Nothing clears a room faster than the word sin.
Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. That’s all you Christians talk about and we’re sick of it. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. And we don’t believe in it anyway. So says the culture in 21st-century America.
If you’ve been on this blog for any period of time, you’ve likely come to realize that I want to talk theology in the language of ordinary, everyday people. I’m not afraid of complex doctrine or difficult church-language, but when I communicate the ancient truths of the Scriptures, I want the 30-year old dad to understand how this theology affects the way he does his work, loves his wife, and cares for his children.
There’s a legend about an African tribe called the Himba.
In this tribe each child has a unique song. When a tribe learns that a woman is pregnant, the tribe will go out into the wilderness and come back with a song that is unique to the child in the womb.
Vocation, which commonly in our culture, refers to a person’s job is actually rooted in significant theological roots. Vocation, which comes from the latin vocatio, literally refers to God’s calling.
I read a ridiculous amount of blogs and listen to a ton of sermons. While there is certainly no shortage of availability of blogs to be reading or podcasts to subscribe to, over the past year a number of new voices have really become prominent in my feeds.
We recently went on a magical vacation with our family to Disney World. After the vacation we were talking to some of our friends about the experience and they asked, “How did you do it?”
It’s the beginning of a new year and that has me thinking about goals, ideas, and dreams. Some of those goals are personal and others of those are directly related to this little place here on the web.
Every year as we decorate the house to celebrate the Christmas season, I always make sure to get my menorah and put it out on the mantle. I usually also tell my wife that we should put it in the window so people can see, but I haven’t been able to convince her yet.
Every December, the warriors prepare themselves for the battle over Christmas. Loyal Christians fight the good fight by refusing to say, “Happy Holidays.” Others go to battle defending our right to call our trees “Christmas trees” instead of holiday trees.
Church people love to count numbers. And sometimes it even becomes a disturbing obsession to count everything. The numbers game is often one of the things that drives me crazy when I attend conferences; shortly after meeting another pastor, you are quickly asked, “How big is your church?”
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Throughout the book of Judges, God keeps sending judges. It’s not a one-time occurrence, it happens over and over and over again. While Israel repeats this cycle of sin, slavery, and tragedy, God doesn’t step back and watch it grow progressively worse.
Instead of letting Israel destroy everything, God steps in. God intersects the cycle of sin with rescue. No matter how ugly things get for the Israelites, God interrupts this cycle with grace and forgiveness. And this is not a one-time thing, it’s repeated throughout the entire history of the nation of Israel.
Note: This post is an excerpt from the free eBook, Addiction: Leaving the Vomit Behind.
Psalm 106 describes this:
"Many times he delivered them,
but they were bent on rebellion
and they wasted away in their sin.
Yet he took note of their distress
when he heard their cry;
for their sake he remembered his covenant
and out of his great love he relented."
No matter how many times we repeatedly turn to the same sins over and over and over again, God says, “My grace is enough.”
And he doesn’t just say, “I forgive you,” once. He says it a second time and a third time and a hundredth time and a two-hundreth time. The depth of our sins do not dictate the mercy of God. The frequency of our sins don’t determine the grace that we receive.
God isn’t giving us more chances to “not screw it up,” but instead he provides the rescuer who stands in our place.
And that is not based on your behavior. It is not dependent on the sins you’ve committed, the pain that you’ve caused, or the tragedy that your choices have led to.
The Israelites keep committing the same sin over and over and over.
When we read this in the book of judges, I can’t help but think, “These guys are idiots.” And then Irealize I do the same thing.
We do the same things over and over again; we return to the same sins time and time and time again, yet God remembers his covenant. He says, “I love you the same.”
Guilt & Shame
As we talk about these types of struggles, we likely also will deal with feelings of great guilt and shame. Guilt says, “I’m sorry. I did something wrong.” Guilt uses judicial language; it says, “Here’s the law and here’s what I did. These don’t match up.”
And so we feel guilty. We feel guilty because when talking about our addiction, we understand that God said not to and we did it anyways. And we did it not only once, but we did it repeatedly. We feel guilt because we know that the slavery we face is a result of our own sins. We feel guilt because we see the consequences that have come from our own decisions and how it has affected others.
And guilt weighs us down.
But there’s not only guilt, there’s also shame. Where guilt says, “I’m sorry, I did something wrong,” shame says, “There’s something wrong with me.” While guilt yearns for justice, shame seeks hiding. Like Adam and Eve cover themselves in the Garden of Eden, shame runs from the spotlight because we are afraid people will see us for who we are.
Where guilt is judicial in its language, shame speaks to our identity.
Shame says:
I am an addict.
I am a shopaholic.
I am a workaholic.
I am a porn addict.
