We don’t need to guess

News is out that a certain celebrity has come to town. But why has he come? No one is quite sure. So everyone’s guessing – one suggesting this, another suggesting that – until someone comes up with the really bright idea, ‘Why not just ask him?’ So they do. And he tells them.

It’s now Christmas and lots of people are talking about Jesus. How he came from heaven to earth. How he was born in a stable in Bethlehem and laid in a manger. What a very special person he was – God’s own Son. But the big question is this – why did he come? With the help of the Bible we can put that question to him directly and hear the answer from his own lips.

“So why did you come?” Referring to himself as the Son of Man (as he frequently did), his answer is as follows: “…the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). Three things for us to note:

He came to serve. Not to be served (though given who he was, people should have been falling over themselves to serve him), but to serve. It was his great concern throughout life: “What can I do for others?” And he did lots. He healed the sick. He cast out demons. He raised the dead. He fed the hungry. And at the end of it all he died for people. The whole orientation of his life was outward toward others. He had come into the world to serve, and serve he did. And we who are his followers are to be like him in this. Always we should be asking, “What can I do for others?” 

He came to suffer. One hundred years ago, on the battlefields of France, men in vast numbers were suffering and dying for others. But that wasn’t the reason for their birth. Suffering was something forced on them by cruel circumstances. By contrast, in Jesus’ case, suffering and death were the very explanation for his birth. Why did he come? It was to give his life. To lay it down for others.

It’s the extraordinary link between Christmas and Easter. Jesus’ death on Calvary was no unforeseen tragedy, a defeating of the great end of his existence. On the contrary, it was the very object of his coming. He quite literally was born into our world to die.

He came to set people free. Here we come to the climax of his statement. He gave his life “as a ransom for many”. We all know what a ransom is. It is a price that is paid to set someone free. Jesus is saying – “that’s why I came – so that by my death I might set people free”. Free from what? From the guilt of our sin. From the punishment that our sin deserves. From sin itself. From the dreadful effects of sin on our bodies. It couldn’t be done for nothing. Only at the price of Jesus’ life. And freely, lovingly, for our sakes, he paid that price.

So we don’t need to guess, do we? We know why he came. He tells us himself.

But we mustn’t leave it at that. The freedom Jesus purchased at such a very high price is a freedom each of us needs. It is a freedom, too, that each of us may have. It’s what makes the story of his birth the best of news. In Jesus a liberator was born who can set you free the damning guilt and destructive power of your sin. Look to him for that freedom and give him no rest until it is yours.

David Campbell
North Preston Evangelical Church
Preston, England

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No better promise

I wonder if it’s a word that you would use. In connection with your death. The word gain. A Bible author, Paul, uses it when writing about his own death. “To die is gain”, he says (Phil.1.21). Would you be able to say the same?

Let’s make the picture clearer. Paul had a very good reason for using that word. Death for him was gain because it was a departure to be with Christ in heaven. And that, he says, “is better by far” (Phil.1.23). Why so? Because where Christ is, lots of other things – painful things – are missing. No sorrow is there. Nor is there any sickness there. Nor is there any possibility of separation there. Loved ones who are together in heaven will stay together for ever.

And then the best bit. No sin is there. Sin has been completely eradicated from the heart and life of everyone who is where Christ is. People there, in relation both to God and to one another, live only as they ought.

Which brings us to a wonderful promise. When Christ was dying on the Cross of Calvary he made a promise to a man who was dying beside him. It was this: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23.43). Christ knew where he was going. When death set its seal on him he would enter paradise (a popular term for heaven). And his promise was that that very day this man would join him there. All the blessings of departing to be with Christ this man was about to experience for himself.

Now here’s the astonishing thing. The man in question was a criminal. On his own confession he was suffering what was due to him for his crimes. Surely the least likely of candidates for immediate entrance into heaven! And yet to just such a person this amazing promise was given.

Please read on as I explain. Clearly there is no better promise than that one day we will be with Christ. For all the reasons cited above. But the critical question is this: how do we get it? How can we be sure that when death comes knocking at our door we will be the gainers? For entrance into heaven (in spite of what many believe) is by no means automatic. On the contrary, our sin is taking each of us inexorably in the direction of hell. How is that to be altered?

