Religion kills because it teaches us to deflect. Deflection happens when we mask our own sin through pointing out the sin of the other guy. It's as if on judgment day, we think God will be too busy with the pedophiles, the drug dealers and the terrorists to deal with little old me.
Jesus tells a story in Luke 9 that shows the silliness of this thought. In the parable there are two people, one a religious leader and the other a tax collector. The religious leader prays to God thanking him because he is so much better in light of other sinners. The tax collector can't even look up to heaven because of his shame and beats his chest asking for God's mercy and forgiveness. Jesus says it's the tax collector who goes away justified.
The sin of other people can't save you. At the judgment we won't get to deflect our sin on anyone else, but will have to give an account. The good news, however, is that Jesus willingly paid for our sin, and by trusting fully in him, he offers to take it from us. This is not salvation through deflection, but rather salvation through impartation. It's what Martin Luther called the Great Exchange.
"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)
On of the things we value at Connection Church is preaching through books of the Bible. We are currently going through the book of Mark. We've entitled this series, "J.C. Exploring the Man Who Is God." Being that the book of Mark is fairly long, we are breaking it down into multiple mini-series.
