Sinner - Who? Me?

Pastor Steve’s sermon this past week, dealt with one of those areas we don’t like to talk about much: sin. We may admit making mistakes, errors, blunders or even crazy gaffes in judgment, but we no longer like to admit to sinning. Most of us would rather NOT deal with this issue. It makes us feel uncomfortable. For many, sin seems to be a rather archaic kind of churchy word that isn’t relevant for today’s world.

Many of us like to think we are not so bad, that we are “nice” people. If we compare ourselves to terrorists, hardened criminals or maybe even some of our neighbors, we may think we look pretty good—our sin doesn’t “smell that bad!” But when you and I compare ourselves to God’s standards, we see just how far short we all fall. We ALL have missed the mark! We ALL have sinned! Sin is sin in the eyes of God.

Over the centuries we have tried lots of things to try to solve the problem of sin—philosophy, morality, good works and all sorts of religions. We continued to live in a cycle of sin until Jesus came and died on the cross for YOU and for ME.

Think about this for a minute—the God of the universe loved us so much that He was willing to give up His life in place of YOU and ME so that we could live in total forgiveness. Through His death on the cross, Jesus forever removed the “barrier” that sin created between us and God. And, not only that, He removed all the penalty that sin brought to us —death, destruction, dysfunction, separation from God and brokenness. Jesus’ death on the cross was and is the supreme expression of God’s amazing love and grace for YOU and for ME.

Martin Luther, in his famous quote, “Simul iustus et Peccator,” reminds us that Christians are always “simultaneously saint and sinner.” While we live in God's grace, we are reminded that we are both forgiven and yet we are still sinners. We live with this “tension” between these two every day.

As these famous song lyrics remind me: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a WRETCH like ME!” Amen and Amen!

Pax,

Pastor Carol