Justification by Faith

Just outside Carlsbad, CA, a chaotic scene unfolded as several cars stopped in the middle of the I-5 freeway to grab money that spilled out. At 9:15 a.m., the back doors of an armored truck popped open and bags of $1 and $20 notes burst open across the Interstate. One patrol officer described the scene as “free-floating bills all over the freeway."

Some motorists thought it was "Free money" and were grabbing hand fulls of cash and celebrating their good fortune. Others posted stories on social media platforms, sharing with their followers their good luck.

While some returned their bounty, others drove away from the scene. The authorities warned that they would be watching the videos posted online and all the money had to be returned within 48 hours to avoid criminal charges. Imagine the disappointment of those who thought they had easy money.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is easy to have our hope and affections set on the wrong things. The free grace that God offers us in salvation does not disappoint us. Once we receive it, it cannot be taken from us.

Michelangelo, the great Renaissance artist, is known for his statue of David and the incredible Sistine Chapel. But what many don’t know is that Michelangelo lived as the Reformation was sweeping through Europe and was influenced himself by Reformation ideas about justification by grace through faith.

Michelangelo was plagued throughout his life to live up to his own and others’ high demands for his artwork. But as he approached his death, a spiritual rebirth began to occur. One of his final works, intended to be his gravestone, was a statue of himself, in the guise of Nicodemus—the one who was “born again” (John 4)—holding the dead body of Jesus. You can see the statue at the Duomo Museum in Florence, Italy, where a poem by Michelangelo is printed on the opposite wall. In the poem, Michelangelo describes coming to the end of his life and seeing that his artwork was actually harmful to his soul because it became “my idol and my King.”

At the end of the day, his only hope was not in being a great artist or receiving acclaim from others, but rather, the “divine Love, who to embrace us, opened his arms upon the cross.”

Click here for a poem and photo of The Deposition statue.

A 67-year-old woman scheduled for routine cataract surgery thought it was just dry eye and old age causing her discomfort. But the real cause of her discomfort was much more concerning: 27 contact lenses, stuck in the woman's right eye in a "blue mass."

Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee in ophthalmology, said the woman hadn't complained about any visual trouble before the operation. But when the anesthetist at the hospital started to numb her eye for surgery, he found the first cluster of contacts. Morjaria said, "He put a speculum into the eye to hold the eye open as he put the anesthetic in, and he noticed a blue mass under the top eyelid."

Eventually they found a mass of 27 lenses. "We were all shocked," Morjaria said. "We've never come across this." A representative from the American Academy of Ophthalmology said he's seen patients have one lens stuck, but never 27. "This is one for the record books, as far as I could tell," he said.

The woman had been wearing monthly disposable contact lenses for 35 years, but it's unclear how long they had been gathering in her eye. Sometimes when she would try to remove a contact from that eye, she couldn't find it. The patient had just figured she'd dropped it somewhere, Morjaria explained, but it was actually getting stuck in her eye with the others.

Possible Preaching Angles: Miracles; Jesus; God, power of; Gospel—Instead of going to the doctor and seeing the person that could fix her blurred vision, she just tried harder. She kept adding something else, thinking that it must be the problem. What this woman didn't need was something else added to her life- She needed it removed.

Fleming Rutledge writes: Sin is a category without meaning except in reference to God. A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip illustrates this in an endearing way. Calvin, a little boy, is hurtling down a snowy slope on a sled with his friend Hobbes, a tiger, conducting a discussion about sin (the wildly improbable nature of this scene is part of its charm). Here is the dialogue:

Calvin: I'm getting nervous about Christmas.

Hobbes: You're worried you haven't been good?

Calvin: That's just the question. It's all relative. What's Santa's definition? How good do you have to be to qualify as good? I haven't killed anybody. That's good, right? I haven't committed any felonies. I didn't start any wars. … Wouldn't you say that's pretty good? Wouldn't you say I should get lots of presents?

Hobbes: But maybe good is more than the absence of bad.

Calvin: See, that's what worries me.

"I try to hold on to the things I believe to be good and true. Good things happen to good people. Karma is real. There is a larger, better plan for us all if we stay positive, keep pushing, and get out of our own way."

