sin – Calvary Chapel

How the Gospel Heals Shame

Benjamin Morrison — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Shame is an experience common to every person on the planet. Charles Darwin, in classic materialist fashion, defined shame primarily in terms of its physical expression: casting the eyes downward, lowering the head, blushing and a slack posture. No matter what culture a person is from, these are universally accepted signs of this universally experienced condition. To clarify what we’re talking about, it’s helpful to differentiate between shame and guilt. The difference has been stated very well in the following way: “guilt is a sense that my actions are wrong. Shame is a sense that I am wrong.” It’s interesting that even when a person denies guilt over certain actions, the sense of shame is much harder to escape. A person might completely deny the existence of “moral standards”, and yet they may still go through life with a sense that “I’m not right”.

Where does shame come from?

The theme of shame runs throughout the whole Bible. We see it from the very beginning. In the garden of Eden, God created Adam and Eve. Gen. 2:25 says that they were both “naked and unashamed”. But in chapter 3 they fall into sin, disobey God and, all of a sudden, there is a change. The very first result we read of after they eat the forbidden fruit is that “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. ”

The very first result from sin mentioned in the Bible is shame. It was the direct result of sin. It wasn’t just that they thought their action was wrong. They thought that they were wrong and had to hide themselves, so they sewed coverings. When God calls to Adam, Adam says, “I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” They didn’t just wipe their mouths from the juice of the forbidden fruit to hide their action. They tried to hide themselves. This is shame, not just guilt. Shame is the fear that “someone will see me as I really am and reject me because I am disgusting”. They realized that now, in a real sense, they themselves were not right. And their immediate reaction was to create a covering, a way to hide their own shame. Think about it: was there anything sinful in the fact that they were naked? Just Adam and Eve were there, a man and his wife. No! The problem was not their nakedness. But their shame caused them to try and hide themselves. The act of covering oneself as an expression of shame is well known to all of us, even when that shame has nothing to do with a directly physical cause.

The picture of nakedness as an illustration of shame continues throughout Scripture. This is essentially something we associate with nakedness anyway. Almost everyone has had the nightmare where you show up to school and you forgot to put on clothes and you’re standing there in your underwear or naked and everyone is laughing and you’re just dying of shame. Even if you haven’t had that dream, the concept is so ubiquitous that you’re sure to have seen it in a movie or two. But along with this picture of nakedness as shame in Scripture, clothing one’s nakedness is a picture of the covering of shame.

Trying to heal our own shame

Now, in the sense that we’re fallen, sinful people, shame is appropriate. * We should have a sense that we aren’t as we should be, because we aren’t as we should be! We were not created to exist in a condition of sin and alienation from God! But at the same time, it’s impossible to constantly live in shame. It will lead us to despair and depression. In fact, in some cases, the horrifying, conscious realization of shame is so strong that it can push a person to suicide. And so we attempt to “heal” our shame in one of 2 ways:

1) We sew fig leaves for ourselves. That is, we attempt to hide our shame under that which we’ve made with our own hands. Even if we refuse to admit guilt over a specific action, if we try to justify it or even if a person denies the existence of moral standards, we still go about life trying to cover our shame through our works and accomplishments. We attempt to cover who we are with what we do. That might be with accomplishments in business or wealth, perhaps in popularity or relationships or sex, or even in religious accomplishment and devotion. We feel that we are wrong on some level and attempt to cover that with the work of our hands. Only it doesn’t work.

Think about the story in Eden. If the fig leaves had really covered their shame, why did Adam and Eve hide in the bushes after they had made themselves a covering? It becomes obvious that, although they attempted to deal with their own shame through their accomplishments, it didn’t work. If it did they would’ve been standing in the middle of the garden in confidence. See, whichever accomplishments we try to heal our shame with, they will never work. We will only make matters worse. There are 2 (at least) major down sides to making your underwear out of fig leaves. First, it’s a very temporary solution. The fig leaves would quickly wither and Adam and Eve would constantly have to be renewing the fig leaves. Secondly, if you’ve ever felt a fig leaf, you know that they feel like sandpaper. There’s a mental picture for you: sandpaper undies. Do you think that was comfortable? No. They weren’t made for a covering!

When a person attempts to cover their inherent sense of shame, their “I’m not right” with any accomplishment, first, it doesn’t last for long. That temporary sense of relief from shame will soon disappear, like all fig leaves, and you’ll have to find another covering. That’s why a person who uses, say, material goods to mask his shame has to keep getting more. The old leaves fade. That’s why a person who uses romantic relationships to mask their shame has to keep getting more, changing partners, etc. Second, whatever you’ve made your “covering” from shame will begin to irritate you and you’ll hate it in the end, cause it wasn’t made to cover your shame! That’s why people who try to use their families to cover their sense of shame end up leaving their families, or crush them under heavy demands and resentment. That’s why people who use religious duty to cover shame often harbor a mild contempt for God and are very irritable. Whatever you are trying to cover your shame with today, whatever you’re using to mask sense that you’re “not right”, be sure that it won’t last and you’ll hate it in the end.