Back to the dying criminal. Why such a glorious promise to such an abandoned character? Two reasons.

One is that Christ is gracious and merciful. What could this criminal do to earn God’s favor? Nothing! And because of our sins that’s the position we’re all in. It is impossible to merit heaven – even by a little. If it’s to be ours at all it will have to come to us – wait for it! – as a totally undeserved gift. And because Jesus is gracious and merciful it is just such a gift that he gives.

Then there’s a second reason. Jesus had said that whoever came to him in their need, desiring his favor and friendship, he would welcome. And this dying criminal did that. His heart reached out to Jesus. In the humblest way he asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom. And because Jesus is faithful and just (as well as merciful and gracious) he granted him his request.

Nor will it be any different with you. For the very same reasons. You come to Jesus in your need as a sinner, seeking his forgiveness, looking to him for eternal life, and this golden promise will be yours. At death you too will go to be with him. And there’s just nothing better than that!

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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What shall we do?

There’s a difficulty in reading that question. You can guess what it is. The words themselves are as simple and straightforward as can be. A little child can understand them. But a mere printing of them conveys nothing of the tone. How is the question being asked? In boredom? Curiosity? Fear? Anguish? You can’t tell just by reading it.

Unless, that is, you find it imbedded in a story. Like the one I have in mind as I write this. Then you can tell. In the story to which I refer the question was put by a crowd of people to a man named Peter. And there’s no doubt whatsoever how people asked it. In fear and in anguish.

So what prompted it? Their wicked treatment of God’s Son Jesus. Without the least justification they had put him to death. It was the worst of crimes and the worst of blunders. And now the enormity of their action had come home to them. They had killed the very Savior whom God had so lovingly sent to them. And though God had raised him from the dead and enthroned him in heaven, it was anything but a comfort. What could they expect from him after murdering him? Hence their anguished question: “Brothers, what shall we do?” (Acts 2.37).

Does all that seem remote from you? Don’t be so sure. Your hands are certainly not stained with Jesus’ blood. But have you refused him your love? Have you refused him your faith? Have you refused him your allegiance? Have you refused him your worship and obedience? If your answer to these questions is an honest ‘yes’, you need to do the very same thing that these people in our story did. You need to ask, “What shall I do?”

It is at this point that the clouds begin to part. How awful if Peter had had to say to the crowd, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do. Your sin is too great to be forgiven”. But that is not what he said! And it is not God’s message for you either. Grave as your sin has been in rejecting Jesus (and it is far, far graver than you know), God graciously offers you forgiveness.

First things first, however. Repentance. Peter called on his hearers to repent. It is God’s call to you as well. To repent.

Think of it as a forward movement. There is no possibility of going back. Much as you might wish to live life over and do things differently second time round, you know you can’t. And there’s no use staying where you are. That won’t make your guilt go away or bring you a single step nearer to God. No! There’s only one thing for you to do and that is to go forward, with God’s help, into a totally new life.

What kind of new life? One in which your relationship to Jesus, God’s Son, is the polar opposite of what it has been. A life in which he is no longer marginalized, hated, rejected. A life instead in which he is loved, served, believed in, worshiped and obeyed. Sound impossible? It is! But God can enable you both to begin such a life and to go on living it.

Go first and confess to him your sin.  Then sincerely ask him for grace to go forward into this new Jesus-centered life. You may be sure that you will not seek him in vain.

And here’s something to encourage you. How the story ended. With the repentance of the people and God’s gracious gift of forgiveness. You repent of your sin and the end of the story will be exactly the same for you.

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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Beware of tomorrow!

I wonder if you’re familiar with the following proverbs. They each have to do with tomorrow. What is tomorrow? It is, says one proverb, “the day when the idle man works, and the fool reforms”. Or it is, says the other, “a period nowhere to be found in all the hoary registers of time, save perchance in the fool’s calendar”. Hence the advice of our title: beware of tomorrow!

If we’re honest, we’ve all been that idle man at some time or other. There’s yard work or homework that needs to be done, or the car needs to be washed, or there’s something in the house that needs fixed. And we can’t be bothered doing it today. “Tomorrow”, we say. “Tomorrow”. Many of these things, admittedly, it’s no big deal to put off to tomorrow. But not everything. And certainly not the all-important matter of getting right with God.