—Rob Lowe, Love Life

Mark Twain held a wide range of views on Christianity and the Bible at different times in his life. His theological beliefs changed many times as he dealt with the tragic deaths of family and friends, as well as considerations of his own mortality. His misconceptions of sin and guilt may have contributed to his rejection of the gospel. In his book, Huck Finn's America: Mark Twain and the Era that Shaped His Masterpiece, Butler University's Andrew Levy wrote about Twain's faith:

He spent his Sundays in a church where the preachers were very clear about hell and the odds of a wayward child going there. He wept to his mother that he had "ceased to be a Christian," but his "trained Presbyterian conscience," as he later called it, swallowed guilt like air. There was no death in his family or among his friends he did not blame himself for: "I took all the tragedies to myself, and tallied them off in turn as they happened, saying to myself in each case, with a sigh, 'Another one gone—and on my account.'" Later there would be no economic or social injustice in which he regarded his hands as clean.

Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly donated the plasma in his blood to three patients, echoing what one of his former patients did for him before he left Liberia. Brantly was caring for sick Ebola patients with the aid group Samaritan's Purse in Monrovia, Liberia, when he became the first American diagnosed with Ebola. His condition was worsening before he was flown to the United States in an air ambulance, but before he left, one of his former patients, a 14-year-old Ebola survivor, gave him "a unit of blood" for a transfusion.

After his recovery in August 2014, Brantly donated his plasma to Samaritan's Purse colleague Dr. Rick Sacra and freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, both of whom were receiving treatment for Ebola. Another American Ebola patient, Dallas nurse Nina Pham, also received a blood donation of some kind from Brantly.

Here's how doctors think it works: When confronted with a virus, the immune system creates antibodies to specifically target that virus, kill it, and keep it from coming back. Once a person has antibodies, they stay in their blood for life. If the Ebola antibodies found in an Ebola survivor's blood can be imported into a struggling Ebola patient's body, those antibodies can theoretically help the patient's immune system fight off the deadly virus. Doctors say that even though the sick person's body is trying to make antibodies, an infection can be so overwhelming that the sick person's immune system might not be able to keep up with the invading virus. As a result, the sooner someone gets a plasma transfusion, the more likely it is to help that person recover.

Possible Preaching Angle: In a much more potent and effective way, Christians have been cured by receiving the blood of Christ. His blood is 100 percent effective in providing new life to those who are dying without hope.

According to The Washington Post, the D.C. party scene is attracting more and more of a Hollywood edge, making it far more star-studded then it's ever been. So the newspaper offered some tips on how to get into the hottest parties with famous celebrities.

The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their lifetime contributions. When an event brings together icons like Tom Hanks, Sting, and Lady Gaga, getting tickets to the event is daunting. And only about 300 tickets get sold to the public. So if you aren't a major donor, honoree, or celebrity, you're best bet is to hit up some of the corporate sponsors or donors. If you're really lucky, they can put in a special request to get you in.

D.C. is also becoming a hot spot for movie premieres, but good luck getting in. The movie studio, corporate sponsors, and local party planners decide the guest list. Their target audience is influential lobbyists and lawmakers.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner is another a hot ticket. It's the D.C. tradition that brings in all sorts VIPS for a night of laughs and barbs. Only members of the White House Correspondents' Association can buy tickets, but they can give them to anyone. So make some friends in the news biz.

Getting an invite to the White House is tough enough, a State Dinner, nearly impossible. There's no buying your way in. And there are very few no-shows, so forget a wait list. The President and First Lady have the final say on the guest list. The criteria for an invite is typically a prominent person who's at the top of their field, someone who has a business in the country being honored, or someone who personally knows the visiting head of state. So good luck with that one.

Walter McMillian was convicted of killing 18-year-old Ronda Morrison at a dry cleaner in Monroeville, Alabama in 1986. Three witnesses testified against McMillian, while six witnesses, who were black, testified that he was at a church fish fry at the time of the crime. McMillian was found guilty and held on death row for six years—all the while claiming his innocence.

An attorney named Bryan Stevenson decided to take on the case to defend McMillian. Stevenson told a reporter:

It was a pretty clear situation where everyone just wanted to forget about this man, let him get executed so everybody could move on. [There was] a lot of passion, a lot of anger in the community about [Morrison's] death, and I think there was great resistance to someone coming in and fighting for the condemned person who had been accused and convicted.

But with Stevenson's representation, McMillian was exonerated in 1993. McMillian was eventually freed, but not without scars of being on death row. One of those scars was early-onset dementia. Stevenson comments, "Many of the doctors believed [the dementia] was trauma-induced; [it] was a function of his experience of being nearly killed—and he witnessed eight executions when he was on death row." So even after McMillian was free from death row, free from prison, and an exonerated man, in his mind he was still a prisoner. When Stevenson would visit him in the hospital, McMillian was still telling his lawyer, "You've got to get me off death row."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Justification by Faith; (2) Prison Ministry; Racism; Prisons; Prisoners; Race Relations—This illustration also shows the lingering effects of racial injustice. In the NPR story Stevenson concluded, "One of the things that pains me is we have so tragically underestimated the trauma, the hardship we create in this country when we treat people unfairly, when we incarcerate them unfairly, when we condemn them unfairly."