2) The second approach is to pretend you aren’t naked. To deal with shame, some try to simply deny the existence of shame, to boast in their wrongness. But the fact of the matter is, even people who theoretically deny a sense of shame will still ultimately act out of it. You might pretend you’re not naked, but if you go outside in the winter, you’re going realize it. One interesting example in our culture here in Ukraine is «civil (common-law) marriage». People will say that there’s nothing shameful about living together and having sex outside of marriage. And yet they’ll most often call the person they’re in fornication with «husband/wife». Why do that? If it’s really not shameful, why are people attempting to cover it up under the name of marriage? The truth is we can deny shame all we want, but it will still be there and we’ll still act out of it.

True healing from shame

So here’s the question: how can shame be healed? How can we get rid of that sense that “I am wrong”? If we can’t cover it over with our own accomplishments and we can’t effectively pretend that shame doesn’t exist, are we doomed to remain in that sense of shame forever? No!

Now we look at the healing of shame. Let’s return to the story of Eden. Adam and Eve had sewn their fig leaves to cover their shame. But then God came and called them. When Adam confessed to hiding because of the shame of his nakedness, God asks, “who told you that you were naked”? “Did you eat the fruit ?”. Once God had clearly convicted them of sin, pronounced the result of sin in the curse, and as Adam and Eve were leaving the garden, God sacrificed a lamb to make them a covering for their shame. But here’s what we maybe don’t think about: in order to accept God’s covering for shame, His healing of their shame, they had to take off their fig leaves. They had to stand naked before Him in the reality of their shame, not hiding it, not denying it, but confessing their shame. Only then was God free to cover their shame for them.

The fact is that a person can never cover their own shame, no matter what achievements they try to use. That’s because the healing of shame takes place as much in the undressing as it does in the covering. The healing of shame is in having someone see you in all your shame and, knowing you as you are, then cover your shame. The healing takes place when God says “I see you as you are, your shame, and I will accept you and cover your shame.” It’s not just the covering, but that He gave the covering, knowing what we were like without it.

Well, that’s a beautiful story for Adam and Eve, but are we so lucky as to have God offer us the healing of our shame? YES! The other condition we need to notice in that story is that for Adam and Eve’s shame to be covered, the lamb had to lose its covering, have it’s skin ripped off. It had to die. Of course, some animal could not truly heal the deep shame of fallen sinners. It was a promise that one day the Lamb of God, Jesus, would come to heal our shame. His skin was flayed off with a roman whip. He hung completely naked, bearing our shame, before the crowd that ridiculed Him. He lost the covering of His honor and blessing and was rejected by the Father on the Cross. That was the price of our shame. But in doing so, He gives us His covering: the rich robes of His righteousness. If we will take off our fig leaves before God, stand spiritually naked before him admitting that we are “not right”, open our shame to Him, not hide or deny it, then He will cover us with the very righteousness of Jesus, the Lamb of God. He will see who we are and accept us and cover us anyway. And in that we will find the true healing of our shame. He will declare, “You are right”.

This is what it means to be “righteous”: right before God. This is why the Bible can boldly promise, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” (Rom. 10:11) It is with this sacrifice of the Lamb of God in mind that Isaiah prophetically writes in chapter 61, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. ” Here we also see the hint that we are not dressed in just any clothes, not even in His righteousness in a generic sense, but that the robes of salvation are a wedding dress. In Revelation 19 at the return of Christ we see the Church, those who have received Christ, and it says, “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” Christ doesn’t merely heal our shame but clothes us as His bride in His righteousness. Shame is the fear that someone will see me as I really am and reject me because I’m disgusting. The gospel is the assurance that God sees us as we are and accepts us anyway because He is beautiful. The Gospel heals shame.

* There is an “illegitimate shame” which is the result not of our sin, but of others’ sins against us, be that mockery or physical/sexual abuse, etc. This shame is not something that is our “fault”, and yet we still need to see that it is in Christ that this kind of shame is also healed.

This post is an excerpt of the sermon from 1 Cor. 13:7a, “how love heals shame”.
The audio is available in Russian here.