Have you heard the appeals of the gospel to do that very thing? To get right with God? The gracious command that you turn from your sin in repentance? The invitation to look to Jesus Christ for eternal life? Perhaps you’ve heard them many times. Perhaps, too, you’ve said to yourself, just as many times, “I must do something about this”. And you’ve been perfectly serious. “I should be a Christian. I should turn to the Savior. I should not go on and on saying ‘no’ to him”. But nothing changes. You keep putting it off. “Tomorrow”, you say. “Tomorrow”. Always “tomorrow”.

Now these proverbs are nothing if they aren’t blunt. Tomorrow is “the day when…the fool reforms”. The only register in which you’ll find tomorrow is “the fool’s calendar”. Hard words, you say. But not inappropriate if putting things off to tomorrow is your life habit. And certainly not inappropriate if you are putting off getting right with God.

And here is why. Since we cannot guarantee tomorrow it is simply foolish to bank on it. Take another proverb. This time from the Bible.  “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27.1). Do you know in advance what tomorrow will bring? Do you know for sure that you will even see tomorrow? What if Christ returns before another sunrise? Or death successfully tracks you down before today is done? Isn’t it folly to put off the matter of your eternal salvation to a tomorrow that may never dawn?

Richard Hudson Pope was a children’s evangelist. When his mother was dying she said something to him that deeply influenced him in his work. “Dick”, she said very earnestly, “it’s a good thing to be in time. Tell them to be in time”. And then she repeated it: “Tell them to be in time”. Don’t put off, in other words, the all-important matter of getting right with God.

It puts me in mind of a hymn I knew well as a child. The chorus haunts me still: “Be in time/Be in time/While the voice of Jesus calls you be in time/If in sin you longer wait/ you may find no open gate/ and your cry be just too late/Be in time”.

Let me leave you with the appeals of God’s word itself: “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near” (Isaiah 55.6). “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden you hearts” (Psalm 95.7-8). “Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6.2). You hear the message? The time to come to Jesus is now. Right now.

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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Imagine hating Jesus

As a hate-figure he shouldn’t have qualified. For all the things that usually stir up hatred Jesus totally lacked. He wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t smug and arrogant. He didn’t lie or cheat or take unfair advantage of anyone. He wasn’t a hypocrite or a deceiver. Ever.

On the contrary, there was no-one more loving, kind, and selfless. He went around doing good. He healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, and preached the best news the world had ever heard. He literally lived to serve and save people. And yet for all that, he was hated. Passionately.

Nor is that putting it too strongly. It is true that in his early years, when he lived and worked in Nazareth, his fellow citizens thought the world of him. I do not doubt there was many a parent who would have gladly had him for a son-in-law. But everything changed when he began his public ministry. All too swiftly people divided over him. He had his loyal and loving followers. But he also had the bitterest of foes.

The upshot? What is without question the darkest episode in our dark human history. For Jesus is the Son of God. And God the Father gave proof of that by the miracles he enabled him to perform. Everyone should have worshiped him. But they didn’t. Instead, they plotted to get rid of him. And when they had him in their power they subjected him to the cruelest of deaths.

So how are we to explain it? It had been prophesied that he would be “hated without a cause” (John 15.25) i.e. without just cause. People did, however, have a reason. People always have a reason for their hatred. In Jesus’ case, we learn what it was from his own lips. Can you guess? He told people unwelcome truth.

Here are his words: “The world…hates me because I testify that what it does is evil” (John 7.7). Just as simple as that. Or here is how one of his disciples put it: “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light…” (John 3.19-20a).

I think of what I used to do when my two girls were small and we were vacationing by the sea in Scotland. We would go down to the water’s edge at low-tide and lift up rocks to see what was underneath. How the crabs and other creatures would scurry for cover! They did not like the light!

And nor did the people of Jesus’ day. He told them the truth – about themselves, about their sin, and about how it would all end in judgment if they did not repent. He did it lovingly, too, with their highest interests at heart. And they so hated him for it that they could not rest until they’d killed him.

