Pride (Week 6: Bonus Devo 2)

Isaiah 64:6: "All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind."

Have you ever thought about what makes Christianity unique as a religion? You might think about stuff like the virgin birth, miracles, or the prophecies of the Old Testament, but think about this too: Christianity is the only religion that tells people how bad they are.

According to Emil Brunner, the Swiss theologian: "Other religions spare us the ultimate humiliation of being stripped naked and declared bankrupt before God." That's pretty strong language. And yet it points to the humiliating nature of Christianity. Other world religions don't treat humanity with such pessimism. In all other schools of thought, we have something to bring to the table. We can strive toward God and meet Him and in a sense be congratulated when we do. But not Christianity.

In Christianity, we bring nothing to the table. In fact, the only thing we bring to the table with God is the sin we need to be rescued from. Perhaps that's why, if we look back into history, Christianity has been called the religion of women and slaves. In cultures of the past, neither of those two groups had many rights, so it wasn't a far stretch for them to admit their abject need for God's complete and total intervention on their behalf.

The bottom line is this: The one character flaw that has and will continue to keep most people from Christ is not greed. It's not lust. It's not lying or stealing or killing. It's pride. That's the only thing there is no room for at the foot of the cross.

Pause and Reflect

• Why does pride, above all things, keep people from Jesus?
• Are you taking pride in your spiritual achievement today?

Death Sentence (Week 6: Bonus Devo 1)

Ephesians 2:1-2: "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient."

Everyone likes flowers. They're great for impressing a date or for sitting on a bookshelf...at least for a while. But over the course of a few days, even the most beautiful flowers start to wither. The reason behind that withering is simple: Flowers in a vase are dead.

Sure, they look good for a while. They have the appearance of life. But in the end, they are cut off at the stem, and without that link to the root, they are dead. Sure, they might show signs of life for a while, but that beauty is a lie. A wonderful lie, but a lie all the same.

This is an important spiritual truth for us to recognize. Too many people are flowers not in a garden but sitting in a vase. They may look pretty, even enhancing the beauty of the room they're sitting in, but that beauty is a lie. Though they have signs of life, they're actually spiritually dead; apart from Christ, all of us are cut off from the source of life. And it's just a matter of time until we start to show the signs of that death rather than life.

Verses like Ephesians 2:1-2 might sound at best pessimistic and at worst mean, but these are words of love from the Lord. God loves us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. He's not content to have us acting like we're alive; He wants us to be alive. The only way that life happens is through a living and vital connection to the vine of God in Christ.

Pause and Reflect

• Why is Ephesians 2:1-2 rooted in the love of God?
• What does it mean to be spiritually alive?
• Be honest with yourself: are you a flower in a garden or a flower in a vase?

Gospel Project Week 6: "Numb to the Word"

Here are the materials for the week of February 3 as we prepare for Sunday, February 9, "Numb to the Word: Disobedience Leads to Death."

Devotional Material

• "Get Horizontal" (p. 67) is a devotion that reflects on last week's lesson. 

• "Hypocrisy" (p. 77) and "Sin and Death" (p. 78) are devotionals that prepare for February 9. (Check the blog later this week for 2 bonus devotionals...)

• Key Passages: Eph. 2:1-2, Rom. 6:23, Isa. 64:6, Rom. 3:10-12

If you want to find out more about this week's topic, you can dig in deeper with these resources:

Study Material

• “The Malignancy of Sin”—Chapter 3 from Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges

• “The Results of Sin”—Chapter 29 from Christian Theology by Millard J. Erickson 

• “Nightmares of Painlessness”—Chapter 1 from The Gift of Pain by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey

Sermon Podcasts

• David Platt: “The Urgency of Eternity” — The Church at Brook Hills

• Ted Traylor: “Dead or Alive?” — Olive Baptist Church

Article

• “Georgia girl who doesn’t feel pain helps researchers understand condition”