Thoughts on The Power of the Gospel

Terry Cokenour — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 07:00:00 +0000

2018 CGN Pastors & Leaders Conference Archives

Though I’ve been a Calvary Chapel pastor for nearly five years, this year will be my first time attending the Pastors and Leaders Conference. So I’ve been thinking about the theme, “The Power of the Gospel.”

Power. Good News. These are culturally loaded ideas.

They are not technical terms with stable meanings across the globe. For most people, they are subjective.

When someone hears the word “power,” countless experiences spring into action that flavor the meaning. Wounds are opened, and bitterness comes out to play. Wounds that were given by people with “power.”

I’m not a world traveler, but these past seven years I’ve been doing life together with the Hungarian people. It’s given me a whole new perspective about power, and how for many people, maybe most people, it is not a good thing.

Maybe you’ve been a Christian for awhile and you know Romans 1:16:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

But pause for a minute and try to consider what power likely means to the majority of the world, and even to many in America today.

The powerful use their influence, their might, their ability to their own advantage. Power is leveraged against the weak. Those who have it wield it to gain more of it. It’s feared. It’s harmful. And those who have it are distrusted because of it.

Power is distasteful to many people. We should realize this when we speak of the power of the gospel. This is to say nothing of historical abuses of power by those who claimed to represent the gospel. The message of Romans 1:16 is indeed glorious, but it is also an alien concept to most. Power and good news rarely walk together in our world.

And that is precisely where the beauty of the gospel blossoms.

A lot has been said and written about this word, “power.” The transliteration, dynamis, informs the English word “dynamite.” But we must not make the error of reading modern concepts backwards into first century Palestine. Paul knew nothing about dynamite when he wrote to the Christians in Rome.

The idea simply is power. Ability. Force. Might. It speaks of having the innate capacity to bring about change, to effect change by the actions taken.

But power doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In our world it is most often tied to people who use it in harmful, selfish ways. Physical abuse by those in power. Emotional abuse by those in power. Systemic abuse by those in power. Political corruption by those in power. Economic corruption by those in power.

But our God, the God of the Bible, wields His awesome power in a way that is very different than the human authorities who have given us such terrible examples.

God expresses His power in the form of good news. That also is an alien concept. It seems that the only “good” news we get is when we hear something positive from a friend or family member. Many are abandoning the world’s news outlets altogether as the crisis-for-cash industry is finally being seen for what it is.

Yet that is God’s message, good news. And it’s a message infused with His own might, authority and ability. The good news of Jesus goes with, and in, the power of God.

And it is a message for salvation.

In our english Bibles “salvation” isn’t always referring to spiritual salvation. Sometimes it means being kept or preserved from worldly harm. But here in Romans 1:16, it is in fact the “salvation” we as followers of Jesus rest our lives upon.

It’s the salvation that uproots us from the realm of darkness and plants anew into the kingdom of Jesus (Colossians 1:13). It’s the ultimate rescue, the way out everyone who has known fear and oppression longs for. It is the light of day at the end of the valley of the shadow of death. It is a person, and the message of Him is indeed good news, full of God’s power.

It turns out that the God of the Bible, who is said to have all authority, who declares the beginning from the end, and who is the only redeemer (Isaiah 44:6-8), has chosen to use His power for our good. This shatters our worldly experience which tells us that the interests of the powerful and the good of the many are mutually exclusive. God’s ways really are different than our ways! (Isaiah 55:8-9)

In a world where the powerful serve themselves, the God of the Bible, the most powerful of all, expresses His power through care for others. Others who can add nothing to Him and need everything from Him. His power frees the captive (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18). His power uplifts the oppressed (Psalm 9:9-10). His power gives the orphan a family (2 Corinthians 6:18). His power is good news for the salvation of all who believe.

What seems unbelievable is exactly what must be believed.

I wonder if our enemy has intentionally corrupted the idea of power among humanity in order to drive people away from anyone powerful, including God Himself. If you want to keep people from the water of life, try to poison the well.

It seems too good to be true. But what we hope would be true turns out to be exactly the message we’ve received. The all-powerful God has acted in the person and work of Jesus. Forgiveness has been purchased through the Son’s offering of His own life for us all. New life is secured by the Son’s bodily resurrection from the dead.

Just as Abraham hoped against hope and believed that this God could do what He promised (Romans 4:18), we too can enter into what seems impossible, trusting someone in power, by believing the good news of Jesus. Because you are not trusting just anyone, but the One who in His power gave Himself for you, in His power, took His life back from grave (John 10:17-18), and in His power, sends this good news out to all, for anyone who will believe.

Register to the 2018 CGN Pastors & Leaders Conference to hear teachings, interactive workshops, resources, fellowship & more under the theme, “The Power of the Gospel,” on June 25-28.

