WERE YOU THERE?
Are all of you familiar with the name Chuck Colson? Chuck Colson was a Watergate criminal who later began a vital prison ministry. I once heard Chuck Colson address the mega-church phenomenon that seems to be sweeping our nation. He said, “It seems there was a little Baptist church that wanted to grow. They decided it would help if they built a great big beautiful church near an interstate. So they built a great big beautiful church near an interstate, and they began to grow. Then they decided that people had bad associations with denomination names, so they dropped the word “Baptist” from their name and became the First Community Church. And they grew a little more. Then they decided that people were offended by certain terms like sin and repentance and salvation, so they dropped those words from the pulpit vernacular. And they grew a little more. In the end they had a massive church filled with a sea of humanity, and not one transformed soul.
A few years back in Atlanta, Georgia, there was a Presbyterian church that tried a similar thing. One of the things they did in the worship service was to drop the confession of sin. Now if you went to a Presbyterian seminary like I did, you know that’s something you cannot do. Well a few years later, that minister left and a new minister came on board. One of the things he tried to do was put that confession of sin back into the worship service. So he went to the church’s governing board, the session. And it started a tremendous fight. One elder was actually quoted as saying, “I don’t have anything to apologize to God for!”
It seems as though no one wants to admit that they’re guilty of sin these days. What is sin exactly? Sin is defined as separation from God. In other words, our obedience draws us closer to God. When we sin, it’s as though we’ve turned our gaze in the wrong direction. And all we manage to do is distance ourselves from God. Now as a Presbyterian, I come out of the Reformed tradition, started by John Calvin. If you take the time to study John Calvin carefully, what you discover is that he was really trying to take the church back to where Augustine had had it some 1100 years before. Now you really can’t summarize the theology of John Calvin in a few words, although many have tried. They’ve invented an acronym we call the TULIP of John Calvin. The T stands for total depravity. The U stands for unconditional election. The L stands for limited atonement. The I stands for irresistible grace, and the P stands for the perseverance of the saints. I don’t have time to go into all of that, but I do want to talk about total depravity. Total depravity does not mean that all of us are bad people. But what it does mean is that sin pervades every aspect of our lives. All of us…are sinners.
The Apostle Paul addresses this issue in the passage we read from the book of Romans. It says that at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. The ungodly…are us. I think a wonderful illustration of this is found in Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion. Incidentally, when Mel Gibson first tried to make his movie, no one would produce it. They said that no one would sit through a 3-hour movie with subtitles. It would never sell. So Mel Gibson decided to produce the movie himself. Then when it became a blockbuster – when the movie made millions – people said, “He only did it for the money!” Isn’t that incredible? Anyway, the movie shows a brutal scene of Jesus being flogged. Then when he’s laid on the cross, his arm is strapped down and a metal spike is driven through the flesh on his wrist. But do you know whose hand was holding the spike? It was Mel Gibson’s hand holding the spike. It was the only scene he was in in the whole movie. To me, this is indicative of the fact that it was our sin that put Jesus on the cross. So when the hymn asks us, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the answer is, “Yes, you were there.”
I want to tell you a story about a woman whose funeral I conducted about a week ago. Her name was Ethel Shirey, and she lived to be 101. People said of her, “Ethel was one of the kindest, most compassionate people I ever met.” Yet listen to this. Back in 1958, her only son died of cancer. It absolutely devastated Ethel and her husband Miles. Yet the very next day, Ethel went down to the church and asked the minister – a gentleman named Bill Smith – if she could teach the senior high school Sunday school class. She just wanted to be around teenagers. In 23 years of ministry, I have never had anyone volunteer to teach the senior high school Sunday school class! Then she went to the county home and asked if there was anyone there who didn’t have anyone – who was basically alone in life. Someone was quickly found and Ethel went and read to him every day. Then one day, in a conversation with her nephew, Ethel said, “I don’t know if I’ll make it to heaven. I’m such a sinner.” Her nephew replied, “Aunt Ethel, if you don’t make it to heaven, then I haven’t got a chance!”
None of us have a chance. None of us have a chance on our own, that is. But thanks to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we do. Grace is defined as unmerited favor. That’s why it’s so amazing. Amen.
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