Andy and I are visiting churches in Charlotte trying to find
the right one to plug into. On one hand,
I hate the process of visiting churches and figuring out all the ends and outs of
where to park, where to go in, and where to put the kids in childcare. On the other hand, it has been refreshing to
get to worship with different congregations and denominations and still feel
the love of Christ in all of them. We
have met some super sweet people and have seen a sincere love of the Lord even
in places where traditions and some beliefs can be very different.
Visiting churches has also caused me to look with fresh eyes
at things that might be hard for people visiting a church for the first time or
even seeking out Christian faith. We
visited one church where the pastor was sincere about sharing about Jesus and the
reason he died, but as he did, church terms like “blood of the lamb” and “sacrifice”
were thrown around, and I was left wondering whether someone who was brand new
to the whole Christian faith would have understood the message he was sharing.
It made me wonder if I could even explain the point of Jesus’
death on the cross in a way that would be clear and understandable to anyone
who heard it. I’m not confident in my ability
to do that, but I wanted to take a chance on the blog today and try. So here it goes!
1We were originally created in a world without
sin. God made the human race without
sin and planned for us to live forever with every need perfectly provided. He walked closely with us and was near to us. However, he also created us with a
choice. In the Garden of Eden, he placed
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and told us not to eat from it. It was the only rule we had to follow.
2 We allowed sin to enter our lives and the
world. Adam and Eve broke the rule. After being enticed by Satan, they ate from
the tree. This was the first sin – a disobedience
of God’s created order. The consequence
to this sin was death. Romans 6:23 says,
“The wages of sin is death.” I’ll be
honest that I have not totally wrapped my mind around WHY death was the consequence
of sin, but before they even thought of eating from the tree, God told them
that it would be the consequence. In Genesis
2:17 God says, “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, for when you eat of it, you will certainly die.” This means a physical death but also a
spiritual death when they traded their sinless nature in for a nature full of
sin.
3 Sin separates us from God. After eating
from the tree and allowing sin to enter this perfect world, Adam and Eve were
forever separated from God. Why does sin
separate us from God? Because God is PERECTLY holy, and in our sin, we are
PERFECTLY filthy. All of Isaiah 59 is a
good explanation of this, but verses 9-10 stuck out to me: “So justice is far
from us and righteousness does not reach us.
We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in
deep shadows. Like the blind we grope
along the wall feeling our way like people without eyes.” Sin is EVERYWHERE and touches EVERYTHING because
of the crime committed in the garden. We
are so used to living in this world that sin becomes something we tolerate,
excuse, and explain away using quotes like: “Well no one is perfect.” “Everyone messes up.” “That’s just the way it
is.”
I think about my own life and my heart, and I
know sin touches everything I think and do.
Even when doing something that seems altruistic, like spending focused,
quality time with my kids, there is still part of me that does it to feel good
about myself as a mother – which makes that act a selfish one. And if you explain away what I just typed,
thinking, Oh, that’s normal, and it’s not that bad, then you ratify what
I’m saying – sin has so intensely impacted our world that sinful thoughts seem “normal”
and “not that bad” even though they work in direct opposition to how God created
us to be. Isaiah 64:6 says it best: “All
our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
.
There must be a price paid for sin. So, in
this generation, we were born into a world full of sin. Thanks to Adam and Eve,
we are all born with a nature inclined to sin. There is a price for sin. God is perfectly holy and perfectly
just. Even as an imperfect parent, I
know that there must be consequences for disobedience.
.
We can’t pay the price of sin on our own. God
is the perfect parent so while he is perfectly just, he is also perfectly loving,
and he knew that this sin problem must be dealt with to bring us back into loving
relationship with him. But he also knew that
in our own power, we’d never overcome sin.
Think of all the things you wish you didn’t do but somehow seem powerless
to stop doing. Combine that with the
things you do that you don’t even RECOGNIZE as sin, and it just gets overwhelming. We know it’s true that we can’t save
ourselves – that’s why we often rationalize what we do calling it “normal” or “not
that bad.” But it IS that bad. And God
knows all this. I love how Isaiah 59:15-16
puts it, “The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled
that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.”
.
Jesus was the answer to the sin problem. When
I read Isaiah 59: “so his own arm achieved salvation for him,” I can practically
hear God saying, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”
We were NEVER going to achieve salvation on our own. We are incapable of fully turning from sin,
so God developed a way out. This one gets hard to explain (see Romans 5 for
more!) but God, provided a way for all the sin of the whole world to be paid at
one time, but it required a perfect sacrifice.
And no human was ever going to be that perfect sacrifice. So God himself
came to live a human life. He lived it
in the form of Jesus (fully God but also fully man) in the world that we stained
with sin, but he did not sin himself, so at his death, he was able to pay the
price for our sins since he wasn’t required to pay the price for his own
sins (having none). Furthermore, as God,
he could take on an infinite amount of sin.
Even a perfect human could only atone for one other human, but being
fully God, he could atone for everyone (1 John 2:2, Romans 5:18-19).
God is just. There is a payment for sin. He can’t just
wave it away like it didn’t happen, and I find that encouraging. God doesn’t look the other way
when it comes to injustice. He deals
with it. And our sin hurts us, hurts
others, and hurts a perfect, holy God.
It must have a consequence. As a
perfect sacrifice, Jesus paid that consequence – which was death. On the cross he cried out, “My father, why
have you forsaken me?” showing us that in taking on our sin, he died the
spiritual death (separation from God) and the physical one (crucifixion) and paid
the ultimate price for all our sin.