Has a Piece of Sin Latched Onto You?

Shannon Quintana — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 07:00:00 +0000

You don’t exactly plan to be living in luxury on a mission trip, but you do hope to at least get a good night’s sleep. Our hopes were dashed a little in the middle of our mission trip to Vietnam. There’s no nice way to put it; the hotel we checked into was nasty. Our complimentary toothbrush packet was already open. A glass sat next to the sink with water still in it from the last customer, and there was no soap to wash the filth of the room off our hands. We could deal with that, but we were more concerned about spiders in our bed. So before we turned in for the night, we pulled the sheet back and checked to be sure we wouldn’t be bitten as we slept.

It was definitely dirty, but bug free…or so we thought.

Around five o’clock in the morning, my husband felt something crawling on his face and slapped it away. I assured him it was probably just a tiny spider. But his high functioning OCD and germophobia didn’t find that assumption acceptable; he had to find out what had been hanging out on him. Our worst fears were realized when he turned on his iPhone flashlight to reveal a bed bug crawling where he had been laying along with evidence that one had bitten me and been squashed in the night. Eeeew!! I shot up, and we began disrobing and telling our kids to do the same. The decision was made to leave every article of clothing that had touched that bed behind so as not to take those bugs home! These are the moments that my husband’s germaphobic ways come in real handy since nothing else had touched the bed and our suitcases had already been locked up tight. Right about now, you’re probably thinking “Wow, what a gross story. How on earth does that apply to my life, other than standing a little farther away when I talk to you?” Follow along with me.

Bedbugs are resilient and relentless and nearly impossible to get rid of. If we hadn’t taken measures to be sure that they didn’t come with us, we could’ve unwittingly migrated those Vietnamese bedbugs into their new home in California, in our beds! They would’ve been prolific at multiplying, and we would’ve had to burn our mattress. Okay, maybe burning is a little extreme, but we’d definitely need to invest in a new bed. I’m sure glad we spotted them!

Those bedbugs remind me of the little bits of sin that I pick up along my walk with Jesus.

Sometimes, without even noticing, something latches onto me and won’t let go. It multiplies and permeates every area of my life, and before I know it, I’m infested with poor judgement, leading to poor choices, leading to straight-up more and more sin. Getting rid of sin is thankfully easier than getting rid of bedbugs, but they both need to die. The Bible says that as soon as I decide to let Jesus be the director of my life, I am no longer chained to my old way of living, my old mistakes. I am NEW, and none of that old stuff is meant to stay.

Sin is sneaky. Sometimes, without even noticing, we pick up something nasty, and it just takes over. For me, it usually takes over by changing the way I am with the people around me, usually my family. I get snappy and rude, and I just want to be alone and watch Netflix, and by watching Netflix, I mean watching an entire season on Netflix. Netflix doesn’t ask questions; Netflix understands. I’m pretty sure if you looked up “Netflix” in the dictionary it may have an alternate definition of “a complete waste of time.” They only give you 10 seconds between episodes to see if you’d actually like to do something useful with your time. I mean, can we even make an educated decision in 10 minutes? Well played, Netflix, well played. Isolation feels good when I’m riddled with sin because I don’t have to tell anyone how I’m REALLY doing.

Maybe it manifests in you differently.

One sin always leads to another if we don’t get rid of it before it takes over.

I’m not sure what God’s reason was for making bedbugs. I like to believe that He didn’t, and that some mad scientist made them as a prank. Same with cockroaches…but that’s a whole other story, actually one that applies to the same mission trip. However, I am amazed that God can use this disgusting little creature to remind me to keep my life clean, to get rid of anything that isn’t meant to be there. To not let sin hangout and not get so comfortable with it that I am lulled right to sleep, clueless of the infestation project that is in full swing around me. So, let’s all keep checking up on our lives, making sure nothing has crept in that doesn’t belong in our new hearts and lives!

“Sinner” is No Longer Your True Identity

Ray Bentley — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 07:00:00 +0000

At the beginning of every year, every season of life, or every day, we can say, “We have not been this way before.” A new adventure, a new way, things that never happened to us before give us the opportunity every day to experience God’s presence and power.

The question is, are you ready?

