A Memorable Object Lesson - Part six and a half of Questions From The Lifehouse Youth Group

Where have I been? Bed-ridden. Possibly as a result of hanging out with the very youths I speak of today.

What did I have? I'm not sure, but you don't want to hear about it. It would gross you out.

And yet, I'm about to tell you the grossest object lesson I ever gave the youth group. It happened at the end of the meeting I mentioned in the last post.

Someone brought up the point, "If we don't have to worry about losing our salvation or having God get mad at us because we've sinned, is it a big deal if we just keep sinning?"

Okay, yes. The answer is yes. But only because understanding the magnitude of God's goodness in offering salvation and the full depravity of our sin should make us want to live a different kind of life. It's the same kind of answer I would give to someone who asks, "Can a person sin in Heaven?" Well, yeah, I guess. Satan and the other demons did. But if you were in the presence of God and aware of the consequences that come with it, why would you choose to sin? It'd be like watching someone lose their leg during Shark Week and then thinking, "Yeah, maybe I'll cut off my leg. Just to see what it's like." You'd probably have lost your mind, right?

Paul made a similar statement in Romans 6:1-2. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?"

After reading this in the youth group meeting, I had a thought. "I'll tell you how I think about this personally.

"When I was in high school, I didn't always cut my toenails. I ran around the beach a lot, swam in lakes, and never thought to wear sandals in the shower after gym class. So I ended up getting a pretty nasty fungal infection in both of my big toenails. They got all yellow and think and ingrown."

"Did they hurt?" Someone asked.

"Yeah, they hurt! After a few years, they hurt so bad I decided something had to be done. I didn't have insurance, and I didn't want to pay full price at a hospital, so I asked my friend Dale to pull them off with pliers."

A few of the kids paled. Awesome, I thought. Nothing like a gross object lesson during youth group. "I bit down on my bandana, gripped the sides of my chair, and Dale tore both of those suckers off my feet.

"I won't go into the part where I went to the emergency room the next day. The point is, it hurt worse than any pain I've ever felt. And I've had to go through this four times at the clinic since Dale first pulled them.

"Now, if I knew for sure after the first toenail pull I would get clean and healthy nails in their place, would I take care of them differently? Or would I live my life of poor foot hygiene like I did in high school? I can tell you this, I would I clip them regularly, wash my feet intentionally, and wear sandals in public showers. I would want to live differently."

And like I told the youths that night, I hope this story sticks with you.

When Doing Doesn't Help - A further look at why will power doesn't work.

Really quick, guys. Really quick. Or at least sort of quick.

I said something in the last post about a cycle of condemnation/rules/failure and referenced Romans 7. I want to expand on that a little.

The Lifehouse Youth Group talked about this during our study of Terry Virgo's Enjoying God's Grace. Some people talk about Romans 7:15-19 like it's the greatest puzzle in all of the Bible. Maybe you'll agree.

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."

How's your brain? Does it hurt? I've heard all kinds of explanations for this passage and been confused by the wording enough to accept anything teachers have said. Most of the time, my teachers focused on how we relate to Paul, despairing over the sin we keep doing.

I don't think Paul wanted us to focus on our behavior and I don't think he wanted to discourage us with our depravity. Look at what verse 18 says, "For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." How many Christians know what that feels like? We accept Jesus and embrace forgiveness, but then we keep messing up. As soon as we mess up, we think to ourselves, "I've got to read my Bible more, or pray more, or be more accountable with other people in the church. Or maybe I should fast." I know I've thought those things.

That's why I think he uses the word "do" over and over again. When we mess up, we want to know what we can do to make it better. We know we want to do the right thing, but we don't have the ability to carry it out. We'll continue to fall short of perfection.

After talking about confession and accountability, John writes in his first letter, "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." He goes on to say we demonstrate our love for him in what we do, so we don't have any reason to consciously enter into intentional wrong-doing. But it is not our behavior that saved us. We are not righteous. Only our advocate, Jesus, is righteous.

So don't try to counterbalance sin with good works. It's bound to fail. Confess, repent quickly, and ask God to put your sin to death. You're not strong enough to do it on your own.

There Is No Resale On Salvation - A ramble about baseball and feelings of condemnation

I don't know if I've said this before, but like I've said before, I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville. To clarify, I don't know if I've said the phrase "Like I've said before, I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville." But I'm almost certain I've used the phrase "I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville" at least once.

Now that we're clear on what I mean, let's get to it. I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville. So you might understand my excitement when my wife announced she wanted to play fantasy baseball. "I want to learn the game so I can appreciate it with you." Tell me that isn't the sweetest. I dare you.

I created a moderately low-competition league with some of our friends so she didn't have a lot of pressure and feel like a failure. She took charge of planning the live draft party. Our friends let us know what they planned on bringing to the drink and snack table.

Then draft day came. After cleaning the house and setting up the living room, I realized no one had mentioned bringing anything to drink. I called the one friend who hadn't already told us what he planned on contributing. When I asked him what he was going to bring, he paused. He wasn't sure what to bring and asked if we needed anything. I told him we were drinkless. He said he'd take care of it.

When I hung up, a bell went off in my brain and I asked my wife, "Did I just tell him to bring something when he might not have planned on bringing anything?"

"Yes, you did."

I immediately called my friend again and told him not to feel obligated. He said not to worry, he wanted to contribute but didn't know what to bring until I called. No matter how my times he said I wasn't rude, I still felt like a jerk and bought drinks as well. "Rudeness guilt," I explained to my wife.

Yeah, that was a long story for a point as small as this: I feel bad when I make mistakes. Who doesn't, right? But I've written a couple of posts quoting Romans 8:1 and still don't always remember the words. "There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus."

None? No guilt?

The truth is only Jesus has lived a life without mistakes. Luke 4 shows him resisting all kinds of understandable temptations. Hebrews 4:15 says Jesus understands our mistakes because he went through every kind of temptation. He had every opportunity to make the same mistakes we've made. Maybe not specifically making rude assumptions prior to a live draft, but surely rudeness in general.

When Jesus died and got up, he paid the price for all of our failures. Who tries to buy something after someone has already bought it? Salvation isn't resale. The price was paid once and for all time. So it's not our behavior which makes us good, but our trust in what Jesus already did for us.

I think conviction should motivate us to do things differently, but condemnation encourages something else. Condemnation drives us to use will power. It makes us strive and fail over and over. It makes us feel more and more condemned. Paul wrote about this cycle in Romans 7.

So yeah, rudeness guilt is silly. Next time, I'll just apologize and learn from my blunder.