If you asked me whether my neighbor was a good person, I might tell you about the time he brought dinner over when someone in the family was sick. I’d mean it. Kindness like that is real, and we ought to be grateful for it wherever we find it.
So why would someone like that need saving?
In the first post in this series, we saw that the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. That little phrase, for our sins, raises a question. What does the Bible mean by sin, and why does it say that all of us are guilty of it?
The apostle Paul writes that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). To understand what he means, think about how Jesus sums up what God asks of us. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37–40).
That command reaches into places our neighbors rarely see.
I can bring someone dinner and then spend the evening hoping they’ll tell everyone what I did. I can speak kindly to someone in public while nursing resentment against them in private. I can give my family the best of my attention all day and go to bed having received a whole day of good gifts from God without once thinking to thank him.
And some of our clearest failures are things we leave undone. We know we ought to make the call, admit we were wrong, or speak up for someone being treated unfairly. We find a reason to put it off. By the next day, we’ve found a reason to forget about it altogether.
Jesus’ command helps us see what those ordinary moments have in common. God made us to love him and the people he has placed around us. We keep finding ways to put ourselves first. That is part of what the Bible calls sin. It shows up in what we do, what we leave undone, and what we want.
Paul says that when we stand before God, every mouth is stopped (Romans 3:19). Think about how quickly we usually find something to say in our defense. I was under a lot of pressure. I could have said something worse. You should have heard what he said to me. God knows the whole story, including every detail we tend to leave out when we tell it.
That can be uncomfortable to face. It can also be a relief. With God, you can finally tell the truth about yourself. You can acknowledge the real good in your life and still say, I have sinned. I need mercy.
That is exactly where Paul brings us next. The same sentence that says all have sinned goes on to speak of being “justified by his grace as a gift” through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:23–24).
To be justified is to be declared righteous before God. Jesus loved his Father and his neighbor with the whole heart that God’s law requires. On the cross, he bore the judgment sinners deserve. When you trust in Christ, God forgives your sins and counts Christ’s righteousness as yours. The God who knows the whole truth about you receives you because of what Jesus has done.
So when something comes to mind that you’d rather explain away, try bringing it honestly to God. Tell him what you did, or what you left undone. Ask him to forgive you for Jesus’ sake. You can do that with confidence because the Savior who died for sinners is alive.
In Part 3, we’ll ask who Jesus is and why the Son of God came to live among us.