Are you willing? Do you believe it? The children of Israel, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, stood on the river shore, the Promised Land in front of them. All they had to do was cross the wild and dangerous Jordan River.
You can imagine the fear, uncertainty and hesitation that murmured through the people. Joshua sent instructions through the camp to follow the ark of the covenant being held by the Levitical priests because, “Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before” (Joshua 3:4). Joshua also instructed them, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”

It was harvest time. The river was at flood stage and not easily navigable. Enemies could be waiting for them on the other side. Did God order the soldiers and strongest men in the camp to lead the way? No, he put the priests and the Ark on the front lines. God fulfilled His promise to the children of Israel, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Like the Dad that He is, He goes before us, urging us to join the adventure, get our feet wet and step into the river, because He plans to do amazing things.
The priests stepped in to the river, and immediately, the water ceased to flow from upstream. Just like the stories of Moses, the elders remembered and the young ones heard told! It was the beginning of Joshua’s “amazing things.” The whole nation crossed the Jordan on dry ground.

You and I have been born in this particular stage of history, this hour in the history of humankind.

This is not an accident. God knows you, designed you and planned on your life being here at this time for specific reasons. We are another Joshua generation. We need to accept and understand our true identity. When we put our faith in Jesus, we inherit a new identity. We become His children, His son or daughter. But too many believers don’t realize this, nor are they seeing it manifested in their lives.

We need to engage and enforce our inheritance. The inheritance became reality the moment the Israelites stepped into the river. Passover was the night the nation was born. This day, the nation was baptized and revived as they stepped forward in obedience. Jesus taught, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). The word repent implies a change of action, to change your mind, to go in a new direction.

On this day, Israel received a new identity and headed in a new direction.

In Egypt they lived under a slave mentality. In the wilderness they held on to a survival mentality. Now it was time to embrace their new identity, as the recipients of God’s love, blessings and promises. Time to claim their inheritance. Time to develop an inheritance identity.

When we repent, we are changed. When we turn from the ways we have been thinking, living, believing and begin to follow the Lord into new territory, then and only then, do we experience what God promised.

We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). We are “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We don’t have to live with fear, worries and anxiety. These are the idols of a past without God. The more we accept and believe God’s great love for us, the stronger our identity as His children is established. The false identity is removed, and the power of God’s kingdom can be manifested in our lives.

I’ve been a teacher/preacher for a long time and am disturbed by what some of my colleagues teach. We are indeed sinners, for “all have fallen short of the glory of God.” That fact has been drilled into the church for centuries. We are not just sinners, but worthless sinners, and God doesn‘t really like us all that much.

After all, when the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, he opened his letter with, “To the dirty, rotten, worthless sinners who live in Ephesus,” right? No! He wrote, “To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace.”

The truth is, God found us valuable and loved us even when we were yet sinners.

Jesus taught, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). We are His treasure.

“Sinner” is no longer our true identity. We have been forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness the moment we repent. We are God’s treasure, His beloved. Despite our failings, weaknesses, disobedience and acts of rebellion, He treasures us enough to send His Son to sacrifice Himself for us. We are His brave and triumphant children who follow Him into the river, unafraid, ready to face giants, smash idols and receive our inheritance.

We have not gone this way before…but we are ready when we follow our Lord. We can move ahead with confidence and in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us. We can be a Joshua generation.

7 Reasons Jesus Couldn’t Stay Dead

David Guzik — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 07:00:00 +0000

The Bible tells us that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on the Sunday after Passover. The risen Jesus met with and spoke with people for 40 days following that, including up to 500 people at a time (1 Corinthians 15:6). At the 40 day mark, He ascended to heaven, as His disciples watched. Ten days after that, on the day of the Jewish festival of Pentecost, one of His disciples preached about the risen Jesus to thousands of people. In that sermon, Peter spoke of Jesus as the one, “…Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Many years ago, that phrase caught my attention, and I am still amazed by it: It was not possible for Jesus to remain dead in the tomb. He had to rise. In the season of Easter and Resurrection, it’s good for us to think deeply about how Jesus had to live, had to die, and had to rise again.

Here are a few thoughts on why Jesus had to rise from the dead. It’s a short and incomplete list – feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments.

Jesus had to rise from the dead to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament.

The resurrection of the Messiah was described in the Hebrew Scriptures in Psalm 16:10 and spoken of in a prophetic sense in passages such as Hosea 6:2 and Jonah 1:17. Another example is the scenario in Genesis 22 where Isaac, as a picture of Jesus, is “raised” on the third day of their journey, at the beginning of which Abraham had reckoned his son dead.

Jesus had to rise from the dead to fulfill His own promises.

The promises Jesus made that He would raise from the dead are recorded in Matthew 16:21, 17:23 and 20:19 and in many other passages. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then He and His promises were lies. It was impossible for the One who is the way, the truth, and the life to remain dead.

Jesus had to rise from the dead to prove that the price was paid at the cross.

