Many of us go about our lives today like the couch sitting in our living room. On the outside, the couch appears just fine - clean and tidy. But underneath the cushions lies all kinds of junk. A life in which we look good on the outside but are wasting away on the inside is not the free and abundant life that God wants for us. In Matthew 23:27-28, Jesus drives home the very point when He compares the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. If all we ever do is stuff away or suppress the worst parts of our stories, we'll never be fully free.
 

In 1 Samuel 16:7 God reminds the prophet Samuel: "For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." God isn't interested in cleaning up your life only on the outside. God is interested in the complete removal and destruction of sin in your life. To be made alive in Him requires that a part of you must first die. We cannot have a free and abundant life outside of the presence of God.

Jesus, a sinless man, substituted His life for ours, shedding His blood, and by doing so, satisfied the consequence of sin. Jesus didn't just go to the cross so you could clean cobwebs out, modify your behavior, and manage your sin. Jesus came to kill sin. A free life does not come from training your sin, but killing it.

--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Yesterday we talked about the sin that we have committed. But there is another type of sin that often goes unnoticed and doesn't get dealt with - sins of omission. We see a description of this in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-28.

Jesus is talking primarily to a Jewish audience, and the one who addressed Him, is in fact, a Jewish expert in the Law. The expert knows the commandments. He even recites the correct summary of all of the laws.

The Jews in the day of Jesus were taught to love their neighbor, but they were also taught to hate their enemy. In this particular case, the man wants to test Jesus; he wants Jesus to specify the boundaries that distinguish who qualifies as a neighbor. That way, he will know if, in fact, he has perfectly held to the Law.

This is the way many of us approach God. We want to know exactly what to do, what God expects of us, because we are determined to try to check the right boxes. Rather than giving specific boundaries, though, Jesus is about to expand this Jewish leader's mindset.

The main point of the parable is that when we have an opportunity to help others and battle the injustices of this world, we are called to do so. Even if the "other person" isn't technically your neighbor or your ethnicity, when you see someone in need, God invites you into this opportunity to help. When you do not step into the opportunities to help that God puts in front of you, that is, in fact, a sin.
--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Romans 3:23-24 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

God uses the Law to expose the depth of how far we've fallen. He uses the Gospel to rescue us out of the depths and bring us to new heights.

Our natural sinful condition, however, will try to turn the Law into something that it is not. Whenever we give too much power to the Law and use it to save ourselves, we walk in further bondage. This sort of thinking, though, is quite natural and found in every other major religion: "What do I need to do for God to love me?" But God's love cannot be earned by our strict adherence and obedience to the Law. The purpose of the Law, therefore, is to bring us to our knees and put us in a place where we are ready to receive the Gospel.

The path of healing and ultimate freedom begins by sharing our struggles in order to receive God's grace. Before we accept God's grace, we must first accept our need for it.
--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

It's easy in the world in which we live to either minimize sin or elevate sin: to think it's not a big deal or a really big deal. Or perhaps certain categories of sin are a big deal but others are not.

Here's the truth. Sin, no matter what type or how "big" you think it is, is a very big deal. God hates all that is wicked; therefore, He hates sin.

At the same time, God loves the entire created world. Heaven will be a full restoration of this world, but His most prized possession is you and me. Look at what James, Jesus' brother, had to say about how we fit into God's full creation:

"Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession." James 1:17-19

Jesus reminds us that God created all things, but we are the apple of His eye.

--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Matthew 16:13-19  When Jesus came to the Caesarea Philippi, he asks his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Peter gets it so right in this exchange! He declares, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Then Jesus assures Peter that the church will be founded on this confession. What's more, Peter is given a special position reserved for only one person. Jesus anoints him to take the perennial leadership role in the establishment of the church. He will be the very first pastor of God's church.

--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Even after receiving grace and a new identity in Jesus, there are still times we fail to live up to the name that God places on us. And yet, He still calls us by our new name.

This is what God does. He comes into our stories and invites us into a new calling. He gives us a new identity. He declares that who you are and who you've been doesn't have to follow you into the future. When God changes someone's name, it's because He's calling him or her to live out a new mission or new identity in this world. Jesus saw some great potential in Peter. Everyone else saw Simon the snub-nosed, but Jesus saw Peter the rock. Through this name, He gave Peter a vision of what God sees in Him.

Just as God saw something in Peter, He sees something in you too. Jesus sees in you what you can be - regardless of what you've done or what other people have said about you. God loves you for who you are, but His love doesn't leave you just as you are. He desires you to step into the identity that He's won for you by His grace.
--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Sanctification, by definition, is the process of being freed from sin, or being purified or made holy. Sanctification is, by the way, a lifelong process. While absolution and restoration will never be things that we can do, sanctification is a process that we work on, in conjunction with God, for the rest of our lives. It's never perfect and never complete, but when we participate with God in this process, freedom truly is experienced.

While each one of us is called and restored back into a life of purpose through God's grace, the path of sanctification often gives us a second chance in an area in which we previously failed. From an eternal perspective, we'll never right our wrongs because Jesus did that for us, but isn't it fascinating how God oftentimes will bring meaning and purpose into our lives from some of the worst parts of our story.
 

Our greatest stumbles produce our greatest stories.

--
 

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,