Summer Preaching Series: God Saves Sinners
Imagine a Bible…without people. What if God’s word was all abstract ethical instruction, and gospel testimony? It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Scripture is a divine book, that is the truth, and wisdom, and will of God, but which connects with us by way of a very earthy and human element. Our Bible is a historical book filled with people just like us.
The human element of Scripture is perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in Scripture’s descriptions of the falls of God’s people. In other words, the Bible doesn’t just claim that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). It also tells the graphic stories of many of God’s people who sinned greatly, and tumbled short of God’s glory. Romans three is powerfully illustrated by Genesis three. In Genesis three we witness Adam recklessly rejecting God and eating the forbidden fruit. From this point on, Scripture illustrates man’s sin in one case study after another.
Join us this summer as we consider some of the stories of tragic lapses of scriptural people. All of the stories are sad. Some are awkward. But if we are honest as we study the heart-wrenching sins of God’s children, we will see ourselves. Only the perfect mirror of Scripture can show us an accurate, non-airbrushed image of ourselves. We need that. We are so quick to shake our heads or shake our fists over the sins of others not realizing that their story is also ours. But more than that, we need to look into the mirror of Scripture and see Jesus Christ into whose image we need to be crafted. Like the Greeks at Jesus’ last Passover, we wish to see Jesus as he shines through the sins of God’s people, both ancient and modern.