In 1738, the literary giant Samuel Johnson wrote in his diary: "Oh Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth." Nineteen years later, he wrote, "Oh mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining." He wrote some variation of this prayer every year after that. Finally, in 1775, 38 years after his first resolution, he wrote, "When I look back upon resolution of improvement and amendments which have, year after year, been made and broken, why do I yet try and resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal."

Johnson is describing human life. We start every year thinking, This is the year! We resolve to turn over a new leaf—and this time we are serious. We promise ourselves we're going to quit bad habits and start good ones. We're going to get in shape, eat better, waste less time, be more content, be more disciplined, and so forth. We're going to be better husbands, wives, fathers, mothers. And then, twelve months later, we've fallen short … again.

The gospel is the good news announcing Jesus' infallible devotion to us in spite of our inconsistent devotion to him. As this new year gets under way, take comfort in knowing that we are weak and he is strong—that even as our love for Jesus falls short, Jesus' love for us never will.

Comedian Jay Leno once conducted a "man-on-the-street" interview by asking random people to name one of the Ten Commandments. The most common response was something that wasn't even on God's original list—"God helps those who help themselves." That phrase, which is often used to emphasize a get-your-act-together approach to salvation, is often attributed to the Bible.

But the phrase is more closely tied to non-biblical sources. In a first century A.D. Greek fable, a wagon falls into a ravine, but when its driver appeals to Hercules for help, he is told to get to work himself. One of Aesop's fables has a similar theme. When a man calls on the goddess Athena for help during a shipwreck, she tells him to try swimming first. Both of these stories were probably created to illustrate an already existing proverb about helping yourself first.

A French author from the 1600s once said "Help yourself and Heaven will help you too." But it was the 17th century English thinker Algernon Sidney who has been credited with the now familiar wording, "God helps those who help themselves." Benjamin Franklin later used it in his Poor Richard's Almanack (1736) and it has been widely quoted ever since. A passage with similar sentiments can be found in the Quran, Chapter 13:11: "Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves."

But that phrase never appears in the Bible, and the way it's often used (as a self-help approach to salvation) is the exact opposite of the Bible's message of salvation by God's grace.

Here's a creative way to illustrate the biblical view of justification by faith, which includes not only receiving forgiveness, but also receiving a new status. (Thanks to Tim Keller for the basis for this illustration.)

Imagine that you are pitted in a one-on-one spiritual marathon race against Jesus—just you and Jesus at the starting line. The gun goes off and Jesus bolts out ahead of you with blazing speed. He makes Usain Bolt, the Jamaican world record-holding sprinter, look like a human tortoise. Jesus runs a perfect race. He never gets lost or loses focus. He never takes one bad stride. With much fanfare and acclaim, he finishes the entire marathon in seven seconds. (He could have finished the race in negative time, since he's outside of time, but seven seemed like a nice number.) It's a new cosmic record!

Finally, in this spiritual marathon, you straggle across the finish line … about five years later … You lost your focus and got tangled in bushes. You frequently tripped over your own shoelaces and fell in the mud, flat on your face. As you gasp and collapse at the finish line, you look up and see Jesus already standing on the winner's platform. He has a gold medal around his neck while you feel defeated and ashamed.

But as you start to slink away Jesus calls your name and motions for you to come towards him. You whisper, "Who me?" and he says, "Yes, you, come join me on the winner's platform." So you sheepishly join Jesus on the gold medal platform. He puts his arm around your shoulder and says, "Look, I know all about your race. It wasn't pretty, but you are forgiven. And just so you know, while I was racing ahead of you, I was also with you every step of your race." And then he takes his gold medal and slips it over your head while it stays on his head too. The reporters start taking your picture with Jesus. They start asking questions like, "Hey, Jesus and the other guy [woman] who looks really shocked to be up there, how do you two feel about being winners? What are you two going to do with your gold medal?"

And then it hits you: you are being treated as if you ran Jesus' race. You are receiving honor based on Jesus' world record time and performance. That is what it means to receive justification by faith.

