I don't know why exactly, but I guess I've had games on my mind recently. As a kid I absolutely LOVED fighting games. I'd be playing "House" with my little sister and then 5 minutes in BOOM, a burglar breaks in and kidnaps her, and I have to go fight through hordes of minions to rescue her. I'd make up all kinds of stories where I was the hero, fighting against the forces of evil with my trusty sword. There was just one problem... I didn't have a sword. You want to know what I did have? A STICK! Booyah! I'd go out and find a decently-sized, straight-ish stick and that would become my sword, gun, axe, spear, staff - you name a weapon, that stick could be it - and I would use to to vanquish my enemies!
But what would happen if a real bad guy showed up? That stick wouldn't do me too much good - maybe I'd get a good whack in, if I was lucky, but then the bad guy would beat me to a pulp. As cool as it was to pretend that stick was a powerful sword, when faced with real danger I would have to face the reality that it was just a stick.
I think a lot of times we like to pretend that things are not what they are because it makes them cooler, or easier to deal with. We pretend sticks are swords because that is way cooler, or that a toothache will just go away on its own because that costs a LOT less money than getting it fixed by a dentist. We pretend that speed limits are more like guidelines than actual rules because it lets us get places faster. We pretend cheating on a test isn't really that bad because it saves us time on studying (or if we let someone cheat off of us, it makes us look better in their eyes). We even pretend that not reading the Bible regularly won't affect our faith.
Whatever the case may be, eventually we have to face reality. The stick breaks, the tooth decays, the cops pull us over for going 65 in a 25, we get caught cheating and get suspended from school, and we end up pulling away from God because we aren't paying attention to His Word. Two weeks ago we started answering the question "How do we live the Christian life in a non-Christian world?" Steps one and two were pretty straightforward: 1) be sure you are of the faith (otherwise why even try to live the Christian life?) and 2) acknowledge the authority of God's Word in your life. Last night we looked at step three, which is facing the reality of human nature.
There are a lot of ideas gaining traction in the world today: the idea of relative truth (that what is true for you may not be true for me, but they're both equally true), that the gender you're born with may not be your real gender (or that you get to choose your gender), the idea that who you are is tied to who you are attracted to, and possibly the most problematic idea, that mankind is basically good. The problem with this last one is that it takes away the idea that we are in trouble and in need of a savior. If mankind is basically good, then we don't really need God, or faith, or anything. We're good to go on our own. Unfortunately, this is not reality. Let's look back at the very beginning, when God first made mankind:
Genesis 1:26 - "Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them."
This was at the very beginning, before sin or death had entered the world. Everything was perfect and good, which means at our very beginning, we were perfect and good, made in God's image. This image, which meant that we were created with reflections of God's nature and character in us, set us apart from the rest of creation. God even said that as mankind is made in His image, it would allow them to rule over the rest of the creation. He gave us some of His authority and a responsibility over the earth. In making us in His image, God gave us the ability to make our own decisions (we call this free will) and He gave us souls - a spiritual aspect to our being that lives on after physical death. After finishing His work in creation, God looked at everything He had made and decided that it was all very good. So, at the beginning, the idea that mankind was basically good was correct. We were. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story.
Romans 5:14, 17-21 - "Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. … For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Human nature started out good, but when Adam and Eve sinned against God human nature became corrupted. That act of rebellion (which you can read about in Genesis 3) brought sin and death and decay into God's good creation, and it brought corruption into all of it. Every person is now born with a corrupted nature, so that we are not basically good anymore. At our core, apart from God, we are sinful and hopeless beings. We still have the image of God implanted in us, but it has become corrupted and twisted, so while we can still sometimes do some good in the world, sin is the prevailing part of our nature. This is why we see so much evil and suffering in the world today, because people give in to their sinful natures and choose to do what is wrong. The ultimate consequence for sin, the consequence that we each deserve and are destined for, is separation from God and death. That is the nature and the fate of humanity.
BUT, you may have noticed in the Romans passage, God did not see fit to leave us like this. Just as through that first sin Adam doomed us to death, so through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross we have access to God and to eternal life! When Jesus died, He took the penalty of death that we deserve, so that we wouldn't have to. He took our punishment so that we could be forgiven and have a restored relationship with God. Without faith in Jesus, we have no hope of redemption. We would be stuck in our sin nature and doomed to eternal death and separation from God. Through Jesus, we can have life, and have it abundantly.
Our society is pushing a lot of new ideas right now, most (all) of which go against what the Bible tells us about human nature. If we take steps one and two, believing in Jesus and accepting the authority of God's Word in our lives, then we should be prepared to take step three, which is to face the reality of human nature which is described in the Bible. This is a hard step to take in our culture right now, because doing so pits us against the ideas that the world is pushing. The world will yell at us, scream at us, maybe even attack us to get us to accept their ideas. But we must stand up and stand strong for what the Bible says to be true, no matter what kind of push back we get for it.
The world wants to pretend that mankind is not doomed to death. The world wants to pretend that people can be whatever they want to be, and do whatever they want to do. The world pretends all this because it is easier than facing the reality that there is judgment coming for those who rebel against God. Whether you believe and trust in God's Word or not, eventually you gotta face reality.
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