When We Could Not Help Ourselves
Dear Hope Church Family,
“Now every single religious idea the world has ever seen depends on a concept of becoming more godly—more religious, more spiritual. … Here is where the Christian faith diverges from ‘religion,’ and here the gospel preached by the apostle Paul appears in its most radical form. God is the one who justifies the ungodly. … Paul couldn’t have known that the great American gospel was going to be ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ but he couldn’t have demolished it more succinctly than in these words: ‘While we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.’”
I wonder how those words from Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge land with you, especially today, Good Friday. What stirs up when you hear those two paradoxical truths of Romans 5:6: (1) I am ungodly, and (2) Jesus loves ungodly me so much he was willing to die for me? And how often does the pseudo-religious phrase “God helps those who help themselves” seep into our understanding of God and what it means to live as Christ-followers in this world?
First, to identify with the ungodly, I must both be willing to admit that I am flawed, even deeply flawed. It’s not simply that I’ve led a life with scattered mistakes, but that every nook and cranny of my being is touched and tainted by sin, a disease more deadly than cancer and more contagious than strep throat. Which means my own ability to help myself will always be either too weak or too inadequate to cover my sin.
But, second, Paul’s astounding claim is that God doesn’t shrink back from our deeply flawed (and even high-handed at times) sinful selves. In fact, our sin stirs an otherworldly compassion in God that enables him to meet our deep flaws with a still-deeper love. The cross is the pronouncement that “God helps those who cannot and would not help themselves.”
As you observe Good Friday today, may you meditate on those two truths. Throw “God helps those who help themselves” into the wastebin of your mind. And ask the Holy Spirit to prod you where you need conviction, to heal you where you need a remedy, and to encourage you where you need strengthened.
It’s Friday … but Sunday’s comin’.
Peace,
Pastor Ethan