Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105
(262) 763-3021
“Sure could use a little good news today.” Anne Murray
You’d find it difficult today to pick up a newspaper, turn on a newscast or surf the news feeds on the Internet and find any good news. Our world is in great turmoil. Most news is bad and seems to be getting worse. What is happening on a national and worldwide scale is simply the magnification of what is happening on an individual level. As personal problems, animosities, and fears increase, so do their counterparts in society at large. People are in the grip of a terrifying power that holds them at the very core of their being. Left unchecked, it pushes them to self-destruction in one form or another. The cold, hard facts are – We are all lost, we are all on the same island. And apart from Christ, we are without hope. What keeps us lost is our sin and guilt. Sin is bad news in every dimension. Among its consequences are Four Inevitable Byproducts that guarantee misery and sorrow for a world taken captive by it.
First, sin has selfishness at its heart. The basic element of fallen human nature is the exaltation of self, the ego. Man fell when Adam and Eve asserted their own understanding about right and wrong above God’s clear instruction (Genesis 3:1-7). By nature every person is self-centered and inclined to have his own way. He will push his selfishness as far as circumstances and the tolerance of society will allow. When a person’s self-will is unbridled, he consumes everything and everyone around him in an insatiable quest to please himself. When friends, fellow students, colleagues, or a spouse cease to provide what is wanted, they are discarded like a pair of old shoes. Much of modern western society has been so imbued with the propriety of self-esteem and self-will that virtually every desire has come to be considered a “right.” The ultimate goal is little more than perpetual self-satisfaction. A person engulfed in self-will and self-fulfillment becomes less and less capable of loving, because as his desire to possess grows, his desire to give withers. And when he forfeits selflessness for selfishness, he forfeits the source of true joy.
Second, sin produces guilt. This is another form of bad news. No matter how convincingly one tries to justify selfishness, its inevitable abuse of things and people cannot escape generating guilt. Like physical pain, guilt is a God-given warning that something is wrong and needs correcting. When guilt is ignored , it continues to grow and intensify, and with it comes anxiety, fear, sleeplessness, and countless other afflictions. Many people try to overcome those afflictions by masking them with possessions, money, alcohol, drugs, sex, travel, and psychoanalysis. They try to assuage their guilt by blaming society, parents, a deprived childhood, environment, restrictive moral codes, and even God himself. But the irresponsible notion of blaming other persons and things only aggravates the guilt and escalates the accompanying afflictions.
Third, sin produces meaninglessness. This is still another form of bad news and one that is endemic to modern times. Trapped in his own selfishness, the self-indulgent person has no sense of purpose or meaning. Life becomes an endless cycle of trying to fill a void that cannot be filled. The result is futility and despair. In the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay in her poem “Lament,” one can only say, “Life must go on; I just forget why.”
Fourth, sin produces hopelessness. Hopelessness is the companion of meaning-lessness. The consumptively selfish person forfeits hope, both for this life and for the next. Although he may deny it, he senses that even death is not the end, and for the hopeless sinner death becomes the ultimate bad news. Millions are born every day into a world filled with bad news. And because of the boundless selfishness that permeates modern society, millions of other babies are not allowed to ever enter the world at all. That tragedy alone has made the bad news of the modern world immeasurably worse.
Tidbits of seemingly good news are often merely a brief respite from the bad, and sometimes even what appears to be good news merely masks an evil. Someone once commented cynically that peace treaties merely provide time for everyone to reload!
The essence of the Gospel is that there is good news that is truly good. Most of us know that the word Greek word for gospel means “good news.” There is hope for our lostness. The good news is that in Christ Jesus sin can be forgiven, selfishness can be overcome, guilt can be removed, anxiety can be alleviated, and life can indeed have meaning and hope that will last throughout all eternity! That is good news!
This morning we’re starting a new sermon series, Lost...we all start on the same island. Over the next several weeks we’ll be looking at God’s rescue plan to get us off the “island” of our own sin and lostness.
One of the greatest dangers facing the American church today is the failure to acknowledge a person's lostness. At Grace Church we are committed to teaching what the Bible teaches – that apart from salvation in Jesus Christ – we are all lost. The great news is that none of us has to stay that way! If you don’t know the Lord as your Savior, the please commit your life to Him today. If you do know the Lord, then, please, during the next few weeks, invite still lost friends to be your special guests at Grace.