Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
1 John 2:1–2 (NIV)
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
CONSIDER THIS
I still can’t get over this. John seems to think it is possible to “not sin.” I have met countless people who believe Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, but no one comes to mind who actually believed we could avoid sin.
Does it follow that since Jesus Christ atones for our sin (and that he will readily forgive us when we sin), we don’t need to worry about not sinning? I mean, of course it would be nice to not sin, but is it essential? This is the same kind of question believers were asking in the early days (and ever since). In Paul’s letter to the Roman church, he responds like this:
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:1–4)
Go back and read that again. The writers of the New Testament make an extraordinary claim here. They contend we are dead to sin.
I ask you (and me), “Are we dead to sin?” This is the post-Easter question. We must reckon with the answer to this question, and until we do, we will be hopelessly compromised. When Paul says, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11), he is dealing with this question.
Most of us are good with the death and resurrection of Jesus being the atonement for our sins. But when it comes to his death and resurrection being the power to not sin, that’s a different story. Why? To be “saved by grace through faith” requires nothing of us except faith (Ephesians 2:8 HCSB). But once we are “saved by grace through faith,” our faith must go to work. We must act on the grace we have received. We must, as Paul says later, “put [sin] to death” (Colossians 3:5).
Getting back to the big question, Is it possible to not sin? What if we flipped that question on its side and asked it like this: Is it possible to love?
I’m going to begin asking myself that question in the midst of my daily situations (when I’m on the verge of being infuriated). Is it possible, in this situation, to love? I think that’s the question the Holy Spirit waits to hear, ever ready not only with the answer but the creativity and the power to respond.
That question will be a game changer.
THE PRAYER
Lord Jesus, thank you for being our advocate with the Father. Thank you for the new and living way you have opened up for us. Fill us with the Holy Spirit that we might live into the birthright of our second birth—the power to truly love others. Take us past our superficial understanding of sin as our personal failure and reveal to us the way our sin harms others. Then show us what love looks like in those moments. We pray in your name, Jesus. Amen.
