No Painted Savior

When I am not aware of my sin and rebellion against God - of my selfish, conceited, entitled, judgmental, mean-spirited, unfaithful actions and thoughts and words - I am tempted to think of myself as mostly good.  I am tempted to believe that I mostly have it all together; that yes, I am a sinner in need of grace, but not that much grace.  

And when I am too aware of my obedience (as I am all too often), I become self-righteous, believing that I am morally pure/superior, deserving of good things from God and others on my own merits and looking down on others for their (perceived) moral inferiority.

But the reality is that I am a much greater sinner than I believe myself to be and much less obedient than I think.

Martin Luther in a letter to George Spalatin:

"My faithful request and admonition is that you join our company and associate with us, who are real, great, and hard-boiled sinners.  You must by no means make Christ to seem paltry and trifling to us, as though He could be our Helper only when we want to be rid from imaginary, nominal, and childish sins. No, no!  That would be no good for us.  He must rather be a Savior and Redeemer for real, great, grievous, and damnable transgressions and iniquities, yea, from the very greatest and most shocking sins; to be brief, from all sins added together in a grand total [...]

You want to be painted sinner and, accordingly, expect to have in Christ a painted Savior.  You will have to get used to the belief that Christ is a real Savior and you a real sinner.  For God is neither jesting nor dealing in imaginary affairs, but He was greatly and most assuredly in earnest when He sent His own Son into the world and sacrificed Him for our sakes."

I am in the group of "real, great, hard-boiled sinners."  As pastor, author, and seminary professor Steve Brown says, "I like to sin.  If I didn't like to sin, I wouldn't sin."

How often do I pray and ask God for "help" as if what I need from Him is a little boost; just a little bit of forgiveness (for my "small" sins), just a little bit of sanctification.  All too often what I say to God is basically, "Hey I got this under control and all, but if You wouldn't mind giving me a boost up that wouldn't hurt.  You know, if You don't mind - because I can handle it if not."

But this isn't reality.  In reality, I am face down in a ditch with no strength or moral character left, no way to get myself out if He doesn't rescue me.  In reality, I am at the bottom of the bottomless pit of my sin and self-righteousness with no way out and no hope if Jesus doesn't come down and save me. In reality, I have nothing if not "a Savior and Redeemer for real, great, grievous, and damnable transgressions and iniquities" - because that's what I have - real, great, grievous, damnable transgressions and iniquities.

Praise God that He sent His own Son (who had no sin, only perfect obedience) into the world and sacrificed Him for screwed up, broken, self-righteous, self-deluding people like me.

Spider-Man Movie Breakdown

Saw Amazing Spider-man last night and thought it was great - totally expected it to be mediocre and feel too soon for the reboot.

I decided to do a movie-by-movie comparison which will contain spoilers from Amazing Spider-Man.
Credit to Eric Schuster for his thoughts - some of which are included below.

Best Parker/Spider-man
This could really be two categories but Andrew Garfield trumps Tobey Maguire in both

Best Girlfriend
1. Emma Stone in Amazing SM - by far
2. Gwen Stacy in Spider-man 3 (Bryce Dallas Howard) - on screen for like 20 min and still better than Dunst
3. Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) - just not likeable

Best Supporting Character
1. J. Jonah Jameson Spidey 1-3
2. Harry Osborn Spidey 1-3 - James Franco was badly underused
3. Gwen Stacy in Spidey 3 - really appreciate how bad she feels when Peter messes with MJ
4. Uncle Ben in Amazing Spider-man

5. Macho Man Randy Savage in Spidey 1
6. Peter's landlord in Spidey 2-3
7. Aunt May in Spidey 1-3
 
Most Convincing Bad Guy (as in bad guy you actually believed could hurt Spidey)
1a. Lizard ASM - actually seemed genuinely dangerous
1b. Doctor Octopus SM2 - him too
2. Green Goblin (Norman) SM1
3. Green Goblin (Harry) SM1-3
4. Sandman SM3 - I guess, I mean... he turned into a weird giant sand monster
5. Venom SM3 - could not have been done more terribly

