The Criminals - Death by Crucifixation

If I'm going to be honest, my driving habits probably aren't the best.  I love driving with the windows down, blasting my music, and singing along to my favorite songs.  I wrongly view driving as a great chance to catch-up on phone calls or text messages (which I'm convicted I should probably change in the immediate future).  And I have a tendency to rebel against the 25mph speed limits that make driving through Oxford painfully slow. Despite my lack of attentiveness, my roommate lovingly commented that she feels safe with me driving - unlike her feelings towards most of her other friends when they are behind the wheel.  Ironically, no less than 15 minutes after her comment, a cop handed me a hefty speeding ticket in my favorite - 25 mph speed limit. 

I must mention that I have witnessed several friends receive much more costly speedy tickets in the past few months - and they handled the situations with amazing grace and humility.  As they truthfully said, they were guilty of speeding and therefore they justly deserved the given ticket.  As I recalled their grace and poise while being handed my own speeding ticket I greatly struggled against resentment and self-righteousness.  Why should I pay a speeding ticket when hundreds of college students are drinking under-age AND driving, smoking illegal drugs, abusing prescriptions... doing things way worse than speeding in a 25!  I am so innocent compared to their destructive and idiotic life decisions!

Yet, I did breach the law that leaders have set in place for the good of America.  I broke the law.  Regardless of my view of the moral importance of the speed limit I was guilty and I justly deserve the ticket that I received.  I had no right to be angry at the police officer - all he did was catch me in my sin and deliver the predetermined fine.  Not only did I deserve that ticket, but I deserve hundreds more that I have never received.  How many tickets would you receive if a cop watched your every "stop" and speed?  I have actually received way more grace than justice as a driver!

In a similar way we all stand guilty before a holy and righteous God.  God correctly sees every man and woman as a criminal in both nature, since we are born in Adam, and in action since we actively seek and choose sin.  When God sent his Son he did it knowing that we are utterly depraved and guilty of sin.  As we read about Jesus' crucifixion in Luke 23, we must see ourselves within the criminals being crucified on either side of Jesus.

32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left... 39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Luke 23:32-33, 39-43

We are those criminals.  There is no choice in the matter of our guilt - we are guilty before God. 

However, there is a difference, ONE great difference.  Which criminal will we be?  We are either the first who railed against Jesus, mocking and denying him, or the one who feared God, seeing Jesus as holy and blameless, Lord and Savior, and trusting in Him alone for eternal life.

The first criminal ridiculed the name of Jesus saying "Are you not the Christ?  Save yourself and us!" (39).  He had no faith in Jesus as the Son of God, no shred of belief that Jesus could be his savior.

However, the second criminal, equally foul in deed and guilty in sin saw Jesus differently.  “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong” (40-41).  This man identified the weight of his own condemnation in light of Jesus' innocence.  By faith, he identified Jesus as God and cried out to Him as savior, begging “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (42).  And Jesus' response is the best news in the history of the world!

That's why what we believe about Jesus is the most significant decision we will ever make.  Which criminal will you be?

So, Do You Gossip?

Gossip 
-noun
Idle talk or rumor, esp. about the personal or private affairs of others: the endless gossip about Hollywood stars.
-verb
To talk idly, esp. about the affairs of others; go about tattling

Is it Gossip if I tell my roommate a story about our mutual friend?

A story about an unknown or irrelevant friend?

'News' about a celebrity?

What if the story is about something embarrassing my friend did, and we laugh about it?

Perhaps the story is about sinful decisions a girl made, and we pridefully criticize and condemn her?

Consider the story is about my friend hurting me, and my roommate is now 'on my side'?

Or if the story is about someone's conflict, and she counsels me in how to handle it?

What if it's just a fun story, and you can't wait to tell her?

When does talk become Gossip and Gossip become talk?

Our words hold great power and weight.  They have the ability to build-up as well as the strength to tear-down.  In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he commands, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."  We must choose our words wisely to prevent destructive and deadening talk from coming out of our mouths.  Among other things, this includes slander and gossip.  Furthermore, we are commanded to talk only in a manner that encourages, edifies, and blesses those who hear.  Our words have weight because they effect those who hear them - and we will be held accountable for the effects of our words on others.

Perhaps I need to be much more cautious when I talk about the lives and affairs of others.  However, a conviction is never meant to be shallow, for our sin is never shallow but deep within our hearts.  Therefore, I must confess that I gossip not because I cannot contain my mouth, but because my heart is sinful and utterly depraved.  "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).  It is not my mouth I must repent of, but the sin in my heart that leads to gossip.

On the topic of 'Gossip' John Piper writes:

The New Testament warns against gossiping. The Greek word translated “gossip” means whisper or whisperer. In other words, the focus is not on the falsehood of the word but on the fact that it needs to be surreptitious. It is not open and candid and forthright. It has darkness about it. It does not operate in the light of love. It is not aiming at healing. It strokes the ego’s desire to be seen as right without playing by the rules of love.  "For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find...that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder" (2 Corinthians 12:20). 

It is the darkness in our hearts that leads to the outpouring of Gossip from our mouths.  This is a deep rooted issue with immediate and far reaching effects.

Is this a sin that we don't take seriously enough?

As SIN REIGNED IN DEATH

Almost three years ago...

April 30, 06

All day long I’ve needed an outlet … I wanted to run – to get outside and get away from everything, just to let go and feel my feet pound on the pavement. Or I wanted to drink, to take a few shots and feel it burn down my throat… It’s as if I don’t feel anything, I’m not really alive … I want to feel close to something… I need someone else… to make me feel wanted... That is what I crave; to be controlled. I want to be thrown down and pleased, to let go of every inhabitation, and to enjoy myself fully…. I feel satisfied, in control, amused, and entertained with my own ability to have so much fun in any way I please. It fulfills a certain void in me… yet, I’m starting to discover that I’m not in control of every situation… these insignificant acts do not give me any control. I think I need to get up tomorrow morning, and go… I need to stop… And I need to remember… I need to… ?

“Do you not know… you are SLAVES to the one whom you obey… of SIN, which leads to DEATH…” (Romans 6:16)

Four months later, the Lord saved my soul.

“But thanks be to God, that you who were once SLAVES OF SIN… having been set free from SIN, have become SLAVES of righteousness... For just as you once presented your members as SLAVES to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as SLAVES to righteousness leading to sanctification” (Romans 6:17-19)

“For the wages of SIN is DEATH, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Almost three years later I continue to be in awe of God's beautiful, irresistible grace!

Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges

Respectable Sins
Confronting the Sins We Tolerate

Book review coming soon...