During an interview before his 50th college reunion, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg confessed that his mortality has started dawning on him, at 72. He also said that he's been sobered by how many of his former classmates have passed away. But the author of the interview concluded, "But if [Bloomberg] senses that he may not have as much time left as he would like, he has little doubt about what would await him at a Judgment Day. Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, he said with a grin: 'I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I'm not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It's not even close.'"

Bryan Chapell tells a story about learning to use a crosscut saw with his father. As Bryan and his father were sawing through a log that had a rotten core, a piece of wood sheared off that looked just like a horse's head. So Bryan took it home and then later on gave it to his dad as a present. Chapell continues:

I attached a length of two-by-four board to that log head, attached a rope tail, and stuck on some sticks to act as legs. Then I halfway hammered in a dozen or so nails down the two-by-four body of that "horse," wrapped the whole thing in butcher block paper, put a bow on it, and presented it to my father. When he took off the wrapping, he smiled and said, "Thank you, it's wonderful … what is it?"

"It's a tie rack, Dad," I said. "See, you can put your ties on those nails going clown the side of the horse's body." My father smiled again and thanked me. Then he leaned the horse against his closet wall (because the stick legs could not keep it standing upright), and for years he used it as a tie rack.

Now, when I first gave my father that rotten-log-horse-head tie rack, I really thought it was "good." In my childish mind this creation was a work of art ready for the Metropolitan Museum. But as I matured, I realized that my work was not nearly as good as I had once thought. In fact, I understood ultimately that my father had received and used my gift not because of its goodness but out of his goodness. In a similar way our heavenly Father receives our gifts not so much because they deserve his love, but because he is love.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Christmas—This is a great way to illustrate the idea that Christmas is about God's gift to us, not our "gift" (i.e. religious efforts, performance, good deeds) to God; (2) God, grace of—The gospel is about trusting in God's gift to us in and through Christ, not offering our imperfect gifts to God.

Editor's Note: The doctrine of imputation involves the idea that God reconciles sinners to himself by declaring them to be righteous on account of Christ. We are judged by God on the basis of Christ's action and identity, which he has freely given (or "imputed") to us.

On May 1, 2009 at the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby a smaller horse named Mine That Bird entered the race at 50-1 odds. Mine That Bird had not fared well in his two previous races. So it was no surprise that the long-shot horse struggled from the start of the race. Mine That Bird and jockey Calvin Borel got squeezed between the other horses and quickly dropped into last place. At the first quarter-mile stage, Mine That Bird was still running dead last. At one point, he was so far behind the other horses that NBC's announcer Tom Durkin at first missed seeing him.

But at the three-eighths pole, Mine That Bird started gaining on the other horses. After passing Atomic Rain, the horse took off. As Borel rode his horse around the eighth pole, he guided Mine That Bird between the rail and another horse. From that point Mine That Bird took off to victory, winning the mile race by 6 and ¾ lengths.

The victory stunned the horse racing world. Even Mine That Bird's owner said, "[The victory] wasn't something that was on our radar." Another horse owner said, "I was like, What happened? It was a shocker."

But Mine That Bird's jockey, Calvin Borel, wasn't shocked. When asked what happened during the race, Borel simply said, "I rode him like a good horse."

Possible Preaching Angles:

This isn't "the power of positive thinking." Imputation implies the crediting of qualities that are external to yourself. Mine That Bird won the race because a higher authority (Calvin Borel) rode him as if he were a winning horse. Like Jesus, Borel calls into being something that was not there previously—his righteousness in us.

During the Middle Ages English law provided a way for "sinners" to find refuge. When a criminal or debtor wanted to flee to safety, he would travel to the famous Durham Cathedral and plead for asylum. The runaway banged on the cathedral's north door, using the enormous bronze sanctuary knocker …. Then the fugitive desperately clung to the knocker's ring, waiting for someone to usher him in and toll the church bell to notify Durham's citizens that a felon sought sanctuary. (At night, two men waited in a room above the north door, looking for sanctuary seekers arriving in the dark.)

Once inside, the criminal confessed his crime to a priest, surrendered his weapons, paid a nominal fee and donned a black gown. He lived in a railed-off alcove above the southwest tower, and within thirty-seven days decided whether to stand trial or leave the country. If a criminal chose to "quit the kingdom," the law afforded him nine days to exit England's borders, traveling solely on the king's highways. For the journey, he wore nothing on his head and a long white robe. He carried only a wooden cross.

For centuries, this sanctuary principle remained the same: if you've committed a horrible crime, run to the church for protection. During this anxious journey, signs of the cross often pointed the way. Stone crosses inscribed with the word Sancturarium stood as signposts along the highways, leading sinners to their haven ….

