Christians must not be smug about sinfulness

While shopping for groceries one day, a woman noticed a man pushing a cart in which a small boy sat squirming. As they passed her in the aisle she heard the man mutter quietly, “Keep calm, Albert. Don’t make a scene, Albert.” Four aisles over they passed her again and once again she heard the man mumbling, “Don’t blow it, Albert. Keep cool, Albert. Mind yourself, Albert.”

So she went over to him and said, “Sir, I’ve been watching you for awhile now and I just can’t help but marvel at how you talk to that boy. You are so effective at encouraging him to behave. It’s very impressive.” The man stared at her for a moment and then said, “Lady, I don’t think you understand. I’m Albert.”

Most of us evangelical Christians are convinced that the Bible identifies homosexual behavior as sinful. We believe that abortion is also a sin. And drunkenness. And gambling. These four sins get a lot of play today. Perhaps that’s as it must be.

But the Bible also makes it clear that heterosexual relations outside of marriage are sinful. And didn’t Jesus say that even mental lust is a sin? Isn’t pride sinful? Isn’t arrogance sinful? Isn’t overeating also sinful?

Why is it that we evangelicals often give certain sins more attention than others? Aren’t all sins sin in God’s sight? And isn’t all sin potentially deadly?

Furthermore, aren’t we all in need of an extreme spiritual makeover? Who of us have any moral boast apart from Christ?

Why, then, do we often talk about sin with more arrogance than shame?

Wouldn’t it be appropriate for us as Christians to more carefully note our own propensity to sin before stridently ranking the sins of others? To the extent that we fail to recognize our own inherent sinfulness, don’t we forfeit our right to address the subject of sin at all?

Wait just a minute. Someone’s brow is beginning to furrow. Isn’t this some sort of liberal call to compromise our stand against evil?

Hardly. The good news of God’s grace will mean little where there’s a failure to understand the bad news of sin’s penalty. So we must not go soft on sin.

But neither must we be smug in addressing it. And always we must remember that it’s not just, “There but for the grace of God go I.” It’s “There go I every day. Thanks be to a God who forgives.”

In his book “Can Man Live Without God?” Ravi Zacharias tells a moving story about Malcolm Muggeridge. One evening when he was working as a journalist in India, Muggeridge left his residence to go to a nearby river for a swim.

As he entered the water, across the river he saw an Indian woman from the nearby village who had come to have her bath. Muggeridge impulsively felt the allurement of the moment, and temptation stormed into his mind.

He had lived with this kind of struggle for years but had somehow fought it off in honor of his commitment to his wife, Kitty. On this occasion, however, he actively speculated about crossing the line of marital fidelity. He struggled for just a moment and then swam furiously toward the woman, literally trying to outdistance his conscience.

His mind fed him the fantasy that stolen waters would be sweet, and he swam the harder for it. Now he was just two or three feet away from her and, as he emerged from the water, any emotion that may have gripped him paled into insignificance when compared with the devastation that shattered him as he looked at her. She was old and hideous, her skin was wrinkled and, worst of all, she was a leper. “This creature grinned at me,” he said, “showing a toothless mask.” The experience left Muggeridge trembling. He muttered under his breath, “What a dirty, lecherous woman!”

But then the rude shock of it dawned upon him – it was not the woman who was lecherous; it was his own heart.

Here’s a gentle but probing query for my fellow evangelicals. Do we who talk so much about the gospel of Christ really understand that we’re as desperately in need of that gospel as anyone else? Do we who sing “Amazing Grace” truly understand just what a wretch we ourselves are?

Only as we are shaken and humbled by the realization of our own deplorable condition are we likely to be fit to address the wretchedness of our world.

The Rev. Daryl E. Witmer is founder and director of the AIIA Institute, a national apologetics ministry, and associate pastor of the Monson Community Church. He may be reached via AIIA.ChristianAnswers.Net or through the Web site AIIAInstitute@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.