Lakeside Visitor April 2011

 

The first three months of the year we saw how God sees sin–sin is serious business! God says our sin is open rebellion against His Lordship, a perversion of what He created and called good, and the imperfection that separates us from Him. Over the next three months we’ll look at the universality of sin in all people. Such topics will not release Christians from sin’s guilt and encourage a sense of superiority but will provide a universal standard for us to contend with.

We remember Paul’s admonition that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), but we could be tempted to downplay the conviction of Paul’s words or point to someone else that we appear ‘better’ than. Need we be reminded of scathing rebukes Jesus gave the Pharisees, His focus on the heart’s condition, or His offering of grace to the adulterous woman caught in sin? What I want us to look at more is Jesus’ exchange with a rich young man–read all accounts, starting with Matt 19:16-22. Something more is going on here than a seeming admission from Jesus that we can obtain eternal life from following the commandments, isn’t there? Wouldn’t that be ‘us being good enough’ on our own? How then could we all fall short? I greatly enjoy this account! It not only shows the humanity of Jesus–exemplifying humility by calling none but God good, even though being God in the flesh–but how He deftly leads those who are interested to the deeper truths that can change us.

Jesus, our Jewish savior in a Jewish nation, addresses the Jewish idea of being right with God–you follow the law, period. Matthew records the man as thinking he’s got to be missing something; Mark, Jesus’ love for the man; and Luke, how Jesus has set the young man up to drop a bombshell on traditional views on Jewish piety. Jesus wants us to see that being a ‘good’ boy or girl isn’t good enough, because no one but God is good. I can picture the young man thinking, “Saweet!” before walking away with a big smile on his face. Maybe Jesus even lets him get a step or two away before saying, “Oh yeah, but there’s one more thing.” Really? Just one? Does Jesus mean ‘1’ or is he about to light a fire of divine providence that rips away our human self-sufficiency?

Never forget that Jesus is the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14) and that Word cuts to the quick (Heb. 4:12). The rich young man has done all he can think of but that glory is still beyond him. The Word of God will at once acknowledge all we’ve done but always give us one more thing to work on, one more area of our life that’s not perfect. Confucius once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Jesus takes us step-by-step to His likeness. After all, perfect is the standard, God’s level of ‘good.’ Are you God’s level of good? I’m not–I’m not even gonna wait for your answer! Are we going to walk away from Jesus like this rich young man, or will we focus our attention on our next one thing that needs the Spirit’s cleansing? After all, it’s just one…