This practice blessed the repentant offenders with forgiveness and a clean start. Today, it's difficult for us to condone this protection. Offering asylum to criminals? Their presence taints a community, a country. They should be punished. We do not like such lavish compassion.

Thankfully, God's love flows deeper and wider than we can imagine. So does his mercy. Early medieval sanctuary laws can only faintly reflect God's endless patience. Whatever sin we commit, however many times we fail, he forgives us. God waits in the night of our souls, swinging open his broad door of grace when we flee to him and repent. He accepts us however we arrive.

Possible Preaching Angle:

"During the medieval sanctuary process, signs of the cross accompanied sinners in and out of asylum, stepping them toward an altered life. Today, Christ's cross bears the same promise of forgiveness, helping us find refuge in God's grace. Even more, God doesn't banish us from his kingdom or force us to stand trial. When we slip back into life, spiritually we are totally free. Wearing robes of white, carrying the sign of the cross—the mark of the King's forgiveness—we can begin again."

The Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford has initiated a program called "Cash Dash." Here's how an ad in The Chicago Tribune described the new program:

The State [of Illinois] has collected more than $1 billion worth of lost or abandoned wealth that belongs to millions of Illinois residents. It includes everything from forgotten bank accounts to entire estates that have never reached their rightful owners. The "Cash Dash" program aims to give it all back.

The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators claims, "Keep in mind that Illinois' unclaimed funds, money, cash, and property are gold mines just waiting to be discovered by their rightful owners." Dan Rutherford added, "[This program] is exciting to me because I want to see these valuable assets returned. I also hope everyone [doesn't] miss out on money or valuable assets the state is holding for them."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christ doesn't have millions of dollars for you to claim, but he does have something with indescribable value with your name on it—forgiveness of sins through his atoning death and resurrection. These gifts are in the hands of the risen Lord, and he offers them to you today.

Picture this: a bride and groom dashing out of the church, through the showers of birdseed and into the limo, all aglow with the light of love from the vows they've just taken. In the backseat of the car, en route to the reception, they embrace and kiss. Then the groom announces that he has something to say.

Now you realize, my dear, that, as far as I'm concerned, we can't really say we're married, because I don't know yet what kind of wife you'll turn out to be. I hope for the best, of course. And I'll help you all I can. But only at the end of our lives will I be able to tell if you've lived up to my expectations. If you have—then, and only then, I'll agree that we truly got married today. But if you don't, then as far as I'm concerned we were never married at all. After all, how can I call you my wife if you fail to be a wife to me?

Under such circumstances, it will not be a happy honeymoon—if there's one at all. A wife cannot be a wife if her whole existence as wife is conditional and under constant scrutiny (likewise for a husband). She will certainly fail. This groom has completely misunderstood [the power of marriage to transform the beloved]. The couple that tied the knot only 60 minutes ago is every bit as married as the couple celebrating their 60th anniversary. Whatever happens in the course of the marriage does not affect the "married-ness" of that couple.

Possible Preaching Angles: Justification by Faith, Gift of Salvation—In the same way, how can we be expected to love and trust a God always watching us like a hawk to see if we fail? Right standing with God isn't something that we have to generate from within ourselves. Right standing with God is a free gift—and that's what helps us grow to trust, love, and obey God.

This story paints a vivid picture that reveals our helplessness before the devastation and comprehensiveness of God's Law. But it also shows how that helplessness creates the space for God's amazing grace and the freedom:

I'm a little like the duck hunter who was hunting with his friend in a wide-open barren of land in southeastern Georgia. Far away on the horizon he noticed a cloud of smoke. Soon, he could hear the sound of crackling. A wind came up and he realized the terrible truth: a brush-fire was advancing his way. It was moving so fast that he and his friend could not outrun it. The hunter began to rifle through his pockets. Then he emptied all the contents of his knapsack. He soon found what he was looking for-a book of matches. To his friend's amazement, he pulled out a match and struck it. He lit a small fire around the two of them. Soon they were standing in a circle of blackened earth, waiting for the brush fire to come. They did not have to wait long. They covered their mouths with their handkerchiefs and braced themselves. The fire came near-and swept over them. But they were completely unhurt. They weren't even touched. Fire would not burn the place where fire had already burned.

The law is like the brush-fire. I cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned-over place, where law has already burned its way through, then I will not get hurt. Not a hair of my head will be singed. The death of Christ is the burned-over place. There I huddle, hardly believing yet relieved. Christ's death has disarmed the law. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."