Best Uncle Ben/Aunt May combo
Amazing Spider-man but not by much.  Definitely like Martin Sheen more as Uncle Ben but pre-reboot Aunt May is a little better than Sally Field (who is very likeable)

Best Origin Story
Amazing wins again - much better than the overblown wrestling thing.  Much more believable that Peter doesn't stop a shoplifter vs a wrestling thief.  Radioactive spiders existing made a ton more sense.  Parents' thing was interesting and added to it.  Only downside - none of Macho Man saying things like "You're going NOWHERE... I've got you for 3 minutes... 3 minutes of PLAYTIME."
 
Most Convincing Reason why a Bad Guy would become Bad
1. Green Goblin (Harry) SM3- totally believable that he would want to avenge his dad
2. Lizard SM1- actually a legit reason, trying to help people
3. Green Goblin (Norman) SM1 - wants wealth
4. Doc Ock - not believable but whatever (his tentacles are evil and can think??)
5. Venom - so dumb
6. Sandman - um did they not realize a guy was standing in their giant test pit.... also why are they running their test IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (also already a criminal but somehow supposed to be a tragic figure?)

Dumbest Scene
1. Spider-Man 3 dance down the street scene
2. Spider-Man 3 tells MJ to basically quit whining and then kisses Gwen upside down and then tries to propose to MJ almost immediately after.
no other scenes are close

Best Scene
1. Train scene in Spidey 2, especially where the citizens help Spidey
2. First big battle of Spidey 1 with the balloons and the exploding balcony (just epic when it first came out)

3.End of Spidey 1 as Harry walks in to find Spider-man laying down a dead Norman Osborne
4. Last 20 minutes of Amazing SM (minus the cop chase - seriously can we have a superhero movie where the police don't try to hunt down the GOOD GUYS?)
5. All of Bruce Campbell's cameos
6. Fight between Peter and Harry in Spidey 3 - best part of this movie, very intense
7. William Dafoe dealing with his inner demons in Spidey 1 (seems dated now but was a really good scene at the time)
8. Gwen's reaction to Peter being Spider-man in ASM
9. Scenes that show Curt Connor's internal struggle with his missing limb - just very believable, well-acted, really showed the tragedy it is for him.

Biggest Waste
1. Venom - what a tragedy
2. The black costume taking over Spidey - could have been so much more and actually taken the movies to a place of moral depth and introspection
3. William Defoe's Green Goblin costume - could it have looked cheesier?

Hopes for the rest of the reboot
1. Do Venom right or not at all
2. Actually make Peter deal with the implications of his powers in a mature way - for example, I'd love for Aunt May to actually find out who he is and have real conversations with him about it
3. Shouldn't Peter have more friends than just his gf and Harry (who becomes his mortal enemy)?
4. Don't do the whole Goblin saga - we've been there
5. Don't push Gwen aside quickly - Emma Stone and Garfield have good chemistry, keep them together a while
6. No more mad scientists please
7. For villains - go with Kraven and do it right and it would be awesome.  Or since they are going with the conspiracy thing, go with Kingpin and have him employing lots of other bad guys like Rhino, Chameleon, Electro, Mysterio.  I like Shocker, Scorpion, etc but they are too similar to guys we've seen already.
8. Keep the right mix of cockiness and insecurity to keep Spidey likeable.  In Spider-man 1 and 2, he was too insecure and in 3 he was too cocky.  Garfield's version struck a good balance.

What Happens When We Stand Before God?

In our church community group last night, we started talking about the verses in the Bible that say that we will one day have to stand before God and "give an account" for our actions.  Specifically, we were talking about Matthew 12:36-37 where Jesus says, "On the day of judgment people will give an account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Does "giving an account" mean - as many of us have been told -that we will have to stand in an interminably long line before God, waiting our chance to:
a) watch a video of every bad thing we've ever done - which everyone else in line can see too
b) wait and see if we'll be condemned and cast out or allowed in, based on the merit of our actions
c) be made to feel really guilty about our bad deeds/words/thoughts and made to realize how close we are to judgment...before Jesus jumps in and sets us free now that we know just how close we came
d) some combination therein?

