Saved From Death For FreeSample

Radical Disease

Sin hurts us. It always hurts us. There is a story about a man who had parked his RV at a campground near Seattle. One night, someone was trying to steal gas. He put the hose in and sucked hard. At this point, the RV owner heard a noise and went outside to see a man throwing up. Turns out, the thief had put the hose in the sewage tank instead of the fuel tank.

Yuck! Drinking sewage.

That’s a good picture of sin. Sin is like drinking sewage. It always hurts us.

In Ephesians 2, God describes what sin does to us:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Eph. 2:1-3)

What an indictment. Because of sin, we were spiritually dead, separated from the life of God, conformed to the world around us, influenced by the devil, given to self-centeredness and self-indulgence, and subject to God’s holy wrath against sin.

This is the gravity of the human condition apart from Jesus Christ. Clearly, we don’t need a self-improvement plan, a motivational seminar, a bit of religion, or to try a little harder. No, the disease—sin—is far too serious. We need God to intervene and rescue us by his grace. We need a Savior, desperately.

That’s exactly what God gave us. He sent a Savior who would die in our place, eradicate all our sin, guilt, shame, and death, and give us eternal life.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

What a Savior. Thank God for a Savior.