Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” John 8:34
Thought for the Day: The Truth about Sin
I had a dog that lived most of her years as a city dog. When we went to our family lake house, I would go for a three-mile walk with her most mornings. Unlike a walk in the city, she didn’t have to wear a leash. She could run ahead or lag behind and do whatever she wanted. At the main road coming into the property there is a large red gate. The gate is there to keep unwanted people out and property in. My dog was my property, and I wanted to keep her in because the cars on the road were not expecting a dog to be running around loose. At only six pounds and nine inches tall, it was not easy to see my dog, Cocoa. She was vulnerable to unsuspecting motorists.
Every time we came to the red gate Cocoa ran under it while I yelled at her to come back and follow me. The boundaries of the property are clear and secure. No person can go under that gate, but my dog can, even though she knows I do not want her to. Sin in our lives is much the same. We know where the boundaries are. We know where we can go and where we should not go. But we also know, like Cocoa, that we can. We can slip by the boundaries and be back on the other side before anyone even notices. We can drop a name in conversation that we shouldn’t, or drive over the speed limit, or cheat someone in business for a few extra dollars, or go places on the Internet we shouldn’t. Unfortunately, we are all like my dog at the red gate, which is there to keep us safe and from wondering off the property, but we go under it anyway because we can. Sometimes we go far away and sometimes we come scurrying back after a short adventure into things we shouldn’t do. We are all sinners.
During the nineteenth century a liberal optimism taught that humanity, if society’s ills could be made right, could be good and people live together in harmony. (Amazing how things seem to be coming round again!) Education, reform, and governmental standards could guide us into a new era of enlightened humanity. The twentieth century proved otherwise and the twenty-first century seems to be offering concurring evidence. What ails humanity isn’t a lack of knowledge or wisdom or law. Instead, we suffer from a state of defilement. There is something wrong on the inside, and we need an intervention from the outside.
When a person has cancer, we cannot educate, reform, or standardize them into health. No, what is needed is medical intervention. In the case of my sister-in-law, who suffered from life-threatening inflammatory breast cancer, serious intervention through aggressive treatment saved her life. She could not cure herself. She needed outside help. When she realized how sick she was, even though her symptoms seemed mild, she sought out the finest doctors she could find who prescribed the most aggressive treatment at the time. Some nineteen years later, she is very much alive!
C. S. Lewis said of himself, In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. Jesus said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Matthew 9:12-13). This is good news for Lewis and us when we know how sin-sick we really are, because Jesus infers that he does not call perfect humans to himself, humans who always stay within the red gate, humans who don’t need outside help, humans who can beat the cancer of original sin on their own. Instead, he calls us out of our sinful lives to himself.
Jesus says something similar in Luke 18:9-14. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The truth about ourselves is that we are all sinners who can only be in a state of humility in the presence of a holy God. Jesus encourages those who follow him to die daily to themselves: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Luke 9:23-24). Jesus teaches that who we have been and are must die so that we might live and become like him as we follow him. We must know the serious truth about ourselves, that we are all tax collectors. Otherwise we will end up like the Pharisee, comparing ourselves, our practices, and our lives to other people instead of to Jesus.
Before ending this discussion of the truth about God and ourselves, I want to explore two questions. First, did sin come as a surprise to God? Second, is this really helpful to followers of Jesus or is this just down-right depressing?
Was God surprised by human sin? There are two possible answers. Either yes he was, and Jesus became God’s “Plan B” since sin derailed his original purposes; or, no he wasn’t, because God planned all along to be glorified through his Son. The biblical record shows that the latter is true.
Writing to his assistant, Timothy, Paul reminds him, in the face of what must have been difficult opposition to his ministry, that Christians will suffer for the gospel: Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began (2 Timothy 1:8-9). The point to grasp is that Jesus’ saving grace existed before the creation of the ages and before any human sin was contemplated or conceived. Salvation, therefore, is not a response to sin but a requirement to display the glory of God.
Similarly, Revelation 13:8 has a curious reference to the “Lamb that was slain” before the foundation of the world. This and other biblical evidence shows God always knew his Son would die for the sins of the world before the first sin was committed. There is no “Plan B” in Jesus. There is only the original plan to deal with original sin. God uses human sin for his ultimate purpose: to bring glory to himself through his Son. We see that God is sovereign over all things, including human sin. Only a God of stupendous grace and mercy and goodness could use what is unholy to make his holiness even more glorious.
We find in the answer to this first question the answer to the second question: is this truth about ourselves—our sinful human nature—really helpful or just depressing? First, it cannot be depressing if God ultimately uses it for his glory and for ours. Second, it is helpful because we all know that we live in a world still contaminated by sin. We have to live with the temptation of sin and the sins of others every day.
Ultimately, it is better to know the truth about ourselves and the truth about God, than to live in denial. Truth may not be pleasant to hear, but the truth about ourselves is necessary if we are to appreciate all that God has done for us in Jesus.
Self-examination, repentance, prayer, and worship:
Fridays and Saturdays are days to focus on self-denial and fasting. One way to fast is to be silent before God for an extended period of time in solitude. Perhaps you may want to worship the Lord silently or listen to some soft worship music as you rest quietly in the presence of God, awaiting him to minister and speak to you. Before you begin this solitude, take some time to reflect on your sins. Perhaps there is one in particular about which you are concerned. Tell the Lord you are sorry, ask him to help you stop this sin, and then pray a prayer like the following:
Almighty God, our heavenly Father: We have sinned against you, through our own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what we have left undone. For the sake of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us all our offenses; and grant that we may serve you in newness of life, to the glory of your name. Amen.
Spend time in additional prayer and worship before studying the Gospel of John below.
Study: John 4:1-26, Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
1Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." 13Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."
16Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 17The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." 19The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."25The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." 26Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."
Reflection Questions:
1) What does Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well tell you about his standards for engaging someone in conversation?
2) What do you think it means to worship in spirit and truth? How does Jesus say we will achieve this? What do we need to worship God truly?
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