If you are truly a follower of Jesus there is a message in all this for you. Don’t expect it to be any different. It was what Jesus himself said: “‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15.20). We ought not to be surprised, therefore, when it happens. Faithfulness to him means doing what he did. Calling evil evil. Lovingly but firmly. Warning people that God will reckon with them for their sins. Appealing to them to turn in repentance to Jesus. People will hate for us that. And they will show it.

Our encouragement? His own precious promise: “great is your reward in heaven” (Matt.5.11).

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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God will end the violence. And here is how.

Since basic Bible knowledge is so significantly declining I cannot simply assume that you know the story of Noah, his ark, and the Flood. So here it is – at least in bare outline. And I ask your attention to it for a very specific reason. It has a message for today’s increasingly violent society – a message both of warning and of hope. We will be wise to take heed to it.

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence”. So reads the account in the book of Genesis. And this was God’s decision: “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth” (Gen.6.13). And God followed through. What he said he would do he did. Not straightaway. In his astonishing patience he waited no fewer than 120 years. But the day of destruction did eventually come.

Which brings us to Noah, his ark, and the Flood. They have so often been illustrated in cartoon form that to many they must seem fictional. But they are not. Noah was real, the ark was real, and so too the Flood. Opinions may differ over how much of the globe it actually immersed. But there is no questioning the effect of it. All of humankind, eight individuals excepted, perished. And these eight – along with a vast array of animals and birds – owed their lives solely to the ark which God had instructed Noah to build.

It is a history that will one day repeat itself – though not in precisely the same way. God is not going to destroy us again by the waters of a flood. That is matter of divine promise. But he is going to act in a way that parallels it. That is part of the use that the Bible makes of the Flood. It presents it as a picture of what will happen at a future day. God will again intervene to bring violence and all other wickedness to an end. And he will do it in broadly the same way. By an act both of destruction and deliverance.

And first the deliverance. All who took refuge in the ark were spared. So also will all who have taken refuge in Jesus. He is God’s graciously provided Savior from sin and from wrath. No one who is looking to him to be the Savior they need will perish when the day of God’s judgment comes.

And then the destruction. It came with great suddenness in Noah’s day and Jesus warns us that it will be exactly the same at the end. He himself will appear in blazing fire to take vengeance on his enemies. And myriads of our fellow humans will be as unprepared and as unable to escape as the people overwhelmed by the Flood.

And then the aftermath. Yet another new beginning! But this time with one massive difference. Noah and his family took something into their new world that would prove to be its undoing. Their sin. It passed to all their descendants. That’s why history has repeated itself. That’s why the violence has continued. That’s why God will act again in terrible and righteous judgment.

But no one will carry sin into God’s wonderful future world! Those whom Jesus saves he will make as sinless as himself. It means there will be no more violence. No more wickedness in fact of any kind. And no need, therefore, for God to judge us ever again.

Warning for us to heed. Hope for us to cherish.

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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The answer to our fears – and a whole lot more

What makes you afraid? Isn’t it the sense that you are not in control? You cannot determine the outcome of a presidential election. Or manage the economy. Or guarantee your health. Or prevent terrorist attacks. Or be with your children 24/7 to make sure they’re always safe. The result? Fear.

Let me talk to you for a little about the supreme antidote to such fear. It lies in a person. Someone who is in control. Of all things. Jesus, God’s Son.

In his letter to the Christians in the city of Ephesus, the Apostle Paul vividly pictures Jesus’ enthronement in heaven. It is the magnificent sequel to the self-humbling and sufferings of his life on earth. God “raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand…far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body…” (Ch.1.20-23)

Six words to help us think through this kingship of Jesus.

Law. In this ever-changing world of ours it seems that all the old moral guideposts are being removed. What was once right or wrong is apparently no longer so. There is an unchanging law, however, by which King Jesus would have us live. It is none other than the ancient law of God, summarized in the Ten Commandments. Live by that law and you really are living the right way.

Love. Love and law don’t always go together. But they do under Jesus’ rule. For one thing, love sums it all up. If we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves we have kept the whole of what our divine King requires of us. Or to approach it from another angle, the King’s law shows us what love looks like. I learn what it is to love God and my fellow men as I listen to what the law tells me. To what it enjoins. To what it forbids.