None of these options seem to make either logical or biblical sense to me, so I decided to take some time today to study the relevant passages and the verses surrounding them.

Matthew 12:36-37 (quoted above).
What's going on?
     Well, the Pharisees (self-righteous religious leaders) observe Jesus casting out a demon from a formerly demon-possessed guy and they think to themselves - "it must be by the power of the prince of demons that Jesus has the power to cast out demons."  Basically, they think Jesus must be demonic in some way.
     Jesus can read their thoughts and calls out their flawed logic - "a house divided cannot stand" - and rebukes them.  He says that every kind of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven except blaspheming the Holy Spirit, i.e. flagrantly, willfully, and persistently attributing God's work to Satan. 
     Jesus goes on to call them out for thinking that good words can come out of evil hearts. 

So, when it says people will give an account for their words, contextually it means two things: 1) Pharisees (and us), in all of your self-righteousness, you are still condemned by every careless word you speak.  No matter how good a person you think you are, no one always has control over their tongue and so therefore all of us deserve condemnation by God.   
2) This also that your words reveal your heart - you can't have a clean heart and say such ugly things... which means all of our hearts are uglier than we realize.

Romans 14:11-12 "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue confess to God." (quoting Isaiah 45:23) So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
What's going on?
     Paul has been making it clear that none of us should judge one another and that, specifically, the strong of will and conviction should not judge the weak.  Why? Because in the end, all of us will be judged by God.

Everyone - weak and strong - will be held accountable for his/her actions before God.

 
Hebrews 4:13 No creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
What's going on?
     Short version is that the author of Hebrews is exhorting the people not to fall into the faithless disobedience that the Israelities displayed while in exile.  Why?  Because God sees thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

We are all exposed before Him and will be held accountable for not only our actions and words but our thoughts as well. 

1 Peter 4:5 They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

What's going on?
     If you make choices to obey God instead of participating in the debaucherous, sinful lifestyle that some participate in, they will judge you and mock you.  However, in the end, they will be judged by God.

Even those who don't worship God will be subject to His judgment.

In summary:

All of us, whether we call ourselves Christians or not, will be judged by God for our actions, words, and thoughts.  And God sees them all.

Sounds pretty morbid.

But this isn't the whole story of the Bible. 

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether good or evil.
What's going on?
     Paul has been talking about how our home, our ultimate destination, is heaven and so we should live lives pleasing to God.  He's saying that our present actions have eternal consequences - think Gladiator when Russell Crowe says, "What we do in life echoes in eternity."   We will all receive "what is due."
     Our actions will demonstrate (or not) the genuineness of our faith.  See James chapter 2.  We aren't vindicated and justified by our actions; rather for our inward faith to be authentic, it must manifest itself in outward action.  These actions are the evidence of faith.

So our actions don't have to be good enough to get into heaven, simply to demonstrate that we have faith in Jesus.  Our actions don't save us, faith in Jesus does.

But don't we still face scary judgment/weird life videos?

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
     

Jesus gives us peace with God through His sacrifice if we have faith in Him.  We have nothing to fear on the day of judgment.  There won't be any last-second Almighty finger-wagging.  God loves us enough to pour out His wrath on His Son instead of us and Jesus loves us and His Father enough to take it willingly for those who believe in Him.  

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th century preacher, said "Our Savior drank the tremendous cup of wrath for us down to the final drop so that our cup will not have one drop of wrath in it for ever." 

We WILL all have to give an account.  And ALL of us will be found lacking and deserving God's just wrath.  

But those who believe in Christ and receive the grace and mercy that He freely offers to ANY and ALL people will find that the wrath we deserve has been spent - Jesus took it all for us and in exchange He gave us the love and blessing that He deserves.

If we are in Christ, we have nothing to fear on the day of judgment.  

(It should be noted, and this is probably the topic of another post, that God will judge our actions and reward us in heaven according to them - but in Christ, that judgment is all about potential reward and not unavoidable condemnation.)