I am my job.
I am my relationships.
I am _______________________.
The Good News deals with both of these. The death and resurrection of Jesus deals with both guilt and shame. On the cross, you are declared not guilty. No matter what you’ve done or how many times you’ve done it, you are declared innocent.
Not guilty.
And the cross also covers shame. It speaks to your identity.
It says, “You are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come.” You are not your addictions. You are not who you were.
In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says it this way, “But when the time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law.” Notice the language he’s using here. It begins very judicial, “That God sent his son born of a woman, born under law,” why? Because we had been guilty of breaking the law God sent his son, who was innocent, to redeem those who were guilty.
And as he continues, there’s a shift in his language, “That we might receive the full rights of sons.” He begins speaking to our identity, “Because you are sons. God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out Abba, father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
There’s actually a confession from 1581 that often gets used by churches even today:
O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them, and sincerely repent of them, and I pray You, of Your boundless mercy, and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being. - The Lutheran Hymnal
“Poor, miserable sinner.” This is about shame.
“Justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment.” This is about guilt.
And how does Jesus respond to this confession? He declares, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Guilt removed.
Shame removed.
Your sins, forgiven.
Our worship ministry staff has some incredibly gifted musicians and this year they decided to put out a Christmas EP as a gift to our congregation. Grace Has Come is a 4-track EP full of original, grace-filled, theologically rich, artistic songs for the Church.
Note: You can find the music embedded in this post or click on a link below to download the music.
One of my favorite songs, Gifts You Bring, says:
“There is joy for the broken
Peace for the ravaged
Hope for the hopeless soul
There is grace and forgiveness
Faith and compassion
In Jesus Christ Alone"
Joy, peace, hope, grace, forgiveness, faith, and compassion.
What better truth to celebrate as we prepare for Christmas than the simple truth that all these gifts come from Jesus Christ alone? The only place we can truly find joy, peace, and hope is in the person and work of Jesus. The manger is just the beginning of grace showing up on the scene and changing our world.
In further conversation with our worship team, I learned that this song was not written in isolation from the history of the Church, but it actually had roots in an traditional Christmas Eve prayer.
The prayer says the words, "O God, You make this most holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light.” Corey, Steve, and Matt wrote, “Oh my God, who has made this night, shine with brightness of your Truest Light. Break the dark that has hidden me, that has taken me from the gifts you bring.”
Let this free gift from our worship ministry bless you with the grace that comes in the birth of a baby boy. Download this EP and share it with your friends.
When you attend a worship gathering, what is happening? Why do we sing the songs we do? Why do we say the prayers, creeds, and confessions? And who is the service for; is it for believers or is it for unbelievers
Core to the Reformation was a simple, profound doctrine that Luther embraced that shaped his understanding of the Gospel. This phrase describes a tension that the Christian finds himself in. It presents us with the paradox of sinful, broken people have also been rescued and redeemed. We are holy yet sinful, new yet old, saints and sinners.
There’s a latin phrase that typically gets associated with Luther’s teaching:
Simul justus et peccator.
We are simultaneously justified and sinner.
We are saints and sinners at the same time.
One blog describes the phrase well :
"Perhaps the formula that Luther used that is most famous and most telling at this point is his formula simul justus et peccator. And if any formula summarizes and captures the essence of the Reformation view, it is this little formula. Simul is the word from which we get the English word simultaneously. Or, it means ‘at the same time.’ Justus is the Latin word for just or righteous. And you all know what et is... You remember in the death scene of Caesar after he’s been stabbed by Brutus he says, “Et tu, Brute?” Then fall Caesar. And you too Brutus? It simply means and. Peccator means sinner.
And so with this formula Luther was saying, in our justification we are one and the same time righteous or just, and sinners.” - Ligonnier.org
The Christian life is found in the tension. Are we sinners or are we saints? Yes. We find ourselves simultaneously both sinners and saints at the same time. While we are identified with Christ, a battle still wages war in us as our old self battles against the new.
“Simultaneously” points to this time between the times—the co-existence of two “times” at the same time: the old age and the new creation are both present realities. - Tullian Tchividjian
This is why Paul in Romans writes, “what I want to do I do not do.” Because Paul understands that the sinner in him is constantly in tension with the saint in him. Part of him is guided by the Spirit and looks outward with love for others. And another part of him is guided by his sinful nature and looks inward at what would be best for himself.
On the one hand we are completely unrighteous. Romans 3 says, "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.”
But on the other hand we are completely righteous because of the work of Christ. Romans 3 also says, "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Saint and sinner. Both at the same time. The tension between the old you and the new you. The tension between sin at work and God at work. The tension between the god you worship and the God you worship.
Embrace the tension.