The price was paid at the cross, just as He said with His last word before giving up His spirit: It is finished, which could also be understood as paid in full. Yet, every payment needs a receipt. The empty tomb was the evidence that Jesus remained God’s Holy One (Acts 2:27), through the whole ordeal of the cross. God had to raise His Holy One from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus proved that He bore our sin without becoming a sinner.

Jesus had to rise from the dead to make certain of our resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:20 says that Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection that is promised to all His people. He was the beginning, and if it was real for Him, it will be real for all who have put their trust in Him. Romans 8:11 says it beautifully: “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Jesus had to rise from the dead to show that death was defeated.

If death could not hold Jesus in the tomb, it proved that death had no power over Him. If death was defeated for Jesus, then it is defeated for all those who put their faith in Him who are identified with His death and resurrection. No wonder Paul could almost taunt death by saying, “O Death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

Jesus had to rise from the dead to bring hope and security to His followers.

Because of the victory Jesus won through the empty tomb, His people don’t have to live in fear of death or anything in our future. Hebrews 2:15 says that one aspect of the work of Jesus at the cross and resurrection was to release those who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For Jesus’ people, the fear and torment of uncertainty is gone.

Jesus had to rise from the dead to demonstrate the greatness of God’s power.

In Ephesians 1:19-20, the Apostle Paul prayed that believers would know the greatness of God’s power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:20). This is ultimate power, the power to give life to that which is dead. This is the power that God gives to us in Jesus Christ, and power for us to know and live in.

During this season of Easter and resurrection, think deeply on why Jesus had to rise, and especially all that His resurrection brings to those who repent and put their faith in Jesus. It’s something to not only know, but to live.

Preaching the Gospel (to Myself)

Sarah Yardley — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Over and over again, I discover how easy it is to say the right things, yet how often I must be reminded to live them.

Over and over again, I am reminded how necessary it is that I preach the Gospel to myself.

I know that I am a sinner saved by grace. I have memorized the Scriptures, including whole books of the Bible in my teen years. I have sung the songs and read the stories, and the truths that have shaped my life are settled in my soul.

There is great danger in this kind of knowing. It means that I can say all of the right words without my heart’s chords stirring to the tune of the Gospel. In my daily, ordinary, unseen, unsung life, it means that I can speak of the work of God and fail to recognize how deeply and desperately I need that work in my own life.

To make this practical, let me share a few examples. I have been reading the book of Esther; the story of kings and kingdoms, banquets and brides, feasts and fairness. In the first chapter, we read of Vashti, who refused the summons to the king’s presence. I have heard this passage taught many ways, but the simple application I received as I read was that one woman’s choice held massive implications, not just for her own relationships, but for her whole nation.

Quietly but insistently, God spoke to me:

“The choices that you make hold weight far beyond what you even realise.”

In the light of the Gospel, this means that my God is at work redeeming my poor choices and calling me to the choices that will reflect His sacrificial love.

Practically, this means that I must recognize, in light of the Gospel, that some of my choices will be the ones that must be redeemed. I am a sinner, eternally saved by grace.

It is far easier for me to tell others that their sins are ransomed and redeemed than to examine the ugly reality of my own poor choices. And yet…I am continually discovering my own faults and failings.

To choose another example, for years I have told teenage girls to wait to share their hearts to the one who is God’s best.

Until I fell in love myself and couldn’t figure out how to release that love for over a year. It is easy to say that I should give God my love life. It’s much harder to actually surrender what I desire. It is in light of these failures that the glory of the Gospel becomes ever more radiant. Although I know this is not true, I sometimes imagine that I have earned the relentless love of God. Preaching the Gospel to myself reminds me that every good gift in my life is an act of grace.

In subtle ways, I tend to package grace.

In my life, grace unwrapped looks like the gift it always has been: The unearned favor of a God who gave us a garden and the joy of His presence. In my life, redemption unfolded looks like the tree that springs forth with life from what seems bitter, the cross that carried the death of God Himself that He might live again, the hope that the only true King walked in humility; so that He could live in victory forever.

When I preach the Gospel to myself, I rediscover the wonder, the mystery, the radical awe of a triune God who is Father, Saviour, and Spirit. I re-engage with a love that precedes history and stretches past one trillion tomorrows.

When I preach the Gospel to myself, the story is no longer about me. I am so glad that there is a true and better hero. All of heaven sings His name.

