Dear Church Family,
In Sunday’s sermon I briefly mentioned Rick Phillips’ article “What’s So Great About Total Depravity?” I quoted him as writing, “Total depravity exalts the cross in our eyes and fills our hearts with a holy delight.” Below is a portion that explains how understanding the depth of our sin and the much greater depth of God’s grace drives us to live to the glory of God.
“Without a quickened awareness of our depravity, we are Pharisees at best, though most of us are far worse. The best we can approach is a religious performance that brings glory to us and leaves us looking down on everybody else, just the way many Christians today look down on the rest of society, the Pharisee gazing down on the abortion doctor and the pervert.
“Jesus knew Pharisees well, and He didn’t like them. Far better to Him was the sinful woman who burst in at the home of a Pharisee named Simon and threw herself at Jesus’ feet. Jesus said to him: “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair…Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven–for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:44, 47).
“Awe and gratitude drive the true Christian life and draw us joyfully to God’s grace in Christ. It is from the pit of our lost condition that we gaze up toward a God so high and perfect in His holiness. But from that vantage point we come to see fully at least one of those four dimensions of the cross that Paul would long to have us know: its height. The cross of Christ then rises up to span the full and vast distance that marks how far short we are of the glory of God, and that cross becomes exceedingly precious in our eyes.”
May our awe of the many facets of God’s glory and our response in proper thanksgiving to Him be so evident in our lives that others join us in praising God!
Living by grace to His glory,
Pastor Gillikin