I was eighteen and entering college full of hope and aspirations. My dad and I had not always seen eye to eye but I had appreciated his plain wisdom and down to earth advice. This was that moment - the moment of wisdom. He was about to hop into the car with Mom and take off for home some 500 miles away, leaving me completely on my own for the first time in my life. I asked him if he had any words to live by. With a doleful look and his best pastoral voice he said words I will always remember. "Son," he said, "don't do anything stupid." With that he was gone, while I, with the predictability of a Tom Hanks Oscar, completely and utterly failed to live up to his advice.
If there is a theme for humanity and my life in general it would be "People do dumb things". Please understand, I'm not awash in self-loathing. I am a child of God - a creature of his making adored and loved by Him. The best way to describe being in Christ is that "I am in Him" and through his grace I can partake in everything He is (how wonderful!), and yet I am "becoming like him" as I walk and learn and grow and take on his nature. That's one of those mind benders that grabs you when you think about being a Christian, I am both complete and I am becoming complete. You have to admit that's pretty neat.
Paul said it well in his merry-go-round verses on sin and grace in Romans 7. After glowing in verse 6 about being "released from the law" and now able to "serve in the new way of the Spirit", he can't help but opine 10 verses later:
"...I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
Yet a few paragraphs later in chapter 8, Paul is back to writing with soaring phrases about how nothing in heaven and earth can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Paul (like us) was in Christ - yet still becoming like him.
That thing in us... that bent toward doing what we know is wrong... is what my dad in his Pentecostal vernacular used to call "the flesh". When I was a lad I didn't exactly know what the flesh was but I knew it was closely related to the word "naughty". In fact it was confusing. I remember Dad preaching fire and brimstone sermons about the sins of the flesh. I also remember my mom in Sunday school talking about how the Children of Israel in the wilderness looked back with longing for the "flesh pots of Egypt" (see Exodus 16:3 KJV). I didn't know what those flesh pots were either, but putting the two and two together I figured Abraham's children were in for a thrashing. Now, every time I hear Sean talk about "flashpots" in reference to a big musical moment I think to myself "yeah... the flashpots... the flashpots of Egypt!"
Ah... we Pentecostals were sincere, and we had a whole routine about the flesh. The flesh was the reason we didn't "smoke or chew or go with girls who do". We didn't dance or go to movies or wear too much makeup (I never minded that last one too much). On the other hand we did have hayrides and potlucks where we made out and pigged out. We invented a self-righteous version of feeding the flesh that was clean faced and boogy free, but it originated from that same spot in us - that silly, take charge, selfish, untamed part of us that has to be yielded to God over and over again. Isn't it amazing how the second we begin living out of the law we start climbing up over the top of people and looking down. The moment you think that filling in all the boxes on your holiness checklist actually makes you holy, you have lost the true meaning of being in Christ.
That's not to say I don't believe in the flesh. Certainly the new testament is full of advice about taking off the old "sinful nature" or "carnal spirit" and living through Christ. The Apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans waxes downright eloquent on the topic. I just know from long and painful experience that "the flesh" cannot be overcome through following rules - no matter how well intentioned. The flesh can only be overcome through grace and help of Jesus. That is why Paul said in Romans 12 "There is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus". Grace is the anecdote to the Flesh, not the law.
This misunderstanding... this cross-wired view that we have of grace and the law... keeps us living by rules and not absorbing the full impact of grace. The truth is that living by rules is the surest way to find yourself "in the flesh". Because that selfish, silly, self-destructive, petulant sinful nature of ours rises up in self righteousness under the law. But like a child who takes too much ice cream at the buffet, that same sinful nature is incapable of "keep the rules" for long. It keeps us doing dumb things. It keeps us living in that Moe, Larry and Curly world where everything seems to end with a whack on the head or a poke in the eye. Can't you see that Jesus is not just a nice-to-have accessory that enhances the quality of our lives? The truth is that without Him we sink back into self-destructive and downright ignorant behavior. Without Christ Our life music goes from the soaring strains of Mozart to the tawdry sound of Curly's "nuck nuck nuck".
