Living Word Christian Churches of Cebu International Inc.

As I write this article, I’m in a coffee shop reading Don Carson’s book on the death and resurrection of Jesus, while people from all walks of life fill the tables, sipping coffee, and talking business in an unusually cool afternoon in Cebu.

As I read on, Carson’s words somehow unpacked the reality of man’s woeful predicament that made me ask if people here also understand the gravity and consequences of their sins.

Such thoughts may really sound morbid and absurd in a coffee shop, but the thought of it is undeniably great that I cannot dismiss it in my mind. I think one of the major reasons why people are no longer terror-stricken about their sin is a failure to grasp its meaning from God’s perspective.

Today, sin is generally a snicker-word, you say it and everybody snickers. It is so hard to get across how ugly and dirty it is in God’s sight, in a world where culture defines sin in its own terms and conditions.

But when God revealed Himself to Moses, He did not reveal Himself the way this post-modern world does. Exodus 34:6-7 says, ‘The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ (English Standard Version)

People love the first half of the passage but neglect what the whole passage says: God is equally loving and just.

You see, with all the flaws and defects our culture has, it is attempting an impossible task to define sin truthfully. We feel that the God of the Bible is simply a loving God who tolerates wrong and acts like a repairman who fixes our lives when we break down. With that understanding, it’s no wonder why people justify cheating in an exam, stealing cookies, abortion, same sex marriages, corruption and pre-marital sex.

What are we actually doing when we make such justifications? We put ourselves at the center of the universe and elevate our worldviews and philosophies over God’s incorruptible word. Thus, we end up de-godding God so we can sing with Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.” This is the very core of idolatry. We declare independence and push God away from our lives.

As God grieves over our sins, He of course, is not surprised and shocked by such behavior. He knows we were born sinners with a natural bent and propensity to sin and rebel.

But He has not abandoned our hopelessness. He has provided a way for us to be freed from our immoral claims and condition and to be redeemed from sin’s penalty and slavery. More than 2000 years ago, He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to live a perfect life and die on the cross so we can worship Him and know Him even in a coffee shop.

Let me leave you with the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 3:21-26 and may you be awed by the display of God’s love and justice on the cross: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (English Standard Version)

As I look around, I see hope, grace, love and forgiveness extended to each one. God died for every person in this coffee shop and for every human being in this world. May this truth pervade our lives, families, cities and nation for the glory of God and for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.