But It Wasn't Big - July 17, 2016

• Print
• Email

Romans 3:9-26

On first glance, it seems like this is just another passage about how sinful and awful we are. But it's not, not ultimately anyway. Yes, Paul does take considerable time to describe the ugliness of unrighteousness.

No one is righteous.
No one understands.
No one seeks God.
Our words are rotten.
Our feet take us to violence and destruction.
Our eyes lack faith.

Paul says that without a doubt and without exception, everyone is a sinner. All have sinned and fall

short of the glory of God. The bad news is we are sinners. The good news is—we're all in it together. There is no one who stands out as righteous.
Anyone objecting now? "But I'm a good person!" I do good things!" "I help people." "I'm not all around sinful." "I pray." "I go to church. I'm here aren't I? I can't be all bad if I'm here!"
Those things are true, and I have my own natural objections, but those objections are missing the point. The point is we are sinners in need of saving. And our sins cause a problem bigger than our own capacity can fix. There is brokenness. There is imbalance. There is a fissure in need of mending. We need help. We need someone to throw us a line and get us out of the sinking ship of sin. We need a Savior. We need someone who can repair, rebuild, and restore. But to ask for a Savior, we first have to see that we need saving.
We keep coming back to that point...we need to know we are sinners before we can admit we need saving. Clearly there was something happening in the Roman church where people weren't quite ready to admit they had a problem. They were quick to name other people's problem but really struggled to name their own. This is our third week talking about sin in some way and for most of us, we've had our fill. We're ready for the good stuff...the grace part, the forgiveness part. Some of you are thinking, "Would she just stop harping on the sin thing?! We get it!" And sometimes I think we do. We can admit we sin, from time to time. But most of us are also quick to justify it... "it wasn't a big deal." Or we think we do enough to compensate for it with our good deeds.
"But I'm a good person." How many of us are good people? And how many of us want that to be enough? So here's the thing, Paul comes at it from a different angle. For him, it's not a matter of being a good person who does good things. For Paul, the problem is much bigger. We have broken our relationship with God. We've fallen so far we can't hardly see God, let alone touch God. And we need help being restored to a place of real relationship. We need a savior to help lift us up out of the chasm of sin and restore our relationship with God.
Finally, Paul tells us there is good news. The good news is God has sent someone to redeem us. Now, redemption is a matter of justice. Paul uses the language of justice in terms of balance. Imagine the scales of justice. When we sin, we throw off the balance, and when we're out of balance we can't properly connect with God or with others. To regain justice, we have to restore balance. We have to pay a price equal to the measure of our sin. Frankly, the price is much too high for us.
I imagine some of you are thinking, "There's no way my price is that high. I don't sin that much." But I'll give you one simple example that I think might change your mind.
• How many of you drive, or have driven in your lifetime?
• How many of you know there's a posted speed limit?
• How many of you know that the speed limit is the law?
• How many of you have had occasion to go over the speed limit?
• How many of you have gone over the speed limit when it wasn't necessary?
• How many of you might happen to exceed the speed limit at least once a day?
• And how many of you if levied a fine of $1 per minute per mile over the speed limit, could pay the fine?
Let me help you think about it. We'll even go the cheap route....we're using pennies because frankly I couldn't afford the silver dollars to show you! Rick and I drove from Valencia California to Moscow a few weeks ago. If you drive it straight, it's 17 hours of driving. We took a couple of detours to sightsee so we ended up driving at least 20 hours. Twenty hours on the road. 1200 minutes. Now, being from a small town, we know enough to go the speed limit when you drive through town, but on the road, we might have occasion to go a little above the speed limit. Just a little. Or maybe sometimes a lot. Just a penny per mile per minute. That's about this much (pour pennies from one container on the chancel). It's a good bit. And that was just one trip. I've got over 100,000 miles on my car...and that's only since 2009. I've been driving since 1996. 20 years. That's a lot of pennies.

Most of us couldn't even begin to compute the number of pennies we'd owe! We are law-breakers. We are sinful. Now, don't' get me wrong. I'm not saying that speeding is the epitome of sin. I'm saying that our inclination toward sin is clearly shown in this simple example. And it's only one example. Our problem with sin runs much deeper.
How about greed, lust, pride, anger, vengeance, lying, stealing cheating...those "little" things add up too. (pour other pennies on the chancel)
And we accrue a debt of injustice (or imbalance) that we could never pay ourselves. Realistically, we have no true hope of bailing ourselves out. We need someone else to do the work. Because we can only do a handful of good at a time. And it would take a lot of handfuls for me to clean up this debt. Let alone the rest of what I owe. But Jesus cleans it up for us. He says, "I'll pay the price, I'll remove your debt. I'll see things right between you and God." And we see our bill again and we know no one would do that for free and so we ask, "Well how much will that cost me?" And Jesus says, it won't cost you anything. This is something I want to do for you. All you have to do is ask for me to help. We want to argue and say, "Nothing is free in this world. It's gotta be a scam." Or maybe our objection is "Thanks for the offer buddy, but I got myself into this and I'll get myself out." Or maybe, "the things I've done are pretty awful, my debt is too big, You couldn't cover the costs."
And to each of our objections, Jesus says:
1) It is not a scam. It doesn't cost you anything. It is costly, but I already paid the price. I gave everything I have.
2) And to you, I appreciate your dedication, but I would like to do this for you. It's a gift. You could spend your whole life working your way out of debt and still not be paid off. Let me do it for you. I want you to be doing something besides compensating for your wrongs all the time.
3) to you, I know what you've done. Believe me, I've seen all of yours and all of theirs, I'm not condoning what you did. You and I both know it wasn't ok, but you don't have to stay there. You can be free from the past. If I pay your debt, you get a clean slate, a fresh start. And I'm happy to do it.
Jesus hears and knows our objections. He sees how sinful we are. That's why he did what he did. He knows we can't fix it on our own and he doesn't want us chained to the past. He wants us free to live a full future. So the question is two-fold:
1) Are you willing to recognize you have sinned and that the debt, the imbalance, of those sins is far greater than you could ever recover on your own?
2) Are you willing for Jesus to pay the price so that you can be free to live in the fullness of the future?

Lord, I admit that I have sinned....a lot...even the little stuff adds up to a debt I can't pay on my own. I need you to act on my behalf. I need you to save me since I can't save myself. I accept the gift of grace and redemption you offer through your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

We're going to sing together "Amazing Grace" and as we do, I invite the acolytes to pass the baskets of cards through the pews. I'd like for everyone to take one. It has a prayer of confession that we'll pray before communion and a penny for you to be reminded of the little things.