Stuff Christians Need to Stop Saying #3

So after an overwhelming successful first episode and a moderately successful second, what do you to keep the franchise going in episode 3?  Most franchises will just wrap up the story.  Done well–Lord of the Rings, Return of the Jedi.  Done not so well–Back to the Future, Revenge of the Sith (My brother and I disagree on both of these).  You can also just overwhelm your 3rd episode with every conceivable villain and destroy the franchise– Batman Forever (The verdict is still out on Spiderman 3. It did the same thing.)  You can give up and let monkeys write the script–Superman III (Part of me wants to put Godfather III here but I kinda liked it).  Finally, you can introduce Mr. T to the world and dominate–Rocky III.

What does this have to do with this post?  Nothing.  Let’s move on.

Set-up:  You or another Christian have been exposed in some way as hypocritical and not living up to the ideals of Christian living.  (Or you could simply be looking for a cutesy, quippy (it’s back!) bumper sticker or cross stitch pattern)

Response:  Christians aren’t perfect.  They are just forgiven.

It’s hard for me to really imagine that someone would actually say this out loud.  I know that I have seen the bumper sticker, but surely no one has actually said this.  What is the context?  What argument were you trying to win? What point are you trying to make?

Let’s break this down.  First of all, there is really nothing theologically wrong with either part of the statement.  Christians are not perfect–agreed.  Christians are forgiven–agreed.  So it is a true statement, but the question is why do you say it?  If you are saying this to yourself or a Christian friend, in order to protect yourself or your friend from the trappings of perfectionist legalism, then OK.

However, it would seem that it is used more as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card to innoculate Christians from criticism when we fail morally.  “Well, we never claimed to be perfect.”  That is all well and good unless we are conistently condemning the world around us for not living up to our standards, and then if we fail, we start waving the “forgiven card” around as if that makes our failings OK. 

What we should say should if we are the ones who have been busted is something along the lines of “I’m sorry.  I’m embarassed.  Will you forgive me?”  If it is some public figure, “I’m disappointed.  I hate it when we don’t live up to the standards God has for us.”  We are not perfect, but our forgiveness is not license or a pass.  If you want to say something quippy say, “Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.”  At least there is some implied humility in that statement.

(Deep breath)  Listen, I don’t want anyone to feel they have to be perfect, or worse, pretend to be perfect.  However, God is calling us up to be better, to be more like His Son.  The forgiveness he offers always gives us one more chance, but we should not, can not take that lightly.  We certainly can not view it as a license or permission for sin.  Instead, let the grace and love that he shows us motivate us to have a heart of gratitude and to be people that hear him say, “Well, done, good and faithful servant.” Matt 25:14-30