5 Practical Ways to Battle Sin

John Hwang — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Christians are free from sin’s rule, but not from its attempts to regain control. The battle that exists inside all of us, between sin and the new nature, will continue until we get to Heaven. This fact, however, is not a bleak one. The Bible tells us that Jesus rendered sin powerless at the cross. Being in Christ, we are not obligated to submit to sin’s dictates and desires. We can, by the Holy Spirit, make the right choices and take the proper actions to keep sin from regaining control of our thoughts, actions, and words. Here are five practical ways we can do this:

1. LOOK TO CHRIST AND HIS CROSS

The scene of God’s holy, incarnate Son suffering and dying on the cross is a shocking and horrific one. He became our sin and satisfied God’s wrath in order to rescue and redeem us from sin’s rule over us. This motivates us to love God and hate sin and to choose pleasing God over disobeying Him.

2. MAINTAIN A CLEAR AND CORRECT VIEW OF GOD

In Genesis 39, Joseph refused to commit sexual sin on this basis: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9) How we think about God impacts how we think about sin. Seeing God as being, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” causes us to admit, “Woe is me,” and to regard sin as “unclean” (Isaiah 6).

3. DEVOTE YOURSELF TO GOD’S WORD

This includes reading it. Thinking about it. Obeying it. Psalm 119:11 tells us this, “I have stored your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” God uses His word to wash us and to make us clean (John 17:17; Ephesians 5:25-27). This is His work in us called sanctification; He is transforming us into the likeness of Jesus. By immersing ourselves in God’s word, we experience its purifying effect and sin-overcoming power.

4. BE DILIGENT IN PRAYER

In Matthew 26:41 Jesus told His followers, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Prayer is our offensive weapon against sin. It is a devastating blow against it; for this reason, it’s so hard to do. Jesus said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” When it comes to prayer, we need to have a wartime mindset. We cannot afford to wait until we feel like praying before we pray; it has to happen consistently and continually. When temptations come, the first 10 seconds will generally determine the outcome. In this window of time, pray. In doing this, God provides the help and power we need to resist it.

5. CONFESS YOUR SINS TO GOD ON A REGULAR BASIS

Confession is the admission of our sins against God. In doing this, two things happen: First, God forgives us. This is affirmed in 1 John 1:9. Second, God renews in us a right attitude toward sin. In confessing our sins, we see the truth again that sin is evil, offensive, unclean, destructive, and full of hatred towards God. With this renewed understanding, we will reaffirm our love for God and refortify our defenses against sin.

In closing, I’d like to remind you of this message of the Gospel: Christ has set you free from sin’s rule. Daily live in this reality.

(For more on this subject, read Romans 6 and 8).

Finite sins and eternal punishment

Brian Weed — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 08:00:00 +0000

“Do you think finite sins deserve eternal punishment? How can that be fair?”

It’s a common question we may hear when we’re seeking to understand or discuss the nature of God’s wrath as it’s described in the Bible. And on the surface, it presents a difficult problem. After all, if you commit sin for a period of, say, eighty years, does it seem fair to be sentenced to an eternity of punishment? When stated this way, we might feel there is some sort of disparity. It’s hard to image a just God making this sort of mistake. In fact, it might seem to get worse when we think of each sin individually…maybe the sin lasted a year, or a day, or just a few minutes. How could it merit punishment forever?

And yet, that’s what the Bible does teach about the nature of God’s wrath on those who die in their sins. It’s a tragic, horrifying truth to try to contemplate, but it is the case.

So, what gives? Is God unfair?

Two things help when trying to think this through. First, it helps to ask questions about how we determine what a “fair” punishment is in the first place. Second, it helps to think about the assumptions we might be making about the “eternal” or “temporary” nature of both humans and their sins.

So, when we ask, “Do finite sins deserve infinite punishment?”–we should realize that we first need to answer the question of how someone would assign punishment to a crime at all. Even on a purely human level, do we assign length of punishment to a crime based on how long it took to commit the crime? The answer is generally no. If a murder took 5 minutes to commit, the time factor does not weigh in to the length of punishment. Imagine the trial of someone who spent 5 years masterminding a plot to steal $100,000, and someone who killed several people in 10 minutes of rage. Which one would receive a more severe punishment?

So we see that the length of time it takes to commit a crime, or a sin, is not really something that is taken into account when we think of punishment.

How should we weigh evil acts, then? The answer typically has to do with a mix of the amount of evil committed (money stolen, property damaged, lives disrupted or taken, pain caused), the amount of deliberateness behind the evil (time spent planning, amount of intent to do harm), and some other factors, like the future danger to a society the individual presents. The crucial idea to see here is that even our court systems understand that human acts have consequences beyond the actual committing of the crime. The evil caused does not stop when the criminal stops committing the evil.

So we have a compounding effect of evil to take into account when we assess punishment to criminals. If someone hurt several people badly enough to disable them, we have on our hands effects of evil which will last for the rest of their lives. Would it be unfair to add together the remaining years of each injured person’s life to come up with a “fair” number of years the criminal should be punished? (We should see that we will quickly run out of years left for the criminal, so that he or she wouldn’t even be able to serve the “full” sentence, thinking this way.)