Romans 5:8-9 says it this way: “But God demonstrates his own love for us
in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his
blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him.”
.
Jesus didn’t stay dead – he also rose from
the dead. You guys, I’m not going to lie that I’ve definitely asked myself
why the resurrection was an important piece to this puzzle. I feel like it gets glossed over at times
when the gospel message is being shared…as if what is most important is that
Jesus died but not that he rose again. Here
is what I think – in coming back to life, Jesus showed his disciples that he
beat death. I read somewhere in
preparation for this blog that the natural order of things did not include
death – God did not design death to be part of the original creation plan. So when Jesus died and rose again, he restored
the natural order – he made a way for death to NOT be the end anymore. Instead,
death becomes a passage into eternal life with God – which is what we were
designed to have in the first place. The
final victory over sin and death won’t happen until Jesus comes for the second
time to restore all of creation forever, but because he rose from the dead 2000
years ago, we can experience the hope of eternal life now.
.
As a result of Jesus’ resurrection, we have
access to God’s Holy Spirit. When he went back into heaven, Jesus promised to
leave the Holy Spirit to work within us guiding our lives and our choices. Before Jesus’ death, God only gave the Holy
Spirit to certain people for certain reasons and certain times – people weren’t
filled with the Holy Spirit in their hearts the way believers are now. I’ll be honest, that I’ve been a believer
since I was so young, and I have felt the power of the Holy Spirit in so many
ways throughout my life that my history with God has become my great hope and
encouragement in difficult times. I
think that is why I had to really take time to think about this blog and even
research parts of it – the salvation message is important to me, but after
walking with the Holy Spirit for 30ish years, I don’t spend as much time thinking about the ins
and outs of that message. It’s like how,
when reflecting on marriage, you think more about past experiences with your
spouse than you think about the vows you made on your
wedding day. The vows are the most
important decision, but the history that is built becomes the relationship. This message I’m sharing today is just the very
start of a super life giving relationship with the Lord.
9We are now able to trade our sin for Jesus’
righteousness. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, our sin has been fully atoned. Every sin we have ever committed and ever
will commit was put on Jesus at the cross and he paid for all of them for
everyone. As a result, we are able to
take on his righteousness. I love Romans
5:19 which says, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many
were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will
be made righteous.” The disobedient man
who brought the consequence of sin to all of us was Adam but the obedient man
who brought righteousness was Jesus. Now
that the debt for sin has been dealt with, God can look at us and see
sinlessness – he can see the person he created us to be.
1 In order for God to see us as sinless, we
have to accept the sacrifice Jesus made. The payment for sin has been made,
but if we don’t acknowledge that payment, we don’t experience it. Think of it this way: You are in prison for a
crime you did commit. You are
guilty. But someone comes along and
says, “This crime earned you a life sentence, and we can’t just excuse that. There is a price that must be paid. But I’ll serve your life sentence, and you
can leave this cell and enjoy a free life with your family.” There is an offer on the table, but if we don’t
say “yes” to it, we don’t get it. We
have to agree that we are guilty and that there is a consequence for that guilt. We agree that we should be the one paying
that consequence, but we accept a gift of GRACE offered here. We talk about grace a lot with our kids, and
we always describe it as being offered something they didn’t earn and they don’t
deserve. In accepting Jesus’ sacrifice,
we are taking for ourselves something that we don’t deserve and definitely didn’t
earn, but that is freely offered. We are
trading a life in prison for a life of freedom. When Jesus died, he paid the required price
for sin. Justice was served, so if desired,
we can accept that someone else paid the price, and we can live the reward by acknowledging
it. Otherwise, we will continue to live the consequence ourselves – which will
result in full separation from God – meaning spiritual separation here on earth
and eternal physical separation one day in hell. Romans 6:23 says fully, “For
the wages of sin is death but the gift of Christ is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.”
1 So how are we saved? Romans 10:9-10 says “If you declare with
your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from
the dead, you will be saved. For it is
with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth
that you profess your faith and are saved.”
It truly is as simple as just believing and professing. When we can acknowledge that Jesus Christ died
on the cross for our sins, paying a debt that we’d never pay on our own, we are
able to let go of our sin and take on his righteousness. We essentially trade our unrighteousness for
his righteousness. That doesn’t mean
that we will never sin again but it does mean that every sin we will ever
commit has already been paid in the death of Christ. I think a natural question that follows is, “So
can we just sin however we want now knowing that the price has been paid?” Paul addresses that question in Romans 6, and
I love his answer. I’m going to try to
boil it down in simple language because I know this blog is getting long. He essentially says, “Yes, all future sins
have been paid, but why would you WANT to keep living steeped in sin? If you’ve walked into the new life Christ offers,
wouldn’t you be so thankful that you’d want to live in him to the fullest
extent possible? And don’t you know that
in taking on Christ’s righteousness, we are also blessed with his power INSIDE
us (that’s the Holy Spirit) to help us live a life as free from sin as
possible.” Like a person being newly
released from prison, life seems so much more beautiful and wonderful and full
of possibilities. Returning to that prison
cell would be detestable. Likewise, when
we see the life Christ offers and the price it took him to achieve it on our
behalf, sin should become something we hate.
And we know that in taking on his righteousness, we now even have the
power to obey God, so wouldn’t we want to?
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