The flesh crops up at an early age. I remember a family biking excursion several years ago. My boys were 6 and 7. I had pulled our truck out of the garage and put the bikes on the bike rack at the rear of the truck. I was in the garage doing something else when I heard a commotion out on the driveway. I rushed out to find that my six year old son Matthew had curiously stuck his head up into the wheels of the bikes (which were 2 or 3 feet above ground on the rack). There was a little space between 2 of the bikes and his head fit in there perfectly.
Meanwhile my other son Aaron had thought it was a good idea to slowly turn the pedal on one of the bikes until it rotated perfectly around so that the opposite pedal came to rest tightly underneath the Matthew's chin. Matt was now caught like a cat in the cookie jar, standing on his tiptoes and hollering irately at Aaron through clenched teeth. Aaron (now seeing that perhaps this was less of a good idea than he previously thought) was scurrying back and forth from one side to the other trying to figure out how to get that pedal to move in the other direction. Each attempt moved it a little more tightly upward against Matthews chin. Aaron was saying frantically over and over, "don't worry Matt, you won't be in there forever."
Now Matthew probably knew better than to stick his head into that small opening, and I'm pretty sure that Aaron knew better than to spin that pedal up under Matt's chin... but they both did it anyway. There is something in us, some piece of us that starts doing battle with God at an early age. That something... that fleshly "I want" and "I need" and "what if"... talks us into the dumbest things. People do dumb things. Forgive me if you find that too trite. I know it doesn't tell the whole tale.
To put it in other terms, every person has a bent toward doing things that they know to be wrong. Sometimes we even ignore (or even embrace) evil consequences. I have left jobs I know I should have kept. I have knowingly hurt people I love. I have ruined relationships with good friends while maintaining relationships that should have ended. I have done the most egregious, bone-headed and intractably wrong things over the course of my 44 years. The point is that we as Christians miss this about ourselves - that we have a nature, an old man - dead, but often rising like a zombie from the grave bent pell mell on sin and self-destruction.
Well so what? Why is it important that we understand how selfish and stoogesque we are? After all we have found grace. We are yielding our will to Jesus and he's making all things new. There's some truth to that. We don't want to fall into the trap of being so enamored with grace it becomes a ticket to sin. We also don't we want to wallow in the past or in the sins he has cast away from us through his grace. But because we miss or dilute it or soft peddle this tidbit of truth, we are missing something marvelous and wonderful and soaringly powerful about Jesus.
I fear that we have only grasped the tip of the iceberg when it comes to grace. In our hearts I sometimes think we believe that Jesus death was necessary for the "totality of the sin of mankind", but our sin didn't really cost him that much. While the truly egregious sinners were locked in max security awaiting the needle we were at club fed enjoying gardening and the prison library. Sure Jesus pardoned both us and the really bad people - but it wasn't too hard of a call when it came to us.
Do we really think like that? I think we do. We have forgotten the lesson of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount - if you hate your brother you are guilty of murder. If you lust after someone not your spouse you have committed adultery. Jesus wasn't creating new commandments. He was speaking directly to the Pharisees and pointing out the fallacy of believing they followed the law perfectly when their hearts were so far from God. I think that's the same fallacy that we encounter again and again in our own hearts. We believe we are worthy of his Grace, and that belief has the power to corrupt the very nature of grace itself. Our poor understanding keeps us from a very real experience of being overwhelmed by God.
I believe that to know... to really and truly know... my own dark places, no matter how ugly, is a gift that allows me to glimpse of the power of Grace. It reminds me of that old Bill Gaither song "The Longer I Serve Him":
The longer I serve him the sweeter he grows.
The more that I love Him, more love He bestows
Each day is like heaven, my heart overflows
The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.
Lord, make us aware of our lasting need for you. Help us to love ourselves because of your transforming power and not because of our own gifts. As we are complete in you, continue to complete us. Most of all, help us to recognize your grace in each area of our life and live out of the grace to the glory of your name. Thank you Jesus. Amen.
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