And it gets worse. How would we calculate the “fair” amount of punishment for someone like Adolph Hitler? The amount of evil he committed would need to be assessed over the scale of every life he affected, his amount of malice and conscious intent, and how lasting the effects of his sin were. It boggles the mind. Could he receive a sentence that was “fair” which he could serve in his lifetime?

Secondly, when we ask the question, “”Do finite sins deserve infinite punishment?”–we should notice the underlying assumptions about humans, and our relationship to eternity, that we may need to reexamine. Specifically, we need to contemplate three issues of our own interaction with eternity:

1. The eternal nature of humans.
2. The eternal significance of the things humans do.
3. The eternal authority humans are under.

Let’s look at each one individually.

1. The eternal nature of humans: We’re finite in terms of size, but in terms of time, are we finite, or eternal? The answer the Bible gives is that we are eternal. Humans, by nature, are made in the image of the eternal God, which means that once we come into existence, we never pass out of existence. To exist forever is in the very fabric of what it means to be human. In other words, and this is very helpful to say when we discuss these kinds of things, we are eternal beings.

So when a human commits a sin, it is a sin committed by an eternal being. A new question emerges: Can an eternal being commit a finite sin?

2. The eternal significance of the things human do: Do our acts have temporary, or eternal significance? This returns to an idea discussed above–how long do the effects of our sin last? Now, I may break someone’s arm, and it may heal in six weeks. We could say the effects of my sin lasted six weeks. In one sense that’s true. But in another sense it’s not true at all. How long do the memories of that sin last? How long does the animosity between me and the injured person last? And to get more to the point: once I’ve broken the arm, can I ever undo that action? Is there a way I can make it so I didn’t do it at all? This is why the idea of “significance” is so helpful. I may commit an act whose effects go away after some time, but I can never change the universe so that the act didn’t happen. The fact that I broke the arm is an eternal fact. There will never be a time when I did not break that arm.

Further, think about things we do whose effects don’t go away. What if I hurt someone and it cost them their arm? They will live for the rest of their life maimed by what I did. And since we each only live one life, they will never get to live a full life with both arms. In other words, what I did effects them eternally. There will never be a reality in which they lived a full life with two arms.

Let’s keep going. If I murder someone, think of the eternal results of what I’ve done. For all eternity, the length of their earthly life will have been shortened, by me. They will never get to relive an earthly life which lasts its full course.

These may seem like extreme cases, but once you realize the connection between the fact that we only have one life to live, and that we can not change the past once we’ve lived it, you realize that literally everything we do has eternal significance. Once I say, think, or do something, it, and all its effects, can never be undone. they are just there, forever. I think we’ve answered the next pertinent question: Can an eternal being commit any act that is not eternal in significance?

3. The eternal authority humans are under: Against whom do we sin, when we sin? This is probably the most common way of connecting eternity to our sins. We don’t simply sin against each other–we sin against an infinite, eternal God, who gave us existence and has absolute right to rule over us. Not only that, but He’s shown Himself to be infinitely, eternally loving as well, so when we sin, we sin again someone with both infinite authority and infinite love. We offend infinite majesty. Here’s another question: Can an eternal being commit a finite sin against infinite love and authority?

I think adding the rest of what we’ve seen to this helps even further: Here we are, eternal creatures, given the gift of true existence with eternal significance, so that all we are and all we do has meaning forever. We’re under the infinitely loving authority of our creator as well, and given the ability to act out, in truly significant ways, our desires and intentions. Everything we do, then, has eternity all over it. There’s nothing about us that doesn’t matter, forever.

And when we sin, we sin eternally. We’re eternal beings committing eternally significant sins against an eternal authority.

When seen in this light, I’m not sure how we could see anything other than eternal consequences as appropriate. Eternal punishment speaks to the high calling and intention of God for Man, and the amazing level of significance he has gifted to us. To whom much is given, much is required.

And doesn’t this bring one more thing into glorious light? The grace of God in Jesus Christ is the kind of grace that comes to us–these eternally guilty beings–and actually has the power to change what we never could. Yes, there will never be a time when I did not sin, but by the death and resurrection of Christ I can be given the status of One who never did. When I am united to Him by faith, I find my past covered and atoned for, and what’s left is for me to live out an eternally significant life of righteousness. This is staggering. If anything, contemplating the reality of what Hell teaches us should make us be more in awe of what Jesus truly accomplished. What a massive, unimaginable salvation is offered to us. God is that good.