on the walk

This will be my final reflection on last Sunday’s sermon. If you are interested, you can check out past sermon reflections here. Don’t forget that if you missed it, you can get the sermon here.

This one is the least academic and is mainly about how the sermon connected with stuff that is going on in my life. I have always loved Hebrews 12:1-3. In these short words is powerful call to full life in Christ. On Sunday however I heard the call with a fresh vividness.

It is clear from Romans that from the first century on it has been a problem for many Christians to respond in appropriate ways to their own sinfulness. Sometimes we see our sin as evidence that our salvation is not real and we fall into despair, or we try to work harder to earn God’s love. This denies the gospel and God’s grace. Sometimes we are tempted to trust in the assurance of God’s salvation and so we start ignoring our sin. We may still regret it but we are content to keep it around.

Sometimes deep in the dark places of my soul I hear a question form, “If I am forgiven, and God grace is sufficient, and no one knows, then why does it matter. This sin is so pleasant. It is so habitual. Is it really a big deal?” I expect that I am not the only one.

We have reduced atonement to a bargain in which Christ’s blood is substituted for our own. We reduce salvation to a ticket to heaven and we locate salvation not on the cross or in our lives but in the great bye and bye. And so I wonder, does my sin matter? And I know I am not alone in this wondering because it is this question that consumes about 5 chapters of Romans. Maybe later we can talk here about the answer Paul gives. (Or maybe you will have to take the class. You can register here.)

In this post I just want to focus on the answer given in Hebrews. God means for us to run. Our trailblazer is just ahead of us and he is ready to run, fly, skip, soar, etc. (whatever metaphor grabs you).

So on Sunday, I heard Ben preaching and I realized. I have been slogging lately. I might jog a bit but then I got weighed down, with worry (and some other stuff that you don’t confess on a blog). Mostly I have become complacent. And then I heard that passage and I remembered…

I want to run.

I want to run.

I want to run.

I want to hate my sin, because my willful conscious rebellion against the call of God prevents me from running. I was a pretty serious bike rider as a teenager. I would often ride 20 or 30 miles a day just for fun. I was an especially good climber. But I was lousy going down hills. I used to ride with a guy my age who was on an amateur cycling team. When we started riding together I could always out ride him. (everything is hills in TN.) However as the years went by he started to beat me. I could be a hundred yards ahead of him at the top of a hill but he would pass me before we got the bottom. I asked him how he had gotten so fast. He told me, “When you come to a turn don’t brake, lean.” I never learned how to do that. I had too much fear. And I knew that leaning was a learned skill and part of the learning process was wrecking. So I used my brakes and consequently had to replace them regularly.

That is my problem in my Christian life as well. Part of me so desperately wants to ride like the wind and I am am an okay climber. I’m a doer, and worker a thinker. But then a curve comes and I cannot lean into God so I put on the brakes. I refuse to step out in faith or more likely I go find some old burden long discarded and pick it back up. I stop running and hobble once more.

My friend would regularly threaten to take my breaks off so that I would have to learn. Of course he did not because that could get a person killed. But metaphorically that is my prayer.

Loving Father,

I want to run. I want to throw off my sin which so easily encumbers and I want to keep focused on you and run. My sin prevents me from living the life you created to be mine. I am so sick of the half-life I now live. Please teach me to run. The sins that I hate I do and I know myself to be entangled by them. Cut them free from me. Do what you must so that I can be freed to run.

In the name of Jesus Christ the pioneer and perfecter of my faith,

Amen

on the walk

-Ethan

Ps. Some of you lead small groups. I would encourage you to talk about this perspective on morality in your groups. I think many Christians struggle for good language about why morality matters that avoids cheap grace (God forgives us so what we do doesn’t matter) or legalism (God will forgive us if we work hard and try to live right). I expect that many of your group would benefit from reflecting again on Ben’s sermon and the approach this texts offers as we think about the impact of sin.

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