surprisingly I answer back to you that I do not attend practice, I hate working out, I avoid my teammates at all cost, and I rarely study the game of football. Yet I continue to proudly tell you that I am a professional football player! You would have to say that I was delusional!

Lets use a different example. Lets say you drive to your local mechanics shop to have some work done on your car. You walk into the joint and asked to see a mechanic. A man comes out of the back office claiming that he is the mechanic. You begin to describe the problem with your car, but he immediately stops you. He says, “I know very little about car, I really have no passion to study the workings of an automobile, but I am here in this garage every day, so I’m a mechanic!” Again, you would have to consider that this man is either half crazy or delusional.

This simple logic applies to every area of life. Reason tells us that a person cannot just claim to be something without defining characteristics proving their profession to be true. Yet when it comes to the topic of Christianity, a great majority of people are very quick to claim the title of Christian when their lives look nothing like the truth. This even applies to people inside of the church walls.

As in the example of the football player, many people will profess to follow Christ, yet have no fruits or evidence in their lives. We tend to immediately think of lost people who have no real love for God, which is quite true. But it can be shocking and eye-opening to see that this same problem applies to people who would consider themselves regular church going people. Just because a person goes regularly to hang out in a garage does not make them a mechanic. In the same way, just because a person is faithful to attend church does not mean that they are truly a Christian. They may say they agree with the Bible and love the Lord, but if there is no evidence, their profession is false.

So what is our measuring stick for what a Christian looks like? Ultimately it is Christ Himself. But the example I like to point to is that of the apostles. Specifically in the book of Acts. Acts is the historic account of the first believers and the first church. In modern-day society, many professing believers try to schedule a daily “quiet time” with God. This time generally consists of a few minutes a day that we read a devotional or memorize some scripture. Then we close our Bibles, pat ourselves on the back for giving God a few moments of our day, and go about our daily routine which is centered around us.

But in the book of Acts, God was not just give a portion of the apostles lives, God was the center of every aspect of their lives! This kind of commitment and zeal for God is foreign to us today!! To say that a daily devotion is not sufficient is seen as asking way too much! But looking back to the original church, the point of everything they did was not for themselves, but for God.

Even their jobs were not seen first and foremost as a means to provide income. The point of a job was to provide for themselves so they could do ministry!

“Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tent makers just as he was.” Acts 18:3.

When the average church member thinks of the apostle Paul, his job as a tent maker is not the first thing that comes to mind. When we think of Paul, we think of a passionate man of God who’s life’s mission was to proclaim Christ! Paul’s career goal in the world of tent making was not to save enough money to buy a nice condo on the beach and retire in style! On the contrary, retirement was not on Paul’s radar! Paul’s job was simply a means to support His ministry!

Now is it wrong to retire from a job? Absolutely not! However, the way most people today think of retirement is not Biblical. When we lived in Central America a few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a 70-year-old man named Charlie. He was a member of the church Lacy and I were attending. Charlie had told me of his success in the world of sales and marketing, which was his profession for most of his life. I asked Charlie if he and his wife were retiring in Panama. I will never forget what he told me. Charlie said, “We never had any plans of retiring. My job was always a means for us to do ministry.”

With his retirement savings and pension, Charlie and his wife could easily have cashed in on a house in Malibu. But that was never his goal. Charlie went on to tell me that in their later years, he and his wife used his retirement money to travel the globe on mission, planting churches and telling others about Jesus. Charlie said, “Why would anyone want to waste their lives living for themselves!  That is not what we were created for! There is far greater joy and purpose in living our short lives for Christ!”

Charlie looks a lot like the apostle Paul. He had such a love for Jesus, that he gladly gave away many of the comforts we tend to justify! Is this radical? Absolutely. Would this be considered fanatical? No doubt. But it is the same passion we see in the book of Acts.

Even aside from the Bible, men throughout history such as A.W Tozer, George Muller, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and countless others had their lives marked by an insatiable hunger and desire within them to know God! To seek Him daily! This was not a duty to them. It was a passion birthed out of God making them a new creation! Delving into God’s word daily was not an option to them, it was as necessary as daily food and water.

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” Psalm 42:1.

Where are the men and women who like David, would say, “Like a dying, dehydrated animal thirsts for water, so my soul thirsts to know you God!” If this great passion is seen in the first believers as well as the faithful throughout history, why is it that so many modern-day professing Christians lack this zeal in their own lives.

As Pastor John Snyder said, “Is it because we know God so well that we are so casual about God today, or is it due to the fact that we hardly know Him at all?”

Because throughout history, overwhelming passion has been the trait that marked the lives of the most faithful of men. Christianity today has been redefined as reciting a nice little prayer and attending Sunday service regularly. So many church goers do not know the true God of the Bible because they rarely pick up their Bibles. There is no pursuit of God in their lives. Rather, they merely see themselves as justified in their faith as they rest on a decision they made once in their life. But again, what does the Bible say?

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” Matthew 7:21-23.

The scary thing about this verse is that God is not speaking to an atheist. He is speaking to a person that would have professed themselves as a Christian based on things they did. In our day, it would be coming to church, saying a prayer, attending a Bible study. Many people even today will stand before the Lord claiming that they were good church people, or that they prayed a prayer of salvation. And God will respond to them, “I never knew you; depart from me.”

It is not about what you do that makes you a Christian. It is who you know. And if you truly desire to intimately know someone, you build your life around them. Think of your relationship with your spouse. If you hardly spent time with them, and only received most of your knowledge of them from others who knew them, it would be apparent you had no real relationship with your spouse! An intimate relationship consists of passion and a desire to know them more daily.

“But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and that I delight in these things. I, the LORD, have spoken!” Jeremiah 9:24.

If we are to boast of anything, it should be that we truly know God. Our goal should be to read His word and not to insert ourselves into the scriptures to see what God says about us. Rather, we should seek to know what God says about Himself. And in light of his goodness, we begin to see our depravity and great need for a savior. That is the beauty of the Gospel! That we are not great, but He is great! What defines you? Is it your job? Your hobbies? Your marriage? Or is everything in your life viewed by you as a tool to glorify Jesus! Do you desire to Know HIM? I pray we would not just rest on a profession of faith, but rather that we would examine our profession of Christ in light of the examples given through scripture.

“Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.” 2 Corinthians 13:5.