Liberty. If love and law don’t always go together, neither do liberty and law. But again, they do so under Jesus’ rule. Freedom never flourishes more fully than in a society that seeks to order itself in accordance with his laws – freedom from tyranny, freedom of conscience, freedom to worship God as he has commanded, freedom to live the most fruitful and fulfilling of lives.

Life. Under Jesus’ rule, life is robbed of nothing that makes it worth living. On the contrary, as we cease from our rebellion and become his loyal and loving subjects we enter into a richness of life obtainable in no other way. Would you know the answer to your guilt, your fears, your emptiness, your slavery to sin? Put yourself unreservedly in his hands!

Purpose. Jesus is working toward a glorious end. The saving of a people for himself from every part of the globe. The final defeat of evil. The creation of a world where righteousness and love hold sway. And in and through it all, the hallowing of God’s name.

Power. But can he do it? Yes he can, for all authority in heaven and on earth is his. He has power to change our hearts and lives. Power to make all things work together for our good. Power to banish all wickedness and death from this world. Power to make all things new.

A hymn of Charles Wesley begins, “Rejoice, the Lord is King”. In the light of all the above, that word “rejoice” is as fitting as it gets.

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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There’s more to this than you think!

How would you sum it up? The message of Easter? In a sentence? Here is one man’s attempt. To be fair he hadn’t been asked – as I’ve asked you. Easter, in fact, wasn’t on his mind. But to all intents and purposes it’s what he has given us: his own take on the Easter story.

His name was Festus. He was a Roman governor of the first century and at the time he had a very prestigious prisoner in his custody, Paul the Apostle. Why was Paul a prisoner? Here is Festus’s explanation, made to a petty king by the name of Agrippa. It was all because of “a dead man named Jesus whom Paul claimed was alive” (Acts.25.19).

I make that my starting point because Festus’s summary is not very different from that of many people today. They wouldn’t put it in the same words, of course. But it comes to the same thing. Easter is all about a dead man named Jesus whom Christians claim is alive. That’s about as much as they know. And what is more, it’s about as much as they care to know.

For most people the big things in life are the here and now things. Their jobs, their families, their health, their retirement, their happiness, their hobbies, their friendships. These are the things that matter; the things that absorb their time, their energy, and their thoughts. What do they care about a dead man named Jesus whom Christians say is alive? It’s just not important to them.

If that is where you are, can I ask you to take a moment or two to weigh the following?

Jesus was one amazing man. I once read of a king who from time to time would dress in ordinary clothes and ride the bus like everyone else. He was still the king. It was just that all of the insignia of royalty were invisible. So with Jesus. Only in his case, the truth was more amazing by far. Charles Wesley, in a famous Christmas carol, stated it so well: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail, th’incarnate Deity”. You wouldn’t have guessed it just by looking. But this was the man who was God. Quite literally.

Jesus’ death was one amazing death. In the town in which I used to live there is a McMullen Road. It was named after a Royal Canadian bomber pilot who sacrificed his life to save others – remaining at the controls of his stricken aircraft until it was clear of the town and the six members of his crew had parachuted to safety. It is a picture of what Jesus himself did. Only in his case, as before, the truth is more amazing by far. For Jesus died to save us from our sins; to deliver us from the eternal punishment to which we had been sentenced; to bring us back to the God from whom we had strayed; to bless us with God’s friendship forever.

And the amazing claim is true! Jesus is alive.  He promised that on the third day he would rise to life again. And he did. Paul the Apostle saw him alive. So too a host of others. It was the proof that he had done what he set out to do. To make a way to God. To become the Savior from sin each one of us so badly needs.

Has God so worked in your heart that what you need you want? To be saved? From the guilt and power of sin? So that you might know and love God? He has a promise for you! Whoever calls upon the name of Jesus shall be saved. And God is faithful to his word.

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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What makes us so special?

In finishing our world God was not like the artist putting some last delicate touches to his painting. Nor like the writer who finishes his article with a well-crafted sentence or two. Nor like the composer completing his score with some exquisite final notes. God finished making our world by making people. And in doing so he brought things to an astounding climax. Human beings constitute the very crown of God’s creative work.

