Good News From Bad News

This past Sunday Dave Harvey did an outstanding message on Genesis 3:14-19. Genesis 3 doesn’t seem like an obvious Advent passage, but as Dave helped us all see, there is amazingly good news embedded in even the worst news of the Bible – a Savior born of a woman who would overcome the works of sin and Satan that have come to us in the Fall of Man. I was particularly affected by how much this passage speaks to us as Christians – those whose sin is forgiven and atoned for in the cross.

Dave made an important distinction between the reign and curse and guilt of sin that has been overcome by the cross, and the continuing battle with remaining (or indwelling) sin that occurs in us as redeemed children of God. If you haven’t heard Dave’s message please check it out. But here are some reflections as I’ve thought about what Dave said.

So often my understanding of grace isn’t wrong, but it is deficient. While I love basking in the grace of my acceptance in Christ, it is an ongoing, thoughtful awareness of my indwelling sin that gives grace weight in my daily life.

Dave gave us Jerry Bridges’ take on how we can wring good news from bad news, “The gospel is meaningful for us only to the extent that we realize and acknowledge that we are still sinful. Although we are new creations in Christ, we still sin every day in thought, word, and deed, and perhaps even more importantly, in motives. To benefit from the gospel every day, then, we must acknowledge we are still sinners.”

Dave shared that the pastoral challenge will always be to help Christians exult in the solution without ever losing sight of the problem. That’s my personal challenge as well. I’d just as soon lose sight of the problem, but that doesn’t make the problem go away. I see this in my life when my actions and attitudes don’t match my convictions. I see it when I’m surprised that anyone would raise questions about my motives when I do something that seems to me to be perfectly reasonable. I see it when I realize that I’m the last person to see an ungodly pattern in my life that seems obvious to everybody around me. In these times, which are not that infrequent, to say ‘I’m a sinner’ is the most obvious and accurate description of myself. It places me squarely before the cross and fully under God’s word. Grace provides forgiveness, power and wisdom for honest worship and true change.

And that’s good news from bad news.