I’ve written about keeping Christ crucified the center of this space, and of how we need to be concerned about the Jesus we portray. Yesterday, I wrote about having compassion on those who walk as “enemies of the cross” (Phil. 3:18) and being so moved for them that we would even pray with tears. As I know I have a hard time doing this, I prayed and asked God to search my heart. I learned I had forgotten who I was.
I haven’t forgotten who I am now, in Christ. I had forgotten who I was then, before Christ. I forgot what it was like to feel grace as new and fresh…I had forgotten that it was grace and not something I deserved. I forgot about the utter dependency I have on Christ to live and walk as He commands. I forgot about my heart’s dependency on the power of the Holy Spirit to turn my affections toward King Jesus.
I feel that this is a problem we all face, as humans in general because of our idolatrous nature and desire for autonomy. Yet, I fear it’s a problem Americans face specifically, because of our Enlightenment-based mentality. Our culture eats, sleeps, and breathes “Make something of yourself.” If you succeed, it’s because you did it by yourself. You pulled yourself up by your boot straps and made it happen. Just like anything else, this attitude creeps in and pervades the hearts of those who follow Christ, causing us to forget from where we came.
So, let’s take a look and see who Scripture says we were.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Right now, we’re tracking with Paul. Of course these people won’t inherit the kingdom of God! They’re sinners.
It’s the next line that causes our mouths to close, and our souls to fall silent before God.
1 Corinthians 6:11 ESV
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
You might be able to talk your way out of being guilty for most of these, but you can’t get past the idolatry. The truth of this accuses and condemns us all. We have no defense. We can’t claim ignorance or insanity. Ephesians 2:1-3 is even bolder and says that we were followers of Satan.
We’re accused, and we’re guilty.
But because God is good, loving, and “rich in mercy,” (Eph. 2:4) He saves. He gives us faith to confess Christ as Lord. He breathes life into the spiritually dead. He regenerates. He justifies. He washes. He sanctifies. As Matt Chandler so often says, we’re the passive agent here.
The people that tend to have the hardest time realizing this are honestly those who grew up in church. If that’s you, maybe God saved you at a young age, or maybe the walls of morality simply prevented you from really wrecking your life until God took hold of your heart and awakened you to His Lordship and saved you. I know that one of those two is my story, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell you which one for certain, but that doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that we realize that both of these cases are God’s grace toward us. He is the one who kept our sinful, idolatrous hearts from devouring and destroying our lives, sin by sin. He is the one who kept us safe from ourselves when we didn’t know we were in danger, when we didn’t have the prudence to guard ourselves from our own sin nature.
So, what happens when these people, those who didn’t have that drastic conversion experience that makes for a “cool” testimony, what happens when they forget about their own former nature and forget present idolatry and sin?
One of the most important lines of Amazing Grace is this:
How precious did that Grace appear…
the hour I first believed.
We forget how precious, invaluable grace is. We forget that we received grace at all. So, when we see people being immoral, or just behaving in a way that contradicts our understanding of ethics even if it isn’t immoral, we judge. We look down on them. We tell them to clean themselves off before coming around us, when we ourselves were cleaned by God after coming to Him. After He came to us and pulled us out of the muck and mire of our own depravity and sin.
May we always remember how precious grace really is, and may we never forget that He loved us while we were still sinners. May we always look at the lost with compassion, and may our hearts break knowing that, without Christ’s intervention, their end is destruction (Phil. 3:19).
Soli Deo Gloria
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