The account of it, in Genesis 1.26-27, reads as follows: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him”. Here is something that sets us apart from all other creatures. God in making humans made us in certain important respects like himself. As holy and righteous and free from sin as he is, for example. With the capacity for intimate friendship with himself. In such a way as to be able to serve, glorify, and enjoy him forever. And with gifts for a God-like task.

Reading on in Genesis 1, when God made our first parents he “blessed them and said to them, ‘…fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (v.28). For man the God-like creature God has a God-like task.

Why God-like? For God is a God who rules. He is Lord over the whole of creative reality. What he made he governs. And here now are humans made in the divine image. What are we? Rulers too! And the sphere of our rule is the earth in its entirety. “You have given him dominion over the works of his hands; you have put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8.6).

The importance of this is immeasurable. Take the evolution that has no place for God, that excludes any kind of intelligent design, that denies that there is a Creator. What does that do? It robs us of our true dignity as humans. For what are we, according to atheistic evolution? Merely the result of an infinite series of random occurrences, a chance product, something that might conceivably never have been, intrinsically no different or more valuable than any other members of the animal kingdom.

Furthermore, atheistic evolution destroys the notion of any ultimate ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’ in life. Human existence is just an accident. As one writer has put it, “We are merely the product of matter plus time plus chance”. All search for ultimate meaning is therefore fruitless.

In an article entitled Life’s Great Riddle, and No Time to find its Meaning, the British columnist, Bernard Levin, wrote: “To put it bluntly, have I time to discover why I was born before I die?….I have not managed to answer the question yet, and however many years I have before me they are certainly not as many as there are behind. There is an obvious danger in leaving it too late…Why do I have to know why I was born? Because of course, I am unable to believe that it was an accident; and if it wasn’t, it must have a meaning”.

God himself assures us that it most certainly does have a meaning. We have a Creator. He has made us in his own image. And for a purpose commensurate with that high honour. He has made us to rule over his creation – now and for eternity. And supremely, through Christ, to know him, glorify him, and enjoy him forever.

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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When Love Means Saying Hard Things

Can a preacher tell his hearers in a nice way they are sinners? If he can, I’ve still to find it. There is no justification for saying it self-righteously. The preacher is as truly a sinner as those he is addressing and it becomes him to speak with humility. Nor ought the tone to be a harsh one. Christian ministers are ambassadors of the God who lovingly gave his Son to save us and should exhibit that love in the way that they speak. When all is said and done, however, there is really no nice way to say to someone, “You are a sinner”.

For what is a ‘sinner’? The kind of person who ends up in jail? Or who manages to stay out of jail but still violates every moral standard in the book? Certainly – but by no means exclusively. And that’s where the ‘impossible to sound nice’ bit comes in. For as a servant of Jesus I have to say to you that you are a sinner – yes you. Good husband, kind father, devoted mother, thoughtful neighbour, faithful friend, and loyal citizen as you are, you are a sinner.

For what is a ‘sinner’? We can only answer that question in relation to the God who made us and the law he has given us to live by. In an old and time-honoured catechism, sin is defined as “any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God”. And we are all guilty of such sin – far more so than we imagine. God examines our relations with our fellow humans and declares that they do not pass muster. He tells us that our relationship with him is in worse shape still. We are guilty of resisting him, defying him, ignoring him, forgetting him, refusing to give him first place in our lives, and, if not of denying outright that he even exists, treating him as if he didn’t. Not sounding very nice, am I?

I hear the word ‘hate’ being bandied about a great deal these days. Apparently I am guilty of it when I say (as, on the authority of God’s Word, I do say) that homosexual activity is sinful and that marriage ought only to be between a man and a woman. It is all part of the impossibility of sounding nice when having to say hard things.

It is not, however, unloving to say them, and that is the point I want to emphasise as I close. Your doctor is not being unloving when he tells you you are gravely ill, is he? No more is the Christian who says to you you are a sinner. He or she is only telling you a truth you desperately need to hear. Sin will be your eternal ruin if you do not repent of it. What more loving than to be warned of that? And to be assured of the full forgiveness of Jesus when you turn from your sin to him?

David Campbell
Grace Baptist Church
777 W North Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

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