12-22-2022

Good Morning All,

     2 Corinthians 5:19, “that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. “

    Much has been made these last few weeks about the referees in the NFL.  The NFL has kind of succeeded with bringing more parity or equality among the teams with many games determined by one score or less. Of course, the downside is that missed calls, blown calls, wrong calls seem to have a greater significance. It is one thing to miss a call in a game that is decided by 30 points; it is entirely different when the game is a couple of points.

    We spend a lot of time talking about calls that referees or umpires make which we see as just plain wrong.  Most sports fans can look back and list some of their all-time worst rulings by an official.  We even see it go farther than sports as we look at rulings by our court system and just scratch our head in wonder.

    We might follow different trials in the news and then we cannot imagine how that person was found not guilty! We were convinced that there was no way that these people would get off.  They were guilty and the whole world knew it and yet they were found not guilty.  They were declared innocent despite all the evidence to the contrary.

    We may not like this in our sports or judicial system, but we experience this type of judgment every day.  Everyday God looks at us and declares us “not guilty.”  The devil and the whole world will look at our sins and scream “how can you make that call?” “He is as guilty as they come.”  But just like our examples when the ruling is made; that is the way it is.  If the referee says he caught it; well then, he caught it.  If the judge says he is not guilty; he is not guilty.  That is the way it is.

     Fortunately, that is the way it is in our faith life as well.  Because of the work which Christ did on Calvary for us, God looks at us and declares us innocent of all charges.  You and I stand before God as saints because the merit of Jesus makes it happen.  We stand righteous before God because we are cloaked in the righteousness of Christ.  This is sometimes called “the great exchange.”  We exchange our sins for Christ’s righteousness.  God looks at us and sees the righteousness of Jesus and not our sins.  He then rules that we are “not guilty” and when the judge (God) says “not guilty” we are not guilty.

     This should be a source of great joy for us.  Imagine your mortgage or your credit card or student loans or your farm bank notes suddenly being declared “forgiven, they don’t owe anything;” how would we respond then?  Our joy should be even greater than that and the whole world should see it.  We have joy because our sins are forgiven; we are “not guilty” declared holy by God.

Gracious Lord, we given you thanks for our redemption by your blood.  We ask that you lead us to live a life of joy and thanksgiving for this promised mercy.  Move us by your Spirit to tell others of this great gift and lead them to your saving grace.  In your precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret