If You Want to Be a Hero, Be a Eunuch

You can listen to the sermon I preached on below or download it here.



The article I quote at the end (on recently fallen high-profile Christians) was from Mark Galli in CT. It is really wonderful. Two sections I appreciated most:

I sometimes wonder if becoming "sanctified" in this life is mostly about becoming increasingly aware of just how much we are, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, "miserable sinners," and that, really, "there is no health in us."

Sanctification certainly means this much: having the courage to face that reality and not flinch. That courage comes from knowing the merciful judgment and the humbling grace of God, knowing that God has judged the ugly reality of our lives, condemning it to its rightful death. And, at the same time, knowing that he has accepted us in all our sordidness, welcoming us as if we were as righteous as we sometimes imagine ourselves to be!

It is God's utter acceptance of us that allows us to look at our miserable sinfulness and not flinch. If that's not the final step in sanctification, it is certainly a prerequisite to any other step. And it's about all most of us will experience in this life.
....

Note how one writer put it in reflecting on the Gosselin debacle. (I'll leave the writer anonymous, because my beef is not with her.) The sentiment expressed is widespread in our movement. After rightly suggesting that the flaws of Jon and Kate reflect our movement's flaws, she says that we must do things differently: Find new role models, practice forgiveness better, and take marriage vows more seriously. Do, do, do. Then she concludes, "Then, and only then, will Christians have something to offer the world."

The problem, of course, is that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that Christians will actually do these things consistently. Not private Christians. Not public Christians—it's only a matter of months, maybe days (!) before another scandal will be revealed in the press.

Such moral exhortations are no doubt needed, but we must never believe that "then and only then" will we Christians have something "to offer the world." What we offer the world is not ourselves or our moral example or our spiritual integrity. What we offer the world is our broken lives, saying, "We are sinners saved by grace." What we offer the world is Jesus Christ and him crucified.