WARNING
PREACHY…
The other day I heard a preacher admit that he was troubled by the
violence in the world today, that we Christians needed to band together and
pray that things would get better, and that he was deeply troubled and could
not understand why the world was as violent as it was. I didn’t say anything as it wasn’t my place,
nor was it the proper place or time, but I was troubled that a preacher struggled
with such a topic.
The violence and evil in our world is the fundamental reason that Jesus is good
news. Our world is woefully
infested by sin.
Genesis
6:5
The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the
human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts
of the human heart was only evil all the time.
From the very beginning sin has tainted mankind so
that our hearts are always focused on our own interests. This sin is the reason for the violence
and mayhem in our world but so we often want to blame something else. For instance, with the help of the Pink Floyd[1] we
sing that money is the root of all evil today.
1
Timothy 6:10
For
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money,
have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
But as much as we want to blame the money, the
scriptures tell us that money is only the root of many kinds of evil actions. It really is not the money that is the
problem, it is the self-interested sinful man.
It doesn’t have to be money that triggers the self-interest
of men, it could be sex; for people don’t cheat on their spouses because they
are trying to do what is best for them or their children.
But money and sex are not the only things that cause evil, it can be
something as simple as a cookie.
Have
you ever given a cookie to a child and instructed that child to split it with his
sister? Who got the
biggest piece?
Self-interest is the problem and it stems directly from when sin entered into the world. When mankind was banished from the Garden it was left to fend for themselves, and it is not good for children to fend for themselves.
Self-interest is the problem and it stems directly from when sin entered into the world. When mankind was banished from the Garden it was left to fend for themselves, and it is not good for children to fend for themselves.
1
John 3:7-10
7 Dear
children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is
righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The
one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning
from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the
devil’s work. 9 No
one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in
them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.
10 This is how we know
who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who
does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love
their brother and sister.
Of course there is a good amount of generalization that
can be concluded from the versus from 1 John. We all know people who do good
and loving things while they are proclaimed atheists just as we know people who
proclaim Christ but struggle and fail often. But generally those who are following Christ
recognize they are self-interested beings and they legitimately struggle and fight against
this nature.
And so, the primary problem with our world today,
amidst all of the money, sex, murder, and cookies, is the self-interest of men which
has been the problem since the time of Adam and Eve.
So the message of every preacher is always to be the solution to the sin
problem.
THE OLD RUGGED CROSS[2]
On a hill far away,
stood an old rugged Cross
The emblem of suff'ring and shame
And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
The emblem of suff'ring and shame
And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
In Jesus, we see the only human who was not self-interested. He was not interested in money, nor was he
interested in sex, however, if he ever tasted my grandma’s homemade oatmeal
cookies he might have been interested in those, but I digress, Jesus was selfless and he taught
selflessness. Then he demonstrated the
epitome of selflessness when he went to the cross to die for the penalty of sin
for you and me.
Romans
5:6-8
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,
though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8But
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
So I do not share the request that
we pray things will get better, but rather, I pray that those of us who claim
Christ as our savior will tell our broken world that Christ
is the solution to the sin problem. For
only when men follow Jesus as his disciples, may the evil of self-interested
men be realigned so that peace may prevail.
Luke
9:23-25
23Then he said to them all: “Whoever
wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and
follow me. 24For whoever wants to save their
life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or
forfeit their very self?
