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Transcript

Without Evil there can be no Good · The Holy Pause

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: A reading from Scripture, Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 7.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So what are we going to say?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Should we continue sinning so grace will multiply?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: All of us died to sin, so how can we still live in it?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or don't you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore we were buried together with him through baptism into his death.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: we too can walk in newness of life.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: If we were united together in a death like His,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: we will also be united together in a resurrection like His.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we know.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The person that used to be was crucified with Him in order to get rid of the corpse
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: that had been controlled by sin.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: That way we wouldn't be slaves to sin anymore,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: because the person who has died has been freed from sin's power.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I are big fans.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not big fans.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We enjoyed the movie.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, it came out 20 years ago from South Park,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Bigger, Better Uncut, I think, or something like that.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were in our 20s.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It just hit us like right at the right spot.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But in that movie, there's a song where one of the characters is Satan, is a big cartoon Satan.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just like big cartoon.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like huge muscular version of the devil, red, horns, everything.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: He sings this song.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The song goes something like this.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: the upshot is basically that the devil wants to get onto earth
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: because everything looks so much better on earth than it does in hell, right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's flowers blooming and babies burp and flowers bloom, I think is some of the lyrics.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, the upshot of the song is that what the devil wants is It's to justify his evil.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says at the end of the chorus,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: without evil there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometime.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And every once in a while my husband sings this song at me just
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: because he knows it makes me mad.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: This has always been a struggle for Christian theology, really anybody of faith.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's the idea that there's always got to be a balance.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's always yin and yang.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's always black and white.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's always good and bad and that there has to in some way be a balance and
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: that you don't know that something's good
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: unless you've experienced something bad first, which feels logically true.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a guy back in the day whose name was Pelagius.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Who was a big proponent of this.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he said that sin isn't in itself bad because
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: if we never sinned we would never have to experience God's grace.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: That we wouldn't really know what grace was if we didn't have something to be freed from.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Which again is solid logic.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what the gospel message is.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul here addresses this idea head on.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, That there's this idea that in order for grace to abound, sin must abound too.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: But he says absolutely not.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what grace is about.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Grace is God's unmerited favor.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not done in proportion to sin.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's done in abundance over and above sin.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: As we've talked about before, sin is not behavior.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Behavior is the product of sin.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But sin is that inclination in our heart which leads us away from God.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is no more or less amount of sin.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just is.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so while this tautology appears on its face to be meaningful and true,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't hold up against the actual reality of God's grace,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: which is that it's bigger and wider and more than we've ever deserved.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a second truth Paul goes into here.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says that when we've experienced God's grace,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: it's not just in proportion to our sin,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: but God's grace so floods into our souls,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: it so fills us up, we no longer even have the desire to experience sin.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: We are dead to sin and its consequences.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere in Romans he says the famous phrase that the wages of sin is death.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But God's grace has conquered death.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so it allows us to be free from the soul deadening,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: the hard hardening,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: the difficult parts of our lives which are the product of our brokenness.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so we don't have to try to go out and sin.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But instead,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: we continually seek God's grace every day and so that we no longer have the desire
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: to sin.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't want it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And while that may feel impossible,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I know in those times when I have prayed consciously and willingly for God's grace
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: to pour into my heart, my attitude has been completely different.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: My approach has been different.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: My experience of the world is different.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It builds resiliency.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It builds hope.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It builds possibility.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it breeds patience.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: All of those fruits of the Spirit that we are told come as a product of God's grace.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so is it good to be evil so that good can be experienced more fully?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 6:14
  [music]
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to try it on today.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Start today with an intentional prayer.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be wordy.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be complicated.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It can just simply be, God, give me your grace today.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Grant me your grace today.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Allow me to see the world through your eyes.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Set me free from the consequences of the sin which stains my heart.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then notice throughout the day how you experience grace in a different way,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: how maybe you experience other people in a different way.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe in those moments where sin tempts you to behave in a way
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: that is not consistent with God's grace, take a beat and pray it once again.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: How many times today do you think you need God's grace to be poured and renewed into your heart?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for it and see how the day goes.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Join me in prayer.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: God, we want to experience your grace in so much abundance.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be alive and resurrected in the newness that is possible because
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: of your death and resurrection.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Set us free from the temptations and the traps which sin offers us
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: so we can live more fully into your grace.
• 7:48
  [music]